The day passed quickly for her, but there was a certain melancholy thwarting her attempts at being glad of her freedom, and her husband’s best efforts to see them all safe from Oremund’s plans. When Brice sent word that he would not be there for supper, she decided to eat in her chambers. Though she climbed into bed before he arrived, her body pulsed with a sense of anticipation over the possibility of pleasure. She’d felt it when he kissed her hand and gazed at her and it continued to build in her blood and body the rest of the day.
But the comfort of the bed beneath her and her exertions throughout the day challenged her efforts to stay awake and wait for him. Soon, her eyes closed on their own and she sank into sleep.
Lucais had been pleased with the results of his declaration to the servants in the hall for it meant hot food, faster and more of it at meals. Stephen was not so certain of the success of the message and warned that some would disappear from the keep over the next few days as they returned to, or attempted to find, their true master. That warning also included a reminder—Brice was within his rights to capture and kill any escaping serf who was bonded to this land.
Brice listened to one after the other, having sought their counsel about all manner of things. Despite the absence of his closest friends, he found that Lucais and Stephen resembled them in many ways. Lucais saw the subtleties while Stephen saw the direct and visible. Both had good minds for planning strategies and were quick-witted and intelligent.
And loyal without question.
So, Brice decided that Lucais would be his castellan, even before his stone keep replaced the current wood-and-stone one, while Stephen would serve as commander of Brice’s fighting men. Ansel would serve Lucais while Richier would be Stephen’s second in command.
The one thing missing from his organised structure of duty and responsibility was someone in charge of his household.
With everything that had happened to her, Brice thought to wait and let her settle in as wife before making her take on the duties of the household, but as building went on and the demands of planting fields and preparing both crops and livestock for the growing season increased, he needed her help.
As he watched her making her way to the smithy from his now-favourite spot in the guard tower, he wondered if he could trust her.
Chapter Fourteen
Brice was thinking of several different ways to bring up the subject of her duties now as lady of Thaxted as he dismissed the guard and entered her chambers. So when he closed the door and turned to find her sleeping, he was surprised and disappointed. He stood by the bed and considered his next action.
Was he to take it as a sign of willingness that she did not wear anything but her shift? Or was that a sign she meant only to sleep? Was the way she touched her hand to the empty place on the bed an invitation or did it mean she was blocking his entrance?
Being a married man was much more difficult than a bachelor who never had any doubt about the meaning of a woman in his bed, or her presence in his bedchamber.
She shifted then, tossing her head and moving under the covers in the throes of some dream. Not the terrors that plagued her during the fever, though, and he let out his breath in relief that she did not suffer now. Indeed, she smiled in her sleep; her breathing changed to something different from restful sleep, as though she physically exerted herself in her dreams.
Merde.
She dreamt of their joining.
She dreamt of the pleasure they’d share that night.
She dreamt of him, for she whispered his name and it echoed through the silence of the chamber.
And the sound of it pierced his heart and inflamed his body in but a single moment.
His breathing became ragged as his body filled with wanting for her. He hardened and pulsed against the braies he wore. His skin burned from within and hungered for her soft, soothing touch.
He wanted her, wanted her under him, wanted to fill her and take her and mark her as his own. Never once in all of his experiences with women of all sorts had he felt this way about one. Never did he expect the woman he’d claimed as wife to fill him with such expectation and anticipation. Never had he allowed himself to dream of such things.
Until Gillian of Thaxted walked down the road into his camp, telling him a ridiculous story and trying to make him believe it. Until she moaned that hot, sexual sound in the back of her throat when he’d brought her to pleasure.
Until she met his gaze and returned his own feelings of desire for her with an expression of inexperience and wanting that left his mouth dry, his body harder and gave him the permission he needed to enter her bed.
‘Gillian,’ he whispered, his voice cracking from the need to touch her. He sat on the bed and pulled off his tunic, loosened his belt and braies and tugged off his leggings and boots in a few moments. She reached for the edge of the bed coverings and brushed his thighs as she did so, causing him to shudder in excitement.
Should he put out the candles so that his body, his erection, was not so evident? Gillian licked her lips and he forgot all his questions. For the first time since reaching manhood, he could not seem to do what usually came without much thought—seducing and pleasing women. Now, with so much of his future and hers at stake, he’d lost his way.
‘Gillian,’ he said once more after clearing his throat. ‘I…I…Merde!’ Then he cursed his own stupidity in the language of his lands in Breton.
‘My lord,’ she interrupted in a soft voice, ‘I have had a long and busy day.’ He thought she now meant to refuse him, but the siren was back, and any sign of the innocent vanished. ‘I would like to seek some comfort in my husband’s arms.’
He nearly exploded in that moment. He throbbed with need and his body screamed at him to move, but all he could do was stare at the woman now his wife. Despite a rather lacking initial joining, apparently she was more than willing after he’d shown her how good it could be between them.
