by Fox, Georgia
It was too much. She hurried back to the cottage, not wanting to look further in the reeds for fear of what she might find.
Tomorrow, when she had more courage, she would tell Thierry and they would go together and look. Just for tonight she wanted to forget what had happened to put them there. She wanted to live her pleasant fantasy for one blessed night. Was that too much to ask?
She picked a handful of mint from the tangled herb garden and joined the others inside.
At supper they sat close. His hand touched her thigh beneath the table, that warm heaviness reminding her of all they had done together and the things they had yet to do. She wanted to try it all with him.
That night, laying together in the warm hayloft, she imagined they were true newlyweds. When he kissed her it was the with the protective warmth and affection of a besotted husband, and she ran her fingers through his hair with the nurturing care and adoration of a devoted wife.
"I am sorry about your men," she told him. "I hope they are not all dead."
"Yes. Let's not talk of that now."
She nodded, part of her relieved, part of her thinking he should talk of it and not let his pain fester inside. But how did she know what was best for this warrior? He'd seen a great many companions die in battle no doubt and had caused death with his own sword. It would not be the same to him as it was to her, and perhaps he knew best how to manage his grief and regret.
"Vivienne," he whispered, twisting her hair around his fingers and bringing it to his face. "You should wear a scarf from now on."
"Why?"
"I don't like other men seeing this hair. It should be for me only to enjoy."
She laughed lightly. "It is a good thing you will not know me when I am grey, like the fisherman's good wife. Then my one beauty will be gone."
His head rustled in the hay as he looked up at her, but he did not respond. Tonight his eyes were brooding, at times pensive. The desire to soothe his anxiety, rid him of worries, grew stronger by the moment. Vivienne had never thought of herself as the nurturing sort of woman, but suddenly that was what she longed to be. She stroked one finger along the stubble of his cheek.
"And you, Bonnenfant, will lose all your hair and grow a paunch. I daresay we would not recognize one another, twenty years from now. You might see me in a market somewhere and never know..."
He reached for her face and drew it down for a kiss, a lingering, thoughtful caress of firm lips to soft lips first, then shy tongue to cautious tongue.
"...the woman who once saved your life," she added.
A slow, unsteady smile pulled on the corners of his mouth, but still he said nothing.
Vivienne moved down his body and licked his cock from root to tip, before taking it in her mouth. Her hand gently held the sac, fingertips caressing the sensitive skin, feeling how it twitched and tightened. He still tasted of the herbs that had scented the bathwater and a little essence that was uniquely his. As he swelled in her mouth she increased the rhythm of her sucking, sliding her lips up and down, making him slick and lusty.
Again he whispered her name and she heard the plea in his voice. She moved around in the hay and set herself over his waiting mouth, lowering her head again to take him deep in her throat while he held her thighs and lapped at her pussy. Those strong, steady strokes brought her quickly to a groaning peak. His tongue traced a path to her anus and that skip of nervous excitement danced inside. She was heavy with want.
Bending over in the hay, she presented herself on all fours, hoping he would not see her tremble like a newborn foal. He readied his path with her sticky wetness. Combined with his own it dampened her back entrance enough to ease his way, slowly inside.
"You are so beautiful, Vivienne," he whispered.
She sighed a little inside, wondering how many other women he'd cajoled into giving him what he wanted with those same words.
Then he added, "Even old and grey you will be beautiful."
She giggled when he ticked her belly. "You don't have to say that, Bonnenfant. I am giving you want you want."
"Exactly," he whispered, kissing her nape. "I don't have to say it and I probably shouldn't, because it will make you vain, Sister Vivienne. But I can't help myself."
He stroked her bottom, rubbed her shoulders, fingered her pussy. As the desire built, she flexed, opening to accommodate his cock in that place she'd sworn never to give any man. His hard thighs pressed against the back of her legs, his hands spread her knees wider and then his body covered hers, pressing deep. She bit her lips to keep from crying out. The burn was almost too much as he filled her completely.
"Vivienne," he choked out on a restrained breath, "my naughty nun, you are incredible, delicious. I can never have enough of you." She felt him trembling as his hands clutched for her breasts and held them, rubbing her taut nipples between his long, swarthy fingers. "I can't hold back much longer, my love."
My love? Those words, uttered so softly in her ear, squeezed around her heart as if to wring blood from it. No one had ever called her that. No one had ever caressed her as he did, with words as well as hands.
The pain eased now, obscured by a soaring, irrepressible delight, almost desperate when she thought of this being the last night they would share before they went back to what they were before. He moved slowly over her, guiding his cock in and out with one hand around the root, tentative this time.
"Thierry," she moaned. "Don't wait. Ride me."
There was a lengthy moment when he held himself almost all the way out of her, his heartbeat thumping against her back, his breath hot on her shoulder.
