Chapter 30 #2
(This was a disaster. What he wanted and what I wanted were eons apart, since what I wanted was to be less embarrassed and preferably elsewhere, wearing garments. Layers and layers of garments.)
Godric stood up and removed his breeches. Somewhat to my relief, he was wearing cotton drawers underneath. He sat down again, his leg aligned with mine.
“Would you like me to grope you?” I asked. I felt red creeping up my throat. “I didn’t phrase that very romantically.”
“I would indeed like you to grope me,” he said, smiling.
“It’s not the right word,” I argued, not moving my hands.
“It’s not a ladylike word,” he agreed. “Why don’t I demonstrate?” We both watched as he ran a hand up my leg until it rounded—groped—the curve of my inner thigh, close to the heart of me. He plucked the ribbon of my stocking and slid it down my leg.
“Goodness,” I whispered, when both stockings were gone, and his hand was curled high around my thigh once again.
“You don’t mind?”
I shook my head.
“As part of the groping, I might move my thumb.”
Which he did, touching me where no one, other than myself, had ever touched me before.
“You’re pleated and slick and beautiful,” Godric crooned, his thumb touching me again.
Unnerving feeling sizzled down my spine.
“I might take that look in your eyes when I grope you as an invitation,” he said, nudging my legs farther apart.
I felt as if I couldn’t get air into my lungs.
“You are free to grope me, since husbands and wives do that to each other in equal measure,” he suggested.
I knew I should shake foolish advice (like Miss Pentwhistle’s), but it wasn’t easy to suddenly transform from a lady into a . . .
Groper? Whatever.
While I was thinking that, my husband stood up and then dropped to his knees. The next thing I knew, he pushed my legs apart and swiped his tongue slowly up my cunny.
Cunny!
(I was shocked that I even conceived of such a rude word in reference to my body. Clothes-pegs don’t have cunnies, obviously.)
The thought slid away as quickly as it had come, because a pulse started between my legs that had never been there before. I fell back on my elbows and squirmed against his lips—inelegantly, I might add.
Godric started talking about how good I tasted, how wet I was, how soft and sleek.
“We should do it now,” I said, desperate to regain control. I was certain that I shouldn’t be feeling like this, open and wanting and desperate. My body was betraying me.
We should get it over with before I embarrassed myself.
“Do you want me now?” Godric asked, a very unwelcome question.
Part of me definitely didn’t want part of him to push inside me.
“Evie?” His voice was deep as he nudged my legs even farther apart, glancing up at me with a little half smile. “I’m not done licking you.”
A thick finger slid into me. I instinctively arched, which pushed that digit farther inside. My body didn’t feel as if it was mine. Not the docile body that I washed, the paper doll that Tess dressed, the body that shrank from a man’s touch.
This body was wild, wet, and eager, desire singing in its veins. I made a helpless sound. A humiliating sound.
(The urge to run from the room was getting stronger, but I refused to succumb to fear. Also, on a practical level, it was cold outside, and there was nowhere to go.)
Godric crooked his fingers—when had one finger become two?—and I instinctively tightened around them. Presence instead of absence felt so good that I caught his wrist, holding him in place, though I couldn’t believe that I’d done such a brazen thing.
He showed no wish to move. Instead, he leaned closer and licked me again. When he didn’t stop licking, a whimper broke from my lips. I was caught in a snowstorm: white waves of pleasure whipping across my body, buffeting me this way and that.
His tongue lapped at me until pulses of feeling began spiraling up my body, and my cunny clenched around his fingers again and again. I screamed. Screamed. When he pulled back, I was gasping his name over and over, and my eyes were screwed shut. Instinctively.
So at least I did that right.
When I opened them, Godric was standing by the bed, wrenching down his drawers. His private part, his cock, was dark red, thick, and swollen. A chill ran over my skin, and all pleasure evaporated.
It was time.
I drew in a breath, edged back on the bed, and widened my legs. This was just garden-variety marital consummation, I told myself. Nothing to worry about.
Never mind what Miss Pentwhistle said about pain.
Her mother had apparently recommended horse riding as a means of preparing for the discomfort.
I knew how to ride, obviously. But had I ridden enough?
They should include that proviso in advice books.
They should tell young girls to ride horses every chance they get, galloping for miles and miles.
Fear spilled down my spine, but I forced my lips to curl as I closed my eyes. “I’m ready.” My eyes popped open. Politeness! “Thank you for that. It was most enjoyable.”
Godric cursed under his breath and came down over me, his elbows beside my head. “May I kiss you?” He looked faintly uncertain.
My hands felt too big for my wrists, but I quickly wound them around his neck. Likely the women he’d bedded had been experts in that art. I managed a genuine smile before our lips met.
Usually when we kissed, my legs felt boneless and weak after a minute or two, a thumping pulse beating through my body. This time when he drew back, I just felt dazed, to be honest. And a trifle impatient.
“You’re not with me,” Godric said, stopping. “This isn’t working.” He moved to lie on his side next to me.
I turned my head and gaped at him, conscious of a humiliated pang. “Am I doing it wrong?”
