LITMIR.BIZ

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reacted to the sensation of her body in his arms. It would to any woman in a similar situation. And when she leaned her head against him as if she felt safe with him—

      He didn’t want her to feel safe with him, just as he would never feel safe with her, lest she betray him, too.

      God save him, how could he forget that harsh lesson, even when she spoke so winningly as he held her, her casual observation that it had been a “strange day” actually making him chuckle?

      Then take her and be done, his mind commanded. Consummate the marriage as if it were any other bargain. Why hesitate? Why not simply go to bed?

      He whirled around—to find Elizabeth unabashedly staring at him as she sat in his bed, his covers pulled up over her breasts, her long, waving hair flowing about her, her bright eyes gleaming. “You’ve got a lot of scars,” she observed.

      Suddenly, he felt more than half-naked, which was utterly ridiculous. He was no youth with his first woman!

      He strode to the bed, sat on it and yanked off his boots.

      He jumped when she ran a finger along one of the scars on his back. “Don’t!” he snarled.

      He heard the ropes creak as she moved back.

      He rose and removed his breeches, dropping them on the floor. He turned around, facing her.

      “I’ve never seen a naked man before,” she whispered, staring at him. “Are they all like you?”

      Without answering, he lifted the sheets and got in. He moved on top of her and shoved her shift out of the way.

      Then he closed his eyes and imagined the first woman he had been with, an accommodating serving wench. He had been fourteen. Gildred had been very accommodating.

      He remembered that day with Gildred in the orchard, when he had learned a mouth could do more than eat and drink and speak and kiss.

      His bride was moist, but there was a barrier. So, she was indeed a virgin. Good.

      He slowed a moment, then pushed. He heard a gasp, but no other cry. He started to thrust, slowly at first, then faster, and Elizabeth began to move in rhythm with him.

      Gildred’s mouth.

      Elizabeth’s parted lips. Her panting breath hot on him.

      Gildred’s lips upon him.

      Elizabeth beneath him, her legs wrapped around him, eagerly pulling him closer. Her soft moans. Her hands clutching him. Her low groan of desire.

      Not Gildred. Elizabeth.

      Elizabeth…Elizabeth…Elizabeth.

      With a low growl, he climaxed.

      Panting, he opened his eyes, to find his wife’s wide-eyed gaze upon his face.

      Suddenly, as he looked down into her eyes, his manhood still within her, he wanted to press his lips against hers, to kiss her passionately and hold her close.

      “Is that all?” she whispered.

      Raymond abruptly withdrew and rolled off her, to the farthest edge of the bed, his back to her. “Yes.”

      “I hope we made a child,” she said with a happy sigh as she pushed down her shift.

      God’s wounds, she was so ignorant she didn’t realize he had taken her with all the finesse of a drunken soldier with a cheap whore.

      “Sleep well, my lord,” she murmured as she turned on her side.

      He didn’t answer.

      Nor did he sleep well.

      Elizabeth opened her eyes to find a hound of hell panting in her face.

      She tried to scream, but no sound would come.

      “Cadmus!” her husband barked.

      She should have realized she was not having another nightmare back in the convent, because she was warm and well covered. And sore. Feeling foolish, she gingerly sat up.

      Lord Kirkheathe, dressed in that same long, black tunic, regarded her from near the door, his dog at his side.

      Was it possible for a dog to smirk?

      At least her husband wasn’t. “Don’t be afraid of him.”

      She pulled the heavy coverings up under her chin, enjoying the comfort of their warmth. “I’ll try not to be, but I was bitten very badly once,” she explained.

      He was going to see the scar sooner or later, she thought with resignation, so she untied the drawstring at the neck of her shift and eased it off her left shoulder, revealing the ugly red and puckered mark made by the Reverend Mother’s pampered brute of a dog.

      His eyes narrowed as he approached the bed. “A dog did that?”

      She nodded.

      He leaned even closer, examining her naked skin. Embarrassed by his scrutiny and mindful of what else he might see, she quickly pulled her shift back into place.

      “Those other scars?”

      She supposed he would have seen them sooner or later, too. Nevertheless, she couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze. “I stole things at the convent and was duly punished.”

      “You, a thief?”

      She shrugged. “We were always hungry and the little girls would weep so…”

      “You stole food?” He sat beside her on the bed.

      She raised her eyes, but could not tell if he approved, or was disgusted by her dishonesty. It was a very grave sin to steal from holy women, although in her heart she did not regret it for a moment. “All I could get, whenever I could get it,” she admitted.

      “For others?”

      It was very tempting to tell him she never touched a morsel, but she could believe this man, with his intense and penetrating gaze, would know if she lied. “I ate of it.”

      He picked up her hand. His calluses felt rough against her skin as he examined her thin arms. “Not much.”

      “Enough,” she whispered, half-afraid to speak in case it made him stop holding her.

      His gaze met hers. “Cadmus will sleep on the other side of the door.”

      She couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped her lips. “Thank you. I shall try to get used to him, my lord, so that he doesn’t have to be exiled forever.”

      He smiled a little and heat trembled along her limbs.

      Then noises from the courtyard caught his attention. He dropped her hand and went to the window to look outside.

      Feeling bereft and thinking it must be getting near time for mass, she threw back the covers, then shivered as the cool air hit her body.

      “Stay,” her husband ordered as he faced her, in much the same way he commanded his dog.

      “My lord?” she asked warily.

      “Stay in bed.”

      “It is so late in the day already,” she replied. She gasped as her bare feet touched the stone floor and wrapped her arms about herself as she continued. “Surely there are things I should be doing. The servants will think I am lazy. That would a terrible way to begin.”

      “No one will disturb you.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Stay in bed as long as you like today. Call for Rual when you are ready.”

      She couldn’t say what shocked her more: the notion that she could climb back into that warm, soft cocoon of a bed, or that he had said so much at once. “But mass—”

      “Is over.”

      “For certain?”

      He

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