Gayle Eden

by Illara's Champion

  “I must take him away.” Randulf drew her attention. “We have work.”

  “Thank you,” Illara offered quietly.

  Pagan saw his brother’s eyes soften toward her before Randulf nodded and turned away.

  Pagan doused most of the torches and turned from the end in time to see her lay her sword aside, and then trickle the water from the skin, patting her neck and chest. She turned towards him, having smeared it across her throat.

  He had the odd thought that she could perhaps hear his heart slamming against his ribs.

  Stilled for a moment she said, “I’ve asked that our meal be brought to the solar. Will you join me there, in perhaps an hour?”

  “Aye.” Pagan stood rooted to the spot, noting that water had dripped onto her blouse and made it transparent over one nipple.

  “I will see you then.”

  Pagan nodded, not breathing until she exited.

  * * * *

  Illara did not linger in her bath although she yearned to. When she entered that chamber, she left the wax on a copper plate where Pagan would find it. Washing and grunting a few times, she rubbed sore spots while musing on those hands, strong and browned where no scars were.

  Though it would have been better to apply wax after the wounds, she did not have to ask to know they were probably scarcely tended at all. She did not find them repulsive or ugly but could see the strength in them and his palm was calloused from years of wielding a broad sword. Nevertheless, his flesh was warm and her hand had tingled touching it, that odd flipping and fluttering had begun in her belly.

  Out of the bath, she rubbed her skin with jasmine and donned the plain flannel gown, smiling later at the young woman who brought up trays, placing them on the trunks by the window seat, and thanked her.

  There was a jug of wine and two cups. She sat on the fur by the fire and let her straight hair dry while combing it until the strands lay against her shoulder blades. When young, it was cut short and she preferred it that way, but with the other distractions at Starling, she had not worried about grooming.

  Having doused all but two candles by the fire, she was sensitive to Pagan’s preference. Her seating, when they ate, would be more in the light, his in shadow.

  Illara turned and arose when Pagan entered, surprised that her heart hammered so thunderous in her ears. He wore soft-soled boots, a darker dyed leather breeches and a cream tunic tucked in. She was almost used to the half hood. His hair was damp and loosely twisted and tied at the end, which would make it slightly longer than her own when down.

  His gaze moved over her too, while she took in the breadth and height of him. There was more than enough of him to be intimidated by his size, but she waved him toward their makeshift tables.

  Pagan waited until she sat on the window seat and then joined her. Illara filled their goblets from the jug, and placed his by his plate. She tore bread and handed it to him.

  Their hands brushed.

  She did not watch him as she began to eat, tasting the spiced winter vegetables, ham and smoked salmon, but glanced at the firelight while it crackled.

  “Will you go to Thresford?”

  “Aye,” he returned, “In the spring. I am southward for the London Tourney.”

  “May I go, too?”

  There was silence, and then Pagan said, “Aye. It means I will not enter events in York. But—”

  “Why do you? I mean, now that you have wealth?”

  “To prove something.”

  She glanced at him, finding him eyeing her too. “To those betrayers?”

  He nodded.

  She sat back a moment and regarded him. “Will this be your life?”

  “No. Only for a year or two more. Then Randulf…”

  “—has his turn.”

  Pagan nodded.

  “It heals you, this proving?”

  “It satisfies something. But, aye. I have wounded my enemies in battle and in sport. I have taken their champions and their pride. I watch their bodies and eyes as I enter the field, and I feel their fear. I take their gold and their pomp, and no one remembers them.”

  She understood that, considering. “Do you think they could know?”

  “I believe they could guess, but choose not to. They betrayed a brother, and a friend, and they have innocent blood on their hands.”

  She ate a bit more and consumed a tart before rinsing her hands in the bowl of lemon water and wiping her mouth.

  Illara stared down at her hands, a few scrapes and some bruises on her knuckles.

  She allowed him to finish his meal before she murmured, “When my parents were alive and healthy, I never thought of being alone. I never thought what if I have no one who loves and cares for me. I was blessed, happy, and my life was full. When they were ill, I was beyond afraid, suddenly confused and not knowing my future, save that the Baron would come for me.”

