Surrender My Love (30 page)

She seemed surprised by his appearance. “What do you here?”

“Is this not my room?”

“I have not noticed that it is.” The dryness in her tone grated, but the indifference that followed was much worse. “But if you wish to use it as such, I will, of course, sleep elsewhere.”

“Nay, you will sleep here as well.”

She thought about that for a moment, before her expression turned mulish. “Then you can make use of the floor this time. I have grown used to the bed.”

That brought a smile to his lips. She didn’t understand yet why he had come. He was pleased to explain. “And I have yet to try the bed. We will share it.”

He took a step toward the bed. She threw back the covers and jumped out the other side of it. “Just what do you mean by ‘share it’?” she demanded.

“You will sleep on one side, I will sleep on the other, and occasionally we will find ourselves in the center of it—together.”

She didn’t grasp his meaning immediately, but when she did, she gasped. “Nay, we will not!”

“You married me,” he reminded her.

“With an agreed bargain,” she reminded him back.

“That bargain has been satisfied in full.”

Another gasp. “My part has, but yours has not. You would break your word?”

He sighed in exasperation. Brazening was not so easy against such stubborn tenacity.

“Recall your own words, wench. Your demand was that I not touch you afterward. You did not say
forever
afterward. Afterward was only directly after the wedding and not a day more than that, yet have I given you much more than that. But no more.”

She was growing alarmed, and her voice rose accordingly. “You twist my words to suit yourself!”

“Nay, I merely interpreted them differently.”

“You do this for more revenge. Admit it!”

His voice turned soft, his expression sensual. “I do this because I want you, Erika, heart or no heart. We can at least have this between us.”

“You think making love will make things different between us? Do you forget
why
I am here?”

He was trying to, but she wasn’t letting him. He didn’t say that, though, didn’t answer her question at all. “Turgeis claims you are not happy.”

“Ah, now I see. ’Tis your exalted opinion that making love with you will make me happy.”

He grinned despite the derision in her tone. “It will not make you
un
happy, wench.”

She was afraid he was right, and that was the problem. She had been furious with him
all week for flaunting his leman beneath her nose. And now he expected her to forget about that, to lie down and play wife to his husband? Not likely.

She had spent each night imagining him with that slut Lida, and waiting each morn to be told to move out of his room so he could share it with another. That she hadn’t been displaced yet meant nothing. It could still happen. Or mayhap he thought to share the room with them both now.

She was seeing red before her thoughts had finished. “I am not interested, so go back to your other women.”

“I have known no other women since we wed.”

Since they had met
, would be more accurate, but that would have sounded too absurd coming from him, was absurd, especially as he had had ample opportunity. He just hadn’t taken it—because of her.

“I am to believe that,” she scoffed, “when every time I turn around, that black-haired wench is practically in your lap? Hah!”

Contempt now, and it had him flushing when he was not at fault. “I never slept with Lida. Ask her—nay, do not,” he amended. “She might lie. You will just have to take my word for it.”

“Hah!”

That second “Hah!” got him angry, enough to say, “As it happens, the other wenches are unavailable this eventide. ’Tis not a good time of the month for one, and the other is already taken for the night.”

“So abstain,” she raged at him. “Can you not go without for one damned night?”

He hadn’t meant to admit it, it just came out. “As I have gone without for every night since I met you, nay, I cannot go without for even one more night. I am your husband, like it or not. Tonight you will be my wife in every way. So get you in that bed, wench, to await me. Do
not
make me put you there.”

He had never taken a woman in anger and wasn’t going to start now. It was not in his nature to be aught but tender with a woman, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Erika. His temper had to cool first.

He sighed and moved to one of the two windows that flooded the room with light in the daytime. A stool was before one, and he rested his foot on it. Did she sit there often, pining for the life she had left behind?

The silence thickened behind him. She had not gotten into the bed.

After a while more, he said, “This can be a new beginning, do you let it.”

She didn’t answer him, but he did hear the bed creak under her weight. He turned around to see her sitting there watching him. And as he gazed at her, she lay back against the pillows. He sucked in a sharp breath. His heart began to pound to a new drum-roll. His body thickened and filled to the passions of the moment.

His step was hesitant as he approached the bed, fearful that he mistook her actions. Yet she waited; she didn’t move. But he was still nervous, never so nervous, not even with his
first woman so many eons ago. He knew not why this was so important, just knew that he didn’t want to frighten her with the feelings that were overwhelming him.

He should have extinguished the candle by the bedside, but he didn’t. He wanted to see as well as feel again the body that had consumed so many of his dreams. She was so lushly made, his wife. And as he joined her on the bed and gathered her into his arms, he could feel every curve against his own body and knew ecstasy.

For a while all he did was hold her to him. He was in a ravishing frame of mind, unique for him, but he had it under control, prayed to keep it so. He was afraid to speak; words had never been gentle between them. But without words, he knew not if she lay there resentful, in mere acquiescence, or because she did, in fact, want a new beginning. He could pretend it was the latter.

Erika didn’t know what to think when he just held her. He was allowing her too much time to reconsider. She shouldn’t have given in like this. It was crazy to hope for something better out of her marriage when there was so much bitterness behind them.

Yet his anger had reached her. If he hadn’t shouted at her, she wouldn’t have believed him. But she did believe him, and the long abstinence he had claimed made a world of difference to what she was feeling.

That “I want you” had affected her more strongly than she had realized. Her own anger
had masked it, kept it from taking over. But once her anger dissolved with his confession, she was helpless against those feelings.

She wanted him, too. It was that simple. She didn’t want him sharing his nights with another woman, she wanted him in her bed. As his wife, she had a right to have him there, a right to know his body, a right to know his passion, a right to bear his children. Sweet Freya, she wanted her rights, all of them.

