Chapter Five #2
“Would you rather I speak to him?” he asked, sounding dejected. “It might be better coming from me.”
Isabel could hear the defeat in his voice and it cut her, but she refused to give in to it.
She knew what he was thinking. She understood his disappointment.
But the truth was that he was right—he was a lesser knight from a lesser family.
She was the heiress to Axminster. When she married him, it would become his.
Was he strong enough for it? Certainly, Eric was a kind and generous man.
She loved him dearly. But she was frankly concerned about his being the Earl of Axminster and all it entailed.
He wasn’t born into it like she was. He would be assuming it, stepping into her father’s and brother’s shoes.
The very sad fact was that she wasn’t sure he could administer the job. It might crush him.
And she didn’t want to crush him.
But she also didn’t want to lose him.
“Nay,” she said after a moment. “It is my responsibility. Will you find him and send him to the solar? I will speak to him there.”
Eric nodded but didn’t move. When she turned to look at him curiously, he simply extended an arm to her.
It was an invitation for her to return to her seat beside him, to return to his embrace.
Even when he was hurt, or disappointed, he never fought with her.
He was subservient to her because he knew, deep down, why she was reserved.
He didn’t want to be the Earl of Axminster, but if he married her, he would be.
He wanted to marry the woman, not the title.
But she was the title.
And Isabel knew it. She knew everything.
Without another word, she went to him, allowing him to pull her into an embrace, allowing his lips to claim hers.
They had utter, complete privacy in the northwest chamber and had taken advantage of it numerous times in the past. This was why they met here, a place of deep and abiding memories, because it had been in this very chamber seven years ago that Eric had claimed Isabel’s virginity.
She’d given it to the man she loved, a simple knight with a heart of gold.
She, too, had loved him the moment she first saw him, and she always would. But she didn’t want to talk anymore.
She simply wanted to taste him.
Even as Eric kissed her furiously, Isabel’s hands moved to his breeches, fumbling with the ties.
When he realized what she was doing, he helped her.
With the ties finally free, Isabel’s warm hands snaked into his breeches and sought out his semi-flaccid manhood.
With the first touch of her soft hands, he knew he was lost. He couldn’t deny her.
He didn’t want to be denied, either.
Due to the chill morning weather, and because he was susceptible to the cold, there were myriad clothes on Eric’s body and Isabel helped him yank it off, unwilling and unable to wait.
He was wearing a woolen tunic underneath everything, but it stopped at his hips, so he was unconstrained when Isabel yanked his breeches to his knees.
There was a powerful sense of urgency now, of a desire so fierce that they were overwhelmed with it.
Eric lifted Isabel onto the stone bench of the window, pulling her legs apart and wedging himself between them.
She threw her skirts back and wrapped her legs around his waist, taking gentle hold of his now-rigid phallus and guiding it into her warm, slick folds.
Holding her tightly, Eric impaled her upon his manhood.
Isabel gasped with the pleasure of it, her arms going around him, her nails biting into his shoulders.
Feeling the man within her fed her soul as air fed the lungs.
Eric held her tightly, thrusting into her willing body.
He couldn’t get enough of her, driving into her as she whispered heated words in his ear.
Isabel’s hands found his bare buttocks, squeezing them, and he found it wildly arousing.
With a few more thrusts, he quickly removed himself before he could spill into her body.
Instead, he spilled on the floor. But fingers finished for her what his phallus couldn’t, and he silenced her cries of passion with his mouth as she found her own release.
As their passion cooled, their kisses transformed from wild and passionate to soft and gentle.
Eric tasted her deeply, his hands roaming as he gently suckled on her mouth, moving under her garment, which had been loosened, and up her torso to her breasts.
He fondled her nipples as their kisses trailed off.
Isabel tossed her head back, her eyes closed as Eric toyed with her breasts tenderly.
He finally laid her back on the bench and pushed her skirts up all the way, kissing her belly, finally suckling gently on her breasts.
Isabel let him. She let him do what he wished to do as the day around them went on.
They could hear the men in the bailey, distant horses, the chatter of birds.
Moments like this were a window into a life they could have, a life of normalcy as husband and wife.
Moments like this were when Isabel was her weakest against his argument of marriage.
When he took her yet again, she was a willing participant.
As the man thrust into her, she found herself wondering if he would let himself spill into her this time and she would conceive that son he’d spoken of.
He was usually careful about that, but sometimes he surrendered to his passion and released himself as God intended.
Perhaps this time it was all a ploy to impregnate her so she would be forced to marry him.
Perhaps that had been his plan all along.
That thought had her resisting a little, wanting to move out from under him and accuse him of such a thing, but he felt her movement, and that only made him hold her more tightly.
She moved again but that made him hit just the right spot with her, and she felt her release beginning, unable to pull away.
She would let him do what he was doing—and no matter what her paranoia was thinking, her body had surrendered to him.
Her man.
Her love.
The scolding of Douglas de Lohr was going to have to wait.