Author's Note:

Please note that the story's rating is now M (Mature) for explicit sexual content.

…

Chapter 21

…

The house on Albeney was the sort of home I thought I might one day live in with my husband and family, but I had never expected it to happen so soon.

I had already toured the place on other occasions, and everything else had already been sent over. As Madame Ida met me and saw me to the refurbished master suite, I looked through the house at the rooms and touched the walls gently, gazing at the way it looked with all my things from the townhouse moved into it. Papa had hired something of a decorator, and I was pleased with the results. The colors in the house were dark at times, but it was offset by the high, cream-colored ceilings latticed with oak beams and the number of full length windows on the lower floor.

The front sitting room parlor with its beige piano and the dining room were the brightest rooms; their windows were full and west-facing. The crystal in the hutches in the dining room glittered in the remnants of the evening sunlight. There were new pieces of art and sculpture in the house, as the townhouse's pieces were not enough to properly decorate a bigger home, and I was pleased by the new choices and especially happy to see Adam's works incorporated amongst them. His painting of the Alps hung in the dining room, and his portrait of me was sitting with artful casualness on the top of the fireplace mantle in the sitting room. His small painting of the garden in front of my old townhome hung in the small tiled entrance hall.

The sitting room parlor was a lovely entertaining space—airy, with comfortable yet elegant seating, musical instruments, and a card table. It contained the most expensive decoration and furnishings. I particularly liked the built-in bookshelves filled with favorite titles and the latest scientific and political publications amongst the art also decorating the shelves.

On the first floor there was a fully modern water closet next to the guest bedroom, a more private living room for family and very close friends at the back of the home, and a large study just off the living room that doubled as a library. The desk in it was already covered with my school books and papers. There was a letter desk in the study as well, but there was also one in the sunnier parlor, which I think I preferred.

The left section of the house, separated by the main areas and only accessible through the kitchen garden entrance or through the butler's pantry was reserved for the staff—the staff dining room and bedrooms. There were more bedrooms than there were people, so Ida, Charlotte, Roy, Émilie, and Beaumont all had at least two rooms to themselves.

The back gardens had grown wild while the house was unoccupied, but Madame Ida had plans for it, and would be hiring some groundswork help during the summer to tame and manicure the gardens. The grounds were not overly large, but did contain a tiny orchard with a few fruit trees, a kitchen garden, flower gardens, a moderately respectable lawn, and a small section of wood. The back patio was the most attractive part of the back of the house at present; it was outfitted with furniture and an outdoor iron woodstove, surrounded on two sides by the overgrown flower garden.

The second floor had another water closet and full washroom with basin tubs off the side of the master room, as well as a second much smaller study, and a bedroom with huge picture windows that had been converted into Adam's studio. The rest of the upstairs was hardly used; there were two more bedrooms, and then a slightly smaller bedroom likely intended as a nursery. We were keeping them furnished as more guest bedrooms.

Ida helped me unpack the few last suitcases I had brought in.

"And when will the monsieur be arriving?" she asked me, smoothing the sheets of the large four-poster master bed.

"Later this evening, in my father's carriage." I straightened. "In fact, I should like to have a few words with everyone to prepare you all for it… Shall we all sit in the dining room?"

"I'll have some water and tea brought."

…

Even though I had slept in Adam's arms so many nights since that first night in the farmhouse bed, I still found my heart pounding and my color high as he followed me up the stairs of our new home and into our bedroom.

"You're nervous," he murmured. "Don't be. I have no intention of taking a husband's rights, Chandelle, don't you know that?" His voice lowered. "I wouldn't know what I was doing even if you asked."

I gave him an appraising look. "Confused about the mechanics?" I teased.

His face screwed into an unfamiliar expression. Part apprehension, part pain, part embarrassment, part wounded pride. "Among other things."

"I'm sorry. I suppose there was no way you could have learned about these things."

"I'm not one of your dandies who has practice in carrying out skillful seductions. This can't be a conventional first night together regardless."

