by Cach, Lisa
He carried her to his bed, still warm from his sleep, and slid in beside her. A tremor went through her, a quick flutter of fear at the newness of what was happening. She didn’t know what to do; didn’t know what he would do, how this would proceed, how badly it would hurt. For a moment it seemed impossibly strange to be in the bed of this man she’d only ever seen clothed, and had known for such a short time.
Nathaniel threw his leg over hers and propped himself up on an elbow, leaving one hand free to roam at will over her body. She closed her eyes and shoved away her virgin’s fears, concentrating instead on the route his hand took as it trailed lightly over her face, down over her breasts, swirled in gentle circles over her abdomen, then stroked solidly against the insides of her thighs, never quite touching their apex.
Valerian moaned softly, deep in her throat, and shifted her hips to draw his hand to her. His mouth found hers, distracting her with the intrusion of tongue, and then his fingers finally touched her. She could not concentrate on kissing him back, her whole body listening to each minute movement of his hand. A fingertip slid just inside her and she tensed at the unfamiliarity of it, feeling a virgin’s fear. It moved in and out, the tip only, and then he took the wetness he found and moistened the folds that hid the nub of her desire, and she forgot the fears in the rush of luscious pleasure.
She pulled his face into her neck, leaving her mouth free. He chewed gently at the spot where her neck met shoulder, and against her thigh she felt the turgid length of his arousal. His finger dipped into her once again, pushing farther, and she lifted her hips against his hand even as her passage tightened against this unfamiliar entry.
“Relax,” he said softly, and rubbed the heel of his hand against her mound.
She did her best to obey, and he slid his finger deeper within her, then began stroking her somewhere inside, she could not tell where, for the shimmering sensations he produced seemed to come from everywhere at once. With each stroke she only wanted more, and heard herself moaning softly in entreaty.
“Nathaniel,” she pleaded.
He withdrew his hand, and nudged her thighs. She opened them willingly to him, and he rolled over on top of her, forcing her legs wider with the width of his body. She felt him guide himself to her, and then a stretching as the broad tip of him entered her. His thumb played against her folds as he slid within her, but even that pleasure could not keep her from feeling the gritty discomfort of his entry. He moved slightly in and out, sliding deeper with each thrust. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him home with one hard thrust, a cry of pain escaping her throat.
He lay still, his hips pressed against hers. She could feel the throb of his pulse where his flesh met the tight opening to her, as if his very heart were connected to her in this embrace. He began to move again, thrusting slowly and deeply, then more quickly. He propped both hands beside her, keeping the weight of his chest off her.
The pleasure she had felt earlier was lost with his entry, and she could not regain it. With each thrust home the breath was forced from her, and she listened through her pain to the sounds she made and to the wet slaps when their sweaty bodies met. The discomfort had not lessened, and she wished it were over. From some deep instinctual wellspring of knowing she clenched her interior muscles despite the pain, squeezing him when he thrust inside her, hoping to finish this.
His movements slowed and he groaned out her name, “Valerian …” He thrust once more, and then froze in his pose above her, his body jerking. She moved her hips slightly, and he grasped them with one hand, stilling her. “Do not,” he gasped.
All at once the tension left his body, and he collapsed atop her, her legs still spread wide, knees raised above his thighs. She could feel her muscles trembling with weakness, but did not ask him to move.
It had been gritty and painful, but she had expected that for the first time. She liked the weight of him on her, the feel of his chest hair against her breasts. She stroked the back of his head, combing out the damp tendrils of hair with her fingers. There was something satisfying in having this large man lying weak as a baby upon her, brought to this state by her.
“I’m crushing you,” he said, and rolled off her, his half-turgid manhood stinging as it slid from her. He lay on his back, and pulled her against his side. She lay her head on his shoulder, and almost timidly laid her leg over his, still feeling weak. He held her there with one arm around her, his hand stroking her arm. She let her fingers play with the hair on his chest and rub softly against his flat nipple.
“It will be better next time, I promise you,” he said quietly, and she thought she heard a trace of sheepishness in his voice.
“I knew it would hurt the first time. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.”
He grunted at that, then pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. She lay within his arm, enjoying this new contact between naked bodies, so much warmer and smoother than she had imagined, her flesh giving way to his. There was comfort in feeling bare skin against skin.
So this is what it was to lie with a man. After years of imagining, it was finally real… and somehow not. For all the importance the world put on the sexual act, and all the longing she’d had for it, the reality of their joining seemed a small and simple moment. She felt neither older nor wiser for having done it, and had had no grand epiphany on the meaning of life when he’d entered her.
And yet, this lying against each other, naked, with the ache of his entry still throbbing between her thighs and the wet proof of his spent desire inside her, was a wondrous thing. It felt natural to be so damply close to a man, and as if she should have been here all along.
Nathaniel’s hold on her began to loosen, and then his arm dropped from around her shoulder. His breathing deepened, and she raised her head. “Nathaniel?”
He gave no answer.
