An Honorable Rogue (23 page)

'Think of Sir Richard if it helps,' Ben said.

'Very well.' Rose's throat was dry. How on earth was she to conjure Sir Richard when it was Ben's voice that was murmuring so seductively in her ears, and Ben's musician's fingers that were melting her bones to wax?

Meekly she submitted while he dragged her gown and shift over her head and laid her gently on the blanket. So very different to Per, she thought. Ben touches me as if I were the most precious thing in his world. But then, he has had much practice at this. He has made it his life's work to learn how to pleasure a woman.

Sir Richard? It was Ben who was causing the ache to build inside her, it was Ben whose skin she burned to touch. There was tension in her, but its cause was desire, not fear.

'Ben.' she murmured, and was hard put to recognise her own voice, it was hoarse with need.

'Little flower.' He lay beside her, stroking her cheek and drawing her hair over her shoulder in one long, caressing movement that took in her breast. He pressed a brief, oh so brief, kiss to her lips that had her about to object, but then his head was at her breast, pushing her hair aside, and the touch of his lips and tongue had her gasp out loud.

He lifted his head. 'All right, Rose?'

Swallowing, beyond speech, she nodded and urged his head back.

His hand was running up and down her side, leaving fire in its wake. Hot, so hot. It was as though he were branding her, making her his for eternity. And now he had her legs apart, was gently touching here--there--in a way that Per had never... It was too much, it was...

'Oh, Ben..." As sensation ripped through her, and she found herself pulsing and throbbing all over, she caught his wrist. 'Stop, please!"

'Stop? Are you certain?'

'Y-yes. N-no. More. Do it again, please.'

He gave a shaky laugh and then he gave her more. Despite all she had heard by the river at Quimperle. she had never imagined feeling anything like this--longing, need, sensuality, a driving desire to give as much pleasure as she was being given....

Her hands were cradling his head, they were lingering in his hair, they were running over those beautifully muscled shoulders, but it was not enough. He, her make-believe knight, was intent on pleasing her, but he was fully clothed and that had to be wrong. Her hands ached to be gliding over naked skin--his naked skin. Desperately she moulded him to her, but the feel of that strong male body through the fabric of his tunic was vaguely dissatisfying. She wanted actual skin contact, no, she wanted more than that. She wanted to brand him in the same way that he was branding her.

His leg slid between hers at the precise moment that she slid her fingers into his hair and gave it a gentle tug.

'Ben?'

'Hmm?' His head lifted, his breath was ragged.

Placing a hand in the centre of his chest, she pushed. He made no resistance and in a moment was lying on his back while she leaned over him, hair trailing everywhere. If it were not too dark for him to see, he would think her a wild woman. And yet, under her palm, his heart was thudding as fast as hers.

'Ben--' her voice was croaky as a frog's '--I am glad I asked you to help me. You are very good at this...'

He caught her hand and kissed it. 'I thank you.'

'So far.'

'So far?
So far?'
His grip shifted and he pulled her down on top of him. 'I'll show you so far..." Possessively, his hands slid to her buttocks and he caught her to him. rocking his pelvis against her as he did so. Both of them groaned. Dragging her head down, he gave her a hot, hard, proprietary kiss.

'Wait, Ben. I have something to say."

His grip eased and though she was ravaged by desire-- a desire that, given their agreement, could have no satisfactory conclusion--she put a smile in her voice. 'If you were a knight, and I were your lady, I would not permit you to remain thus in our bed."

'Hmm?'

'No, sir knight. I would carry on where your squire had left off." Purposefully, she reached for his belt and undid the buckle. 'And now, your tunic. Sir, that must come off.' She tussled with the fabric.

He shifted and sat up. Clothing rustled. She heard him swallow. 'And my shirt, Rose? Does that come off too?'

She lifted the hem. 'Of course.'

Another rustling. Then silence.

Rose's throat was dry. She wished she could see him. She could hardly believe it, but she was sitting naked on the blanket in Ben's tent,
naked,
and Ben was sitting next to her, his breathing as uneven as hers, and she felt neither fear nor dread.

'Your boots, sir knight,' she said, finding her way by feel as she slid her hand down the hard length of his thigh and over the leg bindings on his calf. 'Your squire didn't do a very good job, did he? He left you with your boots and they are certainly not needed here.'

Ben grunted and moved and his hands brushed hers aside.

'There. No boots, lady fair.' he said, taking her by the shoulders and drawing her close. A slow kiss had her toes curling and her belly aching and her body straining towards his. His tongue outlined her lips and parted them; his hands covered her breasts, weighing them; his thumb gently circled her nipples, circling, circling. She was about to collapse back on to the blanket, melting with need when, groaning, he drew back.

'My leg bindings,' he said, on a shaky laugh. 'What about my leg bindings?"

Rose bit her lip. They had to be careful. They had agreed not to consummate their love--
love?
--their desire, she amended hastily. 'D-do you sleep with leg bindings on?"

'Too restricting. I don't usually.'

