Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(53)
She frowned and wiggled teasingly beneath him. “But I’ve only had a taste.”
“That’s more than I’ve had,” he countered. “Have you enjoyed me so far?” He preened at her enthusiastic nod. “Then be fair, wife, and let me enjoy you.”
Ildiko unfurled along his length, a silk ribbon tipped from a spool to ripple and stroke him from chest to knees. “Oh, well then,” she breathed. “I don’t wish to be unjust.”
She stopped him before he could return the touches that so inflamed him. Her hand stroked his hair. “Close your eyes,” she said.
Brishen frowned. If Ildiko worried he’d find her the hag he first met in Pricid’s royal gardens, she had nothing to fear. His vision of her was irrevocably changed. “Why?” he asked, wary of her reasons.
“Because I’d have you see me with your touch.” Her mouth curved into a smile. “It’s how I see you in this blind darkness, Brishen, and it is a wondrous thing.”
He’d been the recipient of heady praise from mistresses as in lust with his title as they were with his body. No such honeyed words ever came close to these and their power over him.
She kept her arms above her head, even after he released her wrists. Brishen closed his eyes and let his other senses overtake his willing blindness. He took his time, exploring every hollow, swell and nook of Ildiko’s neck and shoulders. She smelled of flowers and the scented oils imported by the caravan peoples who traded such indulgences for spells and charms from Kai shaman. She tasted...human.
He could think of no comparison. Soft skin with a hint of spice and a sweetness he’d tasted nowhere else in either food or on the supple, muscular limbs of the Kai women he’d bedded before his marriage. Her differences intrigued him, seduced him.
He didn’t remember removing her nightrail or his breeches, but they somehow ended up in a discarded heap on the floor by the side of the bed. Free of any barrier between them, Brishen indulged himself by easing more of his weight onto her.
“Ooh,” Ildiko said on a sigh, her heavy-lidded eyes almost closed. “You feel good.” She drew swirls on his back. “We should have done this much sooner.”
Brishen’s chortle vibrated between them. His forthright wife. “I couldn’t agree more,” he whispered in her ear.
He set her to squirming in his arms, her soft moans a sensual cadence in his ear, while he kissed and licked a path from her shoulders to her belly, stopping for long moments to repay her torture of him by flicking his tongue back and forth across the tips of her breasts. That she didn’t pull away from fear of his teeth spoke of her faith in him and the sure knowledge he would never hurt her.
A subtle quiver of tension passed through her body under his hands as he kissed a path downward toward the juncture of her thighs. Brishen opened his eyes. His heightened senses warned him that delicate vibration had been one of unease instead of eagerness.
Ildiko gazed at him steadily, her features somber. She lowered her arms to card her fingers through his hair. She didn’t try and wiggle out of his reach. This wasn’t a matter of trust so much as experience, or its lack. Brishen knew that while his wife wasn’t completely ignorant of bed play, her introduction to its many intimacies by her previous lover had been limited. Her statement that three romps in the bedroom or the hayloft had not made the effort of a fourth worth the trouble revealed a great deal.
He’d have to tamp down on his eagerness to explore every part of her in a single day. The knowledge that he had a lifetime to draw out the anticipation of familiarizing himself with his wife’s lovely body evaporated any of his initial disappointment.
Brishen bent and traced the circumference of her navel before kissing a return path up her belly, to the valley between her breasts and finally to her chin. Ildiko gave him an abashed look. “I haven’t tried that yet,” she said.
He framed her face in his hands. “So I gathered.” He smoothed away the lines between her eyebrows with his lips. It’s not a failing, Ildiko.”
“I know, but—” She broke off to return the kiss he pressed to her mouth.
“Consider it your gift to me,” he said, noting her confusion. “I have the opportunity to be your teacher and show you the pleasure of that particular act, one of the finest between a man and a woman.”
She relaxed under him once more. Her knees clamped against his sides. He exhaled a surprised grunt that changed to a groan when her hips lifted to rub against the erection that was robbing the blood from every other part of his body. Her hands glided down his back to cup his buttocks and keep him in place.
Her heavy-lidded expression returned, one Brishen quickly recognized as her passion for him and one he found more seductive by the moment. “What will I teach you?” she asked, hips thrusting, pressing, tempting him toward madness.
“Patience,” he said in guttural tones that made a mockery of the word. His arm slid under her buttocks, lifted until her hips tilted toward him. “Endurance.” His limbs shook with the strain of holding back. Ildiko’s hands moved to his arms, clutched his biceps. The mollusk-pink of her skin deepened, blending with the amaranthine stain. His cock nudged the entrance to her body, slick and hot. “Ecstasy,” he whispered and slid deep.
They gasped in unison, and Ildiko arched in his embrace, her short nails digging into his arms. Drowning in the pleasure of being inside his wife, feeling slippery muscles gripping him, drawing him ever deeper, Brishen fought to breathe, to pause. Patience. Endurance. And oh gods, the ecstasy.