Chapter 4 #2
Before she had completely recovered from the best moment of her life, Siaspar came to position himself between her legs, and his hand closed on her breast, soft and persuasive.
His mouth came to her throat, nuzzling at the tender flesh, sending shivers all along her body.
Then his other hand cradled her nape in a protective cocoon.
All the while he kept his weight off of her, careful not to crush her.
The position was so intimate she could not stop herself from lifting her knees and parting her legs to accommodate him better.
When he positioned himself at her entrance, which now felt impossibly swollen and wet, she wrapped her arms around him in instinctive response.
Slowly, guided by instinct, her hands slid to the small of his back.
The skin there was so smooth that she started to stroke him.
Muscles flexed under her palms as he moved, and this proof of masculine strength sent her core pulsing.
Slowly, he eased himself inside her.
It was nothing like the night before. Katherine’s whole body was awash with sensation and that first thrust caused her no pain.
Quite the opposite. Siaspar started to move with fluid strokes and she knew that he wouldn’t stop before she had erupted again.
Which would happen before too long. Despite her determination not to utter a single sound, soon she found herself unable to contain her moans and pants.
Had she been at liberty to speak, she would have asked him for more, perhaps even for a kiss.
In that moment Siaspar was not the man she had been forced to bed, he was not a stranger she had only very briefly met, and he was not the husband of a woman she disliked.
He was behaving, she suspected, just as a real lover would.
Had Lady Malpas been in his arms instead of her, her opinion of Siaspar would have been altered, Katherine was certain of it.
Her own feelings toward him were irrevocably changed.
Suddenly he reared up and plunged deeper inside her, moving with a new urgency. The reaction in her body was almost immediate. Her intimate muscles, unable to resist the assault, started to seize and then pulse. It was just like before, only better, because now her body had something to grasp.
“Oh,” she said again.
“Yes,” he growled at the same time.
The heat she remembered from the night before flooded her, prolonging the pleasure, which seemed to go on and on.
Katherine lay there panting a long time, bewildered by what had just happened. What on earth had Siaspar done to her? What magic did he wield?
To add to her confusion, a moment later she felt him place a kiss on her temple. Her eyes filled with tears. She was in a bed with a man. That man had made her discover something about her body she had never suspected. He was still inside her, his weight comforting her; he was even kissing her.
She was overwhelmed.
Siaspar could barely breathe or comprehend what had just happened.
But one thing was certain, he had to leave, now, or he would make love to the woman again.
He could feel his body starting to respond to the warm softness still surrounding him, getting ready for a second, slower, even more decadent possession.
It had not been part of the plan and he could not let it happen.
He had to go.
When he had felt her tighten around him in fierce spasms he had been unable to last. Suckling at her neck, he had poured himself inside her, stifling his cries of ecstasy against her soft skin.
He should be glad, he had fulfilled his mission. He had made the scullion surrender to his caresses, brought her to completion, twice. Still, it felt like an odd victory, as if they had both gained something.
What that was, he couldn’t be sure.
He stayed above her for a long time, trying to come to terms with what he had done.
Never before had he made love to a woman as a means to exact vengeance.
He had not aimed for her pleasure as much as her surrender; he had not come to her in desire but to show her—and himself—who was master and to force a reaction out of her.
But in the end, he had been the one overwhelmed.
He had spent less time in the woman’s presence than it took to write a letter.
He had barely heard ten words from her lips, and up until that morning, he had not even known of her existence, yet what he had experienced in her arms surpassed everything he had ever felt.
The intensity of this lovemaking, the force of his release had been mind-blowing.
Every nerve ending had ignited, every muscle in his body had caught fire, every sensation had been increased a hundredfold by the darkness, and the knowledge that they didn’t know one another and might never sleep or even speak together ever again.
And so, he had done something he had not planned on doing. He had kissed her temple.
That had been a mistake.
Angry at his weakness, Siaspar eased himself out of her and left the bed.
In silence he found his clothes and got ready.
He knew he should have brought a torch inside and demanded to see Lady Malpas, expose the deception, but in that moment his revenge was forgotten. He just wanted to leave before he—
That was the problem. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do exactly or why. He needed to think before he acted.
“I’ll bid you good night.”
Despite his confusion, he could not take his leave from a woman he had just tumbled without so much as a word. Predictably, there was no answer.
Before he closed the door, Siaspar turned toward the bed, but all he saw in the moonlight was a pale body. It could have been anyone.
He slammed the door.
“Well. I don’t need to ask you if it was painful this time.”
The sardonic comment made Katherine start. Lost in reverie she had not heard the door to the antechamber open.
“I b-beg your pardon?”
“You reached your pleasure this time, did you not? Twice at least, perhaps even more.”
Yes, she had but how did Lady Malpas know that?
The horrible idea crossed Katherine’s mind that perhaps she had been in the room all the time, watching what she could see of her and Siaspar’s coupling in the darkness.
No. Surely she was not as depraved as that?
Besides, she would not have wanted to run the risk of her husband seeing her.
But if she had not seen anything, she had certainly heard, as her next comment made clear.
“Heavens, what did the man do to make you moan like that? Who would have thought it, little miss scullion enjoying herself in her master’s bed?” Her laugh had a cruel tinge to it. “It would seem that you do enjoy being bedded by brutes.”
Katherine gritted her teeth under the onslaught. “Your husband is not a brute. I already told you so,” she said, scrambling up the bed. She only had one idea, leave this room as quickly as possible, but her body didn’t seem to want to cooperate. It had gone oddly languid.
There was a pause, as if Lady Malpas was reassessing her opinion of her husband.
“Mm, maybe not,” she said eventually. “He seems to have some skills in the bedroom, I’ll grant you that. Judging from what I heard—and the amount of time he spent in here—it is clear he has some experience. Still, skilled lover or not, he is nothing more than an uneducated savage.”
“I don’t think he—”
“Enough!” Lady Malpas was annoyed now. “How will I dare face him after such a display of lewd behavior? He will think me the most wanton creature, moaning and writhing in pleasure, begging for more. You were supposed to remain silent!”
Remain silent when every part of her body felt as if it had been set on fire.
Katherine almost laughed out loud at the idea.
She defied anyone not to have melted under Siaspar’s caresses.
But Lady Malpas had a point. She was supposed to hate her husband.
Now, after what had happened, he would be forgiven for thinking she had mellowed toward him.
It would be hard for her to behave as she normally did, as it would rouse his suspicion.
“Did he tell you anything I didn’t hear? Did anything of significance happen?”
“No. He spoke in Welsh anyway,” she lied.
She kept the kiss Siaspar had given her to herself, the one after he’d reached his release.
That kiss, given while he was still sheathed inside her, had been for her, she was certain, but she could not make sense of it.
As inexplicable as a passionate kiss on the mouth of a wife he disliked would have been, the impulse to brush her temple in a tender kiss was even more puzzling.