There was nothing to reconsider.

He began so slowly, touching her, and so carefully, she barely felt it—at first. His hand moved along her side, her back, over her hip where he squeezed gently. He lifted and bent her leg against him so he could caress its entire length without moving his cheek from her breasts. He explored her feet, her ankles, behind her knees, which made her shiver. He rolled her on top of him so he had full access to her backside, which he kneaded, pressing her loins more firmly to his.

His hands moved into her hair, spreading it, smelling it. His fingers caressed her cheeks like the softest whisper, teased her lips, circled her ears, and skimmed over her neck, causing more shivers. No part of her escaped his notice—arms, shoulders, hands—and when he rolled her onto her back, her breasts knew full discovery, blossoming, filling, and bringing her first moan; all without removing their clothes, all without him kissing her.

But when she did know the first taste of his lips on hers, it was her undoing. The care
he had taken, the slow arousal of her senses, converged in a burst of fiery need that was met and surpassed. It was a kiss of ravishment, and she experienced both sides of the coin, taking as well as surrendering, tongues sensuously thrusting, kindling fires all along her senses. She didn’t want it to end, yet did. She wanted to know the rest, yet hated to relinquish any part of the now. He had disturbed her from the first, and now she knew why. Her body had known all along.

Her chainse came off in one swift tug. His clothes took longer, but she didn’t lose contact, was able to caress his body as it was bared. Touching him in certain places brought groans from him and he would stop to kiss her again. She didn’t mind this delay. Learning his body was a revelation. He was thick and hard, his muscles in prominent display. As he had been before his near starvation? She was sure of it, for his was a body perfect in every way.

When his manhood was revealed, so swollen with need, she felt a virgin’s fear. It didn’t show. The fear was there, but her own need was now greater.

He came to her again, this time with scorching heat wherever their bodies touched. She opened for him, but only his hand came to rest between her thighs. Gently, so gently she knew his touch there, soothing what he had caused to heat.

And then he drove her wild by starting over.

By the time he joined his body to hers, Erika was almost mindless with wanting him. There
was a moment’s pain, so minor it was come and gone before it was even noticed. But he noticed. She saw the surprise in his eyes, however brief. And he kissed her deeply, holding still the while, so that when he did finally begin to move in her, there was only pleasure drawn from each thrust.

Somehow it lasted forever, yet was too brief. And the pinnacle they reached was glorious, ecstasy flooding all senses, leaving awe in its wake.

For once, she didn’t mind that sensual smile of his. For once, she thought she might be wearing one of her own.

Chapter 39

T
HE HOUR WAS
late, yet Erika found it impossible to sleep. She never dreamed she could lie against her husband and be comfortable, let alone at ease, but she was both. A new beginning? It certainly felt like it.

Selig wasn’t sleeping either. He had an arm around her waist, holding her to him, and every so often his hand would move in a roaming caress. He hadn’t spoken. Neither had she. They both knew that to speak would shatter the pleasant mood they shared.

The last she had known, he had still hated her. He had said so. Did his wanting her change that? It was not a question she could face. But if he really wanted a new beginning, if that had not just been meaningless words on his part to gain her compliance, then there was one thing, at least, that she had to know. Yet she put off the asking of it, wanting to savor the pleasantness as long as she could. She waited, in fact, until it seemed he was about to fall asleep.

Then, hesitantly: “Would you really have staked me out in that stable?”

He sat up abruptly, running both hands through his hair in an aggrieved manner. “Thor’s teeth,” he complained. “If you have been lying there all this time pondering that, I think I will beat you.”

It was amazing, the difference their having shared passion made. Because of it, she didn’t take the threat seriously. She was even amused by his disgruntlement.

“What was I supposed to be thinking about?” she asked innocently.

He gave her a suspicious look before he turned to lean over her. “Shall I remind you?”

She put up a hand to hold him back. “Nay, that will not be necessary. And you will not avoid my question.”

He sighed. “I would not do that to any woman, even you.”

That was what she had hoped to hear, but it still sparked her temper to hear it. “Another trick?”

“Call it whatever you like, it worked to avoid a war. Yet I would still like to apologize to you for that, have wanted to since the words came out of my mouth. It was my anger—”

“Say no more, or I will perish from shock.”

He frowned at her. “Is that to imply you think me incapable of apologizing when warranted?”

“To me, aye.”

“To you I owe no other apologies.”

She hit her pillow and turned her back on him. He lay down and did likewise. She was
now simmering. So was he. So much for new beginnings.

When Erika came down to the hall the next morning, she was ready to do some apologizing herself. She had ruined what had been an incredibly beautiful experience last night; at least for her it had been. Her question could have waited for some other time. She had even gotten the answer she wanted, and still she had let her temper spoil things.

Did she prefer the hostility between them? So Selig must think. She wasn’t sure herself. She had let passion take over yesterday, let it disregard all that had passed between them and made it seem of little import. He had despised her, still might. He had wanted revenge against her and never really got it. Did she honestly think he could forget all that and what he had suffered because of her? For that matter, how was she to forget the chains, the humiliations, and the worst, being tricked into marriage?

For all she knew, he could have let his passion guide him last night just as she had, and now regretted having come to her. Still, she did owe him an apology, at least for last night. But as for a new beginning, she didn’t think it was possible. As had happened last night, the past would continue to resurface and get in the way of any progress made.

On the other hand, her marriage had now been consummated. She had been shown one of the benefits of marriage, and it was an extremely nice benefit. Which left her with a
new dilemma. Did she accept this unexpected benefit—the
only
one, as she saw it—and hope that children might come of it? She was not, after all, much different from most women, married to men for expediency and never really happy about it. Could she forget that she could have had much more from a marriage if she had not been forced into this one?