“I’m not feeling terribly well, no. Would you mind if we left now? I’m sure Thom won’t care, and if you’re done speaking with your friend—”
“We will leave at once,” he said soothingly, and went to collect Thom. Plum used the few minutes to say goodbye to her hostess, keeping a wary eye out for Charles. She wouldn’t put it past him to confront Harry, although she suspected he would not be happy with a mere scene in public. She had experience with Charles — he was a coward at heart, and would not wish to risk giving Harry the opportunity to call him out.
“If only I knew what he wanted of me,” Plum said softly, then dismissed that thought as Harry and Thom came up to her. She was certain Charles would make his desires known to her by one means or another. He was never one to disregard his desires.
“Plum?”
“Hmm?” Plum absently checked the leather cuff that bound Harry’s left hand to the massive ebony headboard. What would Charles want from her?
“You seem to be distracted.”
“Am I?” How was she to keep Harry from finding out about Charles until she could take care of the situation?
“Yes, you are. Distinctly distracted. In fact, I sense that you are disturbed about something. Are you?”
“Am I what?” She slid across his body to secure his other wrist. How Charles knew she was Vyvyan La Blue was no surprise — they had made it a game to name all of their connubial calisthenics; no doubt he remembered that, but what would he do with that knowledge?
“Disturbed.”
“No, not particularly. Why do you ask?” Perhaps he just wanted to gloat over his knowledge? Perhaps he just wanted to revel in the power he must feel in knowing her secret?
“Well, for one, we were supposed to be doing Gladiator and the Shy Dove tonight, and yet you seem to be bent upon Gallant Knight at a Blind Maiden’s Mercy.”
No, that wasn’t like Charles; he didn’t enjoy hoarding secrets, he enjoyed profiting from such knowledge. No doubt he thought to profit from hers. A toe nudged her calf. She looked down, somewhat startled to find her husband spread out naked before her, tied to his bed with the fur-lined leather cuffs he had given her just two weeks before. “I thought you were going to be the gladiator tonight? Why are you bound?”
He frowned. “You are distressed about something. What is it, Plum? Did someone say something to you at the ball?”
She couldn’t look at his eyes while she lied to him. Her gaze dropped to his chest, then stayed there awhile as she enjoyed the scenery. “No, no one said anything. I just feel a bit…”
“Neglected,” Harry said, nodding his head. “I understand completely. It’s my fault, but I was thinking of you, Plum. I knew you were tired from the travel, and since we had little privacy in the inns, I felt our nightly exercises would be best curtailed until we arrived. Therefore, as the fault is mine, so must the solution be. Climb on.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Climb onto me. Onto my…er…you’ll feel better afterward, I promise.”
Plum thought of pointing out that that would never be in dispute, but decided instead to humor him. Clearly he was worried about her — as a dutiful and loving wife, it was her responsibility to ease his worries as best she could. “Well, as long as we’re doing Blind Maiden and Knight, we might as well do it properly.”
She blew out the candles so they were in the dark, the faintest sliver of moonlight showing silvery blue through a gap in the curtains. Enjoying the experience of relying solely on touch, Plum slid her fingers up Harry’s chest, reveling in the way his breathing hitched as she stroked a path up the warm hills and valleys of his chest. Her hands slid higher until both palms framed the long planes of his face. Her fingers teased his short little side-whiskers, then traced downward along the strength of his jaw until they met together on his gently squared chin. She bent her head and lightly brushed her lips against him, a fleeting kiss that promised much, and which was so sweet she had to repeat the action. Harry’s mouth opened in invitation beneath hers, allowing her to tease the entrance to his mouth with her tongue. She captured his bottom lip between hers and bit gently, his resulting moan coursing through her, igniting fires deep in her center.
Of their own volition, her fingers slid up his head, plucking off his spectacles before returning to comb through his close-cropped hair, her head dipping again to his, this time allowing her tongue to enter the warmth within. He lay strangely passive, allowing her to stroke his tongue, to tease his mouth into reacting, but when he did it was as if he had set her afire. A groan of pure pleasure rose in her throat as his tongue swept into her mouth, demanding that she match his passion, firing her to greater heights.
The leather straps creaked as Harry tried to reach for her, but could not. Plum pulled her mouth from his, having forgotten for a moment that she was supposed to be comforting him.
“Do you want me to unbind you?”
“Yes.”
She nuzzled his neck, sliding away from him as she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling terribly merciful at the moment. Perhaps later?”
