Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (22 page)

She defiantly released the coverlet and lifted her gaze.  He smiled and sauntered toward her, brushing her cheek with the back of his finger.  She flinched.

“You fear my touch.”  He bent forward until he was near enough to whisper in her ear.  “And you’re absolutely dreading my kiss this eve.”  He nuzzled her hair.  “Aren’t you?”

She answered with an uncertain, “Nay.”

“Shivering in your bones.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she insisted, her voice growing stronger.

“Then prove it.”

Deirdre sensed she was being manipulated, but she couldn’t quite figure out how.  Her emotions and reason, anger and desire, logic and longing, whirled about her like battling currents, pulling her this way and that as she fought to keep her head above the engulfing waves.

She knew she should, as Pagan maintained, choose her battles wisely.  This was one from which she should definitely walk away.  But he’d issued a challenge she couldn’t resist.  Her courage had been called into question.  Her pride had been insulted.  She must answer his charges.

Before caution could squelch instinct, before her conscience could make of her a coward, she pushed him away and blurted out, “Do your worst then.  Touch me anywhere.  Kiss me anywhere.  I don’t care.  I am
not
afraid of you.”

On some level, she realized what her bravado invited, what her words inferred.  But she was no halfwit.  While surrender might be delayed, she recognized it was inevitable.  One day she
would
have to submit to Pagan.  She was, after all, his wife, and it was her duty to make heirs for Rivenloch.

At this moment, however, she was in control of that surrender.  This was
her
challenge,
her
charge.  He might vanquish her this night, aye, and inflict upon her that most demeaning of acts, but by God, it would be at her own bidding.

“Is that your will then?” he asked.

She hesitated, then leveled her gaze at him.  “Aye.”

To her wonder, Pagan’s eyes gentled as he returned her gaze, and though his lip curved up, it wasn’t in the cocky grin she expected.  Instead, his smile seemed one of almost...relief.

Perhaps, she imagined, it wouldn’t be so terrible.  Perhaps she could retain some dignity in the face of this degradation.

Pagan loosened the tie of his robe and let it slip from his shoulders, leaving his splendid body bare.  He was unquestionably aroused now, she noted.  His cock jutted from its dark nest like a dagger, waiting...

Waiting to stab her.

She swallowed down her foolish trepidation.  Let him come.  It wasn’t in her nature to abstain from battle for fear of a wound.  She braced herself for his attack.

But to her surprise, he didn’t reach out to violently strip the linen from her.  He didn’t smother her with kisses.  He didn't dive forward to flatten her upon the pallet.  There was no pawing or groping or clutching.  Instead, he stepped near and sat calmly beside her on the bed as an equal, so close she felt the heat coming off of his skin.

“I
know
why you fear me,” he murmured.

“I don’t fe-“

”You fear me because you think I’m your enemy.”

He was half right.  She
did
still consider him a foreigner, an invader, a threat.

“You know the first rule of warfare, don’t you?” he asked.  When she didn’t reply, he gave her the answer.  “Know your enemy.”

With that revelation, he stretched out upon the pallet, flat on his back.  Then he spread his arms wide, palms up, in a gesture of absolute surrender.

“Come,” he bid her.  “Know your enemy.”

Deirdre gulped.  She would have preferred to crawl under the coverlet.  Still, she realized the value of Pagan’s offering.  Aye, she’d already implied consent to lie with him, but now it was clear it would be on her terms.  She needn’t feel subjugated or shamed, for he’d let her come to him of her own volition.  She would be in control.  It was a precious gift he offered.

However, that knowledge wouldn’t make the task any easier.  When it came to swiving, she was as ignorant as a novice knight putting on chain mail for the first time.

She bolstered herself with a deep breath, then twisted where she sat to look down at him, considering how to begin.

Her gaze lit upon his left hand, to the long scar bisecting his palm.  She wondered how he’d gotten it.  With trembling fingers, she reached out to trace the mark.

“Used my hand as a shield when I was ten and six,” he softly volunteered.

She winced at the thought, then followed the scar to another further along the inside of his forearm.  She looked at him in question.

“Slip of the knife, cutting captives free.”  Then he added meaningfully, “
Scots
captives.”

Next she turned her attention to a jagged white line high above his left breast.  She brushed it with a fingertip.

“My first melee,” he said.

She smiled in memory.  Lifting the hair off her neck, she showed him the nick from her father’s sword.  “
My
first melee.”

Their eyes met.  He grinned, and Deirdre felt a sudden and curious kinship with him.  Every scar had a story, and theirs weren’t so different.  Indeed, with each passing moment, Pagan seemed less Norman and more fellow warrior, less enemy and more husband.

