“Have you never done anything wrong, my lord?” She snapped her head to face him, her features burnished from the firelight to make a sinuous bronze goddess.
“Nay.” And I pray moment–by–moment that here with you I may retain hold of my sterling willpower.
A knock came at the door and the two of them turned to see four monks all clad in thick black wool bent double to lug in a huge wooden tub. Father Julian walked behind them, carrying a tray heaped with a loaf of bread, cheese and bowls of fragrant soup.
“For you, my lord,” Julian said as he directed his fellows towards the fireplace, “our largest bath. And your evening meal. When you are done, you may call us to remove all by ringing the bell. Also, we will wash your clothes if you leave them outside the door.” He placed their dinner on the rough hewn table. “And should you need more blankets,” he offered as he tipped his head towards the large bed of down, “we have more down the hall. Please fetch me by the same bell and I will provide.”
He thanked them and they bowed themselves out.
Blanche was already picking up her spoon to dip into her soup. “Oh, Will, come eat. This is delicious. Who could have thought monks might cook?” She beamed at him and he could not help but smile.
She finished before him. Then, stretching the chain to its limit, she walked towards the fire once more and put her arms out like a woman on a cross. She was no sacrifice for any man. It riled him that she might be used for one by John. And Will pitied her and wanted her all the more that he might make her happy for one hour.
“Remove your clothes,” he ordered when he had eaten his fill and the sight of her at the fire irritated him like a fly at a feast.
She spun. “What? No. Why?”
“You will bathe while the water is hot.” He pointed to the tub where steam rose from the water.
She stared at him.
He glared back. “Do it. Now, Blaze.”
At his name for her, her expression softened. But only for a moment. Then, she lifted her wrists and rattled the iron. “Loose me and I will.”
“One hand,” he conceded and got to his feet. He took the key from his belt, walked two steps towards her, inserted it in the tiny lock and twisted. The clink of the lock set her partially free.
But what of him?
He was not free. Not of desire for her. Not of need for her. He’d mulled his dilemma for the past few days. To put his hands on her again, hotly, lovingly, was more than a temptation. It was now an itch, a fever, a ripe obsession. When had he ever enjoyed a woman for more than the succour of her body? When had he ever wanted a woman for more than a hearty fuck? When had he ever found a woman he could not do without?
Never.
What price might he pay for teaching her the arts of love? Aye, it could be his position. His reputation. His title. At the least, his balls. At the most, his life. But if he took her to his care and used the Saracens’ arts he’d learned long ago, then he or she would never lie when they declared they had not coupled.
Was a night in the arms of this beautiful treasure not worth that risk? She knew little of men, or sex, or bed sport. It gratified him that he would be the one to teach her.
Raising her hand with the remaining chain, she challenged him. “Have you considered that by this, you are held captive as well as I? And I daresay, you love it.”
“Taunt me?” He gave her a wicked grin. “I could love it more, witch!” The musk of her, the sight of her, the warmth of her bound him to her, true, with chains of his own. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms and hauled her close. His lips on hers, he murmured, “But I am kind.” He unlocked her other wrist from the chain. She was not a fool and would not leave naked, in the rain, without money or horse or clothes. The bigger question was would she reject what delights he could give her? He had to test her. “Now, do I strip you myself or do you climb into that tub of your own accord?”
Never taking her gaze from his, she pushed her gown from her shoulders and let the thing drift to the floor. She toed off slippers and with no more than a breath’s space between them, she swayed towards him. The brush of her skin on his body knocked the air from him and almost sent him to his knees. She pivoted towards the tub, her moist, rain–soaked body a woodsy allure. He looked down at her shapely back, now beautifully bare to his poor sight. She turned from him as she climbed into the hip–high bath, stuck one toe in the water, yelped and fell backwards.
Into his arms.
He groaned.
“Too hot?” he asked.
She twisted to look up at him, her jewel-like eyes beseeching him, her ripe mouth open, her body sinking against his. “Aye, much too hot.”
