"He must have been pleased with your progress. You seem a natural."
Her eyes, already bright with exercise, lightened further. "You have seen such acts before?"
Marc nodded, happy to share good memories, telling her of the knife-balancers he had witnessed in Constantinople. "They were every one a spectacle and most wonderful to see, though none were as skilled as you.
"I think they used heavier blades than these," he went on, plucking a knife from the table and testing its sharpness with his thumb.
"If they were men they would need to, perhaps. The knife has to be strong enough to support weight."
As she answered, Sunniva's eyes were following his hands and Marc sighed. He was suddenly tired of her suspicions, weary of his own doubts. Did she really believe, after all their time together, that he would ever harm her? Why should she believe the worst of him, or he of her?
"I am not your enemy, girl," he said roughly, leaning away from her.
"I know." To his amazement she followed his withdrawal, edging after him and reaching out to clasp his hand. "I know you are not, Marc."
He stared at her tiny hand in his massive paw, winded with astonishment. "What?" he said. Whatever happened next would be up to her, he realized. It was one thing to tease, to tickle, even to kiss, but he wanted more. "King Christ, do you care for me at all?" he burst out, appalled the instant the question left his lips. It was what he had been thinking, obsessing on for days, but to spew it out like that -
Braced for her laughter or, worse, pitying scorn, he actually closed his eyes for a second, and felt instead a splash of water on his hand, then a soft pair of trembling lips brush his fingers.
"Why else would I be here?" she whispered. "Right here, before you."
He opened his eyes and she was still there, golden, unusually solemn, a trace of a tear glistening on her cheek. He wiped it away with his hand. "How can you love me?" he asked, longing to hear her say it.
She smiled then. "How can I not?"
He gathered her close, lifting her so she fit on his lap. He put his lips to her ear, lost again for an instant in the wonderful scent of her hair.
"I love you, little English," he said, realizing at once by her stillness that he had spoken his heart in his first language, Breton. He repeated it in hers. "I love you." He could not think further than that, nor beyond this night. "I love you, Sunniva," he said again. "My Lady Sun-Light."
She buried her face against his shoulder and then they were kissing.
Chapter 20
Marc said he loved her! She was uplifted, grateful, afraid, triumphant, enchanted and, most of all, alive. She felt young again, full of hope and dreams. This was better, far better, than being desired. She was cherished.
"I love you," he whispered a third time, dropping a rain of kisses, like a string of pearls, across her throat. "Little mermaid. I have caught you now."
He smelt of love, not rank, but clean and fresh, his breath wholesome as his lips softly brushed hers in a request without words. She bumped her mouth playfully against his and his embrace tightened.
"Do not think you can slip away from me," he murmured into her mouth. He began to kiss her again, slowly and deeply.
She closed her eyes, adrift in new, glittering sensations where every feeling and touch were heightened. She could taste him, sweet as pine seeds yet with a musky undertone she was keen to explore. His tongue flicked against hers, coiled about hers and a great blaze of colour exploded behind her eyelids as they breathed each other in. His mouth guided hers, teasingly, into different shapes: a pout, then a little wider to allow a tiny, tingling nip of teeth on her lower lip, then more open. She flicked her tongue along his upper lip and felt him shiver strongly.
"Little tease," he grunted, but there was no reproof in his words, or in his fingers. He began to stroke her, running his thumbs along her bare arms and down each finger. Her chin tingled as he traced the line of her jaw with his lips and her breath stopped as his hand fleetingly cupped her breast.
"Steady, sweetheart," he said, smiling down into her eyes. "We shall go at your pace, to your direction. We have all night."
"What if this household returns?" Sunniva puffed out, her wits feeling scattered to the four winds. His fingers gently circled her nipple and even through the cloth she felt undone by a fiery sweetness. "What if the children wake?"
"The youngsters sleep. The whole world sleeps," Marc whispered against her throat, transferring his hand and his attentions to her other breast. "No one will come tonight. We are alone. At peace. Listen, Sunniva. Listen to the soft summer rain."
