by Georgia Fox
“I’ll see for myself if you are virgin,” he growled into her lips.
She was too shocked to fight. Yes, that must be the reason why she went limp and let him kiss her again. Let him lift her gown aside and push his hand between her legs to touch her quinny. The stone wall pressed into her lower back, but he did not care apparently about her discomfort. When the callused pad of his finger slipped between her labia, she almost forgot about it too.
This was a secluded corner of the yard and wreathed in shadow as the morning sun, not yet reaching its highest point, moved around behind the buildings. Here no one came unless to heave a barrow of dung after cleaning out the barns and stables, but that would not be done again until evening. Spring plowing had just begun in the fields however, and the manure would occasionally be fetched by cart, so there remained a small chance of being disturbed. Her heart kept a scattered pace, her gaze shifting to the corner of the barn over his shoulder, watching just in case.
He stroked her daisy, working it with a gentle fingertip. Again his lips covered hers, kissing her as she’d never been kissed, not even by Stryker Bloodaxe. His tongue wound itself around hers, tugging and insistent. He moved closer, his strong muscular thighs holding hers apart while his hand explored her pussy. She imagined her mother’s voice, scolding and harsh as it was most often, telling her to stop him.
Elsinora what are you doing? Down on your knees, this instant, and repent girl. Repent!
But how could she get down on her knees with this man’s hand between her thighs?
When his lips released hers, she glanced downward and saw the stiff bulge in his breeches.
“Stop,” she gasped belatedly.
His fingertip was poised within her. He waited, breathing hard, his eyes black, staring down into hers.
She perused his scarred cheek, her conscience trying to remind her of his evil. But a spark of wanton desire and curiosity flamed inside her loins, too hot to be ignored. “Oh, very well then. See for yourself if I am a maid. Have your proof. If you must.”
At once his finger moved further and she tensed against the intrusion. She stared at the muscle flexing in his shoulder and felt the finger at the end of that arm penetrating her another short distance until he felt her hymen. Finally he pronounced, “No man has been here.”
“Now let me go, filthy swine!”
He chuckled and she felt that too, tickling her tender petals.
She gasped. “Just like any other Norman pig, forcing himself on a woman.”
He leaned back a little, but kept his hand on her sex, his finger in her damp cleft. “I will not take your virgin blood unless you are my wife. And then you will be my only woman, from that moment on, as I told you once already.”
“Of course!” She turned her face away. “You’ll never look at another pair of titties”
“I might look. I might even admire, but I won’t touch. Not once I have a lawful wife. This I swear.”
“I don’t know why you bother telling me this,” she groaned, as he worked his finger lightly and teasingly over her blossoming flower. “I don’t care what you do with your cock, Norman.” She wanted to run away, but her legs felt useless. The heat he conjured between her thighs was fierce, scalding, mesmerizing. His entire hand possessed her now, the heel of his palm pressed into her pubic mound. Slowly and carefully he added a second finger to the first.
He leaned over her again, watching her lips as if they were a small treat held out and he a mastiff fixated on that promise. “Remember my name?” he growled. “Coeur du Loup. Heart of the Wolf.”
Elsinora had not known what his name meant, but she shrugged, trying to ignore the fingertips sliding in and out of her now, slick with the wetness of her passionate, shameful arousal. His touch was far more tender than the stream and yet the sensations he lured out of her were much deeper, much hotter. She gasped, “So?”
“Wolves mate for life.”
Elsinora managed, somehow to breathe, even with him so close and with her pussy twitching, hovering on the brink of climax, partially filled, emptied and filled again by his probing fingers. Each time the hardened pads of his fingers scraped over the teased heart of her daisy, she shuddered, her lips parting, catching another mouthful of his masculine scent.
Drowning, she sought for an argument in the watery depths of her heated despair and came up for air again, empty-handed.
“That is why it is important that when I marry, I know I shall be well pleasured. Tended to.” He pressed his fingers back inside her quinny, massaging her so intently and expertly that her world spun and she was glad of the wall at her back for without it she would have crumpled. “As I tend you now.”
The waves that had begun as ripples, now flooded her valley and she grasped his bare shoulders, her hips jerking. Her belly slammed into his taut groin, rubbing on the rigid mound of his cock, needing his fingers deeper.
“Be careful, Elzinora,” he whispered, a nuance of surprise in his voice and something raw, lusty. “I don’t want to break your—”
She moaned. Her mind went foggy, desire taking over, obscuring her clear view of all else. A hot wave washed through her blood, vibrated deep in her sex. Her muscles tightened on his fingers, pulling on them.
He swore softly against her cheek and began moving his hand faster. Exhaling in a low squeal, Elsinora climaxed as she never had before. Never. Had not thought it possible. And she wanted it again. Wanted more. Spasms arcing inside her, she swung her hips against him, her fingers digging into his wide shoulder muscle.
“Fuck,” he muttered shakily. “I think I just broke your maidenhead.”
