Chapter 7 #3
Simon kissed her, savoring the taste of her as he unlaced her nightgown.
As soon as he undid the last tie, he pulled it off her and tossed it aside.
Her body was far more lushly built than he had imagined during too many sleepless nights, her breast full and high, dark rose nipples hard and inviting.
Her hips bowed out nicely from her small waist and her legs looked surprisingly long and well muscled.
The sight of the tidy wedge of black curls between her pale thighs had him fighting the urge to bury his face in there.
He placed his hands just beneath her breasts and slowly moved them upward until he held the soft flesh in both hands.
Ilsabeth gasped and he kissed her again.
Ilsabeth wrapped her arms around him as she lost herself in his hungry kiss. She stroked his broad muscular back and could not halt the way her body briefly tensed in shock. Simon’s back was covered in scars. Before she could hide her reaction to them, she felt Simon’s body tense as well.
“Can ye abide it?” he asked as he nuzzled her throat and tried to sound as if her answer did not matter to him.
“Aye, of course I can, but, Jesu, Simon, what happened?”
“I will tell ye later. Now that I have ye naked and beneath me, the verra last thing I wish to do is to speak about an old misery.”
He kissed his way down to her breasts. The way he was caressing them with his lightly calloused hands, stroking the hard tips with his long fingers until they ached, had her passion running hot.
When he took one taut end deep into his mouth, suckling and lashing it with his tongue, Ilsabeth was surprised she did not swoon from the force of the desire that swamped her.
She was just caressing his taut backside when he slipped his hand between her legs.
The way he stroked her heated flesh and slipped his finger inside her in imitation of the intimacy they both craved, had her crying out in demand.
Ilsabeth was not precisely sure how well they would fit together, but she wanted him inside her. Now.
“Need to go slowly,” Simon said, nearly groaning the words against her silken breasts. He slipped another finger inside her and trembled at the way her wet heat closed tight around his fingers. “Need to ready ye.”
“I have been ready for days.”
Simon choked out a laugh and then began to slowly join their bodies.
When he reached the barrier of her maidenhead he took a deep breath, pulled back, and then rammed his way through it until he was fully seated within her.
Ilsabeth’s soft shriek did not startle him but the sting of her small sharp teeth digging into his shoulder did.
It also made his passion soar until he was a hairsbreadth from a complete loss of control.
She clung to him with her whole body as he pounded into her, cursing himself as a brute but unable to stop.
Her release hit hard and, reveling in her soft cries and the hot, wet clasp of her body, he swiftly joined her in that sweet, rapid tumble.
It took Simon several moments before he could catch his breath enough to ask, “Are ye hurt?”
Ilsabeth thought on her answer for a moment and then said, “Nay. Why? Are ye ready to run again?” She lazily caressed his body everywhere she could reach.
“Nay, and once I regain my breath and my strength, I will show ye that I can do this slowly, too.”
“I eagerly await the lesson.”
He smiled against her skin. Simon did not think he had ever experienced such passion before.
It astonished him that he had held back for so long.
A little voice in his head told him that this had been a mistake, that he should not have given in to his desire for a woman who had been put under his protection, but he ruthlessly silenced it.
That was a problem to sort out later, after he proved her innocence.
Ilsabeth stared up at the ceiling even though it was too shadowed to see anything. Simon almost idly kissed and caressed her and the spark of desire began to heat her blood again. She should be blindly happy. The man she loved was in her arms.
One little thing dimmed that happiness, however.
Simon had not spoken one word about how he felt about her.
If he had said anything while they had made love, she had been too blinded by her own passion to hear it, but instinct told her he had not said anything more than passionate words about how she tasted or how soft her skin was. She needed so much more than that.
Patience, she warned herself. She may have known he would be the man for her from nearly the moment she set eyes on him, but not everyone made such an important decision so quickly. Men were also notoriously slow to see where their hearts lay.
Neither was she truly free to follow her heart. It could even be cruel to try and make him love her when she might soon be dead. Ilsabeth had seen enough of the world’s injustices to know that just because she was innocent did not mean she would escape punishment.
She also admitted that she was the one who needed this closeness now, whether words of love were spoken by him or not.
Hiding, fearing the possibility that she could be dragged off to some deep, dark dungeon at any moment, and afraid for her family, she needed someone to hold on to.
For now she would allow that to be enough.
She would push her love for him to one side and make no demands.
The very last thing she wished to do was send him running again.