Desired (66 page)

Christian’s eyes sparkled as he squeezed her hand. “My powers are not infallible, thank Heaven. By the time I arrived in the East, the pestilence had done its devastation there and moved West. I found my mother in the best of health.” He turned to Brianna to watch her reaction. “I brought her back with me.”

Brianna’s reaction surprised him. Her face was suffused with delight. “Where is she?” she demanded.

“At the moment she is in my father’s house. Enjoying their privacy, I sincerely hope.”

The ladies all sighed at the romantic thing that Christian had done for his parents.

“It was your father who was touched by the plague.” Brianna’s hand went to her heart. “Oh, wouldn’t it have been devastating if you had brought her all this way only to discover that Guy had not survived?”

Hawksblood was stunned. “I was just there. He looked healthy enough to me.”

“The Angel of Death stood at his bedside from the moment he arrived home from the victory of Poictiers,” Glynis told him.

Joan spoke up. “Brianna and Glynis quarantined themselves with him and nursed him day and night until he recovered.”

Christian was almost speechless. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for such a selfless sacrifice.”

Glynis blushed at his praise. Brianna smiled her secret smile. “It was no sacrifice to look after him … I’m half in love with him!”

Prince Edward said, “You’re back in time for a splendid reception tonight. Our honored guests are leaving for England in the next couple of days.”

Hawksblood knew he’d have to grit his teeth and bow to chivalry. “We will be honored to attend.”

“Oh, Edward, we’ll have to move to another room. Brianna and Christian would no doubt like to sleep in their own bedchamber tonight.”

“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” Christian vowed chivalrously, and all his company laughed that he made such a terrible liar!

Prince Drakkar took his wife to meet his mother before they went to the Banqueting Hall. Brianna was extremely nervous and changed her clothes three times before she was satisfied with her appearance. She finally chose a dress with a full skirt of black and gold lace and a fitted ruby red jacket that showed off the bright splendor of her golden hair. Christian insisted that she must not cover such beauty, so she chose a plain gold fillet to hold it back from her face.

When they arrived at Warrick’s, he told them that Sharon was too shy to attend the banquet, that they would
much rather spend the evening alone together. Christian envied them. Princess Sharon wanted to receive her daughter-in-law privately. Brianna approached the adjoining room shyly, not knowing quite what to expect.

Christian’s mother was the most vividly beautiful woman Brianna had ever seen, and the darkest. Her bloodlines made her regally proud, yet at the same time she was so small and feminine, Brianna understood how Warrick had fallen under her spell. She must have aroused a fierce protectiveness in the young Norman that still blazed in the old warrior.

They approached each other timidly. Since the older woman was a royal princess, Brianna waited for her to speak first.

Finally she asked, “Do you love my son?” Even her accent was exotic.

“With all my heart,” Brianna assured her.

“Then we have much in common. Only when you have a child of your own, will you understand what it cost me to give him up.”

“Love for a child must be unconditional and absolute. I understand that.”

“Then you will make a good mother, Lady de Beauchamp.”

“How lovely,” Brianna said happily, “no one has called me that since my wedding day.”

“Then I hope you will return the compliment for none has ever called me by my husband’s name.”

Brianna smiled at her. “Welcome to Bordeaux, Lady de Beauchamp.”

Sharon smiled back. “I hear Bordeaux is beautiful, but it is England I long to see.”

“I, too, long to go home,” Brianna confided.

“Allow me to thank you for saving my husband’s life.” She picked up a gold filigree casket from a table beside her. “Please accept these as a token of my appreciation … and my love.”

Brianna opened the lid and gasped. It was filled with rubies. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Nonsense. Christian,” she called, “come and adorn your beautiful wife with the rubies I brought her.”

Warrick and Christian came into the room and he fastened the rubies into her ears and clasped the necklace about her throat.

“Magnifique!
Only women who are beautiful enough to outshine jewels should ever wear them,” Princess Sharon declared. Then she turned her attention to Warrick and Christian. “So. Brianna and I wish to go home to England. What do you men intend to do about it?”

