by Louisa Trent
Summoning all of her courage, she faced the enigmatic man who had captured her, who denied the connection between them, who spoke only of lust when there existed something more. “I-I need you. Will you pass the remainder of the night with me? Will you sleep with me on the furs? I am so cold. Will you warm me?"
“You would have me use you? For use is all it would be. I make no bargains with prisoners. I make no promises about the future..."
Before her uncompromising captor stipulated himself out of taking her, thereby ruining her carefully laid plans, she said, “Please accept my body as a small token of my appreciation. You saved my life today. No bargains, no strings, were attached to your rescue, and none are now attached to my thanks.” She looked up at him from under her lashes. “To refuse my small gift would show discourtesy."
“And I am nothing if not courteous.” He gave a knightly bow. “As to the size of the gift...” He cupped her bare teat. “...what matters is quality, and these are choice gifts indeed."
Aeschine licked her lips and pressed closer.
A gnawing started in her belly. Where it would lead or what exactly it meant, she knew not. But she would have more of the same! More of what he did to her, more of what he gave to her, especially the compliments.
“Harder,” she demanded. “Do that harder!"
He raised a brow. “You dislike subtlety?"
“I-need-it-hard," she ground out. Anything but subtle, her bare legs vulgarly rubbed together, a cricket but without the chirps. A pressure was building inside her, in her secret place, and she knew instinctively that only he could take the ache away.
She desired him. Would that she knew what to expect from the culmination of that desire! Her mother had died when she was but a child, the good sisters never discussed such things, and so she was ignorant of what took place on the furs.
No matter. She learned fast.
She only wished her captor loved her...
Naturally, he did not. She was not his dream. Captivity was not her dream either. But mayhap, together, they could make a different dream. They both yearned for peace. They would both see an end to needless killings. She needed love; she sensed he needed love too.
He quoted duty and responsibility at her, but they were hollow platitudes. What counted were actions. Her captor had risked his life for her. He had saved her. And though he held no love in his heart for her, lust hardened his loins. Love must have a beginning somewhere. Why not in desire?
“You take my breath away,” he rasped hoarsely, and delicately pinched her jutting teats.
Was there a finer compliment than to deprive a man of his wind?
She smiled dreamily, hardly noticing when he unbuckled the leather strap and the tether fell loose.
That she had inherited her mother's pretty hair gladdened her. For the first time, her athletic body caused her no shame. She had deceived him, aye, but she would make him happy!
As soon as she figured out how.
She knew what would make her happy. A kiss! Mayhap it was the same for both males and females. Her captor appreciated buttercups; he might appreciate kisses too...
The thought of his lips touching her lips had her wiggling in anticipation.
Her first kiss! With his lips attached to it.
Closing her eyes, she puckered.
A moment passed.
She waited.
Another moment flew by.
When her lips still went unattended, she cracked her lids.
The torch had gone out. Darkness claimed the cave.
Her lips unpuckered. Oh, how she feared the dark!
“Captor! Where are you?"
“Here,” her captor answered from somewhere directly in front of her.
Two hands landed on her shoulders and pressed her to her knees. She heard him fall to his knees too. Did he intend for them to pray first? Did he think to take her in the middle of the Hail Mary's?
Mayhap not, she decided. For a heartbeat later, he tipped her onto her back, spread her limbs, and placed a knee between. Linen tickled the inside of her bare thighs.
She was naked. Why had he not disrobed too?
But lost in the wonder of his hands, which now stroked her belly, she forgot her pique. With a sigh of pleasure, she stretched full out like a lazy cat. “Never leave me all night,” she commanded.
“I do not anticipate a problem there."
He played his fingers lower, combing his fingers through her woman's pelt. “Silky,” he murmured.
She sighed some more. Brazenly opened her legs some more. Hoping he might play with her some more. When he had stroked between her legs while tethering her, she had gone all tingly. She had liked that sensation very much.
He crouched between her wide-open legs now. It was very nice that he was so close. Very pleasant that his breath was warm and not at all malodorous on her face. Very agreeable that he liked to...
In the dark, her eyes went wide. This sensation surpassed tingly! This was intense ... this was...
What was happening? She had never felt anything like this before. How to describe it?
Who cared about petty descriptions? No mere words would ever explain the sensation, anyway. Writhing, she gave herself over to whatever it was, wound her hands around his neck and fingered the curls that scraped his shoulders.
His stroking stopped.
“You are not to touch me,” he reprimanded.
“But you touch me,” she responded, trying not to sound argumentative, but unwilling to accept an unwarranted rebuke.
He removed her hands from his shoulders, placed them above her head, and gripped them there, around the wrists. “I touch you only because you asked for this use. You gifted me with your body. I did not, and will not, reciprocate in kind."
And then something, something certainly not his free hand, touched her. Not exactly stroking her, more akin to poking her. Down below. Probing between her legs, down below. A monstrous thick thing—an appendage of some sort—pressed against her, pushed into her, down below. It stretched her.
Pain! Burning, hot pain.
What did he put inside her?
