Lady of Valor

by Lara Adrian

  He kissed her again, this time leaning into her as if he could not stop himself from claiming more of her, his warm hand plunging through her unbound hair and spanning the back of her neck as he brought her up into his embrace. “Tell me you feel the same, Emmalyn. That you have never wanted anyone like this,” he whispered against her lips, his breath warm and sensual, growing more fevered as he explored the corner of her mouth, the curve of her jaw, the pulse point at the base of her neck. “Tell me you have never known this passion before.”

  “Never,” she gasped when his mouth pressed against the sensitive skin below her ear. Dear God, but it seemed she had been waiting an eternity to feel his arms around her again, to know once more the pleasure of his kiss. “I have never known this, Cabal. Only with you.”

  He growled and caught her earlobe between his teeth, the gentle nip wringing an odd, strangled little cry from somewhere deep inside of her. She drove her fingers into the thick glossy waves of his hair, caressing the back of his head in almost mindless wonder as his mouth traveled down the column of her neck and then teased the hollow at the bend of her shoulder. And then his lips were just above the neckline of her bodice, tasting her tender skin. Torturing her with sweet, intoxicating kisses.

  Her breasts ached for his touch. And as though he knew this about her body already, Cabal cupped one fleshy mound in his hand, kneading it over the fabric of her gown. Emmalyn sucked in her breath, tipping her head back when his mouth began to rove lower, into the cleft of her bosom. She moaned his name and he caught the mewling cry in his mouth, capturing her lips in a fervent, hungered kiss as he pressed her down into the feathered cushion of the bolster.

  Emmalyn surrendered to the breadth of his passion, submitting to the erotic penetration of his tongue, taking him into her, accepting the ardent mating of their mouths as she anticipated the imminent joining of their bodies. Inside, she was on fire, melting like wax left out under the blaze of a hot summer sun. Needing something solid to cling to, she slid her hands down the rough silk fabric that covered his back, feeling the tightly corded muscles jump and flex under her fingertips, marveling at his body's sheer power. Its graceful, masculine strength.

  “I need to feel your hands on me, Emmalyn,” he rasped, pulling away from her to tear off his sullied tunic and throw it to the floor. He knelt at her side on the mattress, his strong thighs parted, the full measure of his arousal straining against the fabric of his hose. Cabal's eyes were dark and beseeching as he gazed down on her in watchful silence, his broad shoulders and bared torso magnificent in the wavering candlelight. It seemed strange to consider this formidable, battle-hardened warrior beautiful, but beautiful he was, in the most primal, essential, meaning of the word.

  Moved by the sight of him like Eve gazing upon Adam, Emmalyn reached for Cabal. She rose up onto her knees, smoothing her palms over the warm, solid musculature of his chest, reveling in the dual sensations of the soft bristle of hairs tickling her fingertips and the heavy thrumming of his heart, pounding beneath her hands. This close she could see the various scars and faint protrusions that riddled his dark skin; old battle wounds and broken bones that had not healed quite right.

  The notion of him being wounded, inflicted with any one of these injuries, tore at a place deep in her heart. It made her want to protect him, made her wish she could take away every one of his past pains and shield him from any further harm. Seeing the evidence on his body of the numerous times he might have died in battle--realizing that she might have lost him even before he came so unexpectedly into her life--made Emmalyn all the more certain that she loved this man, body, heart, and soul.

  Reverently, gliding her hands around to his back, she bent forward and placed a lingering kiss at the base of his neck, letting her tongue graze over the salty-sweet surface of his skin, savoring every inch of him. He moaned deep at the back of his throat, bringing his hands up around her as if he meant to hold her in place, but Emmalyn had no intention of leaving off so soon. Languidly, she followed the thick line of his shoulder with her mouth, learning from his earlier example, tasting him as he had done to her.

  And she went a bit further than he had, catching the bud of his nipple with her lips, sucking it boldly into her mouth, drawing the tight pebble between her teeth.

