She lay on her side with her back to him, stiff as a cold poker. Slowly, he slid his leg closer to hers, testing her reaction. At just the slightest caress of his furred leg against her smoother calf, she jolted. Eirik felt a jolt, as well, but his was of raw desire shooting up his leg and ricocheting to all the important sensual spots on his body—especially those centered in his aching staff.
Suddenly, he wished he had not snuffed the candle. He would like to better see this new wife of his. And that long, curly hair he had barely glimpsed this afternoon. How would it look spread out against the white bed linens?
Eirik reached blindly toward the vicinity of her pillow but felt no strands of silky hair. Feeling his way closer, he eventually found her head, but the wily witch had braided her hair and wound it into a tight coronet around her head. And even worse, it was, covered with a thick coating of grease. He sniffed his fingers. Lard. So, that is why her silvery-blonde hair appears to be gray with age. Eadyth has gone to much trouble to dupe me. Why?
Suddenly, Eadyth shoved his hands away with a sound of disgust and sat up in the bed, making sure the linens were pulled up, hiding her breasts from his scrutiny. Not that he could see them in the dimness anyway.
“Listen, I do not believe in delaying the inevitable, no matter how distasteful. I have much to do on the morrow. ‘Tis time to gather honey from some of my hives. Bertha and I intend to strain it all and put it in containers for market. Let us get this… this bedding over with so that I can get some sleep.”
“Huh?”
“Just do… it.
Good Lord! The shrew thinks she can “manage” the coupling betwixt man and wife, as well.
He heard a rustling of cloth and moved closer to see what she was about. By the moonlight coming through the two arrow slits in the near wall, he could see, just barely, that his dutiful wife was lying on her back, arms frozen stiff at her sides, eyes squeezed shut and her legs spread wide like some sacrificial victim. And she was bare-arsed naked!
Despite the lack of sensuality in Eadyth’s martyr-like pose, Eirik felt his heartbeat accelerate. His fingertips. yearned to examine all the mysterious places that his wife had been hiding so long. His lips ached to shape her finely defined lips with his kisses. His tongue thirsted for the suckling of her mouth and for the taste of her supple skin, and, oh, Lord, even the nectar between her legs.
And his staff! His rock-hard staff wanted nothing more than to plunge deep into her virgin-like body and be caressed by the inner folds of her femininity.
Eirik inhaled deeply to slow the raging fire that threatened to consume him, then knelt between her legs. The only sounds in the room were his heavy breathing and the occasional flutter of Abdul’s wings as he shifted in sleep. Eadyth appeared to have stopped breathing altogether.
Placing his hands on each of her widespread ankles, Eirik slowly brushed his fingertips up her calves, trying to learn the shape and texture of her body by touch alone in the near-darkness.
He had no intention of consummating their marriage tonight, not until he was absolutely certain of her motives in deceiving him. But he could still enjoy teasing her, though he was beginning to suspect that he might not emerge from the night’s play unscathed.
When his roaming fingers had examined the curves of her shapely knees and began to move upward on the muscled contours of her thighs, Eadyth made a strangled sound of protest, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
His hands moved higher toward the apex of her thighs. He wished he had left the candle lit so he could see if any moisture glistened there. Not likely! Icicles would be more probable. Next time, he would be prepared. He would fill the chamber with dozens of her precious beeswax candles and be damned with her false modesty.