Warrick winked at his son. “I’ll think on it, but we won’t be living at the Royal Court of Windsor. I intend to live at Warrick in my own castle.”

“Then we shall be close neighbors, for I intend to take Brianna home to Bedford.”

After the banquet when the floor was cleared for dancing, a handsome young Gascon by the name of Sir Bernard de Brocas petitioned Prince Edward. “Your Highness, I beg a favor of you. If you would introduce me to your enchanting cousin, the Duchess of Kent, I shall be forever in your debt.”

Edward stared at him grimly, the Plantagenet temper threatening to explode. Instead, the legendary Black Prince came to a decision. He stalked down the hall, not stopping until he stood directly in Joan’s path. Then he swung her into his arms and danced her to the dais. He climbed up and held his arms out for silence. Gradually the laughing, chattering, and whispering ceased and the entire room gave the Prince of Wales their undivided attention.

“Your Majesties, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to announce that upon my return to England, Joan, Duchess of Kent, and I will be married at Westminster. You are all invited!”

The King and Queen of England were stunned, but when they heard the cheering from their courtiers, they decided to accept their son’s decision graciously.

Christian bent his dark head to Brianna’s ear. “If Edward has enough guts to finally do as he pleases, so have I.”

“And what is it you please to do, my lord?”

“It pleases me to take you home to bed!” He put one strong arm beneath her knees and swept her into his arms before the whole assembly. Brianna slipped her arms about
his neck, clinging to him, her heart almost melting against his. As he strode from the hall a group of courtiers stared, outraged at his audacity.

“An old Arabian custom,” he murmured haughtily, a prince to his very bones.

Everyone was at the Banqueting Hall, so when they returned to their house, they were entirely alone. They could have swum naked in their own private Eden, but their needs were too great at the moment for water play.

Again, Christian lifted her high against his heart and carried her upstairs. He set her feet to the floor and captured her lips. Then with his mouth in complete possession of hers, his hands began to unclothe her. There was magic in his fingers as he undressed her by feel alone, never lifting his mouth from hers.

Brianna started to do the same to Christian. It was a most arousing and sensual game to disrobe him by touch alone, with her eyes closed, her mouth fused to his, and her senses so heightened, she wanted to scream with desire.

When she was naked, his hands did not leave her but continued to work their magic, touching, stroking, feeling, rubbing, squeezing, sliding, caressing, teasing, encircling, and then his tongue too began to taste and stroke and thrust. She stood on her tiptoes, slid her arms about his neck, then lifted herself onto his marble shaft.

As Christian walked slowly to the bed, the velvet head of his shaft moved in and out of her with each firm step. He knew that she would allow him any intimacy. At long last, all her barriers were down. She trusted him totally, knowing he would bring her to rapture.

Her passion for him tonight knew no bounds. As he slid his hard length all the way up inside her, she had never been hotter than she was tonight. She was fevered, scalding, and highly aroused almost to madness. When he tried to prolong their pleasure, she began to move on him in a frenzy of need, and he knew she was ready for what he was about to do to her. Knew in body and soul that she would respond sensually and yield totally, so that he could take her on the journey of transformation.

He began to thrust into her with hard, slow, pulsating strokes. All semblance of gentleness fell away. She reveled
in the fullness, the power, and potency of his thrusts. He was giving her everything she needed if only he would move faster. Christian knew the deliberately slow rhythm coupled with the intense force of his hard thrusts would pleasure her ten times longer than rapid strokes that would bring a quick climax.

Tonight he wanted her to know the bliss of multiple orgasm and so he used his greater strength to force her body to match his slow, endless, undulating rhythm. Brianna gave her will into his keeping and allowed him total control. The pleasurable sensations her body experienced were beyond anything she had ever known. Molten gold fire ran along her veins, melting her very bones, molding her to his size and shape. Their bodies became one, endlessly giving, endlessly taking. As he worshiped her with his body, time and place and identity fell away until they were transformed.