He cupped her face then. How could he not? She was too much temptation, here and naked and offering up her body for their mutual pleasure. “I will bathe you then.” And in a wild second of desire, he kissed her, a fierce mating of lips and tongue. She welcomed his mouth on a moan, her free arm circling his neck and pulling her supple body up against his. Her breasts seared his chest, her skin sliding over his clothes and inciting him to be free of all constraints with her.
He set her to her feet, just outside the tub, and reached over to grasp a towel. This he dipped into the water. He winced. Aye, much too hot for her to submerge herself. But oh Christ, just the right temperature to whisk down her elegant throat and over the red, hard beauty of her large and lovely nipples.
“That is wonderful,” she crooned as he dipped his towelling into the water once more and waylaid his action with her hand to his forearm. “Touch me with your hands.”
He stared at her. Can I go slowly?
She lifted herself against him. Her breasts, her hips, her mons rubbed against him and he was lost to the right answer to this offer.
“Let me cleanse you, Blaze,” he said with more reason than he felt. “I want to savour every inch of your voluptuous body and it is best done when we can inhale and taste the natural aromas of our bodies.”
“I know not how to make love,” she confessed and pressed her nipples into his chest.
“Ah, my Blaze,” he chuckled, “I think you do!” He took the cloth, and ran it down her throat again. Then, he pushed her from him slightly and daubed at the deep rose of her nipples. At her waist, he caressed her navel and bending her over his arm, he sent the warm towel over her curly mound of bright red hair and deep between her thighs.
She hummed in surrender. “More. I want more.”
“You are not alone, my pretty.” He put out a foot and hooked the rung of one of the chairs to bring it towards him. “Sit here,” He knelt and commanded her, “Open your legs, tilt up your hips. There.” He rewarded her with two swipes of the towel. “See here,” he encouraged her to look at her cunny hair as he combed his fingers through the wealth of it and tugged. “Can you see your lovely labia?” He put the towel to her cunt. “Let me pleasure you. The towel is warm and rough.”
“And your hand,” she murmured, “your hand, as I remember so well, will be warmer and sweeter. More…” she seemed at a loss for words.
“Deliberate? Aye,” he kissed her and swished the towel against one thigh then the other.
“More skilled. More…” she paused to search for a word, “purposeful.”
He let out a hoot of joy. “More skilled to the purpose of pleasing you, Blaze. With fingers in your gorgeous cunt. And my mouth on your cunny lips.”
She sucked in air and wiggled closer to him on the chair. He could feel the heat of her chat against his thigh, and he caught himself from howling in want of her. “You will do this to me?” she asked.
“For both of us. Do not move, my lovely.” He rose, the need to be naked and clean to touch her completely was a task he must complete to bring her to the fulfilment he knew he could offer her. Dropping his cloak, he tore his tabard and tunic over his head.
She sucked in air at the sight of his torso. “You are more man than I even thought.”
He laughed. “You admired me, I knew. But
that you could want me too is an honour to me, Madame.”
She tipped her head, her whimsy making her look like a girl with her first lover. “How came we to admire each other in this mess John has created?”
His hands on his britches, he paused to lift her chin. “This happened. We will not question what is a rare gift.” He did not say from God, but he thought it to be so. “Nor will we speak of it.”
“You are right,” she agreed with bright eyes. “Hurry.” She bit her lower lip. “I am cold.”
He untied his belt and his britches fell.
She gasped. Her lovely mouth worked at words. “Will,” she whispered, “I have seen horses who are eager for mares, but you are…um…incomparable.”
His nostrils flared with pride.
“May I please all of that?” she asked in wonder.
“I know you will.” In all ways, save inside your cunt. He stepped out of the pile of clothes and shoes. He flowed towards her and sank his fingers in the damp hair on her shoulders. “I will ensure you love all of me.”
She pressed her face to his navel. “I cannot bear the wait.”
