When at last he took his mouth from hers, she put her arms behind his neck and touched her lips to the pulse beat in his throat. Lifting her arms made her breasts slide up his chest in such a provocative manner, his desire was savage, hungry. His hands went to her waist and he lifted her against him slowly, pleasurably.
She laughed down into his face, trusting him, tempting him. Her golden hair fell in masses upon his chest as his mouth lifted to first lick the tiny black witch-mark, then worship her mouth, learning the shape of her curved lips, mastering her teasing tongue. Then slowly, blissfully, he allowed her body to slide down his until her toes touched the carpet. He would repeat the exercise when they were both naked, so they could experience the wild, hot slide of love-slick skin against skin.
His passion grew so that even his face hardened and when Brianna’s fingertips feathered up his jaw to his saber-sharp cheekbones, he felt his blood beating in his brain, his throat, even the soles of his feet. It did not beat in his male center; it pounded savagely, it throbbed deeply, it surged demandingly in the most stunning arousal he had ever experienced.
Christian wanted Brianna to enjoy every nuance of arousal along with him. He wanted her to feel desire in every silken inch of skin she possessed. He wanted her passion to run the gamut from purest heaven to exquisite hell. His lips began to whisper love sounds against her temple, then moved down to her ear where his words became shockingly erotic. Against her throat, his whispers became enticing, then as his fingers unfastened her peacock gown, baring her shoulders; his whispering mouth tantalized her skin until it felt like hot silk.
Brianna’s breathing deepened so that her breasts seemed to rise toward his seeking mouth. The crests ruched as his whispering breath teased the taut peaks and his powerful hands cupped her full breasts, weighing, caressing, playing, and finally worshiping them as precious love objects.
Brianna wanted to scream with excitement when she thought of her bare breasts touching his naked chest. Her greedy fingers unfastened his linen chainse and peeled it from his torso. When he crushed her soft breasts against the swarthy expanse of muscle covered by its black pelt, she did scream with pure, unadulterated lust. Brianna was panting, almost incoherent with her rising desire.
Christian smiled, knowing she needed an outlet. “It’s all right to bite me, my love,” he whispered, and the temptation was so overwhelming, she bit his shoulder, leaving crescent teethmarks across the flesh of his breastbone.
All the barriers to privacy had been passed. Both naked from the waist up, they indulged in endless foreplay until she was clinging to him and they were entwined in her hair as if they had been bound together by golden thread.
Christian bent his head so that he could dip his tongue into her navel and at the same time his hands slid up her legs, raising the hem of her peacock gown all the way up to her golden mons. His palms covered her bottom cheeks and he urged her against his rigid thighs. He knew she would gasp with pleasure and so he lifted his mouth to possess hers.
With a delicious gasp she opened to the demanding pressure of his lips, welcoming the probing sleek tongue deeply inside her. She rubbed her woman’s center against his swollen phallus, feeling the heat of him through his chausses. Suddenly she wanted him to take her so that she could possess him utterly, totally. She wanted him inside her body, deep inside, where it was hot and dark and wet. She wanted him to plunge his sword into her tight sheath. She wanted him to come home.
The gown was a terrible impediment between them and she was frantic to free herself of the sensual peacock fabric. With a cry she shoved it down from her waist until finally it fell to the floor and she stepped away from it.
The moment she did so, a wave of awareness swept over her. What in the name of God was she doing? She was completely exposed and vulnerable to his possessive hands and seeking mouth! What madness had induced her to allow him to undress her? She desperately tried to cover her nakedness with her hair. In a blinding flash of comprehension, Brianna realized it was the peacock gown that had changed all her perceptions, all her emotions, and all her inhibitions. It had been the same at the tournament when she had donned her mother’s gray velvet cloak. She saw Christian Hawksblood through the vision of someone with second sight. Her mother’s mystic power had come to her through the clothes she had worn.
“Stop! Hawksblood, I cannot do this thing!” she cried.
