by C. N. Bird
“Do you want me to kiss you, Katinka?” he murmured.
She nodded, eyes wide. “More than anything.”
He smiled gently and leaned down, pressing his lips against hers, their bodies flattened together in the warm glow of the fire.
“Come now, my dear,” he said softly. “You have broken each and every one of my defences. Despite myself. I need you.”
She stepped away with a smile and unhooked the bodice of her dress and pulled the garment over her head whilst Amaury, still standing, removed his boots and stockings. She made quick work of taking off her corset, unravelling its front fastenings. For just an instance she recalled her governess, advising that front fastenings were to be used in emergencies, if she was short of breath and she giggled to herself. She tossed the corset aside and now, only in a chemise, she removed the pins from her hair.
Amaury watched as her dark ringlets tumbled down her back and smiled. “You have such perfect skin,” he murmured. “How can every part of you be as beautiful as your face?”
She smiled broadly and looked at him, a glow of deep satisfaction welling within her. Tall, naked and aroused, there was no doubt that Amaury’s was a soldier’s body. Her gaze fell onto his muscles, hardened by goodness knew how much training and how many campaigns, his skin marked with pale scratches of scars. She wanted to run her fingers along each one.
“Come to me, Amaury.”
He joined her on the bed and pulled her towards him in a deep kiss. His tongue explored her mouth, teeth nipping at her lower lip. He entwined his fingers in her hair. “So lovely,” he murmured into her ear, the warmth of his breath against her skin.
“I need it off,” she murmured. He smiled and took hold of the fabric of her chemise, lifting it over her head before flinging it to the foot of the bed. They pressed their bodies together, revelling in the warmth of each other’s skin.
With a hand to the small of her back, he held her reverentially as he laid her down and kneeled over her, the kiss unending. His hands caressed her skin and when his palms grazed her nipples, the sensation shot straight to her sex.
Slowly his hand slid down her body but stopped short of her throbbing core. He stroked the inside of her thighs, so teasingly near. A moan, half pleasure, half frustration slipped from her lips. Finally he touched her, his fingers explored her flesh, silken and juicy for him. She parted her legs for him.
The touch of a tongue to her sex drew a deep moan from her and she shuddered as his tongue swept over her folds before probing deeper. The sensation of his hot breath against her mound and his warm tongue inside her core was almost too much to bear and Katinka could not hold back the moans and whimpers that fell from her lips.
“I want you,” she whispered. “Inside me. Please.”
He needed no further invitation. He parted her legs, gripping her behind each knee to spread her wide. With one, slow, lingering stroke, he penetrated her and she moaned, one hand leisurely travelling down her body to her sex, tenderly stroking her bud in time to his strokes.
The intensity grew and she bucked up against him, feeling him pressing inside her, pressing against her womb, thrusting faster and faster until she exploded with sensation. Pleasure washed through her, her body quivering, tightening and softening as her lust subsided. His grip on her tightened and he breathed hard, straining to keep his impending orgasm at bay. Katinka’s sex pulsed around him, tightening and releasing. Her hips rose and fell to meet his thrusts. Both breathed harder, trying to hold back but it was obviously too much. He grabbed her hips and pulled her to him, impaling himself on the full length of his member and with two hard thrusts he buried himself to the hilt inside her and surrendered, spilling his seed inside her.
***
Amaury rolled off her, pulling her with him to cradle her to his side. Katinka reached up to stroke the side of his face and he turned his head to look at her. She looked back into his eyes and the depth of emotion he saw shining there was as breath-taking as the climax they had just shared.
“Katinka,” he whispered, reaching up to place his hand over hers.
She smiled and reached across to kiss him before getting up from the bed and wrapping herself in a cloak.
“Are you well? Did I hurt you?” he asked, alarmed.
She turned, eyes twinkling. “I am about to make some pennyroyal tea. Unless, of course, you were hoping for a bastard child?”
