by Nicole Locke
Then he held still, and she held still with him.
She’d seen men in her life...had touched two of them. Never utterly freely, but she had known the softness of Josse, a man twenty years her senior, and had hidden from Roul, with his whip-like body, as much as possible. But this man she chose over them—chose for herself.
Warm skin over tissue and strength. But a strength that didn’t seem humanly possible. How often had she compared him to the fortress? The breadth was there, but the fortress was cold and he was heated. Alive.
Corded muscles crossed shoulders, the defined ridges of his stomach narrowing to his breeches, only to flare out for his thick legs. Down to what no amount of clothing could rein in. The fact he was a man who wanted a woman. Who wanted her very much.
With layers of clothing between them, he’d used his need and she had taken her pleasure. Yet now her core clenched with greed all over again.
Gathering her thoughts, she judged the width of his torso against hers, noted the difference in where her feet ended and how much farther his legs spanned beyond the bed they lay on. She splayed her hands against his arms, realising it would take four of her hands to wrap around one of his arms.
Feeling his gaze, she glanced up at his face. Amusement was there, as well as desire and heat.
‘I’m comparing, aren’t I? Like those other women.’
‘So am I.’
He smiled, and her worries faded.
‘I thought you were a warrior?’ she said.
His lips twitched. ‘Is there something about me that looks as if I’m not?’
She’d seen him in the lists. None of the men held back as they swung their swords. She’d seen men limping from the lists, holding an arm, a stomach. She’d seen the trickles of blood. But Evrart...
She grabbed his arm, felt his resistance before he lightened it for her. She stared at the expanse of his hips. Craned her neck to see more of his back.
His expression was changing from one of confusion to amusement and back again. ‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘You don’t have any scars on you.’ She lowered her arm and felt along his back with her fingertips. His heated skin was smooth and unhindered.
He looked down to her hand, which was clenched on the wrist of the arm that held his weight. She was trying to move it, and he wasn’t helping her this time. So she tugged harder.
‘Why are you smiling?’ she said.
‘You’re flinging my arms about and touching me again.’
She wasn’t flinging anything about. ‘You were allowing it,’ she huffed, and gave up.
‘I was.’ He swallowed. ‘You’re not afraid?’
‘You’re always asking that question.’
His eyes dimmed.
‘Are you waiting for it to happen?’ she asked.
His eyes told her the answer.
She was afraid—afraid that this connection would be just for now, just this one time. That beyond this she wouldn’t see or feel him again.
She laid her hand on his stomach and the muscles rippled. ‘My hands are cold?’
He pursed his lips. ‘No. Never.’
She flattened her palms, revelling in the bumps against her palm, the light smattering of hair between her splayed fingers. She touched until she, too, wanted to taste.
Dragging herself up to his shoulders, she kissed the jut of his collarbone and across the mounds of his chest. She moved down the bed and against him to flat brown nipples, where she nipped as he had done to her. When he jerked, she laughed. When he growled and pushed himself up and away, she laughed some more.
And then all of him hovered, as he bracketed his arms at her sides. She stopped her exploration to gaze at the length of them. She could see her feet, but not his.
Her fingers hooked in his breeches at his waist. ‘These too.’
His breath heaved through him. ‘Margery...’
It sounded like a warning. This man...
‘You knew you couldn’t see colours the way I do but you let me try to show you. Why?’ She laid her hand against his mouth. She didn’t need his words. She knew the answer. ‘You wanted me to touch you...that’s why. Now I want these off.’
‘You’re so small, and I’m...not.’
There should be something that frightened her now. Not because of him though—not because it was Evrart—but because he was a man. None of her experiences before had gone well. None.
‘I’m not afraid, Evrart. You’ll have to wait forever for me to be afraid, and even then I won’t be.’
He clenched his eyes tight at those words, then breathed out slowly before piercing her with his gaze. ‘We’re going slow on this—you understand?’
Why was this only making her want more? Moments ago he’d fulfilled her more than any man before, but now...now she felt as if there’d been nothing at all. Nodding eagerly, she hooked her fingers into his breeches again.
‘Put your hands above your head,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I need your hands above your head.’
Her entire body sank into the thick blankets and the mattress at his command. She hated being told what to do. But this...?
Awkwardly, unevenly, trying to get her arms to work properly, she arched her hands above her head. When his eyes watched hungrily, she linked a few of her fingers and was rewarded with a heavy-lidded, lust-darkened gaze as he swung his eyes back to her.
‘Stay there.’ He pushed himself off the bed.
She would if she was to be rewarded like this. With this man standing before her, his heated gaze never leaving her. Moving from her eyes to her hands, to the curve of her waist and down her legs. And all the while he undid the belt of his breeches, unwound the fine linen of his braies. Held it there.
It made her restless, eager.
‘Still your legs,’ he said.
