by Fox, Georgia
“Come,” Guy Devaux called out grumpily.
The guard winked at her. “Do your best wench. He’s not in a good mood.”
Shoved forward into the chamber, she stood a moment, blinking sleepily, taking in her surroundings. It was a small chamber warmed by a fire pit. Additional light came from a low table set with candles, wine and little cakes. The Norman sprawled on a fur covered couch beside it. Naked. Waiting for her. The edges of the room were in darkness, neither firelight nor candlelight reaching far beyond where he sat, but around him the air glowed golden.
“I couldn’t sleep,” were the first words out of his down-turned mouth. “And I couldn’t rouse my cock for my wife. Undo that curse you put upon me wench.”
She yawned, looked at his groin and saw the object in question already hardening, lengthening. “It seems healthy enough now,” she remarked dryly.
He glanced down his body, then back to her. His eyes warmed subtly as he took her in from bare feet to rumpled hair. “Entertain me,” he said. “Woman.”
“Can your wife not entertain you?”
“No. She sleeps.”
She sighed and yawned again. “I too was asleep.”
“Now you are not,” he observed with a half smile. “And the sight of you awakening, warm and ruffled from your bed, pleases me very much.”
His smile may be dangerous; it was also infectious. She fought the fever, determined not to be drawn in. “How do you expect me to entertain you?” she asked warily, quite certain she was not yet recovered enough from the previous night.
“My lord,” he reminded her calmly.
“My lord.”
“I see we still need to practice your manners, Deorwynn.” He waved her closer. “Come. You look cold. I have something here to warm you.”
Again her gaze wandered down his body.
He laughed. “I have wine and blankets. Come, sit with me.”
“Sit with you?” She was astonished. One moment he treated her like a serf; then he sought her company as if they were on equal footing.
“I would talk with you.”
“Talk with me?” The incredulity continued to grow.
He reached for the jug of wine on the table beside him and poured some into a tall cup. “Here. This will warm you.”
He was fortunate she was damned cold or she would have held out longer, but in the cheery glow of candles that fur-laden couch looked too inviting, despite the arrogance of the man laid upon it. And, much to her chagrin, she’d missed his company, pining for something she knew was bad for her.
Snatching the full cup from his hand, she sat. He hitched onto his hip to make room for her. “Can you not wear clothes to talk?” she muttered, feeling his shaft twitch against her shift.
“I prefer to talk like this.” He paused, watching her face. “Why not take off your shift, Deorwynn, and then we can both be at our ease. And talk to our hearts content.”
She almost spat out her wine. Glaring at him over the rim of the cup she noted an additional twinkle in his eye. His words were slightly slurred. She’d simply assumed him to be half-asleep before, but now suspected he was slightly drunk.
“I prefer to remain clothed.”
“I could command that you sit naked beside me.”
“You could command,” she replied archly.
He seemed to consider whether or not he wanted to struggle with her tonight—or suffer another of her curses. Then he sipped his wine, still watching her above the rim of his goblet.
“What shall we talk about then? Since you had me dragged from my bed at this ungodly hour, it had better be a remarkable conversation.” Nerves and excitement colluded to make her put on this brave front. She hoped he would not see beyond it.
“Where do you come from, Deorwynn?”
This was the last subject she expected. “A place,” she snapped reluctantly.
The impatient storm clouds she anticipated did not gather in his eyes tonight; instead he was indulgent, waiting for more.
“It was a good place until the Normans came and despoiled it,” she added. “I suppose nothing grows there now. They probably slaughtered all the people and all the beasts.”
“And where is this good place?”
She raised her chin. “A hundred miles from here.”
“A hundred?”
“At least as far. I don’t know for sure. I don’t remember the distance, but it felt like a long journey to me then.”
“Then?”
“When I was six and sent to the convent.”
He reached over, swept a stray lock of hair from her cheek and wound it around his fingertip. The contact started a flame under her skin. “How long ago?”
“Fifteen years.”
“So you are one and twenty,” he muttered, releasing the lock of hair. “Five years younger than me.”
She was surprised—had thought him older. But that explained the boundless hubris and the occasional playful twinkle in his eye; the excess of vitality that spilled out of him as if he’d not yet learned to control his needs and feared something good might be taken away from him before he’d had his fill.
“You have no family?” he asked.
“Your countrymen murdered them all,” she replied curtly. “All but one. My brother Raedwulf is a prisoner of your king.”
“I see,” he murmured. “These things happen in war.”
Clearly Sybilia had not mentioned Raedwulf’s plight yet. Exhaling a deep sigh, Deorwynn wondered why that should surprise her. She sipped her wine.
“Men pay the price of war,” he added.
“Yet I suffer too and I have no say in it. I am not even allowed to fight because I’m a woman.”
He nodded as if he heard her, but he was staring at her lips again.