  Cabal's hissed oath was sharp and vivid. “Emmalyn,” he grated, repeating her name again as he drew her away from him, his expression tight with a control that seemed at the very precipice of breaking loose. “If I don't touch you now--all of you--I swear I'll go mad with wanting. Let me see you, Emmalyn, let me feel your skin against mine...”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  With frantic, shaking hands, he gathered up her skirts and freed her of her gown, pulling it over her head and idly dropping it in a heap on the floor next to his discarded tunic. Then he simply gazed at her for a long, silent moment. A moment during which it took all of Emmalyn's strength of will to remain uncovered for him, naked.

  Vulnerable.

  The urge to douse the candle and plunge the room into comfortable darkness was nearly overwhelming; the light made tolerable only by the look of pure reverence shining in Cabal's eyes. “We can go as slowly as you wish,” he told her, as if sensing her sudden trepidation. He chuckled softly and offered her a wry smile. “Don't think it will be at all easy for me to hold back my need for you, my lovely lady, but you have my vow. I will be as patient as you want me to be. And I'll stop at any time, if you wish it.”

  “I'm not going to stop you,” Emmalyn whispered.

  She watched, half in curious anticipation, half in rampant desire, as Cabal backed off the mattress and shed his hose and braies. If she thought him beautiful before, the sight of him fully nude was nothing less than awe-inspiring. Every inch of him was firm and delineated with solid muscle, from his broad shoulders and chest, to his slim waist and hips. His thighs were spread apart slightly; his penis jutted out from a thatch of darkness, heavy and erect, the member every bit as formidable and majestic as the man himself.

  For once, Emmalyn was glad she was not an untried virgin, for the notion of this man coming into her bed would have surely made her swoon. As it was, her stomach fluttered queerly, her insides feeling coiled with some elusive, unfamiliar hunger. Something warm and unsettling began to stir in her loins, quickening her breath as Cabal returned to his place on the bed.

  Kneeling before her, his eyes trained on hers, he kissed her. Not the fevered way he had claimed her mouth before, but slowly now, maddeningly languid. He moved farther into her, pulling her body up against the warm length of him as his tongue slipped past her lips in a soulful, erotic questing. Emmalyn felt the rigid line of his erection, hot and pulsing at her abdomen, felt the faint, slick moistness of his mounting desire as he rubbed shamelessly against her. That moistness was echoed within her own body, a rapturous stirring that started deep inside her and spread lower, enflaming her with a longing for him that ached to be sated.

  Though she was no stranger to the act of coupling, never had Emmalyn craved it before. She had never touched a man intimately, never thought she could find such pleasure in opening herself to a man's attentions. While Garrett had taken her virtue and despoiled her fragile trust, somehow with Cabal she felt reborn. His reverent kisses and careful caresses made her feel pure, untainted, cleansed of the fear and shame she had born throughout her marriage. The fact that he asked nothing of her--that he took no more than she would give--allowing her to set their pace tonight, moved Emmalyn.

  It emboldened her.

  She broke their kiss and sat back to gaze upon his body, running her hands along the same path her eyes took: across the solid line of his shoulders, down the rigid planes of his chest and stomach...then lower still. When her fingertips waded into the dense patch of hair below his navel, brushing against the hard silk of his arousal, Cabal sucked in his breath. It hissed out of him an instant later as Emmalyn tentatively wrapped her fingers around the width of him, feeling his thick shaft surge tighter in
her light grasp, astonished at the heat and strength she dared hold only briefly in her hand.

  He ground out her name between clenched teeth, little more than an inarticulate growl, as she released him and skimmed her hands back up the sides of his rib cage. He cupped her breasts, bending forward to kiss first one, then the other, hungrily laving her sensitive nipples, pulling them into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the hardened peaks until Emmalyn wanted to scream with the delicious agony of it all.

  She was vaguely aware of his hand sliding down around her bottom, clutching it tightly. Emmalyn could scarcely breathe; his fingers were so very close to the moist, burning cleft at the juncture of her thighs. His grip on her loosened and in the next heady instant, he touched her there. Slid his finger nearly inside of her, just enough to make her certain she wanted more. Emmalyn's whimper twined around his reverent oath, their breathing harsh and matched in time by a shared, pure need for each other.