She did, and she kept her knees together and off to one side, feeling vulnerable, feeling too much. Every order he made was unexpected.
‘Why are you like this?’ He looked down to the curl of her toes. ‘Do you know how finely you’re made? How utterly beautiful you are to me?’
She waited for the moment of disappointment. Other men had complimented her, other men had noted her beauty, but her happiness at being with this man did not dim. Because she knew he said it not because of her hair or her eyes. Evrart saw her.
‘You shouldn’t be anywhere near someone like me...someone who does the things I do. But there you went...touching me, talking to me. Offering me your food.’
She didn’t want to hear those words. He was perfect. Didn’t he realise she saw him, too?
‘I thought I just bothered you.’
His brows drew in. ‘You do. Constantly. Even late at night, when you’re sleeping on the other side of my door.’ He looked away and huffed. ‘Especially then.’
He thought of her when they were apart. Yet he kept them separated now! ‘Please, Evrart.’
He still held the braies to his waist, the excess linen fluttering to the ground. Under that frustrating fabric was a shaft that no amount of fabric could disguise. She wanted to feel him, to taste what his skin would be like.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said.
There was the man she knew. The one whose hand she had clasped to gather quince. The hand that had twitched when she’d placed the shard of ice in it.
Here was a man who looked as if he was in pain. The flush around his neck, that pulse beating hard in the cords of his neck...
‘You can’t hurt me,’ she said, and realised how true it was. No matter what he did, Evrart couldn’t hurt her. Everything in him already balked at merely touching her. She was more concerned about that.
‘I ache already,’ she said.
His hand gripped hard around himself, as if stopping
himself from spilling like that fabric. That wouldn’t do. That was not what she wanted—what they both wanted.
Pushing up, she grabbed a corner of his braies.
‘Margery...’ he said.
‘Evrart,’ she said back.
She tugged a bit. He held, giving her a warning look, so she tugged harder and he released his hand, but kept it at his side as he rolled his shoulders.
She’d never seen him restless before. He was always aware of his body, so he probably knew those little movements would seem overt in someone like him. Was he nervous? She glanced at his face. His expression had turned resigned. No, this wasn’t modesty. This was something altogether.
‘Still waiting for me to run away?’ she said.
‘You should.’
He was simply...in proportion. That was all. He was large, his bones thick. It was reasonable for any man like him—
There were no men like him.
She looked at his shaft, the veins thick, the head a rich plum colour. He didn’t look as if he was in pain—he was in pain.
Lying down again, she raised her knees and parted her legs.
His eyes, which had darkened until there was no more blue, lowered to see what she freely offered. Her sex plump with need, wet with desire. That she needed him as much as he needed her.
Because that was what she saw when she gazed at him.
Need.
And if he was simply going to stand there...
Rising to her knees, she laid one hand along his hipbone, thumbed the vulnerable soft skin there, where sunshine and men who fought in the lists never saw. Her other hand hovered just underneath him.
He looked anguished. ‘We won’t fit.’
They would. In the most blissful way they would fit. Didn’t he know that they already did in all the ways that truly mattered? She had known him for so little time, but the time they’d had...it counted. In her heart, and in her soul, it counted. She wouldn’t be here with him otherwise.
Grabbing his hand, she tugged and shuffled back on the bed. His eyes glanced from their joined hands to the hand still at his hip. It was urging him forward until he placed one knee on the bed, and then the other. She felt her heart soar.
‘Lie back,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I want to control this a little longer. And besides...’ His eyes were knowing, and he bowed his head.
She liked it. His kisses and caresses were different this time...meaningful. Before he explored he seemed intent on torturing her, pleasuring her, and he did. Until her hands grappled against his back and her legs clung and slid along his sides. Until she reached up and kissed him as much as she could and he didn’t tell her not to. Until he hovered above her again, his hair a tangled mess from her fingers, his lips swollen from her kisses.
Until she tilted her hips and arched towards him so he’d know her want.
And in this he did not hesitate, but took his hand and notched himself to her core, slid forward until he breached. Then he paused, and she wanted to clamour for him to continue.
How could she feel this way? Only anticipation...only need...
She clutched and tugged and writhed.
He pushed forward again and bowed his head.
She felt the hot exhalation of his breath against her chest, her belly. Felt the slight burn and stretch to her core. Felt the need for more.
‘No more control,’ she begged. ‘No more holding back—please, Evrart.’
‘It’s too much,’ he said.
It was...it was. Her body was throbbing at the intrusion and vibrating for more. His own massive body was flushed with colour, with a sheen of sweat as he fought for control. As if, he too, had been slammed with only instinct.
‘No more gentle,’ she said.
She dug her heels into his thighs and pounded them against him, but he didn’t move. She wasn’t a virgin; she knew the ways of men. The first time she had been taken hadn’t been brutal or cruel. She’d had that moment for comparison all the time since then. But she didn’t know this man, and it had never been like this.