He did not remove his hands from her body, rather he tightened his hold upon her. “We are both committed; we cannot turn back,” he said hoarsely.
“Nay, it was the gown, don’t you see?” she cried desperately. “When I wear my mother’s garments, I am insatiably attracted to you. When I take them off, I return to my senses. I return to being Brianna.”
“My love, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You have always been Brianna; will always be Brianna. You are you, forever!”
His words were solid common sense. How could she refute them? It was not her mother’s power that had lured her to this wickedness, it was Christian Hawksblood’s power. It was Drakkar’s dark, compelling power. “You have lured me to let you have your way with me. You control my mind, my body, and no doubt wish to control my soul!” Her eyes were wide with fear and shame for their carnal behavior. “How can you make me do these things? Leave me at once! It is wrong! Wrong!” A vision of Robert’s golden beauty came to her and she was covered with guilt.
Hawksblood took hold of her naked shoulders in a brutal grip and shook her. “Stop it!” he commanded savagely. “Stop it, now!”
Naked beneath his powerful hands and his blazing wrath, she was totally vulnerable and helpless.
“It has nothing to do with your mother. It has absolutely nothing to do with some mythic power you attribute to me. It involves you and you alone, Brianna. You have chosen me of your own free will. Face it! Be woman enough to admit you want me.”
It was a revelation. His eyes held hers, forcing her to face the truth. Drakkar de Beauchamp was a compelling force to be reckoned with. Brianna wanted him. She wanted him exactly as he was. The truth was that she loved him, had always loved him, would always love him. As if the silken mass of hair were too heavy for her, her head fell back, exposing the curve of her throat with its tempting, enticing vulnerability.
One arm swept beneath her knees as he lifted her high against his chest and carried her to the bed. “We are about to become more intimate than any lovers since the dawn of time. We will start by talking.”
Christian knew how much control this would take on his part. He decided to keep on his chausses for the moment, for her sake and his. He set her down upon the bed to really look at her. She was so lovely, she was a pleasurable assault upon the senses. One side of her golden hair spilled from the bed to the carpet like a molten waterfall. The other side followed the ripe curves of her body, all the way down to her feet. It both concealed and revealed the melon-ripe breasts and the exquisitely high mound of Venus crowned by curls of golden fire.
He lifted her foot and placed a kiss upon her high instep. Brianna’s toes curled deliciously. She wanted to enjoy the sensations he aroused in her, but she was filled with apprehension about what he would do next.
Christian knew her thoughts. “Trust me for this loving.” His voice was a husky, intimate murmur. “I know you are a maid. I will not fall upon you and ravish you, love. That can come later, after you have learned to ravish me. Love play is a sport where both must enjoy the arousal and the fulfillment, or the pleasure is greatly diminished.”
He lifted a tress of her hair, breathed deeply of its fragrance, then watched as it curled possessively about his fingers. “I must dispel this notion that I possess magic power. I do not, Brianna,” he murmured. “At a very early age I was given over to the care of the Hospitaler Knights of St. John. When I was old enough, I was initiated into the Mystic Order of the Golden Dawn, men who were mostly Knights Templar gone underground when the order was forbidden. I was taught to harness the power that ever
y human possesses. Through constant training and practice I was taught to enhance, magnify, and control the power within that is lost to so many because it is never used.
“It is a simple exercise of mind over matter. The brain should control the body and the emotions rather than the other way about. It is priceless training for knighthood. In battle it allows you to focus on the victory rather than the pain. When the mind is totally focused, the perception of time slows to permit you to see clearly and perceive your enemy’s every move. When you have learned control, it benefits every other aspect of your life. Do you imagine I could be here like this unless I had supreme control of myself?”
Brianna smiled a secret smile. She wanted to shatter his control and would before too many moons had waned. It was extremely erotic to lie naked before him while they conversed. Brianna’s murmur was as husky as his. “What of your visions?”
“Everyone is capable of visions. It is simply a matter of developing your sixth sense. You are beginning to experience them, my love.” It was not a question. She silently acknowledged that this was true. “In the tournament you wore sable armor and jousted for Prince Edward.”
