by Lisa Hendrix
“I used it as my pillow,” she said softly from the entrance. She stepped into the middle of the bedding and brought his hands and the gown up to her nose and inhaled deeply. “It carries your scent.”
Did she know what she was doing to him? “Not very sweet, I fear. I have been without a proper bath for far too long.”
“It was sweet to me.” Eyes closed, she took another deep breath and a blissful smile lit her face. “It was as though you lay with me all night.”
She knew. She was torturing him as revenge for how he’d treated her. He deserved it, but he wasn’t sure he could bear it. Jaw set, he struggled against the need boiling up within him. He pressed the gown toward her. “Dress yourself. I will go.”
“But I want you to stay. I want to lie with you. Properly. With time and care, and in this place.”
Not torture, then, but … “Marian, you do not have to do this. I will aid you. You have my bounden pledge.”
“I know.” She shifted one hand to the ribbon at his wrist and traced around the knot. “And I am glad of that pledge and of your faithfulness to it these last days, for it let me come to the truth.”
He couldn’t tear his eyes off her finger, circling the knot, round and round over the inside of his wrist. “Truth?”
“I thought it was all you and your wanting that pulled us down onto the furs at Harworth.”
“It was. I forced you to it. You only did it for Robin’s sake.”
“No.” She laid that same finger over his lips to silence him. “No. You are wrong.” Slowly she raised her eyes to meet his.
And suddenly he was lost in those eyes again, adrift in a sea of comfort that seemed to stretch forever. Such solace dwelt in those eyes. A sigh worked its way up from deep in his soul and came out on a soft ah that matched hers. In the strangeness of the moment, he fancied he could see their sighs mingling in the air between them. He inhaled deeply, certain that if he could just draw her in, he would find more of that ease he so desperately needed.
A single word, vague, rustled inside his skull like the wind through dry grass. Her voice. Please.
“What was that?” he whispered.
“The wanting is not just yours.” She tugged his gown away and let it fall, then took his empty hands in hers and pressed kisses into his callused palms. “It is also mine.”
He was so still, even in his mind, that Matilda wasn’t sure he understood. And then she felt it, the familiar surge of his desire, now recognized as distinct from her own growing need.
“I vowed I would not,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I said I would not so much as kiss you.”
“Without my leave. You said you would not kiss me without my leave. I give you leave.”
“Marian …”
“I give you leave to kiss me. And not just my mouth.” She guided his hands to cup her breasts, so he would begin to understand, and she reveled in the sharp intake of his breath. “I give you leave to touch me. I give you leave to take me. I do give you leave, my bounden knight.”
“Marian …” He squeezed his eyes shut and took two deep breaths before he opened them again. “I cannot ever be a husband to you, if that is what you imagine.”
“I imagine only a lover.” Her blood pounded in her ears at her own boldness, but she pressed on. “If we fail, I do not want Baldwin and one quick tumble to be all I ever know of a man.”
“He will not be. I swear to you, you will never go to him if you do not wish it. But I …”
“I want to lie with you. Here. Now. I want to know how it is. With you.”
“Are you certain?” he asked even as his thumbs rolled over her breasts, removing any possible trace of doubt with the shock of pleasure that rippled through her.
In answer she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, searching for the tie to his braies.
“No. You first, lest we end like before.” He ran his thumbs over her again, then released her and stepped back a half-a-pace. “I still have not seen you naked.”
Hands trembling, she reached behind her neck to undo her lacings, tugging the cord free one eyelet at a time. He followed every movement in silence, his gaze skimming over her breasts as they thrust against the thin linen. When all was as loose as she could make it, she lowered her arms. Her chainse slipped, baring the curve of her breasts, and hung tenuously. He reached to tug it down.
She caught at it just in time. “It hardly seems fair, my lord. I have not seen you naked either.”
Without a word, he stripped off his chainse and tossed it aside, smiling as her breath caught and came out in a rough sigh at the sight of all that muscled male flesh. He reached once more for her chainse.
She released her hold, and he drew her chainse down slowly, rewarding her with the same uneven shudder of breath as it fell away and revealed her.
They stood there for what seemed a long time, each of them absorbing the sight of the other. It was Steinarr who moved first, gently tracing the outside curve of her breasts.
“So ripe,” he whispered. He splayed his hands over her breasts and slowly pulled his fingers together, plucking at her nipples until they tightened and her breath came out on the faintest moan. His tongue flickered over his lips, and she could feel his struggle for control. With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he began to explore the rest of her body, his hands wandering freely over her skin, shaping, testing, sending sparks shooting off in every direction until she fell dizzy of it.
Matilda freed her hands from her sleeves and reached for him to steady herself, and as her hands touched his skin, she found herself enthralled. As much as she had held him, her arms wrapped around him over the miles, she quickly discovered that she hadn’t touched him at all. The difference between clothed muscle and bare flesh was as great as the difference between ice and steam. His skin glowed with life and heat, the muscles rippling beneath her hand, alive as his heart beneath her palm. She ran her hands over him, mirroring the way he touched her, committing every curve and plane, every ridge and valley and scar, to memory. Absorbed, she barely noticed as he pushed the gown off her hips and cupped her bottom. Only as she followed and her hands met the resistance of his braies did it register.
