Celia and John brought up the end of the group, and she was quiet, thoughtful, as if she wasn’t really there in the winter streets. She so often seemed somewhere else, somewhere deep in her own mind, her own sadness, where he couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t know her, possess her. Not as he feared he wanted to. He wanted so many things from Celia, wanted to give her so much.
He wrapped his fist over the hilt of his sword to keep from caressing her firm, high backside so enticingly outlined in those breeches. He became aroused just watching her, smelling her perfume. He always wanted her. Sex had always been so easy for them—explosive, undeniable. But the sex had also led to so much more, to tenderness and need.
It had been everything else that drove them apart.
Celia glanced over her shoulder at him, and her eyes widened when she saw the desire that must be blazing in his eyes. A slow pink blush spread across her cheeks, making him want her even more. He wanted to seize her around the waist, push her up against the wall and feel her legs wrap around him, her mouth open under his...
A smile quirked her lips and she reached back to secretly brush her hand over his clenched fist. It was a soft, fleeting touch, a secret smile, and it made something clench deep in his chest. Something warm and tender that he remembered so well with her, only felt with her.
A burst of laughter from up ahead drew her attention away, and she turned from him. Without those cool grey eyes searching his face that tight feeling eased and he sucked in a deep breath. But he stayed close to her as she hurried to catch up to the others.
“Ah, but Sir John must remember the Elysee gardens, since he was so lately in Paris!” Queen Mary cried. “Where are you, Sir John? Come and talk with us!”
“I am here, Your Grace,” he answered.
“You must tell them how lovely the gardens are. I want to recreate their pathways and groves here at Holyrood, to remind me of Paris,” the Queen said. “If only I could see it again—”
Suddenly the night was shattered by a deafening blast. Up ahead the dark sky lit up red and orange, with flames that shot high above the rooftops. Screams and cries broke out. John barely glimpsed Marcus shoving Queen Mary to the wall before he himself grabbed Celia up in his arms and arched his body over hers to protect her from the sparks that showered down.
She trembled in his arms, her hands curling hard into his doublet as she clung to him. “What is it?” she gasped.
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling only the primitive drive to protect her, keep her safe. “We need to get to the palace. Now.”
Holding her under his arm, he ran behind the others until they burst out of the maze of streets and found the gates of Holyrood. The Queen’s guards were already gathered there, halberds at the ready. There was barely a glimpse of a building ablaze somewhere in the city below.
The Queen, looking pale and startled but composed, was borne into the palace.
John tried to set Celia on her feet, to steady her, but she still held onto him.
“What was that?” she whispered. “It all happened so very fast...”
“Shh, you’re safe now,” he answered. He kissed her hair, her cheek, felt the warmth of her under his lips, the precious life of her—life that was very fragile. He held her now, kept her safe with him. But for how much longer?
“I do not feel safe,” she said, her voice unsteady, breathless. “I never feel safe. Not since—since...”
Since her brother’s death. The death John had helped hasten. He held her even closer.
“John,” he heard Marcus say softly. John looked over Celia’s head to see his friend’s grim face, his gesture towards the doors.
“Celia, I must go now—find out what has happened,” John whispered in her ear. “Go and see to the Queen. I will find you later.”
He kissed her once more and gently set her away from him. She nodded. Her face was white and strained, her eyes bright, but she did not cry. He had never seen her cry.
She hurried to the stairs, and John watched her go until she was out of his sight and gone from him.
Chapter Seventeen
Celia slowly paced to the end of her small bedchamber and back again, one deliberate step after another. It was very late, and the whole palace seemed silent and still even after the clamor of the afternoon. The Queen had insisted on dancing again, pretending nothing had happened, but now even she had retired.
Celia knew she should go to bed as well. There was to be a hunt in the morning and they would ride out early. But she knew that even if she lay on the bed, crawled beneath the inviting blankets and closed her eyes, she would not sleep.
John had not been at supper, had not appeared for the dancing. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left her by the doors.
She closed her eyes and drew her fur-trimmed robe closer around her as she tried to force away the worry and uncertainty. She could still feel the way his arms had closed around her as the sky exploded, the way he’d shielded her with his body and she’d felt his heart thunder in his chest. The way she trusted him to keep her safe.
Trusted him.
But who would keep him safe now, wherever he had gone? Would he vanish from her again? Would she be left to mend her heart all over again? Because she feared her feelings now were stronger than they ever had been before.
Celia shuddered and clutched tighter to the folds of her robe. She wanted to run away from him, as far and as fast as she could. Yet even stronger was the urge to run to him, to touch him again and know he was there, alive and real and hers.
Only he was not hers. He never had been.
A quiet knock suddenly sounded at her door, and Celia gasped at the sound. She whirled around, reaching for her dagger where it lay on the table. The noise breaking the heavy silence had pulled her senses taut.
“Wh-what is it?” she called.
“’Tis me, Celia. For pity’s sake let me in.”
Her fingers convulsed on the dagger’s cold hilt. John. It was John, here, right when her longing for him was too great. She wanted to send him away; she wanted to throw open the door and catch him in her arms.