“Plum! Come back here!”
“Yes, my lord?” Blindly, Plum slipped out of her dressing gown, smiling in the dark. She knew Harry was hot and hard — he always was whenever they were in bed together, bless him — but he really should know better than to think she’d leave him in that unpleasant state.
“Come back here. I…er…you intend to finish what you’ve started?”
“I do?” With one hand on the bottom of the bed, she padded softly around to the other side.
“Yes, you do,” Harry said sternly. She smiled again. How adorable he was. “You are suffering from the trauma of attending a ball after a prolonged absence. If I do not affect a cure for your condition, it will return and leave you helpless come other such engagements. Therefore, you will straddle yourself across my thighs, and seat yourself upon me. Now!”
“Such a thoughtful husband you are,” Plum said as she climbed into the bed. Linens rustled provocatively beneath him as she stretched out a hand, finding the hard muscle of his thigh. “Thinking only of me.”
“I am the very best of husbands. There are none better than me,” Harry answered, sounding oddly as if the words were coming from between grinding teeth.
“That goes without saying, Harry.”
“Plum?”
“Yes, my dearest?”
“If you do not wrap your long, luscious thighs around my hips in the next ten seconds, I will die. Do you understand?”
“I think so.” Plum stroked a path up his thigh to where the texture of the light down covering his legs changed to a denser hair. She closed her fingers over him, tracing the long, velvety length of his arousal.
“St. Peter’s cods,” Harry groaned, thrusting his hips upward in her gently stroking fingers. “This is for your own good, wife: GET ON ME NOW!”
Harry’s voice was coming out raspy and hoarse, his breath fast and rough. Plum chuckled a little to herself over the fact that her breath was just as ragged as his.
“I am ever the dutiful wife,” she said as she swung her leg over his, positioning herself so the silky tip of him bumped against the skin of her inner thighs. Then she adjusted herself and felt his heat at her entrance, pulling from her an answering heat that started deep inside her and spread through her soul. “And as you seem to think this will help me…”
Their groans of pleasure were spontaneously given as Plum sank slowly down on him, but her husband’s pleasure fed hers, spiraling her on that delicious journey she had learned could take her to heaven and back. She felt a brief moment of power when she remembered that one of the joys of the Blind Maiden was that she could set her own pace; no insistent hands would grip her hips and hurry her into a tempo that would send them heedlessly toward paradise. Instead she rose and fell upon him slowly, ignoring her husband’s throaty pleas to cease tormenting him and ease his torture.
“You said this was for my benefit,” she pointed out as she tried a little swivel to the side. Harry bucked beneath her, his hips rising as a harsh moan was torn from him. “I’m simply trying to maximize the cure.”
“You’re trying to kill me,” Harry accused, panting, his entire body shaking beneath her. Plum tried an interesting little circular motion as she sank down on the hardness that pierced her to her core, her eyes closed despite the darkness, feeling every nuance of him sliding deep within her.
“I can feel your heart beating,” she said dreamily, leaning forward to kiss him. “You’re so hot within me, Harry, we must be burning up. I love the feel of you, I love the feeling of you entering me, piercing me, and joining with me. It makes me feel as if I’m part of you.”
“You are part of me,” Harry answered, his tongue and lips teasing her mouth until she opened and let him in. “You’re the best part of me. I could never be whole without you. You are my wife, my lover, mother to my children, my heart. I couldn’t exist without you.”
Plum squeezed her eyes tight against the tears that threatened to spill out at his words, and kissed him with every ounce of passion she possessed. Their souls were joined, entwined as they were both lifted toward the pinnacle of pleasure, her mouth plundering his as he plundered hers, both straining to incite the other to greater heights of passion. Plum moved urgently against Harry, kissing him frantically as the wonderful power within her uncoiled and filled her with joy and love that overflowed her being and spread to him, bonding her to him, merging the two beings into one, blinding her to all but the strength of his love.
She sobbed out her love as he shifted beneath her, spilling his seed against her thigh as he shouted her name, the two of them caught in a maelstrom that receded slowly, leaving Plum drained and boneless, resting on her husband as she attempted to catch her breath, trying to understand the power of the experience she had been given, wanting but unable to put into words what it meant to her, what he meant to her, how very much he had enriched her life, giving her something more valuable than all the riches in the world.
Instead she tipped her head back and kissed him on his jaw, whispering, “I love you, husband.”
“There, you see?” Harry gasped, his chest heaving beneath her. “I told you that you would feel better afterward.”