Sorrell shuddered again and again after her body slumped down on her husband. She rested her head on his chest and listened to his heart pound rapidly. It matched her own pounding heart. She didn’t want to move. She wasn’t ready for him to slip out of her yet, to separate from him. She liked laying there against him and connected intimately.
She smiled and looked up at him when he ran his hand down her cheek. “You earned my never-ending trust with that one.” She felt his chuckle deep in his chest, and her smile spread.
“I’m glad it pleased you.”
“Pleased?” She chuckled this time. “You went far beyond pleasing me, husband.”
He ran his hand slowly down her cheek again. She was so soft, her cheeks warm and flushed from their lovemaking, and her smile generous. “And you give me more pleasure than I ever thought possible.”
“Me and only me,” she ordered, poking him in the chest with her finger. “Lay with another woman and I will—”
“Bite my cock off.” His chest rumbled with another chuckle.
She laid her hands against his naked chest to push herself up and her brow scrunched. “You gave me a thought. Is it permissible for me to taste your manhood?”
Ruddock couldn’t answer her fast enough. “Aye. Definitely, aye, and definitely permissible and most welcomed.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime.”
He loved her bluntness. “Anytime you want.”
She didn’t protest when he lifted her off him, since he tucked her in his lap and eased back to rest against the wall.
“The rain has slowed or has stopped,” she said, not hearing it.
“That is good. I am eager to get home and settle us in our bedchamber.”
Curious about her new home, she asked, “Is it large?”
“It is a good size.”
“Tell me of your home,” she said, settling comfortably in his lap to talk.
“It has been two years since I’ve been home so I don’t know how much has changed. You should wait and judge for yourself.”
“Lord Ruddock, the rain has stopped. We should be on our way,” Erland called out from outside the door.
“Aye, have the men ready,” Ruddock said with a loud command.
It wasn’t until Sorrell was settled on his horse once again that she thought about what he had said.
It has been two years since I’ve been home.
Where had he been and what had he done the two years he had been away from home? And what had happened that had earned him the shackle on his wrist?
Chapter 20
Sorrell was filled with excitement and anticipation. Up ahead was Ruddock’s home and now her new home. She couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of it. A heaviness caught at her heart, wishing her sisters were here to share this with her.
The muscle in her husband’s arms suddenly tensed around her and his body grew even tauter against her. She glanced up at him. The bold blue color of his eyes was more intense than she had ever seen it. She couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking, arriving home to his father who was dying. A father who not long ago wanted him dead.
“Whatever awaits you, we face together,” she said, giving his arm a squeeze.
Ruddock looked down at his wife tucked against him. “You have no idea how much that means to me, wife.”
She kept her hand on his arm as they continued toward the keep, letting him know she was there for him.
As soon as they rounded a bend in the road, his home came into view. Sorrell found herself staring in awe, shocked by the size of it all. The keep looked as tall and wide as a mountain. It rose up past the towering, gray stone wall that went on endless, surrounding a sizeable portion of the area. A single dirt path led to the entrance. A distance away to the left side of the wall ran a forest, thick with growth and beyond that a mountain stood majestically. To the right, far to the back of the stone wall there looked to be a waterway of sorts.
“That’s the water mill you’re seeing,” Ruddock explained. “It’s fed from the harbor water beyond the back of the castle.
“A harbor?” Sorrell asked, trying to comprehend the breadth and width of his home.
“Aye, it makes trade easier, something my father planned on when he had the castle built.”
“It is quite large,” she said, trying to take all of it in.
“Those two towers, looking as if they reach to the sky, to either side of the gatehouse are defense towers. The wooden hourds surrounding the tops allow the warriors to drop munitions on the attacking enemy.
“Has the castle been attacked?” she asked.
“Twice, though well before I was born.”
They entered through the gatehouse, single file, passing under the timber-framed portcullis overhead. Once that heavy gate was lowered there would be no way out and that disturbed Sorrell. She didn’t want to feel a prisoner in her new home.