He laughed again. No woman had so appealed to his funny bone. Nor other bones of his sex–starved body. “Let me begin then.” He kissed the top of her head and turned for the water. Please god, let it be cooler now as his body was on fire to have her in his arms.
He sent a toe into the water and revelled in the warmth. He climbed in, sought the soap on a stool atop other towels and turned to her as he sank into the heat. His gaze locked on hers and he said to her, “Have you ever caressed your breasts, Blaze?”
She shook her head.
“Let me see you offer them to me,” he instructed, his voice a husky wreck of desire.
Tenderly, she cupped each full fruit and pointed them towards him.
“Thumb your nipples, Blaze.” He washed his chest languidly as he spoke to her.
The incomparable colour of her eyes deepened to a dusky hue as she rubbed each areola round and round. At her touch, roses bloomed in her breasts and in her cheeks.
“Beautiful,” he praised her as he laved his shoulders and belly and sank to wash his shaft, now so hard and so sensitive to his own ministrations that he suppressed a moan. “Can you reach them to suck them in your mouth?”
Her mouth dropped open at the idea, but she lifted her right breast and bent to it. He’d been so right. Her neck was so long, her body so agile that she easily took the nipple in her mouth and, God save him, he could hear her suckle herself and break away with a pop.
“I want your mouth on me, Will.”
“Aye, you shall have that and more of me.” He rose from the bath like Proteus from the sea, the water rippling over his muscles. He extended his hand. “Come here to me, my Blaze. The water is tempered now and you must permit me to wash you and prepare you for the rest of the night’s joys.”
Chapter Five
She rushed to the tub, her desire to touch his body—aye, including his long red shaft—her only thought. She gave him her hand and he supported her as she tested the water. The warmth soothed her soul and washed always her fears. What they started here, now, could mean their lives. But what was her life worth now anyway, as chattel to a boy?
She pushed the gloom away and concentrated on the glorious fire in Will’s eye and the thin determination in his sculpted mouth. Aye, she wanted this man like no other. She sank into the water.
“Go to your knees,” he commanded.
She did as he asked. The heat of the water flowing up and over her sore limbs made her sigh in joy. His hand, still holding hers, led her towards him in the tub. Her nipples grazed his. Her other arm went round his waist. He flowed nearer and between her thighs, she felt his cock stand high and hard.
“Allow me,” he crooned, his soft lips speaking against her ear, “to truly bathe you.”
“My fondest wish.” She told him, vibrating with the very idea.
Once more, he took a dry small towel, moistened it and rubbed it with soap. Now, when she would have thought he’d wash her breasts or her cunny, he poised the cloth before her face and said, “Close your eyes.”
She shook her head. “I would much rather watch you.”
He smiled softly at that. “Why is that, my lovely?”
“I have never seen a man afire for me. So you see, I am fascinated and loath to miss a minute.”
He clamped her closer. “Blaze, you will have hours to remember.”
Overjoyed, she leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Begin, lest I die here of yearning.”
At that, he wrapped his hand around her throat and put the cloth to her face and scrubbed.
“Arrgh!” she gasped at his scouring of her chin and cheeks and ears. “I am no hermit who must be rubbed raw!”
He dug in to the whorls of her other ear. “But a beauty to be revealed to me!”
“Bah!” She spit out a mouthful of soap at him. “There will be nothing left of me!”
“You’d think not?” He caught her about the waist, lifted her from the water, and skimmed the cloth over her shoulders and back. “I venture what I’ll see is no woman you ever knew!”
“Aye!” She tried to free her arms to pummel him, but he yanked her closer and began to wash one breast.
“Ah, so. This you like much better,” he murmured as he circled the towel over her nipples. “I do, too.” He replaced the cloth with his lips and drew her tender peaks into the hollow of his mouth.
She bucked in his embrace.
His tongue was a miracle. Rough and persistent, he licked her. Round and round, he laved her and her legs pressed together in response.
“Hmmm,” he said, his mouth still on her body as the sound of his deep voice sent tiny thrills through her. “How like you this?” He nipped her.
