Rexanne Becnel (42 page)

“I love you, Joanna,” He whispered between a blazing trail of kisses. “I love your eyes.” He kissed each lid tenderly. “Your skin.” He nibbled along her cheek. “Your ears.” Here he used his tongue to trace the intricate curves in a most erotic fashion.

“And your lips,” he finally whispered as he met her own seeking kisses.

Such a hard man, yet with such soft, sensuous lips, Joanna thought as she succumbed to his questing kisses. “I love your mouth as well,” she managed to answer as he traced a searing pattern along her sensitive lower lip. “And other places too.” She let her hands move down from his neck along his back. She felt him shiver in anticipation, and she smiled against his mouth.

“I love when you touch me,” he breathed huskily as one of her hands slid lightly along his spine.

Joanna opened her eyes to meet his impassioned gaze. “Where? Where would you have me touch you? Here?” She moved both her hands down along the muscled ridges of his back to where his waist became lean. In response he slanted his mouth ferociously across hers, thrusting his tongue deep inside and rubbing her inner lips and tongue until she was in flames. Her fingers dug into his flesh and she was breathless when he broke the kiss.

Yet the success of her foray made her even more bold. “Or is it better if I touch you here?” she whispered as her palms moved lower to his hard-muscled buttocks.

She was answered by the urgent press of his loins against hers. The heavy length of his arousal burned against the naked skin of her belly as he ground against her in a desperate rhythm. Beneath her hands she felt the bunching of his muscles. Without thinking she rose in automatic response.

“Christ and bedamned,” he muttered hoarsely. “You play with fire, my beautiful little dove. And you shall surely be burned.” Then with a sudden motion he caught both her hands in his and pulled them above her head. “Now we shall see who burns whom.” He held both her wrists captive in one of his hands. With his other he smoothed the hair away from her face, all the while staring deeply into her eyes.

“I would burn my mark into you,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice. “Brand your heart so that there is no mistaking who it belongs to.”

“You have already done that.” Fresh tears glistened in her clear green eyes.

“Have I?” He shook his head as if he could not believe it. “But I did everything wrong with you. I blundered from the first. Underestimating you. Not understanding.”

Joanna stared up into his troubled face and felt an overwhelming rush of love for him. She freed one of her hands and tenderly cupped his lean cheek. “As long as you love me—” She broke off as emotions formed a lump in her throat, then blinked back her tears. She began again. “As long as you love me, nothing else can matter.”

He turned his head and planted a kiss on the palm of her hand. Then he met her eyes with a serious look. “I made you come here, knowing how you hated this place.”

“That’s past now. I …” Joanna searched her heart, wanting to be sure. She was hardly able to believe it possible after all this time. “I don’t hate it anymore,” she admitted in a wondering voice. Then she laughed, feeling truly free for the first time in many years. “This place—any place—is defined by those who reside within. If my love lives here at Oxwich, then I must love Oxwich as well.”

Her heart shone clearly in her eyes as she stared up at her beloved husband. “If you are here, Rylan, then I would rather be here than anyplace else on earth.”

There were no words after that, only the soft sighs and quick gasps of their passionate embrace. He captured her lips with a violence that would have frightened her but for the force of her response to it. His tongue thrust deeply within her mouth, rough and possessive, crushing her to the bed.

But Joanna reveled in the frantic passion that erupted between them. Her legs parted to allow one of his rigid thighs to slide between them and press urgently against the hot core of her. She was excited beyond belief. Drowning in desire. Sinking into the sultry sweetness.

When he finally tore his mouth from hers, she clutched at him frantically. But he slid determinedly down along her sweat-slicked body, letting his coarse body hairs further inflame her sensitized flesh. She held on to his arms, feeling the muscles tense as he slid lower still.

At her breasts he paused, cupping each of them in one of his callused hands so that her nipples stood stiff and pointed, aroused in small hard nubs. Then he licked each one, slowly, torturously. She arched off the bed in unthinking response, demanding that he take them fully into his mouth. But he only smiled at this sign of her arousal. He blew on each nipple, then smiled wider when they puckered still tighter.

“You would never have made a nun,” he murmured, meeting her impassioned gaze. “I knew it from the first.” He bent to kiss her nipples, tugging lightly on each proud peak until Joanna was panting in desperate need. “I was right, was I not?”

