Without a word, he loosened the tie of his robe and shrugged from it. His magnificent body showed golden in the flames of one wall sconce. His skin was perfection save for the jagged scars from swords and knives of battles fought long ago. His muscles gave no evidence of his age but bulged and rippled without an ounce of fat. His cock, too, rose high, hale and hearty.
“That,” she said as she pointed to his cock dripping with his seed, “is mine. Come quickly and give it to me.”
He strode to her, her Colossus, her Adonis. Then he pushed her to her stomach, caught her around the waist, yanked her to her knees and slid his satisfying shaft along her weeping, wanton slit. She growled in approval as he rocked his swollen length between her juicy lips. Muttering in a raw frenzy, he moved backwards, settled his face between her folds and with talented tongue and sharp teeth he laved and lapped her chat until she begged him to fuck her. Bracing her hips, he rammed her once, then twice with lightning speed. At the same moment, they both exploded in rapture, his cum mingling with her cream and rushing down her thighs.
Rolling over, she pulled him to her so that she might kiss him in thanks.
“My lusty cat,” he crooned and played with the rim of her asshole. Her appetite for him had only surged to monstrous levels, and so she let him finger her. Circle her. Pat her. Probe her. With one finger. Two. Ever tender. Cautious. And kind. Then he rolled away and returned to climb upon the bed and show her a small black stone.
“For your ass. To tantalise you. I warm it for your pretty hole.” He rubbed it against his chest, then pushed it inside her ass.
At the intrusion, she gasped. But her cunt flowed with excitement. She told him so.
“Then have more,” he whispered, rising to pluck another from the table and thrusting it into her darkest recess. As she whimpered, he massaged her nether hole to soothe the presence of the plugs and when she writhed and mewled in appreciation, he finger-fucked her, the knave. She melted into the heaven he had made for her.
“Listen to me,” he said after she had come apart once more in his arms.
Drifting in euphoria, she opened her eyes to adore the power of this man who was her lover.
“When I return in the morning, I will bring your breakfast and something to fill your cunt.”
“I will take this,” she told him as she clutched his flaccid cock.
With a half-smile, he whispered, “What I bring you will serve as well.”
Her eyes went wide with disbelief. “How could that be?”
“You see,” he said as he encouraged her to pump his flagging member to little avail. “I am an older man.”
“Still a big man.”
He tipped his head. “Nonetheless, one who knows how to please you if I am primed or not.”
“Really?”
He rolled his eyes. “A gift should surprise as well as delight.”
Foiled and intrigued, she cuffed him and ordered him out.
He chuckled, but as he departed, he left her curious about his new gifts. But he also left her yearning to be filled and fucked while she was pleasured by the friction of his two black plugs.
* * * *
The cry of a falcon pierced her morning peace. She struggled to sit up and glanced around. Her ruby silk curtains lay wide open. Geoffrey was not here.
She inhaled, her nostrils filling with the powerful scent of her lover and their endless desire. She smiled, rejuvenated in mind and body this morning.
Does a regular diet of passion make one more healthy?
She grinned at the possibility. Perhaps, too, her loss of days and her memory of them were a good thing. Her recovery from her ordeal at the nunnery left her little sense of time. Here at Chepstow, she slept so often and so deeply, especially since her hours of intimacy, that she now knew Geoffrey was more than her solace and her entertainment. He was her addiction.
She wiggled her ass against the sheets, tenderly tormenting herself with the pressure of the two black plugs. She squeezed her thighs together, astonished at her delight in the playthings inside her. Her chat was definitely primed for his cock and needed him once more.
So where was the man this morning?
She was hungry and only he could supply everything she yearned for.
Has he washed my mind of all else but sex?
For a woman of thirty-eight years, she needed to be more subdued. Reserved. After all, she had been nearly dead of starvation. But thanks to him, I am alive. More vital than I have been in years.
Alone, she felt free to grin at the rays of sunlight streaming through the solar windows. Spring and summer she had always enjoyed. Now, the chill of that dungeon still a memory in her bones, she wiggled at the pressure of the two plugs in her ass. Wanting to be fucked good and hard, she bit her lower lip. Soon. Soon she would find him, have him.
She stood, spread her naked toes and curled them into the thick Turkish carpet as she welcomed the sun’s warmth on her face and throat.
She turned, her gaze drawn to the tub where hopefully again today, Geoffrey would take her naked and mindless to soak away the cold despair that had almost killed her.
Aye, Geoffrey St Claire was a man of his word. If he declared he would conquer her with kisses and caresses, so would he devote himself. Without regard for king or morals, he had conquered her body and would try to rule her heart. She was too old, too wise to be seduced by passion. Yet she had to admit that at the moment she was too weak to escape her own desire for him. Still, sometime soon, she must elude his lure—and run. To save him, at the very least, from John’s wrath.
But where would she go? To whom? Her host here, the owner of Chepstow Castle, William Marshall and his family, would have been her first best choice. While some of their retinue remained and the castle serfs, the family were abroad in Ireland. Though they of all barons in England had the power to singlehandedly thwart the King, William Marshall was nearly as out of favour with John as she. To whom else could she appeal to escape Geoffrey?
