Grace (38 page)

Grace glanced covertly at those two candles. She wondered if Trevor intended to snuff them as well, then promptly forgot the candles as her gaze skidded to a halt on the enormous bed. It loomed before her like a monster on its raised dais. A long-forgotten memory of something someone had once wickedly told her about married couples and what they did in beds stirred faintly in her mind. She suddenly knew, without a doubt, that she absolutely did
not
want to get into that bed with her husband; she wasn’t sure she was prepared.

When Trevor saw where her eyes had riveted, he smiled grimly to himself. He idly wondered if all females inherited an innate sense that told them to beware of finding themselves alone in a room with a man that also happened to contain a bed. “Remember, Grace, I asked you to look at me,” he reminded her.

She turned obediently toward him. He could see the pulse beating rapidly in her throat.
Christ!
He had not even touched her yet. He decided to try another approach. “I’ve been thinking about how we got here, Grace.” He kept his voice as deliberately pleasant and unthreatening as possible. “We’ve wanted each other at different times. First, I wanted you when you didn’t want me, then you wanted me when I didn’t want you. We’ve led each other quite the merry little chase, haven’t we?”

Her face softenened. She smiled and nodded.

“Now, here we are. You are my wife. I want you with me as much as possible. I want spend my days with you in laughter. And I want to fall asleep, every single night for the rest of my life, with you in my arms and in my bed.” He cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her forehead softly. “I think you want that too, Grace. Come to bed with me, darling.”

Grace nodded. Before she could change her mind, he effortlessly scooped her into his arms and laid her gently against the soft pillows, then stretched out beside her. She lay stiffly silent, but looked at him trustingly. Trevor felt his heart wrench at the bravery displayed by the girl he had married in the face of something she did not understand. He gently smoothed a burnished curl from her cheek, then leaned down and brought his lips to hers.

She returned his kiss automatically. She felt her nervousness melt away, replaced with that odd sense of longing she always felt with this man, now her husband. Her stomach tightened into a knot of desire, although she had no idea what she wanted from him. With a small whimper, she closed her eyes and leaned into his body.

Trevor slowly untied the satin ribbons of her dressing gown, then pushed himself up on his elbows to look down into her face. Her eyes flew open as she realized what he planned. “Shhh,” he crooned. “I’m going to take your clothes off now, Grace.”

She thought fleetingly of the last time he had done that, and her eyes widened. Trevor ignored the look and continued speaking. “When you are undressed, you may get beneath the covers. I’ll join you there after I take off my dressing gown.”

Grace started to shake her head in denial, then remembered that he had said for her to trust him. Stoic, she lay bravely still as he pushed the gown from her shoulders, then gently lifted her arms from the sleeves. He pulled down the covers on her side of the bed, and she quickly scrambled beneath, moving all the way to the far side and pulling the sheets tightly up under her chin. She watched him warily. He stood and quickly removed his robe, then slipped into bed before he could startle her with the blatant evidence of his arousal.

With Grace lying silently beside him, Trevor turned on
his side and raised himself on one elbow, propping his head on his hand. He regarded Grace with a small smile. She now had the covers pulled all the way up under her eyes. Those eyes no longer held any nervousness, and he almost laughed at her mutinous expression, for if he had a choice, he much preferred a Grace filled with passionate anger to a timid and unsure one. At last she was reacting as expected.

“Are you going to blow out those last two candles, my lord?” She glared up at him hotly.

“No.”

As she watched his lips form the denial, Grace’s eyebrows snapped together. She narrowed her eyes at Trevor, then looked away. “I knew there was a reason I never wished to marry,” she muttered under her breath.

“
You
may blow them out if you wish,” he pointed out in a reasonable tone.

Grace twisted her head around in an effort to see if she could possibly snuff them without emerging from the safety of the coverlet. She grimaced. Short of pulling the sheet from its place tucked under the end of the bed, she did not see how she could accomplish it. She gave the sheet an experimental tug, then glanced at Trevor triumphantly. She pulled harder to gather it around her naked body.

