Slowly Toinette learned his mouth, the fluid glide of his tongue against hers, the way his fingers slowly clenched, dragging themselves across her lower back. She thrilled to the hitch in his breath and leaned further toward him. In time she’d have to shift position—hers was already unstable, her weight balanced half on Erik’s shoulders and half on one knee—but the very precariousness was interesting, a factor to work around and to lend unexpected pressure.
He skimmed the side of her breast with his fingers, brought them up in a tingling line to her collarbone, and finally cupped her chin as he pulled away.
“You’ll have to be verra quiet, you know,” he whispered, his voice like thick velvet. “Do you think you can do that this time?”
“Do you?” she asked, while even the question brought her sex to pulsing heat.
Erik’s fingers tightened. “I asked you.”
Arousal was a slow twist in her gut, a tightness in her chest. “Then,” Toinette said softly and from her throat but in no way uncertain, “I’ll be quiet. There’s no man born can make me cry out if I set my mind against it.”
His eyes flared. “We’ll see, won’t we? Stand up.”
Toinette could have told him to go to hell. She could have ignored him. She considered doing both, but the order itself made her shiver with sensation. She wanted to obey.
The idea wasn’t entirely new to her. She’d heard stories enough. She’d spent a few nights drinking with whores, while her men enjoyed themselves, and heard of bishops who liked to be whipped and lords who enjoyed being slaves for an evening. Yet her own liaisons had never been so complicated, and this was Erik, and she was actually blushing as she got to her feet.
That only made her more excited.
Putting a hand to her hip, she cocked her head and looked back down at him. “So, then?”
“Take off your gown,” he said, no less authoritative for whispering.
She wanted to undress smoothly, without any of the frantic scrambling that had happened last time. She almost managed it, though as with any gown, there was an awkward moment when her head was covered with fabric. Then she dropped the fabric to the ground and stood, feeling the night air cool against her naked body.
Erik’s gaze was almost warm enough to make up for it. He sat spellbound, looking first at her bare breasts and then down over her belly to the tuft of hair between her thighs. The uncanny light spilled across them both, and Toinette could have done without it since it made her look as though she was underwater. Still, it let her see the stark desire on Erik’s face, and the thick ridge rising from his lap, and for that she’d almost forgive it.
The silence was rich and shortly unbearable, the anticipation too drawn out for her willpower. “If I were mortal, I’d be freezing right now,” she said, by way of something to say.
She’d expected that to break the mood. Instead, Erik chuckled, shaking his head, and stood up. “But you’re not, are you? Stand still.” He slipped around behind her, his breath hot on her neck as he ran his fingers over her hard nipples. “No, it’s no’ chill behind this.”
The touch, light as it was, was wonderful agony. Toinette leaned back, thrusting her breasts toward Erik’s hands, seeking the solid heat of his body behind her.
He allowed the contact for a heartbeat. Then he stepped back and his fingers closed harder on her breasts, pinching. “Did I no’ say stand still?”
“I—” She struggled to keep her voice even. The pain was small sparks, feeding the fire within. “Didn’t realize how still you meant.”
“And now you do. No moving. You can talk, but that’s all.”
His hands eased again. He cupped her breasts lightly, then slid his fingers down over her ribs to her waist, all the while placing brief kisses along her neck. Toinette drew a ragged breath. “And if I don’t obey?”
Erik laughed again, a hot vibration against the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Then I stop.”
“There are times,” she said, “that I hate you. You know that.”
“Is this one of them?”
The breeze wound between her parted thighs, caressing slick flesh only enough to tease: no substitute for anything Erik might offer. He stepped closer, pressing his cock against the cleft of her arse, bringing his hands back to fondle her breasts. Toinette’s only comfort was hearing the unsteady sound of his breathing. “Not quite,” she said.
“Mmm,” he said, a pretense at thoughtfulness that his voice was too husky to quite sustain. “Good girl.”
Finally, too slowly, he wound his fingers through the curls around her sex. Toinette closed her eyes, relishing both the touch and the way his hips thrust forward as her wetness provoked his lust, trying not to move or cry out.
The challenge became a near impossibility. Erik stroked slowly along her cleft, alternating between a tantalizingly light touch and a pressure so firm it would have been painful had she been less excited. His thumb rubbed lightly at the center of her pleasure, then danced away again.
She thought of every oath she knew, in every language. That didn’t work. Once Erik slid two fingers inside her and began pumping, rubbing his cock against her in time with each stroke, not even biting her lip helped. The sound from her throat was stifled, as best she could manage, but Toinette couldn’t have denied that it was a whimper.
“Not so quiet as all that,” he whispered into her ear. His teeth closed on her earlobe, and he pulled his hands back at the same time.
Toinette hissed in frustration. Despite the edict, she half turned, looking over her shoulder into Erik’s eyes. “Will you stop now?” she taunted him. “Truly?”
“Only change the rules,” he replied, and grabbed her by one hip. He’d been reaching to undo his hose, Toinette realized then. When he pulled her back against him, his cock slid between her thighs, thick and hot against her, almost what she needed. She flexed her hips, and the friction made both of them growl.
