Her gaze lingered, and Roland’s balls drew closer to his body.
She nodded. “No soap in the eye.” Then her eyelids dipped. “What would happen if I did…get soap in the eye?”
“The lye would burn me.”
Her lips pressed into a determined line, and she dipped her fingers into the soap dish. She worked a thin lather between her palms. Then she stood beside him and grasped him near the root.
Roland closed his eyes and let his head fall back.
Her hands were small, but strong, and stroked and twisted on his shaft as she cleansed him. But these weren’t the quick swipes she’d delivered before. She loitered over the task. Was she becoming aroused? Had his ploy to accustom her to his body worked?
He pumped his hips, tunneling his cock between her palms, and her grasp loosened for a moment before encircling him again.
His hands moved restlessly at his sides, his fists clenching and releasing, his cock gliding faster. Until he realized he was nigh to bursting from the drugging motions of her hands.
He turned to face her, just the length of his staff between them, and saw another flare of panic in his wife’s eyes.
But he was close now, and not caring how he might frighten her. He’d soothe her upset later. He gripped her shoulders, finding her skin just the thing to fill his restless hands, and pumped faster, his gaze falling to her slim fingers as they glided up and down his cock.
She stroked higher up his shaft then back down, tugging him now—and he felt much like a stallion on a lead, not yet broken to harness. His hips bucked, his body straining closer to release.
Then she clasped the head of his cock, and his toes curled into the metal bottom of the tub. His fingers dug into her soft shoulders.
When her fingers caressed the bulb, the “mushroom”, a little trickle of lye slipped into his eye.
Roland sucked in a deep breath; his rise halted in one blistering oath as the inside of his cock caught fire. “God’s Ballocks!”
Her hands fell away, and she took a step back, her face pale as parchment. “I’m sorry, milord. Have I caused you pain?”
Roland bit his tongue against the litany of curses crowding the back of his throat. But the sight of her wringing her soapy hands and chewing the edge of her lip had him dragging in a deep breath. “I think I’m clean enough, my dear,” he choked out, waving her away.
Then he lowered himself back into the tub, gingerly letting his cock submerge to rinse away the last traces of the stinging soap.
While the fire licking the inside of his cock cooled, his ardor waned, and he was able to view her innocent error more clearly and see it as a gift. A woman’s first experience with a man’s passion ought not to be with his seed striping her face and belly.
“Shall I shave your
beard for you now?”
Roland shuddered, a vision of his throat split open like a fish’s gullet skittering through his mind. “Bring me a sharp knife. I’ll do it myself.”
Margaret brought him a steaming-hot towel.
“Thank you, wife.” He pressed the towel to his beard to soften the coarse hair and shot her a curious gaze. “Have you shaved many men?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “None. But I watched the laundress shave my father.”
“And you thought to start with me?”
One fine brow arched in a look that held a hint of challenge. “Why, are you nervous?”
“Petrified.” He held his hand out for the knife she brought him, then ran his thumb across the edge to test its sharpness. “Have you a mirror?”
She presented a polished silver mirror and held it up for him while he shaved, dipping his knife into his bathwater to clear the blade between strokes.
When he scraped the last of his bushy beard and mustache away, his wife gasped. He ran his hand over his chin and glanced up at her.
The sacrifice of his fine beard was well worth her look of wonder. Roland grinned. “Do I have a weak chin?”