"Have you been experiencing any swelling?"
Laughter spiraled deep inside, where happiness and a building ache for this man filled her. " 'Tis possible. Mayhap I have need of your ministrations."
"I'm no healer, but I possess a few skills of my own." His lips wrapped around her left nipple.
Sharp pleasure sliced through her. Her head lulled back. Already she felt wet and restless, wanting him. "What skills you have."
"Aye. Seems to have had some effect here, at your nipple."
"I can feel it." She sighed when he suckled this time, drawing her deep into his mouth, and then arched her back. "And even lower."
"Truly? Mayhap I should see for myself."
His hands caressed dazzling trails of heat down her ribs, over her abdomen and ever lower, to that private place that pulsed and ached for more than his touch. His clever fingers found her fiery center and stroked. Bright white pleasure jolted through her.
"I see what you mean. I think I can cure this problem." His fingers grazed the sensitive inner folds and circled once, then again. She moaned low at the hot sensation that built there. Then he reached up and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, and they rolled together until she was on top gazing down into the dark sparkles of his eyes.
"Lucky you are that I happened along." His hands settled on her hips.
She felt the hard ridge of his shaft thrumming against her stomach. All thought fled. Only feeling remained. He gazed up at her with tenderness, with such adoration it frightened her, made her wish for endless nights to fill with this wondrous closeness.
"I want you." His hands lifted her, and she rose over him. "So very much."
"As I want you." Her breath caught when his shaft nudged the sensitive curve of her inner thighs. She opened to him, drawing him in with one smooth glide.
"We're good together, eh?" How dark his eyes were. How low his voice. "I can't believe my luck in having you for my wife."
"Jonah." He felt so good inside her, thick and pulsing, stretching her tight. Her entire body responded, drawing taut around him. Emotion as bright as a springtime sun, as full as a blue moon, shone inside her, growing more sure every time they rocked together.
His hands on her hips guided her. She sat up, and the change of position shifted the feel of his shaft within her.
Such a thrilling feeling. She gazed down at him, melting at the way he looked up at her, as if she were beautiful, truly beautiful.
And he made her feel that way. Overcome, she moved in a slow rhythm, just to watch his jaw strum tight as she tortured him. But he stroked more deeply inside her with every slow thrust, and she was the one tortured. Control tumbled away. Heat stretched tight in her abdomen and built hot and fast there, where they joined. Soon he was bucking up to meet her strokes, driving her toward aching, unending sensation.
Surrender came in a series of wrenching ripples of muscle and soul. Tears burned her eyes as sharp pleasure exploded, tearing through her over and over again. Sharp, searing, so thrilling she could not bear it. So brilliant there was only sensation, only the two of them lost and burning.
She felt his climax, the tensed agony as he cried out, the rush of heat as he spilled his seed. His arms banded around her and pulled her tight against his chest. She held him, feeling as if she could never let him go. No one had ever moved her this much, made her feel cherished and wanted and more valued than any riches.
"I love you, Jonah," she breathed, content to hold him for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twelve
" 'Tis almost time to begin turning the earth. The ground is nearly thawed." Thomas kicked at a clod of dirt in the fallow fields, sodden from melting snow and ice.
Rain drummed to the ground in streaks of bleak dreary gray. The world was naught but bare-limbed trees and charcoal sky and dark earth. 'Twas the time between winter and spring, when the grasses had not yet awakened, when the earth itself still slept. A few sparrows startled, flying up to perch on low boughs.
Jonah tipped the rainwater off the brim of his hat.
"You're no farmer, Thomas. I'm afraid to listen to you."
"Aye, you should be. Andy is the one with the experience, since he stayed home longer than any of us." Thomas stared off toward the river, where a ship struggled to fill those pristine white sails with a breath of wind to take them on their way.
"Where is he? Chasing the young Anya's skirts?"
"Tessa told him that she'd have his head for that, and he believed her." Thomas chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "I think Tessa is happy with us, with you."
"Even living with men like us has to be a far sight better than enduring Charity Bradford's tongue lashings."
"Aye. Andy and I discussed it just this morning. 'Tis the first time either one of us has actually seen the infamous spinster smile."
"She's no longer a spinster."
"Many think you and she were having liaisons all this time. Her grandfather refused to swear to her whereabouts at night. I think he likes maliciously spreading gossip."
"Then I'll need to put a stop to it" Troubled, Jonah thought of the work ahead of him, both in his marriage and here, tilling these lands. "Father is alive because of her."
"Have you given any thought about how she feels?"
"What thought?" Jonah knew where this conversation was headed, and he spun around, walking fast toward the riverbank. High from snowmelt, the Connecticut swept past as leaden as the sky above. "Where's Andy? He's supposed to join us."
"He complained of a headache and asked Tessa for a cure. She steeped tree bark and told him to drink it."
"Did he fear she might poison him?" Jonah laughed at the image of his brother, cocksure on the outside, but not so on the inside.
"He said it tasted foul, but he drank it all." Thomas braced his hands on his hips and studied the river, silent and deep. "You married Tessa to help Father, and 'twas the only reason. What will you do if she falls in love with you? Will you love her in return?"
His chest tightened. Tessa's confession in his arms still haunted him days later. "I treat her well. I respect her."
" 'Tis not the same and you know it. Women are different from us. They want romance and pretty words."
"I have no pretty words, and Tessa knows that. 'Tis the reason I didn't want to marry a young girl who knew little of the real world. Tessa does. Her life has been hard, and I've done what I can to make it better. This afternoon I have decided to take her to a seamstress for new dresses."
"I'm not arguing over how well you treat her, brother." Thomas reached over the fence to give the lumbering cow, heavy with calf, a rub on her nose. "Anyone can see how happy she is. She hums, she smiles, she is pleasant. 'Tis like a different woman. Does she believe you love her?"
"I may have given her that impression." Jonah knelt to study the cow's underbelly. Her udder was not full or dripping. The birth would not be immediate. "We'll need to bring this cow into the stable before she calves."
"But Tessa-"
"Don't worry about my wife, Thomas. We both know what love can do to a man, and no woman will have that kind of power over me. I like Tessa well enough, mayhap even more, but I'll never love her. She will never have me on my knees, doing her will just to see a glimpse of her smile."
"Ah, we both remember how our stepmother used Father. And the ruin that came from it. But I've been thinking. Mayhap not all women are made of the same cloth. Tessa works alongside the servant, not lording power over her. She has asked for little and puts you and Father above her own needs. I think because she expects affection from you in return."
"And why are you worrying about my wife?" Jonah ground out.
"Because she gazes after you with puppy dog eyes. As if you are her own personal hero who saved her from a brutal marriage to Horace Walling or a life of servitude in her grandfather's home. She lights up when you smile at her in a way I have never seen."