The Consummation (Unexpected Circumstances #3) Page 3

  I knew what he meant when he said “spent some time,” and I wondered just how much time he had spent and with how many. Did I really want to know such a thing? I did not, but when I considered I would travel with him to tournaments, I thought maybe I should know. What if I met with someone else—someone like Lady Kimberly—and I didn’t know if Branford was “acquainted” with her or not? I could be put into a position where I would embarrass him again, and I didn’t want that to happen.

  “How many, um…I mean, how many women…or who…” I stammered, blushed, and wondered if there was any way to get the words back into my mouth.

  “How many women have I bedded?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I suddenly did not want the answer, potential embarrassment or not.

  “Nine,” he said bluntly.

  “Nine?” I gasped.

  “Are you shocked it is that high or that low?”

  “Low,” I said without thinking and then covered my mouth with my hand. Branford laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in the sound. “Are they all in the court here?”

  “No.” Branford’s eyes grew dark, and he shifted on the blanket where he sat. “You already know at least one who does not live in Silverhelm.”

  “Oh, yes.” I had forgotten about Princess Whitney.

  Branford let out a long, slow breath and rubbed his fingers into his eyes for a moment.

  “Kimberly and Nelle are the only women in Silverhelm I have…indulged,” Branford said, “and I never took either of them to my own bed. You are the only woman who has ever been there. All of the others I have met and entertained either before or after tournaments in other kingdoms around the realm.”

  “Were they all princesses?” I asked. I felt my curiosity was approaching morbidity, but I wanted to know even though I didn’t want to know.

  “All but one, yes.”

  “Who was she? Where was she from?”

  “The daughter of a duke,” Branford said, his words clipped. “Up north somewhere—Seacrest, maybe? Her name was Bridgett, if you must know. Really, Alexandra, what difference does it make?”

  “If I’m going to travel with you, I would rather not have any surprises.”

  Branford stared at me a moment, and his eyes darkened. I felt my shoulders tighten, and I hoped I had not offended him. He looked away from me and off into the trees near where Romero grazed.

  “You make a valid point,” Branford finally conceded. “Would it be all right if I just warn you before we get to a particular kingdom? My guess is most of them have been married off by now anyway.”

  “How could they be?” I asked.

  “How could they be what?”

  “Married,” I said. “If you…well…if they are not virgins…”

  “Oh, Alexandra.” Branford sighed. He reached over and took my hand and then brought it to his lips. He kissed my fingers and then held my hand in both of his. “Most men are not virgins on their wedding night, and just who do you think is cavorting with them? Yes, if it’s found out a woman isn’t a virgin, then the husband could annul the marriage because any children could have their heritage questioned. It’s also a wonderful excuse not to marry someone you didn’t want to marry in the first place, but it happens all the time. Usually it requires nothing more than an adjustment to the dowry and a waiting period.”

  For what seemed to be the tenth time that day, I was shocked. Always, I remembered hearing that a girl was practically useless as a wife if she had already been bedded. How many times had the nobles in Edgar’s kingdom told us as much? Edith and Shelly were always told they had to do their very best at their work, for if they did not, there wasn’t a man in the kingdom who would have them. Hadley and I were also informed that we would be given to a man if we did not do exactly as we were told, and therefore we would be ruined for any potential suitor.

  But now, to hear Branford say that it was not only acceptable for nobles but common? I had no idea what to even think. So many of the things he said simply did not seem to fit everything I had always been told.

  “But everyone always said…”

  “They say that to try to keep commoner women from being bedded too soon,” Branford said. “If she was to be with child, and there was no husband to care for her, she would end up either the responsibility of the castle or begging in the streets. For nobles, it’s simply an embarrassment.”

  Branford shifted slightly and looked off into the trees again, still pulling at bits of clover on the ground. He appeared to be deep in thought, so I stayed quiet and listened to the sounds of the chirping birds and the light breeze through the trees until he spoke again.

