Good old Armand.
The thought of that man bullying her people into revealing her hideout needled her sense of responsibility. She arched back, hoping to catch something, anything, softer than her skull. She met naught but air. Charlotte growled and thrashed but only managed to free one arm. Her dagger gleamed for just one moment. She extended her arm along her side and attempted what she knew would be her last strike. A hiss of pain announced some success.
“That wasn’t very canny,” he growled.
His grip on her neck intensified until stars popped around her vision. The arm holding the dagger was forced down and pinned there. Though she clutched the dagger as if her life depended on it—and it probably did—he was able to twist it from her. She heard a soft thud some distance to her right when he tossed her weapon away.
He snarled a tight “get up” through her tangled curls.
Charlotte could do nothing but flounder to her feet to avoid having her head separated from her neck. During the chase, her cape had twisted almost in front of her and rubbed painfully along her throat.
He wrapped his powerful arms around and held her in an unyielding bear hug. Blood flow to her arms slowed as pins and needles poked her fingers and hands. Even if the man had not been holding on to her, she could not have moved a muscle. For the first time in her life, fear paralyzed Charlotte.
“To the chapel then we’ll sit and talk. Yes?”
Refusing to even acknowledge him, Charlotte let her body slump against his, forcing him to carry her. He could drag her there if he wanted to—she was not going to make it easy. Brutish two-face!
Puffing behind her, the man showed incredible stamina as he bore her petrified form to the ruined chapel and over the crumbling base of the wall. There, he stopped and braced his legs wider apart.
He put his mouth an inch from her ear. “Will you be trouble if I let you go?”
“Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ll be trouble as long as I draw breath.”
As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, the contact of his firm and fit body against hers produced not just a little excitement. His breath stirred her hair while his thick arms pressed against her chest right under her breasts. She felt like leaning back into him, resting her head against his strong neck but fought the yearning, the hunger that tugged at her. He was there to force her into marriage. This was no time for pathetic aches of the flesh!
He sighed. Retreating to the wall, he leaned back against it and took some deep breaths. Charlotte felt immense satisfaction that she had at least winded him.
“It’s not going to help you in the end. You know that.”
She snorted her scorn for him. “Let a single finger go free and I’ll show you.”
“Must you always be defiant, Baroness? Can’t you ever at least try to be agreeable?” The tight hold he had about her remained pitiless, even if his tone had softened somewhat.
Charlotte froze. Try to be agreeable.
Jean-Louis had said this to her once, long ago. His words may have been different but the meaning had been the same. Perhaps this whole thing was just the result of her unyielding pride, her inability to see others’ point of view. What had her life become? Defiance and bravado drained out of her. She gritted her teeth and finally lost control over her tears, which rolled down her cheeks and pooled under her chin before landing on and seeping through the thick fabric of his sleeves.
“Baroness?” he asked tentatively. “Charlotte?”
Through the misery, pain, utter wretchedness, she was shocked and not a little thrilled to realize he had called her by name.
Charlotte felt a tremor race through him. He looked down over her shoulder at the wetness on his hands. Gautier drew in a long ragged breath before loosening his hold on her.
When he did, instead of bolting, as her intentions were only a moment before, Charlotte swayed back heavily, pressing her entire length against his. Though he kept his hands to his sides, she felt him respond to her lean by his own listing back against the wall. Warmth on her neck and ear announced an imminent touch. His chin brushed her skin. Charlotte shivered. Slowly, she let her head rest back against his neck. She felt him tilt his own to make room. Perfect fit. Both of them now connected down to their knees, she angled her head sideways, exposing more of her neck.
Hesitantly, his chin brushed against her skin, his lips hovering near the curved-in rim of her upper ear. His breaths made strands of her hair flutter against her cheek. Then her own breath caught in her throat when his lips connected against her ear, his touch raising goose bumps. He pressed soft lips all along the rim, ending with her lobe, to which he paid special attention.