She heard it, throbbing against the roof thatch, dripping from the eaves, swishing against the door behind which she and Marc were snug together.
"I like to listen to the rain at night," Marc went on, lifting her hips to smooth out her skirts, make her more comfortable on his lap. "I like the scents rain brings in the morning. And you, Sunniva? What do you like?"
His words were precious to her because no other man had ever asked her that question. She leaned back in his arms, relaxed, knowing she was trusting him, and glad to do so.
"Star-gazing on clear nights," she said, after a moment. "Cooking. Dancing whenever there is music. Making a great tapestry."
"Practicing your knife throwing," put in Marc, nibbling her ear in a way that made her toes curl with pleasure.
"Tickles, please no," she gasped, disappointed when he stopped, then tensing as his fingers went exploring again, shimmering down her back and flanks. She had endured rough handling, groping hands, knees jammed between her thighs, but had never known caresses like these.
Wanting to give Marc pleasure in return, she raised her hand to his chest, floating her fingers across his tunic, feeling the hard, smooth sinews and flesh beneath the cloth. From the tension in his body, the way his breath surged like a tide with each sweep of her hand, she knew she pleased him.
There was a curl of hair poking through the drawstrings of his tunic. She kissed it, then, thinking of sewing, plaited it between her fingers.
"Should you not be doing that with your hair, Mistress?" Marc drawled, lifting her hand away from the solid shield of muscle beneath his ribs and sucking on her fingers, one by one.
"Why, when I can do this with yours?" she answered, emboldened, plunging her tongue between the threads of drawstring, tugging lightly on his chest hairs, tasting the salt and savour of him. "This is very poor work," she remarked, tonguing a small darn in the shoulder of his tunic. "Your own, Master?"
"And if I say it is, what will you do? Sew it for me, on me?" Marc retorted, paddling his fingers along her thighs. "I think, in truth, this claim of yours demands satisfaction: I would see your own mending."
"There is none, save on my undertunic," Sunniva replied, in a happy state of bemusement. Her tongue and fingers ceased their sensual exploration of Marc's magnificent frame as she realized just what she had admitted. "Nay -!"
Her protest was smothered then transformed into another aching blast of joy as his mouth kidnapped hers. Diving into a well of sweetness, Sunniva opened her eyes to find herself high in Marc's arms, lifted from bench, table and hall. Another heart-stopping instant and in a rush of speed that was almost like swooning she was down on a bed: Marc's pallet, piled high with furs. The furs tickled the backs of her legs while he kissed her afresh, his hands swirling under her skirts.
"I would see this mending," was all he said, kissing her hands as she tried to pull down her gown. "But I would not have you at a disadvantage —”
He pulled back and stripped out of his tunic, dragging it unceremoniously over his head and tossing it into the darkness. Clothed now only in linen leggings, he caught her again as she tried to squirm away.
"There it is." He touched a tiny darn mark on her undershift, rubbing his finger over it, then lowering his head and kissing the spot. "I agree. It is far more skilled work than mine. You should have a reward."
He raised his head. "You are beauti
ful, Sunniva."
His look of wonder drew tears to her eyes. From being exasperated and a little afraid she found a new, daring confidence.
"You are beautiful, too," she said, drawing herself against him. He was so hot, so hard and, gilded by the fire-light, so powerfully handsome. "I claim my reward," she said. "A kiss, Marc. I want you to kiss me."
"Have I not being doing that already, you intoxicating baggage?"
Sunniva blushed but kept her nerve. "I want you to kiss me," she intoned clearly, "where I have never been kissed before."
"Ah," Marc lowered his head again. "The kind of gift I like. A mutual reward."
Slowly, giving her time to stop him if she wanted to, he untied the strings of her gown. As her breasts became free, her nipples crinkling in the warm air of Marc's soft breath, she moaned and closed her eyes, then, wanting to miss nothing of him, opened them at once.
