The Bride Who Wouldn't by Carol Marinelli

eyes but neither had the inclination to get up and fully close them.
    “I don’t know how you do your work,” he admitted, turning his head towards her and she smiled sleepily.
    “It really is an exercise in patience.”
    “Like you,” Isaak said, liking that her lips parted, and she smiled even wider. “Kate, about this morning. I am very…”
    “Please don’t say sorry again,” Kate turned and opened her eyes. “It was nice, in a way, to hear how ridiculous it was. The things she said, her words…” Kate pulled a face, “They were the same things I said to you on our wedding night.”
    “Whoa!” Isaak said, understanding now how his gesture must have offended and was furious with the woman who had used those words on Kate.
    “She said that day that I’d end a whore.” Kate looked over to him and Isaak just stared back. “Soon after that dad died. Can you see now why I freaked a bit when I got lost in Pigalle?”
    “Poor baby,” Isaak said and he stroked her cheek. “Perhaps she is not a happy woman.”
    “She’s not.”
    “Don’t let her poor reaction damage you.”
    “I’ve tried not to,” Kate said. “I just get so tense.”
    “You’re not tense now.”
    “No,” Kate said. “But if you tried to…”
    “What if I tell you we are not going to have sex now, no matter what?”
    She looked into his dark navy eyes and they were not the cold of the ocean now but like the sky just before the sun rose, and she believed him.
    “I’d feel better.”
    “If I told you that even if you begged for me to try, I’d refuse.”
    “I doubt I’ll ever be begging,” Kate smiled.
    “What if I kissed you?” Isaak asked.
    “I’d like it,” Kate said and then there was a flutter of panic. “What if they come to turn down the bed?”
    Isaak got out of bed, put the sign on the door, and then locked it to ensure they were uninterrupted, and he turned off his phone too.
    It was still her day.
    She thought he would come and lie down again, but instead he sat on the bed beside her and stroked her cheek and then his fingers went to her ear and he held one long earring in his fingers. “They look as if they were designed for you.”
    She felt the cool of the stones high on her neck as he let them go, and there was delicious anticipation rather than fear as his mouth came down on hers.
    She had never been kissed more softly, like one long feather was stroking her mouth. It was delicious, it was frustrating, and slowly her lips stretched to invite him, kissing him back, just enjoying the sublime feel of his mouth on hers.
    One hand was on her arm, the other slid behind her neck, and she had the same sensation she had had during the massage. She did not know if it was the pillow or his hand that supported her, but she felt as if her head were floating as his tongue slipped in and now she welcomed it, so much so that her hand moved to his head and pressed him in.
    Wet, hot, deep kisses he duly delivered, and when he suckled her tongue, it was so heady, she barely cared that his hand had moved from her arm and was now working the belt of her robe.
    She would halt him. In a minute, she would halt him, except his hand on her oiled, slippery breast made her breathing quicken. Isaak pulled his mouth back from hers, and her lips chased his, wanting, more, more, more of the same, but his hand moved from her neck and gave her lips his fingers instead as his mouth worked down. He kissed her neck, and slid his tongue beneath her ear and swirled and suckled there. He felt her lips part beneath his fingers, felt her hold her breath, and so he kissed her more deeply.
    She wanted the bruise he was surely making, she would wear her hair down forever just for more of this yet his lips were moving again. Oiled from her skin they travelled lightly down, more slowly than her body cared for, there was a need building as each soft kiss warned her aching nipple of the pleasure to come.
    “Isaak…” she wanted him to hurry. She