by Sue Wilson
His words pulled at the heat in her belly, adding tinder that sent flames spiraling through her body. "It would not have meant that," she whispered, her voice shaken by his admission.
"Then you are not some slow poison I have learned to crave? Some lethal alchemy to unman me?"
A smile crept across her lips. "Sheriff," she said, "you hardly seem unmanned." She nudged against him suggestively and felt the rumbling response of his laughter against her breasts.
"Ah, Thea! You make me forget myself, forget the damnable tedium of my days and the drunken havoc I make of my nights-forget it all! If there is a price in this-"
"There is no cost in loving me," she promised quietly.
"-I would pay it. I swear to you. Anything. This castle. My sheriffdom. The whole of haunted Sherwood for your beloved outlaws."
She stopped breathing, forgot to breathe. The rampant beat of her heart drummed louder than even his passion-blinded words. At one time, in their faraway past, had he made such a lover's bargain, would she have traded a night in his bed for a treaty? Given herself to him for a promise of peace?
She could not think. Not now. His hand slipped between their bodies to cup her breast. His fingers captured the silk of her shift and the aching nipple beneath, traced maddening circles around it, massaging, pulling gently until the ache transformed into the razor-sharp throb of pleasure.
"You have long suspected I would be the death of you," she said shakily. "You, or Gisborne, filling your head with doubts. But there is nothing I want, Sheriff, but to be the life of you. To have you come inside me-" she held his dark gaze as she repeated his words and made them her own, "-to be filled with you until thinking and remembering cease."
"That you may have," he vowed, his breath hot against her lips.
Longing spread through her body as his kiss took her again, and the deep, rhythmic stroking of his tongue described his intent in stark detail.
He wove his hand in her hair and tilted her head back, arching, baring her neck, as his mouth left hers and grazed against the soft flesh at the angle of her jaw. She felt her pulse beat wildly against his lips. The heated dampness of his tongue pressed against her, smoothing upward to trace the delicate curve of her ear.
"Thea," he murmured, drawing her close, "send them all away-the dreams...the fears... Send the world away...."
She had wanted only to comfort him, to give of herself until he was emptied of pain, but the touch of his hands and the desperate plea of his words filled her with a need as urgent as his. Her body trembled with the fever of wanting him. The fire in her belly splashed against her, running over, spilling through her thighs.
He rolled to his side, bringing her with him through the sea of pillows and furs. As they lay side by side, he trailed the tips of his fingers down the length of her spine to the swell of her buttocks. She did not need to know the slur of Norman words he poured against her lips. His body spoke boldly of their meaning as he slid his hand down the back of her thigh and lifted her leg across him, pulling the heat of her close.
Beneath the voluminous gathers of her shift, she felt the hardened rise of his erection, felt him thrust against her. Her breath caught in her throat as pleasure washed over her and her need became one with his.
He had taught her this-this maddened desire that sprang from nowhere and invaded her body with the force and speed of a storm; this wild, uncontained need that separated her from her senses, that blurred the world around her and brought into focus only his lips, his hands, and the exquisite, primal ache of her body in response.
Clutching his shoulders, she moved with him as he tempted her body with the swollen length of his shaft. He muffled a groan of pleasure against her shoulder. Oh, God, this power he gave her! To feel such sublime torment. To give it back to him and watch the slow shredding of his self-control.
He was devouring her, tasting her with his tongue, sucking the flesh of her neck into his mouth as if he hungered for her the way she thirsted for him. His teeth grazed her collarbone; his beard scraped the fullness of her breast.
Caught in a dreamlike stir of sensation, Thea felt him move over her once more, pressing her back into the furs. His body lay half atop hers, hovering like a warm shadow. He lowered his head to dip his tongue in and out of the crisscrossed laces that closed the front of her shift, dancing against bare skin from the vee of her breasts to the middle of her belly.