Of course I was doing it wrong. Someone like me, a boring paper doll, would fail. I was lying flat when I should be doing something. Anything.
“I can do better.” I faltered, thinking that it was too late for him to change his mind and marry someone else. “You can teach me.” Tears stung my eyes as humiliation squirmed up my legs. “I can be better,” I managed.
“Evie, no,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t say that right. You did everything right, love.”
A disgusting rumor I’d heard (and discounted) years ago returned to my mind.
“I didn’t fondle your balls or take your cock in my mouth or tell you that I .
. .” My voice faltered, because honestly, I couldn’t say those words aloud.
I drew my legs together and turned on my side facing him. I had never felt more naked.
He shook his head. “You are abruptly knowledgeable, Evie. Was that also from Miss Pentwhistle?”
One of his hands began caressing my thigh in circles, reassuring circles.
“No, a different conversation years ago that I’d forgotten. I can figure out what I should be doing,” I said, reminding myself that I am teachable. Look how well I’d learned to mimic ladylike emotions, the ones I didn’t have. “There must be books.”
“You are perfect,” he told me. “Perfect. It’s just that I’ve never made love to a virgin.”
“There’s nothing different about me other than ignorance,” I said defensively. I was lying. I knew I wasn’t lively and sensual, like Colette. I tugged at the sheet, caught under his body. “Excuse me.”
When Godric moved, I yanked up the sheet and curled tightly around the embarrassing ache between my legs. I also jerked my gaze away from his cock, because it was standing apart from his belly, shining and red.
(I can’t tell you my assessment, because that would be disloyal to my husband, but let’s just say I felt no admiration.)
Godric sat up and helped me tuck the sheet around my body, which I found (illogically) irritating.
“We won’t consummate our marriage until you feel comfortable, Evie.”
“Not until tonight?”
“Not until you ask for it and mean it.” He ran a finger down my cheek. “No closing your eyes and counting. Making love should be a joy.”
I gulped.
“Not that I’ve ever done it.”
My eyes widened.
“I have fucked,” he said, emphasizing that horrid word. “But I’ve never made love. I didn’t appreciate the difference before. Making love has no rules, Evie. It’s all emotion. Emotion in action.”
That made absolutely no sense to me, but then I’ve never considered myself emotional. Still, I nodded. “So we won’t consummate our marriage tonight?” I clarified.
(Remember that wash of relief I felt, standing beside Burnsby’s corpse? Would it be blasphemous to say that I felt just as relieved?)
“Not for weeks. Until you want it as much as I do. Definitely not in this haunted abbey.”
Tension seeped from my body. I loved Godric, but the idea of inserting part of him into part of me wasn’t appealing.
(Though I did like his fingers. Hmm.)
“The act sounds arduous,” I offered, my voice absurdly prim. I took a stab at sounding more sophisticated. “Perhaps better without ghosts and rats lurking about.”
His mouth curled into a lopsided smile; I reached out and traced his bottom lip with a finger. “Your lips look so firm in daily life, but they’re quite lush and full. I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered wearing lip color?”
(Yes, I knew he hadn’t and never would. I was eager to change the subject.)
“No,” he said, rumbling with laughter. “Even Lance—with all his peacocking—doesn’t paint his face, thank God.”
I giggled from pure relief. “Before I married Burnsby, I didn’t notice his lip color. I never looked at him very closely. I had no idea that he wore rouge until we argued in the parlor.”
Godric nodded. “You saw him as a comforting presence rather than a real man.”
“I was plagued by nerves every moment I spent in a ballroom, except when I was dancing with Burnsby,” I confessed. “I would pay him no attention, and it was almost like having a little nap. I felt refreshed, because he demanded nothing of me.”
“He also paid no attention to you, but I do. Fair warning, it’s too late to escape.” His eyes gleamed with happiness. “You’re mine.”
Wonder, happiness, a deep sense of rightness sank into my skin.
I took a deep breath. “Perhaps we don’t know each other well enough yet to join our bodies,” I suggested, feeling terribly awkward as I admitted that. Women did this with strangers all the time. And I was in love with him!
“I understand,” Godric said, one hand slipping behind my neck.
He did. I could see it in his eyes.
“How could a man possibly visit a lady of the evening?” I asked, sharing the thought. “How could you do something so intimate with a stranger?”
“Lust is inexplicable but powerful. May I touch you over the sheet?” Godric asked, watching me closely.
I tried to read his expression, but his eyes were so dark and deep that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
When I nodded, he put his other hand on my hip and rubbed little circles while he told me about his estate in Buckinghamshire.
He’d put in the newest water closets, which my late husband had rejected as too expensive when I asked for them; a chamber pot had been good enough for Burnsby’s grandfather and good enough for me.
I began relaxing, the muscles in my legs melting into the sheets. I don’t remember much after that, until Tess was bending over me, gently waking me. “The will’s being read in an hour, Evie. I have a bath waiting for you.”
I sat up, naked as the day I was born.
Her eyes met mine and narrowed. “Still innocent, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t ready for something so intimate,” I said with a twinge of shame.
Tess bellowed with laughter.