Pleasure of His Bed

by Melissa MacNeal, Donna Grant, Annalise Russell

  Bodin turned toward the sound and then glanced down at Chessa. “Erek will take you to the ship.”

  “What? Why?” She stood and hurried beside Bodin.

  His eyes narrowed on her. “I have much to do before we sail, including meet with my men. And I want you out of the way, safe.” He glanced down at her hand, which was gripping a fistful of his tunic. “Not clutching at my shirttails and cloak.”

  “But why can’t you take me to the ship?” She turned slightly to see over her shoulder. “It would not take long.” The shadow paced, kicking at the charred wood from the rained-out fire only a few feet from the tent opening.

  Bodin took her by the arm, turning her body so she faced only him, watched only him. “Why are you afraid?” He scanned her face, narrowing his gaze to study her reaction. She had been in much the same state when he’d arrived back last evening. Only then, she’d refused to tell him why.

  “Sir.” Erek called out.

  Chessa startled and tried to get closer, but Bodin kept her where he could see her. He lowered his voice. “Has Erek touched you? Harmed you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Tell me the truth. Now!” he growled, giving her a slight shake.

  “No, he hasn’t, but—”

  “But what, then?” he snapped, trying to get an answer quickly.

  “Last night…during the storm, before you returned…he—”

  “He what?”

  “He was here.” Chessa tried to see behind her, see the shadow she knew hovered just on the other side of the canvas wall.

  Bodin tightened his grip on her arm. “Erek was here? Are you certain?”

  She nodded, lowering her gaze to the ground. “I’m positive it was him.” She swallowed.

  “Sir? Are you in there?” Erek pressed. “I’m here to take the girl to the ship.”

  Bodin rubbed at his rough beard. “When?”

  Chessa spoke in a whispered rush. “Just after I arrived from the spring. I—I heard a noise and thought it was you.” Hoped it was you, her heart screamed inside her chest. “I peeked out and saw him by the trail.” Her heart began to race, the memory of her fear returning. She shuddered, voice wobbling as she continued. “A few moments later, the blade of a dagger opened the tent flap like someone was peeking in, but they went away as the group of others approached.”

  Bodin puzzled on her words for a moment. Erek had not been amongst the men at the beach camp, nor had he been waiting here with the others at first. The young man had arrived late. Needing to get to the bottom of all this, Bodin pulled Chessa through the tent flap and kept a tight grip on her arm, not allowing her to take shelter behind him as she wanted. “Where were you last night, Erek? Before you met me here with the others?”

  Erek looked at Chessa only for a moment before responding. “Me?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Just scouting around the area, making certain all was as it should be.” A big, sloppy grin lit his face as he raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t want anyone else sneaking into your tent uninvited.”

  The hinted reminder of a debt owed was not lost on Bodin. He relaxed. It was likely just curiosity feeding the boy’s actions or eagerness to rise in the ranks by taking on extra duty. Besides, there were far more likely candidates among his men for any additional trouble that might be caused over Chessa.

  Erek stared at Chessa. “Didn’t you want her secured aboard the ship as soon as possible?”

  “Change of plan. I’ll take her.” Bodin let go of Chessa’s arm and pressed his hand to her back, hurrying her toward the trail leading onto the sandy beach. He’d already been forced to slit Gavit’s throat. No point in tempting the boy beyond retribution.

  “Sure,” Erek called to Bodin’s back. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “As you wish.”

  Out of Erek’s presence, Chessa sighed with relief. But, still, she wanted to cry. Getting back aboard the ship meant Bodin was that much closer to taking her home and that much closer to leaving her. She ached, raw inside and out, vulnerable to every hurt she knew would come when she watched his ship sail off into the distance. Bodin’s hands gripped her waist as he lifted her to one of the men already aboard. On deck, she turned and looked back at the trail they had just walked. Erek stood there, watching her, chewing on a long strand of grass. He would come after her. It was only a matter of time and opportunity. She had no doubt.

  “Come, Chessa.” Bodin waited beside the open hatch.

  She placed her hands in his, letting him lower her down for the remainder of the voyage. This time she was grateful for the small room below deck, grateful for the lock on the door.