Her cousins in Ireland? Waterford seemed a world away. But her cousins were related to the Marshalls. If the Earl declined to give her succour, would her family follow his suit?
A loud knock came at the outer door. She scrambled back to bed just in time to cover herself before one woman appeared with a pitcher, two cups, bread, apples and a bowl of oat porridge. Behind her, two male serfs carried in large buckets of steaming water to empty into the tub.
Her eyes met the woman’s. The maid nervously assessed her, then cast resentful glances over her. Kat wondered why and made a note to ask Geoffrey. Was this woman interested in Geoffrey? She would not be the first female who had had an eye for the handsome knight. A titled and rich one now, Kat noted.
The three departed as quickly as they had come, leaving Kat to scramble up and relish the aromas of food wafting towards her. She stood there, the smell of oats and apples resurrecting from her childhood an old feeling of security. And whenever it had occurred or why she remembered it now, the scene made her smile with the recollection of Geoffrey St Claire in his glorious youth.
As a foster in her father’s household, the auburn-haired youth of the poor St Claire family had been brawny and bold, even then. Burnished with his bright hair and stunning dark green eyes, he was always laughing, the knight with a good word for everyone. She had chuckled at his humour. He had laughed at her own romantic tales, pale imitations of French chasson she read in her mother’s solar. One May Day, he had caught her in the village dance around the pole and kissed her behind a farrier’s hut. In the next few months, she had sought him out as he had practised his swordsmanship in the castle yard. She admired his skills, so he had taught her how to wield a dagger. After practising alone for many weeks, she grew eager to show him how well she had learnt his lessons. She had led him to the stables to demonstrate her aim—and he had kissed her, his tongue diving deep and sparking her curiosity for sensual exploits.
Days later, he had found her in the kitchens, taken her to the but
tery and showed her his cock, which she had petted and praised. That night, during a mummer’s entertainment in the hall, she and he had escaped to the stables where they had lain down in the hay. He had undressed her and sucked her pert nipples. Enchanted with each other’s bodies, they had met again and again. Unable to contain their excitement or their curiosity, he had settled her atop his cloak and primed her gently. Their daily caresses grew bolder, wilder. Both of them were so hot to have each other that, at first sight of each other, he would go erect and she would cream.
At the same time, her father, long interested in marrying her to a rich lord, was negotiating with one. The man was known as a brute, a libertine. Kat fretted about the nature of the union and shared her fears with Geoff. With word that soon those negotiations would end in agreement, Kat railed at her misfortune. Her agony had inspired Geoff’s affections to fever pitch. He had seized her hand and they had taken to her bedroom.
Upon her lavender-scented linens, he had taken her maiden’s shield and her desire for any other man. She had taken from him all he had to give. His cock, his cum, his words of undying devotion. Bess had intruded, intervened and changed her world. Yet the servant had never taken from Kat the mysterious beauty of that hour, those days when she had enjoyed the first blush of love and sex with Geoffrey St Claire.
Days later, her sire had told her he had concluded his contract to wed a baron chosen by John. Furious with her for lying abed with a minor knight, her father had ordered her confined to her room. Kat had gone to her solar and sobbed, pleasuring herself with her hands, stroking her nipples as Geoff had, probing her chat as Geoff had. Certainly, the night of her wedding, she had longed for Geoff’s agile hands, his fervent lips, his sweet, hard shaft inside her.
“Lie down,” her husband had ordered her on their wedding night after he had ripped the gown from her body and cast the delicate linen to the floor like so much rubbish. “Do not flinch! There. Hang your legs over the edge. And spread your thighs.”
He had knelt—fallen, actually, to his knees and pushed open her cunny lips. “Pretty pink cat. Been petted before, my wife?” he had asked as he had jammed his fingers inside her and made her squirm to be free.
But he had pressed her down, oaf that he was. He had leered at her private parts, then pinched and bitten her clit. “You have not lain with any other man, have you? I shall know.”
He had never taken the time to learn. He had buried his face in her woman’s flesh, slurping at her like an animal. Then he had bared his rod, stroked himself for long minutes and poked his skinny prick inside her. In a minute, he had spent. He had sat upon her thighs and played roughly inside her folds. He had taken to licking and biting her delicate flesh, demanding that she have her release and beating her ass and even her chat with his belt when she could not, would not.
She had bled that night. Thankful that she had, she had owed the red spots to her bridegroom’s brutality. Her maidenhead, gone in the joyful service of loving her father’s young knight, had broken weeks ago on a bed far sweeter with the kisses and the misty joust of desire.
The next morn, her husband, much as he could remember of ‘deflowering her’, was satisfied. For that night, she had had a reprieve. For the next year, when she had carried and given birth to Matthew, she had had an excuse to elude her husband’s rough fucks.
After that, her husband resumed his attentions to her. Usually emboldened by wine and a mistress or whore who had refused his brutalities, her husband would beat and rape her. His seed had brought forth her second son, that poor dead child. He had ordered her bedroom door torn down and would come to her as he pleased, when he pleased. Taking her against a stairwell or slamming her onto the solar table, he had claimed her dry and withered. If wit were her ken, she would have proclaimed the same of him.