She carefully set the dagger back down and took a deep breath before she crossed the floor to unbolt the door.
He stood there in his shirtsleeves, his arms braced on the door frame. He smelled faintly of smoke, and she glimpsed a dark smudge on his bristled cheek. His eyes were hooded, veiled as he stared down at her.
“What has happened?” Celia whispered.
In answer, he closed his arms hard around her and lifted her into the room. He kicked the door closed behind him, and her single candle flickered and went out, enclosing them in darkness.
“John...” she said, but her words died in her throat as his mouth came down over hers. His tongue pressed roughly past her lips, hungry, desperate.
Celia felt an answering need swell inside her, driving out everything else but him. But the thought that she could have lost him for ever drove her on. She felt his hands hungrily push her robe back from her shoulders and onto the floor, felt his fingers tear at the lacings of her chemise and strip the last thin layer of cloth from her body, leaving her naked. She didn’t care, didn’t want to shield herself from him. She only wanted his touch on her, everywhere.
One of his hands drove into her hair, angling her head for his kiss, while the other swept in a hard caress down her back to the curve of her backside. His fingers dug into the soft skin as he dragged her closer to his body.
She went up on her toes and wound her arms around his neck, cradling his head as she opened her mouth wider to his tongue. He groaned against her, and she felt his erection grow even harder against her bare stomach through his breeches. She arched into it.
John’s hand slid to her thigh and lifted her up higher, until her legs wrapped around his hips. She held close, lost in a sizzling haze of sensation, of his touch, his kiss, his body wrapped around hers.
His hand tightened on her leg, and one of his long fingers touched her betwe
en her legs, pressing into her damp folds. She cried out at the bolt of pleasure and her head tilted back.
He used his hand in her hair to draw her back even further, leaving her neck vulnerable to his seeking mouth. It slid, open and wet, down her throat until he closed his teeth hard on the soft curve just above her shoulder.
“John!” she cried.
“Do you want me, Celia?” he whispered against her skin.
The tip of his tongue licked at the sting of his bite and a tremble swept through her with the longing.
“Tell me you want me as much as I want you.”
Want him? Whatever she was feeling now, whatever was making her damaged heart crack wide open, it went far beyond mere want. It went into sheer need, tenderness she could not fathom.
“I do want you,” she said. His mouth slid lower and closed over her aching nipple, sucking it deep. “God’s blood, but I want you!”
He backed her up until he could lie her on the bed, amid the soft velvet blankets. As he stepped back her legs slid from his hips, and she almost cried out at the chill of loss. But he merely stripped away his own clothes, ripping them off and tossing them away before catching her up in his arms again.
Their mouths clashed in a heated kiss, and the very air around her seemed to turn warm and heavy, as before a storm. That storm raged inside her, violent and powerful as everything she had locked away and suppressed for three long years broke free and threatened to drown her. She held onto John and let herself go under, let herself feel again at long last.
He pulled his mouth from hers, making her moan with the loss, but he did not leave her. His hands held onto her hips, so tight she felt almost bruised, yet she didn’t care. She needed that hardness, that edge of pain and passion that told her he was with her, they were alive together. And soon he would be inside her, making him hers even if only for the night.
They knelt facing each other in the middle of the bed. He let go of her for an instant to untie the bed curtains, enclosing them in their own tiny world with red velvet, shutting away everything but the two of them. Then he reached for her again and slid her close to his naked chest.
Celia laid her palms over the curve of his shoulders. “So beautiful,” she whispered. That smooth, damp skin over his lean muscles, so perfect but for a white scar arcing over his ribs, a crescent on his hip. She let her hands slide slowly, slowly down his chest, feeling every inch of him, every taut shift and ripple of his skin. He held her lightly by her hips, letting her explore him.
The light whorls of hair sprinkled across his chest tickled her skin and made her smile. The smile faded as her fingertips slid over the flat discs of his nipples. Her nail scraped over one and it went taut as he groaned. His head fell back, his eyes closed, and she felt his penis jerk where it was pressed to her abdomen.
She lowered her head and took that pebbled nipple into her mouth, sucking, biting as he held onto her. She could feel the heavy beat of his heart on her lips, the ragged rhythm of his breath. His hands convulsed on her hips. She let her fingers trace down his chest lower, lower, over his ridged stomach to the arrow of hair from his navel to his manhood, the hard line of his hips.
Her open mouth followed the path of her touch, licking, caressing, tasting him. As she bit at the arc of his hip she let her hand flutter over his penis. It was hot satin stretched taut over rigid steel, the veins etched on it pulsating with his need. His need for her, for what she was doing to him now, and that realisation flooded her with a powerful pleasure.
She pressed her lips to his taut stomach as she ran her hand down the length of him and up again to its base. She caressed that spot just behind that she knew he liked.
“Celia!” he shouted. He drove his hand into her hair again and pressed her against him.
She smiled and trailed her mouth lower, until she could slip the tip of him between her lips. He tasted sweet and musky, his skin burning as she slowly took him deeper. When her husband had made her do this it had made her feel so ashamed, ill. But now, with John, with her own choice, it made her feel so very different. So in control. She could give him pleasure in return for what he gave her, and it felt glorious.
