Gayle Eden (20 page)

He groaned and moved his hand from her, cupping the back of her head and dragging her up for a deep kiss. When he was done, she regained control once more, and started her journey, using hands and mouth and ignoring his tensing while she explored his hard stomach and laved around his navel.

Pagan was all muscle and incredibly soft on his lower stomach. His heated skin emitted a male musk, that aroused Illara further, and she lost her distraction to his tension somewhere in her own fascination, thus she did not hear his gritted groans and helpless curses as she skipped his sex deliberately—and went down to rub and caress his thighs, and inside them, nudging his leg to bend and feeling the shift of hard muscles.

She kissed the scars and indentation, laved around places that were unsmooth and ridged with old wounds. Illara felt the full veins under his skin and shaped his calves. She gloried in him, as a powerful warrior, a potent male. She nibbled at his hipbone, the indented side of his buttock and up each side. Her suckles and laves tasting him, her hands feeling him with obvious enjoyment.

When she went back to the tender inner thighs, Pagan half sat and caught her by cupping her head.

“Enough, Illara,” he sounded both out of breath and strained.

“Turn over.”

“Nay.”

“Aye,” she purred and bit at his finger. “Give me leave, Pagan. I want to feel you.”

“Christ.” He hung his head a moment and then his large frame lifted and Pagan turned, lying not completely down but on his stomach, his elbows were down and his forehead against his palms.

She began at his nape again, moving aside his braid and kissing across his back. Here she felt the twin scars as were on his chest. As she moved over his shoulder blades, they were deeper. Illara touched him, using her palms to smooth down his spine to his buttocks. Her heart shook that even they were scarred and she took her time with kissing and laving them, covering every spot she could reach.

At the base of his spine, she breathed against the wet trail her tongue left, and let her hands shape his buttocks, hearing his struggle to breathe and feeling muscles ripple as he tensed and relaxed. Reaching those buttocks, she skimmed her tongue and lips over the shape, and down to the back of his thighs. Kissing down his legs, finding the backs scarred, she made her way up and allowed her breasts, her nipples to caress his skin.

“Good. Christ,” Pagan whispered and shuddered. “I cannot take much more.”

She reached his nape and nudged him to his back again, hearing his breath release. Illara kissed him and rose to meet his hot, hooded gaze. He appeared somnolent, heavy with hungers and more.

Her hand moved to fist his sex and his body jerked. She skimmed it up and down leisurely, and smoothed her fingers through the hair at the base. “May I taste you here?”

“Sblood, woman.” Pagan arched his neck and covered her hand. “Would you unman me completely?”

“Nay. I will stop if you feel discomforted.”

“Holy God, Illara. I have been close to insanity since you started—”

She smiled in the dark at his confession, though it sounded like a curse. Illara stopped asking. She moved down and held his throbbing and hot flesh while her lips kissed the crown.

He arched off the bed and grabbed her head to prevent more.

“Please, Pagan, just a moment more,” she purred and dipped again, making the most of his loosing her to put her mouth on him. She laved her tongue across, grew used to his arching, and knew he had grasped the furs. His breathing was more gasps, moans that were half grunts. Pagan was not still at all for her laving and kissing. Illara tasted him fully, learned the flavor and silken texture, and experimented by suckling him.

Pagan hissed and chanted something, but she was excited sexually by his movements and breathing, by his taste and feel, and she hungrily found a cadence for her mouth to stroke him—until he cried out and lifted her head up,, covering her hand with his as his seed pumped out.

When released, she left for the bathing area and brought him a cloth.

Illara reclined beside him. Pagan finished and lay lax with his arm across his brow, his other hand over his chest. His voice sounded groggy as he mumbled, “I would not have dared dream that. Not since…”

She reached over and found his hand, holding it.

