Knight of Love

by Catherine LaRoche

  He grinned broadly. “Not at all, lady. Go ahead. And a little tighter, if you please.” He flexed those impressive arm muscles. “I wouldn’t want the binding to come loose and spoil your plans.”

  Gracious! Her stomach fluttered. She couldn’t span his upper arm even with both hands. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she murmured, suddenly rather abashed over what she was about.

  “Lady, you wound my pride!” He raised his head off the pillow. “Do you honestly think that a transparent shift—quite a delightful garment, by the way, although I do miss the breeches—is going to hurt me?”

  “Very well, then. If you insist.” She tied each of his wrists to one of the heavy carved bedposts using the linen shifts. “That should keep you in place.” She couldn’t quite take on the role or shake off a sense of concern. But the sight of him naked, his huge muscled frame laid out and tied down on her bed, did something powerful to her. He was so very, very big, and so . . .

  Mine.

  The word echoed in her head. Yes, mine—for now.

  Her mouth watered.

  That twitching part of him throbbed harder now and sported a glistening strand of clear fluid at the tip.

  She lay her head down again on his belly for a closer look. Kurt had forced this on her. Pushed her to her knees. Fisted a hand in her hair. Threatened to kill the boy Franz if she didn’t obey and please him. Then forced himself into her mouth. Over and over, to a disgusting conclusion.

  She’d vomited afterward as he’d drunk wine and laughed.

  But she knew, she knew, it would not be like that with Wolfram.

  What would it be like, instead?

  It took courage to reach out and run a finger down the length of him—so soft, yet so hard. His breath hissed out, but he made no move to take over their play. She trailed fingers down the length of his shaft, to that tangle of dark hair nesting below. She hefted the weight of him in her palm, gently cupped the round shape of him there. He groaned, and she froze, waiting to see what he would do.

  But he made no move. “Lenora, your touch is so sweet. Handle me all you want, however you want. And command me to your pleasure when you’re ready.”

  Command me to your pleasure. What wicked words. What . . . appeal.

  A mood grew on her.

  She propped herself on an elbow to look down at his belly, lowering herself slowly until that thick part of him throbbed mere inches from her face. She breathed deeply again—what a truly wonderful smell—musky animal vitality, impossible to parse, and all the more magical because of it. She touched her nose to the silky length of him and rubbed it against him. The smell and feel of him filled her senses—and then his taste as well when her tongue flicked along the same path. His breathy moans sang his pleasure straight to a wet heat gathering at her core.

  She did this to him! The power of their play shot through her and made her bold. God’s truth, it made her want. She swooped down on him and sucked his length into her mouth.

  Goodness—on what wind had this brazen self blown in?

  He groaned and bucked up off the bed. She pushed down hard on his chest even as she kept him between her lips.

  She slanted him a look up the length of his torso. Stay. You are mine now.

  Swirling her tongue around his thickness produced even more interesting results. He swelled under her lips and moaned like a dying man. She drew him slowly out of her mouth with a pop.

  “Mmmm . . . quite delicious. Perhaps not as good as that gooseberry pie the countess served with the sweet cream at dessert,” she said, teasing, “but not bad.”

  “You must allow me to taste you before our play is done, lady. I’ve dreamed of tasting you again, breathing you in,” he said, gasping and straining against the bonds.

  Linen, when twisted into a rope, made for quite a strong binding, she was gratified to learn.

  “Perhaps I will allow you . . . or perhaps not. Orders and demands are not yours to make tonight. It is my will that rules the evening.” She swung a leg over his chest, broad as a horse’s back, and leaned forward to curtain his face with her hair. Her arms, braced against the polished wooden headboard, stretched pleasantly. She’d never felt so gloriously alive—pulsing with health, power, and vitality. Her whole body throbbed with her pleasure. It was an epiphany—this is what bodies should feel like together!—healthy and strong and alive, connected, playing together for each other’s delight. My goodness—it could become quite addictive.