She wanted him lower, wanted to feel the bewitching pressure of his tongue between her thighs, sliding between the flames, driving them higher, higher-then dousing them in the last moment before they consumed her entirely. The heat of his breath blasted through the thin silk of her shift, and she cried out in anticipation, but he moved up over her body instead, leaving her empty, her thighs parted and quivering.
"Do you know what you do to me?" she cried. "Do you know?"
"A fraction of what you do to me?" He grasped her wrists and brought them over her head.
Thea gripped the furs as his hands skimmed back down the undersides of her arms and lightly traced the outer curves of her breasts. The fire-trail of touches enclosed her, and she whimpered as he took her breast in his hand, kneading softly. With his thumb, he slid the silk of her shift back and forth across her hardened nipples, then bent to her, warm breath teasing before his tongue reached to caress her through the thin fabric. His lips closed over her, drawing down with gentle insistence as he took her breast more fully into his mouth.
Thea dug her fingers into the furs, twisted and pulled them as she arched her back into the lightning streaks of sensation, offering herself to him.
Oh, God...this wanting...this subtle, splendid agony! Why did he torture her so?
He eased the shift away and lifted the fullness of her breast to his mouth again. Slowly, he suckled her, drawing deeply like a starved babe, and when she thought she would cry out with the intensity of his need, he pulled back, his lips and the slick heat of his tongue pressing, rubbing, licking lightly across her. Even when his mouth left her, his breath did not, falling hot and ragged against her kiss-flushed skin.
And then she knew. It was not his intent to torture her at all, but to please her-and to make the pleasing last forever.
This time there would be no frantic coupling. They could have had that-in the forest, in the stable-but not here, not now. His touch was the slow, thorough adoration of a man whose flesh was soothed by hers one moment, stirred by it the next, who did not understand the effect she had on him and was past caring. Thea could feel him revel in her response, impassioned by the desire he incited in her.
Through a pleasure-fogged haze, she heard the sigh of laces being pulled through the silk of her shift. She held her breath, listening to the runaway beat of her heart.
The Sheriff pushed himself away, sitting back on his heels between her parted legs. While she watched, he hooked his fingers beneath the fabric of her shift and slid the garment over her hips as she lifted them for him.
Her eyes drifted shut and she stretched into the furs, luxuriating in the strange commingling of the chamber's wintry air and the fire's warmth on her naked skin. With a smile, she heard the rustle of silk settling in the distance where he'd tossed it, felt hands comb the ivory hose below her knees, down the length of her calves.
Then suddenly he was still, and she opened her eyes. He knelt above her, the fire at his back, light glowing off his dark silhouette like a golden aura. His chest rose and fell in labored, uneven time as he drank in the sight of her.
"No, do not move," he said hoarsely as she instinctively covered herself with her arm. "Stay as you are."
She lifted her arm back over her head and watched as his gaze drifted past the rise of her breasts to her hips, to the leg draped wantonly over a plump floor cushion. No man had ever looked at her with such longing or held her motionless with so commanding a stare.
"Christ, you are beautiful!" he murmured.
At that moment, she wanted him more than she ever thought possible, n
ot to be his prisoner with her hands fisted in the furs, not to languish passively in the spell he wove with his lovemaking. She wanted to touch him, to taste him, to have every part of him he'd ever denied her.
"You, as well," she breathed, her gaze falling from his open tunic to the laces of his trews. His need was blatant, if unspoken.
He reached for her, but her hand met his; their fingers laced together.
She knew so little about him. The hypnotic scent of his skin. The intoxicating taste of his tongue. The way he held her at the edge of ecstasy and kept her there with his devastating touch. Beyond that? She had never known the luxury of lying next to him unclothed, of discovering and mastering his body as he had hers, of returning the indescribable feeling of release.
Her voice was firm. "Undress for me."
His eyes never left hers; his expression never wavered. His raven hair lay in a frenzied riot against his forehead and shoulders. He breathed heavily, but soundlessly, and she watched the rise and fall of his chest as it took in air and emptied itself again, tension stringing out between them with each moment he delayed.