With an amused chuckle, Trevor reached over and pinned both of her hands together with one of his. She struggled for a moment, then quieted and looked at him in exasperation. “What is it you want from me?”

Trevor’s grin slowly faded. The apprehension his wife stubbornly tried to hide showed in her expressive eyes. He felt a rush of admiration for her spirited show of bravado, and his eyes softened to a dark, velvety green. “All I want to do is kiss you,” he said.

She stuck her chin out and pressed her lips together in mute rebellion.

“I
am
going to kiss you, Grace,” he corrected firmly. “While I’m kissing you, I am going to hold you as close to me as I possibly can, and I’m going to touch you.
This
time,” he added, knowing that she still thought of that other night, “I’ll show you how to touch me, too. And then, my lady, I am going to make love to you. It will hurt at first, but only for a moment, and after that I promise I’ll never have to hurt you again.”

Grace had quieted as he spoke, a long-forgotten memory stirring from her childhood.
Now you have to kiss me,
Henry had said, and she had giggled and run away. She had run from Trevor, too, at first. Something in his voice finally gave her the courage to trust him. He waited, staring back for a moment, and then released her hands. In that instant, she knew, to the depths of her soul, that she need never run from him again. She reached up with trembling fingers and gently touched his lips.

“I love you,” she said.

She said it quietly and without emphasis. The impact of those three words nearly took Trevor’s breath away, and left him, for a moment, speechless.

“I love you,” she repeated in a melting voice, “and I would like for you to kiss me, and to hold me as closely as you possibly can, and to touch me and teach me how to touch you.” Her fingers traced a slow pattern around his lips. “Please, Trevor, make love to me. I want you to show—”

The rest of what she said would never be known. Trevor’s mouth came down on hers, silencing her. He kissed her deeply and completely, coaxing her lips to part with his tongue. When they did, he invaded her mouth with a primitive thrusting that awakened a need in Grace she did not know she had. She shyly returned his kiss as he had taught her. Each tentative touch of her tongue stoked the fire of Trevor’s arousal.

Telling himself to slow down, he tore his mouth from hers and gently kissed her closed eyelids, the tip of her nose, and then, softly again, her lips. Her eyes fluttered open, and he caught his breath—they glowed with un-abashed joy, all the love in the world reflected in their shimmering depths. He pushed the sheet slowly away from her body as she stared unflinchingly at him, offering herself with all the innocent ardor she knew. He raised himself on an elbow and looked down at her, at the soft, ripe mounds of her breasts, her nipples rising at the touch of his eyes, at the tiny waist and slim hips framing the flat planes of her stomach, and then down at the curling auburn triangle of hair still partially covered by the sheet. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely. He took her hand and pressed it to his chest.

She looked at him in wonder as she felt his heartbeat thundering against her palm, amazed that the sensations rushing through her body affected him as deeply. She reached down and grasped his hand, then brought it to her chest and covered it with both of her own. “Do you feel it, too?” Grace whispered in an aching voice.

With a groan, Trevor nodded and slid his hand over to cup her breast, marveling at the way it just fit into his palm, almost as though made for that very purpose. Gently, he teased her nipple into a hard little knot of feeling. Darts of pleasure shot through Grace. She moaned as his hand lifted and his mouth took its place, alternately suckling on the erect nipple and laving it with long, slow strokes of his tongue. Gently he applied his teeth, making her gasp and arch her back as jolt after jolt of wild sensation rocked her. He turned his attention to the other breast, then let his fingers slip down the planes of her stomach to tangle in the curling hairs at the juncture of her thighs.

Grace jerked in shocked surprise. Instinctively she pressed her legs together, remembering the pleasure he had caused
when he touched her there before. She shook her head wildly from side to side, fearing the same loss of control she had felt then. Trevor lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes dark with strained passion.

“Don’t,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t.” His face was taut, his features harsh with the effort of keeping rigid control of his rampaging desire. He reached up and clasped the fingers of his other hand around hers. Grace stared back at her husband for a moment, and then bravely squeezed his hand and allowed her legs to relax.

