Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [129]
Rollo nodded and followed his lieutenant. He said over his shoulder, “My sweet Laren, you and Merrik will dine with me, just you two. I would speak to Merrik about King Charles and his sly ministers, pigs all of them, so William tells me. Merrik must know all of this before he travels to Paris to meet William and the Frankish king. Otta knows many of them for he has spent much time in King Charles’s court in Paris.”
Merrik smiled down at his wife. “How do you feel, sweeting?”
She listened inward for a moment, then laced her fingers through his. “Your babe is sleeping, thank the gods.”
“I spoke to Helga. She said that this illness will not last many more weeks. She said the sicker you are now, the more the signs say that you will birth a boy. But I care not, Laren. I just want you smiling again, or yelling. Then I can argue with you without worry or guilt, and you can shout at me and insult me.”
“Aye, that I would like, for you are growing very settled in your ways. You are too confident in your own opinions since I am too busy retching to gainsay you.” She touched her fingers to his sleeve. “There are other things I miss as well, my lord.”
His eyes darkened and she knew that look, that need in him that brought him so very close to her. For those moments, he was hers and only hers. She could pretend that he loved her, for he was generous in the giving of pleasure, and the words he spoke to her in his passion moved her and brought her to her own pleasure. Aye, the deepness of his voice moved her unbearably and the movement of him over her and within her as he spoke to her. She wanted him desperately.
Not long thereafter, in their sleeping chamber, Merrik walked her toward the box bed with its magnificent miniver spread. He eased her onto her back and unfastened the brooches at her shoulders. He quickly undressed her, saying nothing, just watching his fingers as they removed her clothing, watching his fingers as they touched her bare flesh. When he caressed her breast, balanced over her on his elbow above her, she arched up into his palm.
“Your nipples are larger and darker,” he said, and very gently took her into his mouth. His tongue, hot and skilled, scraped over her flesh, making her gasp at the pleasure such a simple action could bring her. She finally cupped her hands around his face, pulling at him. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his mouth wet, his eyes deep and bluer than she’d ever seen them. He was beautiful, this man who was hers, at least here, when he wanted her.
She said clearly, “Give me your mouth, Merrik.”
He did. He kissed her and caressed her until she thought she’d surely die from the delight of it, but she didn’t, of course. Her body was alive with wanting and she knew more would come, even that ultimate pleasure that would catch and hold her, blurring what was real and what wasn’t, just leaving the two of them, clasped together.
She urged him with her hands, parting her thighs, tugging at him, saying his name again and again, and he just smiled at her, but didn’t yet come to her. He lay on his back instead and lifted her over him. He came up into her slowly, so very slowly, not allowing her to take him deeply inside her, holding her above him as he moved upward into her. And when he was touching her womb, his fingers found her and she stared down at him, frozen in that instant, feeling the slickness of her flesh, the rough softness of his fingers, and then, without her knowing that it was near, her body exploded into pleasure.
As she heaved over him, her pleasure swamping her, wanting more and yet even more, arching, then folding inward, her hair spilling onto his face, he thought of his child within her and his breath caught in his throat and his body shook, tensed, and he believed in those moments that there could be nothing more to match this, but then there was, and he couldn