Chapter 3

Eliana could feel herself trembling as they climbed the stairs, but Padraig kept such a tight grip on her that even when her foot missed the step she did not appear to have stumbled. She looked around the room as Padraig barred the door and got the emissary seated next to the window with a drink in his hand. The room was nice, though a bit barren and could definitely use a woman’s touch. When she looked back at her husband he held her eyes as he walked toward her.

She had coupled with Padraig before and knew what to expect, but never before had there been another in the room. In fact, they had always been hidden in an old hunting lodge with absolutely nobody else around. Or once they’d been by the river, but even then they had been sure they would not be seen.

Padraig stepped around her and slid her hair from her back over one shoulder so that it fell down the front of her dress and gave him free access to her laces. She'd worn it down on purpose, knowing how much he liked to run his fingers through it. He didn't do that now though. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her slightly so she faced the window. Eliana closed her eyes and bit her lip. He was going to strip her facing the emissary. The man would see every inch of her. As the fabric began to slip she grasped the front of her dress in both hands. “Please,” she whispered.

Padraig kissed her neck, then whispered in her ear, “You just signed that you would obey me, Eliana. You pledged to the king and the Lord that you would.” He took her hands in his and pried them from the cloth. “If you don’t relax, it will hurt more than a first coupling need hurt.”

Eliana swallowed hard. She had cried that day when Padraig had taken her maidenhead. It hadn’t really hurt all that much but she had wanted him to believe he had hurt her. And he had believed her. He had even apologized for not taking enough care. Their next coupling had been far more gentle. Oddly, she had not enjoyed it as much. She had regretted her pretense in the end.

The heavy fabric of her dress fell to the floor with an audible woosh. She gasped and grasped her corset when she felt the laces on it begin to loosen. “Please, can we not leave that on? I need not be nude to couple. My bloomers open in the middle, I could just-” Padraig tugged hard and the corset loosened.

“I want you naked,” he said firmly, “so that is what you will be. Obey me. Submit to your husband.” Elaina felt herself blush as Padraig pulled the garment out of her grasp and tossed it away. Her hands instantly went to cover her breasts, but Padraig caught her wrists and brought her arms down to her sides. She looked through her lashes at the emissary and saw the man grinning at her, his eyes moving from one breast to the other without shame. “Keep your hands at your sides,” Padraig ordered, then his hands began to slide up her bare arms. When he got to breast height he slid his hands over and cupped one globe in each of his palms. She could feel the heat of him at her back as he looked down over her from behind, watching his hands toy with her breasts for a while before he slid them down to the drawstring of her bloomers. She grasped his hands. “Hands at your sides, Eliana,” he chastised. She drew her lips between her teeth and let her hands fall away from him. He undid the knot slowly, then slid the bloomers over her hips. “Look at him,” Padraig whispered in her ear, “he wishes you were his.” Padraig ran his hand into the hair that covered her womanhood and began toying with her folds. “You are so beautiful, Eliana, and you are mine.” He slid a finger into her then, and Eliana winced. She was still too nervous. He was right, if she didn’t relax this was going to hurt. It wasn’t as though she could argue with the king's command. This was going to happen. It had to happen. He let go of her and she swayed, unsure of what to do as he walked away. She watched him grab a chair from near the hearth and bring it over. He sat behind her, nudging her knees apart with one of his and then pulling her down to sit over his thigh.

Padraig tipped Eliana’s head to the side and ran his tongue over her neck as his hands traveled over her body. He had done couplings with others in the room before, even with the woman on display like this, him teasing her while another watched, but those women had known what was going to happen and were excited by it. How could he make this as pleasant for Eliana who, he knew, would not have had any experience with this sort of play? He doubted she had even considered it possible. Knowing this was a first for her, and that she was not comfortable with the idea but also not protesting his commands, excited him more than being watched ever had before. The other women had been participating for the pleasure of it. They knew they would enjoy it. They had obeyed because they knew the reward. Lia was obeying just to be submissive to him. She was not expecting the act to be one she found pleasure in. He wanted her to find her pleasure. Licking and nibbling at her ear and neck, he started whispering to her all the things he knew she liked to hear. Her breasts were perfect, her waist tiny, her skin flawless, her hair soft and shiny... A lot of women liked to hear these things, but Eliana had always been particularly focused on how she looked.

“Look at him, Lia, see how much he likes the look of you? I am not just saying nice things because you are my wife. Look how beautiful the stranger thinks you are. His trews are tented, do you know what that means?” He knew she did, and her blush proved it. He pulled her back against his chest and continued to compliment her as his hands worked to excite her. Soon her hips were shifting restlessly with his caresses. He let his plaid fall from his shoulder and undid his buckle single-handed. When his member pulsed and brushed the small of her back Eliana gasped and tried to move away, but he held her firmly in place by sliding his fingers over her womanhood and into her channel again. This time she was wet. Not quite ready, but wet. He pressed her nub down with the palm of his hand and rubbed it hard. Harder and faster than he had ever rubbed her before.