“No,” said Erik, and the hand on her hip was punishingly strong. “On your knees now.”
She knelt, quickly enough that she squirmed inwardly at the memory. The sand was soft under her knees, then under her elbows—she knew what he was telling her, and she wanted no delay.
Delay she had nonetheless. Erik covered her with his body, one hand holding the dripping head of his sex just at the entrance to hers. His breath came quickly on her neck, and when Toinette turned her head, she could see his pulse pounding in his throat, but he didn’t enter her.
She lifted her eyebrows and shot him a challenging look. The sport was a thrilling one. She didn’t even mind—entirely—if he won that round, but she’d not take the fall without a fight. “I could just go take care of myself, you know. It’s no greater sin than fornication.”
“No greater sin,” said Erik, and the presence at her cleft slid slowly along, working her open and then stopping, “but no’ nearly so satisfying, is it, lass? You canna’ tell me your hand feels like this.”
Toinette closed her eyes, dug her fingers into the sand. Despite Erik’s words, she knew he was close to breaking—but the ache between her legs was too much, her body too desperate.
“God. Please, Erik,” she whispered.
Saying the words was itself treacherously exciting; the long slow thrust that followed sent starbursts exploding behind her eyes; and best of all was Erik’s groan, mingling lust and relief and telling her that he’d been in as much blissful torment as she.
Slowly, deeply, he moved within her. She’d been on the edge before; now her whole body went rigid with need.
Leaning down, Erik brushed her hair away from her neck and whispered in her ear, his rhythm never ceasing. “Almost there, aye? Let me feel it—that’s good—yes, oh Christ, yes.”
His voice fell into a shattered snarl as Toinette’s climax began. In the midst of her pleasure, she felt him speed up, felt the bursts of warmth
within her, adding to her passion—and was thankful that, at the end, he slipped a hand over her mouth. She surely would have been heard, otherwise.
Twenty-Four
The aftermath of congress had usually been awkward for Erik. Always he felt he should speak; never had he known what to say; and with his urges satisfied, the women he’d been with had all seemed increasingly young. In time, he’d found it less trouble to satisfy lust himself or, in extremis, to confine his attentions to whores.
Had he tried to predict the moments after with Toinette, he’d have hoped, at best, for the same briskness he’d been used to. After their coupling in the forest, that had seemed most likely.
Then, not long after he came back to himself, Erik felt her stretch beneath him and laugh, quiet of necessity but unmistakably content. “First pine needles and now sand,” she said, shaking her head so that more of her hair fell around her neck. “I think I’ll be frightened to seduce you again, lest we end up on hot coals. Get up, will you?”
The request, which wasn’t really a request, made her sound very much like the girl he’d grown up with. One could see that at times: bits of the past blending into the present, ripples in metal showing the hammer strokes. It was rare to find it in one of his own race, rarer in one so close to his own age.
Pulling reluctantly out of Toinette’s body and away, Erik ran a hand down her back. “Next time,” he said, “I’ll make sure to have at least a blanket.”
“Extravagant promises like that will turn a girl’s head.”
“Only the best,” he said. They repositioned themselves to sit facing each other, though not before Erik had re-donned his hose and Toinette her gown. There were good reasons for that, but it was still a disappointment to see her smooth body disappear beneath the cloth. “And would you really say you seduced me?”
“Well, it can’t be the other way around. You were only sitting there,” she retorted.
Erik grinned. “I sit very appealingly.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first woman to think so.”
“You’d not believe me if I said you were. Here…” She was trying to comb out her hair. “Let me.”
“What do you know about women’s hair?” Still, Toinette sat in front of him and obligingly bent her head.
Erik ran his fingers through the strands, gently separating tangles. Without a comb, he could only do so much, but at least he could keep it from plaguing her too badly, and keep touching her in the bargain. “It’s not so different from brushing dogs, is it?” he joked, and got a rude noise in response. “And you just said you thought me quite adept with women.”
“I didn’t say ‘adept.’ I just think I have good taste.”
“And I thank you.” Erik had done rather well when he wanted to—though he didn’t doubt that was as much due to rank and wealth as to his looks or manners. Most lords his apparent age had left a trail of bastards behind them, after all.
The thought made him pause. He studied Toinette’s hair, slipped a lock back into place, and then asked, “You couldn’t be with child, could you? I—”
“No,” she replied, not laughing but not sounding distressed either. Her voice was quite matter-of-fact. “It doesn’t take the rites with two of us, but it’s still a matter of will.”
“Oh.” He sighed with relief. “How do you know?”
“Agnes told me. I was fourteen, or a little younger.”
“Agnes?” He remembered Artair’s elder daughter: studious and refined, the first and totally unreachable object of his infatuation. He couldn’t imagine talking with her about childbearing, and particularly not how to prevent it.
Toinette chuckled, a dry undertone to her voice. “She was being helpful. And she wanted me to know that she knew that I knew.”
He was too tired to follow. “Hmm?”