“Celia,” he said, his voice no more than a rough growl. His hand slid through her hair and she ran her tongue over him. His hips twitched but he didn’t push himself deeper.
She slid her hands around to his tight buttocks and held him to her as she caressed that warm skin, the curve at the small of his back. His hips thrust against her.
Suddenly he caught her shoulders and pushed her back from him. Celia tilted her head to look up at him, and in the red shadows of their bed his face looked harsh, carved into hard lines with lustful need.
“I can’t bear it any more, Celia,” he said, and pulled her up to kiss her. There was no seductive art to his kiss now, only hunger and a raw lust that called out to her own desire.
She wrapped her arms around him as they fell back onto the bed. John rolled her beneath him, his hips between her spread thighs as he kissed her jaw, the soft, vulnerable spot beneath her ear. He bit down on the curve of her neck, and she cried out as she arched against him. The pain and pleasure sparkled through her.
He trailed his open-mouthed kiss lower, tasting her with his tongue until he captured her aching nipple between his lips and suckled her, rolling her between his teeth.
“John, John,” she cried. She cradled his head in her hands, holding him against her. Her whole body felt so alive, burning with need for him and what he was doing to her. What only he could do to her.
His hand drove between her thighs and traced her wet seam before he dipped one finger inside her, pressing deep. His palm rotated over that tiny spot of pure sensation, moving over her as he slid in another finger. He plunged deeper, harder, just the way she needed right now.
He always seemed to know just what she needed, what she wanted, as if he could see into her very heart.
She shook away that disturbing thought, that knowledge that he could know her as no one else ever could, and just let herself feel. Let herself be with him.
But he seemed to sense that instant of disquiet. His hand slid away from her and he held onto her waist as he rolled beneath her and held her on top of him, strong and steady.
He turned her away from him, astride his hips, and traced his touch down the length of her back over her buttocks.
“Ride me, Celia,” he commanded.
She laughed at the heady rush of his words and rested her hands behind her on his thighs as she raised herself up and slowly lowered onto his erect penis, one inch at a time. She let him slide deeper, deeper, until he was fully inside her, joined to her. She closed her eyes and let her head drop back as she revelled in the sensation of being filled by him. Part of him.
He wound the ends of her hair around his wrist and thrust his hips up beneath her.
She let her need take her over and moved on top of him faster, harder, until they were moving as one. She felt that hot pressure build from where he touched her, slid against her. It expanded inside her, up and up, until it exploded.
She cried out her pleasure, her back arching like a taut bowstring over his body.
“Celia!” he shouted, and she felt him go still and rigid beneath her, felt the heat of his release inside of her.
The energy drained slowly out of her, leaving her weak and shivering. She collapsed beside him to the bed and listened to the harsh, unsteady rhythm of his breath.
He reached for her and drew her to his side as he covered them both with the bedclothes. In the darkness behind the curtains she knew only the soft touch of his hand in her hair, the sound of his body shifting on the pillows. Her own thoughts were a confused jumble in her tired mind.
She rolled onto her side and let him cradle her against him as she closed her eyes. She needed to rest—just for a moment...
* * *
Celia slowly swam up from beneath her hazy dreams, becoming aware of the world around her again. She fought a
gainst waking up as her dream had been a sweet one of lying in a warm summer meadow as John kissed her. The sun had streamed down over her in the vision, hot and golden, melting away the long winter, and she had been laughing with John, happy in his arms, lazy and content.
Now she could feel the cold again, the draughts of the old castle pressing against the bed curtains. She blinked her eyes open to find herself lying on her side, surrounded by darkness, the blankets drawn up over her breasts.
And John’s mouth on her bare shoulder.
His arm was heavy over her waist, drawing her back against him. His lips were lazy, slowly exploring her skin, but the sensation that kiss evoked in her was not contentment.
He awoke a restlessness in her, a need that she could feel in the sudden dampness between her legs. He had brought her such pleasure in the night, moments when all thoughts and worries flew away and she could be free. Now sanity was trying to return, to remind her of who they were and all that had happened, but his kiss drove them away again.
“You’re awake, Celia,” he murmured. “I can feel it.” He swept her hair over her shoulder and pressed his mouth to the vulnerable nape of her neck.
She slid herself closer to him and felt the unmistakable proof of his desire, hard against her backside. “So are you.”
John laughed roughly. “I have been for some time. But I wanted to hold you in my arms while you slept.”
“Why?” she asked, a ridiculous hope blooming deep in her heart.
“Because there are no daggers or sharp words while you dream. You were actually smiling. What did you see there?”
“A world with no snow,” she answered.
“And no games of queens and thrones?”
“That would be too much to ask for.” Celia laid her hand on the arm over her waist and slowly trailed her fingertips over his warm skin. She felt the soft brush of his hair, the strength of his muscles. She remembered how he had snatched her up in his arms and held her safe amidst the explosion. How she had felt safe with him even in the midst of chaos.
Tarnished Rose of the Court Page 15