  “Could one do this every night?” she asked.

  He drew a ragged breath. “God, lady, please.”

  “I am serious!” She swatted at him. “I want a serious answer.”

  “A disquisition is difficult after the sort of attentions with which you’ve honored me. Let me try to order my thoughts. Every night? I don’t see why not. Perhaps with some variation. You strike me as the creative sort. I wager you could come up with possibilities if you put your mind to it.”

  “And is it right to do such things?” She nodded toward the bindings. She had to ask. What Kurt had done was so wrong.

  He must have read her doubts, her hesitation.

  “You’re not trying to hurt me. I’ve granted you my consent. There is trust between us. You don’t yet believe in this bond we share, nor have faith in it as I do—but if you give it time to grow, it will. It is a precious gift of love we share, lady—I feel it in my heart.”

  She stared into his eyes, mere inches from hers. This close, his irises were mesmerizing. Impossibly blue, flecked with silver. She blinked to break the spell and shook her head. “You are a hopeless romantic, Wolfram. Enough of such talk. I have other thoughts at the moment.” Straddled as she was across him, she dangled her breasts over his lips.

  Like ripe fruit, she felt heavy, ready—so ready for his touch. When he arched his neck to tug her nipple into his mouth, she hissed out her pleasure. Fire shot to her womb.

  What was this bed sport at which people played? The shape and depth of its contours mystified her. Its end was clear enough—she remembered that clenching explosion and craved already to feel it again. But what was the larger purpose of such passion? To muddle the senses? To cause a woman—or man—to lose their will and give over their heart to a lover likely to prove unworthy?

  Such passion posed dangers that only now were becoming clear to Lenora. The pleasure lured one in with its promise of ecstasy. But how to trust it—how to trust him—as worthy?

  The man in question lay purring beneath her, laving her nipples and breasts like a supplicant feasting at the altar of the goddess. She slithered her hips lower down his furred torso. And then she felt him—there, prodding at the juncture of her thighs, twitching impatiently. Oh, my—what perfect positioning.

  He thrust up, moaning. She tugged sharply on his hair. “Uh-uh.” She tsked. “Not yet, my greedy one. At my command, remember?”

  He released her breast to smile at her. “Indeed, lady. It’s only that I remember so well the pleasure of being sheathed by your tight heat. You’re so wet for me”—he punctuated his words with a nudge of his shaft at her folds, letting her feel the slickness of her own body—“so beautiful. I want you to take me inside you, to ride me as your mount. I want to feel your thighs grip my hips. When you’ve had your fill of teasing me, take me, Lenora, and use me to find your pleasure.”

  His dark words pulled at her heart, stirred her desire to new heights.

  She propped her hands against his chest and slid her hips down to take the head of his shaft inside her.

  He gasped.

  How gratifying. Her passion pulsed, as much at the sounds she wrested from him as from the spreading glory of holding him inside her.

  Her power, controlling this great brute of a man between her legs and under her hands, rolled through her. It was an illusion, she knew well. He could break free of her linen bonds easily enough. In truth, he could no doubt rip down the bed frame, should he choose. But therein lay the game. She might as well see how far he’d let
her take it.

  “You will not move,” she said. “Not until I give my permission. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, yes, lady.” That part of him throbbed harder.

  He liked this sort of play, she realized with a start.

  “If you move at all, any part of you,” she warned, gripping him with her legs muscles to make her point, “I shall have to punish you.” She fought a gasp as her pleasure spiked at her own shocking words.

  She liked it, too.

  “Punish me, lady?” A smug smile curled his lips, although his breath was gratifyingly short. “And how, pray tell, would you do that?”

  That smile challenged her. How did one punish a hulk of a man such as him? The threat could not be merely an idle one. “I shall take my pleasure of you and forbid you from doing the same,” she threatened airily. “I’ll leave you tied up, still wanting.”