Emboldened, she ran her thumb along his jaw, over the scar she’d noticed when she’d first seen him.  His chin was recently shaved, and it was smooth to the touch.  She could see the pulsing in his throat, strong and steady, beating almost as rapidly as her own.

“Almost lost my head in battle,” he confided.

She gasped.

He smiled.  “‘Twas Colin who saved me.”

High on his brow, near the hairline, was another faint mark in the shape of a triangle.

“And this one?” she prompted.

“A jealous falcon.”

She glanced into his eyes.  They shimmered with humor.

“He didn’t like me kissing his lady falconer.”

Jealousy pricked Deirdre for an instant as she envisioned Pagan kissing another woman.  But she shrugged it off, letting her gaze wander to his right shoulder.  She ran her fingers over the flesh there.  It was unblemished.  Then, as she traced down to the underside of his arm, toward his elbow, he twitched.

She frowned at him and stroked again.

“Ah!” he gasped, flinching.

“Does that hurt?” she asked in concern, sliding her fingers along his flesh again with less pressure.

“Cease, wench!”  His arm slammed down, trapping her hand against his ribs.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She narrowed her eyes.  He was lying.  She repeated, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I said.  Just don’t—“

“Are you wounded?”

“Nay.”

“Deformed?”

“Nay!”

“Crippled?”

“Nay, nothing!”

She moved her squeezed fingers gently between his arm and chest, searching along his ribs for a flaw.  “Have you—“

”Nay, you prying wench!”  He clenched his arm even tighter.

“Then what—“

“That tickles, damn you!”

Even the fire on the hearth silenced at his revelation.  Deirdre blinked in astonishment.

“Are you content now?” he grumbled, his brow furrowed in irritation, his swarthy cheeks actually pink with shame.  “I’m...ticklish.”

For a moment she didn’t know what to say.  Then a smile tugged at her lips, and a devil whispered in her ear.  She wiggled her trapped fingers.

“Ah!” he cried.  “Stop!”

Naturally, his pleas only inspired her to further mischief.

“God’s hooks, I cannot seem to get my hand free,” she lied, wriggling her fingers even more enthusiastically between his ribs.

“Bloody wench!” he growled, even as laughter spilled from his mouth.

Highly entertained by his helplessness, Deirdre moved to kneel above him and began to use both hands, tickling him with even more zeal.  She fluttered her fingers along his twitching belly, the inside bend of his elbows, the hollows of his hips as he made ineffectual grabs for her mischievous hands.

“I think I’ve found my enemy’s weakness,” she crowed as his giggles and curses warmed the air.

Exactly when the linen wrap slipped away, she didn’t know.  She was too preoccupied with her fortuitous discovery to notice.  But her advantage didn't last long.  After several moments of tormenting her captive, he finally found purchase.  Seizing her wrists, he used his weight to bowl her over, and when he rose in triumph above her, pinning her naughty hands to the bed, their bodies met, skin to skin.

Deirdre scarcely noticed at first.  Loving nothing as well as a good fight, she grinned.  Breathless, he, too, laughed down at her, his teeth gleaming, his eyes bright with emerald mirth.  Lord, he was comely, as wickedly beautiful as a fallen angel.  She wondered how his laughter would feel, spilling into her mouth.

As they stared at one another, their breath coming rapidly and their hearts hammering in counterpoint, the humor of the moment gradually faded.  Pagan’s gaze drifted over her features as if seeing them for the first time, and his smile softened as he eased his grip on her wrists.

She felt his tender regard like an ice-encrusted pine must feel the summer sun.  But Pagan’s eyes did more than thaw her.  She grew hot, simmering, beneath his stare, and now she became aware of the dearth of cloth between them.  His flesh burned against hers like a broadaxe still warm from the forge.  His weight fit her as comfortably as a well-made coat of chain mail.  And pulsing low on her belly, like an uninvited invader, his cock seemed to pound at the gates of her innermost keep.

Yet she was not afraid.  Indeed, her body thrummed the way it did when she was about to spar with an unknown fighter, with anticipation and excitement.

“Ah, wife,” Pagan breathed, “may I take my kiss now?”

She wanted nothing more.  “If you wish.”

She closed her eyes, expecting to feel his mouth upon hers.  Instead, he slid slowly down her body, his flesh smoothing hers the way a hot stone smoothed cloth.  Maybe, she thought hazily, he’d kiss her throat, where her pulse surged in her veins.  But nay, he slipped further, taking her Thor’s hammer between his teeth and moving it aside.  Perhaps he’d kiss her breast again.  She drew in a cool breath, anticipating the exquisite sensation.  But he didn’t stop there.  His hair tickled her belly as he moved lower still.

