by Jackie Ivie
It was then she knew that the overdress, while made of luscious, perfectly woven cloth, was too much material, as it hampered his efforts to reach a breast. Sybil nearly sobbed her own frustration as Vincent fumbled with the ties, pulled at the stitching, creasing the fabric in a thousand places before finally putting it between his teeth to tear an opening through the front of it. Then he had a nipple in his mouth, and she was being suckled with punishing precision—brought to the brink of ecstasy and left to dangle there.
She responded with the bucking of her hips, her torso, everything he wasn’t controlling, pushing against him with frenzied movements, but nothing worked at stopping him from lavishing attention to first one breast tip before moving to the other, making a trail of fire and sensation everywhere he touched her. He rolled then, and then he was lifting her flesh in both hands, making a conjoined mass of quivering flesh out of her nipples and sending her into fits of delight with too much sensation at one time.
Sybil melded into place, holding him completely and fully and feeling the passion that she’d only touched on two nights ago as fireworks exploded in her head until they filled the room, her vision, her entire being.
And then he lifted his head.
“Wanton. Wild. Witch.” He mouthed the words, barely giving them sound.
“Aye,” she replied. And then said his name in a plea.
“Say it again,” he commanded against the flesh of her breast tips, which were straining for what he was suddenly unwilling to give. Unless she begged him for it.
“Vincent.” She moaned the name and then said it again, in a cadence of sound not unlike the rhythm he’d made with his fipple flute. “Vincent, Vincent. Vincent.” She was crooning the name as he left her, and still saying it when she turned her head to see why.
Vincent was pulling his arms out of the doublet, ripping the piece in the process. The shirt had even less of an effect as he simply grabbed the remnants of it with both hands and ripped it completely from him, dropping the pieces of fabric at his feet. Then he stopped, held in place by the expression that had to be on her face. Sybil couldn’t help it. Her jaw dropped as the dawn light caressed and made a godlike being of him.
And then he was flushing, putting a rose tint to every exposed piece of him and making her purr with the satisfaction of witnessing such male beauty.
“Vincent.” She mouthed the name this time and pursed her lips, preparatory to blowing him a kiss.
“What have you done to me?” he asked yet again, putting both hands to his hips and shoving that portion toward where she was roaming her eyes. She couldn’t respond. He was stealing her voice. If he wanted her capable of speech, he was going to have to clothe himself, cover up bounty that any woman would be pleasured to see, touch, and receive.
“Vincent.” She mouthed the name again and lay back, putting her spine in an arch as she pulled on the underdress until it was up to her thighs, making a bunch of it at her waist. And it was still stifling her, making her skin tight, restricted, enslaved. She pulled, she twisted, she moaned, and then she was running her hands over her limbs again and again, making sparks of sensation everywhere she touched. And then she was swaying back and forth, pulling the shift higher, gaining the cool air on her nakedness and splicing her legs in order to slide her fingers along her belly, down her thighs, and toward the very essence of her womanhood…where he’d driven her insane with anticipation and desire. And then she was touching herself, lifting her hips and cooing and molding her fingers…
She watched with barely opened eyes as Vincent leaped the distance between them, slamming himself into the space atop her while reaching down between them in order to guide himself into where she was hungry and moist and frantic. And making everything spin and warp and change.
Sybil screamed, and Vincent responded with a push until his loins fully matched hers. Then he flinched.
The scream wasn’t enough of a release. Sybil knew it as the sound faded and was replaced by a sob. Throughout it, Vincent didn’t move. He held himself in a slant of provocation, waiting for her to finish and respond. While the only thing that mattered in her world was enshrouded between her legs, slightly twitching and making her beg.
“Vincent, please…?” she whispered.
It was then that he moved, a long, slow movement, pulling himself out to the brink before shoving back to the hilt. And again. Again. Deeper. Stronger. Keeping to a beat only he heard as he filled her. Over and over, deeper and deeper, and then he was sitting in order to move her feet to a position at his shoulders, bending her knees and forcing her to support him so he could get even deeper, harder, thicker, stronger….
Sybil screamed until her voice cracked…and still she screamed, although all that came out were whispers of sound—full of joy, ecstasy, and rapture. And still he continued pounding into her, dominating her, damning her…loving her. Taking her to the brink of wonder and rapture before toppling her over. And always being there to catch her when she finished, gulping for whatever breath was possible to catch.
And then starting it up again. And all the time he was asking what she’d done to him to make it so. Over and over, and over. Again. She knew the answer, but she wasn’t willing to speak on it. Yet.
It was too great a weapon to give him.
Vincent went into a bend of posture, burying himself completely within her and lifting her at the same time to create a circle shape. Pulse after pulse shuddered through his frame, moving her with each of them as he made deep guttural sounds in accompaniment. Sybil reached out and touched, filling her palms with his cheeks and watching the expression of complete fulfillment that suffused and controlled every bit of him. And then he opened his eyes.
Wonder filled his eyes as they met hers, canceling out every ill, every experience, and every pain. Sybil felt the stab of tears, but this time they were impossible to send back. It was too beautiful. And then it was over.