"I am still here," he whispered, touching her nose lightly with his thumb, winding a long streamer of heavy gold hair about his hand and kissing that. He cupped her breasts, murmuring praise in Breton she could not understand in words yet grasped in sense. Warm, half-shattered with pleasure, she lay against the furs and touched him in return, stroking his flanks, back, stomach.
Her hands fell away as he rolled on his side, so as not to crush her, and suckled her breasts, kissing and flicking one nipple with his tongue and gently squeezing and caressing her other breast.
"So pink and white and pretty," he said, his voice deepening before he tongued his way down her breastbone and stomach. "King Christ!" he groaned, "you are enough to make any man come before his time."
Abruptly he caught her against him, his hands loosening more of her gown. Kissing her hard on the mouth, he took her head between his hands. "I love you, girl," he said. "I would have you mine."
The moment had come. Too shy to speak, Sunniva nodded, tears of pure joy spilling from her eyes as Marc yanked off his leggings and then lay on her a moment, allowing her to feel all of him. He turned her, speaking against her back, "Give me some respite, little mermaid, or I shall be in too great haste: no, I know you do not understand me, not yet, but I beg you not to touch me."
He drew off her gown, kissing down the length of her spine, while Sunniva, hanging between pleasure and a need to embrace and caress in return said in a muffled voice, "But I want to!"
"Later, sweeting. Later you may. Hush now. Enjoy."
She squirmed under his hands, raising her hips to him as he fondled her buttocks, her fingers digging into the furs when he teased a hand between her legs to pleasure her in a way no other man had done before. She was wet, wonderfully juicy, helplessly yielding, whimpering and alive with sensations that were palpably new to her.
Her need acted as a brake on his own throbbing, urgent appetite. He still wanted her — God how he wanted her! — but he wanted to please her more.
She was naked now. He had deftly gossamered away her under-things, and the sight of her was an immense, glorious joy to him. Struggling still to hold himself back, his own member painfully erect, he glided her onto his thigh, to luxuriate in the feel of her and madly, perhaps, to torment himself more. Her skin felt finer than Byzantine silk and yet the curve of her, the bow of her lissom shape, hinted at her wiry strength. An erotic combination, charging him further.
In a futile attempt to distract himself a little, he blew on her hair, fascinated by the way it flexed and coiled on itself. Unbound, it cascaded to her waist, shimmering against the pale hollow of her back, setting off, as the mane of a horse sets off a mare's head, the greater beauty of her nicely swelling hips and thighs. Her intimate hair was gold, too: he had caught a glimpse as she had arched her bottom into his hands.
Such a round, spry, saucy bottom. A bottom to kiss and play-bite and caress and smack and finger and wallow in and enjoy. He wrapped an arm about her delightfully narrow middle, allowing her to be supported and free as he handled her twin globes with his other hand. Taking his time to explore their proportions, he delighted in the way her breath stuttered and gushed, how she pushed herself up to his fingers.
"Ohhh," she hissed, clenching her hands, "please, please —”
Still smoothing and petting her behind, he began tickling her between her legs with his other hand.
"Marc!" she gasped, blushing down to her breasts, her bottom warming swiftly under his sweeping hand, her sex unfurling between his gently probing fingers like the petals of an opening lily. He moved his circling hand and his thrusting, tickling hand more quickly, picking up a rhythm as she writhed and begged.
"Please, Marc, let me touch you, pl -e- ase!"
"In a moment, little English." He tightened his arm about her, keeping her in place, his fingers slick with her as he quickened more, one hand now mirroring the act of love-making itself. "Let yourself go," he nuzzled against her neck. "There..."
She stiffened in that unmistakable spasm of rapture, moaning out his name. He stroked and fondled her quivering loins as she shivered and stiffened again, and then he rolled her over, cuddling her.
"Oh!" Her eyes were damp and her hair tangled but then she blinked and sighed, nestling against him. "I never knew —”
"It could be like that?" Marc smiled, touched and flattered by her unabashed response. "And there is more."
"Will you show me?" she asked, half-bold, half-timid, and now Marc felt his smile turn into a grin.
"My pleasure," he said.