Joanna licked her dry lips and pushed her hips higher, trying to find some relief by rubbing against him.

“Answer me, my sweet, biddable wife. I was right about you, wasn’t I?”

Joanna swallowed hard, barely able to think, let alone answer him with any degree of coherency. “Yes, yes. Oh, Rylan, please …”

“Say it for me, love. I would have the words from your own lips.”

“You were right,” she said with a gasp. Then she slid one of her hands down to his flat male nipples and rubbed the damp skin there. At his quick intake of breath she opened her eyes. “You were right. I would have been a very bad nun.” She groaned as he flicked his thumbs across the tips of her nipples. “You were right and you may … you may remind me of it … any time you like …”

With a groan of his own he lowered his mouth to the two breasts he held before him. First one, then the other did he kiss and fondle, sucking hard then teasing with fleeting passes of his tongue.

Joanna cried out, almost as one in pain might. But it was not pain she felt gripping her entire being. Far from it. He sucked her demanding nipples until they were wet, then pulled away to watch her face. Joanna was caught in the throes of the most exquisite of agonies. Between each of his thumbs and forefingers he kneaded one of her nipples as she writhed beneath him.

“Come into me,” she pleaded as her head tossed wildly about. Her legs wrapped about his waist and she pressed urgently up against him. “Dear God, Rylan, now. Now!”

“’Tis not for the husband to bend to his wife’s demands,” he answered her through his own heaving breaths. “Nay, ’tis for me to demand and you to respond.” Again he lowered his head to kiss and suck each of her burning breasts. “And I shall be very demanding of you, wife. Ahh, damn—” He broke off as his control began to slip.

With a harsh groan he slid down, pressing fervent kisses along her ribs, into her navel, then lower against the heated flesh of her belly. Joanna’s hand roamed restlessly over his damp shoulders, up his neck, and into his hair as his mouth burned a fiery trail to the vee between her legs.

When he spread her legs she moaned in helpless anticipation, trembling against the passion that held her now in its thrall. Then his lips found the aching source of all her torment, and she nearly swooned in response.

“No, no.” She groaned, afraid and expectant all at one time. Then she dug her heels into the bed as the fine threads of her control began to unravel. “Ohh, Rylan. …”

In a violent rush it came, that mindless ecstasy she remembered. Like a terrible, wonderful storm washing over her. Like the German Sea overtaking a little island.

At her sudden tensing and outcry he swiftly moved that most intimate of kisses lower still, filling her as she longed to be filled, and prolonging the sweet agony of her fulfillment.

When the tremors finally subsided—when she was limp and collapsed into the feather mattress in a near faint—Rylan rose above her. Though weak from the effects of his lovemaking, Joanna lifted her eyelids to view the magnificent sight he presented. His powerfully muscled body gleamed bronze with a sheen of sweat on it. Wide shoulders, broad chest that narrowed to a lean flat waist. Then rising proudly from a dark nest of curls, his stiff arousal commanded her attention.

This was her husband, she thought as a shiver of pride and anticipation went through her. He had taken her for his wife when another had been promised to him. But he had wanted her. Only now could she admit how much she had wanted him. She still did.

A smile curved Joanna’s lips and love seemed to surge through her until she was fair to bursting with it. “Come to me, my love.” She lifted her arms invitingly and met his avid eyes with her own intense gaze. “I love you.”

But it was more even than love, she knew as he moved over her. Her hands slid up along his arms. Their lips met in a kiss of unspeakable sweetness. Regret and hope, longing and love, and even more were there in that kiss. As he came into her, filling her completely with his love and his promise for their future, Joanna drew him down, deeper and closer than ever before, down into her heart to stay forever. He began to move in slow yet stirring strokes, building them both up to that perfect harmony of the body, heart, and soul. Joanna met him stroke for stroke, rising to him in glorious abandon. She drew his face down to meet her kiss once more.

His tongue came out to trace the curve of her parted lips. “There is something incredibly exciting about kissing you when you are smiling, my sweet.”

A bubble of laughter—pure unadulterated joy—burst from her lips, then she moaned in pleasure when he stroked her in a particularly enticing manner.