  His eyes crinkled up, and she feared there was something of gentle mockery in their sky-blue depths, but if so, it was tolerant and amused. “If you think that would work, lady. It’s a wicked punishment indeed, to not worship you to the fullest, as God intends a man to do with his wife.”

  “None of that wife business,” she chided. “We’re not talking about that nonsense now.”

  “Certainly not. Much better to believe ourselves to be fornicating, or perhaps committing adultery with each other, since vows were proclaimed by a minister and must have applied to someone.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Neither do I want any of your mockery, sir.”

  He lifted one dark brow. “You prefer, perhaps, my cockery?”

  His scandalous humor caught her so off guard, she laughed. The movement pulled him deeper inside her. The laugh turned quickly into a moan. “Yes,” she managed to say, “I think perhaps I do.” She hadn’t realized one could laugh or tease during such an activity as this. The world was opening up in such very interesting ways.

  “Now stay still, remember.” She began to rock her hips slowly against him. She controlled the depth of her strokes to allow entrance to no more than the tip of his shaft. And she rubbed that delightfully sensitive part of herself on him between every stroke.

  True to his promise, he lay unmoving and bound tight, eyes burning with blue fire. He seared her soul, so hot was that fire. When she could bear its intensity no longer, she dropped her propped arms onto his chest. With her breasts crushed against him, her head tucked just below his chin, she could hear his heart thumping wildly in her ear.

  The new posture brought her more fully around the firm length of him. Suddenly she wanted him all. She pushed her hips and ground down on him, as hard as she could.

  “Lady!” The word tore from him. “Please, let me move. It will be good for you, I swear.”

  She raised her head to see his arms trembling in their bonds. His words—his plea and promise—beat the hot pulse of desire faster within her. She wanted more, too. But she didn’t want to give up the game. “Recall your vows, sir. At my command only.” She took a moment to stroke his brow. “Don’t fight the bit, my fierce stallion. I know you want to run. But I keep the rein tight, the better to admire the beauty of your paces.”

  What a strange, new pleasure—to hold her stallion in hard check. Such fierce power lay coiled in his tightly corded muscles, his rock-hard thighs. But he was a well-behaved mount, obedient to her command.

  She laid her head down again, flat across his chest. Heat radiated from his sweating frame. She tightened her inner muscles around him experimentally, not even realizing until that moment that she could do such things. The contractions rolled through her loins.

  His breath hissed harsh at her ear. “Lenora,” he was moaning. “My beauty, my lady, meine Dame.”

  She lifted her head and discovered their mouths were perfectly positioned for kissing. She brushed her lips feather light against his. Such a sensual mouth he had, for a man. She experimented with licking at his lips and darting her tongue into his mouth. He opened on a gasp. When his own tongue flicked out to tangle with hers, she pondered lifting her head to protest his breaking the rules. When he nuzzled and nipped at her with those sensual lips, she pondered it again. But—my word!—the dizzying skill of it stopped the protest in her throat. Why, when his kiss forked a lightning path of jagged pleasure to her core, would she stop the man?

  Grasping his shaved skull between her hands, she kissed him until her head spun with the sweet taste of her knight of love.

  She ground down against him and the pleasure spiked higher. The pulsing iron hardness of him inside her, pulled in now as deep as she could, began to drive her mad. She wanted more, that and still more, and soon.

  She pulled back from the intoxication of his mouth and braced her hands on either side of his head. “You may move now, my fine stallion. You’ve held your stance most nobly. Show me a walk.”

  “My lady,” he growled, and thrust up hard.

  A cry ripped from her throat as the feel of it shot through her. “Wolfram!”

  He held himself in check. “Too much?”

  “No—don’t stop! But slow.”

  She opened to his steady, deliberate strokes as he withdrew and then pierced to her core. Her turn now to hold still, she let him fill her with his power. The liquid bliss between her legs began to pull tighter.

  “What a very fine stallion,” she said, gasping. “You may pick up the pace. Show me a canter.”

