Jahna inhaled a harsh breath, the action settling her hips even harder on him. Radimar bit back a groan. “What are you saying?”
He was not a bard blessed with the ability to fashion words into gems that sparkled, but he was honest, he was forthright, and he loved this woman with every thread of his being. “Be my wife,” he implored. “Allow me to be your husband. All that I have and all that I am are yours, and I will love you beyond the end of my days.”
Tears made her eyes glossy. One spilled off her bottom lashes to slide down her cheek. She held his face in her hands. “Yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”
The kisses they shared in the garden were nothing compared to the ones they exchanged now. Jahna’s hands plunged into Radimar’s hair to hold his head still while she sucked his tongue into her mouth and rocked her body against his in a plea she couldn’t express with words.
They fell back on the bed in a tangle of skirts and cloak. Those were soon thrown to the side, peeled off Jahna’s body with frantic tugs and in one instance, the sharp edge of a knife on knotted lacings. Radimar’s garb followed and they were soon skin to skin, entwined together under layers of blankets and furs.
Radimar eased the covers back for a moment so he could see Jahna’s nude body in the candlelight. The room’s cold air made her pink nipples harden, and gooseflesh pebbled the curves of her breasts. A rapid pulse beat in her neck, and the shadowed hollow of her throat beckoned him to kiss her there. “You are beautiful, Jahna. I’ve always thought so.”
She slid her arms around him with a happy sigh, arching to get closer when he kissed her from the top of her head to her narrow feet and all the sensitive places in between.
The covers were suffocating and the candle burned low when Radimar rose above her on his elbows and stared down at her flushed face with the glassy eyes and lips swollen from his deep kisses. His erection nudged against her opening, demanding entrance. He ignored the urge and leaned down to plant feather kisses across her eyebrows, the bridge of her nose and her chin.
Jahna did the same to him, until impatient with his delay, she slid her legs up the side of his hips and bent her knees. The movement opened her more fully to him, and he gasped with delight.
“The women say it can hurt the first time.” Her fingers flexed against his sides. “I don’t care. I want you inside me.” She urged him forward, thighs flexing hard.
He resisted, despite his body nearly screeching at him to end such sweet torture.
“Patience, Jahna.” He gave her a reassuring peck on the lips when she groaned. “It can hurt if a woman’s lover is imprudent and clumsy. I am neither of those things.”
He set to proving his claim by his possession of her body. Her eyes rounded at the first slow, inexorable thrust, half-closed at the second, then rolled back at the third as she moaned his name.
He mimicked the sounds she made in a deeper voice, as caught in the ecstasy of making love to her as she was. His hands worked magic on her body, along with his lips and tongue. She cried out at the first shock of her climax and again at the crash of its aftermath.
Radimar followed right behind her, the sounds he uttered no longer words but the hard, shuddering gasps that squeezed the air out of his lungs and turned his bones to water. Once he could breathe again, he slid an arm under her back and rolled so that she lay atop him in a tangle of sweaty limbs and blankets. He was still seated deep inside her. The pain of his withdrawal was something he couldn’t prevent, no matter how careful he was, so he delayed the inevitable, more than content to feel her sweet body hold him in its embrace.
A lock of her hair fell forward to brush his nose, and he tucked it back behind her ear. She stared at him, a look of wonder in her eyes. “I don’t think I’m jealous of Sodrin and Manarys anymore,” she said with a burgeoning smile.
EPILOGUE
The Sun at midnight
Jahna stood at the small window in Radimar’s equally small chamber and stared at the night sky, lit so brightly by the sorcerous flames of the Firehound spectacle that the stars faded. In the bailey and on the loggias, the celebrants for the festival and the guests of Sodrin’s wedding cheered the sight and raised their goblets in a toast to the bringer of light as it tore the hem of Darkness and spilled the sun onto the world.
As with all the years before this one, Jahna was content to watch it all from a distance, only this time, she wasn’t alone. Behind her, her lover sprawled on the narrow bed in exhausted slumber. His red hair spilled across the pillows like a sunset, and she ignored the glory of the Firehound to admire the glory of Radimar’s body illuminated by the light of a single candle.
He had drawn every eye at Sodrin’s wedding this evening, more than she did, for which she would ever be grateful. Thank the gods for silk sashes and the handsome redheads who wore them. Jahna sat beside him during the ceremony, happy for her brother and his new wife, even happier for herself.
She had left Radimar just before dawn, when the palace was still quiet, its servants just rising to begin their tasks, its guests just falling into bed or passed out on their pillows after a long night of revelry. Jahna had wanted to remain, but her body was sore and sticky, and she desperately needed a bath. The temptation to stay and loll in bed with Radimar had almost been more than she could resist. If she didn’t have a wedding to prepare for and attend, she would have given in to that desire.
Sodrin had estimated far more time than it actually took for Radimar to approach him. Jahna had been straightening imaginary wrinkles out of her brother’s wedding garb when a servant announced that the swordmaster of Ilinfan wished to speak to him.
Jahna feared she’d break her own fingers, they were tangled so tightly together as the two men clasped forearms in greeting. Radimar didn’t waste a moment. He wished Sodrin all blessings in his marriage and thanked him for the sash and the honor Sodrin bequeath him in the giving of it. His face was grim and set.
“Lord Uhlfrida, I’ve asked Jahna to be my wife. She has accepted. For her sake, I ask for your blessing.” His eyes narrowed, the tone of his invoice implying that blessing or not, Jahna would be his wife.
Sodrin adopted a serious expression before turning to Jahna, eyebrows rising and falling in a teasing wiggle. He raised a single finger and mouthed to her “One day.”
She hid her laughter behind a cough.
Sodrin faced Radimar once more. “I don’t know, Radimar.” His serious tone belied the amused expression he’d shown to Jahna. “Do you think she can make you happy?”
Caught off guard by the strange question, Radimar blinked before he rolled his eyes and grinned at Sodrin who grinned back. “If it weren’t your wedding day, I’d beat you with the flat of my sword for that stunt, your lordship.”