by Louisa Trent
“ ‘Twas a wonderful swim. My thanks."
Leash firmly gripped, he handed her the linen. “Dry off."
She took it with a grateful nod.
As she dried her face, he rubbed warmth into her arms and shoulders. “Do something about your hair. The ends have turned to icicles and are dripping down your back."
“As you say,” she said sweetly. Teeth clattering, she dipped at the waist.
While he watched, she wound the linen around her head. With a deft twist, it became an exotic turban. With her wild mane wrapped, she seemed more naked somehow. Save for her pretty gold thatch of pubic curls, she resembled a sultan's concubine. Whores were shorn in many cultures. He, himself, had insisted upon it during the Crusades, to facilitate the examination of camp prostitutes for cankerous disease.
Sage smoothed his palm over Aeschine's belly and then sank his fingers lower.
Her pelt was quite thick, and still damp from her swim.
Combing his fingers through the luxuriant silk, he said wholly bemused, “This is a pretty decoration."
“Thank you.” She gave him a naughty grin. “Though it feels odd to thank you for such an unseemly compliment."
Lord, she was sweet! Would that he could gobble her up whole...
There was that weakness again in him. To keep the softening away, to keep in mind what Aeschine was, and what she was not and could never be, he removed his blade from his thigh. “I must shear you.
“Shear me? What mean you?"
“This must be shorn,” he answered, up to his knuckles in the golden bush. “Your female pelt must go."
“You would shear me as I do my sheep?"
He discounted the comparison with a wave of his hand. “Whores must wear the sign of their corruption on their genitals."
“I am not corrupt! You enjoy what we do as much as I enjoy it. Why do I not shear you?"
“ ‘Tis the law!"
“Whose law?” she asked hotly.
“My law!” he replied in kind. “And there are no exceptions! My decrees govern my leman the same as they govern everyone else. No preferential treatment!"
Why did her needling get under his guard this way? “'Tis easier to see the pustules of disease on a whore who is shorn."
Aeschine gasped and went pale. “I am not diseased!"
“Prostitutes always swear to that, and then they regularly spread their promiscuity taint amongst troops! This, I will not allow. You will be checked each month for disease with the rest of the castle whores. Bald, the examination is easier.” He continued on a softer note. “Shaving does not hurt, I promise. The knife is sharp but my hand is steady."
He placed the blade against her mound. “Hold still, little lamb."
Carefully, so as not to knick tender flesh, he drew the blade over her curls.
She cried a little as he scraped her bare, but held steady for him.
He gloated at the results. No more would she be able to hide her rosebud from him; the scrap of flesh was in plain view.
And he was uncomfortably aware of it. He was hungry to make love to his captive...
Make love? Where had that come from?
“Return to the cave at once,” he told her brusquely, and gave her harness a shake.
She jumped at his tone. “Why? What have I done?"
“You are never to question my dictates!” he raged.
How was it that in his thoughts he had called what they did making love?
He fucked his captive; he did not made love to her. How had he confused the two dissimilarities, even for an instant?
* * * *
“Go to the wall,” Sage told Aeschine once they were inside the mouth of the cave.
“What do you think to do?” she asked tremulously, but holding her ground.
“I think to fuck you."
“Do not demean what we have, Captor! Our attraction is of the spirit as well as of the body. We make love..."
“We fuck. Like animals fuck."
“But we are not animals. We have souls..."
“Perchance you do. I lost my soul years ago. Now go and face the wall."
“Nay! Not until you admit that we make love.” Her wide eyes accused him.
So as not to see her hurt look, he faced her away, draping her naked length against the cold gray stone.
Aeschine's skin glowed like a lit candle in the darkness. He thought if he reached out, he might capture her luminosity the same way he had cupped fireflies in his palms as a lad, just to watch them shine against his fingers. He would imprison the winged creatures for a while, their brightness mesmerizing him as they fought for their freedom, and then opening his fingers, he would let them fly away.
Light and courage. That was Aeschine. He wished he could open his fingers and let her go as he had released the fireflies from captivity. But he couldn't, and that inability had begun to grate on him.
For all of her fearlessness, she was still a female with a female's vulnerabilities. His captive needed love like a flower needs water. Without it, she would wither and die. And he had no love, no tender emotions, to give her. All he had was hate and revenge and madness in his heart. Since he could not open his hand and let her fly away, he must instead snuff out her light.
Her back was long and pale and sleekly muscled. Her buttocks were high and rounded. Tight. He smoothed his hand down her backbone. Over and over, he did this. He could not seem to stop. Never had he felt such raw, bleak, lust. He could not temper it. Could not slow it down. Could not free himself of it.
The air in the cave was heavy. Thick with steam. Perfumed with the scent of wanton carnality. Stretched out on a rack of encroaching pleasure, spiraling toward damnation, his expectations surpassing all reasonable boundaries, he cupped his captive's derriere.
“A man makes love to his wife. He does not make love to his leman. A man fucks his leman."
“Nay, this is more than that. We are more than that..."
Why did she persist in her romantic notions? Why did she insist upon making this what it was not?