Although she’d felt no pain—only glorious pleasure—when she glanced downward, blood had indeed dripped to her inner thigh. Astonished, Elsinora stared at those scarlet drops quivering on her pale skin. Two of his thick fingers were inside her all the way to the knuckle. He had claimed her and she was too wracked with delight to stop him. The need had been held captive inside her too long. A tiny, thin, scared voice inside her head warned Elsinora to push him away. She should scream for help and then run to her prayers. Instead she allowed his fingers to resume a slow, sensual fucking motion. Again she focused on the tendons in his shoulder, the hard-worked muscles of his arm, driving those wicked fingers in and out of her. She reached her hands higher, around his neck, pulling him closer. Her buttocks rubbed against the rough stone wall and he nudged her thighs further apart with one knee.
She could be ashamed later, she decided. Elsinora had too many naughty yearnings, too much curiosity, to put an end to this.
“I wish I could mount that pussy, here and now.” His voice was hoarse in her ear, his stubble brushing her cheek. “I’m so hungry for it, I can taste your sex in the back of my throat.”
She thought of animals she’d watched mating in that same yard and she was feverish with need, weak with it. He moved his groin against her thigh and she felt his manhood straining in his breeches.
“You’ll take my damn fingers off,” he whispered throatily as he licked her cheek, his body pressing her to the wall. “Now I know how this will feel around my cock, my lady Elzinora, I—” He paused, breathing hard. “Are you slipping the reins again, wild filly?”
She didn’t need to answer for he must have felt the aftershock pulsing through her narrow valley in the next breath.
“Your body is not so cold as your manners,” he murmured wryly, lips brushing her brow. With a masterful hand he cupped her sex, squeezing, exerting pressure that intensified her pleasure and took her to new heights of keening bliss. It was almost as if he tested her, experimented.
For a long moment she was lost in a glorious cloud, floating high above that yard and away from all her troubles. Then his teeth nibbled at the pulse in her neck and that tender bite woke her. She drifted back to earth. His chest was pushed up against her breasts, his hand still cupped between her thighs. With trembling hands she grabbed his wrist and forced his hand away from her at last.
&n
bsp; “Now you made my choice for me.” He wiped his fingers on his chest, leaving a bright slash of her maiden blood across the firm muscle. “You impaled yourself upon me, my Lady Elzinora. You are now my mate. I shall wear this blood and let it dry there like a badge of honor.”
“It’s Elsinora,” she muttered, knowing her cheeks were flushed. She was appalled, still shaking inside. All she could think to criticize was the way he spoke her name?
“Elzinora.”
“No…listen…it’s Elsinora.” Suddenly it was the most important thing in the world that he get it right.
He tried again, “Elzzinora.”
“No. It’s—”
“I’ll just call you ‘wench’ and click my fingers—like so—when I want you.”
“By all means.” She chuckled dourly, startled that she could find any humor in this situation. “See what that gets you.”
“It had better get me what I want, wench, or else.”
“I’m not afeared of you, Norman.”
“Why do you flinch at my scar then?” There was a flash of hurt in his eyes. She caught it just before it disappeared behind his shield again.
She hesitated, felt her pulse slow. “I do not.”
“I tire of arguing with your mouth.” Now he snapped at her, churlish. And—if her ears did not deceive her—defensive. How quickly his temper changed. “Don’t open it again until I ask for it to suck my cock.”
Oh, that did it. She swung a hard slap across his unscarred cheek. His eyes barely registered the impact, but he caught her wrist, closing his thumb and fingers around it like a manacle, squeezing her pulse. “You are a crude, arrogant, uncivil beast,” she spat. “But Bertha tells me I must accept my lot as other women must. So marry me or leave. The choice is yours. Hurry and make it.” The only option she shrewdly left out was for him to stay there and marry another woman, make someone else mistress in her place. That choice she took off the negotiating table.
There was no expression readable on his scarred face. “You will not fight me, woman?”
“Of course I’ll fight you, everyday. I told you, you’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
“But your body won’t fight me. At night. In our marriage bed.”
Horrified, she knew it was true. Her skin yearned for his touch again already.
“That prize is mine now,” he said, pointing to the mark of her blood on his chest. The tiny hairs on her arms prickled; her pores hummed. “You are mine now. Pixie.”
“Elsinora!”
It was her father, up at last from his bed and calling for her. A few minutes earlier and he would have seen the Norman with his hand betwixt her thighs, his fingers probing to steal the pearl from her virgin oyster. And he would have seen her allowing it, needily thrusting her hips against him like a wanton.
Dominic spun around and released her wrist, just as she pulled hard in the other direction. Elsinora lost her balance and tumbled backward over the wall, into the dung.
* * * *
Now that, he mused, was a close one. A lifetime spent dodging flaming arrowheads and violently swung blades had primed him well, however. Swiftly leaning back on the wall, he reached behind with both hands and held the woman down out of her father’s sight, one hand on her legs the other on her lips. She squirmed, trying to bite the fingers with which he muzzled her.
“There you are, Gudderth,” he shouted, before the other man had a chance to cross the yard. “I was looking for you. I wish to discuss your sour-faced daughter.”