She put her head back down and tried to snuggle closer, but the comfort of his presence had lessened with his descent into sleep. Even naked next to him, she began to feel alone now. With each of his deep breaths, her sense of isolation grew, her sadness creeping back.
She was tempted to wake him, but if she did she might tell him about Aunt Theresa, and she didn’t know if that was what she wanted to do. Instead, she slid from the bed and found her chemise, dressing in the dark. She stood on one leg to put on her shoe, her muscles quivering like they had after riding Nathaniel’s horse, feeling soreness where he had been inside her.
She looked back at him, a faint shape in the bed. Her emotions were in too great a welter for her to know what she felt about him at this moment. She let the question pass, to be analyzed beyond recognition at some later time. She climbed through the window, dropped onto the ground, and retreated to the forest.
Chapter Twelve
Nathaniel awoke a few minutes after Valerian’s departure. The half-smile on his lips faded as he realized he was alone in his bed. The sheets where Valerian had lain were still warm. “Valerian?”
Silence was his answer. He threw back the covers and walked naked to check the chair by the fire, although he already felt the emptiness of the room. “Valerian?”
A draft from the window sent goose bumps up his arms. He went and leant out into the night, searching the shadowed landscape for some sign of her. He heard the rustling of leaves in the wind and saw the black silhouettes of branches moving against the sky, but nothing more.
He was alone. “Damn,” he said softly. It was an unpleasant experience to have been left while sleeping, and he felt… abandoned. Hollow. Unloved.
Not that he expected Valerian to love him, for God’s sake. That was the last thing he needed. And yet…
He closed the window and went back to his bed, punching up the pillows with unnecessary vigor. The action did little to make up for the absence of Valerian’s warm body between his sheets. How could she sneak out like that? What woman behaved that way, especially after her first time with a man? She should have been cuddled up next to him, whispering her secrets
and begging for his reassurance and affection.
Tomorrow he would find the little she-devil and make her explain herself, and then he would give her the proper bedding he would have bestowed if she had stayed. He had not been surprised to find she was a virgin, and had intended to love her more gently, but the feel of her body beneath him, the wet warmth of her passage, her eager gasps while he readied her, had all driven him beyond restraint.
It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, she’d said. He snorted in disgust.
As he lay in the dark, unable to sleep for thoughts of how poorly he had acquitted himself, it occurred to him to wonder what had made her come to him. He considered asking her when next they met, but then thought better of it. He was strangely certain she wouldn’t tell him.
At breakfast he was still mulling over that question when a bleary-eyed Paul came in and collapsed into a chair across the table.
“Late night?” Nathaniel asked.
Paul grunted and scrubbed at his eyes. “Late enough. If I were not such a good friend to you I certainly would not have dragged myself out of bed.”
Nathaniel cocked an eyebrow. “And how, pray tell, does your lovely countenance at my breakfast table prove your friendship? I can think of far more cheering sights.”
“I think you should be warned. Your black-haired healer is a cock snatcher.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She turned into an owl and snatched Eddie the blacksmith’s cock.”
He laughed: It was too ludicrous, even for Paul. “Did she hang from his crotch, wings flapping against his legs as she chewed it off? And I suppose she took it home and roasted it with a bit of pepper for her supper.”
“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you. You may be next. Has she shown signs of coveting your manhood?”
“I don’t think that is any of your affair,” Nathaniel said primly.
Paul leant forward, his arms on the table, his red eyes glazed and intent. “This is a serious matter. The boy is a wreck. He will show no one the wound, and but huddles in a corner of the smithy. He says the iron around him will ward off further attacks.”
“Well, she has what she wants. Why would she come back? Unless he has another hidden in his breeches.”
Paul thumped his hand upon the table. “There is no reasoning with you! If she would steal the cock of this man, what will stop her from doing it to you? You are playing with fire, Nathaniel. I would not see you burned.”
“I thought you said it was an owl I should beware of,” Nathaniel said, considering the possibility that despite the early hour his friend might be drunk.
Paul narrowed his eyes. “If she comes to your bed, search her body for witch marks and signs of the devil.”
“Like hooves, perhaps, where her feet should be?”
“Look for moles, Nathaniel, where she suckles her familiars. Prick her with a pin, and see if she bleeds the red blood of a mortal.”
“‘Tis not a pin with which any sane man would wish to prick her.” He did not add that there was a small smear upon his sheets to prove she bled as red a blood as he.
“God’s foot, Nathaniel, will you not take this seriously?”
He finally lost his good humor. “Take seriously the superstitious conjectures of a drunken imagination? Why should I? What I do take seriously, and indeed am most concerned about, is how quickly you have slipped from being a man of reason to one indiscernible in thought from the ignorant, dung-brained villagers with whom you drink. That does concern me most sincerely. There are no witches, Paul, and you’re a fool to believe there are.”
“If you won’t listen to me on behalf of yourself, then at least be aware that the townsfolk grow increasingly distrustful of her.”
Nathaniel felt a chill over his skin. “Explain.”
“The mood is turning against her and her aunt.”
They were neither of them too young to remember the gruesome ends that women found guilty of witchcraft had met in the not-so-distant past. “They won’t harm her,” Nathaniel stated, his voice filled with both menace and determination.
