“Apology? For what?”
Good God, did she have to make it more difficult? “You have my apology for my thoughtless act just now.”
“What thoughtless act?” Plum queried. She placed a hand on his hip and tugged, but he would not be moved. He wouldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her, probably would never be able to look at her again in his whole, entire — now miserable — life. “Harry? Are you angry about something? Did I hurt you? You seemed to be enjoying yourself — have I done something wrong? Would you like me to touch you again?”
Harry groaned in a breath, and lurched as his wife’s hand closed around him. He was still partially aroused, still wanted to bury himself in her heat, to feel her silken folds closing around him as he thrust into her. He wanted to watch her eyes mist with passion as she found her own release, wanted to feel her buck and arch beneath him as he filled her. He shuddered with the effort to remain in control as her hand explored him, caressing and stroking him to full arousal.
“Harry?” Her breath was hot on his ear. “I’m glad I gave you pleasure. I felt how much you enjoyed it, and it made me happy, too. Perhaps we can share that joy again?”
Harry’s muscles quivered for one indecisive moment, then the choice was made. He whipped around, pulling her underneath him even as he was spreading her legs and settling himself at the entrance to her center.
“Look at me, Plum,” he demanded, the tip of him pressing against her heat. She arched her hips in invitation as her eyelids fluttered open. “I want to watch you as I take you. I want to watch the passion fill your eyes as I slide deep within you. I want to watch you lose your control when I pound into you, thrusting myself deep within your body. I want to watch you gasp when your pleasure overtakes you. I want to watch you as I make you my wife.”
He stroked slowly into her, his soul singing with joy as her body yielded in welcome, a thousand little muscles gripping and holding him tight, parting with him reluctantly when he pulled back. He moved in time to the rhythm she set, her hips thrusting against his, her mouth welcoming when he bent his head to sip her sweetness. The bite of her nails stung his shoulders as she gripped him, crying soft little moans of delight, urging him wordlessly to move faster, deeper, stronger against her. Her hands slipped down the slickness of his back to his behind, clutching him and pulling him tighter to her. He grunted with the effort of holding back his own climax until he had brought her to satisfaction, denying himself and taking his pleasure in her cries of joy. His head dropped to her neck as he gasped for air, fighting the need to pour himself out into her, wanting her fire to fuel his own to a height he had not known before. As her hand slipped down over his behind, she wrapped her legs around his waist and bit his neck.
“Sweet St. Peter!” she cried, taking him deeper into her heat until it seemed as if he was touching her womb. “I love you, Harry. You are my life, my being, my everything. Dear God, how I love you!”
As her slickened muscles tightened around his length, he took her ecstasy into himself and with an effort that had to be nigh onto miraculous, pulled out of her body just before he spilled his seed. Her words echoed in his ears, fulfilling him, making him whole, joining him with her in a way he had not known possible. He shouted her name as he poured his life onto her thighs, and knew in that moment that he could not live without her. She was his homecoming, his safe harbor, and he knew with a knowledge inborn of man that his soul was inexorably bound to hers, that they were twined together, and nothing could ever part the two of them into separate people again.
She was his own true love.
Plum was not happy.
Oh, she knew she had no right to be unhappy — everything she’d ever wanted had been handed to her: she had a husband, a kind man with whom she suspected she had fallen in love; five children who, if they weren’t exactly what she’d imagined when she thought of her ideal family, were at heart good children…relatively good children; she had a home and security and was free from want or need; but despite all of the many blessings she counted as she lay snuggled up against her husband’s chest, the soft rumble of his snore ruffling her hair, she was not happy.
She felt particularly ungrateful when she thought about the reason she was so unhappy — Harry was not impressed with her mothering skills. She dismissed his explanation about not wishing her to die in childbirth as simply Harry being kind and not wanting to embarrass her in front of Thom and Temple by admitting that he thought she was a poor mother.
“I am ungrateful,” she whispered as she traced a finger along Harry’s bicep. “What does it matter if he doesn’t think I’m as good a mother as his first wife? Del is right, mothering isn’t everything. I have other qualities, other talents. My whole life does not revolve around being a mother. I am a person unto myself, and do not need to be judged either by my ability to bear children, or my ability to raise them. I am me, Plum. That should be good enough for anyone.”
Brave words, her inner Plum said in an annoyingly mocking tone. The truth is, being a mother is what you want, it’s what you’ve always wanted, all you’ve wanted. A family — that’s what you’ve craved your whole adult life, and now you have one and you’re not happy.
Plum told her inner voice to go take a long walk along a short cliff, and turned her attention from self-pity to proving her excellence as mother to both Harry’s existing children, and the ones she hoped to bear.
One thought leading to another, Plum’s fingers found themselves stroking a path from Harry’s arm, down his side, over his hip, to that part of him that lay nestled in quiescence along her thigh. She knew full well why he had spilled his seed outside of her body the previous night, but she had been too caught up in the moment of passion, in the knowledge of her love for him to beg him to give her a child. Instead she said nothing while he gently cleaned her off, reluctant to ruin the warm feeling that came when he settled back into bed, pulling her up against him, their arms and legs entangled as if their bodies could not be separated.
Plum tipped her head and glared down at the part of him that was the cause of all her woes. “You’re not even handsome like the rest of Harry. To be truthful, you’re a bit funny looking.”
