Heat of the Knight

by Jackie Ivie

  “That’s highly doubtful,” Langston replied.

  She made a sound that could be amusement. He could turn up the lamp to be certain, but he didn’t want to see amusement. It jarred against what he was feeling.

  “Then there was a girl from Germany. I forget where, exactly. There, everything is so strict, a woman does na’ even get to meet her husband until they’re wed.”

  “There’s naught wrong with that plan that I can tell.”

  “They were appalled, but also envious and a bit impressed that I had the run of the moors, I was welcome in any croft, and I could play with any of the lads I wanted to, anytime I wanted to.”

  “Nae wonder you were sent to this finishing school. You were a veritable hoyden.”

  “I turned out well enough,” she answered.

  Langston sucked in a breath on that one. He didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know where she was going with her conversation. That was another thing that intrigued him about her. She surprised him, daily…hourly.

  “You doona’ agree?” she asked.

  “I—uh…”

  She giggled at his response. His arms twitched at the sound. He wondered why, if everything horrible happened to her, she still had such joy within her. That was the part that drew him, singed him, and was probably going to destroy him.

  “You doona’ have to answer. I ken what your answer is just fine.”

  “What do you ken?” he asked.

  “This dress. This presentation. You did it on purpose. You used this body that you call a weapon to your advantage, to divert attention. You did very well with it, too. I was impressed.”

  Langston swallowed. “As I’ve already made mention, you’re a very quick pupil.”

  “Doona’ do it ever again,” she said.

  That had him sharpening his eyes on where she sat, or rather, where she was reclining, since she’d decided to lie across the seat, and use the blond wood for a backrest.

  “I’m having a bit of difficulty following your conversation, my dear. It must be the quantity of wine I consumed. What is it you’re referring to again?” he asked.

  “You dinna’ drink much, Langston.”

  “Enough,” he replied.

  “Enough to open some more negotiations with me?” she asked.

  “What are we negotiating for this time?” he asked.

  “Me. In your bed. Open. Willing…” Her voice lowered to a husky note that went right to his groin. “…wanton,” she finished.

  The reaction was immediate and constant, and started a throb of activity where he least wanted it. Langston looked down at himself in surprise. He still had plans for the night. He had MacDonalds to sway. He had eighteen more groomsmen to select and prepare, since he already had the nine poor souls they’d stolen from beneath Barton’s nose. He had to get the opiate started that would put Barton’s English-bred servants into a drug-induced stupor, to render them men who looked very like MacDonald captives, who’d had their will broken. He had Saladin to bid good-bye to. He wasn’t looking forward to any of it, and he certainly hadn’t time for what she was doing—whatever that was.

  “Do you know how?” he asked, tossing his own mental card onto her table.

  “How what?”

  “To be wanton,” he replied.

  In answer, she reached up and twisted the knob on their gas lamp, making more wick rise from the oil, grab the light, and consequently shed more illumination throughout the coach cabin.

  “Do you doubt me?” she asked softly.

  “Aye,” he replied, and licked his lips.

  She was sliding down, onto her back on the white satin cushion, parting her legs slightly, arching her back, and everything on him was jumping at the sight. Then she did more, rolling onto her side to face him, and then she swiveled onto her knees, leaning out over the coach floor, and raising her upper torso in an arc of motion, that was forcing the dress he’d designed to nearly give up the effort of holding in her breasts.

  Langston had never seen such a vivid display, and his entire body was tormenting him with it. He had to clench the padded satin cushion beneath him to keep from reaching for her.

  She stayed in that back-cracking, poised position, with every inhalation sending parts of her closer to exposure, for long enough that he was in danger of losing his sanity. Then, she pulled back, slid onto her haunches, with bunches of that blue-dyed fabric about her knees, and regarded him with an unreadable expression.

  “Now…do we have an understanding?” she asked.

  “Of what?” he croaked it out.

  “That I ken very well what wanton is…and what it is na’.”

  “Aye,” he answered, and licked his lips again, and he watched how a tremor ran through her as he did so.

  “And that it’s a very good thing to have.”

  “Aye,” he replied again.

  “And…that you’ll negotiate with anything to have it.”

  Langston opened his mouth to say aye, but that was what she was looking for, and his mind decided to come back from wherever it had been hiding, in order to assist him with this. “That depends…on what it is,” he replied finally.

  He watched as she went on her knees again, and slid first one of those little puffed effects at the tops of her sleeves down to her upper arm, and then the other. That was making the front part of her bodice stretch and pull and define, and Langston really was going crazy.

  “Let’s redefine what we’re negotiating again,” she whispered, and then she rolled her shoulders, pressing first one nipple against the fabric, and then the other, making him push the padding into a solid block of crushed feathers with the pressure of his fists on it.

  “Wanton…passion…”

  “Oh, my God,” he murmured.

  “And what you’ll do to have it.”

  “Oh, my God,” he repeated.

  “Say it,” she requested.

  “What?”

  She was leaning out over the chasm of the coach bottom again, only this time there wasn’t much holding her in place at all. Langston was howling inside; he didn’t know what the outer Langston looked like.

  “That you’ll give anything…for it.”