  She peeked over to find Pagan was leaned back against the sill, his hand holding the goblet, the bottom of it resting on his thick thigh, his eyes fixed on her.

  Illara added, “I didn’t think about feeling protected, because I thought myself brave and well able to defend myself. My world was color, scents, sounds, and beautiful sun. Then it was empty and cold. Here--it was harsh and hostile. I survived in a place where no one cared for me, hated me for reasons of my birth, and accused me of vile things. I did as told without speaking. I did my weeping in private. I passed the point of trying to speculate why people could hate you for your birth, or your hair color, or even had I sinned, for being human. I existed—until you rode onto that field, and took up my colors.”

  He glanced down as her hand reached out, touching the skin on his wrist.

  “It is not always vengeance you compete and conquer for.”

  “That was an exception.”

  She smiled slightly. “Very well. Even if it was, it changed my future.”

  Pagan leaned up and sat the goblet down, thus moving his hand from her reach. Afterward, he arose and walked over until he stood at the end of the bed, his back to her, his gaze apparently on nothing.

  “You kissed me.”

  He half turned his head. “Aye.”

  “If I close my eyes, will you kiss me once more?”

  She stood and moved around the trunks then sat on the edge of the bed. Palms at her hips, she closed her eyes and waited.

  Illara knew she was being bold and was out of her depth of knowledge. Nevertheless, she felt drawn to him, and she felt a need to connect to him and be closer. It did not make complete sense, these longings, but it excited her partly because of the unknowns.

  She sensed his tread more than heard it, and breathed his pleasing scents when he was close. Her skin seemed to become sensitized by the time his mouth touched hers.

  Illara curled her fingers into the fur covering while Pagan pressed firmer than the time before. She caught on as he tested her by moving his head slightly and brushing their lips across, then up and down.

  Her heart sped and warmth with it, a kind of prickling at her nape joined that.

  Pagan left her for a moment, but before she could lift her lashes, she felt him return. His tongue traced the seam of her lips. Wine scented breath fanned them. Her lips parted and his tongue entered more, dragging across her teeth. Instinct had her parting them.

  Pagan pushed fully inside, robbing her of breath, shocking her system with the intimacy.

  Her hands raised and landed on his forearms, which Pagan lifted, having cupped the back of her head. He began delving and unhurriedly stroking over and around her tongue. Illara felt that low in her belly and lower still between her thighs.

  A sound escaped her, some intimate noise came with his lips leaving hers. Her lashes fluttered open to find his gaze waiting and filled with emotion she could not discern. Unconsciously she had arched her back.

  Because of his height, Pagan was bent, with one hand braced on the bed. Still close, their breath stirred and mingled.

  She slid her han
ds higher to his shoulders and pushed to her feet. It brought their bodies closer still. His free hand moved to her back. Illara felt the heat and strength of it at her spine.

  Using her hand to cup his nape, she rose on tiptoe, urging him down. He met her offer and the kiss began; open and silken, sensual and intimate. His head moved and she counter moved, tongues caressing and laving and sliding with a sluggish eroticism. She felt his hand move lower, his palm at her buttock, but Illara experienced no panic or fear, her body was too alive and the new sensations, too pleasurable to stop.

  Pagan’s breathing was sharper when he lifted an inch. They were once more bathing damp lips with sultry breath. Illara could feel the hard heat of his skin through the linen shirt. She had an urge to feel his skin. However, she also reminded herself of his desire to stay shrouded.

  Pagan straightened.

  Illara’s hand slid to his breastbone, the other on his round muscled arm.

  Gazing down at her, Pagan eased his hand from her nape, around to touch her jaw and then smooth it over her shoulder, back up again, to skim over her hair.

  “Are you chilled?”

  “Nay.” She was almost feverish.

  His gaze seemed to search hers before he murmured, “Will you be fearful if I remove your gown?”