Finally, she could sustain the pleasure no longer, and deep within her body, she climaxed long and hard, one contraction after another, vibrating her sleek sheath until she shuddered to a stop. Christian held still for half a dozen heartbeats and then he withdrew his hard, thick length halfway, positioning the swollen head of his phallus against her hard bud, high on her mons.

For a moment she almost cried out that it was too much, but she read his thoughts as clearly as he read hers.
Stay with me, trust me for this loving
. Had he spoken aloud? Perhaps. It mattered not, she did trust him, would trust him always, forever, in this life and the next.

This time her pleasure built swiftly, exquisitely, with new and different sensations, making her so passionate she bit the smooth dark skin that stretched across his breast and shoulder.
He will have scars
, she thought, and then she lost even the ability to think as her bud exploded into a million delicious pulsations.

Christian held still once more to experience every last flutter of his beloved’s body. She was learning that trusting him had untold rewards. When her last shiver stilled, he thrust into her savagely once, and to the hilt, finally spending, flooding her with his love, his life. When she felt his
white-hot seed spurt inside her, she experienced her final bliss.

Brianna felt too languorous to even breathe. She was utterly content to simply be. His love surrounded her in never-ending circles that moved outward from her to infinity.

Much later when they could breathe again, and move and think, Christian untangled himself from her beautiful hair and whispered, “I have a gift for you.”

Suddenly she remembered the book she had made him. “I have a gift for you too.”

As they gifted each other with a book, it would have been a coincidence, except of course there is no such thing. Each opened the book and turned the pages with rapt attention. His was entitled
The Arabian Knight
and she had lovingly sketched him on each page, telling his story. She portrayed him taming a falcon, winning a joust, fighting in battle, being knighted by the king, sitting at the Round Table wearing his Order of the Garter. Christian looked up from the book, enthralled that she had made this thing of beauty for him.

Brianna sat gazing in fascination at the book he had given her. When her eyes widened in disbelief, he laughed and explained, “It is a pillow book. In the East a bride-groom gives one to his bride and they look at the erotic positions of love when they retire to bed.”

“Christian! For the love of Allah, this is the wickedest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s positively decadent and lewd!”

He closed the book so she wouldn’t have to look at the depraved couplings. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to shock you. I meant to amuse you. The book you have made me touches me deeply. I will cherish it forever.” He turned to the last page where she had painted them both with their arms about three children. The illuminated script read:
And they lived happily ever after
.

“How do you know we will have three children?”

“I saw them in a vision once. Two strong sons and a droll little daughter.”

He reached out his hand to stroke her golden hair. “You are a marvel.”

“I know,” she said mischievously, opening her pillow book. “I think I’d like to try page twenty-four.”

As his mouth fell open, she ran giggling to the bed. Then Christian was in full pursuit. They burrowed beneath the bedcovers, laughing like lunatics. She pushed him back forcefully and rubbed her cheek along the inside of his thigh. Then her tongue came out and she traced the length of the curved scimitar branded high on his inner thigh.

She had him helpless, moaning with pleasure and laughing at the same time. “Your hair is tickling me to death!”

Soon the bedclothes were on the floor, and not long after, they followed the covers. “Mmm, imagine doing page twenty-four on a marble floor!”

“You little cocotte, what you want to do to me is too wicked to be in that book. I can’t waste my seed like that if you want to get started on that family.”

Brianna pushed him back again, but stopped laughing so she could be serious for a moment. “I’m already carrying your son tucked deep beneath my heart.”

“My darling, I love you with all my heart.” He kissed her tenderly and Brianna sighed with happiness, feeling it all the way down to her toes. Suddenly he grabbed her shoulders. “You reckless little fool. You jumped off the roof knowing you were with child!”

Brianna reached out one finger to tap his manhood. It stretched like a beast that had been sleeping, but was now fully alert. “Beat me,” she invited. “Use your stout rod and beat me, my wicked Arabian Knight.”