He unclasped her hand, slowly drew his fingers from hers, and without glancing down, pulled off the belt she had loosened in the hallway. Boots followed, then snug, woolen breeches. He shrugged easily out of his tunic, baring his chest.
Firelight bronzed him. The flickering play of candles gilded his broad shoulders and sinewy arms, as he shook the heavy mane of hair back from his face with the regal grace of a lion.
"Now you would have your way with me?" he teased, as he stroked her bare arms from shoulder to wrist.
The anguish of memories had fled, leaving only a seductive smile weaving in and out of his bearded lips. She rose and knelt in front of him, her thighs grazing his.
"I think so," she murmured, caressing the sculpted muscles of his chest, the wine-dark nipples. Her own breath came in uneven bursts. "Yes."
Her fingers drifted down to the taut plane of his abdomen. There she found the cord of his braies, and tugged. They loosened, sagged on his slender hips for a brief instant before she opened them, pushed them down, and away.
His shaft rose thick and proud from its black nest of curls, nudging her belly as his thighs brushed hers. She curled her fingers around the base and caressed upward along its velvet-steel length, memorizing him so she would never forget what wanting her had done to him.
She stroked the full, straining length of him, absorbing the heat and hardness in her palms, watching his hips move with her touches. As Thea stretched out alongside him, he pushed against her, his thick, male hardness filling her hand with its pulsing, heated strength.
Placing her lips against his, she felt the tremor of his breath coming harshly against her. "You told me once that you wished me in your bed," she said. "I wanted you even then. And every day and night that have passed since. Every time you touched me, and did not take me, every time I dared let myself think of you holding me, kissing me, taunting me, I ached to have you, to feel you growing hard inside me."
Thea did not know where such brazen words came from, save she needed it as much as he. Her feelings were quicksilver, shifting from tenderness to desire and back again. She ached to comfort him, to lead him through the night until his pain and the memories were far behind him, to feel him bury himself in her body, drive deep inside her without restraint, mating his power to her softness.
"Let me make love to you," she murmured.
Her tongue slid along the curve of his lips. He touched it with his own, drawing it inside his mouth, where heat and dampness surrounded her and the slow, serpentine strokes they played against each other mimicked the movements of her hand upon him.
With a groan, he abandoned himself to her. His fingers sank into the furs, and smoothly, steadily, powerfully, he thrust himself into her hands.
It was unlikely Thea could stop him now, not after they had lingered so long. And she did not want to stop. She wanted him beyond bearing, with all the ferocity she had learned from his bold touch. She wanted to drown him in bliss, to give him the sublime pleasure his intimate touches and kisses had given her, to worship his body, make it part of hers.
Her lips brushed his nipples, traced along the center of his chest where the scent of myrrh and musk wove around her. She pressed her open mouth to his belly, swirled her tongue inside the tempting recess of his navel. Nottingham twisted beneath her, slurring the sound of her name through soft moans. Her own breath came in gasps as she bent to take him with her mouth, letting him feel the welcome heat of her tongue as his movements brought him between her parted lips.
He cried out, a single, sharp exhalation of desperation and delight, and arched his hips toward her. One hand dug into the pelts at his side; the other cradled the back of her head as she explored him, tasted him, bathed him with the relieving wetness of her mouth.
She could feel him still reaching for control, despite the tremors that took his body. His hands roamed over her, clutching her back, at every last shred of self-restraint he possessed. Her tongue caressed him, her lips pulled against the hot, hard length of him, finding a languid rhythm.
"Thea-" His eyes closed, and he moaned deep in his throat.
She was shaken by the depth of his need-this man who had needed nothing, who governed himself with absolute perfection, who let nothing happen unless he commanded it or willed it to be so. She had brought him this rapture with simple, unlearned passion, with nothing but the assurance that she could do for him what he so masterfully did for her.