Since it was Ben and in this she trusted him, she felt bold enough to reach for his calves in the dark. Helpfully, he bent his knees and she was able to untuck the ends of the braid by feel and carefully begin unwinding the bindings. It was hard, though, because her fingers were trembling and all the while Ben's hands were in her hair, stroking it distractingly and using his fingers to comb it out to its full length.

She liked undressing him like this, touching him in this familiar way, as though it were her right, but she fumbled at rolling up the leg bindings and dropped them. 'Sorry.'

'Never mind,' he muttered, leaning towards her to plant a necklace of hot kisses on her neck. He was apparently as eager to touch her as she was to touch him. He was exploring her shoulders, tracing tiny patterns on her skin, leaving fire and yearning in their wake.

Tentatively she reached for his chest. If only she could see him. But she could feel his warmth and the satiny texture of his skin; she could feel those toned tumbler's muscles and the dark hairs that she knew arrowed down to the top of his chausses; she could hear the swift indrawn breath as she too stroked and caressed. When her hands glided around his waist and over his buttocks, they bunched under her hands.

Leaning towards him, she bent and planted a series of kisses on his chest. One hand followed the course of the hairs on his chest and slid lower.

He groaned and took her upper arms to ease her back. 'Enough, Rose. This is far too dangerous.'

'Surely not?"

'There are limits. Saints! I think it might be best if you put your shift back on. Otherwise...'

Otherwise what? They would make love? She would not mind. Benedict Silvester could do anything to her,
anything,
and she was sure she would enjoy it.

And that, she reminded herself, was the whole purpose of this.

Ben is doing this with me because I asked him. He is doing this with me because he is Ben and he loves women,
all
women. He has no special feelings for me, other than the bonds of affection he might feel for a girl he knows as well as his sister.

A sobering thought, that, one that brought her up short. Apparently in accord, Ben edged away, but he took her by the hand as though to lessen the distance that he had just put between them and his thumb moved up and down in her palm.

'That is very.. .chaste,' she said, returning the pressure slightly resentfully because he had not let her lie against him with her naked breasts against his chest, and she burned for him, she burned...despite the agreement they had made. This is Benedict Silvester, she repeated to herself, Benedict the minstrel who loves everyone.

'It is meant to be chaste,' he said, softly. 'Rose, we
must
be chaste.'

They sat side by side in the tent while their breathing slowed, and Rose wondered frantically what Ben's definition of chastity might be since she was sitting naked in the dark with him, and his scent filled her nostrils and he only wore his chausses and they had touched each other everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. She had still not touched...

'It is not what I want, little flower,' he added. 'But it is dangerous."

'I know. There might be...issue.' Children. A brief vision of a laughing boy with brown eyes that had green and yellow flecks in them flashed unbidden into her mind. Her heart twisted and. ruthlessly, she snuffed the vision out. Ben and she would never have children.

'Yes.' Puzzlingly, Ben's voice was bleak, as though he had his regrets. But Ben would not be regretting that they would never have children. He would be regretting that they had not lain together fully. He was a man and that, the women at the Quimperle washing place had told her, was all a man ever wanted. To lie with a woman carnally, they had said, was the sum of a man's desire.

Rose held down a sigh and fumbled for her shift in the dark. She could not complain, Ben was Ben and he had done exactly as she had asked. So swiftly too. A few caresses and she'd been panting for him. And Sir Richard?

Her skin chilled and she frowned. The thought of permitting Sir Richard to touch her in like manner... No.
No!
It gave her goose bumps to think about it. An unpleasant suspicion was forming in her mind--what if the only kisses she could tolerate were the ones that Ben...

She could not and would not let herself fall in love with Ben. For he was not simply Ben, her good friend, he was also Benedict Silvester, the most celebrated lute-player in the Duchy. Yes, he was welcome in every hall and castle in the land, but he was a minstrel, for pity's sake, a rootless wanderer, and
music
was his life. The woman had not been born who could compete with that.

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed past the most crippling feeling of melancholy, 'I am glad I asked you to help me, Ben,' she said, brightly.

The grip on her hand increased. 'You no longer feel...an aversion?"

'Not at the moment.'
Not with you, at least.
'You are very good at this, I knew you would be.'

'What?' His voice was dry. 'A man of my reputation, you mean?"

'What else?' she said lightly. 'My thanks. Ben.'

'You are welcome, little flower.'

Ben was not the only one with acute hearing; there was definitely a slight edge to his voice. Rose could not think what it meant.

Ben woke with a start. Snatching up his shortsword, he peered into the dark. A short distance away, the screech of an owl sliced through the pre-dawn gloom. Then came a second screech, farther off. The owl was moving away.

At his side, Rose's breathing was soft and even, like the gentle ebb and flow of the sea on a calm August night. Putting out a hand. Ben slid it over the warmth of her back. She murmured and turned towards him, nestling close. His mouth twisted. Rose slept as trustfully as a babe and he envied her that luxury. Last night, shortly after she had fallen asleep, he had heard wolves howling to one another. Rose hadn't so much as stirred. Ben hadn't slept in that way--ever--as far as he could recall. A life on the road and the necessity of staying alert did not lead to deep and dreamless sleep.