  Bodin waited until she’d entered the hidden space inside the drop hold. “I’ll be back soon.” He pulled the door closed, turning the key in the latch.

  Chessa dropped onto the cot, the blankets soft beneath her. Overhead, metal-strapped trunks thudded and slid as booted feet shuffled to secure possessions and supplies. She closed her eyes, tugging the cloak to cover her bare feet. They would sail soon. Already the bay had filled with enough water to rock the beached ship with waves. She curled onto her side. Nothing to do but wait. Wait and wonder.

  So much would happen in the next few days. Or would it be hours? Bodin had never said. He’d not answered her question about how long the voyage would take. Chessa sighed. Soon she’d see her parents, her home….

  The door handle rattled, the lock clunking again and again as someone attempted to pull it free. Chessa sat up, heart racing. A dull thud jarred the heavy wooden panel. Slits of light flashed between the planks with each impact. She drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them, eyes wide and watching. Where was Bodin? Thunk. Thunk. With his key, Bodin wouldn’t need to break through the door….

  11

  A n almost imperceptible clink of metal against metal resonated in the small room. Chessa jarred awake. When had she closed her eyes? She couldn’t remember, couldn’t quite catch hold of her fuzzy thoughts. Her stomach turned, threatening to be sick from the motion of the ship. She dropped her head back against the wall. Had she really fallen asleep? The thought plagued her.

  The door creaked.

  Chessa closed her eyes again, her stomach insistent on the concession. Maybe if she just listened. Weapons clunked against the floorboards. A large, cool hand cupped the side of her face, thumb stroking softly against her warm cheek.

  “Are you awake?”

  The sound of Bodin’s voice soothed her. She nodded in his hand.

  “Then come here to me, sweet one.” Bodin pulled her to his chest as he lay back on the cot, taking her down with him.

  She sighed and smiled, snuggling deep into his warm shoulder. One of his large hands drifted down the length of her spine as the other guided the rest of her body atop him. He widened her legs so she straddled his hips.

  Aroused, Bodin centered her over his cock and worked the fabric of her bed gown up and over her head, out of his way, dropping it in a heap on the floor. He pressed a plump, ripe raspberry into her mouth and then cupped both sides of her face, pulling her lips to his, tongue delving, sharing the berry between them. He explored the inside of her mouth as he soon would other places.

  Chessa moaned, her body as hungry for him as he was for her. Bodin’s engorged manhood twitched against her bared, open sex, but he did not move to enter. Her body needed no further urging, nothing more to wake her and sway her into action. Pressed against his chest, her belly ached, needing, wanting, and she wiggled her hips, trying to take him inside her body.

  Bodin broke their kiss. He filled her mouth with several more berries and lifted her so he could taste her breasts, sucking one hard nipple deep into his mouth.

  She panted for breath, struggling to swallow the sweet offerings. The fire between her thighs flared as she squirmed against his firm hold. But in this position, she could not make contact with him, and she wanted the feel of him, the heat of him more than anything. She reached behind, hoping to touch him, to stir him into sat
isfying her desire, but his grip wouldn’t relent. Moisture leaked down the insides of her spread-open thighs, her need more than evident.

  Bodin switched to her other breast, taking the nipple between his teeth, clamping down on the hard bead until she whimpered. Her hips hovered above his torso, squirming, longing for his cock. He popped several berries in his mouth, swallowed, and then ran his tongue between her breasts and down, lifting her as he tasted his way lower. “You are far sweeter than the berries.”

  “No, Bodin….” Chessa breathed. “Please, I need you.”

  “Later,” he mumbled against the soft, spongy flesh of her belly. His fingers dug into her hips as he lifted her higher until she kneeled, straddling his face.

  Chessa could go nowhere. Bodin’s commanding grip bordered on painful. She was at his mercy and wanted it no other way. His tongue swept upward along her inner thigh, tasting her desire and inflaming her more. Her cheeks burned at such boldness, but her body was unwilling to protest as she reveled, without shame or reproach, in the hot need he stirred inside her belly.