"You think just because we can't risk a pregnancy means we can't enjoy our first night? You have a lot to learn, my love."

He got the same odd and embarrassed look on his face. "Are you an experienced scholar on the subject?"

Sophia had given me frightfully detailed accounts and instruction on the matter at hand, in fact.

"I have friends who have educated me," I replied.

His eyes narrowed. "Male or female friends?"

I giggled. "Female, dear." I pretended to consider. "Although, now that you mention it, the male perspective might be of value as well."

"You will not go asking for that instruction," he muttered as I opened our bedroom door for him.

"Now you do sound like a husband."

I was smirking and the comment made him smile with rueful humor as well. I lifted my arms and he gathered me up so that I could put my arms around his neck. He closed the door behind us.

"Adam, darling," I whispered. "I am yours and you are mine. We have our whole lives to enjoy each other. To discover where the other best likes to be kissed. To touch and hold and play. You shan't give me children, but that does not mean we can't find pleasure in each other. I should like to start tonight." I moved my head from his shoulder to kiss his mouth, but I found trepidation in his eyes.

"I really don't…" He trailed off, and then began again. "I really don't know anything about this."

"I will teach you. You need only trust me, and ask questions if you have them, and tell me what feels good."

"Chandelle…"

I had felt his manhood hard and pressing against the inside of his breeches on more than one occasion when we would kiss or lie together, and even though I had not touched him there yet, I most certainly wanted to. Now that I was this man's wife, I wanted to explore all of him.

I leaned in to put my mouth on his. We kissed, and he was somewhat reserved at first—still ruminating over his discomfort. But the kiss deepened and he melted for me as he always did. I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist as he held me. I made little noises of pleasure in my mouth and he responded with a groan that had heat flashing on my skin and between my legs.

Groaning, he moved us to the bed so he wouldn't have to bear both our weights on legs that were growing weak at the knees.

"I love you," he breathed into my mouth. "God, I love you, Chandelle…ange…mon ange…"

I sometimes forgot myself while we kissed—I forgot to even move or think about anything other than how his mouth and tongue felt. But when I was not overwhelmed by our kiss, I was running my hands down and up his arms, his chest, his neck, across his collarbone, down his back. My fingers played behind his ears. His own hands ran over my arms, neck, and back, but he shied from my breasts and even my waist.

As we kissed, I took one of his hands gently and ran his palm across the bodice of my dress. My nipples hardened and ached under their layers of fabric at the touch, and I quivered deep and low in my belly. I pressed his hand harder against me, massaging my breast.

Our kiss broke for a moment while he looked in my eyes. I could feel his erection hard against my thigh. I wanted our clothes thrown aside; I didn't want them to separate us anymore. Too much separated us.

He rubbed his mouth roughly with his other hand while I showed him how I wanted him to massage my breasts. His face was red as a schoolboy's. I let his hand go and kissed him again, gentling the kiss in order to soothe him. I reminded myself that despite my desires, I had to go slowly.

"I'm yours. I'm yours, love," I murmured to him. "You can touch me anywhere—I want you to touch me. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed. I want to share all that I am with you."

He took a slow, fortifying breath. I kissed his neck and shoulder and he cupped my jaw with his hand, then brought his fingers down tracing my jawline onto my shoulder and then gently brushed his palm across my bodice. The touch sent a jolt of sensation through me. I nodded and made an encouraging moan. He touched me in the same way I had been touching him—running his hands over my body, running his hands through my hair, and tracing my collarbone, the lines of my neck, and the skin behind my ears with his fingers. He held me a little tighter and let himself go a little more.

My heartbeats came harder and hotter beneath his hands. I kissed and kissed his face, the tops of his shoulders.

"Adam," I murmured, a little breathless, "will you help me unlace my bodice?"

His hands stilled. "Chandelle, how far…? I don't understand what to expect, and I don't want to do anything wrong. I love you so much…loosing you…"

"We both might make mistakes at times. You are very short on memory. We have our lives to make mistakes and discover each other and touch and experiment and take pleasure in one another. You won't lose me. I'm your wife now, you oaf, and you're not getting out of it." I smiled.

