“Such confidence could easily be put to the test,” he murmured. “At the same time, it would help me prove to myself that I was only offering my comfort and sympathy.”
“You … require such proof?” she asked on a half-breath.
“I require something to keep my thoughts pure and mine eyes elsewhere.”
This time she saw him move a step closer and she matched it with a step back. He lifted a hand and Ariel felt a gentle tugging at the nape of her neck, but reacted too slowly to stop him from tossing aside the scrap of linen that bound her hair. Her hands were cold, her feet hot. Spans of flesh everywhere on her body felt tight, stretched to the limit, as if the slightest touch would send her bursting out of her skin.
He had been drinking a fair amount of ale, she could smell it on each heated exhalation of air. It was not the ale speaking, however. It may have emboldened him to speak, but it was not the ale speaking.
“I … do not think it would be wise to try to prove anything right now,” she stammered, conscious of his fingers combing through her hair, spreading it across her shoulders. “It might be best if I just return to my room … and … and we forget the whole thing.”
Eduard smiled faintly. He coiled a shiny red ribbon of her hair around his fingers. The silky heat of it slithered over his skin and sent a surge of hot blood pulsating into flesh that was already growing thick and heavy in response to the dark green sparkle in her eyes. His body was responding to a woman’s challenge, but it was the plea of a child—a spoiled child accustomed to getting her way in all things—who suggested they could just walk away and forget.
“Go then,” he said quietly, dropping the strand of hair. “And do not fling any more of your righteous airs of presumption in my face, for I could make of you, here and now, a woman of very strong urges indeed.”
He started turning away and something made Ariel reach out to stop him. His face was unreadable in the guttering firelight, his thoughts untouchable, and Ariel imagined she saw a shiver of a warning in the small muscle that flexed his jaw.
Very deliberately, she laid both hands flat on his chest. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she spread her fingers wide and skimmed them steadfastly up to his shoulders. Using the heat of his own muscles to bolster her nerve, she pulled herself up on tiptoes and pressed her lips over his, holding them there for a count of several pounding heartbeats. She broke away just as slowly, just as deliberately, and wilted lightly back onto her heels again.
“Pleasant,” was her analysis, given with only the barest tremor undermining her voice. “But rather too soured by ale for my liking. Perhaps another time, when there is nothing clouding your senses …?”
He raised a hand, startling her smugness into a faltering silence as he brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. The pad of his thumb stroked across the fullness of her lower lip, resting there while his fingers curved under her chin and started to tilt her face upward. His mouth began its descent and Ariel tried to pull back, but the heat of his hand shifted lower onto her neck, skimming around until it was pushing into the curling mass of her hair. She could not move in any direction but that of his choosing, and he chose to hold her steady a scant inch from his mouth.
The blush in her cheeks grew hotter and to her utter mortification she began to tremble. Her eyes began to shimmer with a film of silvery tears and her lips quivered apart as the tremors of shock shivered through her limbs, her breasts, her belly. She stood transfixed, doubting she could have moved even if he had set her free, and she realized the best she could hope for was to emerge with some shred of pride intact.
If he allowed it.
Ariel gasped as his mouth closed the gap between them, his lips slanting hard and full over hers. It was not so much a kiss as it was a claim, a warning not unlike the one her brother had given her about playing with fire. FitzRandwulf was fire. He was heat and flame and slow, hot breaths that scorched her cheeks and flooded her body with liquid incandescence.
She groaned as his lips forced hers wider apart and his tongue thrust past the barrier of her teeth. The bitter tang of ale gave way to the sinfully bold taste and feel of a man whose power she had already acknowledged to be formidable and uncompromising. Her body betrayed her, weakening with each deep, wet thrust so that her hands closed around fistfuls of his shirt and her breasts pressed shamelessly into a heated wall of muscle.
He was fire and she was flaming gloriously under his searing assault.
Streaks of sensations brought on by his hands, his lips, his tongue started to sweep through her, hot and icy, sharp and sweet, fierce and tender all at the same time. Her entire body seemed to be shivering, shuddering under a deluge of bright, burning sparks and she began to kiss him back, welcoming each bold stroke of his tongue, feeling the raw, primitive rhythm repeat itself in the staggeringly explicit ache that throbbed to life in her loins. His hands slid down from the tangle of her hair and pressed into the small of her back, coaxing her even closer, inviting her to share even more shocking intimacies.
Eduard kissed her until her mouth was chafed and swollen, then sent his lips chasing down the strained arch of her throat. Her skin was smooth and warm, the flesh so white against the tanned darkness of his own, it looked like cream. Like a big, hungry cat he lapped at the fluttering pulsebeat in the crook of her neck, then sent his tongue swirling into the pink shell of her ear. He could feel the deep, wracking shudders of pleasure that shook her with each nuzzling caress, and he was aware of the dangers of continuing … but she was all heat and soft, gasping wonderment, and he was as hungry to feel her lushness crushing against him as she was to feel the lushness spread and shimmer throughout her whole body. Her arousal was like an intoxicant in his blood, far more potent than any amount of ale he could have consumed and he wanted to drink his fill of her before the sobering effects of reality intruded.