A violent shiver shook her entire frame. Still, she was loath to move a single muscle in case she broke the spell. The sinful, wicked spell. Her hands, memories of his muscled flesh still tingling, yearned for the feel of him. She curled trembling fingers into fists when he left her ear to press his lips against the nape of her neck. Good God! Charlotte closed her eyes ahead of the wave of bliss she felt coming. Under the tunic, the skin of her whole front stiffened into prickles. Her nipples tightened and she gritted her teeth.
He must have sensed the chaos he wreaked in her body for he seemed to linger on her neck, trailing kisses that became increasingly intense. Charlotte felt his hands slither up her sides, leaving a stream of shivers behind them. Hot fingers traced the contour of her hips and flanks then up her rib cage and along her arms until they rested on her shoulders. How his palms felt hot through the fabric!
Though it shamed her to admit it, she no longer cared the man was a brother, even a lay one, she could even forget he was one. She was lost in her yearning for him.
With fingers so gentle she could barely feel them, Gautier drew the tunic opening back from her neck and exposed a shoulder. Softly, he pressed his lips to her skin. The sound of his mouth as he kissed her made the sweetest music. Charlotte tried not to moan when he blew hot air along her skin then retraced his steps with parted lips. She meant to face him but he held her there with gentle but resolute hands.
“Don’t.”
The word was more a plea than a command. She nodded. Somehow, Gautier’s other hand had found the clasp of her cape and undid it. He tugged it from between them. The felt garment rustled to the ground. With the added barrier gone, only her thin undertunic separated her from his uniform. The scratchy wool brushed against her naked shoulder. The resulting jolt of pleasure surprised her. Could fabric do this?
Bolstered, Charlotte also raised her hands and reaching far back, let them rest on either side of his head. That hair. Just glorious. His hand traveled down the length of her side, which sent a shiver of excitement along her spine. While he kissed the nape of her neck, his right hand swept past a mere hair over her breast—only the heat of his skin reached her. The agony. Arching, she made sure he touched her the next time around. He did.
Hesitant at first, Gautier seemed to gather his nerve for he resolutely perched his palm on her breast. This moan she could not suppress, though she let it out through her nose. He froze. For a moment, she despaired he would stop, would push her away.
More than her skin craved him, her heart too. She may as well admit it. She loved him. She loved Gautier. From that wonderful moment back at the cascade when he had appeared in all his splendor, she had felt an attraction. To cheapen it to mere lust was dishonest. She loved this man. Period.
After what felt an eternity, with Charlotte holding her breath the entire time, Gautier’s hand moved below her breast. But he was not leaving. With his palm a warm cup, he scooped her breast and raised it as some luscious offering. Charlotte drew a long breath, which swelled her chest even more. When she looked down at herself, she marveled at the way her nipple seemed ready to pierce the fabric.
The first drop of rain splattered on her chest and outstretched arms. She felt him look up into the sky. Taking his hand in hers, she retrieved her cape and climbed over the crumbled wall be
fore pulling the flap of her tent aside. She leaned in and entered the small shelter nestled against the château’s lone remaining corner. Her cot lay along the wall—near it was a small chest that doubled as table and chair. There in the semi-darkness, she turned to face him.
His gaze locked on hers. Extending an arm, he pulled her close and raised her chin. He caressed her whole face with his parted lips. The way his hot breaths stirred the hair loose around her face turned the simple gesture into a tapestry of sensations. Icy blue eyes took her entire field of vision—lips made for kisses covered every parcel of her face and neck while his hand slicked her hair back. How could a man who chose a life of conflict and violence be so gentle?
The yearning to touch him overpowered her. God, she wanted to touch him so badly it hurt! Looking down at his chest, she fumbled with the many layers of fabric covering him. First the long cloak and mantle—then a row of never-ending buttons, a clasp, a belt with a knot and a buckle. When she had succeeded in parting some of his clothing, the first glimpse of skin emerged to her absolute delight. Though scarred with the mordant memories of whiplashes, his chest was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Thick cords of muscles rippled under the ruined skin. She traced a path down between his pectorals with an index finger and felt him tense.