First, Marc brought her a cup of ale. He seemed to know she was thirsty, but then tonight he seemed to know all of her better than she knew herself.
Such moments. She had not known such pleasure was possible. Recalling the touch of Marc's sweetly delving fingers she bit her lips to prevent herself from begging him to do that again. She wanted more of those feelings. She wanted Marc to have them, too, with her. She wanted to touch him intimately, as he had done with her, and give him ease and joy and release. Now, tingling all over, she watched him through half-closed eyes as he took a rough swig of ale, from the jug.
He looked straight at her and she opened her arms.
"Come here." He yanked her against him, holding her so tightly she could feel his manhood twitching against her stomach while his chest hairs tickled her breasts. As he clutched her she clamped her arms even more closely about him, her hands kneading the muscles of his shoulders and back. When her questing, interested fingers reached his powerful haunches he groaned aloud almost as she had done, his face contorting.
Unsure if his grimace was one of pain, she stopped.
"What do I do now?" she asked.
"Anything you like," Marc answered, flopping down on the pallet alongside her, allowing her to feast her eyes on him.
A feast it was. She had seen men uncovered before but never one as well made. He was tall — often his height surprised her, for he was so sinewy she missed his size until she saw him alongside other men. Now she could see the long, lean muscles of his thighs, the hard, flat stomach, the strong, tanned arms. Better yet, she could touch. She kissed the blue cross tattoo on his arm and then a forking scar on his left knee.
"Where a horse shied and kicked me," he said, in answer to her questioning look. "Do you not wish to check my belly for scars?"
"For fleas, perhaps," Sunniva teased, giggling as he made a grab for her, then falling across him in sheer surprise as he snaked a hand between her thighs and the melting pleasure she experienced at his caress buckled her legs.
"I know how to tame you now," he crowed, whirling the fingers of his other hand around her breasts.
"So do I — with you!" Sunniva responded, and she took him, that most male part of him, between her palms.
The heat and firmness startled her but she loved the feeling as she stroked and gripped, enjoying, too, her own sense of womanliness as he stiffened further, his whole body tautening as his face blazed with colour.
"King Christ!" he burst out, "I can wait no longer!"
He turned, bearing her with him a
nd then she was beneath him and he was drawing her left leg away with his, his fingers easing into her and then, finally, himself. He lay still a moment, taking his weight on his arms, lifting himself so she could still see his blazing face.
"Mermaid," he murmured, and began to move.
She felt him now within her, caressing her from within so that she no longer knew for sure which was his flesh and which hers — truly one flesh, as it was told from the bible. She moved with him, darts of pleasure jangling her hips, seeming to spark directly from her loins to her breasts and then to her lips as he lowered himself, stroking longer, and began to kiss her.
One dart misfired: she shivered as a bolt of pain rippled through her and then it was gone and Marc was still kissing her, his hands now in her hair, his body embracing and penetrating hers. He was quickening in his thrusting and she was quickening, too. a spiral of tickling, exploding, melting: that new rapture she had experienced for the first time tonight with Marc, but now was far richer and deeper, because he was also feeling it.
Somewhere in the haze of pleasure she heard him cry her name and then all was golden: their bodies, her bedazzled mind and the sleep that claimed her, carrying her softly down into Marc's arms.
Chapter 21
Marc stirred early. Sunniva and the children were still asleep. Sunniva was curled against him, her hand in his. He kissed her palm and she sighed and rolled over, sleepily thrusting out her behind for him to cuddle up to.
Already, even in sleep, they fitted. Jubilant, complete in a way he had never known, Marc settled back, idly running a lock of her hair through his fingers. He was aroused again, but that did not matter. They had months, years to make love. He anticipated their unions with a grin.
He would tell her everything now. The real reason why he and his girls had been on pilgrimage. The reason why he had come to England. Had he told her why he had left his homeland before? Musing, he rolled onto his belly. Sunniva was sweet natured. She would hear him repeat things and not scold or scowl. He in turn would gladly listen to her: she could talk nonsense for him. He would ask her more about her childhood, her mother, her likes, her dreams.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 42