His eyes still locked on hers, Trevor let his hand slide slowly lower, moving toward the slick folds that hid the entrance to her body. He stopped when he reached the little knot of flesh at the top of the aperture, then gently rubbed his index finger across it.

Grace caught her breath and bit her lip to keep from crying out. Intense, almost painful pleasure, nearly more than she could handle, enveloped her. A small whimper escaped when she felt his fingers move again, lower this time, to stroke between the crease that lay openly vulnerable to him. He watched her intently as he slowly slid a finger into her enshrouding softness, enjoying the changes on her expressive face. She closed her eyes in rapturous disbelief at the exquisite pleasure he evoked.

“Grace?”

Her eyes flew open again at the sound of his passion-thick voice.

“Do you think you could touch me, too?” His finger began moving deliciously within her. Grace nodded and closed her eyes with a rapturous moan, then opened them again to find his eyes still locked with hers. Tentatively she reached out to touch him. Her fingertips lightly brushed the crisp hairs that curled on his chest, then drew back as the muscles there jumped in reaction. Feeling braver, she touched him again, then flattened her palm on the taut
muscles and began to caress him. With her index finger she curiously circled one of his flat male nipples. To her surprise, it hardened just as hers had. She looked at him again and realized that he had stopped stroking her, had almost stopped breathing.

Remembering what he had done to her, she shyly brought her lips to his chest and lightly licked the hard little nubbin of flesh. Trevor released his breath and began caressing her again, his fingers moving within her more urgently.

With a gasp Grace nuzzled closer still and began suckling harder on his nipple, her hands now more boldly exploring her husband’s body. Her fingers slid through the dark hair on his chest, down across the smoother skin of his stomach. She moved with him now, finding a rhythm that matched his questing fingers. Her tongue laved his flesh, reveling in the taste of him, and her own fingers dipped into the hollow of his navel, stroking him there in time to the movement of his hands. Then her hand brushed against the rigid evidence of his arousal and she stopped. It felt like satin over steel. She lightly ran her fingers over him, then closed her hand around his maleness and looked up.

He did not move. His tightly closed eyes and clenched jaw worried her.

“Am I hurting you?” Grace whispered.

Unable to wait any longer to join himself with her, Trevor shook his head and moved over his wife, nudging her knees apart with his, his hardness poised at the entrance to her body. At the sudden change of position, Grace’s eyes again grew apprehensive. She trembled despite herself and grasped his upper arms. As if trying to reassure him, she began speaking, smoothing her hands up and down his muscled forearms.

“This is the part where you said you would hurt me, isn’t it?” At his regretful nod, she continued in the same self-convincing
tone: “It will only last a moment?” She caught her breath as she felt him begin to ease into her tight, hot passage. “Well, I’ve sometimes thought,” she continued bravely, “that the things that are the most important are often the most difficult.”

Trevor reached the barrier that proclaimed her innocence. Any hope that this would happen easily for her died in his chest. Looking deeply into her eyes, he gave a slight push, then cringed as she gasped and squeezed her eyes closed.

“Grace, look at me,” he said. She opened her eyes and smiled bravely at him. He lowered himself carefully to stretch out full-length upon her, so he could take her hands in his. He withdrew slightly, and whispered, “I love you.” Then his lips descended on hers and he surged completely into her, breaking the barrier and muffling her small, involuntary cry of pain with his mouth.

After only a moment, the sudden sharp pain began to subside. Grace opened her eyes to see Trevor holding himself stiffly motionless, watching her face intently. She felt a surge of deep emotion and smiled tenderly up at her husband. “I think,” she said in an aching voice as she tightened her fingers around his and he slowly began to move within her, “that I have never felt so completely whole in all my life.”

His heart exploding with the sweetness of her words, Trevor began thrusting faster, urging her toward that peak she had scaled only once before, determined that they would attain it together this time. Instinctively she moved her hips with him, matching his thrusts, reaching with ageold knowledge for that pinnacle. Then, without warning, the world shattered into a million shards of crystal light, and she cried out in release just as he found his. He gathered her close as her body convulsed around him, making her his beginning and his end, melding with her, complete.