Chapter Thirteen #4
Maximus was rather relieved that she was looking at the situation so calmly, but on the other hand, he wasn’t surprised.
Courtly had proven herself to be calm and resourceful since he first met her, something he was very much coming to appreciate about his new wife.
The fact that she wasn’t a hysterical female spoke volumes to him.
He sat down on the bed beside her and began removing his boots.
“Well,” he said thoughtfully. “It is one of those situations where you let instincts take the lead. I think your body will know what to do even if your mind does not.”
Courtly pulled off her slippers because he was removing his shoes. It seemed like something she should do. “You have done this before?”
Maximus cleared his throat somewhat nervously. “Aye,” he said. “I have had to. It would not do if neither of us knew what to do, would it?”
Courtly thought it humorous to see the man uncomfortable. “Who has taught you what you should know?”
He lifted his eyebrows, hoping he could bluff his way out of the question. “Too many women to count,” he said flippantly. “Why do you ask such questions, anyway? Do you really want to talk about my experiences with other women?”
Her smile faded. “Have there been other women?” she asked. “Someone… like me? Someone you were fond of?”
Maximus thought back to his first love, that flame-haired lass of fourteen he had been so very caring of. He shrugged. “She was fourteen,” he said. “I was seventeen. It was a very long time ago.”
Courtly smiled at the thought of young Maximus in love with a sweet young girl. “Why did you not marry her?”
He shook his head. “My father sent her away,” he said. “She was not of my station. It was not meant to be.”
Courtly thought she detected something sad in those words. “I am sorry,” she said softly. “It must have been painful.”
Maximus looked at her, studying her face, the delicate lines of her jaw.
He drew in a long, contemplative breath.
“At the time, it was,” he said. “I was young and impressionable. But it was a young love and nothing more. When I look at you, I am not sorry in the least that nothing ever came of it. Had I married her, I would have never known you.”
Courtly smiled sweetly at him. “You may have known me,” she said, humor in her tone.
“I may have still fallen out of a window onto your head, but you would have already been married. God’s Bones, what if I had married Tiberius instead?
Although your brother is handsome and strong, I would have spent the rest of my life lusting after his brother. After you.”
Maximus was torn between being wildly jealous over the thought of her marrying Tiberius and the thrill of her declaration of lust. He settled for the lust. Reaching out, he gently stroked her blond head, digesting this woman who was now his wife. He could still hardly believe it.
“Then it was fate that sent her away those years ago and not my father,” he said softly.
“What I felt for her was something young and giddy. What I feel for you is something deep and abiding. I do not know how it is possible to love someone so strongly after only a few days, but I do. You have embedded yourself into my very soul, Courtly. Whatever the future holds and whatever comes, know that you have all of me, forever.”
Courtly was listening to his words, bewitched by them.
Everything about the man was filling her, reaching in and anchoring itself deep.
His hand on her head was soft and gentle, yet the heat from his palm was causing her heart to race.
She remembered the kiss they had shared earlier, the flames of new and awakening desire that had licked at her.
His bearded lips had been wildly exciting, more than she could have ever imagined.
She found herself leaning into the hand on her head, watching his mouth as he spoke.
“Max?” she whispered.
His hand had moved to her face, his rough fingertips brushing over her lips. “Aye?”
“Kiss me like you did earlier. Kiss me again but this time, do not stop.”
Maximus didn’t need any further prompting.
Her murmured request had him on fire and he cupped her face in his two enormous hands, bringing her lips to his.
When he slanted over her mouth, it was hungrily, as he had never before kissed a woman until this moment.
Everything he had even known about a woman, the feel or taste of one, was gone.
It was as if she were the first and only, so strong his passion.
As his tongue began to lick her, begging for an invitation into her warm, wet mouth, his hands move from her face and went to work on her clothing.
The lavender garment that he had purchased for her seemed to disintegrate under his hands and he had no idea why.
He didn’t think he’d pulled that hard on it but he failed to remember that it had only been loosely basted.
The truth was that he didn’t care much and even if he had remembered, it wouldn’t have made a difference because he was quite eager to remove her from her clothing.
Courtly didn’t resist him. When he tugged on something, she helped him pull it off.
In little time, the shift came off as well and in the dim light of the chamber, Maximus found himself gazing at his wife’s perfect, nude body.
He couldn’t remember ever seeing anything so utterly arousing but as he moved to pull her against him, he realized he was still wearing his clothing and, almost frantically, it began to come off.