“Have I hurt you?” she murmured. An eternity looking into his eyes would feel short indeed.
He looked down at himself. A one-shoulder shrug shifted his massive shoulder. “It’s not very appealing…”
She put the finger she had used on his chest to his mouth to hush him. “It’s beautiful to me.”
In case he doubted her sincerity, Charlotte leaned into him and let her mouth do the same his had. Gautier closed his eyes tightly. Using her hands as a guide, she pecked a string of kiss and breath combinations that made him shake. Charlotte wanted to convince him his scars meant naught to her, wanted to appease his obvious discomfort by showing him with her mouth and hands how much attraction she felt. That skin had suffered so much and Charlotte endeavored to treat it with the utmost gentleness. Butterfly-light, she let her lips glide along the wide marks. He shivered under her soft touch.
Using the pads of her fingers as though they were brushes and his chest a canvas, she traced winding, looping shapes that she followed with her mouth then her tongue. Tentatively at first, she grew bolder until she was suckling his tiny nipple, teasing it with her teeth. While her mouth kept busy, her hands weren’t idle. She snaked one underneath his parted garment and followed the natural curves of his waist until the dawn of his backside arced below her fingertips. Before she could stop herself, her nails had dug in. Gautier gasped.
As if her treatment had melted what precious control he had left, Gautier’s eyes flared open and he wrapped her face in his hands and drowned her under a wave of passionate kisses. Their tongues became imbued with a mind of their own. They lunged and retreated, entwined, separated, only to clash against each other again. Gautier left her face in a warm and wet state of disarray to gorge on her neck. After he pulled her undertunic down lower on her shoulder, his mouth conquered a nipple through the thin fabric.
Yet, despite his eagerness, Charlotte marveled how his touch felt so gentle, so soft. She pulled him to her as she backed into the corner proper, using the wall to create support for her weakening legs. Rolling her pelvis out to his, she pulled her undertunic over her head. He did the same with his bothersome garments, even dumped the dagger strapped to his forearm along with its sheath. Charlotte helped how she could, oftentimes pulling when she should have been pushing, but they managed to get his many layers of clothing off.
Charlotte gasped when the plum-colored head of his member hung thick between his thighs. Its tip glistened with need. He pressed himself against her again, making sure his shaft rested snugly between her thighs. With shaking hands, she raided his naked body—down his back, around his firm backside, up his thick thighs. All the while he kissed her breasts, lavishing such attention as to make them painfully tight. Pressing both of them together, he suckled one then the other in succession.
A low rumble in his chest added oil to the fire raging in her. She pushed her hips forward, deliberately crushed her sex against his hard shaft, rolled upward in slow, languorous arcs.
“Gautier,” she murmured with her eyes closed, pumping her hips against him with no a stitch of shame. Some baroness! “I want you to take me standing up.”
The look he gave her! She knew she was being wicked but couldn’t help it. She really did want him to ravish her standing against a wall as shocking as the thought was.
He responded by clasping her hips, driving his pelvis against hers and triggering a long frisson of arousal that threatened to make a madwoman of her for the sheer exhilaration. Charlotte moaned unabashedly.
She felt her honey seep out of her and drench her hose. So much of it!
While he kept one hand busily caressing her breast, his other snaked downward along her belly, past the drawstring of her hose. She held her breath while his fingers carefully slipped along her cleft, back and forth, collecting her nectar and bringing it forward before beginning a slow, torturous circle around her bud. Gautier’s fingers proved the perfect mix of rough skin and tender pressure and soon produced another shocking gush of pleasure to spill from her folds. He smiled against her mouth as he slid a considerate finger inside.
Charlotte’s eyes flared. “Ohhh.”
Without meaning to, she fisted his hair and forced his face against her breasts, crushed them to his mouth while she followed his slow movement in and out of her, each pass bringing her closer to ecstasy. He changed the angle of his finger, curled it slightly so it’d rub against her pearl. Almost instantly, Charlotte gritted her teeth and climaxed.