He breathed out, relieved. “No. Not bastard children, no.”
“I shall be just a moment, mon cher,” she whispered, kissing his forehead before walking towards the fire and hooking a battered kettle on the fire. After a moment, a herbal scent drifted across the room, blending with the aromas of their lovemaking.
He stretched and sat up in the bed before treading across the floor to collect his cloak. “Come, sit with me, Katinka.”
They sat together on the chair, she upon his lap—a glass of vodka for him and tea for her. He hooked the cloak between his fingers and wrapped his arms around her, cocooning them both as he pressed his nose into her hair and inhaled her scent.
“A beautiful woman like you should be married to a tsar,” he whispered.
She giggled and looked to her cup.
“Ah there are much greater beauties in the court than I. I am too skinny and ruddy cheeked and… yes… well a little provincial. So they say. I cannot keep up with the latest fashions that the ladies wear.” She looked up mischievously. “You’ll know all about the Parisian fashion that is so popular at the moment, I’m sure.”
He grinned. “Gilded lillies, madam, if I may be so bold.” They both paused, watching the fire lick the logs, sat in a moment of perfect content. “I say if I may be so bold but I have been very frank already so I think I ought to continue. We have vodka and I will have to rely upon that excuse for tomorrow. To continue… I struggle to believe that any woman could outshine your beauty and intelligence.”
She looked down to her cup, blushing furiously. “Are all French men such flatterers?”
He snorted. “Only the sensible ones. If the Russian court would see fit to allow such beauty to be ignored, Mother Russia is either far wealthier than could ever be imagined or she is a fool.” He leaned towards her and whispered conspiratorially into her ear, “I shall let you into a secret. Everyone in France knows that the Tsarina has a face like the backside of a mule.”
She burst out laughing, a sweet relaxed sound that illuminated her face. If it were possible for him to think her more beautiful...
“Now I know you are not used to drink and are clearly not in control of yourself!”
He chuckled and rubbed his nose against her cheek.
“See, that’s better.”
She smiled and sighed, putting on a much more serious face with only limited success before he raised an eyebrow conspiratorially. She failed to contain a fresh peal of giggles and wriggled on his lap.
“Capitaine Amaury! This is so… my lord, thank goodness that the courtiers cannot hear you to report back on me, else I would be exiled! Such an ungallant gentleman…”
He smiled gently and leaned back, taking another sip of vodka. “Madam, you wrong me. A gentleman I once was but that was before my manhood and before the revolution. Whilst I may have lost my title and ancestral home, I gained the love of a second family, the family who served my parents, and a little land.” He chuckled dryly. “I also lost the need to filter what I say in relation to the upper classes for fear of offending too. And so,” he gestured with his vodka glass, “I say, without fear, that the wonderful, witty, intelligent woman sat with me is the most beautiful woman I have ever encountered and if the Tsarina is held as a beauty, you must be the most beautiful woman in Russia.”
“That is completely nonsensical!”
“Ahh surely you would not doubt French logic? The logic of our philosophers? France produced Descartes, Rousseau and Voltaire! Russia has…?”
She snorted and coughed on her tea. “So crass a gentleman! And what wou
ld a mere citizen know of philosophy?”
“I do believe I mentioned, I received an education suitable for a little baron. That was before my family’s servants took us in and saved us from the purge. I had a fine education and could teach the other children when we weren’t working.
She looked at him, brows furrowed. “Please, I must be clear—you were a member of the royal family and yet you were not executed?”
“My family were the House of Poitiers, my title would have been Amaury de Poitiers, Ecuyer, Baron de Saint Simon. It sounds terribly grand, no? But royalty? No, they wouldn’t be too troubled by me and my family. But then if we had been royalty, the revolution would have led to greater difficulties for us and so I am grateful for not holding that distinction.”
