She laughed and heard her nervousness in the sound. What did one speak of after such a moment? Yes, she'd been intimate with men before, but this had been so different. He had taken her totally. Completely. She had submitted to him wholly. Now she didn't know where they stood. And she longed to ask him but wasn't sure this was quite the moment to do so.

He stood then bent and reached for her and lifted her up into his arms, then carried her to the bed.

James had vowed to treat her with tenderness.

Tonight, when he had seen her standing there, sleepy-eyed in her nightdress, in his bedchamber just as though she were his mistress and he had a right to her. He had longed to see her body. Bare in the firelight. Just to look. Not to touch.

What madness!

As though a man could look at a form so luscious, so perfect as hers and not want to touch her? It had been her artless sensuality, her obvious pleasure at displaying herself, and her doing so with a complete lack of affected coyness, that had proved his undoing.

He had vowed to treat her with tenderness.

But he'd taken her quite roughly.

The jealousy within him had demanded that he have what others had already taken from her. That jealousy had driven him to take her fiercely.

And yet she had responded beautifully to that roughness, to his every demand. He could tell she'd been surprised but not unpleasantly so. Did her response matter? She was a lady and he knew better than to treat any lady like that. No matter his inclinations or needs in the moment.

He turned away from her, intending to go and fetch her some watered wine.

"James."

Her voice was soft. Pleading without being insistent.

He turned back to her.

She lay there on the faded velvet coverlet, the play of the flickering firelight making her hair shimmer with enchanted tones of gold and orange. Her lips were swollen and deep red, her nipples hard points as bright pink-red as raspberries.

She was more beautiful than any portrait of womanly perfection that his dreams had ever dared paint.

His cock, which hadn't fully relaxed, began to harden, lengthen.

She parted her legs wide and slid her hand down and used her fingers to spread her outer lips, opening herself to his view. Her core, deep pink with arousal, glistened with wetness.

He wanted to drop to his knees between those luscious thighs and bury his face in her tantalizing cunny. To smell her. Taste her. Thrust his tongue into her hot, wet sheath.

But he couldn't do that yet. She wasn't ready for it. "Touch yourself, sweeting."

At first, she tentatively brushed her fingers over her flesh, her movements stiff, unnatural.

But he sought to encourage her. "That's beautiful, love. That's the most beautiful thing."

She released her breath, a loud sigh. She visibly relaxed, the softly rounded swell of her belly rising and falling more naturally. She began rubbing her nub with gentle yet more determined strokes, her strokes becoming circular and faster, faster. She arched her hips and writhed, moaning as her fingers worked her flesh faster, more firmly.

He walked to the bed and sat beside her.

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were glazed, lost in her passions. Her pleasures.

"Freddy?"

The name startled him. Rankled him. Made him hotter than fire with jealousy. He forced the feeling down and fought for control. Some instinct told him he must take care. There was something not quite the thing here. Something related to her whole emotionally fragile condition. She didn't need him responding with jealous anger. He must remain more aware of her needs and less focused on his own. He caressed her hair off of her face. "Not Freddy, sweeting, 'tis James."

"James." Her voice rang with wonder. "Yes, oh yes, James."

Such pleasure sounded in her voice, it took away the sting of hearing her utter Freddy's name.

He leaned down, cupped her face and kissed her deeply.

"James," she said as he lifted his head. She placed her hands on either side of his cheeks and pulled down. "James."

He kissed her again. And again. Until sheer need for air demanded that he rest.

She stared up at him, her eyes slightly glazed again. Strangely distant.

She had ceased touching herself sometime during their kissing. He took her hand and pulled it to his lips and kissed it. Her scent, spicy, sweetly sensual, wafted from her fingers. Need stabbed through him. He closed his eyes and groaned.

Focus on her needs, not on your own. Focus on her needs, not on your own. He repeated this to himself as he opened his eyes, took her hand and led it back between her legs. "Make yourself come. I want to see you come."

"I can't." Her voice was half-sad, half-apologetic.

"Why not? What happens?"

"Freddy," she whispered, as though someone might hear.

"What about Freddy?"

"He haunts me."

"When you're trying to pleasure yourself?"

"Yes, he comes to me, as real as he ever was. I don't call him, I try not to think of him. But he still visits me then. He watches me. He disapproves." Anxiety, not love or grief, resounded in her voice. "Dr. Meeker said if I could come for another man, it would stop the apparition. He said it was due to guilt. Guilt over having rejected Freddy's husbandly authority whilst he was still alive." She'd become a little breathless. "I cannot help but wonder if I were possessed by a man. I mean really and truly possessed by him, to have his weight upon me and his cock inside me, then Freddy would finally leave me in peace and I could come."

He heard the earnestness in her voice. He could sense the incredible tension in her body. The painful need. He felt how badly she wanted to come. Needed to come. It sent an answering frustration through him, an urgent desire to roll on top of her and take her. Answering need throbbed in his erection. A curiously pleasurable anguish. He had never experienced such self-denial. With any other woman, he would have either had her or left.

Her body trembled, with hunger, he was certain. His cock throbbed painfully once more. Would it really hurt matters to try and take her? Maybe that was all she really needed, as she had said.

No. There was something more at the heart of all of this. He needed to find out what.

Remain more aware of her needs and less focused on your own, damn you.

"I am not sure that having my cock in you just yet is the answer, sweeting."

She frowned. "Whyever not?"

