But despite her love, there could not be a future together for them. Even if she begged for mercy for Alexander, she doubted he would get it. He had committed a serious offense, and Connor and every other nobleman in England who feared for their family’s safety from kidnap and ransom would demand that he be punished as an example. No doubt the safest place for him would be with Ingar and his men.
So they had no hope and no future together, except for this one night. After tomorrow, she would never see him again.
She would be home, she would be safe … and she would surely measure every man who came to ask for her hand against her memory of Alexander, and find him lacking.
But they had this one night.
As the sun sank below the trees on the other side of the stream, she took Alexander’s face between her hands. “I forgive you, Alexander.”
Then, as his eyes widened with astonishment, she pulled him to her and kissed him.
Deeply. Passionately.
She didn’t care if it was right or wrong. She didn’t wonder anymore how or why she could love him. She didn’t care about anything other than being with him, if just this once. Her whole body cried out for him, and her heart yearned to be with him completely.
If only just this once.
With a low moan, he clasped her to him, gathering her into his arms as he returned her kiss, passion for passion, need for need. Reveling in his powerful embrace, her hands slid slowly through his tangled hair and pulled him closer still, so that her breasts pressed against the hard muscles of his chest. Deepening the kiss, she thrust her tongue into his willing mouth.
With a low moan of matching hunger, his broad, strong hands moved down her back with a leisure that belied the fire of his lips and tongue. She arched against him, the rough wool of her gown rubbing against her in a way that sent new tremors of excitement through her already excited body.
His mouth left hers to trail featherlight kisses along her neck down to her collarbone. She groaned softly, the sound voicing her wanton demands, encouraging him. Telling him in a way words never could how much she wanted him, and this.
For a long while they kissed, and caressed and touched, warmed by their embrace even as the sun disappeared and night slowly fell.
She slipped her hand beneath his tunic to feel his taut flesh, not visible now but so well remembered. He gasped as the pads of her fingertips tiptoed across his stomach. Arching against him, she silently invited him to touch her intimately, too, as he had before.
His eyes flew open, and he caught hold of her hand. His hot, eager gaze searched her face in the dusk and belied the words he spoke. “We must stop.”
“Must we?”
“Yes.” He shakily ran his hand through his disheveled hair. Hades, indeed, dark and brooding and wondrous. “I … I forgot myself, and what must be.”
She faced him squarely, boldly, as an equal. As she always had. “If I didn’t want to be with you this way, don’t you think you would know it?” She took hold of his hand and led him toward the shelter they had built.
He stared at her incredulously as he grasped what she was offering. He halted outside the shelter and planted his feet, giving her the oddest sensation. It was as if he were playing the coy maiden and she the ravaging savage. The notion made her nearly as giddy as her desire, until he spoke in a grim and serious voice. “You could get with child.”
It was as if a wave had come up from the sea to wash over her, for he was right.
“You’re a virgin, too,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Do you understand all that you give up if you let me make love with you?”
She reached out to take his callused hands in hers, feeling the strength in them—and in him, that would allow him to refrain from taking what she was so obviously offering. “Does anyone, Alexander?” she mused. “Does any of us ever really know what we risk when we fall in love?”
He stiffened, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What are you saying, Isabelle?”
She looked up at him, willing to let him see her sincerity, and hear it in her voice. “I’m saying I have fallen in love with you.”
He stepped back, as if she had shoved his dagger into his flesh. “You can’t have.”
She smiled wistfully, hearing her own doubts echoed in his words. “I thought I could not, too. I knew I should not. But I cannot lie to you about what I feel, any more than I can to myself anymore. Not now. Not when this will be our last chance to be together.”
He took another step back. “I will not make love with you, Isabelle, and not just because of a possible child.” His gaze faltered. “I dare not, for your sake. And my own.” His hands curling into fists of tension, he raised his tortured eyes. “I already fear I will end up like my mother. I see myself forever mourning the love I lost. In my arrogance I thought I was strong and proof against such loving weakness, but God help me, I am not.”
She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. “Love is not weakness, Alexander. I thought it was, too, and secretly cursed my sister for her frailty, and my father, too. But we have been wrong. Love is strength, Alexander, for good or ill. It has the power to destroy, or the power to redeem, to fulfill, to make us more than we were. Even if we must part, Alexander, and forever mourn the parting, I will be stronger for having loved you. I will know what love is, if nothing else. No matter what else happens to me in this life, I will have loved once completely, wondrously, with all of my heart. I will not regret that.”
He twisted away from her, as if the touch of her skin burned his flesh. “Isabelle, I love you as I never believed I could love anyone, but there can be no future for us. Please, do not tempt me to give in to my desire for you. I will not have another bastard child endure what I have.”
She went close to him, but with great effort did not touch him. “And you think you are not a good man? Here is proof that you are, if I needed more.” She gave him another wistful smile. “But Allis and Connor would not cast me out, even if I disgraced them.”
“Isabelle,” he pleaded, his willpower fast losing the struggle against his desire.
