Bonding

Scotland: 1558

In the cozy privacy of their bed that night, Margarete felt a sharp and deep desire for closeness with her husband. All that day, she had seen her own sadness mirrored on his face, and on the face of the kindly Father John. So much sadness and trouble had come from matters which should not be a source of strife. Colin had chosen to ally their household with the adherents of the Reformation against her wishes. Now, she felt weary and lonely.

She had tried to school herself to acceptance of Colin's choice to reject the authority of the Pope and Catholicism, to see both its philosophical and pragmatic merits. She felt she had mostly succeeded, but, yearning toward Colin, she realized that she had been silently blaming him. When he did not receive her tentative nestling movements with warmth, she understood that she had offended him by her remoteness in the past weeks.

Always, it had been he who led them into sensuality and passion. Now, she found him aloof and tepid. She experienced a pang of guilt. These matters were not his fault. He was only trying to act with caution and practicality to protect them all from the tremendous forces that moved around them.

Lying in stoic silence, he knew what she wanted, but days and nights of her willful distance left him feeling mulish and uncharitable. She would have to do more than wriggle beside him in that shy but suggestive way she had.

"Something troubling ye, lass?" he asked coolly.

"No. Yes. I... I want..."

He laid still and silent, not making it easy for her. Her tone spoke of hesitancy and diffidence, which he rather enjoyed.

"I have been... I have been so troubled by all these matters that I... I have been...I have not been... friendly toward you."

He let out a bark of cynical laughter. "Ah, ye hae been friendly enough, but it's nae mere friendliness a man looks for from his wife in their bed."

She thought he would reach for her then, but he did not. His continued stillness confused her. She stroked his chest shyly, but still he did not move.

"I am sorry," she said finally, feeling her way through these treacherous waters. "I think I have been holding you responsible for the unease I feel."

"Aye, do ye think so?"

She couldn't help but smile at the sarcasm in his tone. His dry humor amused her, and she felt a rush of tenderness for him. She had no experience or wisdom to guide her, so she allowed the instinct of her tenderness to dictate her actions. She raised herself on an elbow and kissed his cheek fondly. "Your sarcasm is justified," she said, and he heard the smile through her words.

"Ye said ye wanted something," he remarked, his tone less frosty.

"Aye," she replied, exaggerating the Scots' phrase as she rubbed her cheek against his, reminding him of a friendly barn cat trying to leave its scent on him.

For all the frenzied coupling they had engaged in, she was inexperienced when it came to leading them there. When he still did not move, however, she gathered her courage and kissed him tentatively on the lips. His lips moved under hers, and she thought that, at last, he would take an active role, and she could relax into her accustomed responses.

Colin, however, intended nothing of the kind. Her remoteness had irritated him greatly, as had his own disinclination either to force the issue, or to seek release elsewhere. He lay supine and passive, enjoying her uncertainty, but not nearly as much as he was enjoying the feel of her body leaning over him, and her eager lips seeking his.

The heat that always emanated from her skin was very pleasant, and her scent was like a draft of good wine. He was more than eager to take her, but he would not help her through her awkwardness. It was she who had introduced the distance between them; let it be she who bridged it. The experience would be good for her he reflected, as she ran a soft hand down the side of his neck, down his chest, and across his belly; and good for him, too.

By his continued immobility, she understood that he was not going to assume his usual role of guide and initiator. Accepting this, she became more confident in her movements. By his kisses, and the erect flesh swelling beneath her seeking hand, she knew that he was willing, but she understood that she must extend herself, experiment as she had not done before with him.

She moved slightly away, quickly divested herself of her nightdress, then swung one leg over him so that she straddled his body with her knees. A vivid flash of herself straddling Lise in this manner came to her. Though fear and sadness lay behind the image, she resolutely dismissed these, focusing on the feeling of power she had tasted at such moments, the desire to bring pleasure, the gathering force that would call forth desire and ecstasy in another.

