Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

My knees started to soften, and I grabbed his waist for support. More inequity. My hands traveled to the front of his soft pajama bottoms and undid the tie that kept them up. Matthew stopped kissing me long enough to give me a searching look. Without breaking his stare, I eased the loosened material over his hips and let it fall.

“There,” I said softly. “Now we’re even.”

“Not even close,” Matthew said, stepping out of the fabric.

I very nearly gasped but bit my lip at the last moment to keep the sound in. Nevertheless my eyes widened at the sight of him. The parts of him that hadn’t been visible to me were just as perfect as those that had. Seeing Matthew, naked and gleaming, was like witnessing a classical sculpture brought to life.

Wordlessly he took my hand and led me toward the bed. Standing beside its curtained confines, he jerked the coverlet and sheets aside and lifted me onto the high mattress. Matthew climbed into bed after me. Once he’d joined me under the covers, he lay on his side with his head resting on his hand. Like his position at the end of yoga class, here was another pose that reminded me of the effigies of medieval knights in English churches.

I drew the sheets up to my chin, conscious of the parts of my own body that were far from perfect.

“What’s wrong?” He frowned.

“A little nervous, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“I’ve never had sex with a vampire before.”

Matthew looked genuinely shocked. “And you’re not going to tonight either.”

The sheet forgotten, I raised myself on my elbows. “You come into my bath, watch me get out of it naked and dripping wet, let me undress you, and then tell me we are not going to make love tonight?”

“I keep telling you we have no reason to rush. Modern creatures are always in such a hurry,” Matthew murmured, drawing the fallen sheet down to my waist. “Call me old-fashioned if you’d like, but I want to enjoy every moment of our courtship.”

I tried to snatch the edge of the bedding and cover myself with it, but his reflexes were quicker than mine. He inched the sheet lower, out of my reach, eyes keen.

“Courtship?” I cried indignantly. “You’ve already brought me flowers and wine. Now you’re my husband, or so you tell me.” I flicked the sheets off his torso. My pulse quickened once more at the sight of him.

“As a historian, you must know that scores of weddings weren’t consummated immediately.” His attention lingered over my hips and thighs, making them cold, then warm, in an entirely pleasant fashion. “Years of courtship were required in some cases.”

“Most of those courtships led to bloodshed and tears.” I put a slight emphasis on the word in question. Matthew grinned and stroked my breast with feather-light fingers until my gasp made him purr with satisfaction.

“I promise not to draw blood, if you promise not to weep.”

It was easier to ignore his words than his fingers. “Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon!” I said triumphantly, pleased at my ability to recall relevant historical information under such distracting conditions. “Did you know them?”

“Not Arthur. I was in Florence. But Catherine, yes. She was nearly as brave as you are. Speaking of the past,” Matthew drew the back of his hand down my arm, “what does the distinguished historian know about bundling?”

I turned on my side and slowly extended my fingertip along his jawbone. “I’m familiar with the custom. But you are neither Amish nor English. Are you telling me that—like wedding vows—the practice of getting two people into bed to talk all night but not have sex was dreamed up by vampires?”

“Modern creatures aren’t only in a hurry, they’re overly focused on the act of sexual intercourse. It’s far too clinical and narrow a definition. Making love should be about intimacy, about knowing another’s body as well as your own.”

“Answer my question,” I insisted, unable to think clearly now that he was kissing my shoulder. “Did vampires invent bundling?”

“No,” he said softly, his eyes glittering as my fingertip rounded his chin. He nipped at it with his teeth. As promised, he drew no blood. “Once upon a time, we all did it. The Dutch and then the English came up with the variation of putting boards between the intended couple. The rest of us did it the old-fashioned way—we were just wrapped in blankets, shut into a room at dusk, and let out at dawn.”

“It sounds dreadful,” I said sternly. His attention drifted down my arm and across the swell of my belly. I tried to squirm away, but his free hand clamped onto my hip, keeping me still. “Matthew,” I protested.

“As I recall,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, “it was a very pleasant way to spend a long winter’s night. The hard part was looking innocent the next day.”

His fingers played against my stomach, making my heart skip around inside my rib cage. I eyed Matthew’s body with interest, picking my next target. My mouth landed on his collarbone while my hand snaked down along his flat stomach.

“I’m sure sleep was involved,” I said after he found it necessary to snatch my hand and hold it away for a few minutes. My hip free, I pressed the length of my body against him. His body responded, and my face showed my satisfaction at the reaction. “No one can talk all night.”

“Ah, but vampires don’t need to sleep,” he reminded me, just before he pulled back, bent his head, and planted a kiss below my breastbone.

I grabbed his head and lifted it. “There’s only one vampire in this bed. Is this how you imagine you’ll keep me awake?”

“I’ve been imagining little else from the first moment I saw you.” Matthew’s eyes shone darkly as he lowered his head. My body arched up to meet his mouth. When it did, he gently but firmly turned me onto my back, grabbing both of my wrists in his right hand and pinning them to the pillow.

Matthew shook his head. “No rushing, remember?”

I was accustomed to the kind of sex that involved a physical release without needless delay or unnecessary emotional complications. As an athlete who spent much of my time with other athletes, I was well acquainted with my body and its needs, and there was usually someone around to help me fill them. I was never casual about sex or my choice of partners, but most of my experiences had been with men who shared my frank attitude and were content to enjoy a few ardent encounters and then return to being friends again as though nothing had happened.

Matthew was making it clear that those days and nights were over. With him there would be no more straightforward sex—and I’d had no other kind. I might as well be a virgin. My deep feelings for him were becoming inextricably bound with my body’s responses, his fingers and mouth tying them together in complicated, agonizing knots.

“We have all the time we need,” he said stroking the undersides of my arms with his fingertips, weaving love and physical longing together until my body felt tight.

Matthew proceeded to study me with the rapt attention of a cartographer who found himself on the shores of a new world. I tried to keep up with him, wanting to discover his body while he was discovering mine, but he held my wrists firmly against the pillows. When I began to complain in earnest about the unfairness of this situation, he found an effective way to silence me. His cool fingers dipped between my legs and touched the only inches of my body that remained uncharted.

“Matthew,” I breathed, “I don’t think that’s bundling.”

“It is in France,” he said complacently, a wicked gleam in his eye. He let go of my wrists, convinced quite rightly that there would be no attempts to squirm away now, and I caught his face in my hands. We kissed each other, long and deep, while my legs opened like the covers of a book. Matthew’s fingers coaxed, teased, and danced between them until the pleasure was so intense it left me shaking.