"I don't want to disappoint you."

"First nights are never the best, I have been told," I confided. "It gets better from here as we learn about one another. Now please, Adam, hold in your doubts just for now and trust me. I just want to be with you tonight, and touch and kiss you, and be your wife." I leaned forward and brushed his hair with my fingers. "I love your voice, I love how expressive your mouth is, I love the roughness of your hands. I love how hard your heart beats against me from your chest when I kiss you and I love how safe I feel in your arms at night. You are the best and most extraordinary man I have ever or will ever know. Kiss me, my love."

He pulled me close, tenderly, and, as if from glowing coals, the fire between us built again. I could feel Adam's passion at the edges of his body, in his trembles and soft growls and when his hips shifted in acute arousal. It excited me like nothing else, and I hunted for it hungrily.

His hand traveled across my inner thigh beneath my heavy skirts and I made a sharp sigh of pleasure, nodding. "Touch me," I moaned. "Please touch me…" His hand responded to my entreating, though it trembled slightly as his thumb brushed me between my legs, and I gasped with pleasure. I fisted his hair in my hand and let my head fall back in a moan. After a moment, perhaps of surprise, Adam's mouth found my neck and he was kissing my exposed skin while his thumb brushed me again.

I arched my back, moving away from his hand and then back—hard—against it. I moaned. I was on fire—aching, itching, wanting.

"Yes," I breathed. "Your hands feel so good, love. Will you help me with the bodice?"

He put up no reservations this time. His hands shook at the laces as he slowly let me out of my heavy dress. I stood with my back to him and the dress still loosely around me, then I turned and stepped out of it facing him. I pulled my petticoat over my head so that I was only in my corset and drawers.

I sat back on the bed with my back to him. "Would you?"

"So many clothes."

"Yes." I could feel the corset loosening as his fingers worried at the laces. "Adam," I whispered. "My bare skin—so many inches of it have never been touched by another's hand. My skin is parched of touch. When I have everything off, I want you to take me in your arms and I want you to run your hands over every inch of me. Kiss every inch. Talk about my body. Take it into your mouth—fingers, earlobes, nipples—toes, even—I don't care."

His fingers had faltered and they seemed even warmer than they were before.

"Yes, love," he whispered. His hands steadied at my waist and he kissed my bare shoulder from behind with such a warm mouth it made me feel faint. His breath was hot on my bare skin.

I couldn't wait another moment. I stood, turned, and pulled off my corset, then wiggled out of my calf-length drawers, all the while keeping my eyes on him. When I was as naked as the day I was born, I stood before him and gazed at him.

Adam's face was flushed, but for the moment he was too overcome to look apprehensive. His expression was full of that rapturous gratitude and love that I had seen in it in the very beginning. He brought a hand to his face and rubbed his mouth. The way he looked broke my heart with adoration.

"You're so beautiful," he managed, in a voice strangled by emotion. "God above, Chandelle…"

I came toward him and he took me in his arms with tears in his eyes. He kissed me, wetting my cheeks. He kissed from my shoulder across my breasts and down between them to my stomach. I moaned and sighed and let my toes curl. Adam laid me across his lap and gave me what I asked. When he brushed his fingers or lips over my nipples, I gave little moans. When he trailed his hand over the wet softness between my legs, I whimpered. Whatever skin his hand ran over came alive with heat and sensitivity. I had never known before what a touch was truly supposed to feel like.

He murmured to me as he went, murmuring his thoughts, intermittent with groans. "You're soft as satin, darling. You're perfect. Kissing you is making me salivate… Salty and so warm… I'm burning from the inside, Chandelle. I'm cracking from the inside with love for you. I can't contain it. Ah, sweet…" His eyes swam with moisture. "You are everything…you are the entire universe…"

I ached low and deep for him, but tonight was not the night for such things. Still, I needed release from this torturous pleasure or I thought I might burst into tears. I took his hand firmly beneath mine and brought it to the wetness between my legs. I pressed down on one of his fingers with mine where I wanted touch and pressure. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

"This is how I want to be touched now," I breathed, my voice thick with pleasure. "Learn, and perhaps you can do it yourself in a week, or…or…two…" The pressure and movement of our fingers was making thought an impossibility for me. I whimpered, building my own pleasure with his hand.