“I will respect your wishes, and your wisdom, Alexander. As you say, I do not fully understand what it is I crave.”
He nearly groaned.
“Can we not simply be near one another?” she proposed. “I promise I will try not to touch you, although it will be difficult.”
“No.” He gestured at the shelter. “Go to sleep. We may have another long walk tomorrow. I’m going to build a fire, and I’ll stay near it.”
Isabelle nodded and knelt down, then disappeared beneath the leaves and branches.
Scarcely knowing what he did, Alexander set about gathering dry dead grass, twigs and branches to make a fire, although it was nearly pitch dark. He had to do something to take his mind from her, the woman who’d said she loved him. The woman who had been willing to make love with him. Aye, and more than willing, to offer her beautiful body along with her heart.
It was wonderful and terrible, and never had he been more wretched.
He felt around for the tinderbox in the leather pouch. His hand curled around it and he drew it out, then struck the flint and steel. The sparks were bright in the darkness as they flew onto the tinder. He blew gently on the ones that began to smoke until flame appeared, then he added larger sticks. As the fire grew, the smoke rose up in the still air, and it cast a flickering light over their little clearing, and the sides of the shelter where Isabelle, who loved him, lay.
On her side in the little shelter that smelled of damp foliage, her arms wrapped around herself for both warmth and comfort, Isabelle was wide awake. The scent of the smoke drifted into her nostrils, and she could hear small sounds of animals held back by the fire.
And by the presence of Alexander, too, no doubt.
She rolled over onto her back. She wasn’t going to fall asleep, although she was tired and the branches beneath her were relatively soft and springy. She couldn’t. All she
could think about was Alexander, and what he had said.
He was right that there could be serious consequences of giving in to her desires. She should guard her virginity and keep it for her future husband.
Who would not be Alexander.
She should not bear a child out of wedlock.
Not even his.
She should be thinking about seeing Allis, and making sure she was well, and Connor and all at Bellevoire who cherished her.
But who did not make her feel as beloved and necessary as Alexander could with just one glance from his intense blue eyes.
No one had ever loved her as he did. Not her family, not any of the young suitors who had paid her attention. Auberan—poor, foolish Auberan—might have loved her in his poor, foolish way. She had cared for him as she would a kitten or a puppy that was incapable of caring for itself. There had been nothing of the passionate hunger that Alexander inspired.
As she expelled her breath in a sigh, she heard a new sound—the slight patter of raindrops on the leaves above her. Even as she identified it, the rain began to fall more heavily.
She sat up and scooted toward the entrance of the shelter. Alexander sat on the far side of the clearing, huddled miserably beneath a tree. Between them was the remains of the fire, a damp, smoking mess of twigs and ash.
“Come here where it is dry,” she called out to him.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” came his answer.
“Is it any wiser to sit in the rain when there is shelter here?” She thought of something more to say, and with a bittersweet sigh before speaking, she added, “I promise you’ll be safe. I won’t touch you. Alexander, don’t be a fool.”
She held her breath as she waited, wondering if he would truly rather be soaked through than share the shelter with her. If he did, she didn’t know whether she would laugh or cry.
Suddenly he crouched at the entrance, his wet hair clinging to his head. She had not heard him approach.
“Since I would not have you think me any more of a fool than I already am, and I do not want to get sick, I accept your offer of hospitality, my lady.”
He shoved his sword and scabbard in along the side, then crawled in. She could see him more clearly now that he was so close, and he made a rueful smile as he looked at her. “I also appreciate that you will respect my honor as I respected yours,” he said, his voice low and soft and deep.
Her chest constricted and she suddenly wondered if this had been a good idea, after all. Still, she didn’t want him to fall ill, either. “I’ll … try.”
“Try?” The word came softly. “Have I not your word that you will not touch me?”
“I will not give my word when I doubt that I can keep it. When I do not want to keep it.”
He turned. “Perhaps I should go back out into the rain—”
She grabbed his arm. “No!”
For one moment when all seemed still, when she did not even hear the rain, he turned back and their gazes met, and held.
And then nothing else mattered except their love. Whatever thoughts and fears and doubts lingered were suddenly unimportant, immaterial, consumed by the fire of their love and desire, and the knowledge that they were alone.
With hot, fierce need Alexander gathered Isabelle into his arms and kissed her. As he did, passion and need combined and ripped through her willing body. She thrust her tongue between his lips, feverishly deepening the kiss.
Wanting far more, she lay on her back and pulled him down with her, so that his body covered hers, his weight gloriously welcome, the pressure of his hips against hers astonishing and arousing.
Her swift and eager hands tore off his tunic and shoved it aside. She caressed his glorious skin and taut muscles, feeling the scars of old wounds and injuries that told her he was no callow youth, no young man full of silly ideals of love or seeking someone to guide him. He was a man, with a man’s desire and a man’s heat. Kissing him still, she pushed him up, then broke the kiss. Wrapping her arm around his neck, one hand free to stroke and touch as she would, she raised herself to kiss his chest, to let her lips play where her fingertips had been.
