Page 25

Chapter

Twenty-Five

H e was going to make this night one Avelina would never forget.

All eve Niall watched her, more pleased by his bride than he ever thought to be since matrimony was not something he enjoyed thinking about.

Though his parents had a happy marriage, theirs was not a love match.

Not, at least, when they’d wed, though Niall believed his parents had come to love one another.

But ‘twas never a marriage of passion, of that he was certain. They were more like friends. Compatible. Happy. The kind of marriage that was common among nobles, but not one Niall particularly looked forward to having.

His own marriage?

Complicated for very different reasons. But that he desired his wife? Of that, there was no doubt. He’d dismissed the maid that attempted to follow them to their chamber, so instead Niall took the girl’s duties. As soon as he closed the door behind her, he did not waste a moment.

“Turn around,” he demanded.

Lina gave him a brief glance before doing so.

He could not read her look but smiled to himself thinking she likely bristled at the command. His wife was fiercely independent. A bow-wielding maiden who he had no doubt would use her skills if such an occasion warranted it.

But here, in their bedchamber?

“I will remove every piece of fabric from your body,” he said, undoing the ties at her back.

“Before I lick everything from your neck to your nipples to the very core of you, Lina, I would spin you on the bed, facing down, and continue to lick until you are writhing beneath me. Only when you beg me, when you call out my name so loud that guests remaining in the hall can hear you, will I enter you, giving you all of me. Do you understand?” he asked, spinning her back around.

Eyes wide, Lina watched as he pulled the shoulders of her gown off on each side. Tugging her arms from their sleeves, with her aid, Niall did exactly as he promised. As the gown fell to the floor, he kissed Lina’s bare shoulders, the shift she wore blessedly sleeveless.

Bending down, he pulled the gown from under her and stayed close to the floor. Then, one by one, he removed each boot, kissing a trail up under her shift to the wedding garter and straps he’d seen earlier.

“Every bit of clothing,” he said, taking it all off piece by piece.

By now Lina was tugging on his plaid, and not wanting her to feel alone in her nakedness, Niall helped his wife remove first the plaid, then linen shirt and boots until they both had nothing to recommend them but their bodies and his promise to her.

“Every bit of you,” he promised again, backing Lina up until her legs touched the bed.

Lifting her up, he joined Lina on the bed but refused to let her tug him onto her.

“A promise is a promise,” he said, trying to determine where to start.

Spreading her legs apart, Niall decided to begin with the insides of her ankles.

And then her calves. He kissed the insides of her knees, and inner thigh all the way up until her fingers threaded through his hair.

“Oh no,” he said, as she tried to guide him to her. “Not yet.”

Across her stomach and then down her other leg, by the time Niall made his way back up to her breasts, Lina was breathing heavily. Begging him for more.

“Husband,” she said, clearly liking the moniker.

Oddly, he did too.

“Mmm,” was his only response as he covered her body with his, making his way up her neck toward her mouth. By the time his lips found hers, Lina welcomed him hungrily. Her tongue clashed with his own as Niall’s head cocked to the side to give him better access.

Mid-kiss, he reached down between them, pushing her legs open even wider, and guided himself inside. Once fully buried in his wife, Niall began to move. At first, he circled his hips slowly. In and out, he kissed her to the same rhythm of his cock, which was not fully to the hilt inside her.

Reaching between them, he used his thumb to guide her toward release, never breaking the kiss.

Her moans against his lips were nearly too much, but he’d not release early.

His wife would know pleasure first, and to that end, his thumb moved more quickly.

His thrusts became harder and deeper, their pace now almost frantic.

As he thought of her standing beside him at the church, of Lina’s uninhibited response to him in the garden, her vulnerability speaking to her brother, the brush of her fingers on their shared trencher. . .

He broke the kiss to look at her.

“You are mine, Avelina,” he said with a possessiveness Niall had never known before. “Mine.”

She struggled to catch a breath.

“Say it,” he demanded. “You are mine.”

“I’m yours,” she said. “I am so very yours, Niall. Can you feel it in my response to you?” she asked, circling her hips. Squeezing him to her.

“I can,” he said. “Mine,” Niall repeated one last time adding, “and I am yours.”

At that his wife found release, her nails raking his shoulders, her wetness evident all over his cock. He had no reason to hang on any longer. With a roar of pleasure, he spilled his seed deep within her.

Surely he was no longer among the living.

And yet, some time later, Niall became aware that he was, indeed, lying atop his wife, likely crushing her. Pulling out and falling to her side, he laid there, eyes closed for a moment, wondering what in the goddamn name of the saints had just happened.

He had never been overtaken before with such a possessiveness.

Niall turned his head toward her. Sure enough, Lina was staring at him.

She smiled.

“I am yours,” she repeated, confirming she’d not taken offense to his demands.

“Aye,” he said. “You are mine.” He scooped her into his arms. “I believe I will enjoy having a wife,” he said as she tucked her head in his neck.

“And I, a husband.”

At that moment, their potential troubles, of which there were many, fell away. All was right, and good. Nothing, it seemed, could come between them. Could break this bond they shared almost from the start.

Niall closed his eyes.

Nothing will come between us.

Nothing.