  “I have one night to make up for,” Branford said softly. He reached out, and his fingers trailed down the sleeve of my dress until he touched the skin on the back of my hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I promised you three nights until I made you my wife in the final sense of the word,” he said, clarifying. “That should be tonight, but since I am a cad and an idiot, I messed up one of them. If I could make up for it now…well, I could stay on schedule.”

  “Now?” I repeated. I was suddenly quite aware of the openness of the meadow. I felt very exposed as I looked around, as if someone might have appeared from the woods since I last looked up.

  “We don’t have to, Alexandra,” Branford said. He traced over the edge of my jaw. “I have to admit I’m pressing because I want to know if I have even begun to make up for my behavior toward you. I never know what’s happening in your head, and it drives me near to insanity.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “What do I mean? For the love of God, Alexandra, you will be the death of me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I dropped my gaze to the ground. “I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

  Branford sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head. He rubbed his eyelids with his fingers then swallowed hard and looked straight at me. He pulled both of my hands into his and shifted so he was facing me straight on instead of sitting beside me.

  “Please,” Branford whispered. “Will you lie down with me? Right here on the blanket? I want to see your skin in the sunlight, and I want to touch you again. I want you to touch me again. Please, Alexandra.”

  I looked at my hands clasped in Branford’s grip, up to the horse at the edge of the meadow, and then to the trees around us. Of course, there was no one there. Though I felt like I was being watched, I knew it was only my own uneasiness. Branford was asking me to shed my clothing for him—out here, in the open, where someone could certainly stumble upon us, however unlikely. I remembered what he said about wanting me in the garden at the castle and even on the throne. My skin began to tingle, and that strange, throbbing feeling made its presence known at the apex of my thighs, reminding me of the incredible, blissful feelings he had brought forth with his fingers on my flesh. In my mind, I heard a small, previously unheard voice peep out and say “outside be damned.” I wanted to feel like that again.

  And that is when I first knew how much I wanted his touch.

  Chapter 2—Slowly Explore

  “Please.” Branford’s warm breath danced over my lips. “Please, let me touch you.”

  “Yes,” I finally responded when my head cleared. His kisses were leaving me without enough breath to speak even when his lips moved from my mouth to the hollow of my throat.

  He placed his hands on my hips and pulled me close to his body. I had to rise up on my knees, my skirts trapped beneath my legs as he pulled me to meet him eye to eye. He kissed at my throat, down the skin at the base of my ear, and across my jaw.

  I closed my eyes to the bright sunlight and let my hands coil into his hair, holding his lips to my skin and trying not to think about how he was pulling at the ties of my dress and how I would soon be exposed to him. Opening my eyes, I marveled at how the light caught the strands of his hair, shining like bright shards of gleaming metal. I fanned out my fingers, twirling a lock of the s
parkling hair in my hand.

  “I desire you so much,” he mumbled into the skin at the base of my neck. “I have never…never wanted a woman this badly.”

  His words both thrilled and terrified me, for there was a part of me that was glad to have him say such things—to know he wanted me as a husband was supposed to want his wife—but there was still another that remembered how a man’s lust could overcome him. He may do something he would not have done had he been in his right mind.

  Still, my skin tingled beneath his touch, and I told myself he would not hurt me—Branford had promised he wouldn’t—as he began to unbutton his jacket. He only got through the first couple of buttons before he was kissing me again while his hands trailed down my sides. They came around to my stomach and then made their way back up to the ties of my bodice. I offered no protest while he undressed me. As he exposed my skin, Branford stopped for a moment and turned to me sharply.

  “You are mine,” Branford said sternly as his hands captured my face. His eyes bore into me, his look so intense I could not speak at first. He looked angry, frightened, and elated all at once. “Only mine—ever.”

