“And if I do not want to wait?” he challenged.
She bravely stepped between his legs, to gently lay her finger near his wound. “I will find no pleasure until your wound has been tended.”
“Then see it done, wife, for I grow impatient,” he ordered, relieved, since having foolishly thought her sudden step away from him a rejection.
Bliss got busy cleaning his wound, realizing she was just as eager as he was to seal their vows. She was careful with her touch, not wanting to hurt him.
“I am not delicate, Bliss,” he said and slid his hands beneath her tunic to grip her backside, though he much preferred to feel her silky flesh rather than the soft wool of her underdress.
She caught the gasp in her throat when his hands squeezed her bottom. She had grown familiar with his touch, had enjoyed it, to her delight, and looked forward to more of it. Realizing that she loved him made it easier to enjoy intimacy with him, to welcome it instead of fear it as she had at the mere thought when she had struck the bargain with Lawler.
The only troubling thought that continued to plague her was that she knew the brew she drank did nothing to prevent her from getting with child. What would he do when his seed took root?
It didn’t take long to tend his wound, though it could barely be called that. His shirt had done a good job of stopping the bleeding. It was more a surface wound, like a deep scratch, than a wound that could prove troublesome.
“It’s nothing,” he said when she looked about finished.
“You’re right,” she admitted, relieved. “You know about wounds?”
“Anyone who has been in battle knows wounds. One glance, and one knows the odds.”
He took the cloth from her hand and dropped it in the bucket. Then his hands went to her tunic and slipped it off her before going to her hips and gathering her underdress up in his hands until he was easily able to slip his hands beneath and give her warm backside a squeeze.
“I need to tell you something,” he said and rested his head between her breasts for a moment, but her hands raked their way through his hair to hug his head tight against her as if she did not want to let him go. He lingered there, her womanly scent drifting over him, his passion mounting, and his heart bursting with a depth of feeling that he never thought possible.
He stroked her backside and lost himself in her warmth, in her intoxicating scent, and he let his fingers roam slipping between her legs and when her legs separated just a bit, his hands rushed between them, and he slipped his fingers into her wetness.
She groaned and he did as well.
“Rannick,” she whispered with a hungry desire he had never heard slip from a woman’s lips.
“Look at me, Bliss,” he demanded, and her eyes that had closed fluttered open and he reluctantly slipped his fingers out of her. “I need you to know something.”
She cupped his face in her hands, his beard soft against her warm palms. “I need you. I love you.”
“And I love you with all my heart and down to the depths of my soul,” he confessed and watched her eyes spring open wide. “Like you, I do not know when love struck me, nor do I care. I only know that you brought me to life, started my heart beating again, caring again, wanting to live once again… to live and love with you. You are everything to me, Bliss, and if the curse should take you, I will follow wherever you go, for my heart would stop beating and I would not want to live life without you… I love you that deeply, that strongly, that fully. You have my love, Bliss, forever and always.”
Tears trickled from Bliss’s eyes, and she was suddenly swept up in his arms and carried to the bed. He placed her on her feet and had her naked soon enough, then swept her up again to deposit her on the bed. She had never seen him disrobe as fast as he did and in the next moment, he was in bed beside her, and she rushed into his arms as he turned to her.
She rested her brow to his, and whispered, “To love you and be loved by you is all I want.”
“You ask for little, wife.”
“Nay, what I ask for is the most precious thing a man and woman can give each other. And I am forever grateful we share it.”
“Promise me, wife,” he said, easing her hair away from her face as his eyes settled on hers. “Promise me that you will love me even when I am least loveable.”
Bliss laughed softly. “That is easy to promise since I have already done so.”