“Now is not the time to fear, Pagan. We have this one chance, and though I wish not to think of it, we do not know what will happen during the combat. When I was alone and cold in that cell, I kept the worse thoughts and the hunger at bay, by thinking of you. It was not the present suffering that mattered, but the regret for such a short time we had. Let us not have those. I do not want to unman you, in the sense that I expect you to expose what would hurt your pride. I would not ask that. I only wanted to feel you, to breathe you—in every part of me—”

Pagan groaned and loosed her hand. Rolling over until he lay between her legs, his weight on his forearms, beside her head. His body nude, hot, hard, and strong. Pagan moaned in a sex-laden voice, “I knew you would destroy me, just not this way.” He kissed her deep and passionately, his tongue ravishing her mouth until he had to raise and let her breathe.

Illara bent her knees, loving the feel of his body between her thighs, and too, his taut waist and strong back, which she skimmed with her hands. “Am I being punished?”

“Aye.”

“Then give me more.” She sighed and locked her legs around him tighter.

He kissed her, going from deep to aroused and erotic. Soon she felt his sex lengthen and harden, his heart vibrate against her breast. Wet and hungry for him she flexed her hips to seek his filling of her.

Pagan withdrew his kiss and pulled his hips back until the crown of his sex found hers. He thrust in deep and held there, their frames trembling from the coupling of sex-to-sex He began to move, long strokes in and out, deep and hard, and had Illara moaning again.

She felt those chills up her spine, the washing over her skin of pleasure with each stroke he gave her. Illara whispered his name and it apparently excited him further, for Pagan rode her faster and raised his torso to grasp her thighs, pulling her to meet each thrust, and making her feverish with the lust he built with each movement.

His strong body became an extension of his sex, of his sexual being, pleasuring and gaining pleasure. He decelerated and moved his hips in ways that had her gasping. Then he raised to his knees and cupped the underside of her thighs, holding her wide for teasing half thrusts, that were unhurried and turned into harder slams, that caused Illara to mutter his name and grasp the covers for anchoring.

Their bodies dewed in spite of the cooler air. He lowered and rolled them to their sides, catching his breath while his hands smoothed up her buttocks then massaged her breasts.

“Am I crushing you?” Pagan panted.

“Nay.” She stroked his arm and chest. “Although, I’m too excited by the feelings this brings, to notice much.”

His smile glowed in the darkness. He angled to kiss her. It was a lush kiss, supple, with their tongues tasting and gliding silky-smooth.

When he lifted his head, Pagan rolled her again, his one hand braced on the bed, the other under her buttocks to lift and hold her for thrusts and grinds of his hips. “Feeling you like this should never end,” Pagan whispered. “I want to spill myself in your heat, and at the same time, I want to stay here, to feel this stroking of our bodies.”

“Yes.” Her hands skimmed up his strong arms. “I want it to go on forever too, and yet I love the feel and swell, the power of your release.”

He groaned and lay for a moment bowed over her, his face near hers on the bed he murmured, “This is a hunger only momentarily satisfied. It is never enough…only forever would be.” Pagan sat back on his knees and pulled her up with him, his fingers splayed and palms gliding up her smooth back.

They kissed as Illara undulated and stroked him, and her fingers found his nipples to rasp and rub.

He widened his knees and began to lift and undulate with her. Their mouths parted, arms holding each other tight for a long sensual dance that ended with his seed, soothing deep inside her.

Chapter Ten

Illara awoke at daybreak to find her husband gone from the bed, but she breathed his scent with the essence of their lovemaking, and sighed, spreading her hands over the sheets where they had lain after the last bout of sex.

She heard sounds in the castle and others filtering from outside, and eventually arose to have her bath. She soaked whilst deep in thought, her body pleasantly aware and sensitive, as only sex can make it. The warm water and soap refreshed her and she padded afterwards into the solar, dressing in breeches and a linen shirt, a vest and her boots.

Illara unearthed her sword and put it in the sheath and slipped the belt over her head, she collected a cape next, and left the hood down as she left, having tucked her damp hair behind her ears.