His hands yet encompassed her wrists, so the instant she realized his destination and gasped in mortified panic, he tightened his grasp to still her ensuing struggles.

“Nay!” she hissed as his breath stirred the delicate curls guarding her womb.

“Hush, my lady,” he whispered.  “‘Tis the place of my choosing.”

Deirdre felt her face go hot.  Oh God, surely he couldn’t mean to kiss her...there.  She twisted her wrists in his grip.

“You’ve promised me this,” he murmured, the heat of his breath seeming to sear her, “of your own free will.”

She shivered.  It was true.  She’d said it herself.  Touch me anywhere.  Kiss me anywhere.  But she’d never imagined he might do it.

And now she must comply.  It was a matter of honor.  As difficult as it was, she fought her nature, forcing her body to yield.  She relaxed her arms and ceased fighting him.  Stifling a moan of frustration and horror, she shut her eyes tight and waited.

When he released her hands, her fists immediately clutched at the coverlet beneath her.  His palms slid along her waist and settled upon the bones of her hips, stroking her with gentle assurance.  His thumbs grazed the place low on her belly where the hair began, edging nearer and nearer her most secret spot.  To her amazement, her body began to quiver with anticipation, to swell with need, as if it somehow wanted this.  The suspense was excruciating.

His hands glided lower.  A sob caught in her throat as his thumbs tenderly parted the petals betwixt her thighs, forcing them to blossom, leaving her distressfully exposed.

And then his mouth closed with searing heat over her flesh.  She'd felt his touch here before, the warm slip of his wet fingertips.  But this...

Sparks of radiant fire shot through her body, incinerating any thought of vulgarity or guilt or disgrace.  It was beyond shame and care and even thought, this glorious sensation, and it robbed her of the last shred of her resistance.  The moist pressure of his lips, the molten ecstasy of his tongue, drove her to such mindless madness that she couldn’t help but cry out and arch up to eagerly receive his kiss.

She’d thought that was heaven enough.  But when he began to bathe her, lapping and circling and suckling in a rhythm of primitive hunger, her body jerked to life as if struck by lightning.  Though the music was unfamiliar to her, yet she answered his cadence, rocking, twisting, sobbing with yearning.  It was as if the world danced on that one sweet point called desire.

Higher and higher her passion wound, like the tightening spring of a crossbow, until at last she could rise no higher.  Yet, impossibly, a part of her
did
rise.  Some piece of her soul soared, transcending the worldly realm to send her shuddering across the sky like a spent arrow shot at the sun.

Crying out in the throes of bliss and awe, she bowed upwards, and in that instant of beatific turmoil, Pagan moved swiftly to join with her.  There was a brief, sharp sting, no worse than the shallow graze of a dagger, and then an incredible fullness as he plunged within.  So deeply did he impale her, she feared at first he dealt her a mortal blow.  Yet the pain vanished as quickly as it came, and she was left with only a strange sense of invasion and possession as he abided within her womb, waiting for her tremors to subside.

Pagan shivered above her, letting the waves of her climax flow over him, delaying his own satisfaction until she fully accepted his intrusion.  Sweet Saints, it was nigh impossible, for he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman.

God, she was beautiful.  She’d surrendered to him, aye, but there was still the look of a conqueror about her.  Her skin was slick with clean sweat, her brow creased with exertion, and the pure womanly strength with which she’d answered his seduction had nearly made him crest before his time.

At last she calmed, though her breath still came in half-gasps, half-moans that gave voice to his own silent longings.

He wished to take his time with her.  He wished to make love to her slowly, patiently, the way she deserved.  But the nights of unrequited lust would not allow such leisure.  He’d be gentle with her, aye, but his need was great.  And imminent.  He wouldn’t last long.  Not with the way her womb enveloped him.  And not with the way her eyes fluttered open at that moment, revealing in their indigo depths both satisfaction and desire.

Trying to keep the intensity of his craving contained, he held himself up on his elbows and cupped the sides of her head, stroking her velvety cheek with his thumb.

“I didn’t wish to hurt you,” he whispered.

Her eyes glittered, not with tears, but with courage.

“The pain will pass,” he said, “I vow.”

His gaze fell upon her irresistible mouth, so full, so pink, and he lowered his head to taste her.  Her lips were warm and soft and accepting.  Gradually she answered his kiss and initiated her own, tilting her head and lapping timidly at his mouth.  He wondered if she liked the salty-sweet taste of her sex upon him.