“You will not make this into a dream, Captive! Henceforth, I spill my seed outside your womb so that you will not conceive."
“Interfering with the natural order is a grievous sin. The Church forbids it, and all other unnatural acts. If I agree, such a sin will blacken my soul."
“Ah, sin. I have seen more sins committed in a Holy War than I have ever seen done in a sultan's harem. Nay, I do not believe in the notion of sin any more."
“ ‘Tis heresy you speak,” she said, voice hushed.
“If you think to gainsay me, forestalling me with accusations of heresy will not accomplish your goal. Speak plainly if you wish to prevent this, for I am no rapist."
His captive had pious tendencies, for all that she had lain with LaTourne. For that reason, she must be made to understand the place she would serve in his life. Far kinder to do it this way than to make her reckless promises for a future neither of them might have. He was not her betrothed. Not her espoused. He was her captor; she was his captive. This bargain between them was all that they had, and the bargain must be placed in its proper perspective.
They fucked. They did not make love. This was the proper perspective.
“I give you my heart,” she said, crying softly. “I would face the fires of hell to gain my heaven with you."
He would not be swayed. “Do you deny me?” He ran the tips of his fingers down the seam between her buttocks.
“I deny nothing, especially what I have become."
He leaned over her, his body rounded to her back. “You are what you are. As I am what I am.” He tasted the salt of her tears with his tongue.
Exonerating himself from the responsibility of those salty tears, he pulled back a ways and arranged her body for his taking: elegant arms braced against the wall, slender hips slightly forward, legs well separated.
“No half measures, no strictures,” he coolly advised her. “Best tell me now if you have reserv
ations about continuing our bargain. Best tell me if there is anything you do not allow."
“Let your conscience be clear, Captor,” she said, her voice devoid of all emotion, including recrimination. “I allow everything. I give you full sanction, total consent. I crave your lovemaking no matter what form it takes."
Lovemaking! This was not lovemaking! Why would she not see it for what it was?
“Three sheep for this usage,” he said formally, courteously, and opened his loincloth.
His manhood sprang forth and nudged her legs.
Tightening her muscles, she covered her face with her hands. “You will never love me if I allow you this. A man does not respect a woman who goes against the laws of the Church, who interferes with the natural of order of conception."
For once, Aeschine had not been able to read his mind. For he could love her. He could love her very easily.
“Open to me,” he rasped. “Let me in. ‘Tis only your talk of sin that keeps me out."
With a shudder of capitulation, her last desperate grip on piety fell. Loosening her thighs, she braced her arms against the wall and sighed, “I need you. But, oh, that need does burn me so. Quench me. Put out the fire. Come into me now!"
From that first sighting, he had lusted after her. Aeschine had looked like a wild thing racing across the moors. The wet heat of penetration, the animal grunts and groans, the white-hot illumination of climax, the urgency, that mad, uncontrollable rush to mate—all these ruled him now.
He entered her passage from the rear, giving himself over to illicit pleasure. While his captive wept softly into her hands, he spent his seed upon the ground when he was done.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aeschine spoke to Sage's brooding profile as he stood at the entrance to the cave. “The sun will soon be high."
He turned to face her. “It does look that way. You slept well?"
“Aye. Thank you for inquiring. And you?"
“Better than I have in years."
He answered her as she would a stranger. Polite words created remoteness between them. But what had she really expected? Hugs? Kisses? Affection? A companion who shared all of his thoughts—the good as well as the bad?
Aye, that is what she wished for, but that is not what she had gotten.
She was the captive of a warlord who carried a great burden and who would not let her share it. But for all that he kept her at a distance, there had been joy in Sage's lovemaking last night. Mayhap, too much joy.
The Church frowned on anything more than a circumspect mating between the lawfully wed. What they had done the night before was not lawful and it was hardly circumspect. What he had done, what she had allowed him to do, was forbidden. Interfering with conception went against the sanctity of intercourse.
Clerics always asked for the details of the bedchamber during confession. Should she admit that her captor's caresses worked on her like an aphrodisiac? That his words of encouragement were as sweet as his touch was hypnotic? Should she ask forgiveness, because almost in a trance, she had agreed to everything he had demanded?
The man she loved, the man she had freely given herself to in the name of that love, thought of her as a whore, as a prostitute, as an immoral woman who had copulated with a known sodomite. She had hidden her virginity from her captor, but had accepted sheep, which he perceived as payment for sexual favors. She had allowed all on the furs, including what the Church viewed as unnatural acts.
Undoubtedly, she had sinned. Mayhap, she would simply not bother to confess. Mayhap, she was unrepentant. Mayhap, she was already doomed to hell. Mayhap, she was a whore by her own making.
She had no recriminations against her captor. Plain and simple, she loved him. That was her most grievous sin of all.
As a young lass she had oft tried to imagine what lying with a lover would feel like. In her immature vision, her suitor was handsome to the point of effeminacy, and gentle to the point of maternal. He did nothing more shocking than whisper reverent poems in her ear. The lovemaking was spiritual, save for the occasional chaste kiss.
