Rare and Precious Things (2 page)

ETHAN
carried me up the stairs, his strong arms holding me securely. The spicy scent and hardness of his muscles filled my senses with his maleness, making me ache terribly with wanting. Wedding night jitters? Maybe a little, with some healthy emotional exhaustion sprinkled on top. We hadn’t been together in over two weeks and I missed the intimacy. After all, making love with Ethan was part of our grounding connection. I was honest enough to admit that our first explosive attraction to each other had been all about the sex…and there was nothing wrong with that.

The expression on his face right now was different though, as he carried me along. I wondered what was going on in that head of his behind the carved handsome face.
The man behind the mask. My man. My
husband.

I wasn’t concerned though, because I knew he would tell me exactly what that was. Ethan usually had no trouble telling me what was on his mind.
Part of his special charm. I had to smile at the thought of some of the crazy things he’d said to me since I’d known him.

“What’s that sexy smile about?” he asked without barely a hint of labored breath despite hauling me all the way up one impressive
ly carved oaken staircase. The inside of this house was gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to see more of it, but had a feeling I wouldn’t be seeing much beyond our bedroom for the foreseeable future.

“I was thinking about your special brand of charm, Mr. Blackstone.”

He cocked a brow and gave me a wicked grin. “Does my charm have anything to do with you and me naked on our wedding night,
Mrs.
Blackstone, because I’m dyin’ for you here.”

I laughed at his veiled complaint about the recent lack of sex. I was dying for him too, but figured this had been a good test for us. Regardless, the anticipation of the moment was so
much more intense because we’d taken the sex break before the wedding. I planned on making it up to him very soon. “Of course,
naked
and wedding nights go hand in hand I’m pretty sure.”

“Anything else grinding around with the cogs, my beauty?”

“Oh nothing much besides remembering how my beautiful
husband
looked standing at the end of the aisle waiting for me to walk down to him,” I paused, “and how I’m going to reward him for being
so
patient with me for the last two weeks.”

He sucked in a quick breath and took faster steps.

I brought my hand up to his cheek, feeling the stubble of his beard, remembering how I’d told him under no uncertain terms was he to be clean shaven at the wedding. I loved his scratchy whiskers abrading my skin when he kissed me and dragged his lips over my body. It was, again, one of the many parts that made up my Ethan. I loved him as I’d known him from the very first, and wanted him just that same way when we said our vows.

He’d listened to me apparently.

When we reached the top of the stairs, he took us left, down a long hallway. At the end of that was a room. Our wedding night suite, I assumed.

“We have arrived, my lady.” He muttered the rest. “Thank fucking hell.”

I stifled another laugh.

Ethan carefully set me back onto my feet but he kept his body close, his hand brushing up and down my upper arm.
Always touching me. He needed to do it, and for me, his constant contact was something that helped me to flourish. I’m sure it was one of the reasons we connected so explosively from the first. He did those things I needed in order to awaken the part of me that was so very broken down. But now? I didn’t feel
broken
defined me anymore as a woman. And I had Ethan alone to thank for that.

“Yes, I see. It’s very beautiful here.” I skimmed the room, taking in what looked to be at least fifty white candles flickering in glass containers of all shapes and sizes, their warm glow reflecting over the walls and furniture, making everything look a little otherworldly.
Or, as if we had just slipped back into a time and place that existed many long years ago. As I took in the surroundings, I felt like I could be walking into another century, especially wearing my long formal dress. “I still can’t believe you bought this house, though,” I said, glancing back. “I love it so much, Ethan.”

I couldn’t help wondering about the people who had lived here before us either, and what
they might have done in this beautiful room, in times past. Had there been other wedding nights like the one Ethan and I were about to have?

I took in the size of the bed situated right in the middle, intimidating every other piece of furniture in the room.
A massive carved four-poster with white linens and gauzy drapes shifting ever so gently in the summer breeze floating in from the open window. The oak glowed with the fine craftsmanship of artisans from a lost era.

“Believe it…and I love
you
so much.”

Ethan’s deep voice behind me broke the quiet stillness.

I stood still and waited.

My veil was lifted off my neck, and then the sweep of my h
air was brushed aside. Then I felt his soft lips touch my nape firmly, as if to brand me. I felt his warm tongue roll over the spot in a swirl, rendering me breathless and shivering with wanting all in a second. Ethan barely had to touch me and still I was reduced to a wanton creature desperate for his touch. But he was well aware of that about me.

“You didn’t have to buy it though,” I whispered.
“Just you, Ethan. You’re all I really want or need.”

He stilled and then spoke softly. “And that…is why you are the only girl for me.” He kissed soft sweeps up the side of my neck. “You don’t care about all the other trappings. You just see
me, I knew that about you from the very beginning.”

He turned me and held my face in his big hands, thumbs brushing back and forth, blue eyes searing me with intensity. “I need you like I need air to breathe.
You are my air, Brynne.”