“We are uneven in our dress again,” she complained. She followed the gathered cloth around to the knot in front.
He caught her hand and stopped her. “If you take them down now, you will hobble me. They will catch on my boots.”
“Then be rid of your boots.”
“At my lady’s command.” Balancing himself with a hand on her shoulder, he pried his boots off and kicked them aside so they landed next to the tree-wall. His hose followed, each untied with a quick jerk to the laces and then peeled down and flicked away to lie next to the boots. That left only his braies. “Shall I untie them, or will you?”
She reached once more for the tie. The muscles across his belly tensed, and the cloth jumped. Enchanted, she cupped one hand over him and waited until his body jumped again and pushed against her palm. “It is so strange how it does that.”
He groaned. “What is strange is a virgin who knows so much about both torturing and pleasing a man. How did you come to be so wise about things you should not know?”
“I was a wicked child,” she said. A tug undid the bow and she slowly loosened the gathers along the cord. “I would hide from my father’s wroth in the great barn, in a secret place I found.” She pressed a kiss to the center of the patch of gold hair that covered his chest. “I soon discovered that my little nest looked over the loft where the servants and even some of the knights would go to tup.”
“You watched,” he said, and his tarse jumped again.
“I did not set out to, but once I saw … I went back again and again to wait and watch. They never knew I was there. And when I went to fostering, I found a similar place.”
“Frey help me,” he whispered. “You know all of it, then.”
“The good and the bad, and all between.”
“ �
��Tis a wonder you stayed virgin so long,” he muttered half to himself as he toyed with her breasts. Suddenly he looked up, comprehension dawning. “You learned to find pleasure on your own.”
She blushed for the first time. “Aye. I saw that, too. I learned quickly. The priests tried to beat it out of me with heavy penance.”
“You confessed it?” he asked, incredulous.
“We are told so often such things are sin, I thought I must. Father Thomas told me I would burn in Hell. I tried to rid myself of the sin, but even though I stopped visiting the barn, I still could not stop thinking of what I had seen, and when I did, I … I did it when I thought of you, too. Even before you found us at the Lady Well.”
He made that strange choking sound again. “No wonder I could not frighten you off.”
“Oh, you frightened me.” She slid her fingers down over his hips, in preparation for sliding his braies down. “But not with your talk. It was what lay beneath. And yet I still found myself thinking of you. Like yesterday in the stream.” She pushed and his braies fell away. His tarse sprung forward to brush against her belly. She stroked her fingers down the length and exclaimed with delight, then did it again. “It is both soft and hard at once. Especially here.” She ran her palm over the plump head.
He grabbed her hand to still it. “You no longer seem to be frightened.”
“I decided last night not to be anymore. It is foolish when I want it as much as you do.”
“Ah, sweet Marian,” he said. “I do not think that is possible.”
He pulled her to him for a kiss that took her mouth the way his body would take hers later, his tongue plunging in to explore and tease. She felt that marvelous soft-hardness against her belly and, without thinking, pressed closer and lifted one leg to catch it and bring it against her more intimately. When she had him trapped, just right, she began to move.
With a groan, he scooped her up, kicked away his braies and her chainse, and laid her down on the furs. He pushed her legs apart and knelt between them, his eyes riveted to her, avid. “Touch yourself.”
She had done it so often, but always in private. Now, with him watching so closely, the shame was too great. “I cannot.”
“It will please me,” he told her in a husky voice. “And I will learn what pleases you.”
She was suddenly frightened again, but instead of retreating into herself, she reached out. She didn’t have to go far to find him. His desire filled the air between them, surrounded her, building with every beat of his heart. Need washed over her, incredible craving, so much deeper than her own. She slid her hand down, found the ache, and touched, moving her fingers as she’d learned to do. Embarrassment faded as the pressure built within her.
“Please,” she whispered as her back began to arch. “Not this way. I want you.”
“You saw something. Something you think of whenever you touch yourself. What do you want, Marian? Tell me what you saw that you want me to do.”
She knew. She’d known since the first time she’d seen one of the stable boys kneel over one of the village girls that she wanted a man to do that to her. She’d imagined it ten hundreds of times. “Your mouth.”
He touched her fingers and made her slide them lower and in a little. “Here?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“Close your eyes.” He pulled her hand away and lifted it. His lips closed around her fingers, and as he sucked them into his mouth, the sensation and the knowledge that he was tasting her drew a low groan from her throat. She opened her legs and lifted, silently pleading with him, but he only pressed the heel of his hand against her and chuckled. “Not yet, sweet. I have barely tasted the rest of you. I am not going to dive straight in, much as I would enjoy it. Keep your eyes closed and let me do what I should have done the first time.”
She felt him shift, sensed him hovering above her, and waited for him. The first kisses fell on her eyelids, the next on her cheeks, then forehead, mouth, lips, ear, jaw, mouth again. Not hurried kisses but soft, lingering ones that led from one place to the next, down her neck, across her shoulders, and back across her bosom. Her breasts tightened as he approached, but he veered off to kiss his way down her arm then back up and across to the other arm. Her whole body was trembling by the time he finally skimmed over the upper curve of her breasts then slipped down to take one nipple into his mouth.