  This time it was a howl that came out first, although he had his teeth clenched to keep it from being too loud. “That…depends. On what. It is.” He repeated it, in blocks of words that were all his body would let him have.

  “You are na’ a very quick learner, cherie,” she whispered, and reached up to push the fabric down and away from herself, exposing…everything.

  Langston launched himself, gathered her into his arms, ball gown and all, found one of her breasts, and had it in his mouth before anything on him had time to say no.

  Lisle screamed with the only portion of her that wasn’t flying about the coach cabin, zinging this way and that with flashes of ache and weakness, and moisture and excruciating heat. Langston pulled her tighter, his mouth a thing of sensation and fire and eroticism, and he wouldn’t unlatch from where he suckled no matter how she tried for that very thing.

  He was too big. He was too powerful. He was too strong. Lisle settled finally with running her fingers through that black hair, pulling it loose from the queue, and then she was offering herself up to him, moving him to the breast he’d been neglecting.

  “Oh…dearest…sweet…heaven.”

  He was murmuring more of the words, and she had to hold him in place in order to make certain he knew she wasn’t interested in words, only action. Lisle had never felt what she was now, and he was taking all the weightiness and enlarged feeling she’d been tormenting herself with, the longer he stayed on his side of the coach and just watched her, and turning it into a version of mist and clouds, rain and heat.

  Langston trailed his mouth to her throat, his hands moving from where he’d had her pinioned at the waist, up to cup the flesh where he’d just been, and the motion of his thumbs was just as arousing, just as torturous, and just as hot.

 
“Love,” she said, just before he moved his head. His lips captured hers, stopping anything else from being said, and made everything disappear in a spin of smoke-gray fog with fire at its core.

  Hard, heavy breathing filled her own nostrils, slid over her cheeks, and tickled her ear. Lisle couldn’t stand another moment of it. She pushed at him, and pushed hard, until he moved, giving her room to find the stupid ties of his collar, so she could find the buttons of his coat, then his vest, and then, she was facing the overly starched, double-thick placket that the English put on their men’s dress shirts.

  She tore her head away to give vent to the cry, and he had to chase her back down, so the last of it finished in the caverns of his own mouth. Fingers shoved at the dress, making a ripping sound, until he could hold her bosom in each hand, squeezing gently. His actions made her hands that much more clumsy, her fingers that much more sensitive to everything, even the hard, slick surface of his buttons…the tiny, minute stitches of each button hole.

  Langston was sliding his hands down her ribcage, and the dress was parting for his exploration, although it wasn’t doing it willingly. They both heard ripping and tearing, and then she didn’t hear a thing past the drumbeat of heart that filled her left palm, and then her right. He had a chest made for running her hands over, glorying in each lump, each section, each bump of muscle that flinched away from and then pulsed into being again as if for her delectation and adoration.

  And then her hands were against his belt, and beneath the waistband of his slacks, and sliding all about and around and finding nothing that felt like a button entry. Lisle pulled her mouth away to let that anger out, too, but he wasn’t allowing it. She hadn’t a gasp of air away from him before he had her lips again. Then he was parting them, and he was flicking his tongue, and with each touch, her entire body was pulsing and sliding and moving. The feel of the heated, male, naked flesh of his chest against her own nakedness was enough to make her cry again. This one didn’t make sound, and had to contain itself as a moan of resonance that swelled through where she was smashed against his chest. It sounded an awful lot like his groan, too.

  Lisle tried to get to him again, but this time she started with his belt buckle. That wasn’t as unfamiliar as his English trousers. The clasp gave, falling onto her belly with a thump of cool-feeling metal, and then she squirmed in a sideways roll, in order to make it slide off.

  Langston’s hands had reached her waist, and he was pushing the waistband of her wire-stiffened petticoat apart, pulling out more of the laboriously crafted stitches. Lisle was helping him by undulating her body against him; going upward, then back down; arching away from him, then against him…upward, back downward. Upward…

  It was definitely a groan that came out of him then, and he moved from her kiss to give it sound as the slip ripped free. Then he was helping her, lifting himself into a push-up with one arm, so he could grab her hand and move it to the fastening of his own attire. He let her go the moment she reached the buttons, and then lowered himself, although this time he wasn’t putting his weight on her like before. He was in a slant, on his knees, with one of them splitting her legs apart. The blue dress was a froth of material all about his waist, hiding the mass of him, the shape of him, the vision of him. She pulled in breath after breath as she looked down. Then she was shoving her own dress away, and over the side, where it puddled somewhere on the floorboard, held to her only as a ribbon of material about her waist.

  The trouser fastening was on the side, and there were seven buttons. They weren’t moving easily, and she had to yank at the last two to make them give up their command of the holes.

  “Oh God. Oh! Sweet…sweet, Lisle.” He was murmuring the words in her hair as she got his pants undone, and then he was helping her by slithering himself out of them. That was putting his weight and depth and the heat of him against her, and keeping her from seeing what she was determined to see at the same time. Lisle pushed at him when he had the pants down to his knees, but he wasn’t budging. So she used her hands; roaming them about his back, all over the large, funnel shape of him, until she reached what was probably the waist of men’s English underdrawers.