She smiled as she ran firm hands over his skin. She shifted her hips experimentally so that his hard cock moved pleasurably against her. So enjoyable was this that she placed her hands firmly on his hips lest he try to move out of reach of her. She heard him make a sound of drawn out pleasure in his throat and her own pleasure deepened.

Experimentally, she leaned forward so that her soft breasts rubbed against his chest. She enjoyed the friction against her hard nipples. His hands rose eagerly to touch her, and her smile became smug in the darkness; not indifferent after all. She moaned and writhed gently against him, actively seeking to rouse him in a way she had never done before.

Always, she had understood that her beauty, her femininity, her passion roused him without effort on her part. Now, as her breath came more quickly and she sought out his lips once more, she began to taste the pleasure of deliberately tantalizing him with her body and her sensuality. She shifted upwards to offer first one breast, then the other to be kissed and caressed.

Feeling absolutely no desire to take a more active role, he followed her, kissing her lips when she would have him do so, welcoming her breasts as she proffered them. He was enjoying not only his own passivity, but also her growing boldness and curiosity.

She shifted back down to rub against his erect penis once more. She was clearly enjoying herself enormously, but he found that total passivity was impossible. With a subtle movement that she was too inexperienced to anticipate, he moved so that his cock slid gracefully between her moist lips. Startled, she drew back slightly so that only the tip rested inside her. She found this utterly diverting, and spent endless minutes teasing them both with small, gentle movements of her hips. She wouldn't allow him to enter her any further, but played with the head of his erection, letting it almost slide out, then catching it again, tightening her inner muscles around it, then releasing to slide down just a little bit further.

He knew a strong desire to seize her, roll her beneath him and take her with energy and vigor, but he restrained himself.

"Do you wish me to go all the way down?" she asked playfully, knowing the answer, but desperate to hear him say it.

"Aye, I do!"

"Mm. I will, if you touch me between my legs until I can no longer stop myself."

He reached down to her center of pleasure with alacrity. He moved his fingers with practiced grace and slowness until she could stand it no longer. She took a deep breath and, slowly, sank down until he was fully inside her. She gave a drawn out gasping cry of delight. She held her body still and rigid, suffused with pleasure and a kind of awe.

"Now move, lass," he said gently, "Up and doon." She was somewhat awkward and graceless at first, but her sincerity made up for it. He let his fingers fall away while she got used to the movements, then brought them back to renew the gentle, inexorable caress.

"Oh, Colin! Do you think I can reach the peak of pleasure like this?" Her voice was breathless and surprised.

He laughed affectionately. "Aye, I ken ye are able to reach it in many ways."

She gasped as much with surprise as pleasure. Her entire body was rigid with tension, exertion, and expectation. Her hips moved with a deep and consistent rhythm. Taking his cue from her, he kept the movements of his fingers equally even.

She felt herself swept irresistibly toward the peak of pleasure, carried like a boat on a swift river. When it came, she hovered above him, thrumming and vibrating with it. Her gasps and cries were of pleasure mixed with amazement.

When her paroxysms had begun to subside, he could control himself no longer. He knew that incredulity and exertion would leave her limp and incapable of continuing as she had been. At last, he did what his flesh had been crying out for him to do. He grasped her around the waist and turned her so that she lay beneath him, still gasping for breath, still quivering, wholly open to him, fully receptive to his driving need.

He did not increase the speed of their joining, however. The rhythm she had engendered stayed with him, having drawn him into its slow deliberation. With deep, slow, even thrusts, he plunged into her eager flesh with a force and power that consumed her as much as her own orgasm had done. As so often happened, she experienced his peak as a reflection or recreation of her own. It reached her core as her own had done, and she opened herself fully to it, welcoming his seed and the explosive force of his pleasure.

As they lay curled close and drowsy, she wondered, as she did after each of their couplings, whether this would be the miraculous time when a new life would at last be engendered in her womb.