George & the Virgin

by Lisa Cach

  He came and took her hand and pulled her over to his handiwork. “A sofa is a fine piece of furniture, meant for dozing upon when one should be working. It’s a good place to read, or to sit and talk with friends. And,” he said, sitting down and pulling her down beside him, then stretching his arm over the back and dangling his fingers down to her shoulder, “it’s a favorite spot for young men and women. They spend hours and hours on sofas.”

  “Doing what?” she squeaked, leaning forward away from his hand, and still looking at the sofa as if it were a three-headed cow he had dragged into her kitchen.

  “It never requires explanation. Sit back,” he said, gently pulling her shoulder, “and understanding will come to you.”

  She did as he bid, an inch of space between them as they sat side by side. Her hands were clasped in her lap, her knees together. Seconds trickled by, and he had the feeling she was waiting for something to happen, as if the sofa should give them a bouncing pony ride around the kitchen.

  She leaned forward suddenly, and with a hand flipped her braid out from behind her, then as suddenly sat back again. She squirmed. She sat still. She glanced at him, and then forward again. She twitched her pointy nose, as if she had an itch.

  Then, slowly, she let her head rest against the high sofa back, her hair lightly touching his arm. Her knees lost their magnetic grip on each other, and her hands fell open.

  The sofa was working its magic.

  Alizon felt her muscles relaxing, and as they did she seemed to sink more deeply into the bedraggled mattresses tied to George’s sofa. The thing was an abomination to the eyes, but she had to admit that it felt wonderful beneath her. It was almost like being in bed.

  The outside light was dying, the last hints of orange sunset turning gray upon the walls opposite the high western windows. George threw a few more logs on the fire, sending the flames flaring, their flickering the only light to be seen against the dark shadows of the kitchen.

  He would probably get up soon to start fixing their supper, but she hoped he would wait for a bit yet. She liked the nearness of his giant’s body, on this piece of furniture he had made for her. For her.

  A wave of possessiveness washed through her, for George. She did want him for herself. She wanted his kindness and good humor, and his way of looking at her as if he never wanted to stop, and as if given the least sign he would drag her down to the floor and have his way with her.

  She wanted his peculiar chivalry, that besides for having him promise women he did not know that he would slay a dragon, had him serving her food and finding chores to do to help her.

  She wanted the way he talked to her, as if she was neither an underling nor a superior, but rather a friend he would trust, and whose thoughts he wished to know.

  She had never known a man like this George, and she loved the feeling, however brief it would be, that there was nothing and no one on this earth but the fire, the sofa, herself, and him.

  Would that it could last forever.

  He was barefoot, wearing only his well-scrubbed hose and loose shirt, his damp hair free. He smelled of soap and fresh air, and she imagined she could sense warmth coming off his body—or perhaps she truly could. The hairs on the backs of her forearms were standing up, as if trying to feel his presence.

  Would that she could leave with him, as she had sworn to Greta she would not. Resentment against that promise stirred itself into her pleasure, the vow made all the more vexing for being of her own choice.

  If she was going to deny herself any thought of a life beyond Devil’s Mount with this man, then she would not deny herself anything with him while he was here.

  She used her toes to slide off her own leather shoes and pulled her feet up beneath her, rearranging her skirts. Her knees pressed against his thigh, but he made no comment, gracing her with a glance and a wisp of a smile before closing his eyes and leaning his head against the sofa back.

  His throat lay exposed, showing the ragged line past which his beard did not grow. The short beard had filled in during the week, and she was sure if she touched it that it would be more soft than coarse.

  If she touched it.

  She wanted to know what it would feel like, to touch her lips against his smooth ones, set amid such growth.

  She rose up on her knees and leaned over him, her body hovering over his. When she looked down she could see the pulse in the hollow of his throat, and the rise and fall of her own breasts, so close to touching him. She brought her mouth close to his, near enough that she could feel the breath from his nose against her skin.

  “Thank you for the sofa,” she said softly. And she lowered her mouth to his.

  He was motionless beneath her touch. She moved her lips over his, feeling their smooth texture and the prickling of his beard around the edges. She rested her hand on his chest for balance, and with the tip of her tongue traced the line where his lips met. They parted under the gentle pressure, and she rested her own parted lips against his, sharing his breath with her own.

  She did not know what to do next. She began to pull back, feeling suddenly lost without his guidance, but he reached up and cupped the back of her skull with his hand, pressing her mouth again to his. His lips moved on hers, strong and sure, and she felt a jolt of excitement run through her.

  His other arm came around her waist, pulling her down onto his lap where he could wrap her in his arms, caught, unable to escape. She let him, her own hands going up into the hair at the back of his head, gripping it as she held him to her.

  Yes.

  Yes, this was what she wanted. Yes, she would take everything she could from him. She would not be stopped this time.

  She opened her mouth to the thrust of his tongue, feeling a power in being able to stir such a quick and strong reaction in him. She wanted him to lose all control; she wanted to arouse him to the point where he would be helpless beneath her hands and unstoppable in his quest to have her.

