The Marriage Bed (27 page)

Yes, she remembered this, the hot sweetness of him inside her. When the head of his penis touched her deep within, at that exquisite place even more pleasurable than the one he had tasted moments ago, she remembered that, too, and she cried out.
"Yes,
John
, yes!"

Frantic with longing for that last and best explosion, she matched his hard thrusts with her own, and her pleading words all began running together in a panting, disjointed series of syllables.
"Faster-oh-oh-please-oh-please-yes-oh-yes-oh-please!"

Weight on his forearms, he obeyed her frantic command, pushing hard and quick, over and over, until he sent her to climax again, his shoulders and arms shaking with the strain of holding back his own.

"Come,
John
, come," she pleaded, "take it, take it." When he came fully into her again, she squeezed his buttocks hard and all her inner muscles clenched in tight convulsions around his shaft.

He gave a hoarse cry smothered against her hair and slid his arms beneath her, crushing her against him as if he couldn't get her close enough, thrusting as deep as he could. He shuddered violently as his own pleasure was at last unleashed, and his body went rigid as the warmth of his climax poured from him into her.

He collapsed on top of her, breathing hard against the pillow. His hand came up to stroke her cheek. "Viola," he groaned.
"Oh, God, Viola."
He sucked in deep breaths of air, pressing kisses against her hair and her ear and her temple. "Meant it," he told her in a hoarse, fierce whisper.
"Meant every damn word."

She smiled, caressing his back, running her fin-
gers
over the strong, lean lines of muscle and sinew, relishing the familiar, heavy weight of her husband's body.
John
, she thought, holding him tight and deep within her,
welcome home
.

He woke at the sound of her voice, and it was only then that he realized he had fallen asleep. He inhaled the scent of violets, and it aroused him in an instant, bringing him fully awake as he remembered the passionate lovemaking of a short time ago. His arms tightened around her and he pressed closer to her, his chest against the soft, smooth skin of her back. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her bare shoulder.
"Hmm?"

"It's dinnertime." Viola stirred in his hold. "I'm hungry."

"So am I," he said with feeling, trailing one hand along her naked hip.

She began to laugh and pushed his hand away.
"
For food
.
I want my dinner."

"Can't we frolic first?" He spread one hand across her tummy, cupped her breast with the other. "Then have food?"

"Frolic requires sustenance," she pointed out, but even as she said it, she began to yield, arching her body against his, her hips pressing his groin.

Gently, he nipped her shoulder and toyed with her breast. He brushed his fingers along her tummy, feeling her muscles quiver at the light touch. "Still ticklish, I see."

"
John
!" She wriggled in his hold, laughing.

He slid his hand between her legs. When he did, her laughter changed to a moan of pure pleasure.

She was already moist, and he began to caress her.
"Food or frolic?
Which do you want first?"

"Food."

"Really?"
He stroked her slowly, gently, teasing. "I think you want this more. T
know
I do."

He could see her profile in the dim light of late afternoon that peeped between a
gap
in the draperies. He saw her bite her lip, shake her head. "Uh-uh," she denied, even as she began to move in rhythm with the touch of his fingers.
"Food."

"Frolic first." He pushed the tip of his finger into her, then pulled back, spreading her moisture in light circles, then stroking again. "Come on, Viola," he coaxed. "Give in."

She shook her head again, panting now.

John
pushed his cock between her thighs, but he did not enter her. He groaned even as he continued to tease her. She began to shiver with each upward stroke of his fingers, and began to make the soft, whimpering sounds that told him she was close to climax.

"If you really want food," he went on, his own breath coming faster, "I could stop now, and we could go have dinner.
Hmm?
You want me to stop?"

"No, no. Don't stop,
John
. Don't stop."

"Sure?"

She nodded, frantic. "Sure."

"Want me more than food, do you?"

"Yes, yes," she gasped. "Yes."

He entered her, pushing deep into her from behind as he stroked her in front. She came almost at once, crying out as she tightened around him in the tiny convulsions of feminine bliss that sent him to climax as well.

Afterward, he caressed her hip as the muscles inside her slowly stopped clenching him and she was sated. Even then he did not move. He liked this, holding her this way, with himself deep within her. He always had.

"
John
?"

Her voice was almost plaintive.

"Hmm?"

"Now can we have dinner?"

