He touched her cheek with the back of one finger and trailed over her cheekbone to her jaw. “I won’t hurt you, lass. You were afraid our wedding night. ’Tis why I didn’t bed you. I’ll be as gentle as a man can be when he’s shaking with want for his bride.”

She opened her mouth to refute his assertion that she was afraid of anything but the protest died as she blew her breath out and closed her lips once more.

Then he kissed her, his mouth moving with infinite tenderness over her lips. All the while his hands slid over her body, stroking, caressing. Soothing.

Somehow he managed to shift over her, his body covering hers like a warm blanket. One muscled thigh wedged between hers and nudged them farther apart.

She was so senseless from his kisses that she hadn’t registered that his very large, very naked body was pressing tightly against hers, and another very hard, very large portion of his anatomy was prodding insistently at her most intimate flesh.

He found her opening and went still as she stretched around the tip of his manhood. Her startled gaze flew to his face. She tensed, unable to prevent the unease that gripped her.

“Relax, lass,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth. “ ’Twill be easier if you give over. I’ll give you pleasure. I swear it.”

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered back.

“Wrap your legs around me and hold on to my shoulders.”

She lifted her legs and twined them around his, sliding her calves up the hairy, muscled wall of his legs to lock them behind his knees.

Her hands felt small on his shoulders. Her fingers barely left dents in the hard flesh. She stared into his eyes and found gentleness there. It comforted her that he worried over frightening her. Surely she could find courage. How could she expect him to respect his “warrior princess” if she never showed her to him?

“Come to me, husband,” she said boldly.

His hardness found her again, firm against her softness. Probing and insistent.

She gave a little gasp when he slipped the barest inch inside her body. She stretched to accommodate him but the fullness unsettled her.

It was an odd combination of hesitancy and urgency. She wanted him to stop and yet she wanted him to continue.

She bit her bottom lip and lifted her hips, urging him on.

“Ah, lass, how sweetly you beckon me.”

He closed his eyes and a shudder rolled over his shoulders. Beneath her fingertips, he trembled and shook, so tense, as if he fought against his every instinct to hold back.

She ran her hands up and down his shoulders and arms, caressing as her heart softened. He truly was taking the utmost care with her.

“ ’Tis all right,” she whispered. “I know you won’t hurt me.”