  The sound she made was ground through her gritted teeth, and this time it was one of anger. No Scotsman ever wore so much. She knew that from her brothers. She was pounding and hitting at him until the slight sound of soft laughter stopped her. Lisle looked up into such a tender expression that everything on her felt frozen in space and time and intellect for one tiny, infinitesimal moment.

  I love you. He mouthed it, and her eyes flew wide…wider. Then he had her mouth again. It was as if he was punishing her for being able to see what he’d just said as he shoved at her with his face, scratching her chin with the slight growth of whisker on his jaw, and sending a feeling of power to every pore.

  Heat flowed into being; moist heat. And the fire, kindled at her core, was a driving force, fueled with anger and sensation and lust and passion. Lisle bucked her hips against his, against the thing of power, rigidity, and strength that he was denying her, and then she was moving her hands to the front of him. Drawers had openings. They had to. They just had to.

  Then she had him in her hands—both hands—and was absorbing the shock and amazement. That wasn’t a far cry from his reaction as everything on him went still and straight and taut.

  “Oh…my God!”

  The cry came from the depth of him, and then he was pushing her petticoat to the side, lifting himself to run his hands along her thighs; learning them, defining them, preparing them. Lisle wasn’t still. She was lunging and kicking at him. He caught both legs effortlessly and then he was between them, and putting such a torment of pain and fire against her that her heart stalled in place and she forgot to breathe.

  “Oh…dear God…you’re a virgin.” He lifted his head, his eyes wide, his hair ruffled about him like he’d just shaken himself like a dog might, and surprise evident everywhere.

  “Aye,” she replied.

  Then she had to pull at the surprise and pain as he pushed again at her, frightening and hurting and making her lash out and kick, and this time it was to get away.

  “Oh nae, you doona’.” He used the muscles so evident all along him to hold her in place, his hands pinioning her like bands of iron, and it was so he could shove himself even farther into her.

  Lisle screamed. He was impaling her…hurting and paining, and doing a hundred other horrible things to her.

  “Stop! Doona! Stop.” Her words dribbled to a whisper, and her head moved side to side, and it didn’t stop him a bit. It only seemed to inflame him.

  He was making little grunt sounds as he continued shoving into her; low-in-the-throat kind of sounds; and then he slowed in a slide of movement, flexed himself to another of her moans, and stilled.

  “Lisle?” His whisper didn’t match the man of torture who was between her legs, but Lisle wasn’t listening. She was still moving her head from side to side in denial.

  “Lisle…love?” He whispered it again, only this time he added the false word he used. She swung upward at him, and managed to connect with his jaw, to the detriment of her own hand.

  That had him leaning forward, those eyes so close to hers she could see each and every eyelash, and he was looking deeper into her than anyone had a right to.

  “Doona’ speak so to me!”

  “Why not?” he asked softly, blowing the words across her nose and cheek as he pulled himself a little of the way out of her.

  “Because you hurt me,” she replied before she could stop the words she’d rather die than admit.

  “I dinna’ do it on purpose,” he replied, using his voice as his newest drug.

  “You do everything on purpose,” she whispered to that.

  He chuckled, and her lower body lunged at how that felt. “Well, maybe I did intend to hurt this time, but only because of your maidenhood, love. I promise. It does na’ pain again. Ever. I promise.”

  He pushed himself ag
ain, sliding back to where her body had to absorb the pain, or do something to stop it.

  “Then cease hurting me!” Lisle couldn’t stay the tears, and he kissed at each one, and that sent the emotion straight to her heart, where it hurt almost as badly as where he’d joined them.

  “Oh, love…so innocent. So precious. So pure.” He finished the words to her ears and went onto his arms, like he was going to do push-ups, and he just stayed that way, looking down at her, and there wasn’t any emotion showing anywhere on him.

  “Put your legs about me. It will na’ hurt as much that way.”

  “Nae,” she replied, but tried anyway. The act of lifting anything was making everything worse.

  “Then, hold to me. Stay with me, love.”

  “Where else…am I going to go?” she asked.

  The grunt of amusement went directly through him and from there, into her. Lisle held onto the shock of how that felt, and then he was moving again.

  Torrents of rain felt like they were lashing her, stealing her breath and making her struggle for each one. Then, it was fire doing the same thing. Flames licked at her ankles, her legs, her thighs, her core….

  Then it really was clouds, and they were thick and full of destructive force, and always there was Langston…moving, thrusting, pushing; willing himself into her. He was making certain she knew she’d never, ever be free. And there was lightning, sparking so swiftly into her she had trouble gathering her breath, and then she had to struggle for the next one, and the next, and hold to the man who was keeping the drumbeat of rhythm thumping in her ears, in her eyes, and in her very soul.

  Langston cried aloud, almost like a man in torment, and then he was shuddering and shaking and quivering, and sounding very much like he was crying. Lisle held onto him, as he dropped onto her, then rolled to one side, so he could tumble off the cushion, the momentum taking her with him. While it was a soft landing atop him, in the depths of the coach where their feet should be, she didn’t think he had the same luxury, since his head hit something, and then his heels hit on the other side.