Brice pulled the covers back, but instead of lying next to her he climbed on to the bed and sat against the headboard and wall. Gently, and with great care for her arm, he lifted her by the waist and guided her to sit on his lap. He intended to ease her shift off, and then decided quicker action was needed. The satisfying tearing sound of the fabric as he pulled it apart was only surpassed by the view of her ample breasts it gave him. Tossing the shift aside, he moved her closer so that she straddled him.
He did not know if she gasped or he did at the intimate touch of that place between her legs and his shaft, but the pleasure nearly overwhelmed his meagre control. This position both opened her woman’s flesh to his touch and brought her breasts, now blushing an enticing shade of pink as their tips pebbled, to within kissing distance of his mouth. She closed her eyes then and he touched the place that had haunted his dreams.
She was hot and wet and his fingers slid over the slick folds and found that deeper channel where he ached to be. To make certain she did not fall, he lifted her good arm up to brace against his chest and then he caressed her until she moved against him. First with one finger, then two, then with the fingers of one hand and then with the fingers of both hands, moving faster and harder against the swelling folds and seeking that bud between them.
Gillian dropped her head back and let out the moan she’d been holding inside. He touched her and rubbed her until she felt on fire. She tried to move against him, tried not to fall on to him, tried not to surrender to the passion growing within her, but she gave up all struggles and fell into the pleasure with him.
He teased her without mercy and each time she approached that pinnacle of feeling, he slowed his movements and they became soothing instead of inciting her. She managed to lean up on her legs and move along him, but he stopped her with his hands on her waist. When she protested, he laughed and took the tip of one of her breasts in his mouth and suckled on it. Just as she could feel the release building again, he stopped.
She begged then, for release, for pleasure, for more, for anything, but he would no
t quicken his pace. When his mouth closed over the other nipple, she reached down and touched him. The growl should not have surprised her; she knew that part of him was sensitive, extremely so, but it served him right for denying her. Without warning, he lifted her hips, placed his hardness directly under her and then allowed her to slide down, inch by excruciating, enticing, exciting inch until he was planted completely within her.
How he could fit inside her, she knew not, for from the size of him she could not believe it. Her body be came a thing of its own then, shifting so that she could move along his length. His grip on her hips prevented her, but when he suckled on her other breast and touched that spot between her legs with his other hand, she nearly fainted from the sheer pleasure. She felt her inner walls tighten around his hardness, forcing her body ever closer to that promised peak.
Finally, she begged him once more for release and he smiled that wicked smile she saw only during their joinings and nodded his head. But if she thought he would bring her to pleasure quickly, she was wrong again. Each time they did this, he followed a different path. Each time he paced it so that she never knew what to expect and she tumbled madly through it as he led her body with his caresses and kisses and more.
Now she could feel the signs that her body was ready for that last step. The heat pulsed through her, her blood pounded through her veins, her womb throbbed in anticipation. So when he took her by the waist and gently tumbled her back on to the bed, interrupting the pleasure, she cried out.
‘Ah, Gillian,’ he whispered as he moved her body on the bed, not allowing her to expend any effort at all. ‘Now I will show you what I dreamed of doing…what I promised to do once we shared a bed.’
Soon her legs were hanging over the side, exposing her tender, excited flesh to both the chill of the room and to his sight. When she tried to cover herself there, he laughed and her body reacted to the deep, throaty tone of it. But instead of moving her hand, he guided one of her fingers deeper between to touch…herself! She raised her head to watch him kneel between her legs and could not imagine his purpose.
‘Show me where you want me to touch you, Gillian,’ he ordered. ‘Use your finger and show me.’
She never expected that she could gain pleasure from her own touch, but she did as she slid her finger there, searching for the places he’d touched before. He opened her legs wider and laid them over his shoulder for support. She touched the first spot where it ached the most and then shuddered when he licked it.
‘My lord,’ she said, trying to move away from the incredible feelings such a touch caused, but he held her hips so she could not.
‘You promised to call me Brice,’ he said as he dipped his head nearer once more. ‘Show me another place, Gillian.’
Her body arched this time when his mouth followed her finger and he suckled the aroused flesh there. But she did as he ordered, touching herself and then trembling and shuddering as he licked and tasted and suckled his way across and over that forbidden place. Then her hips arched forwards and every muscle in her stomach and belly and even her womb tightened and tightened until she could take no more.
Just as the first wave of pleasure poured through her, he moved to stand and filled her with his hardness in one, deep, continuous stroke. The force of it pushed her back away from the edge and he followed her body, thrusting again and again and again until she could not breathe. He climbed with her, continuing to push his rock-hard manhood deeper and deeper until she cried out from the ecstasy of being possessed so completely.
Gasping and gasping, she watched as though from outside herself as her body accepted his and as he began to spill his seed within her. He clenched his jaws and looked in pain, but she knew he was not. Not any more than she was, but as she reached that peak of stimulation and her body spilled its wetness, she enjoyed the way she could feel her inner muscles clutch his hardness and not let it go.
