Her plan was working well, almost too well. How easy it was to deceive a man! She heard Guy resume his bathing, and she quickly decided to do one last thing before she began her own ablutions.
Taking the pitcher front table, she quietly emptied the water into the tub, then refilled it with wine. Lastly she added the opiate, pouring the remainder of the cup’s steeped contents into the pitcher except for the sediment, which she tossed out the open window. Since she had no idea how she would manage to drug his wine once the curtains were opened, it was better to do so now.
Leila set the tin cup on the table and then wrenched her shift over her head. Her nipples hardened from the cool breeze wafting in the window. She eased herself into the tub, amazed that the water still held warmth. She splashed her face and throat. Rivulets trickled between her breasts. How wonderful the water felt after weeks of sponge bathing!
And how wonderful it would be when she was home again and could enjoy a proper bath under the ministrations of her odalisques, she mused, glancing down at the ebony triangle between her thighs. Those short curls were indecent, and she couldn’t wait to be rid of them, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it until she returned to Damascus. The way this night was progressing, that hope seemed brighter than ever.
Eagerly Leila unbraided her hair, for the moment thinking more about the pleasure of her bath than her plot of escape. Holding on to the rim, she lowered her head back in the water to wet her long, rippling tresses. Only then did she remember the soap in the saddlebag.
Rising up on her knees, Leila reached over the rim and grabbed one end of the saddlebag, dragged it toward her, and flipped it open. She fumbled for the soap, found it, and was twisting around to settle in the water once more when she cried out in pain, her scalp tingling. Some of her hair was caught between two wooden staves on the other side of the tub.
“What’s wrong?” came Guy’s concerned query. “Nothing … I’m fine,” she lied, tugging at her hair and wincing. It would not come loose!
How terribly awkward, she thought, lowering herself as far as possible into the tub even though the water was barely deep enough to cover her breasts. Now she would have to ask Guy …
Her lips curved into a slow smile as she realized how perfectly this clumsy situation could further her plan. If Guy saw her like this, his lust could not help but he aroused. No doubt he would loose her hair and then immediately seek solace from the pitcher of wine while she continued to bathe. If he drank it down to the dregs, and quickly, he would be out cold within the hour.
She shivered, not knowing if she did so from anxiety or excitement at the thought that she might soon escape Guy de Warenne forever. Gulping a deep breath, she called out, “My lord, could you please help me? My hair is caught in this tub and I can’t move.”
Guy froze, a wool towel pressed so tightly against his chest he could feel his rampant heartbeat right through it. The rhythm seemed to match exactly the thundering pulsation in his loins. He was so hard, it hurt.
He groaned, cursing under his breath. God help him, he had known that bathing together, even on opposite sides of the room, would be a bad mistake. He should never have agreed. Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Lord de Warenne?”
He exhaled sharply and stepped from the tub. Now he knew he hadn’t imagined her request. But still he hesitated.
Was Leila out of her mind? Could it be possible she was oblivious to her maddening effect on him? When she had brought him the wine, it was all he could do not to sweep her into the tub with him. She might as well have been standing there naked for all the covering the flimsy shift had provided her, her dark woman’s hair a taunting shadow beneath the white fabric. By heaven, why was he being so sorely tested, and less than four days’ journey from London?
“Lord de Warenne!”
“Damn,” Guy muttered, fastening a towel securely around his hips. He knew it hid little of his turgid and increasingly uncomfortable condition, but his braies wouldn’t do any better. No amount of willpower could make this erection go away. As soon as he helped her, he would have to take care of it himself.
Draining his mug, Guy decided he would rather endure a trial by ordeal—carrying a red-hot iron bar three paces or picking a stone from a vat of boiling water—then walk around this bed. If there had ever been a sure test of his self-control, it was this one.