Blessed Virgin! This was not enjoyable. And where was her kiss? She would have her kiss! Was kissing not part of mating?
Searing, ripping, burning pain. She was rived, split apart! Torn asunder. Down below, between her legs. Why would her formerly kind captor hurt her this way?
Her head thrashed back and forth on the furs. Stop!
A moan.
Not hers. His!
“Sweet Jesu! You are tight. Like a virgin, you are clenched around my cock."
Cock? He thought to put his cock inside her?
Of course! She should have known how mating was done! She was a shepherdess, after all. She had seen rams with the ewes often enough! But animals were different than people; at least, that is what she had always thought. Mayhap, that was an incorrect assumption. Mayhap, the only differences were superficial—like wool and bahs and horns and tails and such. Mayhap, when the wool and bahs and horns and tails and such were put aside, animals and people mated the same way. Why had she not put the two together before now!
He was putting his cock inside her! The village boys bragged endlessly about the size of their cocks. They often had pissing contests and she would watch in fascination, unable to join in on the festivities. She had often been envious of those lads and their cocks.
Not so envious that she would ever wish to have a cock inside of her, however.
But wait! Cocks were funny little things. Small, soft and harmless, like fat pink worms a bird would feast upon. The one knifing its way up inside her felt ungodly big and hard. Nothing harmless about this cock! This cock was about to split her in two.
His moan changed to a groan.
Mating must hurt her captor, too. Their bond again! They shared so much. Even pain...
“So good,” he crooned.
Well, she supposed, no couple shared all things.
“
I will hold back,” he whispered against her ear.
“Do not!” She must satisfy him! She must share his bedchamber or LaTourne would come for her. “Give me your all!” She panted and wiggled her hips, pushing up against him. He was her bulwark in the storm that wracked her body.
Something broke. Tore. Something was cut away. Her maidenhead?
Aye! Her maidenhead.
The barrier eliminated, he pushed inside her.
“I belong to you now,” she cried in triumph, for all that she was hurting.
The pain diminished slowly. Not gone entirely, but tolerable. Something else was happening too. Akin to pleasure, but not quite pleasure. Something she thought she might come to like eventually. Not now. For now, her satisfaction was in the knowing that he seemed to like doing it. He seemed to like doing it very much.
But ... did she have no part to play in this? Was she expected to lie back and let him do everything?
Unfair! When did she get her turn to thrust?
Experimentally, every time he moved up, she bore down, meeting his shallow thrusts, clenching her inner muscles.
“Ah, like that. Just, just, like that,” he groaned.
She had botched many female past-times in her life, but she thought that perhaps she did mating well enough. Some might call that an accomplishment...
Pride filled her.
As did he.
Almost. He held back. Instincts once again told her so. And she was about to call him on it too, but a few ins and outs later, and he was done. Finished. A long, slow, pull and he left her empty ... and wanting.
Sloppy wet too, from what he had left behind.
The sticky stuff poured out of her in copious amounts, dribbling between her splayed legs.
She was mortified.
Happy too, because he seemed satisfied.
“Everything is fine now,” she said with a complacent nod.
CHAPTER NINE
Fine?
Had she really said everything was fine?
In the dark, Sage stroked the high slant of Aeschine's cheekbone. In the dark, he brushed away her tears. In the dark, he pretended he felt nothing. That everything was fine, when nothing was fine.
“I agree to take you to leman,” he said, grudgingly. “Your body, in exchange for my bedchamber. For services rendered, you will not have to go to the dungeon. Before we leave this cave, I will have breached you in every way the pervert, LaTourne, breached you. It pleases me to know you will let me."
But would she be wet for him? Or, was she only wet for LaTourne?
She had not been wet for him the first time. Amenable, aye. But wet? Nay. Aeschine had been tight and dry, and she had not climaxed.
By God, she would be wet for him! She would open for him! She would desire him! She would come for him!
Before marriage, before taking on the yoke of celibacy, many a prospective lover, upon accessing his size, had run the other way. Even Joan, who had two husbands before him, had never taken all of him. His length and breadth were cruel jokes of nature; he required far less than what he was given. Halfway in was as far as he had ever dared to go. No lady had ever asked for more.
Until Aeschine. Greedy puss! She had asked for his all.
He was mad, but he was not quite that mad. Yet. He had withheld his all. But if he stayed, he would have to have her again. The urgency was primal. Powerful. Even now, so soon after his orgasm, white-hot fever pumped violently through his veins and heated his blood to the boiling point.
He pulled away from her.
“You go?” she cried, hauling him back before he made either an escape or a response. “Please do not! Stay with me on the furs. I need you."
Need. She needed him?
He needed her too. Her body. Her softness. Her playfulness. Just to forget the agony of being alive. Just to see if he still remembered what normalcy felt like. Just to see if he were still capable of a human emotion, other than rage and revenge and remorse. It was so long for him. So long since he'd had the comfort of a woman.
He had never been a libertine. Had always placed only moderate demands on his bedmates.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he would have it all. Everything. All manner of excess. Dark congress. Earthy cries. Unholy bliss. All that Church and man forbade.
