Chapter Sixteen #3
Bastian moved the chair back to its position next to the hearth. “Even so, that gave him no right to strike you in return,” he said. “The man struck my wife and he will pay.”
Gisella didn’t know what to say to all of that. Bastian came over to where she sat on the bed, taking the garments she was still holding off of her lap and laying them across the eating table.
“Come along,” he said. “I have not slept on a decent bed in months and wish to go to bed now. You will come, too.”
Gisella obediently stood up from the bed and went to the capcase that held her finer shifts and sleeping things, all the while her mind lingering on the war that was about to take place because of her.
She thought perhaps to write her father so that he could intervene, but she discounted that idea because she knew her father would approve of what Bastian was doing.
Moreover, he might even want to ride to battle with him and at her father’s age, the thought was terrifying.
A sixty-nine-year-old man in battle was not something she wanted to see and she hoped that Gannon hadn’t been foolish enough to send word to her father of the situation, either. The mere idea was horrifying.
Digging through her capcase, she came across her sleeping shift and she silently moved into the dressing room where a servant had placed a bowl of warmed water some time ago.
The water was cooling but she brought forth her lemon-scented soap and scrubbed her face and hands before putting on her sleeping shift.
She also combed her hair with her big bone comb and braided it, tying a sleeping cap on her head to keep her hair from becoming too mussed in her sleep.
Emerging into the bedchamber, which was darker now because the tapers had been extinguished, she noticed that Bastian was already in bed and as she began to pull the curtains around the bed closed, her gaze happened to fall on him and she realized that he had no clothes on.
Or, at least, he had no tunic on because he was lying in bed with the covers to his waist and his torso was naked.
She could only assume the rest of him was, too. Her cheeks instantly flamed.
Nervously, she finished closing up the curtains and crawled into bed beside him on the rather large bed.
Bastian was laying down, his head resting on the arm bent behind his head, and it was all Gisella could do not to stare at the man.
His arms were enormous and his chest muscular and broad with a soft matting of dark hair.
She knew what the man was expecting from her.
Dear God, she knew it, and as she opened her mouth to say something to him, he reached up and pulled the ties loose on her sleeping cap.
“You do not need this,” he murmured, tossing the cap to the floor. “I want to see your glorious hair.”
Gisella swallowed hard as she watched the cap fall away.
Her heart was beating furiously and her palms were beginning to sweat, anticipating the terror and excitement of a most intimate act between a husband and wife.
She wasn’t sure she was ready for such a thing but she knew she had no choice.
She could not fight it. Truth was, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to.
Carefully, she eased down in the bed next to him, pulling the covers up to her neck and laying there, staring up at the ceiling. She heard Bastian laugh softly.
“You look absolutely terrified,” he said softly. “Am I that frightening?”
She dared to look at him. “Nay,” she said hesitantly. “That is… I suppose it is foolish, but the only person I have ever slept in the same bed with is Sparrow or with my sister. This is… rather new to me.”
Bastian rolled over on his side, propping his head up on his hand as he gazed down at her. “I am glad it is rather new to you,” he said. “If you were not nervous, I would be concerned. But I swear to you that there is nothing to fear. You may even like it.”
Gisella looked up at him. Then, she started to giggle.
“Do you realize that my friends and I do not even really speak of this?” she whispered.
“I was raised to believe that intimacy between a husband and wife is something very mysterious, and then Silly Lily began experimenting with one of Lady Gloucester’s knights and… .”
He cut her off. “Silly Lily?” he repeated, grinning. “I am not entirely sure I want to know why you call her Silly Lily.”
Gisella’s laughter grew. “Because she is so ridiculous!” she insisted softly. “She seduced one of Lady Gloucester’s knights and told us about it. She told us all sorts of terrible things.”
He smiled at her, rather seductively. “Like what?”
Gisella couldn’t help but notice he was moving closer to her.
He was so enormous that he was filling up nearly her entire field of vision.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, trying not to shy away when he lifted a hand and began to carefully pull the covers away from her neck.
“She said that men smelled like goats and that their genitals were slimy, like a fish.”
Bastian burst into soft laughter, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead. “Charming,” he said sarcastically. “What else did she say?”
The kiss on her forehead sent chills throughout her body.
“She said that it hurt when the knight took her innocence,” she said, her breathing starting to come in ragged little gasps as he managed to pull the covers away from her neck.
His fingers were lingering there now. “And… and he was very messy.”
Bastian was looking at her neck, feeling the silken texture of her skin beneath his touch. “Messy?” he repeated. “What did she mean by that?”
Gisella’s cheeks resumed their hot red flush. “Because…,” she said, embarrassed. “I suppose because he exploded on her.”
Bastian looked at her, realizing what she meant. And he couldn’t miss her very pink cheeks. He laughed softly. “Tell me no more,” he said. “I am embarrassed simply hearing of it.”
Gisella sighed gratefully. “You did ask.”
He nodded. “I know,” he said. “From experience, and given the fact that I am a man, she is wrong on several accounts.”
Gisella was curious. “What are those?”
He managed to peel back the top of her shift, exposing a portion of her soft, white flesh. It was too good to pass up and he dipped his head down, kissing her skin gently.
“While I will agree some men smell like goats, their genitals, as a rule, are not slimy as a fish,” he said, kissing her flesh again and feeling her quiver every time he did it.
“Also, men are not messy if that sort of thing is done correctly. You realize that it is a man’s seed and it is meant to be deposited into a woman’s body so that she may bear his child. ”
Gisella was looking him in the eye, not realizing that he was unlacing the top of her shift. It was coming loose and she was hardly paying attention.
“I know,” she said. “My mother told me about such things.”
“Are you afraid?”
“A little.”
He smiled faintly, cupping her face with a big hand. “I will be as gentle as possible, I swear it.”
“You have done this before?”
He cleared his throat softly, perhaps even nervously. “Does it matter?”
She shrugged vaguely. “I have saved myself for my husband,” she said. “I suppose no wife likes the thought that another woman has touched her husband before she has.”
He was silent a moment, tracing a big finger down the soft side of her neck.
“If it matters, no one has touched my heart or mind in such a way,” he said.
“Men have urges that women do not. It is a force of nature and not of the heart. I have never had someone mean anything to me before, certainly not the way you are coming to mean something to me. For a wife I never wanted, now I cannot imagine my life without you.”
It was a sweet thing to say, a tender moment that touched her deeply.
When his great head dipped down, his lips brushing against hers, there was nothing left to say.
He had eased her, made her feel comfortable and wanted, and she realized that she was ready to give herself over to him because, come what may, she had already given her mind and possibly her heart over to him.
Now, it was time to give her body over to him.