She spied the damp spots on the stairs where the servants were busy cleaning. Looking left, she noted the doorways to the wings were open. Hearing Lylie’s voice, she went opposite, to the kitchens, which had been connected to the keep by a hallway. There she spoke to the servants who looked startled at first by her presence, then smiled and curtsied.

Illara nodded and grinned somewhat sheepish. “I will see to myself. Thank you. Carry on with your work.” She sliced off cheese, found ham and bread, and sat at a long table, watching one pluck a hen over a boiling tub, another young woman ground nuts with a pestle. Two men turned a large spit in the oven.

The scent of something pleasant boiled in the cauldron, and under a line of drying spices, several dozen pies, and breads were freshly baked, and cooling. Illara finished and drank mead before leaving.

She exited via the front entrance, standing quiet, able to see the Tourney field beyond the inner bailey, and the awning over it, to keep the soil dry and even. The construction was in motion, with the Gallery and booths. There were square poles here in there, as well as beyond, which she assumed were for marking visitors tents.

Below in the city, there were men with wagons and mules, pulling stones and opening up the walls. Others were clearing rubble but making use of it by repairing some of the larger dwellings. Colorful banners lined the wall around the city—ones that coordinated with the shield she had seen in the tower. They represented generations of the Lords of Dunnewicke.

Illara continued down the steps, to the courtyard, spying Pagan’s mastiffs running at the lower end with some of the children. She passed the tower and went round to watch the artisans who were busy at their work, afterward to another section. Six men were helping at the other end of the east wing, hauling water and tilting it out of a boiling caldron to carry back inside.

Turning, she headed for the stable and the Smith. Standing silent while he finished the shoes he was shaping with the assistance of two apprentices. When his hammer was silent she asked, “Do you craft armor?”

“Aye. I have. But you’ll want Georges for that.” He scanned visually around and stepped from his forge, his leather apron flapping against his knees as he led her out and on to a lane, between the wing and the stone structure.

A young man hammered at silver plate under the overhang of a canopy. He wore his sleeves rolled up, an apron somewhat like the blacksmiths. He had his long curly raven hair back, though strands escaped around his sweating face.

“My Thanks.” She touched the man’s arm and went to speak with the armorer. An hour later Illara left him, and proceeded to the exercise yard.

There she sat on the wall and observed Randulf and Pagan, who were on horseback, many of the younger men were also riding around the muddy yard—holding sword and shield, fighting unseen attackers. Two at a time rode down the center, a jousting lance balanced as they hit what appeared like rusted armor on a pole, likely to represent their opponent.

Pagan’s deep voice sometimes over lapped Randulf’s since they were training separately. The men obviously could tell them apart, because there did not appear to be any confusion. At some point, they had the men drop their weapons, and at command, they were lined up side-by-side, horses pawing in the mud while they waited for a signal.

Pagan gave it, and every other man charged forward. Randulf gave another and the rest surged. The commands the brothers gave had the men at times wheeling left and right, and after that stopping until all the horses were backed in a circle. At a shout they went out like sparks from a shooting star—in all directions, only to stop abrupt, turn and face and gather again.

It required some time for Illara to recognize the pattern, but she could see that they were maneuvering to sequence their movements, in order to cover a tight piece of ground so thoroughly, that an enemy would have little space to go, without running into another knight.

When they were made to dismount, an elder guard handed out dippers of water whilst others came for the horses to lead them out. There was general milling about. Pagan and Randulf moved amid them, talking, instructing, critiquing.

She smiled as she noted when standing that they both braced their feet wide and folded their arms, or more casually linked them behind their backs when listening.

Distracted for a moment, a glint caught her eye at the far end, and her brow rose at the sight of a man, nude from the waist up, tall and brawny, with his black hair braided in thin strips. She stood and walked the top of the wall around until she was just behind him, over his shoulder. Noticing swirls and markings on his upper arms, the Celt, she thought, seeing the axes fly into his target. He strode to fetch them and on the way back would twirl and flip them with a flick of his wrist. Those wrists were banded with leather cuffs and also leather across his palm.