Slowly, carefully, he withdrew from her, tensing his jaw against the exquisite friction, then pressed inside again.  She gasped in wonder, echoing his awe.  It was wholly divine, the way her body embraced him.  He retreated briefly, then plunged forward once more.

This time she groaned, a low sound of pleasure that drove him to new heights of passion.  Unable to resist the natural rhythm of desire, he eased back and advanced more urgently now, savoring her sultry moans almost as much as the sheer euphoria of her flesh caressing his.

His blood pumped too fast.  His lust rose too quickly.  Too soon he felt his loins tighten, eager to spill their seed.  And then, by some miracle, Deirdre was gasping in tandem, catching up with him on her own steed of desire.  When she threw her legs about him, squeezing his buttocks in ardent demand, her body lurching with release, it was his utter undoing.

Like a pinecone exploding upon the fire, his body seemed to burst into a hundred bright sparks.  The heat was excruciating, unbearable.  Yet he craved its purifying fire.  Where they joined, it felt they fused.  Every spasm of ecstasy they shared, like two riders on one beast.  He cried out in joy and terror, for never had he joined so completely with another.  His loins reveled at the sweet relief, aye, but his rapture ran far deeper.

Deirdre was his.  At last.  He’d fought hard for her and won.  She trembled beneath him like a conquered rival fallen to the earth, breathless, beaten, subdued.

And yet his triumph was a two-edged sword.  Even as he loomed over her in victory, shuddering with the vestiges of passion, he became ruefully aware that his beautiful warrior, his magnificent bride, now possessed him as well.

The first fiery spear of sunlight pierced the misty morn, igniting the needles of pine and fir, and lodging in the moss-mottled wall of the stable.

Deirdre took note of the dawn, absently sweeping her sword through the air, then returned to her restless pacing before the tiltyard gate.

He was late.

It was bad enough that she felt uneasy about addressing Pagan today after the unsettling intimacies they’d shared last night.  But for him to delay that confrontation made her even more anxious and led her to dangerous introspection.

What if their relationship had changed?

She swung her sword along the ground, decapitating a dandelion.

What if he deemed her surrender in bed proof of his dominance?

She bit her lip.

What if he faced her today with the smug condescension of a conquering foe?

She wheeled about so violently that she stumbled over her own feet, catching herself against the gate.  She immediately pushed off in irritation, glancing furtively about for witnesses.

What troubled her most, what quickened her pulse and made her fists work like a maid’s at milking, was the realization that their relationship
had
indeed changed, but in ways she’d never foreseen.  As incredible as it seemed, when she’d awakened this morn to the wreckage of their tryst—the cool bath, the lumps of melted candle wax, the rumpled bedlinens—the rush of memory that washed over her had been anything but regrettable.

Indeed, those recollections had been most pleasurable as she gazed upon Pagan, slumbering in deceptive innocence beside her.  Her heart fluttering, she’d feasted on the sight of his tousled hair, his sensual mouth, his stubbled jaw, his open hand.  Her bare thigh had brushed his and, like metal upon flint, sparked a tingling heat that swept through her whole body quicker than wildfire.  Aye, she knew her enemy now, thoroughly.  Knew him...and desired him.

It was an awful coil, one that left her recklessly vulnerable.  For Pagan knew her weakness now.  It was
him
.  And if he realized how easily she could be vanquished, how readily she could be controlled...

She let out a shuddering sigh.  She mustn't let him find out.  She must appear to be unaffected by what had transpired last night.  She must act as if they’d never kissed or touched or, God help her, shared their bodies.

She sliced a sunbeam in half with her blade, spun, and lunged a few times, trying to focus on anything but the magnificent Norman who’d kissed her so sinfully and filled her with his seed.  And his power.  And his love.  Whisked her to heaven in his arms...

“You’re early.”

Deirdre gasped, nearly tripping over her sword.  There stood the man himself, dressed in a blue surcoat and braies, handsome and golden, as resplendent as the dawn.  By the Rood, her memory hadn’t done him justice.  Had she truly surrendered to this Adonis last night?  Had she lain, mouth to mouth, breast to chest, flesh to naked flesh, with that splendid body?

Feeling the blood rush to her face, she forced her gaze away, examining the hilt of her blade as if she’d never seen it before.  “You’re late,” she managed to choke out.

He chuckled softly, a sound that curled seductively around her ears.  “I indulged in a very potent sleeping draught last night.”