  “Nay.” She would, only a little.

  Illara was still as Pagan stepped back enough to unlace the ties and then began sliding the gown from her shoulders. She stared at his chest while it reached her nipples, the feel of the slow peeling away somehow arousing. Lips parted and breathing shallow, she lowered her arms. It took nothing for the fabric to fall into a pool at the floor. Illara trembled slightly.

  His hands returned to her skin, smoothing from her throat downward. Pagan reached her wrists, he touched her sides, palming up from her waist until his thumbs were resting on the sides of her breasts.

  She risked a glance up.

  He lifted his gaze from her breasts before catching her under the arms, moving her to sit once more on the bed. The fur felt somehow wicked and arousing against her skin, but he was bending and kissing her, thus Illara was besieged with sensations, and not able to separate one pleasure from the other.

  His nudge forced her to lie back. Her hands were held aside while he skimmed his lips from her mouth to her chin, then her cheek and temple. His breath stirred on her skin. The leather mask chaffed lightly as he slid his lips down her throat.

  Pagan released her hands and kissed her upper chest, leisurely working his way down. Those lips and the moist play of his tongue mapped around the globe of her breast, one and then the other. By the time Pagan was finished, she could feel the tight skin, the turgid nipples, a tingling kind of burn that seemed like hunger, and was in fact craving when his lips covered her nipple.

  “Uhh.” She flinched, arched, and spread her hands on the covers as the pull of his suckling began. The tremor in her body increased, as did the places that suddenly felt that desire for—something—as yet illusive.

  Illara heard her own dicey breathing, felt every minute flick of his tongue over her nipples. He went from one to the other and suckled rhythmically until she was biting down on her lip.

  Pagan lifted and forced her mouth to part for him, kissing her thicker and deeper, more intimate.

  Panting when he left her, she managed, “I do not know… I don’t know if I like this.” Her whole body shivered. “It feels…”

  Pagan rested his palm on her stomach. The muscles quivered. He stroked there, brushing gently from her ribs to her lower belly. “Your breasts are beautiful. Your kisses more potent than wine.”

  She enjoyed that stroking as much as she liked everything else. “Your kisses are certainly not without that too.” Her hand moved to touch her breast. “Everything you touched still tingles.”

  His eyes shimmered with heat and his hand came to cover hers on that mound, fingers flexing before he rubbed her own palm over her nipple. Illara’s eyes widened. She was hard pressed to say which was more arousing, his hand over hers guiding it, or the look in his eyes as he did so. Pagan let her hand rest over one and moved his to the other, his thumb circling the nipple.

  “Should I feel this—strongly?”

  “Aye.” Pagan leaned down and kissed her again, this time while his hand smoothed over her ribs and stomach. When he reached her pubis, she flinched. His head lifted an inch. “I will not harm you, Illara.”

  She believed him. Yet she was tense as he rubbed there, his large hand covering most of the area, before he ran his fingertips down through her curls. A tingling began just below his touch. Illara was aware that contracting muscles in her sex was causing moisture there.

  She let her hand fall from her breast and endeavored not to stiffen. He observed her expression on and off and worked his way lower by unhurried degrees, finally parting the lips and touching something that brought her hips off the bed.

  She grabbed his wrist.

  Pagan stopped and waited, whispering deep, “Not pain?”

  “Nay.”

  His lips curved slightly. They momentarily fascinated Illara. Her gaze remained on them until he was kissing her again.

  That spot Pagan found once more, gliding past it with the pad of his finger and going lower. Her dampness embarrassed her. He groaned in her mouth, and she sensed it aroused him. Unhurriedly he stroked up and down, always ending at the opening of her sex, and at one point dipping into it.

  He raised his head again, breathing rigid as she. Between drugged and aroused, she watched him lift his fingers, glistening with sticky wetness. Her heart nearly choked her when he raised them to his lips, rubbing them across his mouth slowly, before laving her dampness away with his tongue. He dipped his head, kissing her lose and scented with what she knew was her sexual musk.

