He stroked his fingers over her navel, evoking surprising sensations from a place on her body Leah had never really considered, and again he paused, while Leah experienced the warm weight of his hand on her naked belly.

“Nicholas, must you be so…?”

“Tender?” he suggested. “Careful… deliberate… enthralled… enchanted…?”

“Aggravating.” Leah landed on the word with relish, because Nick was wandering about her body as if the growing restlessness inside her were pleasurable, and to Leah, it was increasingly bothersome. Aaron had not left her feeling like this, had not taken more than a few minutes of kissing, poking, and apologizing, then grunting and making the bed creak.

“Can’t have my lady aggravated.” Nick brushed the backs of his fingers over the down on Leah’s mons, and her breath escaped on a gasp.

“Eyes closed.” Nick bent his head over her breast. “Legs spread a little.” He settled his mouth over her nipple just as his hand began to stroke her thighs, and this time when he suckled, it was Leah growling. Her eyes were closed, and behind her eyelids, colors were dancing and surging, and her body felt the same way. Full of heat and color and odd, novel sensations.

When she felt him trace up the crease of her sex with a single finger, Leah’s hands found Nick’s shoulders and gripped hard.

“Easy, lovey,” Nick murmured between kisses. “Move if you want to, against me.”

He pushed gently against her mons, and she pushed back, slowly but not so gently. The undulation of her body eased her and made things worse, too, but she was helpless to stop it as Nick’s deft fingers delved gently into her folds.

“You are growing eager,” Nick whispered as his fingers slipped higher. “Your body grows slick in anticipation of your pleasure.”

“God above, Nicholas…” She clutched at his thick wrist and stilled his hand. “What was that?”

“What was what?” Nick didn’t remove his hand.

“You touched me, and it felt like I rapped my elbow, but much, much worse.”

“You’ll grow accustomed to such sensations,” Nick said, his words laced with amusement, “and they’ll become more pleasurable if you’ll be patient with them.” He moved his hand again, with her fingers still circling his wrist, but this time he used a more definite pressure on the apex of her sex.

“Ye gracious gods…” Her grip loosened as her eyes fluttered closed, but still she didn’t let him go.

In silence, he touched her for long, fraught moments only there, letting her focus on that one source of sensation until she was breathing heavily and moving against his hand in slow, powerful surges of her hips.

“Nicholas…?” She wet her lips with her tongue, her arousal and bewilderment ringing in his name.

“Trust me,” Nick reminded her, dipping his head to brush his lips over her nipple. “Trust me and take your pleasure, Leah.”

Pleasure took her, as tight spasms seized Leah from the inside, turning her into a thrashing, keening, blind, and mindless wanton, her nails digging into Nick’s wrist, her body moving desperately to accept what he was giving her, her heart pounding with the sheer, terrifying glory of it.

“Too much…” she panted, and then Nick drew on her nipple, and the too much redoubled to be more than too much for long, shuddering moments.

When it passed, she lay on her back, body slack, mind slack, her only thought gratitude for the comfort of Nick’s hand, still pressed firmly against her sex. If he moved, if he moved even one inch, she was going to dissolve into fairy dust and drift away up the chimney.

He did move, but not that hand. Instead, Leah felt Nick’s other arm burrow under her neck and wrap her against his chest. That brought comfort, but not as much as when Leah shifted herself more closely still, hiking a leg over Nick’s hips and wrapping an arm around his waist.

She was profoundly grateful not to have to ask that he hold her. He seemed to know, and to know how to go about it, enfolding her snugly against him, but not so tightly she felt smothered.

Gradually, as the tumult in her body eased, Leah became aware of Nick’s erection. It lay along her stomach now, thick, hard, and hot, a discordant note of rigidity in a soft tangle of bodies. Tentatively, Leah reached between them and brushed her fingers across the plush head of his member.

Dear God, Aaron had not at his most passionate been possessed of such dimensions. She fitted her hand over him, testing his width and length in slow, careful movements. As intimately as they were embracing, Leah felt the stillness in Nick’s body, heard his sharp inhalation. She tucked her face against his chest and waited for him to dissuade her.

But he remained still, waiting, and so Leah followed her own urge to explore him.

She traced her fingers over his balls then teased through the hair at the base of his shaft. When she circled his shaft with her fingers then stroked the length of him, he hissed and pushed into her hand. She repeated the stroke, and he pushed more strongly.

“Show me,” she whispered. “Nicholas, I don’t know how… Show me.”

He wrapped his hand around hers and tactilely explained the rhythm, the grip, and the stroke, then left it to her as he held her tightly, tucking her leg up over his hip.

“Tighter,” he whispered, moving more quickly. “You won’t hurt me, I promise. Beelzebub’s cock stand, yes, that’s it…” A few more moments of that, and he gently disentangled her hand from him, so he was thrusting against her belly. Gripping her buttock, he held her to him, and in the seamless seal of their bodies, Leah felt a spreading warmth as Nick pulsed against her.

“Oh, lovey…” He tucked her head against his chest and kept her there, where she could feel his breath soughing in and out and hear his heartbeat as it gradually slowed beneath her ear.

“I hadn’t meant to do that,” Nick said, stroking a hand over her hair. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, his words striking hard against an ache that had been building in the pit of her stomach. He hadn’t meant to do that? Hadn’t meant to share pleasure with her, as opposed to visit it upon her unilaterally?

As arousal ebbed and fatigue reasserted itself, Leah’s previous sense of loneliness stirred back to life too. Except it wasn’t as simple as loneliness. Her throat constricted around a sharp ache, and what she felt in that moment was desolation.

Hopelessness.

It made no sense. She was wrapped in Nick’s arms, he’d just shown her more spectacular physical pleasure than she’d known existed, and he was promising her more of that as part of her due as his wife. He had even let himself find pleasure as well.

As the first tear squeezed its way past Leah’s closed eyes, she knew a despair so great that if Nick hadn’t been holding her, she might have physically flown apart. This closeness Nick was willing to settle for, it wasn’t going to be enough. For all Nick’s tenderness and consideration, it was without love, a subversion of the intended purpose of marriage, a parody of the union Leah had longed for.

He did this with many other women, and did more than this too.

Nick shifted carefully, bringing her over his body to sprawl on his chest. “Tell me again that you are all right, lamb.”

He’d felt the heat of tears, no doubt. Leah furtively wiped at her cheeks where she was curled against him.

“Here.” Nick reached out a long arm to the night table and retrieved a linen handkerchief. He dabbed gently at her cheeks, then while she shifted up, mopped at their bellies.

“We’re not quite spotless,” he said, “but the linens are safe. Now come here, let me hold you, and tell me what bothers you.”

“You mean well,” Leah allowed as she eased down against him on a tired sigh. “But you can’t repair my feelings, Nick. I do not believe I will be availing myself of this aspect of your marital offer.”