  She let instinct and a lifetime of lonely fantasies guide her. She slid her lips away from his and down the grain of his beard, working her way to just beneath his ear with nips and kisses. She pressed her open mouth against his skin, in the place that was sensitive on her own body, and sucked, rubbing her tongue against the skin. He was salty and sweet, and she scraped her teeth down his neck, unable to get enough.

  He groaned, and she took it as encouragement. She pulled up the hem of his shirt and kept tugging until he raised his arms and let her take it off. She threw it behind the sofa and stroked her palms over the smooth contours of his chest.

  And got her palms tickled.

  She pulled back, startled, and looked.

  George touched his chest, himself. “Stubble.”

  “Marry!”

  “Certain … ah, fighters like myself shave their chests, in my country.”

  She touched his chest again with her fingertips. The hairs were short enough to be bristly, but sparse enough not to scratch. She played her fingers across the skin there, lightly dragging them, then dawdling over his small flat nipples, so different and yet similar to her own.

  She glanced at his face, not certain how he would take this casual examination. His green eyes met hers with the reflections of firelight upon them, and his look was as intense as flame.

  Again, she felt that surge of power. His desire in turn ignited her own, and she felt a heaviness full of tingling sensation in her groin. She bent down her head and ran her tongue over his nipple, then caught the tiny nub between her lips and played with it as he had done to her, on the kitchen floor.

  She ran her hands down his sides, then back up the front of his chest, feeling his muscles contract and relax as she touched him. She left his nipple and traced a trail up to the base of his neck. She straddled his lap to give herself better balance, hiking her skirts so that her naked sex rested against the rigid bulge of his arousal.

  His hands slid along the outside of her thighs, up under her skirt, and cupped her buttocks in his hands. He held
half the span of her hips in his big hands, and when he pulled her against him in a slow grind she could do nothing but follow where he led.

  She loved the feel of him moving her where he wished and wanted more. She wanted that ferocious passion of the day on the floor, when he had asked nothing and taken what he wanted.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and rode him, looking down from under her lids to meet his gaze. She felt the ridge of him parting her, and she tilted her hips on the downstroke so that the most sensitive part of her ran his length.

  He took his hands out of her skirts and reached behind her to tug at her laces. She cupped his face between her palms and kissed him, maintaining it as she felt his fingers work the cord at her back. The wool parted, and he pulled the neckline of her gown down over her shoulders. She reached up to untie the fine cord at the neck of her chemise, so that it, too, could slide off her skin.

  The fire was warm at her back, but it was nothing compared to the seductive heat when her breasts were bared and he broke their kiss to lower his mouth to them.

  He pulled the leather thong from the end of her braid and worked his fingers through her hair, spreading it over her bare back in heavy waves. He pushed the gown down to her hips, then bent and rolled until she was lying under him on the sofa. He rose up and yanked the garment down off over her legs, tossing them to join his shirt somewhere on the floor.

  He kissed his way down her belly, sliding off the sofa to kneel on the floor as he worked his way down. He took her knees in his hands and jerked her toward him, parting her legs.

  For once she was not the one making a decision. There was a freedom to it she had never expected: It made her feel that her only duty was to enjoy what he gave her.

  He bent down, slipping her legs over his shoulders. Her pleasure was shaken by a queer embarrassment, the intimate folds of her sex, that even she had never seen, so closely exposed to his view.

  He gave her chance to neither ponder nor protest, giving her a slow, strong stroke with his tongue.

  She arched off the sofa. “Holy Mother Mary!”

  She thought she heard him chuckle, but couldn’t be sure as he laved her again, and she ceased to care about anything but that he did not stop.

  She felt the tip of his tongue dip into her core, pushing against those tight confines. She pushed her hips down, trying to increase that fluttering pressure, but he swirled away and traced the twin ridges of her valley, and she forgot whatever she had been yearning for before.

  He suckled at the hooded junction of her folds, tongue working delicately at the hard pebble of pleasure within.

  She felt his fingertip then, at the entrance to her. He gave it hardly any pressure—just enough for her to know it was there.

  Just enough to drive her insane.

  She wanted him inside her. His finger, his tongue, his penis—she would take what she could get. His tongue continued its work, but each intoxicating touch only drove her further into her desperation.

  She could not stand it.

  She curled away from him, taking her legs off his shoulders. He reached for her, but she rolled away on her knees on the floor beside him. She grabbed the waistband of his hose and pulled them down.

  He froze for a moment, then helped her to disrobe him. His erection sprang free, long and thick, a nest of black hair at its base. She shoved his shoulders toward the sofa, and he took the hint, climbing up and under her continued pressure, lying back.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked.

  She ignored him, the very sight of his ready manhood sending a shudder of desire through her. She grasped it lightly in her hand and moved her palm up over the silken skin, then back down. Her fingertips barely touched each other around the base of it. Some inborn knowledge warned that he would stretch her beyond her ability to take, but the thought did nothing to dissuade her.

  She wanted this. Twenty-six years, God’s breath, it was time! And that erection was an invitation.