“’Tis happiness that is so exciting,” she answered breathlessly, circling his lips with the tip of her tongue. “Happiness and love.”

“I want to make you happy, Joanna. Now and always.” He paused, resting deep inside her.

Emotions caught in her throat at the sincerity she saw in his serious face. “You do, Rylan. More than you know.” Then she slid her hand down to the hard curve of his buttocks. “Give me all of yourself, my one true love. And I’ll give you as much back.”

She thought of a baby—his child and hers—and tears of joy filled her eyes. “I’ll give you even more.”

June
A.D.
1215

T
HE SEA WAS CALM
. Only slow rhythmic swells disturbed the gleaming surface. Puffins and kittiwakes wheeled across the bright summer sky, crying, then dipping low as they hunted in the exposed mud flats. Over all lay the heavy scent of salt and sea vegetation, the unique fragrance of the seashore at midsummer.

Joanna removed her slippers and flexed her toes, then drew her gown daringly high so that the sun fell warm upon her legs. From somewhere behind her she heard a burst of childish laughter followed by excited chatter.

“Mama! Mama!”

Joanna smiled at Adrienne’s high-pitched call. They’d been at Isle Sacré for two days, yet her youngest child still viewed everything with wide-eyed wonder. Even Graham, who was usually so serious in his role as the older brother, could not hide his own exuberance.

“Mother, where are you?” he called, then giggled at something his sister said.

“Over here, Graham. By the oak tree.”

In a trifling they were upon her, laughing and jumping with excitement. Joanna rolled to her side to smile upon her two adorable children. Graham of the dark curls and midnight-blue eyes. Adrienne who with her long flaxen hair and ethereal beauty might be a fairy child. Joanna’s eyes pricked with tears of perfect happiness, and her heart swelled to bursting with love. Then, laughing at her silly sentimental nature, she pulled herself to a sitting position.

“What
are
you two about?”

Adrienne’s eyes widened. “We found a kitten—”

“Three kittens,” Graham corrected her importantly. From within his shirt he drew out two of the tiny squirming kittens while Adrienne revealed another one in the
couvrechef
she held in her arms.

“Oh, my goodness,” Joanna exclaimed. “Bring them here. Let me see. Oh.” She took the tiny creatures one at a time and nestled them in her lap. At once the three curled up together, seeking comfort from one another.

“Can we keep them, Mama?”

“Yes, can we? Can we?” Adrienne echoed.

Joanna began to gently pet the kittens, then looked up at her children’s eager faces. “We have enough cats already at Blaecston. And even more at Oxwich.” She fought back a smile at the sight of their crestfallen expressions. “Besides, their mother cat might miss them.”

“That’s what Nurse said.” Graham frowned. Then he knelt down beside his mother. “But I don’t think we have too many cats at home.”

“I like the gray one,” Adrienne said. She stroked the gray-and-white kitten behind its ears, then laughed when it batted playfully at her fingers.

Joanna sighed wistfully. “She reminds me of Lady Minnou.”

“She does. She looks just like her,” Graham agreed.

“We’ll name her Baby Minnou,” Adrienne said as she lay down beside her mother in the sun-warmed grass.

“Why don’t you both stretch out right here and I’ll sing you a song, just like I used to sing to Lady Minnou when she was a tiny kitten.”

Lulled by the warm sun, the gentle breeze, and their mother’s soft voice, the two children were soon dozing. Joanna too might have taken a nap, but she was waiting. Rylan had been gone for three weeks. His messenger had arrived three days ago with word that King John had finally signed an agreement with his barons. The Magna Charta, it was already being called. The greatest charter of all. But the messenger’s best news had been that Rylan would be home in a few more days.

On a whim Joanna had sent another messenger back, asking Rylan to meet them at the island. She’d had a feeling since dawn that he would arrive today.

The shade of the oak crept over them and Joanna carefully extricated herself from the tumble of sleeping children and kittens. As she stared down at them, so dear and peaceful, she decided—a bit ruefully—that perhaps they
could
keep the gray-and-white kitten. Then her attention was inexplicably drawn toward the far shore.

Joanna’s heart leapt to see the dark figure of a man on horseback starting across the sandy causeway. Rylan was back! Unable to restrain herself, she hurried across the beach and on into the ankle-deep water.