The Craftsman (3 page)

Yet watching Raedwulf at supper had given her a little tingling thrill. He was a stranger to her—a rough-handed, over-grown, ill-mannered stranger with some of the most intense eyes she’d ever had pinned upon her—and tomorrow he would bed her. If he could tear himself away from the wood shed long enough.

He wouldn’t be gentle like Henry. A quiver of trepidation leapt up and down her spine, but her sex softened at the mere thought of all that brawny power driving into her. The sensation shot upward into her belly, then to her breasts where it touched her nipples and pinched them hard.

When Henry died she’d never expected to know a man again. And she’d certainly never expected to feel this level of fear and excitement at the thought of lying beneath a large, angry Saxon.

“Best get some sleep,” Joan advised gloomily, pulling down the coverlet on the bed. “After that journey and with a wedding tomorrow, you need to gather your strength, my lady. I can’t imagine how you’ll put up with that big oaf sweating and grunting all over you. Not a patch on your first husband. This one’s all muscle, no brains. A great stupid ox. You won’t get much sleep with him. I daresay he’s a filthy animal with no manners in bed either. I know, with most men, we are merely sheaths for their bloodied swords. The way he stared at you tonight, I thought he was going to eat you still living.”

Oh that did it. Now she was too hot to sleep. Already her shift was damp, sticking to her back. Even the wooden floor was warm under her feet. “I’ll come to bed shortly.”

Grumbling about her aches and pains the elderly woman climbed onto her own pallet at the foot of the bed. “Fancy the king marrying you off to a Saxon beast. I always thought you were one of his favorite wards, but this is a spiteful measure he makes you drink, to be sure. And after all you’ve been through.” The maid paused. “Not that you were right for that convent. I never agreed with that for you my lady, as you know…”

“Indeed I do, Joan. You told me so many times.”

“…But to send you here to marry that monster. What could the king be thinking?”

Emma turned from the window and smiled into the moonlit room. “I am thankful not to be stuck with my mother-in-law. Almost any home would be preferable to that one now Henry’s gone.” Constantly, since her husband’s death, Emma had been reminded by her mother-in-law that she was kept under that roof out of charity, an unwanted burden. It was almost as if the woman had to blame someone for her son’s death, so she picked on Emma as the cause. A wife who failed to give her husband any children in eight years of marriage, she was viewed by his family as a blight on their noble tree. Once Henry died she was superfluous, good only for housekeeping chores to earn her keep.

She understood their malice; all she’d given Henry was the love in her heart. And what was that worth to most people? If they’d never had it, they wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t understand how it exhausted her to give so much and then have her heart crushed, her love snatched cruelly away by disease and death.

Below in the woodshed that lantern light flickered and swayed. Was the Saxon coming out?

No. He must have moved the lantern, but the door didn’t open.

With a sigh, Emma left the window and climbed into bed. Although she didn’t think she was tired enough to fall asleep in this wretched heat, her eyelids eventually drifted shut.

* * * *

She woke with a start. A loud rumble shook the foot of the bed. What the Devil…?

Ah. It was only Joan, fast asleep and snoring. Sitting up, Emma rubbed the back of her perspiring neck, under the damp coils of long hair. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been asleep but the castle was quiet now, no footsteps echoing down the passages, no dogs barking or men shouting. The air was thick and still. She sat a while, listening to her heartbeat and Joan’s snores.

Tomorrow she would lay with a new husband. Again her restless thoughts returned to that and to the man whose body thrummed with energy, even his smallest gestures seeming significant.

She closed her eyes and pictured him naked. He was a big man, bulky and solid. She imagined his cock erect. The vision was all too clear. A surly, uncommunicative fellow, he wasn’t likely to take his time with her or be merciful in any way; Joan was right about that. A giddy fluttering began in her breast.

Would she feel guilty lying with another man after Henry? No. Surely it was time. If she’d died, leaving him behind, he would have remarried quickly to beget the children her body had denied him. It was natural. She would not blame him if the shoe was on the other foot.

But now, she would re-experience the pleasures of the flesh. Something she’d never dared hope for again and been without for so long.

That horrifying thought struck her once more: would Raedwulf stay out in his woodshed all night tomorrow too? Only this afternoon—or yesterday, as it must be by now—she might have been content to settle for a celibate marriage. For when she stepped down from the litter and greeted her new husband in the sun-filled yard, her only thought was gladness at the end of a long journey. She was then happy merely for a roof over her head and the promise of a good supper. Some point after that, however, her expectations changed. Perhaps it was the latent power in those strong shoulders and thick square hands, juxtaposed with this quiet manner. Emma had grown up amongst men who seldom kept a thought to themselves and Henry always spoke up about his needs, making certain to explain everything in detail so she understood and would not make mistakes. Henry liked his household in order, especially his wife.

But she had no idea what brewed behind Raedwulf’s stern eyes. What did he expect from her and from this marriage? Emma felt lost not knowing, not having instructions to follow.

* * * *

Wulf yawned, stretching his arms overhead. He should go to bed. It was late and tomorrow night would not be his own. He inhaled another deep lungful of fresh wood scent and smiled drowsily. There was nothing to compare to that scent. Nothing.

But it was damned hot in that workshop. He tugged his tunic over his head and wiped it across his sweat streaked chest and shoulders. It was quiet outside, even the dogs lethargic tonight as they sprawled about the cobbles, finding cooler spots. Occasionally he heard moths beat their wings at the window, drawn by the lantern light.

He lifted the chair back, studying it with a critical eye. He’d just picked up a wood file, when he changed his mind and set it down again.