  Bodin chuckled, speaking between nips and kisses, “You have turned into quite the naughty wench, sweet one.”

  She twisted slightly, able to at least help balance her trembling body by bracing one hand against the muscles of his hard chest. Her legs shook and quivered as he kept her at his discretion, open to his brand of teasing.

  He ran the tip of one finger along the hollow of her inner thigh, coating it as he followed the trail of heated moisture to the open entrance of her sex. He spread the liberal, searing liquid of her desire through her fleshy folds, seeking and finding the hard, swollen nub that throbbed for his attention.

  Chessa gasped. She bit down on her lower lip, trying hard not scream her pleasure with so many men above them able to hear. “Bodin—oh!”

  He pressed her down to his mouth, silencing her desperate plea as he tasted the sweet, salty pleasure of her need for him. His cock jerked each time she shuddered and whined.

  Her eyes grew wide, sobs choking the air from her lungs as his tongue pressed into the cavern of her desire. Inside, her muscles contracted, desperate to catch and hold on to his elusive, slippery demands.

  He lifted her easily, running his tongue along the passion-swollen flesh of her sex before blowing cool air to contrast the growing heat. “You are a very tasty wench indeed.” He continued to tease her with soft bites of his sharp teeth.

  “Bodin…please…” She grabbed for him, ready to spiral past the point of control, ready for him to ravage her again and again as he’d done before. But Bodin pulled her back down to straddle his hips, pressing her moist, open flesh against his thick manhood.

  His hands closed over her breasts, rough and consuming. She groaned, his shaft hot on her tender skin. Chessa rocked her hips forward and then back, taking him inside her body. Gaining at least part of what she wanted, she pressed her body down as far as she could, closing her eyes, letting the hot, hard length of him fuel the fire in her belly.

  “Don’t move, sweet one.” Bodin pinched her nipples hard to make certain he had her attention. “Just hold still for a moment.” Her inner muscles clamped tight around him, and he gritted his teeth. His gut burned with the urge to press deeper inside her heated, wet sex.

  She started to raise up, her body desperate for more of him, for the whole of him to fill her, to press so deep inside he could go no farther.

  He pinched her nipples harder. “I said not to move yet, Chessa,” he growled in warning, bracing his feet on the cot’s small mattress.

  So close. Her completion was so close. “Why?” Unused to baring her weight in this manner for so long, her thighs waivered.

  Bodin’s cock jerked in response. Sucking a breath through clenched teeth, he pulled her down onto his chest, flattening her full breasts. One arm wrapped around her back to hold her in place. “Because I want to kiss you, that is why.” He threaded his fingers through the hair at the back of her head, pulling her mouth to his. He raised up, taking her weight and forcing his tongue past her teeth as he rammed his cock against her womb.

  Blinding pleasure consumed every part of her as she shook and tried to scream, but Bodin didn’t let go. He held her to his body, rocking himself deeper and deeper as her body clenched around him, begging for more. Chessa’s fingers curled into the hair on his chest, desperate he not stop as she shuddered and seized in his grip, wanting all of him, taking all of him. And still she needed more.

  Bodin broke the kiss with a gut-wrenching groan. Giving in to the insistent demands of her sweet, soft body, he had no more control. His hands pressed her hips deeper onto his as a growl rumbled from his chest. His cock throbbed and pulsed, exploding his seed deep inside her belly for a second time.

  Panting, he held Chessa tight to him, his swollen cock still buried inside her wet heat as he turned the both of them onto his side. He brushed the hair from her face and from between their sweating bodies. She nuzzled into his embrace.

  Bodin closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and sighed. “You are far, far sweeter than any berry I’ve ever put to my lips.” Unable to let her out of his hold, his hand caressed her back and hip, pulling her thigh up to rest over his on the small cot.

  How would he let her go, let them go?

  Every instinct he had told him that withholding his seed was pointless. She carried his child. Bodin kissed the top of her head as his body finally began to relax, his cock sliding slowly from her sex on the mixture of their spendings.

  His eyes misted. Where would he possibly find the strength it would take to leave her with her people as he’d promised to do? He pulled her tighter to his chest, his hand dipping between her slippery buttocks.