“How can that be fair or just?” she demanded.
He said nothing, not even to reprimand her for forgetting my lord.
Pushing her luck she said, “Well, I will not lie down and be walked over. I must have something good happen to me one day.”
His gaze sharpened; a smile tugged on his lips. It wasn’t an effortless, charming grin like Thierry Bonnenfant’s; it was wickedly knowing, urging her to misbehave. He set his empty goblet on the little table beside his couch. “You shall have a great deal of good happen, Deorwynn, if you obey me.”
He was ungodly handsome in the warm light. Tonight he surrounded his couch with a profusion of large candles and, sitting there beside him, she could have been enjoying a glorious sunny day in summer. He looked at her in a hopeful, boyish way. She must do something, say something to keep him away. “They say your bride wore you out last night.”
“Do I look worn out to you?”
No he did not. Not at all.
She sought desperately for another subject, but he raised his hand again, slid it under her hair to the nape of her neck and drew her face down to his. She almost spilled her wine. Their lips collided. His other hand was on her waist, firm, hot, the strong fingers spread. Her breasts ached, wanting his touch, her nipples already afire. Shameless. His tongue swept hers, gentle and cajoling, reminding her vividly of his skill in stealing unexpected responses from her body.
When the kiss ended, he kept his hand on her waist. His staff strained against her hip, the veins bulging, the head deep purple.
“Since you answered my questions, Deorwynn,” he said huskily, “you may ask me some in return.”
Oh, they were still having a conversation?
She finished her wine in one gulp and handed him the empty cup. For the first time she noticed there was a third goblet on the little table. Had Sybilia sat there with him earlier that evening? Had the two of them talked like this? Had they kissed? She pressed a hand to her pounding heart as the wine burned on its way down. Unfortunately this gesture drew his white hot gaze to her breast. He exhaled with a hiss between clamped teeth and it felt as if he’d fastened them around her nipple.
“You…you were born in Brittany?” she
stammered.
He nodded and sucked on his lips. She imagined his mouth pulling on her breast likewise.
Think Deorwynn. Remember who you are. Do not melt in a puddle before him again.
“And you came here with William the Bastard of Normandy?”
“No. I came here with my own men six years ago. We were mercenaries for hire.”
Ah, he was a looter, a rampaging, rapacious criminal.
“But then I joined King William,” he explained with another lopsided smile. “I became reformed, respectable.”
“This is your opinion of respectable?” She glanced down again at his rearing manhood.
He chuckled softly, his fingers tapping her waist, his head tipped sideways against the fur as he looked up at her. She should tell him not to touch her, but she couldn’t find the words.
“Then the King decided I was in want of a wife,” he said. “He means to burden me with domestic troubles and a dozen ungrateful brats.”
“I’m sure you and Sybilia will be very happy.”
“But I grow bored quickly. One woman can never be enough for me.”
“You are wrong.” She laid her free hand to his bare chest, unable to resist. “A man should give his body and his heart to only one woman and make her content.”
“Sounds very dull. And foolish. I would not put all my coin in one coffer. Why would I put all my heart and body in one wench’s hands? The more the merrier for me.”
She stared at the planes of his chest, hardly aware that those were her fingers tracing patterns on the ridge of sun-browned muscle. How could she not touch him? It was impossible. “I would not share a man I loved.”
The air in the room suddenly seemed very thick and hot. She hadn’t meant to say those words. What was she thinking?
Snatching that hand away from his gently heaving chest, she felt her brow, as if it ached suddenly. “I should return to my bed. The wine goes to my head.”
He ignored that because he’d just noticed the scars on her knuckles. Taking her hands in his, he turned them over, demanding to know what happened.
“The nuns at the convent,” she said simply. “I told you I am a sinner. They could not quite whip the demons out of me, although they tried.”
* * * *
His heart lost its rhythm. He looked at her hands. “You will not be hurt again,” the words choked out of him. “Now you belong to me.”
“No human being belongs to another.”
“You dare quarrel with me, Deorwynn?”
She wrinkled her nose. “It is not quarreling to express an opinion.”
“Women don’t have opinions.”
“Then I must be a man, because I have plenty.”
He chuckled at that, because she was indeed all woman and he was glad of it. His cock was hard and hot, his balls heavy. As she fidgeted beside him, her linen shift touched his crest and he almost shot his load there and then. Even in conversation she did this to him.
“Remove your shift. I must look at you.” He had not yet seen her naked body in full light, only in cloudy water and then in swathes of shadow. It haunted him, the need to look at her and know every inch, inside and out.
“That would do neither of us any good. My lord.”
He forgot, for a moment, that he knew what was best for everyone. “Why not?”
“Because I will never be your leman. Looking at me will only frustrate you, because you cannot have me.” She sighed. “It would be cruel to tempt you. Poor man.”