Reality tried to intrude when his lips encountered the laces joining the edges of her bodice. The camlet was thin and airy and molded easily to her breasts as he stroked his hands around their fullness. The pebble-hard buds of her nipples strained against the cloth, shadows beneath the whiteness, and it would have taken a far stronger man than he to ignore their pleas to be set free. It took only a few swift tugs of his fingers to unfasten the laces and push the offending wings of camlet aside. He caught at his breath and ran his hand over the smooth surface of her skin, circling his palm around the cool heaviness of her breast before he lifted the puckered crown to his mouth.
His tongue traced silky, wet patterns over her skin and Ariel nearly crumpled to her knees under the stunning torrent of heat that poured into her belly and loins. His lips closed around her nipple and her body spasmed with the shock, with the pleasure. His tongue and lips suckled more of her, all of her that he could hold into the well of his mouth and she cried out, arching her head back in a violent, shiny whiplash of colour. He sank down onto his knees and she did not think to stop him. She thought only to press her body closer as he lavished her breasts with warm, ravaging caresses, and she became like quicksilver in his hands, hot and eager, eager and willing, willing and wanting …
For the first time, Eduard made a sound. It was muffled, distorted by the pliant sweetness of her flesh and by the taut edges of camlet that intruded on his senses again. He had not expected to lose his own grasp on reality. He had intended to kiss her just long enough and purposefully enough to frighten her into understanding this was no game they were playing. He had not expected it to go beyond a stern lesson against challenging him to any more tests. He most definitely had not expected to end up on his knees before her, his body fevered with needs.
But he was on his knees, drowning in the clean, womanly scent of her flesh. There were no more laces to unfasten, but the temptation was there, just below the gentle curve of her belly—another shadow beneath the pale cloth, outlining the triangle of fiery red down that cushioned his lips and teased his senses with images of delicate pink folds and sleek, mother-of-pearl surfaces.
Eduard pressed another groan into the juncture of her thighs and felt his noble intentions shudder away beneath his lips. He could feel the tension in her limbs and in the trembling tips of her fingers as they pushed into his hair, too shocked to know what he was doing, but telling him she did not want him to stop.
A curse sent his hands stroking down to the hem of her tunic, lifting it as he dragged his palms up the lithe, supple length of her calves and thighs. He lightly feathered the velvety flesh of her inner thighs, still expecting—hoping?—she would jerk away in alarm or maidenly decency, but he had taught the lesson too well and she had not the strength or the will to defy him.
Ariel’s hand clutched at his shoulders. Waves of shame, hot and fierce, swept through her only to be chastened by the hotter, wilder urges he had promised, and she moved with the sliding pressure of his fingertips; she strained into their deft, sure explorations and she melted around the slow, deep incursions that brought her shivering, trembling down onto the hearth beside him. She clung to his shoulders, his mouth. She panted against his husky, whispered assurances that in no way prepared her for the rush of brilliant, searing ecstasy that flared through her body.
Eduard knew, and it was both his torment and his pleasure to watch her, to hold her as her body stiffened and writhed in his arms. He kissed her almost breathless, covering her mouth with his and swallowing her cries. He kept his fingers buried deep inside her, his strokes slowing only when her tremors started to fade and the drenching heat of her threatened to strip him of the last shreds of control. He had no choice then but to withdraw everything—his hands, his lips, his body. Especially his body, for it could not be trusted with any further contact, not unless that contact was full and complete in every way.
He stood, lifting her with him, but when she would have leaned forward into his embrace, he backed away, steeling himself against the wide, dark incomprehension in her eyes. Dazed by what she had just experienced, Ariel started to take an unsteady step after him, but he held out a hand to stop her —a hand that shook visibly with the effort it was taking to deny her.
“Eduard—?”
She had never called him by his Christian name before and the sound of it only made the fist clench tighter in his groin. Making matters worse, her tunic gaped open from throat to waist, revealing flesh as pale as moonlight save for the two pinkened buds of her breasts. Her hair was tumbled and wild, framing the beauty of a face that would probably haunt him now until he drew his last breath.
“Eduard … what is it? Is it something I have done?”
“No,” he rasped. “No, it is nothing you have done.”
“Then what—?”
“Cover yourself,” he pleaded in a whisper, turning his face into the safety of the shadows. “For the love of God, cover yourself.”
Ariel’s body still burned, still throbbed with a tense, tight feeling she did not understand. She did not understand his anger either, for had she not reacted just the way he had said she would react? Had he not discovered and unleashed more womanly urges than she had even known she possessed? The slick proof of them was on the hand he still held out to keep her at arm’s length. It was in the wetness that streaked her thighs and in the shifting, slithering ribbons of heat that continued to curl through her flesh as if he was still there, pleasuring her. As if she wanted even more of him there, thick and thrusting and hard.
Colour flamed in her cheeks as she looked down and saw how brazenly she stood before him. She had wanted to come away with some of her pride intact, but she had shivered it all away in the cradle of his arms.
“Jesu,” she whispered. “Sweet Jesu, what have I done?”
“You have done nothing,” he said bluntly. “And will do nothing, by the mercy of that same sweet God, so long as you do not put us to any more tests of willpower. You are still a virgin, still in possession of your groom’s honour.”