Minutes passed, or hours, she knew not, until their bodies relaxed from the intensity of the excitement, but she could feel him still large and hard within her. And any movement, any movement, sent tremors through her. He did not, she noticed, fall against her; instead, he kept most of his weight off of her.
‘You used your mouth there,’ she said, still stunned by such an intimacy as she felt him throb inside of her. Gasping again, for the sensation was pleasure bordering on pain, he eased himself out from between her legs. ‘Your mouth.’
Gillian knew she must seem so naive when he compared her to the others before her, but she never knew such a thing was possible or could bring so much pleasure. He lay at her side now, his hand on her belly, the weight of it somehow soothing after such arousal.
‘There are many ways to find pleasure, chérie. And when your arm is completely healed, I will take no mercy on you as we find it together,’ he promised wickedly. Her body trembled at such thoughts as the ones that sped through her mind in that moment. Could she truly even imagine what he meant by that?
He slid from the bed and offered his hand to help her sit. The coverings were a mess, her torn shift lay on the floor and the candles were still burning. Her breasts and between her legs felt heavy and aching from his attentions and she doubted she would sleep now. She watched the way his strong muscles moved as he walked over to the table and brought back a cup of ale for her to drink. But when he leaned closer, he touched his mouth to hers in a gentle kiss.
She could taste herself on his lips. It was shocking, as shocking as touching herself had been, but it excited her in much the same way. Gillian licked her lips then, noticing the salty taste of her body’s wetness.
‘If you continue to do that, you will find me between your legs again, lady,’ he said, staring at her mouth once more.
For a moment, the silence spun out between them and she was not certain what would happen. Her body readied for him, that place already throbbing in anticipation of his lips and tongue. Then he shook his head and poured himself some ale, mumbling under his breath something she could not understand. When she bent over to retrieve her shift from the floor, he shook his head and the smile and words he offered were not genuine at all.
‘Your pardon, Gillian, for destroying your shift. I did not mean to do so,’ he said.
He meant not a word of it and she laughed, accepting it as the false apology it was. He grabbed the balled-up garment and tossed it on the trunk where she kept her clothing. ‘You need not wear anything when we share a bed, lady. I fear I cannot vouch for the safety of such garments if you choose to.’
Brice wanted her naked when he held her in his arms, without even a thin piece of linen in his way. Even now, his body reacted and it would not take much to bring it to hardness again. One look, one lick of her tongue over her lips, one movement against his flesh, and he would be ready to take her.
How did she do it? No other woman incited him to such madness as she did. The thought of spending the rest of his life in her bed, in her arms, deep in her body, did not frighten him the way he thought it would. Indeed, he could even imagine seeking only her bed if this was the fervent welcome he would receive. He shook his head then in wonderment at such a thought as he blew out the candles and walked to the bed.
Having the same woman as wife and lover was not something he’d thought could be done. Kings—well, kings had an entire collection of lemans, concubines and a legal wife or two, though the Church sought to control all such marriages now. Noblemen had lemans for their physical needs and wives to bear their heirs. Even peasants did not always marry—the lack of a priest to bless them made it more likely that they would simply live together and have children together.
He pondered this new appeal of the lovely Gillian as he assisted her into the bed and drew the covers up over them. Easing her into the same position as last night, he realised two things—he was not tired yet and he was hard and ready again. He would have fought off the urge to take her again, but she shifted her shapely bottom against his flesh and softened for him.
As he slippe
d between her now wet folds and filled her from behind, this time at her urging, Brice also remembered the issue he needed to discuss with her. But he was soon lost in the haze of desire as their bodies sought and found more pleasure than he’d ever expected with his wife.
So much for his plan to postpone taking his wife to bed until her injury healed completely. He was like some unleashed, ravening beast, filled with mind less hunger for her. If she looked at him as he walked through the hall or keep, he would find her, take her to her chambers and make love with her until they could not move. If she spoke to him and her voice took on that sexual tone or she said a word that reminded him of the way she would beg for his touch, they ended up in bed. And heaven forbid she should touch him, for no matter how innocently it happened, it led to hours of pleasure.
Once they barely made it to the privacy of her chambers clothed. Another scandalous time, they were in the stables when he tossed up her skirts and took her against the fence as a stallion took a mare in heat.
It was scandalous, it might be undignified, it was shocking and Brice loved every moment of it. He kept waiting for Gillian to give some sign that she tired of his attentions, but it never happened. He convinced himself that he would abide by her request when it came and he would not seek her bed, but each night or day she smiled at him and opened her arms to him and her body to his and he prayed that she would never tire of him.
She’d taken to lovemaking like a…
‘A pig in shit,’ Lucais said.
Startled, Brice looked at him and then around him for such a creature. Then he realised he’d been dreaming of her again, awake, in the middle of the day. All because he spied her walking through the yard on some errand or another and lapsed into lustful thoughts. Again.
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