Christian’s eyes widened. Brianna was beginning to perceive that which was hidden. “You will make an apt pupil. I will teach you every nuance of lovemaking, then we will go on from there.”
Brianna swept her tongue across lips gone suddenly dry and Christian had to put an iron clamp on his rising desire.
“What of that day in the forest? Your magic made the princess’s food bitter.”
He smiled patiently and shook his head. “Not magic power, merely a magician’s trick. My mind is much stronger than hers. By the power of suggestion her food tasted bitter. It was not actually bitter. I cannot alter the very taste or smell of things—only their perception.”
“Is your mind stronger than mine?” she asked breathlessly.
“Sometimes yes, oftimes, no. If it were otherwise, you would have warmed my bed from the first night I saw you.”
Her cheeks tinted delicately and he stretched out a finger to touch the tiny black dot upon her cheekbone. “One night you turned from me in my vision and I glimpsed the twin to this witch-mark.”
Her blush deepened. “Beauty mark,” she corrected.
He shook his head. “I know you for witch, beloved.”
His words pleased her. Perhaps she was. She had assuredly conjured his vision when she was curious about the strange object on his thigh. Brianna sat firmly upon her witch-mark, knowing it tempted him or he would not have spoken of it. Their eyes met in amusement as they discerned each other’s thoughts.
“Perhaps it is time I revealed all, as you so generously have done.”
Brianna caught her breath as he stood to remove his chausses. She stared at him in fascinated horror. The shaft of his male weapon was engorged to a great length and thickness, jutting from its sable forest. Beneath, on the inside of his thigh, stretched the black scimitar. Quietly, patiently, he allowed her to look her fill.
Finally she spoke. “Which weapon do your squires refer to as Killbride?”
He threw back his head and his deep laughter rolled out over her. “Those two devils love to amuse themselves at my expense. At Windsor the servant wenches are forever creeping into my chamber, hoping to catch a glimpse of the black obscenity between my legs.”
Brianna could not help herself. She reached out a tentative finger to touch the mysterious object. The skin was raised in a thick welt along the blade, thicker at the handle and she shuddered as she remembered the pain connected with it. “What is it?”
“It is a brand. An initiation rite before I was knighted into the Mystic Order.”
Silence stretched between them.
“Tell me,” she urged, softly.
“After the hot iron was removed, they rubbed black sand into the raw burn. Then I was left alone in the desert to survive or die.”
“The pain was unendurable,” she whispered.
“That’s how I learned to move beyond pain. The lesson was invaluable.”
Brianna avoided looking at his other weapon.
Christian’s mouth curved in understanding. “It doesn’t repel you?” he asked.
“No,” she replied quickly.
“And this?” he asked, indicating his male sex.
“I … I’m not sure. I’m ignorant of such things.”
His heart sang that it was so. “I think perhaps it is time to move beyond talking. I cannot tell you of love, I can only show you.”
Brianna drew back as he came upon the bed full-length and stretched his swarthy limbs beside hers. “Yield to me, love.”
She hesitated for perhaps three heartbeats, then she opened her arms and offered herself to him.
Christian enfolded her in his powerful embrace and took her down to the bed. His mouth covered hers hotly, boldly and she opened to his hungry demands, allowing him to plunder her honeyed mouth. When Christian felt he would drown in need, his kiss turned sensual. He knew he must awaken Brianna’s sexuality. When his mouth elicited low moans and her body shivered with liquid tremors, he would proceed. He hoped it would take at least a hundred kisses.
The shadowed chamber was filled with the sensuous sounds of rustling bedcovers, the whisper of sleek skin against skin, the gasp and moan of mouth upon mouth, the slide of rough hands through silken hair, the vibration of hot breath upon fiery flesh. Erotic sounds, intimate sounds, love sounds.