  “I want you,” he whispered savagely, seeking out and finding the slick, swollen bud of her desire. His touch was light, spellbinding, and all too fleeting. “God, Emmalyn, I must have more of you.”

  He pressed her down to the mattress, their lips joining in a deep, sensual kiss. Emmalyn expected that he would simply enter her then, poised above her as he was, his legs between her open thighs, his sex heavy and warm against her woman's mound. He had given her untold pleasures already this evening, bestowing on her more attentive consideration than her husband had ever thought to show her in the dismal hours she lay beneath him in their marriage bed.

  Though she secretly yearned for something more from Cabal, Emmalyn was prepared for the night to end with the swift culmination of their mating. It was his turn to take full measure of his own satisfaction; she would be his willing vessel. She moved her hips against him in an effort to convey her readiness, feeling a rush of sweet exultation when the blunt head of his manhood pushed into the wet sheath of her womb.

  A tremor rocked him and he groaned, pressing his forehead into the bolster above Emmalyn's shoulder. A gentle thrust of his hips filled her with the full length of him, wringing a soulful sigh from Emmalyn as she felt her body expand to accept his, felt her flesh wrap tightly around him. He moved slowly inside of her, driving forward and withdrawing, all the while kissing her, his shoulders quaking under her palms and instantly covered in a sheen of sweat.

  Emmalyn was soon lost to his seductive rhythm, riding along with him on a wave of sensations she had never known before. Pleasure, desire, satisfaction, hunger--they all combined, spiraling around and around, emanating from the burning core of what had to be her soul, a place that Cabal touched with every masterful stroke of his body.

  But soon something powerful overcame her and she found she was no longer content to simply drift along with him. She needed more, had to quench an elusive thirst with a tonic she felt certain only Cabal could provide.

  “Please,” she gasped, unsure what she wanted from him, yet meeting his thrusts and clinging to him like her very life depended on it. She felt poised at the pinnacle of a wide, churning chasm, wavering unsteadily at the brink. Torn between a want to fling herself in head over heels, and the knowledge that there would be no coming back from the fall. If she let herself plunge into the swelling abyss with him, she would never be the same.

  “Cabal,” she whispered, her heart nudging her closer to the dangerous edge of ecstasy's turbulent waters. “Please, Cabal. Take all of me now. Make me yours...”

  With a strangled roar that belied the depth of his hunger, Cabal gathered her close to his chest, bringing her torso up off the bed as he drove into her, rocking his hips in an urgent rhythm that nearly stole Emmalyn's breath away.

  Something was building inside of her with every fevered stroke of Cabal's body. Something frighteningly strong, like a great wave sweeping toward her, about to wash her far off shore. The alluring power of it stunned her, commanded her senses like nothing she had ever known. She could not look away from it, could only cling to Cabal like a life line as the shimmering wave hurtled toward her. It shattered against her in the next heartbeat, showering her from the inside out with glittering droplets of pure, exquisite pleasure. Tremor after tremor rippled deliciously through her body and down into her limbs.

  Only then did Cabal resume his own rhythm, holding her tight as he pumped into her without restraint, the sheer urgency of his lovemaking overwhelming her. Humbling her. He had waited to take his own pleasure until she was fully sated. That realization only made her want to give him more of herself now, despite her exhaustion. She moved against him, aiding the depth of his thrusts, whispering his name when hearing it seemed to heighten his arousal.

  He drove deeper, harder, until with a strangled shout, he withdrew--a mere instant before his own release seized him, wracking his body with a series of savage tremors that brought him down on top of her. Holding her tight, he nuzzled his mouth against her neck, his chest resonating with the heavy beat of his heart, the labored rasp of his breathing.

  “You're mine, Emmalyn,” he whispered roughly beside her ear. “Tonight and forever, no matter what. Only mine.”

