Free What the Heart Sees by Marsha Canham

the bed and without reservation, she parted her thighs to welcome the heaviness of his body between them.
    Cassie had never lain with a man before, but she had certainly seen many a furtive couplings on the castle battlements these past few weeks. Her body was trembling, her heart was pounding in her chest. She had to curl her lip between her teeth to keep from crying out as she felt the solid heat of his flesh probe between the silky soft folds and begin to stretch up inside her. The cry turned into a husky groan as he pushed deeper and deeper, filling her, joining their two bodies together as one.
    Her head pressed back into the bedding and her hands reached out on either side, grabbing at twists of the blanket. He was buried deep inside her. His lips were on her neck, she could feel his heart beating as wildly as her own. His hands skimmed down from her waist to her hips and lifted them, causing her to gasp and writhe as she realized there was more...so much more. With his guidance, she moved her body for him, opened herself wider, squeezed herself around him until his breathing was as ragged as her own.
    When the spasms began, she let go of the bedding and clawed her hands around his shoulders. She moved with his thrusts, strained eagerly to meet each one, crying out, gasping, clinging to him as the pleasure exploded through her body.
    ~~~
    It was Cassie’s turn to stand at the window, deep in thought. Full night had fallen; the sky was a vast black vault awash with stars. They had been abed since late afternoon and, as if to make up for the haste of their first coupling, Thomas had been taking his torturously sweet time bringing her to orgasm time and time again. She could feel the pearly slickness on her thighs, evidence of her most recent surrender to his skills.
    At some point during the evening, her hair had been loosened from the braid and now fell in a pale yellow tumble around her shoulders. Once, when Edward had interrupted to bring food, she had snatched a robe from a wall peg and wrapped it around her shoulders—the same robe she wore now to guard against the chill from the open window. Aside from that, the two had remained blissfully naked and twined in each other’s arms all evening.
    Hearing movement behind her, she half turned, but Thomas was already there, sliding a hand around her waist to draw her back against his chest. He buried his lips in her hair and nuzzled contentedly for a long moment.
    “You are full of surprises, my lovely woodsprite. First you show me your talent with a bow, then your courage at venturing out into the forest at night to watch an enemy’s camp. You show me intelligence by turning leaves into maps, and cleverness in planning an attack that could have gone so very horribly wrong. If that were not enough, you bewitch me, body and soul, and keep me locked away in this tower room for hours that should have been spent planning how to begin my life as an outlaw.”
    “I saw no lock on the door,” she protested through a smile, trying not to notice that his hand had slipped beneath the robe and slid deftly between her thighs.
    “The lock is here,” he murmured, using his fingers to win a soft sigh from her lips. “And you notice I said nothing about your opportune meeting with Old Godfrey the Lombard. Without that we would still be walking the walls waiting for the next attack.”
    “I cannot explain what I saw,” she said. “I only know I saw it. I saw him. He was as real as you are now. His hand touched mine and it was real flesh and blood, I swear it.”
    “I believe you. I believe you saw something, because...because it happened to me too.”
    Cassie turned around so swiftly, his hand was nearly broken off at the wrist.
    “What did you just say?”
    He withdrew his hand from the folds of the robe and flexed his fingers. “I was understandably embroiled with other thoughts at the time and not exactly certain what I was seeing in the reflection. But now, after