The Heir - Catherine Coulter [72]
“Is tomorrow too late?”
He laughed, hugged her, uncaring if every servant in Evesham Abbey was watching. “Let’s wait only until we can solve this matter between Justin and Arabella. Then we won’t have to think of a single thing other than ourselves.”
“I will speak to Justin right now.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “No, let’s think about this a bit more. Let me speak to Arabella.”
“All right, but do it quickly. Perhaps we will solve all their problems by Friday?”
“I’ll try my damndest. Ann?”
“Yes?” She was sliding her palms over his chest. He grabbed them and held them tightly in his own.
“Will you mind being married to a simple doctor?”
He was deadly serious and she knew it. She said calmly, her spirit radiant in her words, “I’ve always believed your intelligence of the highest order. Never have I believed you at all simple. That was a foolish question.”
He threw his head back and laughed deeply.
Her voice was low now, so serious, he felt a catch in his throat as she said, “I would marry you if you were but a simple farmer. It matters nothing to me. This is Arabella’s home, not mine. It never was my home. My home is with you, Paul. I want only to be with you. Forever.”
“I am very glad that you came into my life,” he said, then he kissed her, lightly touching his fingertips to her lips as he took his leave. He doubted he could speak another sensible word if his life depended on it.
17
Why can I not feel anything? Please, God, let me feel something. Is it your punishment for my sin? Oh, please, let me feel my love for him. Just once.
His lips roamed hungrily over her small uptilted breasts, and she wound her fingers in his short black curling hair to press him harder against her. He thought her gesture borne of a desire that matched his own and suckled hard at her breast. He was young, enthusiastic, and his confidence in himself was profound.
She gritted her teeth at the pain, willing herself not to cry out. She brought her hands up to cup his smooth chin and eased his mouth away from her breast to her lips. His beautiful dark eyes were nearly black with his lust, and she saw a gleam of impatience, she knew it. It was impatience. She wasn’t as other women. She was slow. She wasn’t enough of a woman for him. Oh, God, she had to do something. She was afraid he would guess that all his caresses, his kisses, the stroking of his hands, did not bring her pleasure, indeed, froze all feeling inside her. Instinctively she moaned softly into his mouth and arched up against him. She felt a quickening in him, and for an instant knew an overwhelming desire to push him off her, to beg him not to drive his man’s sex into her. She hated it beyond anything. She held her breath, ashamed at such unnatural thoughts, and suffered his grinding mouth and probing tongue. She must remember that he loved her, that, above all things, she did not want to lose him, to give him a disgust of her.
She tried to relax, to inhale the sweet smell of hay. But all she could smell was him, the musky scent of him, the scent of sex. It is you who are the lucky one, the chosen one. He does not want Arabella or any other woman. To give him your body is proof of your love for him, it’s proof of your worth.
Suddenly he reared back on his knees, clutched her knees, and pulled them apart. She closed her eyes as his fingers fumbled to part her. She heard him growl with frustration, and a red veil of shame clouded her mind. She felt his fingers, wet with his own spittle, rubbing at her, pushing inside her. She winced as his fingers went deeper, widening her, and in a haze of misery she wondered yet again how she would bear that thick shaft shoving inside her.
He poised himself over her, unable to contain himself, and shoved hard inside her, feeling as he did so the eruption of all his senses, a moment’s suspension of thought and time. His seed flooded