“Do you not regret the revolution? You must surely hate that they stole all you had.” She leaned towards him, her bare breasts pressing against his chest. Amaury swallowed and felt his body rise to attention. He shook his head before looking towards the fire.
“I was young and… yes, we lost things, our house and the title of our lands… but we had shown care to the people who worked our land and during and after the revolution, they took very good care of us. They provided us with some small plot of land and though we worked hard, we never wanted and my father was able, with some of the smaller ornaments he salvaged to create a thriving merchant’s business. We have been able to repay the kindnesses shown to us. We were still able to help anyone who came to our door searching for assistance.”
Amaury leaned back and swirled the vodka in his glass.
“We were extraordinarily lucky. Not a soul would abuse us, no throwing vegetables, not even a harsh word. I think the villagers told the Revolutionary Army that we had been attacked and robbed to keep them happy and to keep them away from us. We spent a few nights in the cells whenever the Army came to visit but we were protected by our villagers. We were grateful then. I remain grateful now. “
She frowned and cocked her head to one side. “Such nobility from villagers,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “They are good people. The Revolutionary Army found very few riches to steal when they came to our house. Only one or two of Mama’s courtly dresses. We were very lucky.”
“But still I think you have seen too much. War. Revolutions. Your family robbed like that. It is too much.”
“You too have seen some dreadful things that have happened in war.”
Her lips trembled and he held her closer. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
He looked into her eyes and a surge of protectiveness flashed through him. As long as he lived, he would fight to make sure that she was never hurt again. He placed his glass down and took hers from her hands before he ran his hand down her back, savouring the feel of her, the outline of her spine, along her thigh.
“Hold onto me,” he murmured as he clasped her arms underneath her and stood. Carefully, he walked to the bed before placing her down and leaning over her. He slid his hand to her breasts and she moaned. Placing her hands on the sides of his head, she guided his lips to where his fingers had been. He took her nipple into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue, feeling it peak and harden.
He felt her press against his leg, her silky sex sliding against his thigh and he reached down to her mound. She was so warm, so soft and wet for him. His fingers stroked small circles around her bud, down her folds and back to her bud, feeling their shared juices coating his fingers. A throaty moan escaped her lips as he stroked her swelling nub. Her hips rocked ever more forcefully and he moved his fingers down, spreading her lips and pressing his finger into her core. She gave another gentle moan as he stroked her softly, arching her back from the bed. She closed her eyes for a moment, and breathed deeply. Her eyes flew open as he sank a second finger into her sex, pressing into her.
“Let it go, my darling. Let it go for me.”
She gasped and her release hit her, her body shaking under the force of it, arching like a bow. “Amaury!” she gasped. “Oh, Amaury.”
The sound of her crying out his name as her climax came had Amaury ready to spend there and then. He grabbed her legs and pulled her forward, impaling her on his cock.
“Oh God,” she moaned, as her climax seemed to become ever more powerful, feeling her sex clenching around his shaft.
Amaury groaned, struggled to hold back. He rode her hard, gripping her hips until her sex stilled and then slowed, regaining his control. He pulled back with a gasp before he gently turned her over.
“Onto your knees, sweet darling.”
She kneeled on the bed, offering her sex, their juices glistening against her thighs before he entered her from behind. Katinka squealed as he pressed deeper inside her, his thickness stretching her. Amaury rode her, his sac slapping against her sex and legs and she moved with him, seeking each thrust as if it would be the last.
“You feel so wonderful,” she gasped.
He shuddered against her and groaned. With a great thrust, he came into her, releasing his seed.
Amaury pulled out of her and watched, captivated, as a delicate stream of his seed and her honey slid from her sex. He lay down and pulled Katinka on top of him and they lay there together under the blankets, legs entwined. His chest cushioned her head as he held her to him and his hands stroked her from head to the base of her spine, petting her like a kitten.
“What do you suppose will happen once the war is over?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I am a little afraid to think about it, if I am frank.”
“You? Afraid?”