  “Yes...oh, God, yes,” she answered, on the verge of weeping and terrified for how true she knew her pledge to be.

  Chapter 20

  The following day, with a supply cart packed full of wool sacks and foodstuffs to bring to market, Emmalyn, Cabal, a driver and three mounted guardsmen set out for the Lincolnshire trade fair. Emmalyn had seemed troubled throughout breakfast, even suggesting at one point that they cancel the trip to market, or at the very least postpone it. She seemed loath to leave Fallonmour, even though she had been eager all week for the chance to trade her wool at Lincolnshire. It was not until Cabal reminded her of the garrison's need for weapons and arms that she relented at last and ordered the traveling party to assemble.

  The journey took the better part of the day, carrying them leagues away from the pleasant tranquility of Fallonmour, and, by dusk, into the heart of a bustling city. The tradesmen were closing their stalls for the day, but hundreds of people yet milled about the streets and alleyways, some hawking wares, some their bodies; raggedy children begged all comers for food or coin, while still other folk meandered aimlessly through the crowds of dispersing nobles and pilgrim travelers on legs made clumsy from overmuch ale and wine.

  It seemed to Cabal some untold ages since he had last been around the press and stink of mass humanity. The fact that it had been little more than a week shocked him. The memory of his lovemaking with Emmalyn last night lingered with potent clarity in his mind, and in his body as well. It had been damned hard to remove himself from her bedchamber as the night waned into dawn, but they had agreed it would be best if the castle folk were not made privy to the intimate nature of their relationship.

  Although to anyone with half a mind to pay attention, Cabal supposed that discerning their attraction to each other would not be too terribly difficult a feat to manage. While Emmalyn had trouble holding his gaze for any length of time beyond a heartbeat, Cabal could scarcely take his eyes off her.

  She had bewitched him, this gentle, noble, young woman. Not with the many, endless facets of her stunning beauty, nor was it with the shattering purity of the passion she had shown him last night. Emmalyn of Fallonmour enchanted him without trying. With every glance and gesture, every word that passed her lips, Cabal slipped a bit deeper under her spell. He did not know what one more night in her bed would do to him, but he was more than willing to find out.

  Providing the stretch of time before they would return to Fallonmour didn't kill him first.

  Cabal was still brooding in frustrated impatience over his want to sweep Emmalyn off her horse and kiss her senseless when two of the guards returned from their quest to find shelter for the riding party in one of the many Lincolnshire inns.

  “What did you find, James?” the lady asked. “Did you meet with any success?”

  “Aye, m'lady, we found a place at the
far end of town. 'Tis not the best quarters, I'm afraid, but most of the inns and hostels are already full. There must be something bringing people to town this week, aside from the market.”

  She nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “Then I reckon we should make haste ourselves and get settled without further delay.”

  When they reached the end of the street and stood in front of what was to be their evening's accommodations, Cabal cursed under his breath. “This is no bloody inn, man,” he growled to the guard.

  “'Tis all there was in the city to be had, Sir Cabal.”

  “Then look harder. I won't have the lady stay here.”

  “'Tis all right, really,” Emmalyn said, laying her hand upon his arm and then drawing it back as if to catch the slip before anyone else spied it. “This will serve us just fine, my lord. We'll only be here for one night.”

  The inn, a low-slung structure of black, rotting wood and moldy thatch, seemed more suitable for the whores and drunkards loitering outside the door than it did for a woman of Emmalyn's class and gentility. But she said nothing to betray her discomfort, riding along with her party to the back of the establishment where they secured their mounts and gathered what they would need for their stay. They left the trade cart under the watch of the driver and one guard--plenty of security for the duration of the evening, for the wool sacks were enormous and far too heavy to be carried off now that they were packed full and sewn shut.

  While Emmalyn strode past the curious onlookers and into the building with the other two guards at her sides, Cabal hung back, assessing the scurvy assemblage of patrons while the lady made arrangements to pay their night's rent. He soon became aware of her distress over something the proprietor had told her.