"I think you have to come to terms with something inside yourself."

"Then you don't think it is really Freddy haunting me."

"No, I don't."

"I am not so sure."

"You think that even he would be that selfish, to actually haunt you and prevent you from taking pleasure, from finding release?" James asked.

"I don't...Goodness, that sounds like a terrible thing for me to believe. No, I don't want to believe that." She drew her brows together. "James, would you make love to me? I mean, really and truly make love to me?"

He shook his head. "You're not ready."

"I am wet." She took his hand and pulled it down. He watched her lead it down to her mons and he knew a leaping sense of anticipation. It was so different with her. Any other lady would have pretended coyness, a false hesitance. Any woman who didn't pretend these qualities would have been hardened, coarse.

But Sunny was neither of these things. She was a refined yet artless sensualist.

She dragged his hand across her damp curls and pressed it until he felt the liquid heat of her inner lips. She arched against his hand whilst still pressing it down with her own, all the while pleading with her eyes.

Lust pulsed through his loins, making his cock throb and jerk with impatience.

"See, I am ready," she said in a voice soft as velvet.

He stroked his fingertip over her nub, lingering a moment to apply the circular motion he'd seen her use. The nub grew firmer. His cock throbbed painfully. "You're certainly ready, here." He withdrew his finger and reached to touch her temple. "But you're not ready here." He drew his hand down and touched above her left breast. He paused, feeling the pounding of her heart and noting the rapid fall and rise of her chest. "And most importantly, you're not ready here."

"Must I really be completely ready in those ways? Isn't it mostly a fairly basic thing? Do my head and heart necessarily need to be in accord with my sex?"

Hearing such a frank word on her lips sent another bolt of lust through him. He had to suppress a groan. "Sunny, you're no hardened light-skirt. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you are. I don't want to hurt you, I never want to hurt you. Not in that way, ever."

His hand seemed to find its way down to her stomach and slid down to cup her mons again. Her outer lips were plump, a luxury to touch. But she was so wet, he could never have resisted slipping a finger into her. She clenched on him and arched her hips, whilst looking him directly in the eyes. Her eyes were dark green and glittering with desire.

He pulled his finger back then slid it back in as deep as it would go.

She caught her breath then moaned and he could feel her getting wetter.

He set up a steady rhythm.

"James?" she asked, an unsteadiness in her voice. "I won't be able to-"

"Shh," he said.

"But I won't-"

"Does it feel good to you?" He brushed his thumb over her nub.

She arched, pressing up into his touch. "It feels divine. But-"

"Hush, then. Just enjoy it and don't worry about anything else." Her every writhe and moan and slight catch of her breath thrilled him. He had never before known such a vicarious enjoyment of a woman's pleasure and he was loath to cease.

He put his mouth to her neck and savored the feel of her pulse beneath his lips. He pressed his erection into the softness of her thigh. He was leaking all over her, throbbing. But he called on all his self-discipline and focused on her needs, her pleasures. She had been years without satisfaction; surely he could manage one night.

He wanted her to experience climax alone, before he took her. He wanted to give her back her own sense of sexuality. Yet, if he returned her carnality to her and she knew she could come once more, that she could do it on her own, then she might well decide she no longer wanted or needed to be with him.

And he'd have to accept that.

Because a submission forced upon her due to her desperation for release wasn't what he wanted. He wanted her to give herself to him freely.

He withdrew his hand and then took her hand. "Touch yourself."

Sunny had been close, so close. She'd been sure of that.

You've believed that before.

Oh, but the feel of his long fingers, deep inside her, driving her to greater and greater heights, had been so wonderful! Better than she could have ever imagined. Better than with anyone else. The withdrawal of his hand was a loss. A painful loss. She moaned and let her eyes flutter open.

Firelight cast shadows over the elegantly drawn lines of his straight, narrow nose, his chiseled cheekbones. His jaw jutted for he appeared to be holding it tense. She could sense the energy he held inside himself.

"Touch yourself."

He spoke those words as though such a thing were the easiest thing in the world. Yes, she'd done it earlier, but that had been different. She'd been caught up in the passion of having served his pleasure, of having had him take such utter control over her. She'd been like another woman, another Sunny.

She'd gloried in his dominance. She wanted him to take control over her now. She could sense that coiled energy within him, growing in strength. She wished she knew how to tempt him, to provoke him into letting go of his self-control as he had done earlier. However, she wasn't quite sure how to ask, or, more importantly, how to ask in a way that would reach him. He was doggedly determined to follow whatever course he willed. That had been plain since that first night when she'd stole into his bed and tried to seduce him.

He cupped her face, his eyes dark and glittering with desire. "I want to you do it. I want to see you give yourself pleasure."

"It will no' work."

"It will."

"No, Freddy, he haunts me. He will-"

"No, no, I won't allow him to come between us." He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I won't let him deny you."

She caught her breath.

The way he said that! She had never thought of it like that before.

James lowered his head, put his lips to the hollow beneath her ear. "You're a widow, no longer his wife. You were never really his in a sexual sense; he never possessed you fully. He couldn't give you what you needed."

"It was no' his fault."

"It wasn't yours either."

"He needed me so much. He needed something from me, I di-don't know what it was."

"Yes, you do."

"No." She shook her head rapidly.

"Yes, you do, love. Be brave enough to face it."

Her heart had begun to pound very fast. "Oh, dear."