It was no good. He needed release. His damnable cock demanded attention. He would have seen to it before now, but for some reason he’d delayed tonight. He supposed he was punishing himself for the wanton desire he’d suffered at supper, when that woman, Emma, innocently ate her cherries…sucked and licked at them, held them between her fine lips and then nipped each one off its stalk with a sudden sharp clench of her neat, white teeth. He shuddered. Blood filled his shaft. His sac was heavy.

Poor, addled woman. She couldn’t know the vile, lust-filled thoughts she inspired in his mind.

Well, he couldn’t go on now with his work until he’d shot his load and soothed the tension. He could hardly appease this wicked hunger by plowing into his fine wife the way his brothers once did to that whore, but if he delayed spending he might not be able to treat her like a lady the next time he saw her eat cherries. And she might have a fondness for them.

He unlaced his breeches and they dropped to his thighs. Hunched over his workbench, he grabbed hold of the miscreant, closed his eyes and began the rapid squeezing, stroking motion that would rid him of his humiliating lust.

* * * *

To say that Emma had seen a great many cocks in her day might suggest she’d been less than a lady, but in fact her brothers, when growing up together in the Languedoc region of France, were never shy about nudity. They all stripped off naked to swim in the river that ran through their father’s fiefdom and Emma was accustomed to the sight. Her first husband’s manhood, therefore, had been no shock to her on her wedding night.

But what she saw, as she peered through the window of Raedwulf’s workshop, was something else entirely. Her eyes stretched so wide they began to ache. A similar sensation took possession of her private parts, while she considered the size of the Saxon’s equipment and measured the potential. An astonished curse slipped out between her lips before she was even aware of its formation on her tongue.

His buttocks were taut, hips narrow, thighs thick and tense. The muscles in his broad shoulders flexed and stretched as if he might pop out of his skin at any moment. Her new husband’s flanks were rippled like the hard ridges left in sand when the tide went out. Slowly her gaze dripped downward, almost afraid to look at
that
again. Yet unable to look away.

She inhaled between her teeth and moisture gathered quickly between her legs where she held them clenched tight.

His fist moved speedily up and down, almost in a frenzied motion, but between each rise and fall, she saw his appendage—thick, hard, wine-red and long. So long, in fact, that at first she’d thought he was holding one of his carpentry tools. That Thing—as she chose to call it for want of any better word—stretched almost to his navel and the head was the size of a ripened plum. It could not be his cock he held. It could not…

It was his cock.

Sacre Bleu!

Oh there were his ripe balls below it. No mistaking them.

Whenever her nightshift swayed against her nipples they hardened further. It was a teasing, tantalizing caress and not much compensation for the sucking those eager peaks needed. Her breasts felt heavy, hot. She wanted to rub them over his chest, hold them to his lips. She wanted to slide that Thing between them and watch his seed spill, taste the creamy essence of desire on her tongue as it spewed out of him.

It had been so long for her. Almost three years since her first husband fell ill—since the last time he laid hands on her. All that time between she’d been forced to stifle her needs. Now a low scream built in her throat and as she choked it back, tears sprang up over her lashes.

Abruptly Raedwulf looked over at the window and saw her. His face darkened. He stopped working his shaft, but remained hunched over, one hand still clasped around the thick root. She saw his broad chest heaving for a breath. And then her hungry gaze spied the drop of liquid oozing from the crest of his manhood.

Emma reached for the latch and opened the door. As if in a dream, she stepped inside, her mind spinning, chasing excuses for spying through his window. What could she say to explain herself? She could pretend she hadn’t seen. She should probably contrive a story of being sleepless, taking a walk to cool off, noticing the lantern light…

Instead she licked her lips, looked at the beautiful prick he choked cruelly with his rough fist and said, “Give that to me. You’re wasting it.”

* * * *

She had auburn hair. He’d not expected that color under her wimple, although perhaps the changing season of color in her eyes and those copper-tipped lashes should have been a clue.

While he stared at her, the head of his cock arched against his flat stomach, his sac still throbbing, she slipped off her mantle and stood before him in her nightshift. With the lantern light behind her, he could see the curve of her waist and the side of her hip; the slight smudge of shadow at the apex of her thighs was also visible, as were her breasts—more than he could ever get in his mouth at once, which he remembered his brothers saying was a waste.

She raised her eyelashes and her gaze, lushly green at that moment, mysterious as a primeval forest, raked upward, over his chest, to his lips, then his eyes. Taking his other hand, she placed it over her breast, so that he felt the nipple against his palm. Instinctively he closed his hand over it, fingers spread wide. She blinked, her breath quickening.

“What are you? I didn’t think…” Wulf couldn’t finish. A celibate marriage, it seemed, was not on his bride’s mind after all.

“You are beautiful,” she murmured, her gaze traversing up and down his naked body, admiring it in the same way as he would a finely crafted piece of furniture.

He didn’t think women were this lusty unless they were paid, but now she fondled his sac with both her hands, cupping and stroking where no touch other than his own had ever been.

He swayed slightly. “I haven’t ever…”

The woman dropped to her knees, pulled his hand away and lowered her mouth onto his cock. He froze, every muscle in his body quivered, then tightened. She sucked the bulbous head, her tongue lapping and circling. Arms rigid at his sides, he didn’t know what to do. She made a soft purring sound as her tongue swept over his seed hole. It vibrated the length of his shaft, into his balls like a siren call to his semen.

Tentative, he placed one hand and then the other on her head and felt the thick, incredibly soft waves of her hair. He should tell her to stop. What if someone else was up and wandering about tonight? They might look in his window as she had done.

But his sperm raced up through his shaft, crowding into the thick head she nursed upon. He went dizzy.

Suddenly she released him. He looked down, breathless, still holding her hair. She’d left him glossy with her saliva, visibly pulsing. Was it over? Was she done?