"Thea-Thea, sweet-let me be inside you...."
The slow unraveling of his self-control and the thwarted cries he choked back only filled her with a hunger of her own. She drew her hands up the length of him, imagining how it would be to join with him, to feel his glorious, throbbing hardness fitted fully within her. The thought cut deep into the aching emptiness between her thighs. Imagining was not enough. Weakened by passion, she let him pull her away and up into his arms.
"You are shivering from wanting me," he breathed as he clasped her tightly to his chest, "and I from wanting you."
His shaking hands tenderly stroked her back, her hair, her face. She felt herself trembling in his arms, could taste the faint, salty taste he had left on her lips. He kissed her deeply, endlessly, as he urged her beneath him.
Helpless, inarticulate cries rose in her own throat, and she saw herself arching against him, writhing among the furs as if she were a stranger to herself-some bold and brazen wild thing transformed by the sheer need of him. And yet his kiss only drove the ache deeper within her. She wanted more-something-something more. Something she had forgotten or never had. Something she would die without.
His mouth left her lips parted, gasping, sobbing, and found her breast, her belly, the inside of her thigh, kissing, sucking, murmuring against her. Each touch pulled her into a fiery whirlwind of sensation; each caress of his tongue sent the breath from her, dragged her deep within the turbulence of passion where there was no air, no respite, only a yearning she could not bear. He had lit a fire in her, fanned it, spread it through her without mercy until she could not move, lest she crumble to ash.
She could only whimper as he eased her legs apart, could only cry out as he sank his finger into the aching wetness of her. She moaned aloud, insensible to everything but the plunging, filling promise of relief and the torment of unquenched desire when he withdrew.
He found her wet, and one finger became two, as she followed the deep, slow invasion with her hips. He gave to her what she needed as if he needed it himself, took it away with a groan as if he too were deprived, gave it to her again and again and again, until all she knew was her need for him and his for her, and the slick rhythm that drove them together.
She was close, too close to know, to care, to stop, when the rhythm broke and she felt the harder, thicker, hotter flesh of his penis pushing into her. She cried out, bringing him inside her, meeting him as he thrust into her, once, powerfully.
/> The world spun darkly around her and she clung to him, surrendering to a blinding explosion of ecstasy that left her shuddering, safe in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was as if she had slept-or died. The air came into her lungs in unsteady breaths; her shattered senses lay all around her, filtering through the bliss of fulfillment.
When the world stopped spinning and Thea could breathe again, she felt how fully he possessed her. He filled her completely, as if he had been made almost too generously for her, stretching her tightness with the long, thick hardness of his sex. Buried deep within her, he lay still as the pulses of her body against his shaft gentled into a fading cadence. When he moved, slowly, pulling from her, she reached for him, her hands gliding over the smooth, taut muscles of his buttocks to urge him back inside.
She wanted him again that quickly.
Her eyes fluttered closed as he arched into her, letting her honeyed wetness smooth around him by slow degrees as he pushed deep inside her.
"Look at me." His voice rasped with a blend of passion and command-the masterful Sheriff of Nottingham, caught in the act of wanting her.
She held her breath, mirroring the languorous motion of his hips. His movements had grown deliberate and unhurried, as if he had overcome, or dismissed, the urgency of moments before, as if the very act of arousing her sated him in some indefinable way.
She felt it, too-how the currents flowed thickly between them, winding and delving deeper than ever before, touching places in her heart she had thought unreachable. When she opened her eyes, a smile was playing lazily at the corners of his lips, confirmation and return of every feeling she possessed.
In coming inside her, he had filled her emptiness; she had been balm to his. He had fit into the hollows of her life as he fit into her body, fully, without concession for his strength or power, tense and thrumming with vibrancy she had forgotten. Her body welcomed him without reservation, smoothing the ache from him with slow, sensual friction and the warm salve of her wetness until he was stripped bare of pain and the artifice he wore to hide it.