  “Yours,” I finally said quietly, and his lips crashed back to mine. With an open mouth, he claimed first my lips, then my tongue, then my chin and my throat. I kept my grip on his hair as he worked at the ties of my dress. He was having trouble with the laces and growled at the knots as he pulled at them. When they loosened, he dropped his head to my chest, and I could feel his warm breath as he kissed at the top of my breasts.

  “So beautiful.” His words touched my bare skin just before he tilted his head to look up at me with half-closed eyes. “I want to see you…all of you.”

  I could only nod dumbly as his hands pushed slowly, softly, and the sleeves of the dress fell away from my arms, leaving me bare from my head to my waist. I could hear my husband’s rapid breaths as his dark eyes—somehow untouched by the afternoon light—gazed from my shoulders to my breasts, his mouth open just enough to drag his tongue over his bottom lip. He released my arms and leaned back on his heels, unbuttoning the rest of his jacket and tossing it off to the side, near my riding cloak. His gaze met mine again, and he kept it focused on me as he loosened the waist of his pants and pulled his shirt up over his head.

  Even when I had my hands on his chest and his back to wash him, it had been by the dim light of the fire and candles—never in the sunshine. Now I could see him quite clearly, and those wonderful lines decorated his chest and stomach with the outline of each and every muscle. Indeed, his skin was so beautiful, so radiant, he seemed to shimmer in the sun’s beams.

  I heard Branford’s slight chuckle and realized I was staring at him with my mouth open. I closed it quickly, feeling the heat in my cheeks as Branford took my hands in his and placed my palms on his bare skin.

  “Touch me, Alexandra,” he said. “Do not hold back. Touch me any way you wish.”

  I nodded, my lower lip firmly snared by my teeth, and ran the palms of my hands from his chest up to his shoulders. His skin was smooth, with just a few wisps of dark hair in the center of his chest and down around his stomach. I ran my fingers along the curve of his upper arms, and the large muscle there flexed as I stroked it. I reached his forearms and hands and then lay my palms flat against his stomach. The lines of muscles there tightened as I touched them, and I shivered.

  “Tell me if you are cold,” Branford said. “The sun is warm, but I want to know if you are chilled.”

  “I’m not cold,” I assured him, though I wondered if I should have been. The sun was high and its light was warm, but it was still early in the spring.

  “Tell me if you get cold,” Branford said, emphasizing his words. I glanced at his eyes, but he wasn’t looking at my face. He watched his own hands as they ran up my arms and then down again.

  “I will.”

  Branford’s response was only a hum. He traced a single finger over the tip of my breast, smiling slightly as it contracted at his touch, then leaned back and swiftly removed his boots and belt.

  “Lie back,” he said softly. He brought his lips to my forehead and kissed me once as his hands put light pressure on my shoulders. I closed my eyes and bent to his will, dropping my head to the blanket as Branford’s fingers slowly moved from my shoulder, across my collarbone, and to my breast. Again, a single fingertip traced around the nipple slowly, and I could feel it harden even more under his touch.

  “Do you like that?” Branford whispered, his words breathy. “Do you know how lovely it is when your body responds to me this way?”

  I whimpered, unable to offer him a lucid reply. He did not seem to mind, for his mouth was turned up in a smile when I opened my eyes to look at him. He moved his hand to my other breast, giving it the same attention until both nipples pointed toward the cloudless sky. As my breaths began to come faster, my chest rose and appeared to offer my breasts to him. Branford seemed to agree and leaned over me to take one of them in his mouth, sucking gently as his palm slowly lifted and massaged the other.

  “You feel so good in my hands,” Branford said, running his lips over my nipple as he spoke. His open palms ran down my sides, and in his fingers, he gathered the skirts at my waist. “I want more of you, my wife.”

  When he looked up at me, I tried to take a deep breath. It was difficult; the intensity of his look and the movements of his hands all seemed to gather at that single point between my legs—the place where he was threatening to explore. He left a trail of kisses from the spot between my breasts down a line to my stomach. Branford rose up on his knees, gripped the edge of my skirts and looked at me, his eyes a silent question. I could only respond by nodding my head, and he slowly pulled the dress down my legs and off completely.