He swallowed hard as he approached the tub. Leila’s slender back was to him, and he saw the problem immediately. Somehow her wet hair had snagged in the opposite staves. He would have to walk around …
“What took you so long, my lord?” Leila asked, trying to keep the nervousness from her voice as she sensed him behind her. She made no move to cover herself, yet she felt extremely vulnerable as she heard him draw closer. “Do you see what has happened?”
“Yes, I can see well enough,” Guy answered thickly, his gaze raking over her as he walked around the tub. “How did you manage to do this anyway?”
“Reaching for the saddlebag. I was trying to get my soap …” She faltered, gasping slightly as she noticed the obvious swelling beneath the towel slung low around his hips. She quickly averted her eyes.
At least he was wearing a towel this time, she thought gratefully, though from the way he was looking at her, she wished she had one with which to cover herself, too. She decided he was aroused enough. She didn’t need to help him along in that direction. She slowly crossed her arms over her breasts and drew her knees up to hide her lower body, her movements causing another sharp tug to her scalp.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed softly, sucking in her breath. “Please, my lord. It hurts.”
Guy smiled grimly at her remark. Surely her pain had to be slight compared to his discomfort.
Leila was as bewitching a water nymph as he had imagined she would be, even more so. He could almost feel the devil breathing down his neck, for if there had ever been a time he was tempted to break an oath …
Guy clenched his teeth, attempting to concentrate on his task as he knelt and began to work at the two staves.
To his relief, her hair came free in seconds, and he rose to his feet, trying not to stare at her lithe white limbs and her glistening wet breasts, but finding it impossible. When had he ever seen another woman so fair?
“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured, her eyes glittering like amethyst gems in the soft lamplight. “There is wine in that pitcher … perhaps you might pour yourself some while I finish my bath.”
He glanced at the table, thinking he could use another drink. Anything to kill the desire in him that was threatening to rage out of control.
Guy poured himself a brimming mugful and promptly drank it; he was downing his third when he staggered slightly into the table. Several tin cups clattered to the floor, sounding strangely loud and ringing in his ears.
What was the matter with him? he wondered, setting down the mug as he bent to pick up the cups. It usually took much more than three glasses of wine for him to feel any adverse effects. More like three bottles.
Guy stacked the cups together and was about to rise when he spied something stuck to the bottom of one of them. “The serving women didn’t clean out these cups,” he muttered with mild disgust. The encrusted matter was a dull brownish-red color and shaped oddly like flower petals.
What the devil? If he did not know better, he would say it was …
He sniffed inside the cup, and the faint, disagreeable smell confirmed his niggling suspicion even as he heard Leila rise abruptly from the tub behind him, water splashing onto him. The chilling realization sweeping over him was like a knife in his back.
“God’s blood, woman, what have you done?” he shouted, pushing against the table as he jumped to his feet, sending the pitcher, wine bottles, tray of food, and cups all crashing to the floor. He got no answer, for Leila had swept up her shift and was making a wild dash across the room.
With an enraged roar, Guy cleared the tub and caught her in three strides.
As she struggled against him, he spun her around to face him, shaking her so hard that her head snapped back. “You drugged the wine, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
Leila had never seen such fury, and it filled her with fear, her knees growing so wobbly she thought for sure she would collapse. Guy’s handsome face was livid, his eyes a thunderous blue. He looked as if he wanted to kill her.
“Answer me! Did you drug me?”
She gulped for air, inwardly cursing her stupid carelessness. “Y-yes.”
“With what?”
“Poppies … wild poppies!”
“Where did you get them? You had no money.”
“The spice merchant … outside the tavern. I—I stole them.”
“Stole them,” he echoed, his furious gaze sweeping over her trembling nude body.
Suddenly he yanked her hard against his chest and threaded his fingers through her wet hair, pulling her head back. His voice became dangerously low, his breath fanning her upturned face like a hot, wine-scented wind.