  Reluctantly he whispered the truth to her. “Chessa, my men will anchor in the bay at dawn. You are home.” Those words cut deep. Worse than any blade that had ever cut into his skin.

  Chessa moved forward at the urging of Bodin’s hand low on her back. She didn’t remember the bay or the landscape. Nothing seemed even vaguely familiar. She turned to him. “Are you certain we are in the right place?”

  He nodded, wary as he pressed her farther up the shore toward the cliff trail. “Yes.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “That’s what I was just wondering.” Bodin nodded to a couple of the men who had accompanied them ashore, indicating they should take a look around.

  Chessa lifted the hem of her cloak and bed gown to better walk up the steep hill. Where were her parents? Her people? No one was on the shore. Anxious to see someone, anyone, she hurried along the trail to the top. Chessa stopped dead in her tracks.

  Keeping pace, Bodin nearly ran into the back of her.

  Abandoned, collapsing cottages dotted the top of the cliff. The strong sea air continued to lash at their remains. No one was there either. “Where are they?”

  Bodin frowned, uncertain what to think. He scanned the closest of the hills. “Perhaps they saw the ship and are hiding.”

  “But the cottages are falling in on themselves. No one lives here anymore.”

  He shook his head.

  The people who once populated this part of the coast were gone. Chessa’s bottom lip quivered as she whispered, “Bodin, where are my parents?” A cold chill turned her stomach.

  “I do not know, sweet one,” he said on a sigh. “We’ve not returned here since my father took you…and the others. That was the bargain.”

  “Sir.” Erek approached. “The men have returned from searching along the coast.” He shook his head in answer before the question was even asked.

  A movement caught Bodin’s eye. He tensed, pulling Chessa behind a run-down cottage. In the distance someone emerged from the trees.

  An old woman tottered downhill along a rough footpath, one hand clutching a bundle of twigs to her bosom, the other using a crooked walking stick for balance.

  Erek skirted low along the sparse trees, quickly covering the hilly ground to creep up behind the old crone
and catch ahold of her rather large stick. He held it from her reach.

  “I—I’m not afraid of you—” she stuttered, forming the words with few teeth. “Kill me if ye wish, jus’ gi’ me back my s—stick!”

  The old woman wobbled on uncertain limbs. Bodin walked up, purposely keeping Chessa alongside him. “Erek, return it.”

  With a frown, the young man reluctantly handed back the crooked but sturdy stick. The old woman turned to Bodin, scowling as she glanced back over her shoulder at the boy. She planted the walking stick into the damp ground, shifting her weight onto the wood. Relief eased her pained, wrinkled face. She looked at Bodin and then turned to Chessa, lips pressing into an angry line. She hobbled a little closer, still keeping a tight hold on the armful of twigs and sticks as she squinted, looking close to be sure. Lifting the point of her stick from the ground, the old woman stabbed toward the battered cottages. “You! You did this!”

  Bodin snatched the sharp end of the stick before it could reach Chessa. “Put it back on the ground.” His eyebrows rose in warning to the old woman. “Or I will snap it in two.” He released his hold.

  “You know who I am?” Tears welled in Chessa’s eyes. Had she found her people?

  The old woman sneered. “Ye were the king’s daughter, the one he sent to keep the raiders away.” She teetered closer. “But yer not’ing but a traitor.” Leaned forward, she raised her stick to strike.

  Chessa stumbled back, bumping into Erek as Bodin twisted the wood from the old woman’s hand and began snapping it into pieces over his knee.

  Chessa turned back to the old woman. “What do you mean ‘were’? Where is my fath—”

  “He’s dead!” The old woman grunted a sound of disgust. “Dead and buried beside yer mother!” She narrowed her gaze on Chessa and pointed a crooked finger at Bodin and Erek. “It is yer fault the king is dead! Ye chose to seek out their beds.”

  Chessa’s stomach rose into her throat, leaving a sick, bitter taste in her mouth. She had failed. All those years of servitude were for naught. She had still failed her people. Trembling hands rose to swipe the hair out of her face as she swayed forward, her legs shaking too much to support her any longer.