He gave a shout of laughter and rolled onto his back. "I should hope so," he said in an injured voice. "If you keep demanding these strenuous demonstrations of my affection, you're going to have to feed me once in a while." She hit him with a pillow.

He looked up and caught her gaze. His brows drew together in puzzlement. "You are staring at me quite intently," he said, smiling. "Why?"

"I am trying to get used to seeing you in that chair."

John
took a sip of wine. "Is it a good sight, Viola?" he asked.
"Or not so good?"

He wasn't teasing. "Good," she admitted.
"Strange, but good.
Although," she added, her voice taking on a hint of mock severity, "you really need to appreciate the schedule of things here at
Enderby
and not come down so late to dinner."

"I am terribly sorry." He smiled, and she caught her breath. He could still make her heart race when he smiled. "I was unavoidably detained."

"Dessert, my lord."
Hawthorne
placed a glass bowl in front of him, and
a footmen
did the same for her. Viola picked up her spoon and took a bite of trifle.

"Take it away."

John
's voice, the emotionless words, had her looking up. His face was as expressionless as his voice, and the very flatness of it was so startling, she set down her spoon. It was as if she were looking not at her husband's face, but at a mask of it.

Hawthorne
removed the dessert he had just placed on the table. "Would you like something else, my lord?"

"Just the port."

The butler stepped back and set
John
's dessert on the sideboard. He brought a flagon of port and a glass, poured out the wine, and once again withdrew.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he shifted uneasily in his chair. "I don't eat trifle," he said without looking at her.

"I had forgotten how much you dislike it."

"Odd, what?
Jam, sponge cake, custard. What is there about it to dislike? It must be that I have an absurd desire to be different from everyone else in
Britain
."

He smiled again, that brilliant, heart-stopping smile, but this time it did not reach his eyes. This was more than just dislike. There was something oddly painful in that smile that hurt her, too.
An emptiness
. Viola set her serviette beside her plate. "
Hawthorne
," she said, signaling the butler forward again. "Take mine away as well, please. I don't want it. And bring me a glass of
madeira
."

"You didn't have to do that,"
John
said as the servant stepped back with her uneaten dessert.

"I think I did. It bothers you to even look at it."

He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. She knew it bothered him a great deal. "Why?" she asked.

He turned his face away.

"Would it be so hard,
John
?" she asked.
"To tell me?"

When he still said nothing, she shoved aside her disappointment and rose to her feet. "The sun is setting," she said. "You always liked to walk at sunset. I may have forgotten about the trifle, but I remember that." She took her glass of
madeira
from where
Hawthorne
had just placed it on the table. "Shall we take our wine and go for a walk in the garden?"

He picked up his port and they went outside into the cool air of the May evening. By unspoken agreement they started down a graveled path flanked by herbaceous borders, toward the folly that overlooked the river. As they walked, she inhaled the sweet scent of stocks and half-opened roses, and memories rose up, bittersweet, of their courting days, when
John
would have her and her brother to dine here at
Enderby
, how he would try to hold her hand if Anthony wasn't looking. She was in residence here most of the year, but she hadn't walked this path since those days. Without
John
it hadn't been the same.

"Remember when you used to have dinner parties here?" she asked. "Before we were married?

We always took this walk afterward."

He reached for her hand, holding it fast when she tried to pull away. He laced their fingers together. "I remember, Viola."

They walked up the steps of the folly, a round, open structure of limestone columns, capped by a copper dome long ago turned to
verdigris
. They climbed over the three-foot stone wall at the back of the folly and sat down on it like they used to do. Hand in hand, they stared out over
Kew
Gardens
on the opposite side of the
Thames
and watched as the boats pulled into docks along the river, their work done for the day.

Neither of them spoke as twilight settled in. He did not seem inclined to talk. She didn't know why he found it so hard to reveal himself. She didn't understand what held him back.

But in her bed that night, in the hot sweet dark, there was nothing held back. There was nothing baffling about the way he touched her and kissed her.
The way he made love to her.
Viola
savored
it with all the hunger of the eight years she had been without him, but as much as he could pleasure her, it wasn't enough.

There were things that stood between them now as much as they ever had. Without love, what did she have to hold him? She was afraid that whatever she had, whatever she did, would never be enough to make him tell her why he didn't like tri-fie and why his boyhood was a nightmare. She was afraid that she would never find the key to his heart. Most of all, she was afraid he would never save all his smiles, all his kisses, all his caresses, and all his poetry for her and her alone.