When Brianna’s mouth was love-swollen from too many kisses, Christian’s lips traveled a slow, burning path down her throat to her breasts. The act was so private, Brianna was shocked. Christian soon melted away every vestige of reserve as he licked and gently bit, then sucked her areolas into his hungry mouth.
Brianna was amazed at the sensations she experienced, all so new, but blissful in the extreme. She felt as if threads of fire went from her breasts, down through her belly, then lower, turning her woman’s center to searing flames that threatened to consume her senses, her very reason. Slowly, surely she began to long, to lust for something. She knew not what, but it was so compelling, she felt she would die if she did not get it.
She looked down at his dark face to watch his mouth worship her body. Her fingertips touched his lips where they were joined and she began to whisper his name over and over like a supplicant. “Christian, Christian, Christian.”
He knew she was not ready for that which she begged. Each stage of intimacy had tightened the bonds between them. Their face-to-face kisses and caresses had imprinted his powerful identity upon her, but he had put neither hand nor mouth to her woman’s center and coitus could not be enjoyed to its fullest until all the traditional foreplay had been completed.
He pressed her back, spread her glorious hair upon the pillows, and gently drew her hand to cup her breast. He took the fingers of her other hand and drew it lower toward her mons.
Her eyes followed where his hand led and she saw the red-gold curls that looked exactly like flames. Their entwined fingers touched her together. “Oooh!” she cried as if she had been burned. Christian’s manroot jumped against her thigh and she imagined it a velvet-tipped iron spear. He would render her vulnerable, she would yield, then he would conquer her with this formidable weapon! Could she bear such an assault? The answer came back yes, a million times yes! He was all man; she fervently hoped she could be all woman.
He unclasped her hand. “Place your fingertips on the back of my hand so you know what I do. If you don’t like it, you can stay my hand. If you receive pleasure, your touch will urge me to proceed.”
She was startled that he would allow her even a semblance of control and rested the pads of her fingers where he bade. His square, warm palm cupped her and he threaded his fingers through her golden curls, over and over. The sensation was almost drugging. Then he brought his broad thumb up across her pink cleft and she arched up into his hand joyously. The pressure of his thumb increased, opening the cleft to allow his thumb to breach her
defenses. What he did to her felt so deliciously erotic, she abandoned touching his hand. She wanted no control. As he had suggested earlier, she would trust him for this loving.
As the pads of his fingertips sought out her tiny jewel, he hung over her watching her mouth. When her lips opened with breathless desire, he took possession of her mouth and the tip of his tongue matched the slow, rhythmic caress of his fingers.
“Do you like this, Brianna?” he murmured against her lips.
“I love it,” she whispered breathlessly, allowing her thighs to fall open so he could go deeper.
Christian wanted everything from her and for her. He knew it would be all pleasure if he brought her to climax with his hand. He knew it would be pure bliss if he brought her to her first joy with his mouth, but some deep primal urge told him their bodies must be joined deeply, totally. The pleasure must be mingled with pain as nature had intended. That way they would be bonded forever.
He slowed his fingers and his tongue to draw out her arousal to its farthest limits. When she was on the edge of madness, he would take her.
She lay in a sensual, wanton sprawl, almost incoherent with need, her hair a wild, disheveled tangle. When he moved between her thighs, he hung above her allowing the head of his shaft to trace its teasing touch across her thighs and belly. As if by magic he positioned the velvet tip so that it rested upon her jewel, then he cried, “Now!”
He plunged down, sliding across her bud, slipping down her cleft, then burying himself in her, tight velvet sheath.
Brianna’s scream shattered the night. She contracted so tightly upon his long, thick phallus, it was momentarily as painful for him as it was for her.
He brushed his lips across her eyelids murmuring honeyed love words. “Beautiful … delicate … exquisite …”
He held absolutely still, allowing her to become used to the fullness that stretched her so tautly. She too held absolutely still, then they became aware that they pulsated against each other intimately. It was no more than a flutter at first, but as her body gradually accepted his bold invasion, the pulsations became heavy, strong throbs.
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