Vincent fell onto her clumsily, his body still twitching as he made her entire existence one of weight and heft, sweat and smell. Sybil kept her arms wrapped about him and gloried in every hard-won breath as her heart seemed to swell until it pained her with the size and weight of its pounding.
He kept asking what she’d done, but it should have been obvious. She loved him. That’s what she’d done to him.
Vincent woke from a prone position on his back. Then he was on his feet and in a crouch before anything else on him was awake. Such was the way he woke when he’d overimbibed or lost a fight or consciousness. The mattress he knelt next to wasn’t much help, as was the lack of company. Nor was any in sight. Vincent sent his gaze about the room that was cluttered with large cabinets and took in the darkness that was everywhere evident. His gaze flitted to the window, where twilight evidenced the depth of his slumber and the scope of time he’d been unconscious. He scanned the room, looking for any evidence of the enchantress. He put a hand to where his manhood should be and heaved a great sigh of relief.
Then the chamber door opened.
Vincent had the remnants of her bedding wrapped about his waist as Sybil entered, putting a finger to her lips in warning. Vincent raised his brows and tried to keep the flush at bay as he watched her lips quirk at his modesty.
“They’re stirring,” she informed him finally.
“Who?” he asked.
“Sir Ian and his guards. I’ve given orders to dose them again. I dinna’ ken if it will work or na’.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I dinna’ have much knowledge of size, bulk, and effect.”
“Why na?” he asked.
It was her turn to rosy up a shade. Vincent sucked in on his cheeks and waited.
“I’m na’ one for spells and such…as a normal course,” she replied.
“Yet you do it now?”
“If it’s earned, aye.”
“What of the other?” he asked.
“What other?”
She looked innocent of his meaning. He had to counsel
himself not to believe her. “The times when it is na’ earned,” he replied finally without inflection.
“You speak riddles, and there’s nae time. Here.” She pitched a length of cloth across to him.
Vincent caught it with one hand while the other made certain to hold the bedding about him. He shook out the material she’d tossed and found his own sett, repaired and freshly laundered. She appeared to be a good seamstress, and she knew her way about a laundry tub. All good things to find in a wife. His lips twisted.
“My shirt?” he asked.
“You need to hurry,” she whispered.
“Turn around,” he replied. It was instinctive, and it was completely foreign. He knew the flush was spreading to encompass his bared belly.
She giggled, and that was too much feminine amusement for one man to stand. She also didn’t turn around rapidly enough to suit him. So Vincent turned his back to her, ignored the embarrassment that was still happening to him to wrap the feile-brecan about himself, finishing off with the belt about his hips. She hadn’t answered his question about his shirt, but he might have done too much damage to it. That left wool embracing the bare skin of his chest and shoulder and haunches, as well as where it was secured against his hips. He told himself he’d just have to tolerate the itch. He’d been in worse conditions. Many times.
He turned back to the enchantress.
“You’ll need to leave. Now,” she said.
Vincent crossed his arms about his chest and lowered his jaw. “I am na’ leaving anywhere without you,” he replied.
The lass put a hand to her mouth to keep him from seeing the extent of her giggling, but she didn’t prevent him from hearing it.
“Now what?” he asked.
“You…dinna’…wish to wed with me,” she managed to whisper.
“That does na’ enter into it. We’re wed. You’re coming with me.”
“Now?” she asked.
“Are you na’ the one preaching haste?” he countered.
“You truly wish me to accompany you?”
He nodded. He didn’t say what was on the tip of his tongue; that she’d forced the issue with her spell.
“Why?”
She was breathless-sounding and shy, and that was just wrong. And odd. And strange. And making a tingle filter through his gut, wrap about his innards, and wend upward…and down. Vincent gulped. He knew what it was. Already. Her spell.
He had to force the emotion away before it became an unstoppable force again and had her in his arms and beneath him and impaled by him. Over and over, while her lips screamed of her release, which was making him more desirous for just such a thing. Her power was vast. Enormous. His groin was stirring even with the amount of muscle he was clenching to prevent the tingle from moving there. Vincent kept the groan inside, but just barely.
“Well?” She asked it, and then she made that little giggle again. Vincent knew he flushed. There was no stopping it.
“Gather your things. We leave. It’s na’ open for words.” He was approaching her and fighting to keep his body from controlling his mind again. He was speaking in a belligerent fashion, which was the best he could manage when it felt like he was being snickered at for a feral passion he couldn’t control. Which was her fault. Then he was at her side, breathing heavily down on her, and wondering why she smelled so sweet, looked so ethereal and innocent, and shaded everything with a rose color that had nothing to do with rage.
And everything to do with lust.
“And if I say nae?” she asked.
Her breath was caressive—sweet, warm, and feminine. Soft. Lush. Enchanting. Everything about her was. Vincent stood above her, narrowed his eyes to make it harder to see the full scope of woman she’d been keeping hidden, and tried to modulate his breathing into small spaces of air that wouldn’t have as much of a sensory assault on him. And failed.
She knew it, too. He could tell by the way she tilted her head ever so slightly, sending the sensation of her breath to another portion of the chest she’d failed to bring him a shirt to protect, as well as the slight quiver of her lips as if they trembled with a withheld smile. Or worse—with the desire for his kiss.
