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J ames settled back on his haunches and gazed at her as she propped herself up on her elbows. Gods, her breasts! He needed to stop staring but, oh gods, the way they bobbed and jiggled. He wanted to hold them while they did that. He would wager it felt extraordinary.

Gunnilde’s expectant gaze drew him out of his reverie. Show me how you do it, James . She meant how he pleasured himself, he realized in sudden panic. “I can’t,” he admitted, blowing out a shaky breath. “If you were to touch me like that right now, I would burst.”

Her eyes widened. Was that too frank? Gods, even the sight of her in this moment was enough to set him over the edge. He gave his head a quick shake. “I’m way too close.”

“To your pinnacle?” Gunnilde enquired, glancing down at his manhood which was spilling out of his braies in a frankly indecent manner.

It looked swollen and angry, so engorged was it.

James was embarrassed she should have to see him like this.

His aroused state was hardly pretty, as hers was.

It must be jarring and rather off-putting.

Mayhap he should draw a blanket round his waist to cover himself?

“I would not mind,” she said frankly. “When you say burst...?” she started to query but then catching sight of the look on his face, she bit her lip, curling her fingers into her palms as though curbing an impulse to pet him.

An astonishing notion occurred to him, that Gunnilde might actually want to touch him there.

It could not be true, he told himself, feeling light-headed.

She could not voluntarily want to touch him right now.

To pet it. His mouth turned dry. It had to be wishful thinking on his behalf.

It was the only explanation. “It’s very impressive, isn’t it?

” she said in a hushed whisper. There could be no mistaking the direction of her gaze.

James shut his eyes for an instant to draw strength. He might have known she would be encouraging. His cock throbbed so proudly, it felt like the damn thing had its own heartbeat by this point. His head swam. “You think so?” he asked in a choked voice.

“Oh yes,” she agreed admiringly. “It’s ever so big and has such ruddy coloring.”

Was it possible to pass out from an abundance of lust? If so, he felt perilously close to it.

“Well, if you do not wish me to touch you...then”—she gave a small cough—“perhaps you would like to...to...” She seemed to cast about for the right phrasing. “Have a try at consummating our marriage?” she suggested politely.

“ If I would like to...?” he repeated numbly. Consummating our marriage seemed like such a cold way to describe what he wanted to do with her. He felt like he was burning up with desire for her from the inside out.

Seeing the question in her eyes, he swallowed down his torturous thoughts and nodded his head. “Yes,” he groaned. “ Gods yes, I want to. If you...?”

She nodded and lay back down. “You need to take off your braies,” she reminded him as he started to awkwardly clamber back up over her.

“Oh.” He froze and then struggled to get the damn things off. Gunnilde giggled at his ridiculous haste and muttered curses. Strange to say, her mirth did soothe him a little. Once divested of the plaguey things, he flung them over the edge of the bed.

“Come here, James,” she said, opening her arms.

His scramble to do so was inelegant. “Sorry,” he groaned as he tried to settle between her legs in a respectful fashion, something very hard to do with his inflamed appendage jutting out toward her with no manners whatsoever.

“I don’t mind,” she answered, half reaching for him before remembering. “Does it hurt?” she whispered.

Small wonder with all his wincing and groaning, he thought. “Not really,” he said. “If there is pain of sorts, then it is merely the pain of anticipated pleasure.”

“Anticipated pleasure,” she repeated, nodding slowly. “I have that too.”

“You do?” he croaked, meeting her gaze squarely. “Only they do say...”

“That the first time is not good for women,” she finished, “but it has already been good for me. Do not worry. Come and kiss me, James.”

He did so, trembling all the while. Gunnilde’s hands smoothed over his back, stroking and patting him there as though to reassure him.

Breaking the kiss, he asked, “Can I touch you?” She nodded but made an exclamation of surprise when he cupped her mound. “Is this not...?”

“Yes, of course it is,” she said hurriedly.

He hesitated. “Only you looked a little startled.”

“It’s just...I imagined you would touch me somewhere else.” She gave an apologetic laugh in answer to his look of query. “You do seem quite, well, fond of my breasts.”

“Yes,” he admitted on a shaky breath, “I am, but I need to, er, well...introduce my worm to your rose,” he said, cringing inwardly at the metaphor. It hadn’t sounded wonderful when Shadbolt had used it. It sounded even worse now.

Fortunately, Gunnilde was more than equal to the situation.

She set about adjusting her position beneath him, sticking out her knee to make things easier for him.

“Right, well...” She glanced down her body to where his manhood lay pressing into her belly.

James saw just a trace of trepidation in her eyes before she hid it from him. “I am ready.”

James hesitated. “May I...?”

“Please do,” she answered politely. He slipped two fingers into her pretty quim.

She was still deliciously wet and slippery, and he needed to be sure he knew what the hells he was doing.

With the utmost care he traced her folds, making her out.

“Tell me to stop if you need me to,” he said gruffly, then sank his fingers slowly, so slowly into her tight, deep warmth .

Oh my gods . He bit back a groan. Gunnilde’s eyes grew wide again, and James stared into their cornflower-blue depths. Her faint gasp recalled him to the situation at hand. “Is this...?”

“It’s not uncomfortable,” she assured him quickly.

“Good.” His voice was gruff. “This is going to feel so good for me, Gunnilde. I only wish...”

“I’m glad,” she interrupted him warmly. “I want you to feel good, James. You deserve to.” She smiled at him, and James felt dazed. She was so fucking pretty and kind and, well, remarkable really. It could not just be him that saw it, surely? It shone from her, like a sort of inner radiance.

He withdrew his fingers and aligned their bodies.

As he started to push inside, he watched her face carefully all the while.

Gunnilde’s expression wavered a couple of times and she tightened her grip on his upper arm at one point with a sharply indrawn breath but otherwise showed no sign of pain.

He went slowly, almost unbearably so, but soon enough found himself fully sheathed, their bodies intimately joined.

He let out a long exhale as the clamoring thoughts in his head shut down, the wheels stopped turning, and time stood still. He was not sure how long he remained like that, unwilling to move, reveling in the sheer intimacy of their connection. Gunnilde’s eyelids fluttered. “James?” she whispered.

His hips surged forward, as though he had been waiting for her say-so.

Gunnilde’s gasp spurred him on even further, like the flick of a whip.

He thrust his hips, groaning at the sensation of her all around him, gripping him so tight.

Her arms about his back, her knees pressing into his sides, and her sweet, tight cunny.

He just could not get enough of her, her scent in his nostrils, her hair in his fist, her body beneath him, all of it.

Lowering his face to her neck, he buried it there, luxuriating in her soft cool skin as his body burned with a driving need that overset everything he had ever known about himself, or thought he had known.

He was not cold, aloof, or unaffectionate. Most astonishing of all, he realized what his pounding heart denoted. Not just the fact he was physically exerting himself in a most unaccustomed way right now, a most unaccustomed and pleasurable way.

No, he was in love. With his own wife, no less. He lifted his head to look at her, to really look at her as his breaking point hurtled closer. Gunnilde was watching him, a look on her face that he had not seen there before. He was not sure what it denoted, only that he had put it there.

His chest burned. “Gunnilde—” he gasped but he had left it too late for speech, and without more ado, he tipped over the edge and came so hard it stole the breath from his lungs, and the vision from his eyes.

Her beautiful face shimmered and swam before him and James blacked out from the sheer overwhelming pleasure of it all.