Free Her Wicked Sin by Sarah Ballance

layers.”
    “Woman as well.”
    “Your layers, Henry,” she said with softness. “What do they hide?”
    “Firstly, the kind of need that will give a man a limp.”
    He spoke with such quiet regard she nearly missed his pun. “You refuse all seriousness,” she admonished.
    “I speak the truth.” He removed his hands from her shoulders where upon they rested and gently worked free the fasteners of her outer coat. “Shall I help you with your coat?”
    Lydia nodded before she lost the nerve, for the knot in her stomach surely sensed more than she. Henry was a most handsome man—rakish in appearance, but with a gentleman’s charm—and certainly virile as she could attest from her observations of the night prior. The mere thought of his fulfillment left her hot and weak, though her body responded with strength and a deep ache.
    His russet eyes had darkened, though she blamed not the waning light of day. The fire roared, tending well the pottage and casting bountiful, dancing coloration in the modest room. And there, as if the most routine of activities, stood a man—her husband —with his strong, supple fingers removing her coats as if he had been born to do that very thing.
    Once he’d relieved her from the burdens of her outer layers, they were both cast into stillness. The crack and bend of the fire could not equal the trumpet of her heart.
    She was his wife. And for the first time in her life, thoughts of her matrimonial duty filled her not with fear or tumult, but with a kind of burning desire that made her revisit the innocence of girlhood. His hesitance made him neither confident nor timid, but rather a gentleman. Though he could rightfully claim her body as he had her hand, he withheld—whether or not for consideration of her past hurts, it mattered not. He, stranger and husband, put her first.
    He stepped forward, lessening the gap between them to half an arm’s length. “May I?”
    She knew not what he asked, but nodded her permission. And so he reached for her bonnet, untied the strings, and cast the garment aside.
    “When we join,” he said, “I shall be humbled to see your beauty in its most natural state.” His words came from calm, though something passionate simmered very near his surface as he reached to untie her hair, then arranged it loose about her face. He leaned forward, closing the small distance between them, and pressed his cheek to hers, breathing deeply.
    The sensation of his early beard hairs against her softer cheek brought forth a rampant want. Never had she fired so hotly nor been treated with such tenderness. Though she wanted not to rush the moment, his every attention left her watery with an unfamiliar strength of desire—one she desperately hoped he would fulfill.
    Summoning every bold bit of her nature, she sought with both hands his doublet and began working the fasteners.
    He borrowed another deep breath, this one pulling over the flesh of her neck in a soft, needy moan. “I fear you will withhold me, lovely Lydia. Are you sure this is what you want?”
    “I want nothing more.”
    She barely managed the words before his lips found her skin and nearly sent her wilting to her knees. The fire might have jumped from the hearth for the way his touch kindled an unbridled heat deep within, but she held fast to her cause, maneuvering by feel when she could no longer see her ministrations.
    They were fully pressed now, she and Henry, with his body hot and hard. Though his height bested hers, they seemed to fit as one when she looked upon high, baring her neck to his attentions. She fought for the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips, and when he finally broke from his kisses it was to rip free of his top garments. The barrier shed, he returned to their closeness without hesitation, filling his hands with her hair and guiding her position so he once again had access to her flesh.
    She felt raw with her need, but not at all wounded from past scars. Her fingertips raked his