He stirred (all of him), his arousal stiffening and growing before her eyes.
“Funny looking?” Harry sounded annoyed. Plum smiled at his cute little belly. “What sort of comment is that for a wife to make the morning after a wedding night?”
She kissed his chest, then tipped her head up to smile into his disgruntled face. “I didn’t mean it as an insult, husband, but you have to admit that part of the male anatomy is rather…comical.”
His eyes widened. His nostrils flared. His arousal hardened. “My rod is not comical! It’s an extremely fine specimen of its kind.”
“Harry, I’m sorry if you’re offended by my opinion, but I can’t help it — it looks…funny. Look at it!” They both looked. It waved at them. “You see? It’s all red and purple, and has that silly little bit of skin that slides back and forth like a purple visor on a helmet.”
“Plum,” Harry said, breathing loudly through his mouth, “you will cease deriding my rod. It is not comical or funny looking. It is manly. It all but throbs with virility. Vigor is its byword. I’ll have you know that women the world over have been known to swoon before it. I have had nothing but praise and gratitude from all of the women it has pleasured.”
Plum’s giggle died a cruel death as she narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, really? Women the world over?”
“There are legions of women out there who would be happy to write up affidavits attesting to the completely un-funny nature of my rod,” Harry continued, waving his hand at his crotch. “It is a majestic thing, a masculine testament to the act of love, a warrior, if you will—”
“A purple-helmeted warrior of love,” Plum snorted as she wished all of those women who had shared Harry’s body to the devil. “You sound like the very worst sort of prose, husband. I didn’t say it was not a thing of great enjoyment—”
“You mocked it! You derided it!”
“I did not mock—”
“It’s a wonder you haven’t shredded my confidence in my use of it,” Harry said as he rolled her over onto her back. “In fact, I believe you owe proof to my rod and me that you still believe in it. Me. Us.”
“Women the world over?” Plum asked, her body melting wherever Harry touched. “Affidavits, Harry?”
He nipped her nose. “Perhaps that was an exaggeration.”
“I fervently hope so,” she answered, wrapping her legs around his hips, moaning softly as he claimed her mouth. His breath was hot and quick on her lips, but not nearly as rapid as the wild beating of her heart. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, and Plum thought she was going to cry with the pleasure of it. He nipped the corners of her mouth, wordlessly demanding she part her lips to him, and she thought she would faint. His tongue plunged into her mouth, sweeping all objections before it, tasting her, teasing her, stroking her own tongue, and she thought she would die. But when he began to suckle her tongue, when he coaxed her tongue into exploring his mouth, when she tasted his groan of sheer delight, she knew she was in heaven. She pulled him down onto her body, pulled his head closer, trying to taste him, feel him, join with him all at the same time. Her senses swam with the contact, too much too quickly, too much stimulation, too little control, but none of that mattered as she arched up against him when he plunged his tongue into her mouth, little whimpers of pleasure gathering at the back of her throat.
Harry heard those whimpers and lost the thin shred of control that had kept him from plunging himself into her body. “St. Peter’s cods, woman! I’m just a man! I can’t stand such temptation.”
She blinked at him, her eyes misty with desire, her skin heated with passion. She knew he was speaking, but she didn’t understand the words. “Why are you talking? Now is not the time for talk, Harry. Now is the time for making love.”
“Stop that,” he ordered as her legs moved restlessly beneath him, rubbing against him in a provocative movement. “Don’t move, don’t kiss me, don’t breathe. Just lay there, and perhaps I’ll be able to get through this without shaming myself a second time.” He bent to caress her breast with his lips. She slid one leg out from beneath him and wrapped it around his calf.
Harry reared backward like he had been shot in the behind, his eyes positively feasting on her flesh, his look so heated she swore she could feel its touch. “So soft,” he said hoarsely as he looked at her. “Everywhere I look, creamy white skin, glistening, a veritable playing ground of delectable flesh, and it’s mine, all mine.”
Plum couldn’t stop the laughter from burbling out. Harry looked like he was about to rub his hands with glee. “Yes, I’m yours, all yours. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“I want to touch you everywhere, I want to taste you, I want to plunge deep into your silken folds and lose myself in your heat.”
She ran both hands up his arms. “And what’s stopping you?”
He made a noise deep in his chest. “I’m a gentleman. You must have the choice of what you want first. Touching, tasting, or plunging?” His voice was rough, graveledged, and it thrummed deep within Plum.
Harry kissed her again, a deep kiss, a demanding kiss, a kiss that gave no quarter. “Make up your mind. Quickly. I don’t have much time before I…er…I don’t have much time.”
“Mmm. Perhaps I can do something to help.” Plum squirmed out from beneath him, pushing him over onto his back. “What a perfect opportunity for the Steeplechase.”
Harry stared at her in delighted surprise as she straddled his thighs.
She smiled. “You’re absolutely right, Harry.”
“Yes, of course I am. Er. About what?”
She put out a hand to touch him, and he groaned deep in his throat. “You’re hot and hard and velvety smooth, but not funny looking. Not any more.”
He grabbed her wrist and stopped her exploration. “For the love of God, woman, not now. Not unless you want it all to be over.” His voice sounded like it was made up of gravel, all hard corners and grit. Plum smiled, and slid herself forward on his lap until the tip of him teased her heated core.