Chapter 3 – A Bed of Roses #3
“Let me look at you,” he whispered, meeting her eyes for a moment before he slipped the wide neck of her chemise over her shoulders, and then her breasts were bare and he was cupping one in his warm hand. The sensation of his tongue rasping directly against her naked nipple was vivid and shocking.
“Ahh…” Her voice cracked. Her thighs tried to close, but Remin patiently eased them apart again. “Your Grace…”
“Does it hurt?” he asked hoarsely.
“No…!” She gave another cry as he stroked, circling with his fingers as he pressed his face into her breasts, licking and kissing and biting with his heart pounding wildly in his ears.
Her nipples were so pink and tempting, quivering taut on his tongue as if they might melt.
He tugged on one and then the other, and every time she jerked, every time she moaned, the pitch of his own desire burned hotter.
And then, nerving himself, he slid one long finger inside her.
“Oh—oh, y-your…what…” She stuttered in shock, her eyes flying open as she tried to squirm away from the invading digit.
He didn’t stop. Ophele thought she would burst into flames as a second finger joined the first, and that handsome, forbidding face nuzzled again at her breast. This was Remin Grimjaw, the Scourge of Valleth, who had done nothing but glare at her from the moment they met.
His lips moving, plucking at her. His tongue laving.
His teeth nipping her skin. She could never have guessed what would happen, she certainly could never have imagined this, but the last thing in the world she would have expected from him was pleasure.
His fingers slid in and out, easier every time. It tickled. He made her body shake. In. Out. In. Out. Her breath burned in her lungs as a cry burst from her lips, sensation scorching along her nerves as she jerked and quivered through her first climax.
“I think you’re ready,” he said, as if from very far away, and his arm slid under her knees to lift her, striding toward the bed.
* * *
Deprived of her chemise, Ophele lay beneath her new husband and for the first time felt the naked skin of a man’s body against her own.
She had never seen such a man. Well, she had never seen a man of any description without his clothes on, but the duke was a uniquely imposing specimen.
The nuptial bed had been prepared for the wedding night with the blankets folded back and a fresh linen sheet spread out, scattered with rose petals and scented with amber, but Ophele noticed none of this.
Her eyes were riveted on her husband as he undressed, revealing a body that was so unlike her own, it was hard to believe they were the same species.
His chest and shoulders were massive, heavy muscle working in his arms as he stripped off his doublet and breeches.
A rigid belly, with a trail of coarse dark hair leading to something she definitely did not have, springing upright from his clothing to pulse against his belly.
Her mouth fell open.
“Stop staring,” he said flatly, moving over her on the bed so she couldn’t see it anymore. “You’ll make me embarrassed.”
“But I’ve never—why doesn’t it show through your clothes?” she wanted to know, trying to sneak another peek. Curiosity had not only conquered timidity, it was busily drowning it in a nearby river. “How do you hide it?”
“It’s not always like that.” The corner of his mouth twitched again, and he turned his eyes to her, his fingers moving between her legs. “Just as you’re not always like this. Are you?”
“Noooo…” The word ended in a quavering gasp as he stroked her, slow caresses that proved she was very wet indeed, touching places even she had never dreamed existed, as if he knew secrets of her body unknown to her.
Maybe he did. The firelight burnished his back and shoulders as he moved over her, fluid as a beast. His body was covered in old scars, jagged and snarling lines in pink and silver-white, gouges where chunks of flesh had been torn away.
He was so warm, like a stone that had been baking in the sun all day, and everywhere he touched her, her skin shivered against his.
“Your Grace—” she mewed, hardly knowing what she meant to say. His fingers moved inside her, pushing and wiggling as if he were looking for something.
“Your Grace, Your Grace.” His fingers curled up, stroking inside, and she cried out. “I think we can dispense with titles when we’re naked, wife. What’s my name?”
“R-Remin,” she whispered. Her tawny eyes shone as she looked up at him, so guileless that he doubted himself all over again.
She was either a consummate liar or no liar at all, and it was hard to believe that any maid so young could pretend so well, or that a creature of the Emperor could place herself so trustingly in his hands.
“Again,” he whispered back. His fingers circled and dived into her. Now he understood what it meant, that she must be wet, and her hips undulated with him, filled with innocent sensuality. He nipped the tip of her ear and wondered if he was falling into a trap. “Ophele…”
She moved under him, whimpering.