She cried out and grabbed his wrist with one of her hands. She wasn't trying to stop him though, she was just holding onto him, so he didn’t order her to put her hands down. He tweaked her nipple with his other hand and her backside clenched on his leg.

“I’m going to take you to your woman’s pleasure with my fingers, Eliana. Then I’m going to stand you up. You’re going to put your hands on the bed and I’m going to enter you from behind, the way my stallion mounted your mother’s mare when we were small. Do you remember that? You didn’t know what they were doing and wouldn’t believe me when I told you. You were so shocked to hear people could do the same.” His hands kept moving while he talked and he could feel her flesh heating and her channel growing wetter as it tried to draw his fingers in. “I’m going to enter you from behind, just as the stallion did the mare. Your beautiful backside will be right in front of the emissary’s face. He won’t have to question our coupling. He will see my shaft push into you. He will watch every thrust in and out, in and out,” Padraig timed the movement of his hands to the words. “In and out, over and over until I explode against your womb.” He felt her starting to tremble. “Then he’s going to leave and the two of us will get up on the bed to do this again. She whimpered. “You are so beautiful, wife. You’re not leaving this room until I’ve explored every inch of your exquisite body with my hands and my mouth.” He slid two more fingers into her and moved them around while his palm pressed even harder against her most sensitive point. “Reach for it, beautiful. Take your pleasure. Take it now.” Her head fell forward and her inner walls began their rhythmic massage of his fingers. He kept his hand moving until she was done. He knew that was the way she liked it best. Her head fell back on his shoulder and her legs relaxed, opening wide. He looked up at the emissary and watched the man’s eyes as he slid his hand from his wife’s core and painted her thighs with his damp fingers. He pushed them further apart, watching the emissary lick his lips at the sight.

“Very good, very beautiful,” Padraig let both his hands run up and down the inside of her legs, loving the way her legs twitched under his fingers. The emissary’s eyes were still locked on her core. “Let’s get you into position now, shall we? The emissary hasn’t got all day.” She didn’t move but sat limply on his lap with her head on his chest. He wrapped his arm around her waist and stood, taking the few steps to the bed and bending her at the waist. Her hands fell to the bed rail without him telling her to put them there. Padraig ran his hands up and down her back and sides as his legs nudged hers further apart. When he pressed against her entrance she tensed slightly and he stopped, his one hand tapped gently against her bottom, just hard enough for the combination of the feeling and the sound to make her jump. “None of that wife. Loosen back up or you’ll be hurt.” He felt her take a deep, shuttering breath and then felt her muscles relax, letting him slide home easily. “Such a good, obedient wife.” Holding her hips tightly Padraig began to move. This was for him now. She could come along and take her pleasure again, or she could just let him have his way. He glanced over to see the emissary’s hand holding his crotch. The man had said the group would ride off as soon as he’d witnessed this done. Padraig grinned. He would need to take care of his own shaft first or he’d not be able to ride in comfort. He felt Eliana’s insides clamp down on him and he grinned wider. She was embarrassed to be naked with the stranger here, but she was as excited as he was to be together at last, and maybe had even enjoyed having someone watching them. Tightening his fingers on her hips, Padraig began to pump into her faster and deeper. She moaned as he bumped into her womb and he pulled all the way out and plunged deep again, making her cry out as he released inside her.

Eliana felt Padraig pull out of her and began to collapse onto the bed, but her husband scooped her into his arms and carried her around to the side of the bed, putting her down and pulling the covers up before he kissed her forehead, just as if he were tucking her in for the night. Eliana watched as he stood. His member was glistening and showed a bit of red blood. Her eyes widened. It had worked! She’d thought her mother’s notion about using a leach before coupling was ridiculous, but there was the evidence. It looked as though it had been her first coupling! She heard him gasp when he saw what she was looking at.

“Her maidens head!” The emissary proclaimed so loudly that Eliana jumped. ‘You are well and truly wed, Lord MacInnis! To a fine lady who saved herself for her husband, as a good lady should!”

“Aye,” Padraig said. His voice sounded so bewildered that Eliana couldn’t stop the grin from sneaking onto her face. She bit her lip and hid her face as though embarrassed and she heard the emissary chuckle. She kept her face hidden as Padraig let the man out and closed and barred the door again. He was beside her in an instant.

“Did I hurt you, Lia? Are you injured?”

“Nay, husband.” She peeked out at him from the edge of the counterpane, “I used a trick my mother told me before she died.”

“What trick is that?”

“She told me that English men like a woman to bleed on the wedding night, but many lasses don’t, even if they have not been with a man. She told me that lasses put a leach in their channel for a bit a day or two before the wedding to make a weak spot so coupling will shed some blood. I had thought that all the emissary would need was a bloody sheet and mother's trick would provide that for us.”

“You deceived the king’s emissary, and therefore the king himself.”

“Not as much as you did, Groigair Padraig Alasdair MacInnis.”

Padraig scowled at her and grabbed the counterpane, tossing it back to reveal her nakedness. Eliana gasped when grabbed her ankle and tugged her quickly to the edge of the bed. Before she could get her hands over herself, Padraig’s mouth descended on her core.