  His fingers returned to tease and glide.

  Her hands clutched at his shoulders.

  Pagan kissed her jaw and throat and then moved out of her touch. He kept going, lips bathing her body, tongue tasting her skin and warm breathes fanning it. Her neck arched, Illara hardly realized Pagan had parted her legs until they were on either side of him Then, feeling his tongue raking over her mons, covering every inch. His teeth pulled lightly at the lips.

  She moaned more than once, wondering at herself, wondering at him and what he was doing. He moved so that her legs were on either side of his body, and even though she sat up, bracing weight on her forearms, it did not deter him.

  He smoothed his palms up her inner thighs, and pressed them wider. His thumb brushed through the moisture. She thought she should be mortified. Illara was open to him. He was looking at her there but even without seeing his face, she could tell from his touch, and something his body emanated, that Pagan found pleasure in it.

  His gaze met hers for a second before he spread the lips with his thumbs and lowered his head.

  “Jesu!” She jerked and her head went back. “Pagan!” Illara did not know what to say or do because Pagan was first laving, and suckling. Fire raced through her, up her spine, and with it, urges that she could not articulate.

  Pagan did things there, with his mouth and tongue, and as he did, the feelings intensified. Illara did not flinch when his mouth left her and his finger was easing into her. She was too eager and too wet, and too mindless to anything save grinding her hips down to meet it. Pagan began a smooth and measured cadence that rubbed the walls of her sex and enticed some instinct from her to move and arch and stroke back.

  “Illara…”

  She heard her name rumble from him, but her body felt such pleasure and such heat that she welcomed when his mouth found her. She rubbed against his tongue and lips that chaffed there.

  “Pagan.” The tightening gathered, and for a moment, her eyes opened wide, her body stilling.

  Pagan arose to kiss her, more scented with her musk, more forceful with his kiss. He dragged his lips to her ear and whispered, “Do not fear it, Illara. It is your pleasure.”

  He bit softl
y at each nipple, suckled, and went back to her sex. His touch and laving harder and faster, until Illara cried out, falling back while tremors raced from head to toe, a shower of warm pleasure emanating through her body.

  Chapter Four

  Illara lay under the covers later, where he had placed her. She was on her side and Pagan sat up against the scrolled headboard, dressed still, all save his boots. Her fingers brushed idly at the seam on his breeches by the thigh. If the climax were not enough on its own, her sex still contracted and throbbed slightly with arousal.

  She knew Pagan was aroused, knew it because of his scent and heat, and because after he had laved her sex during, and dipped his tongue deep into her, he had slid her up in the bed, covered her and sat with his back to her, his body slightly bent—and fought to steady his breathing.

  Coming out of the fog, she had asked him to lie beside her, experiencing an odd need to be held. His fingers brushed through her hair now, but she could feel the tight waves of tension in him. She eased her hand atop his thigh feeling the contours of muscles, shaping her fingers to it. Illara rubbed from knee to groin, noting that Pagan had become motionless, his hand in her hair had stilled.

  Carefully she caressed closer to the ties on his groin. She felt the warmth, an amazing heat from him, and arched her neck to look up at him. The hooded face, more in shadow, did not hide the glow in his gaze, half-shuttered but intense. Holding that stare, she palmed the laces, moving up and over both sides, feeling the length and steel hardness of his sex.

  “I have seen men. I have never touched. I would like to make you experience and feel as pleasured as I feel.”

  His lips tensed before Pagan wet them, and his hand covered hers for a moment. His voice sounded darker, raspier, when he said, “I’ve never had a woman touch me.”

  She stilled and rose to her elbow. “Never?”

  “Nay.”

  “You--You are untouched--completely?” She was stunned.

  “Aye.”

  A frown rippled across her brow. “How did you know—”

  “I watched.”

  Her face heated. “Watched whom?”

  “Lovers,” Pagan supplied and massaged her palm against him. “There’s nothing covered when it comes to females who follow their husbands into camp. And less hidden when men bring….purchased--”