He huffed out a laugh, part in humour part in anguish laced with surprise, and she saw some sort of spark to his eyes that felt like a revelation.
‘Margery, are you touching me and pushing me around again?’
‘I want you.’
‘I can see that; I can feel that.’
His eyes shut, and a shiver rippled up his spine that she scrambled to follow with her hands.
‘I can feel...you,’ he said.
This man! Her core was clenching...everything in her was begging for faster, harder, now. This man! When he talked, when he said those words...
Laying a hand against his cheek, she kissed him softly, tenderly, letting him know that what he was saying, how he was being...she felt it too, not just in her body but in her soul.
In her heart.
Wrapping her arms and legs around him, clutching him as close as she could, she moaned when he lowered himself as he answered her request to give her everything.
He held still. Time stilled. And then that building restlessness, that need, consumed them both. There was more here than the joining of their bodies. There was something more that was tangible. Felt.
It was tearing her up inside and building anew. Ripping her at the seams. Her body shivered. There were small trembles in her hands and along her legs. He was undoing her.
‘Evrart...?’ His name was a question, a demand, a plea.
A muscle popped in his jaw as he jerked a nod in response. And then he moved. There was no hesitation, no control. Words were said like prayers of intent. He whispered in that low, gravelly tone she adored how sweet she was, while all she could repeat was how much she wanted, wanted, wanted. And his hands lifted her up as she pulled him down. And—
‘Evrart, I’m going to—’
Her entire body sang her release and her joy. A hard thrust, then another, jolted her higher, until she felt his own heated pleasure, until it was only them somewhere else, not on this bed, not in this room, not subjects trapped by duties and locked doors.
It was only them.
* * *
Evrart collapsed at the side of the diminutive woman who had felled him, his body lax, his breath evening out.
His heart, however, trembled and shuddered. All the more when she turned towards him, her breasts pressed to his side, her leg sliding along his, one palm gliding across his damp stomach until she was curled against him.
He kissed her forehead, scenting once again that delicate white-petalled flower—the one he still couldn’t recall the name of. All he knew was that if someone told him the true name it wouldn’t matter. The scent was Margery’s. The flower couldn’t compare.
‘Evrart...your legs,’ she said.
Ah... He thought she’d noticed his scars before, had been gladdened when she didn’t react. Although if she had noticed perhaps she would have seen him as she should have. As ugly on the inside as he was on the outside.
Her delicate hands traced along one long slash, then another. Cuts that were flat and thin. Made by many swords. His torso was unmarked, but his legs looked as if he’d slashed a year of months into them.
‘Lord Warstone tells them to go for my legs.’
‘Your legs? They’d have to...’ Her eyes roamed around him to see that no sword had touched him elsewhere. They should never have touched him anywhere. His training and his sword reach should have precluded such weakness.
‘Why didn’t you move?’ she asked.
He stayed silent. She was clever enough to come to the right answer. He never wanted to repeat it. The act of standing still to appease an irate lord was not an act easily given.
Her palm lay flat against a particularly bad one, her expression turning dark, threatening. He wanted to laugh,
to squeeze her in gratefulness that she felt anger at Warstone and not pity towards him. He wanted to—
There—there was that sound.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
Pushing himself up, he heard it again. Something that made ice fly through his veins. The sound that the gates made when they were being closed and the portcullis was being lowered. The sound made only after someone had entered the courtyard.
He shoved himself off the bed, grabbed his tunic. ‘Get dressed.’
She sat up. ‘What do you hear?’
‘Ian’s returned.’
Eyes wide with fear, she crawled to the end of the bed.
There was another sound from inside the great hall.
Already that close?
She pulled on her chemise as he tightened his braies and grabbed his breeches.
He looked around the room. ‘There’s no time.’
The mattress of wool was a lump, gone askew—something only his large body could have done with great force and movement. It would have to be shaken, the wool redistributed.
No time!
‘Get under the covers. Pretend to be rising if you can’t feign sleeping.’
He grabbed everything else and flew to his private door, held the latch, feeling a spike of fear up the back of his neck as he heard another sound. A door. Was someone coming in, or leaving?
No time for anything!
There would be guards outside Lord Warstone’s door in the corridor even now.
He rushed into his room, his heart only slowing when he realised it was empty. Although... He looked more closely at his belongings. Nothing was disturbed, but that sound still clanged in his head, and he swore there was a scent in the room, as if someone had entered and left.
Quickly dressing in new clothes, he bound his hair and stormed out.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Ian of Warstone.
Evrart froze. Ian was leaning against the opposite wall, directly between his rooms and Evrart’s. As if he was...waiting for him. He kept his gaze away from Ian’s door. Had Ian already opened that door and seen Margery in the bed he’d left her in?
‘An odd time of day to be sleeping,’ Lord Warstone said.