  I shivered though the sun was warm on my skin. I shivered because my husband was staring down at my naked body for the first time, his eyes dark and smoldering. I shivered because he was licking his lips, and I was fairly certain he was also holding his breath. Was I acceptable? It had been my fear since the wedding night that he may, in the end, find me lacking. His words to Sir Parnell in the carriage came back to me. He could dismiss me if I wasn’t good enough, and here I was, exposed completely to his eyes in the bright sunlight of midday. I looked away from him.

  “Stop,” Branford said quietly. I turned back to him, and I could feel the indentation of my teeth in my bottom lip as I bit down.

  “Stop?”

  “Stop thinking whatever it is you are thinking,” Branford said. “You are incredible to behold. You are not inadequate or whatever word it was you used before.”

  It was the word I had used. I couldn’t help but think of the princesses he had known and the other noblewomen who would have been, undoubtedly, better suited for his wife. They already knew all these things that I did not, and many of them had not been afraid of his touch in the past. I felt his hand on my cheek, and he turned my head to face him before he took my bottom lip away from my teeth and sucked it gently into his mouth.

  “You are beautiful,” he said. He moved his hands from my head down my shoulders, over my arms, and down to my bare waist. For a moment, he closed his eyes and seemed to be battling something inside of himself. Using his thumbs, he danced over my skin, making small circles across my flesh. When his eyes opened again, he took a long, deep breath before speaking. “So soft…so innocent…”

  He moved one of his hands from my waist to my stomach, stopped there for a brief second, and then slowly dropped lower. I gasped as his hand reached the small mound of hair that covered my skin there, and his fingers threaded through it. They explored, they searched, and they discovered while I panted and gripped his shoulders, my eyes staring wide at the sky above.

  “Do you feel it here?” he asked quietly. He moved lower, slowly moving between my legs and coming back covered in moisture. I gasped. “Do you feel how warm you are against my hand? How wet you are for me?”

  A small noise escaped my lips as his fingers reached fo
r my most intimate spot. He circled with his moistened finger, dipped low, and then came back up to circle again.

  “You are so wet for me, Alexandra. Do you feel it? Do you understand? This is how I know your body wants me. This is how I know you want to feel me inside of you even if you don’t know it yet.”

  The tip of his finger circled at the apex of my folds, just below the mound of hair, spreading the moisture around me and then going back for more. I heard a low moan, and I couldn’t tell for sure if it had come from his mouth or my own.

  Branford pressed his lips back to my throat, sucking on my skin and licking at my neck. I was sure he could feel my heart beating rapidly under his touch. With one hand, he cupped my breast while the other continued to slide up and down between my legs. My thighs clenched, and I felt the cloth of Branford’s trousers as he placed one of his legs between mine. He curled his knee to wrap his ankle around my calf and dragged my legs apart in one fluid movement. I gasped again as his fingers delved lower, sinking between the folds of flesh now spread out before him, fully uncovered to his touch.

  I closed my eyes tightly and reached for him. I grabbed at his back and shoulders as I fought with myself to stay grounded. My heart was beating too fast—my lungs working too hard to bring air into my body. Branford’s upwardly curled lips danced over the skin of my neck, shoulders, and chest as I held on to him. I felt as though my whole body was shaking. The sheer magnitude of feelings brought out of me at the touch of his mouth, tongue, and hands was just too much for me to bear. My reaction was like it had been last night, when his hands had touched me there through the cloth of my nightdress, only multiplied.

  The tip of his finger was suddenly there—right at the very entrance to my body—nestled between my legs in warm, wet heat. I cried out, and Branford’s mouth was against my ear, whispering that he would not ever, ever hurt me. As his words warmed my ear with his heated breath, his finger did as his words promised, and slowly pushed inside of me as his thumb began its relentless circling at the top of my folds.