  His upper arms proved a fine handhold. Taking care to avoid his bandaged shoulder, she dug her nails into his straining muscles and held tight for the ride. His hips surged into her, every hard thrust bringing her closer to that remembered climax.

  When he dared slow, she sank her teeth into the thick pad of muscle covering his collarbone. “I gave you no permission to ease your pace.”

  He pulled against his bonds and ground his hips up into hers. “Lady, you feel too good.” His breath rasped hot and rough in her ear. “I’ll carry you forever, but I can’t hold back much longer at this pace. Let me pleasure you more slowly. I don’t want to leave you behind on the field.”

  She hadn’t considered this issue. Nor was she entirely clear on how these things worked for a man. She pushed up from his chest, pulling her knees forward until she was sitting across his slim hips, still keeping him inside her. “Then still yourself again, my fine mount. Rest a moment.”

  He groaned. “No, lady”—he shook his head from side to side in protest—“don’t make me stop—not this close.” His sides heaved, blowing hard, like a stallion indeed nearing the end of a long ride. A sheen of sweat glistened on his chest, slicked his hair. A wildness shone in his eyes.

  She dug her nails into his chest until he flinched and focused his gaze on her. “Yes,” she hissed. “You are in my bridle. I hold the reins. You come home at my command only.”

  She leaned back, testing the pull and fullness as she shifted on top of him, searching, finding, there—she moaned as the pressure and friction came together just where she wanted them. She watched his face as she brought her hand to that same spot.

  His blue eyes glowed against his sun-darkened skin. “Lenora, lady—yes, touch yourself. You’re so beautiful.” His hips shifted, tried to pump again under her.

  She reached with her other hand to pinch his brown nipple. “Stay—you move only when I tell you.”

  He arched and hissed. “You don’t know what you do to me, lady. You slay me.”

  “Not tonight, I think.” Her laugh came out strangled as she rolled her flesh between her fingers in time with his nipple in her other hand. What strange, exotic pleasure—so spiky and intense! What a mystery that her body could feel like this—tingly, tight, light enough to float away if he were not anchoring her with that thick root to his belly.

  That part of her was slick with their juices. She lifted up from him just enough to touch where he entered her and encircle his girth. A ridge along his shaft intrigued her. If her own passion wasn’t coiling up so tight, she’d take the time to explore t
he meaning of that line. Next time, she thought, before the echo came: There will be no next time. Some part of her rebelled, cried no, didn’t want to give up this play, with this man.

  Don’t think of it, Lenora, not now.

  She distracted herself with rubbing circles around that crux of her pleasure and flicking at it as she ground her hips back down onto him. Thought fled, sensation grew, filled her up, carrying her away outside herself. Some instinct had her reach back behind her—another curiosity, that heavy sac of his, pressed tight now against her bottom. She gathered it in one hand as the fingers of her other flicked back and forth across her own flesh.

  He groaned. She gripped tighter. “Don’t move, not yet.” She was panting now, so close, that peak rising. She rubbed her knuckles into the base of him between his legs, rolled him in her hand. The feel of him in her palm while she rode him and rippled her muscles around the length of him inside her—controlling all that glorious male animal power—fanned the sparks within to hottest fire. She felt the flames about to burst.

  She released him from her palm and fell forward onto his chest. “Now, hard, a fast gallop—all of it, home!” she commanded. Gripping his arms, she sank her nails into him and held on for dear life as her hair curtained their faces.

  He thrust furiously into her. He had the bit between his teeth and was stopping for nothing.

  A scream ripped from her throat as her passion crested. Her back arched and her muscles tensed as she ground her pelvis down hard onto him. He reared up and roared. She looked at his face in time to see it contort with the intensity of his pleasure. Mine, came the thought, before she turned her head to bite the thick muscle pad of his shoulder.

  Then they both lay panting, gasping for breath on the bed. Aftershocks arced through her for long minutes. When her breath settled, she reached up to loosen his bonds. His wrists were reddened where he’d pulled at the linen.