He had cared naught for anyone.
“Not even himself,” she recalled. He had had not honour nor courage, not morals or conviction.
And what of me? How can I judge any other when I am seduced so easily? When I leave all prudence behind to take a man to me who is not my husband and who could die at the King’s hand for saving me—and fucking me?
The far door creaked open, then closed.
She tore at the sheets to cloak her body.
“Please, modesty is not as thrilling as all that loveliness.” Geoff waved a hand at her as he strode into the room and smiled at her with good cheer. “I have seen you and I wish to view you at my leisure.”
She sniffed, wrapping the sheet about her torso.
He sauntered towards her, his pale eyes shining in pleasure. “I am pleased to see you up and walking about.”
He greeted her as congenially as if they were man and wife and this another ordinary day. He walked towards her, his imperious body haloed by sunlight as if he were an angel. No hand of God, this man. He was a giant, all tough sinew, honed by decades of warfare, wielding swords and battleaxes.
Seeing her food untouched, he caught her chin between two fingers and turned her face this way and that. “Why have you not eaten?”
She jerked from his grasp. “I had not yet had the chance. Besides, there is the menacing view of that tub.” She tipped her head towards the object. “I do wonder if you will ever permit me to wash alone.”
He grinned, the fiend, his gaze raw with lust. “I do not stop you. Avail yourself of the pleasure now while the water is warm.”
She frowned at him. “An honourable lord would not offer such.”
He cast her a sideways glance. “I am honourable. And I am, at this juncture of your life, your lord. And I do offer. I enjoy the sight of you, naked and within my reach.”
“Oh, that I had a hairbrush within reach to throw at you.”
“Testy this morning, are we?” Pursing his lips, he strode towards the table and poured wine from the pitcher into the two cups.
“I wish no wine.”
“You need it. You have lost a stone or more and I do not yet like the colour of your skin.”
She lifted one hand to her cheek. “I need a mirror.”
“Alas, my failure to supply a lady with the most vital tool to her vanity.”
“What’s the matter with my skin?”
“You need roses there. But never fear. I will make them bloom again.” His implication came with a wink.
Her cheeks flamed. Damn the blush. “Huh. You have assaulted my person often enough.” She extended her hand to accept the cup. “The wine will be a welcome substitute.”
“If only you had the choice. But you don’t. Drink this.”
“I suppose you will not leave until I do as you ask.”
“You suppose correctly, my lady.”
She sipped and turned away.
But she heard his footfalls, spurs jangling, heading back towards the door. “You are leaving?”
“Relieved, aren’t you?”
“Aye.” No. Truth was he was her only company, and, prickly as he was, she wanted his conversation. And indeed, she eyed the tub and thought of the excitement, the thrills of delight that travelled her flesh when he surrounded her in that warmth.
“Good day then.”
“Wait!” She hated that she had called him back. “I want—”
He spun to her, one long auburn eyebrow arched. “What?”
Curse the man for his compliance and his charm. She searched her mind for a reasonable matter to inquire about. “Tell me, how came we here? Did you write to Lord Marshall?”
“I sent a courier, aye. As soon as I learnt of your imprisonment, I made a plan and knew I needed to withdraw to a stronghold that John would hesitate to attack. You do not remember, then, that I have told you all this?”
She hated to admit it. “And you have his permission to stay here?”
“For now. Until you are recovered. You know that Marshall and his wife and children are in Leinster? That he remains in John’s disfavour?”
“Leinster. Ireland.” She frowned, her memory obviously faulty. Not D
ublin. “Forgive me. My wits are still scattered.”
He threaded his fingers through her short dark curls and smiled. “I wait upon your recovery, sweetheart.”
His honeyed words flooded her with gratitude for what he had done for her. “This support for me costs you greatly. And William Marshall’s hospitality for us will only make more trouble for him.”
Geoffrey’s gaze swept her form, his look more of despair than desire. “I had to take you to the safest place I could find. From Bristol, once we crossed the waters, this was minutes’ ride. I know the steward and the bailiff here. We grew up together. Earl Marshall fostered me before I was sent to your father’s retinue. I have sent him word. As yet, I have no reply, but I have no fear that he will toss us to the wind.”
“Aye, Marshall has never been known to desert his friends. But John may yet strike out and come for me here, no matter that this is Marshall’s stronghold.”
“No one can predict what John will do. But for the moment, we are secure. Your only duty is to recover your vigour.”
She clutched the sheet to her throat. “Do the servants know who I am?”
“They know of you only as my lady love.” His gaze danced, heating with the declaration. “I have had no interest in disabusing them of the notion.”
The endearment tugged at her heart. Still she feared John’s violence more than Geoffrey’s honeyed seduction. “Surely word has gone forth from the place where you abducted me—”
“Saved you,” he corrected her.
“Aye, saved me.” She stepped towards him, the sheet stretched to its limit. “I am grateful, Geoffrey. Truly I am. But am I worth losing all your lands and wealth? Your good name?”
“I have thought of this answer for more than twenty years. You see by my actions my conclusion.”
“I was a young girl when I loved you.”
With Her Kiss (Swords of Passion) Page 7