He was patient and did not interrupt. I barely knew where he was, I was too absorbed in sensation. My eyes closed, I imagined making love to him behind my eyelids. Surrounding me, thrusting in and out of my warm slickness, feeding me…

I began making a repetitive little noise as pleasure concentrated itself in a layer beneath my skin. I knew it was coming before it happened and whispered, "Oh, yes," before all the sensation concentrating in me broke and released itself into the ether. My body rolled with rhythmic waves of contractions, and I rode them, gasping and pressing his palm against my entrance so he could feel them as well.

Finally, languid and satisfied, I opened my eyes to his. His hand still pressed warm and comfortingly between my legs and I lay in his arms across his lap on the bed. He looked amazed but also full of questions he was keeping back for the time being. I touched his face.

"Women's bodies are different, my love. That was my way of getting the release you feel when you…ah…" I smiled sheepishly, embarrassed to use such terminology. "Stoke your—your manhood."

I felt his erection jump slightly against my back and I smiled.

"I…I've never…" He faltered. I sat up a little.

"Never?" I sat up more fully. "Perhaps…it doesn't work quite the same with you because of…" I trailed off. "We shall see. Now, mon cher, you must trust me completely. Do you trust me? Will you do as I ask?"

He paused for just a moment, before he nodded. I kissed him gently. As we kissed, my hand made seemingly lazily circles, caressing downward over his shirt to the top of his leather breeches. I skimmed over the top of them and then finally placed my palm over the bulge in them. Adam sucked in a breath and let it out with a shaking groan. I moved my hand up and down over that hardness and flicked a finger at the base of it. He slowly lowered himself so that he was lying on his back on the bed as if he could no longer support his own weight.

"Chandelle…Chandelle…" he breathed, his voice thick. I moved my hand from him and moved to murmur in his ear.

"You should have about as many clothes on as I do."

He opened his eyes and I smiled seductively—or what I hoped was seductively. Adam grimaced, but after a slight pause of uncertainty, he got up off the bed and began to strip himself of clothing as I had done. I watched, reclining on my elbows on the bed.

Instead of red, his face seemed to be growing paler as he pulled off his shirt and then worked at the laces of his breeches. He went slowly, glancing at me often. I could see the fear in his eyes.

Finally he stood entirely naked in front of me. The muscles of his body made hard shapes and lines, as if he were carved from stone. When he shifted, all of his musculature shifted smoothly, like a ballet of movement. It reminded me of the movements of shoulder muscles in great cats of prey—they flowed sinuously like water—deadly and beautiful. The thick scarring turned him from a larger-than-life marble work of Michelangelo into a statue that had been tipped over, broken into chunks, and then glued back together. The seams were ruinous to the grace and artistry of the original piece. And yet if one looked long enough, the seams would fade away slightly…and that original beauty smoldered, and broke the heart with its perfection.

He did seem indeed to have all the necessary masculine parts, though I felt a lick of fear at the size. Because of it, and because we could not take the risk of children, I knew we might never be able to join as men and women were designed for. That saddened me, but I knew this love would entail sacrifices. I always had.

I opened my arms for him, my face warm and joyful. The fear melted away from his face as he moved onto the bed and into my arms, incasing me in his own arms. We kissed deeply, broken often by his groans and whimpers. I was getting more pleasure than I had imagined rubbing my thighs and hands against the hot, sensitive skin around his erection and hearing his responses. I deeply enjoyed this teasing and this power.

I grew so wet as I massaged him with my hand, rubbing the thin, silky skin up and down as Sophia had instructed and he lay helpless with bliss beside me. I kissed his lips as I stoked him, but his mouth barely responded—he was too lost in sensation.