“Remin…”
“Again.” His breath felt hot and thick in his throat, and he bit her neck. Her skin was littered with the marks of his desire.
“Re—Remin!” His name cracked in two as he found it at last, the rough spot inside her that Miche had told him to look for. There was a sudden flood of wetness as he rubbed her and she writhed in response, her heels digging into the mattress.
“Does it feel good?” he asked, panting with excitement.
“I—it…I feel, strange—ohhhhh!”
The cry burst from her as she jerked beneath him, her face twisted in beautiful agony. White flashed in waves behind her eyes. Ophele saw his face above her as if through a haze, his black eyes heated and intent as a hunter, his firm lips eagerly parted.
The sight of her climaxing sent such a rush of lust through him, it was all he could do to keep from shoving himself into her immediately.
Stars, the way she sounded, crying his name!
Remin sucked in a breath, his hips bucking involuntarily.
What black magic was she working, the daughter of his enemy?
He hadn’t had any idea how intimate this would be.
How impossible it would be to keep her at arm’s length when she was naked beneath him, her voice crying out with pleasure.
He had checked her for weapons when he undressed her, but what defense had he against that look on her face?
Those soft, trembling lips? Was it possible that she might be his, in truth?
House Hurrell had been bannermen to his father; could it be that she was not the Emperor’s creature at all? Could she be as innocent as she seemed?
What would it mean, if she was?
“Hold onto me,” he said, his voice deepening with desire. Her eyes were blurred and soft, weaving up to his face as he pushed her legs apart and moved himself between them, angling into the small cleft between her thighs. The first inch of penetration felt so good, he had to swallow a gasp.
“Oh…” A crease appeared between her eyebrows. Her hands gripped the boulders of his biceps, very white against his brown hide.
“Don’t…move,” he warned, struggling to restrain himself. She was so tight inside, he couldn’t see how he would fit, and the sight of his shaft sinking into her was making it very hard to think.
“Oh…oh, oh, ow,” she whimpered, reminding him that this might not feel good to her.
Miche had said it depended. Slow, slow, he had to go slow, but Remin had never done this before either and she was throbbing on him, delightful spasms that ricocheted all the way from his balls to the back of his skull.
Something gave way inside her and she yelped as he slid suddenly deeper, a white wave of pleasure that hit him like a hammer to the face. “Oh! Oh, Your Grace, it hurts!”
“I know, I know,” he gasped, kissing her lips, her eyes, half out of his mind. “Shhh, shhh…”
He was trying to go slow. Trying to be gentle. Trying to give her time to get used to him, crooning to her, soothing her, but he could barely think past the exquisite, blinding pleasure of being inside her, feeling her tightness clinging to him. It felt incredible.
“Deep…deep breath, ahhh…” A moan escaped him and he bowed his head, his shoulders bunching with the effort not to thrust directly into her, all at once. “Breathe…with me…”
Wet eyes met his as she obeyed, breathing with him as he pushed steadily into her.
She was so hot inside. Remin’s shoulders jerked and shivers raced the length of his body.
Even when he wasn’t doing anything, even when he was perfectly still, he could feel her body quivering on him, waves of sensation rolling over and over him and there was a big one cresting, crushing, irresistible.
“Ahhh…” The noise burst from his chest, a deep groan as he went over the edge. “Ah…ah, ah, stars…”
Miche had warned him that this might happen. It’s your first time too, he had said. But don’t you move a fucking inch if it does, even if it kills you. Hold still, let it happen, then continue.
Remin thought he might be dying.
He understood now why it was imperative that he not do what his body wanted to do, which was pound into her as hard and fast as he could.
His huge body rattled and his hips flexed, quivering with eagerness.
But no. Even as his voice rose and he gasped and panted and spent himself inside her, even as he gripped and crushed the sheets in his hands, he must not crush her.
Stars. Stars. He was seeing stars. Static filled his brain, fizzing against the inside of his skull.
When he finally came back to himself, she was looking at him with big, sad eyes.
“It feels good?” she asked tearfully.
“Stars. Yes,” he said, and kissed her. “You feel so good, wife. That’s the hard part, I promise…”