“Do you think I’m a total fool, Leila? This was all a show, wasn’t it? A provocative game with very high stakes. You knew exactly what you were doing. Serving me wine so I might see you in your shift, conveniently catching your hair in the tub so I might see your beautiful wet body” —he pulled her hair tighter until she winced— “then encouraging me to drink while you finished your bath.”
“No! No, you’re wrong!” she whispered desperately in a vain attempt to diffuse his rage. “My hair did snag in those staves!”
Guy seemed not to hear her, only drawing her closer until her breasts were flattened cruelly against him. “How far were you planning to push me, my lady? How much farther would you have carried your teasing? Through dinner, perhaps? What would you have done, fed me with your own fingers as I’ve heard eastern women do in the harem? Now there’s an intriguing thought. And then what? When it was time for bed, would you have taken your little game as far as necessary, knowing the drugged wine would save your precious virginity before I could take it from you?”
Leila could not answer; her throat was too constricted with shock. Her mind spun to think that he would read her initial actions so clearly, but he was wrong about the rest. So wrong! She would never have—
“I drank three mugs of wine, Leila,” he grated, his deep, angry voice cutting into her racing thoughts. “How long do I have before the drug will take effect?”
“I don’t know!” she blurted truthfully. “Maybe an hour, maybe less. You may not have ingested enough opiate to feel more than a slight drowsiness—”
“It is long enough,” he cut her off ominously, gathering her suddenly into his arms and striding back to the tub. “Long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” she rasped breathlessly, her skin puckering with goosebumps as he practically dumped her into the tepid water. While he knelt beside the tub and fished around for the soap, she scrambled as far away from him as possible, but he only dragged her back.
“Long enough to see that we carry this seductive game to the end,” he said huskily, locking her directly in front of him as he leaned over her shoulders. He ran the slick bar across her hardened nipples, around and around her full breasts, then slowly slid it down the valley between them to her navel. “First, we shall finish your bath. Would you have done this for me, Leila? Soaped your smooth skin while I watched? Surely that would have goaded me into drinking more of your vicious brew.”
“No!” she cried, but already heady sensations flickered through her body as he dipped the soap between her legs. She tried to squeeze them together, but he forced her knees apart, his great strength overwhelming her. “No, you cannot mean to do this! What of your vow? You swore to protect me!”
“Vows mean nothing in the face of your treachery,” Guy declared, so far gone with desire that he knew he could not stop now no matter how hard he tried.
He did not want to think, to reason, to feel the terrible pain cutting into his heart at the realization of what she had been doing to him. He only wanted to play the game that she had started, before it was too late. Even now he could feel a slight dullness in his brain, the heaviness in his limbs, but he would fight against it as he was fighting against the truth of her words.
To hell with his vow! Truth. Chivalry. To hell with all of them! He wanted her. More than he had ever wanted any woman.
And he meant to have her.
Right now, that was all that mattered.
“How about this, my lady fair?” he whispered, nibbling her neck while he lathered her breasts and belly. His slippery palms slid up and down her arms and her slender legs, then along her inner thighs, his fingernails lightly grazing her tender flesh. He cupped his large hands and rinsed her, caressing the soap from her flushed skin with both rough and gentle strokes.
Leila gripped his taut, powerful biceps and futilely tried to push his arms away even as she felt her body swiftly betraying her reason. She no longer felt the coolness of the water, only the scorching heat of his touch. His hands were heavy and warm upon her, arousing unbelievable pleasure wherever they roamed. A strange tension was spreading through her body and consuming her, a throbbing ache building between her thighs.
Dear God, what was this wild madness seizing her? It was a sin, this feeling! She wanted him to stop, didn’t she?
