When his fingertips just barely skimmed the silken hairs, Eadyth whimpered, “Stop it.”
“What?” he asked innocently.
“Touching me.”
“Why?”
“I do not like being touched.”
“Does it make you nervous?”
She made a soft sound of surprise at his question. “Yea… I mean, nay… oh, for the love of God, just get on with it and be done so I can go to sleep.”
“I must touch you,” he whispered huskily.
“Nay.”
“Yea.”
She slapped at his exploring fingers, but Eirik just laughed low in his chest, ignoring her protests as his hands moved like butterfly wings up her body. They traced the curve of her slim hips and the womanly indentation of her waist, over her abdomen, then under her breasts where he could feel the wild beating of her heart. For just a moment, he let his hands rest under the firm mounds. When he cupped the small breasts in his hands, testing their weight and shape, Eadyth stiffened even more, seeming to hold her breath. Still cradling her breasts in his palms from the underside, he flicked both tips with the callused pads of his thumbs, bringing her nipples instantly erect.
Although her breasts were not particularly big, the nipples were large and hard as pebbles. He liked that.
She moaned, fists clenched tightly in the bed linens at her side, and tried to buck him off. “Oh, you are vile. Take your perversities and leave me be.”
Eirik wanted to know all of her. His fingertips became his eyes, exploring her flat stomach, her armpits, the high arch of her feet, her spidery eyelashes—yea, her eyes were still squeezed tightly shut—her knees, the small of her back. By the time he blew softly in her ear and traced the delicate whorls with the tip of his tongue, Eadyth was tossing her head back and forth, her body rigid with tension.
Eirik discovered a liking for the taste of his wife’s skin, even the salt of her perspiration. He licked the smooth skin of her neck which smelled faintly of beeswax and her own woman scent—and fear.
Actually, Eirik had carded this bed sport much farther than he had intended for tonight. If he did not soon put a halt to the love play, he would be unable to stop.
But there was just one thing he wanted—nay, needed—to do. Leaning down, he took her left nipple between his lips and flicked it with his tongue, then suckled it wetly against the roof of his mouth. He held her nipple in his mouth only a moment. It was all he could stand.
But he was almost undone when she sighed and instinctively arched upward for more. Blood roared in his ears, and Eirik felt his control slipping fast at her involuntary response.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Oh?”
“It was ne’er like this with Steven.”
Steven! Mention of his hated enemy drew Eirik jarringly back to his present dilemma. Could he risk making love to Eadyth and possibly planting his seed in her womb when there was even the remotest possibility that her charade these past few sennights connected somehow with Steven of Gravely? Nay, he decided, forcing himself to ignore the pulsing hardness between his thighs and the churning of his blood which ached for the satisfaction that only her body could provide. With determination, he rolled over to his side of the bed.
“Wha… what?” Eadyth asked.
Eirik yawned loudly and tried to appear unaffected as he lied, “I find I am not really up to all this bed sport tonight. Mayhap another night.” Then he turned his back to her and pretended to fall asleep.
For once, he had stunned his shrewish wife speechless. She probably thought her age and uncomeliness repelled him. Hah! If he were any more attracted, the bed might burst aflame. Smiling, he considered, then discarded, the notion of relieving himself with his own hands to ease the ache of his powerful erection. He had given Eadyth enough shocks for one day.
Eadyth lay on her back, frozen in the same position for a good long while, stunned by Eirik’s rebuff. Oh, it was humiliating beyond belief. Finally she had yielded to a man’s lustful advances, and he had found her… deficient.