Her voice had a purring quality that resonated through Nick bodily.
“You’ll have more,” he assured her, tentatively retreating from even the shallow ground he’d gained, then advancing again.
“
“I know,” Nick replied softly, reassuring her with the beginning of a rhythm. “I know, lovey. I need, too.”
He plied her with more patience than he’d laid claim to in his entire life, easing forward, easing back, listening for the telltale hitch in breathing that might suggest he was moving too deeply, too quickly.
It never came. Instead, in the waiting stillness he heard the gradual acceleration of Leah’s breathing, the little sighs of pleasure and satisfaction, the soft groan of encouragement as she felt him truly stroking himself in and out of her body. When he was moving easily to her depths and back out again, Nick tightened his hold around Leah’s shoulders.
“Move with me,” he urged at last. “Love me back, lamb. Let me bring you pleasure.”
She lasted four well-coordinated strokes before her body gave itself up again to ecstatic contractions around his swollen cock. He thought he was going to outlast this onslaught as well, but then Leah added a
“Nicholas!” Leah heaved up against him in a mighty shove of her hips, and gentleness was obliterated by mutual passion. Leah’s ankles locked at the small of Nick’s back, and she rode him in a hard resurgence of her orgasm. He met her thrusts with firm, measured strokes of his own, feeling pleasure bloom out from his cock to every particle of his physical and emotional being.
As his body surrendered to the ecstasy of an intimate joining, Nick felt at once the profound pleasure of genuine sexual gratification, and the profound bond forged with his wife. The moment was erotic, spiritual, passionate, and tender, all the wonderful things he’d thought to deny himself joined in a single, perfect procession of instants.
And the perfection did not end, though his sexual pleasure eventually spent itself in Leah’s body. Afterward, he took some of his weight on his forearms but kept his torso laid along hers, his arms snug around her.
Peace settled around him—peace and gratitude and a comprehension of the great depths to which love might grow with the woman sharing his bed.
Sharing his life, his heart.
“I could not love you more,” Nick whispered against Leah’s neck. He shifted to kiss her cheek, finding the dampness of her tears with his lips. “Lovey? Did I hurt you?”
Leah shook her head and found his hands on the pillow with her own. Lacing her fingers through his, she strained up to be closer to him.
“Love you, too, Husband,” she whispered. “So very much.”
She was as shaken as he, Nick concluded, reassured and moved beyond measure. He gathered her close and rolled to his back, so she could rest on him and he could keep his arms around her. His hands traced lazy patterns on her back, and a sweet, wondering silence came down on the sunbeams around them.
“Tell me again,” Leah said on a soft sigh.
“I love you. I love you. I love you,” Nick obliged, finding the saying of it more satisfying than he’d realized it would be.
“The other, too,” Leah instructed, her tongue grazing the pulse at his throat.
The other… Nick cast around, distracted by that hot, pink little tongue, then his mind seized on its quarry.
“I will never, ever leave you again,” he said, “unless you cast me from your side, and then I will importune you the livelong day to forgive me and take me back and let me sit penitently at your feet, gazing worshipfully at the hem of your gown.”
Leah’s nose wrinkled. “What if I’m not wearing a gown? My husband likes us to sleep as God made us.”
“I’ll gaze at your toenails.” He wanted to put off what came next, and he needed to get it behind them, regardless of the consequences. “Seriously, Leah, there are things we need to discuss that will put you out of charity with me.”
Leah sighed mightily and rubbed her cheek over Nick’s sternum. “Must we discuss them now?”
“To be honest, I would rather order us a bath, work my wiles on you, and keep you naked for the next week, at least. But, lovey, I am in earnest when I say there are things we have yet to deal with.”
Leah peered up at him. “Such as why you took it into your head that we should not consummate our marriage?”
“Such as that very thing.” His countess was both bright and brave. “Much as I’d like to dodge that issue, I will not. I owe you the truth.”
“You do. I’m not up to a recitation of your paramours, Nicholas. Not now, not ever. I promise in return not to bore you with tales of my blessedly forgettable experiences with poor Aaron.”
“We have a bargain on that score, but there’s more to be resolved than our respective amorous pasts, Leah.”
“You are sounding oppressively serious, Nicholas. Why must you go hunting serpents in paradise now that we’ve finally found our way here?”
“Because we cannot stay in paradise, my love.” Nick’s hands shifted up to cradle her jaw. “Not with anything less than complete trust between us.”
“I trust you, Nicholas.” Leah spoke with her lips against his palm, and they were sweet, sweet words. He wanted to close them in his fist and hold them tightly.
“And I am humbled to agree, though it is I who must demonstrate my trust in you.”
“Isn’t that what you just did?”
In her words, Nick heard a whole separate universe of reasons to love her—not just for the passion and ferocity of her sexual loving, but also for the feminine wisdom and generosity that sustained her regard for him when he was too unworthy. Too pigheaded, too stubborn, too…
“Nicholas.” Leah shifted up on his chest and regarded him steadily. “Whatever it is, you must not fret. We’ll deal with it together. I’ll not abandon you just when you’ve found me.”
He closed his eyes and held her fiercely as she put her dainty finger on his most dreaded fear and his most carefully treasured hope.
“So where are we off to?” Leah asked her oddly silent husband while they waited for their horses. He’d held her and cuddled her and rubbed her back and murmured all manner of sweet nothings, but the restlessness had been upon him again, and Leah had suggested they rise as the afternoon began to shift toward evening.
“We’re going to have a late tea with the neighbors,” Nick said, though his tone was evasive to Leah’s ears.
“Any particular neighbors?” Leah pressed as Nick gave her a leg up onto Casper.
“They dwell at Blossom Court,” Nick said, swinging onto Buttercup. They turned their horses down the drive, and for many minutes, Leah was silent as they cantered along.
“I’ve seen them,” Leah said as they approached the Blossom Court drive. “Two ladies, one quite a bit younger than the other.”
Nick kept his gaze on the lane before them. “Where have you seen them?”
“In their own garden, as I walked up among the trees on the hilltop. You were visiting with the blond.”
“It isn’t what you think, Leah, though that will hardly reassure you, I know.”
“You love her,” Leah said, unable to keep bewilderment from her tone, “or you at least care a great deal for her.”
“I love her. I love my horse, my sisters, and Della. It isn’t a love you need to fear, Leah—or I hope it won’t be.”
Now Leah was the one staring at the lane. “Can’t you just explain this situation in the King’s English?”
“If words were easy, I would have found the right ones weeks ago, Leah, maybe even years ago.”
Leah stopped interrogating him after that, not sure she’d be able to bear the answers he gave her.
A groom trotted out from the stables when they arrived to Blossom Court, and waited while Nick assisted