Then suddenly he bucked, slamming his groin into her arse. She screamed, not with pain, but sheer ecstasy. She rocked beneath him, abandoned to her body's greed and his ruthless desire. Grunting into her hair, he jerked over her, his body sweating, and he fucked her wildly, losing all restraint.
One hand reached under her, his finger sliding between her labia and teasing her pearl out from its hiding place.
She was wide open for him, a plaything at his mercy. He filled her, rode her hard. And with his hand between her thighs he made certain she joined him as he took that last fence, soaring into blue sky.
He pulled out with a roar of pleasure, which he made no attempt to smother. Vivienne felt his hot, sticky seed fall on the dip of her back. And later she would find it even in her hair, although he pretended not to know how it got there.
"Dear God!" he gasped again, for the third time.
"You're not going to start praying now are you, Bonnenfant?"
They sank together into the straw and when she turned her head to look at him, he seemed so young suddenly.
"You look like a boy," she murmured, drawing a fingertip across his smiling lips.
"I am just a boy," he said. "And you're just a girl."
If only that was all they were, she thought. If only they'd met years ago, before all the wickedness had swept them up and soiled their hearts, made them skeptical and untrusting.
If only. Perhaps, tonight they could be exactly what he said they were. And only that.
"Mayhap I will start praying," he whispered drowsily, one hand reaching down to cup her bottom tenderly and draw her closer. "To whomever put you into my life."
Laid with his arms around her, her head on his chest, she drifted off into half-sleep, listening to the thud of his heart. She had given him all of herself and she did not regret it. Their lives would take them in other directions once they found their way back to the world they knew, and then all she would have of him was this painfully sweet memory.
The echo of screams had stopped at last. All was still and calm. It was as if the waves of that storm had finally put out her mother's fire.
Chapter Ten
The cart trundled away from the village, pulled by oxen that moved at the pace of a snail. Thierry, staring at the long road ahead, missed his warhorse, Thor. What he wouldn't give to have that beast now. He was unaccustomed to slow journeys, or to
letting anyone else set the speed. Looking at the fisherman's genial, chatty nephew, he felt the urge to grab the reins from those plump fingers, push him aside, and take over.
But then, quite suddenly, he realized there was no hurry. They would get there eventually. What was the rush?
He turned his head and looked at Vivienne. She sat beside him in the cart, her gaze trained out over the sea as they wound their path along the cliffs. She did not wear the scarf he'd suggested, but let her hair blow loose and free. Stubborn wench. But how beautiful, he thought simply. Even this early in the morning, when he had to wake her out of a deep sleep and she had crust in her eyes and dried drool on her chin, he still found her irresistible. From the first moment he'd looked into those rich brown eyes she'd stolen his breath away. He used to laugh at men who had this reaction to one woman.
Could it be because she had saved his life that he felt as if his heart belonged to her? Perhaps, but his desire had begun before that, his unusually possessive need to keep her all to himself. His pulse was beating too fast. He might have caught a fever in the sea yesterday.
"Are you cold, Vivienne?" He thought he'd just seen her shiver and heard her sniff.
She smiled, brushing her hair back with one graceful hand. "No, Thierry."
But the wind was brisk on the cliff top and they would not have shelter from it for at least half a mile, until the road turned down through the trees in the distance, finally moved away from the sea and headed inland. "You're sure?" He wanted her to sit closer so he could put his arm around her.
Were those tears caught and trembling in her lashes?
"The wind!" she exclaimed with a shaky little laugh, wiping her face. "It makes my eyes run."
He watched her for just a moment more and then he reached for the woman and slid her into his embrace, both arms closed around her. "I will shelter you," he said.
Her body leaned against his, her hair surrounding them both as the breeze danced with it. Thierry closed his eyes and drank in her scent.
How could he let her leave his arms ever again? What would he do without her?
Somewhere out there his other life waited. But what a life? A wife he'd married out of duty—a woman who despised him and bore a child that was not his. A title he'd never sought and land he did not want. Would it be so bad if Thierry Bonnenfant disappeared forever? Who would miss him?
Everything that happened before the storm, he decided, was in the past. No more.
His brush with death had opened his eyes to life. And to love.
* * * *
Vivienne thought something was wrong when he suddenly patted the other man's shoulder and asked him to stop the cart.
It wasn't much to go from their lumbering pace to full stop, and then Thierry jumped down from the cart. He raised his arms to her, saying nothing.
She scrambled over the edge and leapt so that he caught her.
"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, breathless as he held her in his arms.
"Taking you home," he answered. With a cheery shout of thanks to the fisherman's nephew, he turned and started back in the direction from which they'd traveled.
"Put me down you fool!"
Eventually he did, but he kept her hand tight, her fingers linked with his own, as if he thought she might run after the cart.
