She nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth to show her displeasure.
He did the same to hers, continuing, “But I had an odd craving for tartness… and a woman who could turn me biddable. Do you perchance know of such a woman?”
“Mayhap.” And she smiled against his lips.
Touching the tip of his tongue to her enticing mole, he traced the seam of her lips which parted on an involuntary sigh. “So tell me, my not-so-sweet and not-so-biddable wife, what would you bid me do for you?”
“Ease my ache,” she said softly, surprising him. “Can you cure me of this sweet, hot ache which has overcome me?”
Erik’s knees almost buckled. He lifted her by the waist so her toes barely touched the floor and braced himself against the vee of her legs.
She moaned and arched her neck back.
“I am nigh blind, Eadyth, you know that—”
She made a growling sound of disbelief.
“—therefore you will have to show me where you… ache.”
Through half-slitted, passion-glazed eyes, she gazed up at him. Holding his eyes, she boldly placed one of his hands over her heart.
And he almost lost his fast-slipping control. Gripping her head with both hands, he kissed her with savage intensity, unleashing all the pent-up longing of the past two sennights. Urgently, he claimed her lips, entreating her to open for him, then explored her mouth with his tongue. She almost shattered him with the hunger with which she yielded to his forceful domination, returning his kisses in equal measure.
He wanted to devour her. He wanted her to devour him.
He wanted to sear her with the heat that was burning him up. He wanted her to envelop him with her own hot fires.
He wanted to love her until the end of time. And he wanted her to return that love.
But all he could say was, “Eadyth,” softly, wonderingly, over and over, between kisses and frantic caresses and an arousal that grew and grew and grew. Finally, he tore his mouth from hers, breathing raggedly. He could take no more. Lifting her into his arms, he walked a few short steps and laid her gently on the bed.
With jerky, urgent movements, they helped each other disrobe, sometimes tearing cloth in their haste. When they were both naked, gasping for air, Eirik leaned over Eadyth, straddling her body. He put a hand between them, touching the dampness of her maiden hair with familiarity.
“You are ready for me, Eadyth,” he rasped out.
“For days I have been ready for you, my husband. Mayhap a lifetime,” she confessed on a broken whisper.
“I have been thinking about us like this for days,” he said gritting his teeth as he entered her moist silk, slowly, so slowly he could barely breathe. Her hot sheath spasmed around him in welcome, its folds shifting to accommodate his growing size. And hot woman dew gushed out of her body, anointing him with her pleasure.
Eadyth made a slow keening sound of pleasure-pain and wrapped her long legs around his waist.
He drove her with long, excruciatingly slow strokes to the point of madness—his and hers, both—then stopped, and started all over again. He knelt, still impaling her, and arched her body upward so her breasts met his thirsty mouth. As he suckled, then plucked gently with his teeth on the aching buds, she convulsed around him with violent shivers. But he would not let himself go.
He filled her. He consumed her. He wanted all she had to give and then more.
He was beside her, over her, under her, around her—touching, kissing, pressing. He could not tell where her slick body ended and his began. Her flailing, keening body called to a primitive side of his soul.
“Let it happen,” she pleaded incoherently.
Desire roared in his ears like wild wind on a stormy sea.
He raised himself on straightened arms and arched his shoulders back. “Look at me, Eadyth,” he demanded in a thickened voice. When she raised her eyelids only slightly, gazing up at him dreamily, he ordered, “Nay, open your eyes. Really look at me.”
When he had her full attention, Eirik pulled himself almost completely outside her body. “I love you, Eadyth. Do you hear me? I… love… you.”