Epilogue #3
To match his passion, she grabbed at the ties on his breeches and gave a big yank.
Grunting with the power of her pull, War started laughing as well.
He ended up stripping himself and her, all by the light of the fire.
Annaleigh had been so focused on undressing the man herself that she hardly realized when he’d stripped her first. Utterly nude, with the firelight dancing off her pale flesh, she didn’t feel an ounce of shame as she faced her husband.
War was an enormous man to begin with and his manhood was proportionate to that.
Annaleigh could feel it between them, on her belly, as he held her close.
He was fully aroused and very hard but, for a moment, they simply held one another, flesh against flesh in the first moment that they’d been able to do so.
It was a powerful moment. When War’s big hands moved to cup her buttocks, she let him.
She cupped his, too.
War groaned, feeling her hot hands on his buttocks, as he gently caressed hers.
His mouth slanted over hers again and, suddenly, they were falling back on the bed, but Annaleigh didn’t shy away from him.
She wrapped her tight, little body all around him, her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, indulging in kisses that set her entire body on fire.
He set her body on fire.
She was eager to know him as a wife would know a husband.
War seemed to sense that because he was desperate to join his body with hers.
She was holding him so tightly that he had to loosen her legs around his waist and shift his body so their pelvises were against one another.
His mouth left hers, blazing a trail down to delicious breasts he’d become very acquainted with over the past six months.
Round, firm, and silken, he took a nipple between his lips and suckled her tenderly.
Beneath him, Annaleigh gasped with pleasure.
There were no more words to be spoken, only the anticipation of what was to come, the physical demonstration of their feelings.
War had to shift his body again because he was so big against her petite frame but, soon enough, he could feel her wet heat against his manhood and he could wait no longer.
He pushed into her slowly, aware of how small she was beneath him, seating himself a tiny bit at a time and giving her time to adjust to his size.
He could feel her body twitch underneath him.
Annaleigh’s maidenhead resisted him and he pulled back, coiling his buttocks before plunging into her and pushing through the barrier.
Annaleigh gasped with the sting of possession as he seated himself, but it took three more thrusts before he was fully embedded.
With each stroke, she groaned with the newness of the sensation, the minor pain such an action brought.
But this is what she had wanted, what they had both wanted.
She welcomed the feel of her husband’s body into hers.
“Is that all?” she grunted once he was fully seated. “Is there more?”
War lifted his head. “There’s more,” he murmured. “We have only started. I promise that you will not be disappointed.”
Annaleigh trusted him, feeling the raw sting of his initial possession fade as he began to move gently within her. Her legs wrapped around his hips instinctively, holding him close as the discomfort gave way to pleasure.
Very quickly, she was coming to enjoy it.
His thrusts were driving her to the brink of madness.
She had no way of knowing how this union would affect her, only knowing that the mere act of it filled something in her she never knew needed to be filled.
Every stroke, every thrust seemed to ignite something deep in her belly, creating a hunger that needed to be satisfied.
Something only War could fulfill.
Annaleigh ended up watching him through half-lidded eyes, watching the rippling of his muscles and the expression on his face.
It was something between passion and insanity, that dark area when a man’s mind was so consumed with the woman he loved that nothing else existed.
Her pelvis began moving with his, instinctively, meeting his every thrust as if they’d always done it this way. As if they’d always been together.
As if, over the eons, they’d done this time and time again.
Annaleigh knew him and he knew her.
But that kind of passion could not hold out forever.
War’s climax came as a guttural rumble in his throat and Annaleigh felt his manhood spasm deep inside her.
But he kept moving, his big hand moving between their bodies to stroke her taut bud of pleasure.
Annaleigh was quickly propelled into the heavens as she experienced her first release, her nails digging into his back as wave after wave of pleasure rolled over her.
It was bliss without end.
Annaleigh thought she might have actually blacked out because when next she realized, War had shifted his weight off her.
Laying beside her, he gathered her in his arms and held her tightly, throwing a big leg over her hips to pull her close against him.
Still trying to catch her breath, Annaleigh lay in his arms, feeling more contentment and love than she’d ever felt in her life.
“Well?” he murmured into her hair. “Was it worth the wait?”
Annaleigh lifted her head so that she could look at him. Their faces were very close together and she reached up, putting a gentle hand to his cheek.
“Ye’re worth everything,” she whispered. “There is nothing about ye that isna worth everything in this whole bloody world.”
He closed his eyes as she tenderly touched his face, relishing the feel of it.
“You became my world the moment I saw you after the battle of Etal,” he murmured.
“It is because of you I am here, Annie. God has brought you to me, more than once, so when I look at you, I see my destiny. I see my past, my present, and my future. I just can’t believe we haven’t always been meant for one another. ”
Annaleigh smiled, running her fingers over his lips and watching him kiss the tips. “It’s as the brooch says,” she said. “The one that William gave us. Love is the beginning of forever. For us, I canna remember when I’ve not loved ye. I’ll love ye beyond forever, War. In this life or in any other.”
He kissed her fingers, her palm. “What I feel goes beyond love,” he whispered. “It’s worship. I worship you, Annie. I always will and I feel as if I always have. With you, there’s no beginning and no ending. Just… love.”
With a grin, Annaleigh wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her lips and feasting on him. There wasn’t one touch, one word, or one action that didn’t convey the deep and abiding love she had for him.
And he for her.
When their first child was born less than a year later after two of the longest days of War’s life, the meaning of the brooch struck them even more than it had on their wedding day.
As they gazed down at little Liam Herringthorpe, his name being a subtle tribute to War’s de Wolfe bloodlines, the words on Adalira’s brooch rang more clearly than they ever had.
Love is the beginning of forever.
For War and Annaleigh, nothing could have been more true.
Love was their forever.
* THE END *