  She mounted his body like a horse, his manhood pressed flat to his belly beneath her.

  George propped himself up on his elbow. “Alizon, what—”

  Her knees were on the sofa on either side of his hips, the width of his body forcing her to open wide and lay her wet folds against him. She bent forward and brushed her breasts against his chest. She licked him across the lips, then changed it to a kiss, pushing her tongue inside his mouth.

  She did not know if what she was doing was right or was pleasurable to him; she only knew that she was doing what her body and its instincts demanded. His hands stroked her buttocks, the tips of his long fingers gliding over her sex.

  It was more than she could bear. She pushed upright and reached beneath her until she held him again in her hand. She moved her hips and his erection until the head met her waiting dampness.

  “Christ, Alizon,” George gasped, lying back again and grasping her by the hips, holding her in place above him, as if he would keep her from sliding down on him. “You can’t be ready yet.”

  “I’ve been waiting my entire life. I’m past ready.” She wasn’t going to let anything stop her this time. No more waiting!

  “This isn’t the best way—” His words were cut off by a groan as she eased the tip of him into her.

  The head stretched her, pressing with blunt force, her tender flesh crushing beneath the pressure. The pleasure of his presence at her entrance turned quickly to pain, but she would not allow herself to stop. She set her jaw and eased herself down.

  And went nowhere. She pushed harder, but only felt his manhood begin to angle off to the side.

  She squirmed atop his unsunken shaft. His thick tip hurt her, but it frustrated her more with its partial entrance. This was becoming more a matter of stubborn determination than of pleasure.

  “Alizon, wait,” George said.

  “No! I will do this!”

  She reached beneath her and held his penis steady, trying again to impale herself upon it. She gained a finger-width’s advance, and paid with scraping, pinching pain. A whimper escaped her throat as she again forced herself down.

  “Stop it! Alizon, stop it!” George said, and his hands gripped her waist, lifting her off him.

  “No!” she cried, and fought him with her weight and the grip of her thighs on his hips. “I’m going to do this!”

  “Get off me! I’m not going to let you hurt yourself like this. Christ, Alizon, you’re not meant to be torn open with a battering ram!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do.”

  She gave a sob of frustration as his strength won out over hers, and he lifted her off, then pulled her down next to him, so that she was caught on her side, between him and the back of the sofa. He lay his leg over hers, forcing them together, and cupped her cheek in his hand as he kissed her tenderly on the forehead.

  “Hush. You can’t hurry this.”

  She turned her face into his chest, humiliated by the reminder of that long-ago day in the shed with Osbert. She could do nothing right with this deflowering. No one had ever wanted her, and now George, too, had shaken her off as if she were an oversexed cur having sex with his leg.

  “We have all the time in the world,” George said into her hair, his hand stroking down her shoulder and arm. “Let me take care of you.”

  “Why wouldn’t it go in?” she sobbed, too embarrassed even to look at him.

  “It’s not just a maidenhead a virgin has to worry about. You’re tight, your muscles down there need to be stretched. Gently. Some women are like that,

  more so than others.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Never mind how.” She felt him kiss the top of her head. “You need to relax. You’ll only tighten yourself up more if you try to take charge, and it won’t be good for either of us. I don’t want you forcing yourself down on me.”

  She felt the softening of his erection against her, and knew he didn’t want her, just as Osbert had not, and just
as no one in Markesew had. It was more humiliation than she could take, and she had to be away from him, and from the burning embarrassment.

  In a burst of energy she beat the heels of her palms against his chest, punching him back. “Let me go!”

  He leaned away, looking at her. “Alizon, what is it?”

  “Devil take you, let me go!”

  His hand gently gripped her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t stand the confinement of being wedged between him and the sofa back, his leg still over hers. She thrashed and shoved, wanting only to escape from this humiliation where she was naked and unwanted.

  He tried to hold her, tried to wrap her in his arms.

  The threat of his physically subduing her with his strength put her into a frenzy; being under his control, a state that had been appealing just ten

  minutes past, was now unbearable.

  She bit the nearest piece of flesh: his chest.

  “Ow! Dammit!” he said, releasing her. “Alizon, what the hell?”

  She scrambled up and climbed over the back of the sofa, grabbed her clothes off the floor, and without looking back dashed from the room.

  She pulled at the log, sweat dripping down her forehead and her feet burning in the trickle of hot water at the bottom of the tunnel. Her chemise was tied up around her thighs, her gown left on the platform above. A torch wedged into the rocks gave her light, though her shadow obscured most of the dam George had built.

  Belch seemed to be sleeping. Even if he had been awake, she would not have cared. She almost would have welcomed his killing her.

  The log was not moving. She gripped a smaller piece of wood and wedged her feet against the opposite wall. She used all her strength and weight, waggling it back and forth, then crouched directly in front of the dam and pulled.

  With a soggy scrape it came free, and she plopped onto her butt on the rock floor, the long stick in her hand. Hot water poured from the opening. She got back on her feet and yanked at the nearest logs.