She couldn’t keep the rising moans—could barely hold a coherent thought. With a violence that awed her, she came again. His hand was wet against her sex, so wet.
“Let me taste you,” Gautier murmured against her breasts as she hadn’t relinquished her hold on his hair. “I’ve dreamed of it without rest.”
Charlotte freed his hair and watched the top of his head as he slipped his finger out of her clenching flesh, crouched in front of her so he could kiss her belly, her sides, what hip he could reach over the hose’s waistband.
After a long and passionate look, he knelt in front of her and licked her lower belly. Shivers shook her. After he unbound the crude drawstring, he pulled her hose down to her knees. Boots and hose soon added to the growing pile of discarded garments littering the tiny tent.
Charlotte tried to feel at least some measure of embarrassment to find herself completely naked in front of a man but couldn’t bring herself to. Gautier had already made love to her and known her as intimately as anyone possibly could. Modesty was far behind her.
He kissed her navel, slid lower. Instincts made her squeeze her thighs together. A look like a silent plea flashed in the pale eyes. Trust me, they said. She nodded.
Her heart beating a savage tempo, she let him kiss her low on the belly as one of his hands brushed the inside of her thigh. Just as in her fancy that Sunday almost three weeks ago, he was going to kiss her there. Unsure, thrilled but apprehensive, Charlotte felt like protesting even if a faint sensation of pleasure hovered just beyond her grasp.
Gautier’s fingers snaked through the dark curls. Charlotte could look no further. She leaned her head back against the wall and tried not to grind her teeth or clench her legs together. He seemed to know what he was doing though the exotic practice left her a little uneasy.
Gently he slid one finger along the cleft, back and forth a few times. She was already so wet for him, because of him, that his fingers felt like ribbons, that they’d been created for that purpose. Tiny ripples of pleasure prickled her skin, made her heart flutter. Good God, those hands!
Charlotte gasped audibly when something very hot and wet flicked along the cleft. This was no finger. She looked down in wonder to see him lick her most inti
mate spot. The rapture she had imagined was even more acute in reality. This time, no mere ripples coursed through her. Waves. A surge of them. Everywhere. She arched back when a violent shudder rushed over her. A moan tore up her throat.
“Again,” she cried out to her shock and his, for he looked up, his eyes flared wide before returning to his work.
Beyond restraint, Charlotte fisted his hair on either side of his head and forced her pelvis against his face, rolled her hips and spread her thighs wide. Growling, he used his thumb to rub her swollen nub.
After a quick series of pants, she looked down at what Gautier was doing to her. The sound of his mouth against her sex was proving to be the most decadent, shocking and exciting thing she’d ever experienced. So wicked and good at the same time.
“Don’t stop—”she breathed. A pronounced push of his tongue mangled the rest of her sentence.
Using his thumbs, he spread her wide for his hungry mouth. “You taste so good,” he murmured between licks. “Just as I’d imagined.”
She closed her eyes when a particularly violent rush of thrill tightened her channel. “Take me with your mouth.”
He did.
Grunting with each push, he stabbed his tongue into her while he kept her stretched wide and high. She’d never been so exposed.
He did it again. Then again. The rhythm now familiar, expected. When he stopped, she felt bereft, spent, and desperately pressed on his head. Gautier stood but kept one hand wrapped over her mons so the tips of his fingers parted her lips. While she gripped his wrist with both hands, he slid a finger into her slowly, tentatively. His mouth capturing a nipple, he began to accentuate the force and speed of his passes until he was pushing deep up her. Honey dripped over his hand and glistened on his lips. Charlotte thought she would collapse from rapture.
He was giving her so much of himself. She too wanted to do something special for him.
Without words, she made him understand that she wanted him to stop. He looked so sad for an instant that she quickly put his fears to rest and placed him so he rested against the wall facing her.
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