I spit on my hand and used that to make the strokes smoother. His response to that was a succession of groaning and whimpered sighs on a new level. His fists began to work, his fingers spaying and then contracting back, and he began to make a straining sort of sigh. His eyes flew open as he found release, and I cupped my other hand over the head of his erection to keep his spurt of release from shooting far. I suppressed a giggle at the whole affair. Sophia had prepared me for it, but still.

The look on Adam's face was absurd and adorable. He was overwhelmed by the sensation and a little bit flabbergasted.

"Well," he grunted at length, "what an odd phenomenon."

I couldn't keep in my giggles anymore then. "An 'odd phenomenon'? That's all you have to say?"

"It's frightfully undignified."

I snuggled against his body tightly, smirking. "Well, alone, yes, it is rather. Making love together the proper way is perhaps more dignified. But still rather inelegant, I would imagine."

"But the feeling…"

"Yes." I tilted my head back to gaze at him.

He stroked my face gently with his fingers. "It's…addicting."

"Yes. I'm going to find a towel."

He glanced down at himself as I got off the bed. "Thank you."

We wiped ourselves off and then I snuggled back into his embrace.

"I never knew I could feel so good," he admitted quietly, exhaling deeply.

"Mm. And think—you don't have to leave in the morning. You're supposed to be here—to be with me. You don't have to leave or hide. We could stay in bed all day tomorrow if we'd like."

"Truly?"

"Of course."

"It wouldn't be…untoward?"

"It's expected of newlyweds."

"Chandelle?"

"Mm?"

"I am the happiest man on earth."

"Good," I giggled. "Will you bring the sheet up over us? I'm sleepy."

He pulled the bedclothes out from under us, pushed away the heavier blankets, and pulled the lighter sheet up over us.

"This is so soft," he noticed.

"The bedclothes are new."

"Are you happy with the house?"

"I might do a little rearranging this week, but yes. I love it. The garden needs work as soon as possible, though. It's embarrassing in the state it's in."

"Hm. I'll help where I can."

"Now shh. Let me sleep."

"Yes, my love. My wife…"

I smiled and drifted to sleep in his arms.

…

Adam and I took a very, very late breakfast in our new dining room a little before midday the next morning. We kept looking across the table at one another with mischievous looks like a couple of mooning children.

Beaumont had prepared an incredible first meal for us, and though I was ravenous and it was delicious, I found myself barely concentrating. The buttery morning light hit the crystal on the table, lit the pieces brightly, and threw rainbows against the walls.

We finished our meal and took a short walk through the small, overgrown grounds, and I described to him what I envisioned for them one day. When we returned, we attempted to take some leisure time together in the back sitting room. I seated myself on a divan with a book and Adam stood near the fireplace, his elbow resting absently on the mantle. He was dressed in crisp, full gentlemanly attire and looked incredible to me, like some sort of mythological god. I tore my eyes away to concentrate on the page.

When I glanced up, his eyes were on me. I put my book aside and stood to join him near the fireplace, taking one of his hands in mine and rubbing his palm with my thumb.

"I can't stop thinking about what you look like naked," Adam confessed under his breath. "I can't concentrate on anything. I'm turning into a wretched degenerate."

"So am I," I replied with a smirk. "Let's go upstairs." I squeezed his hand and we meandered with deliberate casualness back to the staircase.

Near the top, I couldn't wait any longer and I pounced upwards, throwing my arms around his neck to kiss him. He pressed his back against the wall and made a groan deep in his throat as he kissed me deeply.

"Oh I beg your pardon!" came a gasp from the top of the landing. Poor Charlotte had come upon us from one of the upstairs bedrooms.

"It's quite alright," I replied as Adam set me down on the stairs gently and tilted his face away from Charlotte as was his habit. Charlotte quickly passed us to go down the stairs, a dust rag in her hands, and once she was out of sight, Adam picked me up with a soft growl and strode down the hall with me to our bedroom. Once the door was closed behind him, we picked up right where we had been interrupted.