He would have thought she was serious, if not for the poor man. This wench felt no sympathy for him and he knew it.
“Cannot have you?” he growled.
“I would not let you put your over-used, pompous Norman prick in me if you paid me a thousand silver pieces. Your wife told you how much I despise your kind, did she not?”
It seemed the wine had increased her bold mouthiness. “You’re making me angry, woman.”
“Because you want me and cannot have me? Just like a spoiled little boy.”
Still she kept up the pretense, as if she was not the wild cat in his bed last night. Saucy chit! Desire filled his veins, pushed him upright from that lounging pose. “I only want to look at you. You assume I cannot control myself, wench—that your body is so exquisite I will fall upon you and ravage you like one of my marauding Viking ancestors?”
She laughed suddenly. “I am almost tempted to challenge you to a wager. It must be your Norman wine.”
Aha! A softening in her demeanor. She was growing at ease with him. For a woman she was curiously brave and he’d noted it before with frustration. Now he found himself admiring her for more than her body and her pretty face. “You like wagers, Saxon wench?”
She nodded, eyes shining.
“And you think I cannot resist laying hands on you if you stand naked before me? Very well, let me prove it.”
“What will you give me if I win?”
He grinned.
“Not that,” she said crisply.
“Either way you win, don’t you, wench?” he purred.
“I do?”
“I’ve never yet met a woman who would object to my hands on her naked body.”
While he expected her to pout and act prim again, she simply laughed. “You are the most arrogant man I ever met.” Then she paused. “But I suppose I can show you one breast. That is all.” She shook her finger at him. “You must not touch.”
The wench was teasing, enjoying the sense of control she had because of his lust for her. But she was also heated under her skin, rapidly becoming mischievous. He saw the slight quiver in her lower lip, watched her pupils expand, darkening her beautiful brown eyes until they were almost black. He’d let her blame it on the wine, if that made her feel better; if she must pretend not to feel the flames of desire licking between them.
He glanced over her head then and saw Thierry standing behind her, watching intently. Carried away himself he’d almost forgotten his friend’s presence.
He lay back again. “Both tits. And I wager you one horse that I don’t touch you.an s
“A horse?” she sputtered.
“That’s right, wench. I’ll give you a horse, if I give in to temptation.” He didn’t tell her she would only ride it in his presence, even if she won; under no circumstances would he let her leave his gates without him.
She agreed to the wager for a horse, spitting on her hand and holding it out. Amused again, he slowly took her hand and shook it. If he gripped harder, he could have tumbled her to the floor, but for now he enjoyed her playful mood.
His balls ached. He stroked himself with one hand and she looked down. “No touching!”
“No touching you,” he corrected. “I said nothing about touching myself.” He cupped his balls defiantly and she rolled her eyes. Sweeping her hair back, she slid her shift down over her shoulders.
He swallowed, staring. Those were the breasts he’d pressed to his chest last night when he filled her with his cock the first time. Did she truly imagine he wouldn’t know her body from any other? It was almost insulting, this ignorance she attributed to him. He closed his hand around the root of his shaft and felt the thudding pulse deepen.
She began covering them again.
“No,” he barked.
She paused.
“Touch those nipples,” he grunted. “Both hands.”
He thought she would argue, but the little peaks hardened at his command. The rosy nubs tightened and puckered, even before her fingers pinched them lightly, then rubbed as he directed. Her lashes fluttered and she inhaled.
Now she was entertaining him. He knew how much she enjoyed being looked at.
“Let me see your pussy,” he muttered gruffly. “I’ll give you that horse and a gold bracelet if I lose the wager and touch you.”
Thierry still waited for a signal to join them, but Guy wasn’t ready yet. He felt selfish and overheated like an adolescent again, newly discovering the abilities of his cock and afire with pent
up yearning.
“No,” she said.
He moved his gaze back to her face. “Are you worried I’ll see how wet you are in my presence? Virginal Saxon wench who does not desire me and would rather I was dead?”
Her lower lip stuck out. Mulish.
“Pussy,” he commanded, drawing the word out in a hiss.
She hesitated.
“Unless, of course, you’re afraid. Saxon.”
That did it. Her eyes glistened in the firelight. She stood and lifted her shift to her waist with no further quibbling. “Satisfied? Norman swine. Are you sure you’re six and twenty, not sixteen?”
He ignored her comment, busy working his shaft with one tight hand, gazing at her bared breasts and then the small golden treasure purse between her thighs. God he wanted to touch her. His stallion was on fire to have her ride it again. Aware of Thierry moving impatiently in the shadows behind her, he did not make eye-contact. Knowing what the other man wanted, he still wasn’t ready to give it.
She lifted her leg, resting her bare foot on the edge of his couch and now he had a clear view of her sex and those sweet, honeyed lips. She could deny it all she liked, but he knew he’d been in there. Had her. Fucked her.