“If I’d had it in mind to trap one of you into marriage by ‘accident.’ She wanted me to know that I wouldn’t fool anyone. Or, I wouldn’t fool her—or probably Artair, though I hate to think about that conversation—and she’d open any of the boys’ eyes that needed it.”
“God’s bones.”
“In her place, I might have done the same. And it was helpful information, wasn’t it? It means neither of us have to worry—not about that, at any rate.”
“No.” Erik withdrew his hands, having done everything he could with her hair. He was no courtier, to know any real tricks, and just then he felt ashamed to be touching her, imposing on her in the guise of help.
“Which is just as well, as the list was getting long.” Toinette got to her feet again. “And speaking of worries, I suppose I’d best go get some sleep, if we’re to face the rest of ours.”
“Aye,” said Erik. He looked up at her, wanting to say more and unable to think of what. “Thank you for waking me” was what he finally settled on, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
* * *
“Ugh,” said Toinette, slashing brambles away to either side of her. “Nature is awful even when it’s not haunted.”
“You’ve known that as long as I’ve known you,” said Marcus.
“I didn’t say I was surprised, did I?”
The sea and sky had their own dangers, but she liked them well enough. Hunting at Loch Arach had been similar, but plodding along on a ground full of insects and clinging plants had Toinette swearing almost every step of the way, if only in her mind. She’d not spent much time wandering the wilderness since her journey to Loch Arach more than a century before, and then she’d mostly been walking on roads.
While they searched, they couldn’t even stay completely on what few game paths there were, or follow the more level and less overgrown ground beside the stream. Beasts were born and died, even ground shifted with the years, and so they went over the unexplored ground with slowness that made Toinette want to tear her hair out.
Marcus, never much fonder of the wild than she, surveyed the undergrowth with narrowed eyes. “These aren’t drinking our blood,” he said, his voice immediately undermining any attempt to look on the bright side. So did his next word: “Yet.”
“I’d almost rather they tried,” said Toinette. “A fight’s at least exciting. Do you see anything to the east, Sence?”
“A large tree. Larger than most around here.”
“And that’s saying a fair bit,” said Toinette, although in justice most of the trees on the island were a bit stunted by wind: not runts by any means, but not the towering sort she remembered from Scotland.
“I could climb it,” Sence said, turning to look back at them. He made the suggestion without any of the enthusiasm Raoul would have shown, nor Samuel’s curiosity, but also without John’s reluctance. The tree was there. He could climb it. That was a thing that could happen. “It might give us a better view, but still further under the other trees than you could manage flying.”
“Not a bad notion at all,” Marcus replied, then looked at Toinette and added, “Unless you want to do it. I’m too old.”
Falling might not be as much of a danger for her, but on the other hand… “I can’t climb trees,” she said. “Never learned. I could try to learn now.”
“It’d take too long,” said Sence. “Just help get us over there. I’ll do the rest.”
The plants were hell on the edge of her sword. The search parties spent time every evening with whetstones, and that night would be no different. None of them had come prepared to hack through forests. Toinette did hack, and swear, until she and the others arrived, sweaty and scratched, at the base of a tall pine. Its scent distracted Toinette from the worst of her bad mood, and she took Sence’s weapons with good cheer.
He grabbed the tree and quickly started up, so adeptly that Toinette raised her eyebrows. “And where did you come from?”
“The sea,” he said. “I’d imagine any of us could manage this—it’s better than the mas
t.”
“Ah,” said Toinette, making a rueful face. “Hadn’t thought of that.” She’d never learned that skill either. Coming on as the captain’s wife, then becoming captain herself, had meant skipping much of what common sailors learned. She knew the theory, but had scant practice. Nor had she ever been tempted. If she’d wanted heights, there was always the sky.
“You were always a city wench,” said Marcus. He picked up a spray of needles and began picking it apart.
“And you weren’t? Leaving aside ‘wench,’ which I’d be inclined to hold against you otherwise.”
“My family’s from the country. I know it well enough not to like it. But I can climb a tree, if I need to.”
“Why would you need to?”
“Apples. Birds’ nests. Bears.” At Toinette’s skeptical look, he admitted, “Not actually bears. But I liked the notion that I could get away from one, if I ever had to. It lent my life a note of adventure, until I ran off to sea.”
Toinette snorted. “That’d cure a man, sure enough.”
“Not entirely, or we’d none of us be here.” Marcus glanced upward to where Sence had paused to sit on a branch and rest his arms. “I’m surprised you never learned at your uncle’s.”
“I was too old. And he wasn’t my uncle. He’s Erik’s. No relation.”
“Ah, yes,” said Marcus. “It’d be rather awkward if he were, wouldn’t it?”
“How do you mean?” Toinette asked quietly, wondering just how much of the last night’s activities might have been overheard.
Marcus shook his head. “I know you, Captain. And it doesn’t take a soldier to spot a battlefield. You’d give all the treasure on this island for an hour with him between your legs.”
“I—” She felt the blood rush to her face, not at the phrasing but from horror of being discovered. “We haven’t found any treasure yet.”
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