Wizards Daughter

He pressed his forehead against hers. "Your maidenhead," he managed to whisper against her hot skin, "I had to get through your maidenhead. I swear it will never hurt again. Lie still, get used to me. Let your muscles relax. No, don't curse me, you'll just make me laugh. Breathe deeply. Feel me in you, Rosalind. All right?"

Relax? With that man part deep inside her? How could that be possible? Curses bubbled up, but she held them in. She leaned up and bit his earlobe. Not at all loving or gentle, but that was all right, it steadied him. He whispered against her temple, "I won't move, I promise. Please, try to relax."

She bit him again.

Not such a violent bite this time. He kissed her cheek, the tip of her nose. He was a man in pain, a man whose muscles would lock for all eternity if he didn't move, and quickly.

"Surely this is the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do. Surely this makes me a very fine man indeed. Lie still, that's right, just lie still."

How could his voice sound so soothing, so gentle, when he'd skewered her? Men came into women, she wasn't stupid, but still, she'd simply never imagined how it would actually work. She could feel him, and wasn't that the oddest thing, hard and smooth and he was pulsing. How could that be?

He was heavy on top of her, and hot and sweaty. He didn't move. Nor did she.

She began to ease, began to let herself feel the length of him, the heat of him, and how very alive he felt. It was the small clenching of muscles deep inside her that sent him over the edge.

"Rosalind." His brain blurred, every feeling centered on her, driving into her-and her womb, oh, merciful heavens, her womb-he yelled his release.

He collapsed on top of her, feeling the slick of her sweat. Blessed be, he was still alive and of this earth, and she was holding him, her arms tight around his back.

Rosalind said against his shoulder, "I can feel you inside me. It is a very strange thing, Nicholas."

He'd never understood how women could find the breath and brain to speak after having sex. No, this wasn't simple sex, this was the hurtling of self into chaos, and exploding, so many vivid colors filling his brain. This was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him.

He nuzzled her neck. "I can feel you too. You're soft now, Rosalind, and wet from my seed and wet from you. Did I yell louder than you did?"

She leaned her head up and bit his shoulder, then licked where she'd bitten. Now that was a lovely bite and so he pushed a little, felt her tighten, and stopped. She said, her eyes as bemused as her voice, "I did yell, didn't I? I couldn't help it, it just came bursting out of my mouth. It was probably close either way. I love the taste of you, Nicholas." And she bit and licked him yet again. "And the way you made me feel-your mouth on me-it is something I could not have imagined."

Her words settled deep inside him where he usually didn't spend much time, deep harrowing feelings, powerful feelings that pooled into soul-deep pleasure, filling all the empty corners of him. He managed to bring himself up on his elbows. He wanted to say something clever, something with a touch of world-wit to it, but instead, he stared down at her face, her cheeks flushed in the candlelight, her hair stark red against the white pillow, and those eyes of hers, the blue so deep, so fathomless. No, no, he was fast becoming a moron. A woman's eyes weren't fathomless. He swallowed. He realized in that instant that this woman was his. She was his wife until he died. If her eyes were fathomless, so be it. He felt her muscles squeezing him, then easing. A man could happily expire.

She smiled up at him. "You're sweating, Nicholas."

"So are you."

She looked thoughtful. "Do you know I've never liked sweating before, but now?" She gave him a dazzling smile. "Now, who cares? That was wonderful, really, until you had to shove yourself inside me."

"My coming inside you, that was your reward, your bonus for having a very good wife and letting me love you with my mouth."

"Oh, dear." She pressed her face into his shoulder.

"Rosalind, I am inside of you, my naked self is pressed against your naked self. There is no reason for you to be embarrassed, ever again."

She looked at him. "Some reward. It hurt."

"I know, but do you hurt now?"

"Well, no, not really. But you are very big, Nicholas, and I'm not. Surely the men in all those pictures, as bountifully as they were portrayed, they still aren't built like you are."

I'm deformed?

"Still, to be fair, despite your size, it wasn't really so very bad after a while." She leaned up and kissed him, a shy kiss, on his mouth. And fatigue suddenly fled. He wanted to make love to her all over again, right this instant, but he didn't move. It was difficult being sensitive to the fact that she must be sore. He nibbled on her chin, whispered in her mouth, "Thank you for explaining everything so clearly to me."

"I hope your grandfather isn't standing in the corner watching us."

He only smiled and kissed her again, on her mouth, a bit swollen, he could feel it, and so he licked her bottom lip. "You're my wife now, legally now."

"And you're now my husband, legally now."

"Ah, I'm much more than that, Rosalind." The words spilled out of him. "I'm the man who sought you out in London, the man who knew who you were the moment he saw you, even before he saw you, the man who must figure out what-" He broke off, cursed himself along with the goat's boot, then realized it didn't matter. Rosalind was asleep. He eased away from her to lie on his side beside her. He stroked her hair, easing out the tangles, picturing her head thrashing on the pillow when she'd fallen headfirst into her first orgasm, not a timid little orgasm, but a loud, ankle-thrumming, bone-melting orgasm. He gently pressed the wild curls behind her ear. "Yes," he whispered against her temple, "you're now legally my wife."

He spooned her, his hand on her belly, and kissed the nape of her neck. She tasted like salty jasmine.

He'd listened to men over the years talk about their mistresses and their wives. The biggest difference, they'd say and laugh, was that a wife followed you to your grave, or placed you in it, whereas a mistress perforce caressed whatever it was you instructed her to caress, and hopefully she would mourn your death perhaps a week before finding a new protector.

Wives, the talk usually continued, were to be taken quickly, without fuss and candlelight, in hushed darkness, a husband fast, done, and gone, all modesty preserved. Whereas a mistress, she was fashioned to enjoy a man, to enjoy his slavering all over her.

He'd always believed the men idiots.

Tonight, he'd proven it. He imagined that Ryder Sherbrooke would agree with him wholeheartedly.

He wondered what it would be like to have Rosalind take him into her mouth. He nearly shuddered himself off the bed.

He fell asleep with her scent in his nostrils, the taste of her on his mouth.

He didn't love her, couldn't love her, for a man couldn't love a debt. Could he?