In a flush of mortification, Ariel hastened to lace the front of her tunic. Her fingers were trembling so badly she could not manage the task and at one point she thought she saw Eduard relent and step forward to offer assistance. The look of utter and complete horror on her face stopped him, and he retreated to the far side of the hearth, then into the heavier shadows beyond the glowing circle of firelight.
“Forgive me, Lady Ariel,” he said hoarsely. “This … should not have happened.”
She bowed her head over her laces again, twisting them with more prejudice than they deserved. “It was not all your fault,” she said tersely. “I could have stopped you.”
“No,” he said succinctly. “You could not have stopped me. I was determined to prove as much, was I not?”
Ariel pressed her lips together, tasting him. “You would not have been so determined to do so if I had not goaded you.”
“Again,” he muttered.
“Again,” she admitted.
After struggling a few more seconds with laces that refused to untangle, she gave them an exasperated tug and flung her arms down by her sides. This time, when Eduard emerged from the shadows, she did not stop him. She did not even look up at him.
It was just as bad, keeping her eyes cast downward, for she was given no choice but to watch the long, blunt-tipped fingers try to resolve the knotted thongs. It was worse knowing that at least one of those very capable hands was the cause of all the damp stirrings she felt inside, and she blinked too late to stop the single fat tear from escaping her lashes. It splashed squarely on his hand, bringing an abrupt halt to what he was doing, and for a long, suspended moment, neither of them moved. They barely breathed.
The smallest hint of a tremor took the purpose out of Eduard’s hands and they went limp around the crumpled laces. Ariel felt another tear slide down her cheek and she heard the slow release of the breath he had been holding. Whether it was because he could sense what she was wishing for, or because he just needed the same thing, he opened his arms and wrapped them around her, drawing her gently into his embrace, holding her closer than she had ever been held before.
“Ariel,” he whispered. “Ariel, you must believe I did not intend any of this to happen.”
“It w-was not all y-your fault,” she insisted softly, burying her face in the warm curve of his shoulder. Her arms circled his waist and her hands were spread flat on the broad slabs of muscle that armoured his back; she shamelessly drew on his heat and strength, rejoicing in the loud hammering of his heart within the chamber of his chest. She closed her eyes to savour the moment, wondering if one so exquisite would ever come upon her again.
The moment and the closeness had to end, of course, but it was accomplished with less abruptness than their previous parting … and still with the nuisance of her laces to deal with. This time, however, she was less reluctant to look up into his face while he worked, and it was to her advantage that she could study all the planes and angles from a strangely new perspective.
The inflexible line of his mouth and jaw was suddenly revealed to be very flexible indeed, his mouth generously shaped, fuller on the bottom than on top, and textured with finely etched lines that flattened when he smiled and deepened when he scowled. It was a mouth that knew how to give a woman pleasure, knew tenderness and seduction, knew how to offer more than barbs and jests.
The fire cast a reddish glow on the strong column of his neck and on the straight, almost patrician nose. It was a very noble nose, she decided, augmented by eyebrows that were thick and dark enough to join in a single line when he frowned. Intimidating, she thought, unless those creases and furrows were caused by uncertainty and indecision.
The scar was still an unavoidable detriment to his laying waste to a score of women’s hearts. She suspected he did not weep for the loss, but used their aversion to his own advantage, keeping everyone at a safe distance who might otherwise want to know too many of the secrets he kept locked inside.
His eyes were by far his most unnerving feature as well as his most formidable weapon. They could reduce a woman’s pity
to ashes on a single glance, or freeze her warmest intentions without ever giving her a reason why. Long-lashed and deep-set, they held more secrets than she would ever know, more loneliness than he would ever reveal. A trait they appeared to share, Ariel concluded, since she had never felt more lonely or abandoned as she did when his hands finished their task and dropped away.
“Have you not had your fill of questions answered?” he mused, aware of how closely she had been studying him.
“I only have one more,” she said quietly. “Why did you stop?”
“You wanted more?” he asked, attempting a wry smile. “Rather greedy of you, I must say.”
“You assure me I am still a virgin. Did you deny yourself the pleasure of taking my maidenhead because you wished to prove yourself so much more able to resist earthly urges than I … or because you deemed it to be of so little value to anyone other than a Welsh brigand?”
He stared at her until her knees threatened to buckle beneath her and Ariel thought: definitely ashes. Ashes and ice, because he does not know whether he should hate me … or pity me.
“Your uncle places a very high value on more than just your virginity,” he said flatly.
“Ahh yes, the oath he made you swear … to deliver me to my groom unhurt, unblemished, untouched …” She paused and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “But it would seem, since I have been hurt—with the result that I do bear a blemish—and I have been somewhat touched … would not all three parts of your oath appear to have already been broken?”
“They may have been bent slightly, but not broken. Not entirely.”
“Such a noble distinction.”
“Nonetheless, a distinction worth maintaining. A man’s sworn oath is the foundation of his honour. How much would you trust me if I paid so little heed to the difference between the bending and the breaking of vows?”
In the Shadow of Midnight Page 25