He nodded and looked down to her. “I don’t want to be apart from you,” he breathed, his eyes earnest.
She frowned. “So we shan’t be apart. That seems simple.”
He sighed. “Things are never simple. I have no resources worthy of an archduchess.”
She looked up, her gentle expression now changed to a mixture of panic and anger. “A military career is not forbidden of the nobility!”
“But the life of a soldier’s wife for an archduchess? It is impossible. I would be with you, Katinka. I will be with you. Only a fool would bring his family to war. You know how rough it is for soldiers’ wives to march long distances, heavy with child? How to care for tiny children in the midst of battle?
“So you shall quit being a soldier?”
“You don’t see. I have no resources. How would I support us both?”
“I have no idea how we would manage, but we would manage,” she muttered.
“I wish I could see how but at this immediate moment, I cannot. Please, Katinka, you must trust me that I will find a way,” he pleaded.
“You talk of an archduchess as a soldier’s wife. It seems preferable to me than being a concubine,” she snarled.
He sat stunned, his mouth open. “Madam, I would not suggest you were treated as a concubine.”
She clambered off him and grabbed her chemise, pulling it over herself angrily.
“I think it’s time you departed to your quarters now, Capitaine. I was a fool but no more. I think you’ve had your fun.”
“Katinka, please—”
“Just go.”
Chapter Four
It was the darkest point in the night before he could sleep, his mind drawn inexorably to Katinka. From anticipation to joy to yet more confusion… his emotions were scattered. He growled at himself, rolled and thumped his pillow, angry for allowing himself to be so swept away by her. It was no use denying it to himself, he was thoroughly under her spell. He also knew he would never be so angry with himself if her rejection had not hurt him so badly.
The owl called in the otherwise silent night and he finally felt himself succumbing to slumber, physically and emotionally exhausted.
Through his daze, he heard a cry. It seemed so far in the distance and yet…and yet!
The mist cleared from his brain as reality forced itself into his consciousness. “Cossacks! The Russian bastards are attacking!”
Katinka
. He had to reach Katinka.
With a bound, he leapt up, flinging his jacket over his shoulders and roughly driving his cold toes into his boots, cursing his clumsiness and stupidity as his toes got caught in the edges of the leather. Finally he forced them on before collecting his sword, running awkwardly into the street, his feet flapping in his boots.
***
Katinka heard the cry and shivered. She had hoped for this moment, for her rescue and yet now this moment had come, she was fearful, full of regrets. She had been angry but as she lay in her now empty bed she had hoped against hope that somehow Amaury would return, declare that he had found a means by which they could stay together. Such foolish hope.
She looked across to Pauline and Josefa, looking both fearful and hopeful. They too had hoped for their rescue but knew that a battleground was dangerous. Who knew whether the French may seek to kill them to prevent the Russians from recovering them? For that matter, did they know if the Cossacks would know who they were?
Pauline started to weep gently and Katinka placed her arm around her wordlessly. To speak either French or Russian to her now would be to invite the ire of one side or the other. Katinka held her a little closer and pressed her cheek against Pauline’s forehead, looking across at Josefa. Josefa was still, too still. She trembled with barely concealed terror like a spring coiled tightly enough to rupture. Katinka made eye contact and Josefa pulled her lips into a tight smile, lips so tight that they appeared white. They understood. They must watch and wait. And pray.
***
Amaury scanned the street, illuminated only by the crescent moon and snow, his gaze settling on the eastern post. The crumpled remains of a slender man with glinting brass buttons lay in the snow like a broken marionette, his assailant being attacked by two of his comrades. He turned and ran up the road towards the archduchess’s quarters. Her rooms were surrounded by trees. It would be so easy for the Cossack bastards to sneak in with no one ever the wiser. One cut—one hideous cut—and they may not be discovered until daybreak. He forced the thought out of his mind, feeling the blood drain from his face at the rush of fear. They would not have her.