With a groan, he clenched his teeth.
Then she found his nipple. Remembering well how his light touch had inflamed her, she licked and flicked her tongue across it. His breath caught and he made a low sound in his throat that thrilled her.
And then he was pressing her down into the branches that made their bed, his lips hot on hers as his hands found the lacing that held her bodice closed. With impatient fingers he broke them and pulled her bodice lower, exposing her breasts. Then, with a sound like a cross between a growl and a purr, he began to stroke and kiss and lick, his tongue like the most sinuous fingertip playing upon her flesh.
Gasping, she gripped his upper arms, the muscles as hard as granite beneath her palm. What she had done for him was as nothing. His mouth and hands teased, enticed, aroused. The tension within her grew and grew, and she panted as if she had run for miles. Moving instinctively beneath him, she undulated with an anxious yearning that seemed limitless.
She bent her legs and pushed her feet against the ground, raising her hips as he moved, trying to do something about the throbbing need blossoming between them. He kissed her again, and his hand splayed upon her thigh, pushing up her skirt.
Their lips still joined, their tongues still dancing together, she clawed at his breeches. She wanted to make love with him. She wanted him to take her. Now!
When he was free, she fell back, breathing hard. He loomed above her, the Hades who aroused her, the warrior she desired, the man she loved.
Yet he hesitated.
She put her hand about his neck and pulled him close. “Love me, Alexander,” she whispered, taking him in her hand and guiding him to the place throbbing with excitement. “Please, Alexander, love me.”
His control snapped. Even as he had been swept up in the incredible rush of excitement and desire she inspired, a small part of his mind had still urged caution. He knew too well the price a woman could pay for loving unwisely, without marriage.
But when Isabelle had said she would try not to touch him, the first of many barriers had shattered. When she had pulled him down on top of her, the second had crashed.
Then, as she had used her tongue on his body, most of the remaining walls of his self-control had crumbled into dust. And when she’d encircled him with her hand and brought him to her, the last of the obstacles between them melted away.
She wanted this. She wanted him.
He pushed inside her, tearing her maidenhead.
He heard her gasp with the pain of it and, despairing and cursing himself anew, he prepared to withdraw. But in the next moment, she thrust her hips against him, with a power that shocked him. She grabbed his head and brought him to her for another mind-numbing kiss—and he thought no more. He controlled nothing more. He surrendered to their passion and rode upon the waves of ecstasy as she met him, thrust for thrust.
With every motion, the exquisite tension grew, propelling him into a realm of heated bliss such as he had never known. With every push of his hips and answering response of hers, his body seemed to tighten more and more.
He cupped her breasts, firm and round, and brushed her nipple with his fingertip. She murmured and moaned, the sounds enflaming his desire as much as her touch. He bent his head and sucked the pebbled nub into his mouth.
She cried out and bucked and her muscles clenched, then throbbed. His whole body seemed to clench, down to his toes, and then, like a rope snapping, he climaxed. Wave after wave of release surged through him, taking him and leaving him spent.
Still inside her, he rested his head between her breasts as his ragged breathing returned to normal. He could hear her heartbeat as it, too, slowed, and her breathing eased.
He raised himself to look down at her beautiful face. “Oh, God, Isabelle, I love you.”
“As I love you.” Even in the darkness, he could tell her eyes were gleaming
with the bold, defiant spirit he knew so well. “And whatever happens, Alexander, I am not the least bit sorry for what we have done. I never will be.”
Chapter 20
Half-awake, Isabelle snuggled closer to Alexander’s warm body. He had held her close all night, his arm about her, so although it had grown cool and the branches had not been the most comfortable of bedding, she had slept relatively well.
But now it was morning of their last day, and all the comfortable ease gave way to dismay.
A glance outside showed that although it was not night, the sun had not risen very high. The grass and rocks glittered with early morning dew, and at some time in the night, a spider had made a web between the V of the two sides of the shelter. Droplets of water hung on it, sparkling like diamonds.
Alexander stirred, and she looked up to find his blue eyes upon her. “Awake, my love?” he whispered as he brushed back a lock of her hair that had fallen across her cheek. A little wrinkle appeared between his dark brows. “One of the many things I’m sorry for is not stopping Osburn from cutting off your hair.”
Raising herself on her elbow, she brushed a lock of his black hair back in turn. “Well, it is a little disconcerting to have shorter hair than you.” She kissed the wrinkle. “Still, of all the things he might have done, that is not so bad.”
With a sigh, he took her face between his palms and brought her close to kiss her. If he intended it to be a playful kiss, that intention did not last beyond the first moment their lips touched. As always, the passion they shared kindled into vibrant, undeniable life. Isabelle gave in to it, leaning upon his powerful chest and sliding her mouth over his slowly.
His hot, strong hand splayed upon the skin of her back exposed by the torn lacing of her bodice, and the sensation sent excited thrills down her spine to other places. Reacting to the need burning within her, she put her leg over his hips, then inched closer until she was half over him.
Margaret Moore - [Maiden & Her Knight 03] Page 25