And then his mouth engulfed mine, deep plunging swirls of his tongue took me over as he struck his claim. I felt my lower body pool with instant heat, desire and craving sparking to furious life. Ethan showed me how much he did indeed need me.

My hands dove into his hair and gripped it in handfuls, edging the passion up a notch. I heard myself moan as he swallowed me up with even deeper kisses that had me literally shaking with desire. I knew I had to slow things down before it became impossible to stop.

My hands left his hair and found their way to his chest where I barely managed, with Herculean effort, to press him back enough to break our kiss. It was not easy,
neither physically nor emotionally. I wanted nothing more than to be wrapped up in him all night long, but I also had a plan and I intended to see it through.

We both stood there panting,
our faces so close, but yet, not touching; him in his tux with the purple brocade vest, me in my vintage-inspired lace wedding dress, the sexual tension crackling in the air between us like a raging electrical storm about to go nuclear.

I told Ethan what I wanted.

“I n-need to get ready for you… Please?” I managed on a shaky breath, hoping he understood this was something important to me.

He swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple flex at his throat.
“All right,” he said evenly, as if it were a calculated effort for him to respond to my request without showing me what he really thought of it. I had the feeling he didn’t like being asked to wait some more, but he was agreeing for my sake, because he was sweet like that with me. “I'll do the same then, Mrs. Blackstone.”

“Thank you, Ethan. I’ll make it worth your while.” I stood on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on the side of his bearded neck.

“Oh, I have no doubts about that.” My lips felt the vibration of his growl as he spoke his thoughts. “Everything you do is worth my while, baby.”

I
released him and looked back to where the glow from the en-suite bathroom showed me the way. “Where will you go to get ready?” I felt more than a little guilty about kicking him out of the bedroom, even if for just a short while.

“The adjoining bedroom is also very nice.”
He gestured toward a door in the wall to the left of the bed. “These old manor houses always had lord and lady connecting bedrooms so they could meet up for the really important, private stuff that happened in the night.” He drew a finger across the low neckline of my bodice, moving especially slow over the swell of my breasts sitting against the lace of my gown.

“Oh?
The
important
private stuff, you say?”

“Undoubtedly, baby.
The shagging…is…very…very…
very
…important.” He gave me soft, seductive kisses between each of the words.

“W
hich room are we in right now? Lord’s or lady’s?” I asked breathlessly, feeling like all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

He shrugged. “No idea.
Don’t care, either. I shag and sleep wherever my
lady
is, and I always will. Pick a room, Mrs. Blackstone.”

He picked up my hand and kissed the back of it in his gallant way, his eyes slipping up seductively to capture another slice of my
heart. Who was I kidding? He already had the entire portion…and he always would.

I sighed with need and forced myself to take a step backward, creating some distance between our bodies.
My arm stretched out as I slid back, my hand still clasped in his much bigger one. “Okay…how does this room in fifteen minutes sound?” I stepped backward again, moving closer toward the bathroom door, my eyes never leaving his blues as they tracked my movements.

Those same beautiful
blue eyes also glittered with all the shuttered heat of a man who would be ravishing me very soon. He allowed my hand to be released from his grip; the heat of his skin noticeably absent the second contact was lost.

He gave me the serious Ethan-stare, the one I’d seen many times and was well familiar with
by now—the one raw with male prowess…and the overpowering sexual dominance that made me burn.

“Like fifteen minutes too fucking long, my beauty.”

I had to suppress the slight moan that escaped my throat at the effect his words had on me. I was just a mortal woman after all. Ethan was the one who looked and acted like a Greek god to me.

He seared me with another look dripping with the promise of the molten sex to come, before turning away, walking through the door, and closing it with a soft click.

Once he was out, the room was instantly quiet and I felt more than a little bereft without him. I just stood there and absorbed the reality of where I was in the moment.
I’m getting ready to make love with my husband.
The idea jolted me out of my stupor and sprung me into action pretty fast.

I fled for the bathroom and worked myself out of my dress, which gratefully was not difficult at all with its easy access placement of a side zip. I hung it up care
fully on the boudoir hanger which had been arranged, for what I assumed, especially that purpose. I would have to remember to do something nice for Hannah. She’d thought of everything.

I set my veil aside while I br
ushed my teeth and drank a glass of water. I stripped out of my lingerie, except for the stockings and garter belt in pale lavender silk, and looked at my side profile in the mirror. I had a bump. Not much of one yet, but it was definitely there. I gave our sweet little peach a caress and reached for my veil again. I reattached it and stepped back out into the bedroom. I climbed up onto the raised bed and sank down into the downy softness of the duvet on my knees. I was careful to arrange myself with my back facing the same door Ethan had used when he left the room. He would pass through it again when he returned, and I wanted him to have a first vision of me as I’d planned it out in my head. I was ready even though my heart was racing.

I closed my eyes.

And waited for Ethan to come to me.