By Possession (34 page)

Fingertips and gaze drifted over her breasts and hips and thighs. “You are very beautiful, Moira.”

She did feel beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world. Valuable and rare and perfect in his eyes. The equal of all the Claires and Mathildas of the realm. The love of half a lifetime swelled, filling her with happiness.

He broached her with soft, tasting kisses and slow, contemplative caresses. His hands and mouth moved over her body like he savored the exploration and memorized the passages of pleasure that he discovered. Desire rose in little sparks and tremors, a gradual delicious stimulation. She stretched and arched, thrusting her breasts toward his attention.

“I had planned to spend half the night on this loving, living out my dream, but it appears you may not let me.” He smiled, giving the caress she sought. His circling touch provoked heavenly pleasure. “Nor will my own need, I think.”

“Next time,” she barely breathed.

He gently squeezed her nipple between thumb and finger and bent to flick the tip with his tongue. An arrow of tense excitement shot down to the itching moisture already pulsing its demanding torture. “Aye, next time. And the next. And the next. I had many dreams.”

Even so, he took forever, honoring her with intimate caresses, teasing her breasts with his tongue and lips, kissing her with controlled fervor. He guided her into a frenzied tumult of sensuality. She grasped him to her and every spot of her body and consciousness pleaded for more. She reached for him, taking the hard length of his phallus in her hand, using her knowledge of his own body like a challenge against his restraint. He responded by caressing down to the cleft between her legs. A focused heat and hunger burst with his gentle massaging of her inner thighs. She lost conscious control of her body. She undulated with abandon, frantically begging for what he withheld.

He spread and bent her legs, splaying them until the palms of her feet met. Cool air and desperate voracity produced delicious shivers. He touched her open vulnerability and a moan of wonder and gratitude escaped her. He rose up and looked down at her and his fingers began driving her mad. She rocked into the gentle touches and rubs, body and mind knowing only a single craving that pitched higher and higher. The exquisite sensations deepened the hollow hunger that demanded filling. As if he heard its urging he slid a finger inside her and she cried an affirmation, bowing her body in grateful acceptance. The relief was too brief. Almost instantly it became a tantalizing promise more than a fulfillment, making the hunger worse.

“I like to see your need of me,” he said. “I like to see you feel what I feel and want what I want.”

He sucked on her breast and used his hand very deliberately. She bucked and cried with a delirious burst. Surely she could not bear any more.

He moved over her, settling between her legs, taking his weight onto his arms. She reached down and guided him to her, impatient for completion, almost unhinged with a wanting that threatened to shatter her. She grasped his buttocks and lifted her hips to absorb him. A thread of control snapped above her. He thrust with a force that shook both their bodies and she cried from the startling sensation that she had been split. The shock cleared her senses.

He hovered over her, shoulders and arms tense and expression serious. Her body began to relax, accommodating the invasion. He must have felt it because the veil of concern left his eyes.

“I will withdraw at the end so you do not get with child.”

The feeling of ravishment faded, leaving only a blissfully tight fullness, as if he physically permeated every void in her. She caressed his face and pulled his head down for a joyful, welcoming kiss. “Nay. Do not. After all this time, let it be complete.”

He moved carefully, easing the fullness in and out of her, emphasizing his possession with controlled retreats and advances, pausing sometimes until her body moved with entreaties for more. The feel of him inside and all around her, the connections of body and skin and intimacy, left her emotions so saturated she wanted to weep. She held on to his strength, accepting, begging, absorbing, immersed in the precious reality of this long-awaited loving.

She thought that he had fed her hunger, but slowly its insistent warmth reemerged, trembling through her limbs, reawakening sensations where they joined. Her sighs of contentment shortened to gasps as her desire escalated again. He sought her mouth in a probing kiss that matched the rhythms of his body, then lowered his head
to take her breast in his mouth, sucking hard while he drew her into a higher passion.

He bent her legs and leveraged up to move deeply. Less gently now, he gave her pleasure while finding his own. He answered his own need while summoning hers again. His body ravished hers with quickening rhythm and increasing force. The release of power left her breathless and her consciousness focused on the summit they approached. He thrust harder and quicker. Demanding. Claiming. Profound sensations quivered through her in response. Tension poured out of him, into her, spiraling down to their jointure. Her arousal shuddered with an intense physicality that then soared, split, and spread, shaking her with unearthly exhilaration. He joined her in it, surrendering with a climax that ravaged them both.

His spent body covered her and she surrounded him with arms and legs, holding on to the union and savoring the rippling ecstasy, realizing she had never known such peace and completion. Such wholeness.

I feel as if I am in a new world. I feel as if the earth, the air, every plant has changed.

He rose up slightly with a peculiar look and she realized that she had spoken aloud. His inwardly searching expression passed quickly. She smiled at what she saw in his eyes then. Definitely love. Surely contentment. Undoubtedly happiness. But also something else. Possession and ownership.
Mine
, those eyes declared.

And it was so. His. Not by bonds of birth, but by free choice.

He moved to her side and pulled her into an encompassing embrace. She snuggled against him, still holding him with one arm and leg. They lay in silent peace for a long while before he spoke.

“I think that your wool merchant prayed too well. But for the maidenhead you might indeed have been the virgin
widow. You should not have been so impatient. I did not have to hurt you.”

“You hardly encouraged patience.” She giggled. “James and I wed during Lent. It is why I was called that. He died soon after Holy Week and it was assumed we had forgone consummation until Easter, as is customary. He was not so pious as that, however.”