“I have heard no plans to do so,” Paul admitted. His tone became softer. “Don’t listen to me about Valerian’s nature, if you will not, but at least pay attention to the threat of scandal. What will your family say if they hear you are caught up with a local witch, whether she truly is one or not? Will they be pleased to hear you have the citizenry of your town set entirely against you? They’ll hardly think you have mended your ways.”
“I will set this out for you a final time, Paul. One: My family will hear nothing of what I do in this piddling backwater. Two: They do not care for the gossip of farmers. Three: Valerian is not the manipulator that Laetitia was, if that’s what you’re trying to imply, and there is no family that will be brought to ruin because of any involvement I may choose to have with her. And four: I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“And you would not have, unless you knew I was right.”
They glared at each other for a long minute, and then Nathaniel sighed. “We are neither of us going to convince the other.”
Paul gave a crooked smile. “Which is not to say that we will stop trying.” He rubbed his temples. “Agh. This has done nothing for my head.”
“You enjoy spending your time at that inn. I think you fancy you would have been happier born the son of a sheepherder.”
“Maybe. Then I wouldn’t have had the job of protecting the good name of such a pig-headed friend.”
“I’m sure you would have found yourself a similar companion to attempt to correct. You seem unable to stay out of affairs that do not concern you.”
“Aunt Theresa, are you certain you’re up to this?”
“I won’t be treated as an invalid. I’m not on my death bed yet, you know.”
“But it’s such a miserable morning.”
Theresa fastened her cloak at her throat, and lifted the hood of the woolen garment up over her head. “And it’s not likely to get any less so for us standing here discussing it.” She reached out to cup Valerian’s cheek in her hand. “Don’t worry so, child. It will do nothing to hasten my end, and you know I could never be confined indoors, just as you could not.”
“I know.” Valerian bit her lip, restraining herself from saying more. She wanted to wrap her aunt in blankets and hold her until she was well again.
“I understand how difficult it is to sit by and do nothing,” Theresa said, “But that is what I ask of you. You’ll be doing me the greatest kindness by allowing me to follow the course I choose.”
“You want me to pretend that nothing is wrong, that nothing has changed?”
“For a little while yet, in action if not in thought. Soon enough there will be no pretending possible.”
Valerian lifted her own hood over her hair and followed Theresa out the door into the drizzling rain. The cloud-heavy sky cast little light over the dripping trees and meadow.
Oscar flew on ahead, giving them a raucous caw as he flapped past, and then the two walked in silence, their footsteps squishing on the muddy path. After a time the quiet became an invitation to speak.
“I went to my hot spring this morning, before you awoke,” Valerian said hesitantly.
“I thought you might have.”
A silence stretched again, and Valerian felt an intuitive certainty that her aunt knew how she had spent her night. “It was not entirely how I had expected.”
“The water?” Aunt Theresa asked innocently.
Valerian could not see her face, as her aunt walked in front of her, but she thought she heard a smile. “No.”
“The cave, then?”
“You already know, you awful woman.”
Theresa cast a glance over her shoulder and blinked at her in a grotesque mockery of naivety. “I do not know to what you are referring, young lady.”
“Don’t play the innocent with me! I have never encountered a woman with a less chaste mind.”
Theresa laughed. �
�Dearest, we are all wantons at heart. It simply takes some of us longer to realize it.” She put her arm around Valerian, and walked beside her. “I do hope he was not a disappointment.”
“I am not at all certain I want to discuss the particulars,” Valerian grumbled.
“Come now. Who else can you tell? Did you take the Queen Anne’s lace seeds afterward?”
“Yes, after the hot spring.” The chewed spoonful of seeds would keep her from getting pregnant. “I sometimes wonder what Mother would have thought if she heard our conversations. She was so much more restrained.”
“She was not always so, or at least not to such a degree. Our mother’s murder had a sobering effect on her, and she had certain ideas of what a village doctor’s wife should be like. When at long last you came along, she thought to give you a different life than the one she had led as a young woman. She’d have been happiest if you never knew that your grandmother made her living as a kept woman, but it is in our blood to follow such a path.”
“Charmaine has not.”
“Charmaine has contorted her natural passions into a most uncomfortable form.”
“I don’t see how you can argue that it is in my blood to be a man’s mistress, the same as it’s in my blood to be a healer.”
“When at least four generations of women before you have followed that course, it’s likely that you will as well. It’s one of the family talents, and is no shameful thing. Your grandmother was a woman of importance because of her choice of lovers.”
“Not so important she couldn’t be killed.”
“Yes, well, one must be careful when one also has gifts of a more spiritual nature. Now tell me, how was your encounter with the manly baron different than you expected?”
She sighed, and gave in to Theresa’s curiosity. “It was not different so much as it wasn’t as important as I thought it would be. I mean the act itself. Given the fuss that is made of it, I expected something more dramatic emotionally. I thought I would feel like a different person afterward.”
“You mean you are still the same Valerian, after allowing a man to know your body? I don’t believe it!”