Last night, her whole world had been centered between her legs.
Never again would she have those fanciful, innocent, romantic daydreams of lovemaking.
Mating was brutally honest. Unpretty. Intensely real. Her girlhood dreams seemed silly to her now. Dull.
However, she still clung to one romantic portion of her dream: The kiss. She yearned to feel her lover's mouth on hers.
“You may rise,” her captor said, tone clipped.
At the instruction, she rolled to a sit, pushed the tangle of hair back from her face, and taking his hand, gained her feet with a grimace.
Embarrassed at what that grimace revealed, she looked away.
Cupping her chin, the captor forced her eyes to meet his eyes. “Are you well this morn?"
Well?
Her captor had used her hard. She was past tender into sore. The loving had most definitely pained her. But in all honesty, the hurt had never once exceeded the joy...
She nodded shyly. Aye, she was very well indeed.
At her response, the warlord's face took on a look of supreme male satisfaction. Gone was the sunken and dull glaze; his dark eyes now shone as they were meant to—like black jewels.
“Thank you for last night,” he said. He unhooked her from the stake.
Pleased that she had pleased him, she blushed.
“How bashful you are!” he exclaimed. “You have this uncanny ability to make me feel as though I am your first and only lover.” He chuckled. “'Tis a clever trick, I know, but endearing, nevertheless."
He dipped his mouth to her swollen nipples.
As he tenderly suckled her bruised flesh, she closed her eyes. She longed to bring him closer, to wrap her arms around him, to offer him the comfort of her love. Her captor needed love's comfort almost as much as he needed her body. Only he would not see it. Not yet. And so her arms remained at her sides.
After popping a glistening wet nipple from his mouth, he fingered between her legs. “You will ride sidesaddle today. You are very nearly swollen closed. I can barely get a finger in."
“We leave the cave today?” she asked over the top of his head. As he pushed another finger in to widen her, she sighed. “I would stay here forever with you. I love our magical cave."
“Stop this romantic prattle! Do you not understand even now, what this is about?"
Oh, he would push and he would push, but he would not push her away!
He had not brutalized her last night. He had not raped her. She was a willing accomplice in what they had done. If she wore bruises on her skin, she wore them with pride. And as to sin, well, God was forgiving if the Church was not. They might still have a future. They might still have a life. She would not allow her lover-captor to make what they had less than what it was!
“I do not know what happened in your past to make you so cold. I hope someday, you will tell me what it is. I hope someday, you will become human again. As I am obstinate by nature, I shall not give up on you."
“I have decided against intercourse.” He withdrew his fingers. “Go to the springs and wait for me."
“Brr.” She made a great show of shivering. “'Tis chilly in the cave this morn."
“The hot springs will warm you."
“Drat! I hoped you would."
He chuckled. “Oh, Aeschine, you are a delight. What am I to do with you?"
“Love me. As I love you."
Raking both hands through waves of dark hair, he said in exasperation, “Wait for me at the hot springs by the ring of rocks. I will join you presently."
* * * *
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Sage looked up from his packing.
Aeschine's skin, moist and rosy from her bath, told him that his captive had once again disobeyed him.
The leather satchel he had been stuffing dropped unheeded to the cave's floor. “I told you to wait for me."
“No harm done. Se
e? I am not drowned."
“What I see is defiance."
She crossed her arms over her heaving breasts. “As my lover, Captor, you have much to learn. Your coldness, your inflexibility, your disregard for my feelings—these must change. How will we have a happy life together if your distrust of me continues?"
“You dare speak to me of happy? Of trust? Speak to me instead of your stepfather's politics! Of your sodomite lover's crimes!"
Her arms were uncrossed and tossed in the air. “Not that again! I have already explained that my stepfather has no politics outside the accumulation of wealth. And as to LaTourne—thank God, that man shared no part of his mind with me!"
He brushed that aside. “Then we will skip your stepfather and your last lover. Tell me this instead: Does your clan intend any further attacks on English-held keeps along the borderlands?"
Aeschine looked at her feet. “Why are you asking me these questions in that judgmental tone? I have given you all I have to give. I held nothing back. My feelings for you make me so cowardly that I deny you nothing. I put my very soul in danger for you. Yet, still you think to judge me."
“I need your answer."
Her chin went stubborn. “Neither King Malcolm, my betrothed, or my stepfather seek me out for council. I am only a woman, and therefore I have but one use to a man—a use you made the most of in this cave. But in my country even a lowly woman takes a solemn oath to keep clan secrets."
“Your loyalties belong to me now!"
Sage took Aeschine by the shoulders and brought her up on her toes until they met eyeball to eyeball. “A borderland invasion a twelve-month ago took the lives of many innocent women and children and elders. Tell me now what you know of it."
“I know nothing! And if I did, I would not tell you. Do not seek to divide my loyalties. I am a Scotswoman to the death!"
He shook her. “You must tell me!"
“Not even if it costs me my life."
“Before this day is finished, you may very well pay for your obstinacy with your life. As my captive, I command you to speak!"