“No, you must stop,” she demanded raggedly as his hands glided inward from her hips and sank lower into the junction of her thighs. He parted her legs wide, his fingers venturing into her softness, and he stroked the quivering inner folds. “Stop,” she moaned. “Oh, please …”
“How can you want me to stop, Leila, when your body is on fire with need?” came his husky words in her ear. His fingers delved deeper, only to slide out again and again to circle the sensitive bud he found buried there. “You’re so hot, like flame … and so tight …”
She jerked against his hand, his intimate touch too much, too sweet, too terrible. “Barbarian!” she cried out. “I hate you for this! Hate you!”
“Ah, woman, you may hate me, but you also desire me,” Guy said hoarsely, his tongue flicking across her ear. “Your need is running wild through your blood like the drug coursing in mine. I have reason to hate you as well for what you have done to me, but I cannot. I cannot!”
Leila gasped as he rose suddenly and lifted her wet body from the tub in a cascade of glistening water. In the next instant he was straddling her on the bed, the velvet curtains hanging torn from their wooden poles because he had wrenched them so violently aside. His towel was gone, his own rampant desire alarmingly evident, hard, swollen, and poised above her belly.
“Remember this, Leila,” he whispered, his eyes burning into hers with an intensity that matched the heat of his huge, heavily muscled thighs. “After tonight you will never be free of me. I swear it! Somehow … somehow I will have you for my—” He did not finish but swayed slightly above her, then slammed his fist down on the mattress, groaning, “No, dammit! No! Not yet!”
Through the passion which gripped her, Leila knew that the opiate was weakening him. Just as she knew when he claimed her lips in a crushing kiss that it still would not fell him in time to save her. As his tongue hungrily sought the soft, inner depths of her mouth, she thought fleetingly that she should fight him, but she couldn’t. She wanted him. Be it sin or the devil taunting her, she wanted him.
Guy blanketed her with his huge, hot body, and all thought fled.
There was no more right and wrong, no past and future, only the furious onslaught of his carnal kiss, his touch, his lips, his tongue. He seemed to be everywhere at once, stroking her, caressing her, his movements urgent and wild. She gave herself up completely to the trembling desire which threatened to explode from some deep, mysterious place. She was lost to feelings and sensations her body had never known …
The wet, shivering wonder of Guy nuzzling at her breasts, his licking tongue and nipping teeth like sweet torture to her roused nipples. His lips pulled upon her unti
l she was half mad with delight and she entangled her fingers in his damp hair, moaning incoherently.
The weight of him, the incredible feel of him upon her as he pressed her down into the soft mattress. His muscles rippled beneath her frantic hands, his every movement bursting with strength and power.
As his knee nudged apart her legs, his fingers slid into her again and teased the quivering bud of flesh until she was writhing and gasping beneath him. Shards of heat and ecstasy pierced her, the throbbing ache now a fire raging out of control. She scarcely knew when his fingers were replaced by a mightier presence which suddenly drove deep into her body, filling her completely.
Leila cried out, half whimper, half scream, startled by the sharp, searing sensation where an instant before she had felt only delirious splendor.
“Shhh, love. Feel me move inside you,” came Guy’s throaty command. “Think only of the pleasure. The pain will soon pass. I promise you.”
She gripped his back, spreading her legs as he sank into her, slowly withdrew, then sheathed himself in her tightness again and again.
“Only the pleasure, Leila … sweet, so hot. Do you feel it?” he whispered raggedly.
“Yes … yes,” she moaned, the pain quickly fading as her hips began to instinctively meet his quickening thrusts. As the sensations became more intense, more overwhelming, she wound her legs around his hips, wanting more of him … wanting all of him.
“Ah, God, woman, you are mine!” Guy groaned vehemently, slamming his body into hers until they were both shaking with desire. “No one else shall have you!”
And in the blinding moment of glory that suddenly burst upon her, Leila believed him.
She was his as she had been no other man’s, and she clung tightly to him, clutching his shoulders and gripping his taut buttocks with her legs as he shuddered and spilled his hot, surging seed deep inside her. She arched wildly to meet him, laughing and crying and certain she was dying, for such wondrous pleasure could surely not be of this earth.
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