“Nay, not with such as you in his bed. So he succumbed on a few occasions to irreverent pleasure but made sure you did not enjoy the sin. I do not like the man much. Not just because he had you first, although I will admit some resentment at that. Despite what you said in the hay mound, I think that he did hurt you, and not because you were impatient.”

“I was his wife.”

“Another reason to dislike him.” He gave her a mischievous glance. “I should warn you that I am not much given to prayer at all. In fact, you may regret taking a crusader and prisoner to your bed.”

“I will never regret taking this one. Besides, you will not convince me that it has been eight years.”

“Nay. Only two. Which is too long for any man. But for your gift in Southwark, I might have impaled you against the garden wall tonight.”

She looked at his handsome profile. He had the opportunity for all kinds of gifts while he stayed in that bawd house. She had just assumed.…

He rose up on his arm. He caressed down her body and his thoughtful gaze followed his hand. “If ever two people belong together it is you and I, Moira. But you are not going to stay with me, are you?”

“I am here now.”

“You do not intend to come with me to Barrowburgh though.”

“I will come to see you enter its gates, but nay, I will
not live there with you. I have not changed my mind about that, Addis. I will be your lover until you retake it or marry, but I will make my own life here.”

“What if you bear my child?”

“Then I will raise your child and be glad for it.”

“If it is a son …”

“If it is a son he may prefer the life of a craftsman or merchant. Not all born to the blood are suited to be knights. Our king is evidence of that.”

“You must let him decide that, Moira. And me.”

“When he is of age for service, he and you can decide. At the age when he would leave for apprenticeship under any case. But I'll not give up a child before that, Addis. Do not expect me to.”
Do not expect me to give up all that remains of you before I absolutely must.

He muttered a curse. “I do not understand your pride in all this. You give yourself to me but with conditions of time and place. You will share a bed with me but not let me take care of you as either a wife or mistress. You say that you love me but in the next breath say you will leave me. I do not know if I can accept this.”

“You must promise me that you will. You must let me go when it is time. What I said to you that day in this chamber has not changed. Nor has your duty and the life that you were born to live.” She caressed his frowning face and smiled. “Let us enjoy the peace of being whole these days that we have. Complete in this time and place, with neither the past nor the future whispering in our ears. For a while at least I am wholly yours. While we can, let us just be Addis and Moira loving each other. I am so happy. Do not let what must occur a month or so hence ruin it.”

“So winning back my honor means losing you. It will be a bitter victory then.”

She would have trouble with him when the time came. Still, he seemed to accept it, and the kiss he gave her sealed the agreement. The intimacy deepened and he hardened against her hip.

“I said at Whitly that I wanted to know you completely, every part of you. When I said that I wanted to take you every way a man can have a woman, I expected to have a lifetime, not a few weeks. If you will only be mine for a brief passion, then so be it. But no negotiations this time, Moira. No quarter.”

He gently turned her body and bent her forward so that her bottom snuggled against his hips. He carefully entered her again and filled her motionlessly. He bent his body around her while his hand cupped her breast.

“Being inside you is so right. Perfect. Better than any dream,” he muttered against her shoulder. “Tell me again, Moira. Say that you are completely mine.”

It
was
right and perfect. “I am completely yours, Addis.”

His kisses on her back and nape and his fingers playing at her breasts quickly had her desire twisting again, seeking assuagement. The sensations of traveling the path to passion with him inside her from the beginning astonished her. With a needful whimper she wiggled against his hips, encouraging the fullness to move.

A firm hand stilled her hip. “Nay, love. Let me go slowly so it lasts.”

And it did go slowly. A long, sweet loving full of alertness to each other, her body curved into his as if they made one form. The joining became normal and separation an unthinkable severing. The beauty of it lulled her to something much deeper than pleasure, even when he reached around to caress the spot sure to bring her release.

Three times he took her before they slept, each union a different dream with its own pleasure. After the last she collapsed on top of him, boneless with sated exhaustion. Her last happy memory was lying with her cheek against his chest, his strong arms holding her tightly.

CHAPTER 18

M
OIRA SQUEEZED BETWEEN
the bodies jamming the wall's battlements and gazed down on Addis.

He stood beside the mayor of London, surrounded by aldermen and nobles, patiently looking down the Strand, toward Westminster. Londoners crowded the wall flanking Newgate, cramping the archers positioned to give their leaders below protection.

She was grateful that he had not ridden north as planned when word came that Isabelle had landed. The mayor had discovered that Richard had recruited over two hundred men from the shires surrounding the city, and decided that this unexpected small army would be more useful protecting London than joining the barons rushing to the queen's side. When he and Thomas Wake had asked Addis to remain and lend his help to the citizen guard, Addis had agreed.

It had proven an intelligent request, but not for the reasons envisioned. The city had received the news of the imminent fall of their king with an orgy of jubilation. But
a triumphant people can easily turn into a riotous mob, and only the many armed men wearing the city's colors on their sleeves had helped maintain any semblance of order. Periodically the army of Addis de Valence had been forced to subdue violence. He had been gone long hours the last two days helping command and deploy the watch, only returning to the barricaded house for short spots of sleep. When he came, day or night, she had taken the opportunity to lie beside him while he dozed.

The Strand, the street connecting Newgate to Westminster, appeared deserted. Moira jostled her way next to a tall archer.