She dug her fingers into his back. “Again,” she pleaded and he complied.
He shifted to the other breast. “Such heavy orbs I have never seen. Like melons. And your nipples,” he bit one, then the other, “are perfect for love play. Large and red, they pucker like ripe berries. Look for yourself, Blaze.”
She saw how her nipples reached out to him, and how his lips curved at the sight. “You think I am food to eat?”
“Oh, I will eat you, my Blaze.” His tight features told her there was much behind his statement. “And more. At home, I have devices given me by an Arab who had ten wives. I wish I could show you how they pinch and excite.” He tweaked both breasts and soothed each with a strong tongue. “In the lack, I will show you how to please yourself as we make love.”
“I want all that you can teach me.”
He broke away from his kisses to her breast and stared at her, a stern warning in his one good eye. “Such intimacies are not often desired by everyone.”
Such acts were not ones he wanted performed by her with Hugh de Morency? Exulting in his jealousy, she rejoiced at his meaning. “I wish to be possessed by only you.”
He hugged her then, the move so fast, so mighty, she lost her breath. “We claim each other then.” He said as his hand with the cloth sank to her thighs and he rubbed her cunny with hard persistence. He circled her mons and stroked one labia, diving all the way back to her anus. Then he provided the same delight to her other labia, eliciting a moan from both of them.
“I am so clean, my good lord,” she muttered to him, “that I may never need another bath.” She cupped his face between her hands. “Please, have me, take me. I cannot bear the pain.”
He stood then, grabbed yet another towel and led her to her feet. She pressed against him, shivering in the sudden chill. Her wrapped her up and rubbed her everywhere. “Even here,” he gruffed as he tenderly circled the cloth over her sensitive nipples, “and here,” he dabbed at her mound and insinuated his hand to rub her cunt. But as he withdrew, his thumb traced her seam. “Moist and hot,” he announced. “Ready for more loving.”
In quick moves, he dried himself. She watched as he left the tub, his shaft no
w dark red and the tip deep purple. She reached out to touch him, but he sank to his knees. Then with towel, he stroked her belly, her hips, her feet and calves. “Spread your legs, my darling.”
She did as she was told. Held her breath and oh, was she rewarded for her compliance.
He nuzzled his face to her navel. His tongue darted into the crevice as his fingers dug into her buttocks. “Pretty lady of mine,” he sighed, as he descended to plant kisses around her mons, “you have such soft skin. And a wealth of cunny hair.”
She shivered at the compliment.
“Open your legs wider, Blaze.” He ordered in a rough voice that made her feel thick as honey. He used his thumbs to roll open her labia. Cool air hit her secret places and she squirmed. “Christ, you smell like freshest cream, my darling. And you give it up in such abundance, I must taste you.” Then he thrust his tongue inside her.
Her head bolted back.
“I have wanted to drink from your cunny since the first moment I laid eyes on you.” He sent his tongue inside her again and his thumbs opened her even more. There he laved her nether lips with the delicacy of an artist. She could hear him lick his lips. Hear him part her channel wider. Feel him place his tongue on a special spot, so sensitive, she mewled. He scraped a nail across it and held her in place with a mighty hand to the back of her thigh. Then he bent, and titillated that nub with the tip of his talented tongue. “You are a feast for me, my pet.”
“For me, too!” she cried and moved her feet to give him greater access. “More, oh, I pray you, give me more!”
He growled against her cunny and she quaked in the wake of his hot vibrations. He sent a finger between her lips. “You are swollen for me, hugging my finger.”
“To have you remain!” she cried, rocking her hips to his tormenting rhythm.
“But if I do this,” he asked as he took two fingers to pinch that special spot and made her yelp in pleasure, “would you have me stop or continue?”
“Both! Stop, remain, do as you will!” This torture was bliss.
He chuckled against her cunt, the sound making her innards pulse. “I think, my pet, ‘tis time I laid you down.”
For Her Honour (Swords of Passion) Page 4