He heard her growl of frustration, felt her thrashing about in the dung, but he pinned her easily. She was too skinny to fight his strength. He must feed her up if she was the only woman he’d have to keep him adequately warm on chilly winter evenings.
“I am not certain she is a desirable wife for me,” he shouted. “She has a vicious temper and the tongue of a bitter scold.”
Gudderth wore a long robe today with a tattered hem and a wide fox fur collar. It was evidently pulled on in haste over his shoulders before he stumbled out to look for his daughter. He appeared slightly dazed, greying hair drifting around his head. He squinted across the yard into that shadowy corner where Dominic perched on the wall. “Ah, yes, you are here. Still. I was not certain if I remembered…”
Would the old man try to deny the wager now? Perhaps this was no time to fool around.
“But I like everything else about this place, Gudderth, therefore I will take the wench, since she is your only daughter and I have no choice.”
Ouch, she had sharp teeth. He jumped but kept his yelped curse in check.
“Ah…good…” Gudderth was skirting a wide puddle, making slow progress across the yard. “Glad I am that you stay Coeur-du-Loup. What happened? You cut yourself?”
The old man, drawing closer, had seen the blood on his chest.
“Just an accident,” Dominic replied, feeling the woman under his hands go still. Was she remembering how it felt to have his fingers taking her like that? Should the old man come any closer he might see over the wall. “If you seek your daughter, she walks there in the meadow by the orchard.” He jerked his head. “I saw her not half an hour ago.”
The old man looked over in the direction of the orchard. “Did you indeed?” He wound his hands together and laughed sheepishly. “Is she in a good temper today?”
Dominic was amused. The man was evidently wary of his own daughter’s spit and scratch. She’d got away with her behavior for too long, no one daring to put her in her proper place—not even her own father. “Is your daughter ever in a good temper?”
Again the woman behind him squirmed and heaved, but he pressed her down more firmly into the dung, bearing another savage bite of her teeth. How dare she lead him on like that, encourage his exploration of her body and then slap his face? The wench was evidently confused and didn’t know what she wanted.
He’d have to show her.
“Oh, Elsinora can be very sweet when she wishes to be,” the old man exclaimed worriedly.
Hmmm, apparently she didn’t wish to be so with him, thought Dominic. But her body had betrayed her just now and promised more delights than he’d previously anticipated.
“She is just…startled…by this turn of events, I suppose,” her father added. “Although I did warn her that this would come to pass if she did not settle her mind to Stryker Bloodaxe, our neighbor across the moor.” Suddenly the old man’s face changed, as if he’d just fully woken up. He shuddered, crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. “Stryker will have something to say, no doubt, but he should not have been gone so long. What else was I to do? A man can’t wait forever to get his daughter married.”
Until now, Dominic had not known of any other claimant. This discovery caused a stillness to invade his body, a chill that hardened his resolve and tightened his muscles, ready to fight. But this other man—this Bloodaxe—was probably some old fool, or the pixie would have wed him by now. He’d seen for himself how full of yearning she was. Clearly no other man here had tempted her enough to relinquish her maidenhead. Bloodaxe could be no serious competition.
“I’m certain, Gudderth, that she will come to her senses and realize this is for the best,” he muttered.
The old fellow nodded in an absent-minded manner and trundled off for the orchard, his feet weaving a haphazard course through more puddles than he managed to avoid, his crooked hem trailing in the dirt. Once he was out of sight, Dominic released the woman behind him. Scrambling up on her knees, gasping for breath, she peppered him with curses and then reached behind her. He saw she had a large ball of dung in her hand. It sailed over his head and smacked into the side of the barn.
He shook his head. “Bad aim.”
The second one came closer; the third required he duck hastily. The woman was fast on the re-load, he mused. He wouldn’t want to see her at the operating end of a trebuchet if he was under siege behind fortress walls. But there was something even more beautiful and enticing about her while she
stood in the dung heap, cursing the air until it was as blue as her eyes.
Instead of retreating, he surprised her by ducking low and rushing forward. She had nowhere to go and could not climb over the wall in time. He grabbed her around the hips and lifted her easily over his shoulder.
“Don’t fear, pixie,” he muttered, breathless. “I’ll marry you. Stop fretting. No need for this temper tantrum.”
“You swine! Put me down at once.” She slapped at his buttocks now, which was all she could reach as he carried her across the yard to the water trough.
“You need washing off now. I can’t marry a wench that smells of horse shit.”
“I’ll tell my father what you did.”
“He won’t care. You are mine now. He lost you to me, along with his land.”
As he lowered her feet first into the trough, she hissed at him, “Stop saying that. I am not your property. I am not some chattel.”
“You will be my wife, Elzinora. Chattel is exactly what a wife is.”
“Argh! Why have I agreed to this? I must be mad.”
So she had agreed? Dominic hadn’t realized until that moment. She’d seemed torn between her wants, needs, and what she thought she should say. She’d welcomed his hand between her thighs, climaxed so hard on him that she almost took his fingers off—and then she’d slapped his face. He hoped she would not always be so difficult to understand, but she was a woman, of course. She might never make sense to him.