"You must be as mad as they say, Thierry Bonnenfant." Her heart was beating through her chest; her throat was dry. She thought perhaps she was dreaming again. "What are you going to do now?"
He put his chin up and swung her arm as they strode along. "I shall become a fisherman, of course."
"Have you ever fished in your life?"
"Of course, many times. I can do anything, remember." He grinned at her cheekily, the fearless man who knew everything. "And now I have everything, too." She read it there in his eyes even before he said it. "I love you, wife."
She shook her head, the wind tearing at her hair, blowing it across her face. "How could you give everything up for me, Thierry? It is wrong. You will blame me for this rash decision one day. I can't allow you to make such a mistake."
He rolled his eyes. "Nag, nag, nag. Is that all you women ever do?"
"But Thierry"—
They stopped in the lane and he took her face between his hands, holding her billowing hair back so that he could kiss her. "Do you love me, Vivienne?"
She tried to swallow. His lips caressed hers and it was a gentle motion but still enough to loosen a tear from her lashes so that it fell to her cheek. "Yes," she managed finally. "I love you, you arrogant fool."
He held his brow to hers and chuckled, a soft, low, relieved and slightly bewildered gust of breath. "That's good then. Now perhaps you'll obey me from now on if you mean to be a proper wife."
"Obey you?"
"That's right, mouthy wench. It means you do as I say—since I'll be your lord and master from now on and I, naturally, know what's best." He walked on down the road toward the village, leaving her to follow.
She watched him go, hands on her waist, still not quite believing.
Then he stopped and spun around to face her. "Are you coming with me, woman? Will you give me children and cook my meals and warm my bed, as a good wife should? Will you be a humble fisherman's wife, let me love you with all that I have for the rest of my days, cherish you and protect you. Make love to you twice a day at least?"
Finally she moved, following him down the path. "Very well then. If you put it that way, what choice do I have?"
He laughed, catching her hand again in his. "It was the last part that won you, wasn't it?" he teased. "Naughty wench."
"Twice a day, at least."
"I can see I'll have my work cut out for me."
"Such a hardship! How will you manage?"
"Hush, woman, curb that saucy tongue. I must make you respectable now if you're going to be my wife."
"Respectable? Ha! Coming from you, Bonnenfant, that is sweet indeed!"
"Are you still talking when I told you to hush?"
"So I am. Fancy!"
"Listen, woman, and pay heed..."
"I would if I thought you had anything interesting to say."
"Well you won't know, will you, if you keep talking?"
"Are you going to tell me again that you love me?"
"No. I am bored with that subject already."
"Of course you are." She broke away from him, hands behind her back. "Your brain is too tiny to hold one thought for long. Good thing your cock is not so small."
Cursing, he made a reach for her and she ran full tilt down the road toward the thatched roofs by the bay, laughing so hard she had a stitch in her side already.
His steps thundered after her, his voice thrown by the wind, "Come back here and say that, woman! Wait till I get my hands on you again!"
But she ran on and he ran after, laughing and chasing her all the way back to the village.
* * * *
Two months later
He was down by the bay with his nets, It was cool out this evening, the leaves on the trees changing color as autumn took hold. In the mornings, a mist settled in the valley and there was a definite nip in the air at night. Living here he was even more aware of the changing seasons. Now he had the time to notice these things and appreciate them properly. He could even share his thoughts about the rain with Vivienne, who did not mock him, but listened wide-eyed to his first, stumbling attempts at poetry. She thought everything he did these days was astonishing. He'd never known another person to be proud of him before, but whenever he came home with full nets, his wife's reaction was so joyous and excited that anyone would think he'd walked on water to get them.
On this placid evening, in the midst of these merry musings, Thierry suddenly felt the breeze change direction. It ruffled his hair and tugged on his tunic.
He looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun that fizzled and died in the calm sea. A man on horseback appeared, trotting cautiously across the sand toward him. The approaching rider sl
owed his horse to a walk and then halted a few feet away.
"My Lord Bonnenfant! It is you. At last." Dominic Coeur-du-Loup, swung down from his saddle and bowed. "I have searched for you now for weeks. We all thought you were drowned!" He beamed wide, the scar stretching across his cheek. "There will be much celebration now that you are found safe and well. What are you doing here?"
He stared, still holding his nets, slightly bend forward as he had been in the process of loading his boat. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I do not know...I think you mistake me for another man, sire."
Dominic squinted, the smile fading. "But you are he. I know you." Now concerned he stepped closer, helmet tucked under his arm. "Have your forgotten, my lord? Perhaps your head was damaged."
Perhaps, he thought wryly. Dropping his nets, he straightened up. "No, sire. I am a humble fisherman. I have never heard of this man you seek...this Bonnenfant." He couldn't help smiling, so glad to see the soldier had survived, apparently in one piece.