“Will you force it?”
He didn’t actually hear her asking it, since his heart was pounding enough it was easy to spot if she glanced at his bared belly. The rush of sound each pulse made was hampering his hearing ability, until all he really heard was each breath. He didn’t dare touch her. She should know that much. It was by her own spell he was suffering as he was. Vincent gave up the little bits of air he’d been taking and sucked in huge gusts of sweet-smelling air infused with her scent, and that just made it worse. He stood, trembling with it. He didn’t even dare open his mouth.
“You…wish that…again?” she asked.
At least, that’s what he thought her lips were moving enough to say. It could have been anything, and he’d still have heard that. He nodded. Took a step closer, in such near proximity to her sweet flesh, that the rush of shivers that accompanied it was impossible to miss. As was the size and strength of his arousal that was touching. Vincent swiveled his hips slightly, rubbing the tip across what should have been her luscious, warm, soft flesh, and instead was the irritation of wool. And still it was erotic and irresistible.
“We dinna’…have…time.” Her mouth may have been saying it, but the way she’d slanted her head and licked her lips and panted through the words were meaning anything but. The roar of sound in his ears grew until it obliterated everything but the sound of each breath.
Including the moan she made as he gave into what his body was demanding, reached for her arms to haul her up against him, and take what he could of her mouth with his.
Chapter Seventeen
Vincent wasn’t coming near her. He wasn’t speaking to her. From what she could tell, he wasn’t even looking her way. Sybil slanted her glance at where he sat astride his horse more times than she wanted to admit as she puzzled it. He was acting for all the world like she’d done something to incur his displeasure, but she couldn’t fathom what it could be.
She’d clung to him for the entire time he’d driven her wild with throes of feeling that shuddered and vibrated through her entire frame again and again. She’d matched every thrust of his with one of her own, until he’d collapsed in a sweat-soaked mass atop her, pulsing and groaning and quivering and making her heart feel like it was doing the exact same things. And then he’d moved from her and hadn’t looked at her again. Not once.
Sybil slapped the reins against her horse’s back, for no other reason than to remind Vincent that she was still there. It didn’t seem to work. Vincent didn’t change his stance. He still faced forward, without a glance toward the horse that was hitched to her wagon, even to check that it was still there. Nor did he look the other way toward Waif, who was loping along at Vincent’s other side.
It wasn’t yet dawn, and they’d traveled through the night. Without a word. That was probably an odd state for him. He didn’t seem the silent type. He had such a glib tongue, he was most likely noted for it. It was far different from Sybil. She was used to going in silence and being ignored. Which was part of the puzzle now. Vincent’s attitude shouldn’t make emotion prick at her eyelids like it did.
He hadn’t said anything after he’d finished sending her to heaven last night—when they should have been traveling instead. He’d turned his head away from her as he’d disentangled himself from her arms and the remnants of her clothing and then strode for the door. Sybil had yet to catch her breath, but she’d hurried after him anyway, tying the front of her bliaut back together as she went. The shift hadn’t proved much of an impediment for him. This husband of hers didn’t seem to much care what he ripped, or how many stitches it would take to repair it. He simply knew what he wanted and went for it. That wasn’t going to bode well for the household she had to create and maintain for him. It was stupid of him, but he didn’t seem to care. Poor lairds couldn’t afford to destroy
what clothing they owned. She knew that from years of penury before Kendran wed with the Donal and brought so much gold that the coffers couldn’t contain it.
Vincent hadn’t looked to see that she was trailing him as he reached the loch and then broke into a run so he could arc in a perfect dive into the water, still wearing the plaide she’d repaired, washed, and then laboriously waved dry for him. Nor had he looked her way when he’d walked back out and then passed by her to go to the stables.
He hadn’t even looked her way when he’d been informed that the wagon was part of his new entourage, although it should have annoyed him. She’d been gearing toward the battle, but he’d said nothing. She’d never before had that experience. Always before if Sybil prepared for a challenge, that was exactly what she received. To get her way without even a whiff of argument was different enough to put her off-kilter more than she already was.
The morning sun was just peeking through the shadow of cloud, tinting everything a warm pink color and making her trill with the shivers at how beautiful it was. Sybil spent some time watching it and breathing deeply and just experiencing a new dawn, a new day…a new life. Since the light was coming across the barren plain that was the outskirt of Eschon property, it was especially vivid. Sybil looked toward her new husband and sighed heavily, taking her time to exhale. This new husband of hers was quite a man. She watched as he flinched so slightly that if she hadn’t been concentrating on his shoulder, she wouldn’t have seen it. Which was even more odd.
“Will we stop to break the fast?” she asked his back.
He shook his head, making the trailing ends of his blond hair brush at his shoulders and catch slightly at the material he had strapped across one shoulder and held in place with a brooch. The bare shoulder didn’t have that problem. His long mane of hair slid across the brawn he exhibited, showing the hard-muscled tone. It also revealed several long scratches atop his scars. She noted it and blushed. They looked the type brought on by a woman’s fingernails. Then her eyes sharpened. Some of them didn’t appear fresh.