She arched off the furs with a gasp, the rasp of his tongue nearly pushing her over the edge. Pleasure hummed through them both, hers purely physical; his, pure delight in hers. He switched to the other breast and she arched again, and he settled in to play, going from one to the other and back again, until he made her so sensitive she cried out for him to stop.
He chuckled, a wicked sound, and went back to scattering kisses over her skin, this time heading lower, over her belly and down, just brushing a kiss through her curls.
“Eyes closed,” he whispered again and shifted lower. There was a moment of nothing, then a tender kiss on the inside of her knee. Her other knee. Then a little higher. He went back and forth, working his way up, slowly, so slowly, she thought she would die before he got there. She could feel him looking at her between kisses, feel him getting closer and closer. Molten heat poured through her, as though from a goldsmith’s crucible, burning away everything but the touch of his mouth. Closer. He shouldered her legs wider and settled between them. A single fingertip traced down through her moisture, and she heard a sucking sound and knew he tasted her again.
“So sweet.” His breath warmed her. “Tell me, my lady. Do you still give me leave to kiss you?”
She could barely form the word. “Yes.”
“Where? Where shall I kiss you?’
“There. Ah, there.”
A growl rumbled up and he kissed her, the gentlest of kisses, not nearly enough. “Is this the place?”
“Nnn. Yes.”
His tongue swirled over the spot. “Here?”
“Nnn.”
“Here?” Kiss. “Here?” Tongue. “Here?” Finger, sliding down. “Here?” Slipping in. “Here?”
He asked and kissed and tongued and asked again, circling in on the place. Her answering whimpers went higher, then lower, going animal as he hit the exact spot. His lips closed over her, and he drew that most tender flesh into his mouth and swirled his tongue over her and slid a second finger in, and she was there and fully in his mind all at once.
Increased by his feverish want, her pleasure slammed through her, throwing her hips upward and back down with the force of it. He locked on, sucking and teasing as she shook and arched beneath his mouth. Another finger stretched her and made the spasms stronger, and she pressed against him and pulled back, wanting him to go on and stop and give her more and less all at once.
The need to be in her left Steinarr fighting to stay the course, but only when he had wrung every spasm from her sweet body did he shift up to take her. He moved with deliberation, determined this time to do right by her, to keep his blazing need under control and let her adjust to his size. Incredibly, as their bodies fit together, the extraordinary lust faded, replaced by the deepest peace he’d ever known, growing deeper as he settled in and her warmth enfolded him along with her arms.
“ ’Tis all right, she murmured as she had before. He wanted it to be. He began to move, to find the rhythm, to take, to possess, and even in that he took his time, enjoying the unrelenting build toward pleasure. She stirred beneath him, matching his pace, meeting him exactly right, touching him as though she knew him, as though they had been lovers for years. Ah, so sweet. So warm. Perfect. And then he was coming and she was coming again, too, gently this time, with him, her body tightening to welcome his seed as he spilled into her.
He stayed with her as long as he could, and then longer, even after his body softened and slipped away from her. He couldn’t bear to leave the comfort of her arms, abandon her legs, wrapped around him so tightly. He sprinkled kisses over her face, took deep draughts of her mouth, and savored every sigh
and stretch and delighted groan as she came back to herself.
Finally her eyes opened and she smiled up at him. “I could stay like this forever.”
Forever. The word yanked him out of the bliss and drove home the truth of his cursed life. Steeling himself, he rolled away from her and sat up.
Marian’s smile faded. “What is it that makes you so sad?”
“Only the knowledge that this hour must end.” He dragged her blanket over her naked body, pausing just long enough to give himself one last glimpse of her breasts. “The sun is climbing. We need to move on.”
He started to rise, but she stopped him. “Are you sorry, monsire?”
He couldn’t look at her. “Are you?”
“Never.”
“Even if all I can give you is this journey?”
“Even if all you can give me is this one morning.” She sat up, holding the blanket over herself. “Although if you care to give more, I would most happily take it.”
Desire lurched, fresh, within him, driving back a little of the sadness, and his heart skipped a beat. “You are a devil, Matilda Fitzwalter.”
“I have often thought the same of you, Steinarr Fitzburger.”
“Birgir,” he corrected, both pleased that she’d remembered his father’s name from his oath and amused that she tried to turn him Norman English by changing it. He leaned over and kissed her, satisfied that she was fully happy, at least for the moment. One of them should be. “Now get dressed, before I decide to spend an entire one of Robin’s forty days buried in your quaint instead of looking for one of stone.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said prettily, and reached for her chainse. As she gathered it to pull over her arms, she looked up at him, wearing the half smile that had made his blood run so warm earlier and was just as effective now. Mischief put tiny crinkles at the corner of her eyes. “Is it even possible to spend a whole day at it? None of our servants was ever able to stay in the loft that long.”
“Get you dressed, my lady, or you shall find out.”