Shelving his captive's round bottom in his hard swordsman's palms, Sage leaned forward on his knees and began all over again.
Seed streamed out between Aeschine's legs, a slick reminder that he had not withdrawn. The viscous fluid would make the second entry somewhat easier.
Nerve endings tingling, blood pounding, head thrown back and teeth clenched, he drove up and in.
Aeschine's breath caught on a sob. Though he had stopped at a shallow breech, soft mewing sounds ushered forth from her throat and perspiration ran in rivulets down her sides. She panted much as a woman does in childbirth.
When she bucked, he held her down. When his fingers slid on her sweat-slippery skin, he tightened his grip. All ten digits bit into her sides. She would have bruises from this siege.
She had asked for this, he told himself, when her whimpers accused him. Her body for her freedom, that was the agreement She had no right to complain about a bargain already struck. He was under no obligation to make it better for her. Why should he? By her own admission she was promiscuous—there were those shepherd lads. And the pervert LaTourne. Who knew what he had done to her. So, she was not precisely a whore but close. At the very least, she should have known what she was getting into by letting him get into her. Her body should not revolt this way; her body should be well broken in.
Still, he was built large. And though he was a warrior, he had never been brutish. He took his leave of her.
“Do not go,” she cried.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he found her passion bud, and courted it. Perhaps, he could make it better for her...
Soon, she purred. “Mmm..."
“You like that, do you?"
“Oh, aye."
At her enthusiastic assent, he pressed his advantage and entered her once again.
She liked the courtship well enough, but she cried out—and not in ecstasy—when he regrouped, moving the strategy of the campaign from courting to a shallow thrusting.
He was hurting her.
He owned her hurt, accepted responsibility for it. Pain was pain, for both males and females. The question was in the degree, and in the lasting consequence of the act.
He would just have to make sure she suffered no lasting repercussions, beyond natural female soreness, from this night.
“If the pain becomes too much, you must tell me,” he apprised her. “We need not fulfill our bargain all in one eve."
“Your magnanimousness overwhelms,” she squeaked.
The corners of his mouth lifted at her sarcasm; even now she sought to best him in this game.
If she had told him nay, he might have stopped.
He might have; he couldn't be certain. Aeschine needed taming. Rutting on her was part of her discipline. A well-mated female is a placid female, and a placid female obeys. In a similar fashion as the leather tether, rutting would tie her to him.
In short order, he had choked back the shout of another climax.
Choked back, because he refused to give into the wayward tendencies of his body. He must remain in control as he discharged his duty toward her. This was not about pleasure, after all. And though he had forfeited celibacy, he must never lose sight of the reason he practiced abstinence in the first place—with his size and his state of mind, he could seriously harm a woman.
Withdrawing, Sage re-lit the torch, and gazed down at his captive.
Aeschine looked ... broken. Her slick body had listed to one side like the bent stem of the buttercups she so loved. Perspiration plastered her glorious mane of hair to her shoulders. Bruises showed where his hands had sought purchase on her narrow hips. She had bitten through her bottom lip. His seed, mixed with blood, r
an in a thin red line down the inside of her splayed legs.
Horrified, his gaze dropped. Blood covered his cock too. Had he damaged her internally?
But no. He remembered how Aeschine had blooded herself after the wolf kill. It was the beast's blood, not hers.
Taking up a leather skin, Sage left Aeschine curled up into herself and went to the hot springs. After washing, he filled the pouch with warm water and returned to her. Kneeling between his captive's legs, he moistened a cloth and proceeded to bathe her.
He took care. Even so, she grimaced when the cloth touched the swollen folds. Dispensing with the linen, he used his bare hand instead. When he had finished, he introduced a finger to the inner sanctum..
“Lie still,” he reproved her when she squirmed. “'Tis my responsibility to see to your condition.” Heedless of her foolish modesty, he moved his digit deep and thoroughly.
“No rips,” he pronounced when he was absolutely sure. “No tears, either. You are a healthy, salubrious female."
He smothered the torch once more.
“Captor!” she cried. “Where are you?"
He eased up over her, prowling her body like a predator. Like one of the wolves he had just killed for her. “I am here. Do you not feel me?"
The sight of blood on her skin had excited him. His semen between her thighs had aroused him. He had marked her, claimed her; his life's fluids inside her womb proclaimed her his mate.
Nostrils flaring, he inhaled her musky scent. Was there a more potent perfume than the fragrance of mating?
Soon, sniffing her skin no longer appeased him. He had to taste her. Would she allow it?
In persuasion, he mouthed the inside of her limbs—still lax and well open. Next, he gave her his tongue, a slow rasp along the silky flesh from knee to where thigh met pubic curls.
He licked her. Voraciously. Expecting her to put a halt to the plunder, his tongue strokes grew frenzied. He lapped at her core. Paradise!
He went down on her. Nuzzled the outer pink lips. When she said naught to deny him, he became more adventurous.
Hiking her legs over his shoulders, he mouthed her swollen opening. Then rubbed his face back and forth. Nose. Mouth. Cheeks. All went into the opening, delving the moist folds. Glorious!
