Lady Danger (The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch, Book 1) (17 page)

She sighed in wonder.  Maybe she’d never understand men.  It was as if by conquering their bodies, Pagan had somehow won their hearts.

She stared pensively at the ground, mulling that idea over in her mind.  Then she glanced up at the handsome Norman with his broad shoulders and unruly hair, his sparkling eyes and flashing teeth.  Perhaps, she thought with a shudder, it was the same tactic he planned to use with her.

All evening, Deirdre felt as edgy as a mouse waiting for the cat to pounce, speculating upon when Pagan would claim his kiss.  While he sat beside her at supper, joking with her men, she picked at her trencher, wondering if he might do it in this very public place.

But he didn’t.

Nor did he approach her when Boniface strummed upon a lute and sang a bawdy lay about a man with three wives.

When her father started up a game of dice with Sir Warin, who gave Miriel a conspiratorial wink before he began wagering, Pagan made no move to draw her into his arms and claim his kiss then either.

He must have forgotten her, she decided.  It was entirely probable, given how attentive the maidservants were this eve, refilling his cup every time he took a sip and gushing over his impressive appetite.  Their attentions likely made him go hard in his trews and soft in his head.

But when a Norman serving wench splashed ale onto Pagan’s lap, then made a great show of wiping it up, Deirdre decided she’d had enough.  She tossed her napkin onto the table and excused herself.  Pagan might choose to act like an adulterous half-wit, but she had no intention of lingering about to witness his idiocy.

She stormed up the stairs, silently cursing men for rutting fools at every step.  Never noticing she was being shadowed, she pushed her way in through her newly repaired chamber door.  When she turned to slam the door shut, a broad hand caught it.

Pagan.  She gasped in alarm.

He opened the door wider and entered the room.  “Reflexes like a cat,” he teased.

Her heart in her throat, she still managed to quip, “Lest you forget, cats have claws.”

“Lest
you
forget,” he said, securing the door behind him, “I know how to make cats purr.”

A blush bloomed unbidden in her face.

“Did you forget our bargain?” he asked, advancing on her, lifting his hand to brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek.

She flinched in reflex.

He lifted her chin with his knuckle, studying her face.  “You left in a rush.”

“You seemed...”  She pulled her chin away.  “Distracted.”

“Did I?”  A glint of humor livened his eyes.

Despite her irritation with him, she felt her pulse pound as he gazed at her.  All afternoon she’d braced herself for this moment, as if it was a pending joust.  All afternoon she’d reminded herself it was only a kiss, after all.  She could be stoic for one kiss.  She’d simply think of something else—sword fighting or her horse or the loyal knights of Rivenloch—while he took his due.

But she’d expected him to make a public display of his affection, to flaunt her subordination to him with a kiss.  Never had she imagined he’d want her alone.

She swallowed hard.  Now they stood but a hand’s width apart.  His green eyes shone, calm and knowing and superior.  One corner of his mouth curved up with sly intent.  And now she remembered the power of his temptation.  Or at least her body remembered.  Her heart fluttered like a caged moth, her breath grew rapid, and blood warmed her cheeks.

Damn his eyes!  She couldn’t let him rattle her.  She needed to be indifferent, dispassionate.  She had to remember that this transaction was no more than a simple trade arrangement, no different than their marriage itself.  But despite her best efforts, her voice came out on a broken whisper.  “This is the place of your choosing?  Our bedchamber?”

He only smiled that maddeningly devious smile and let his gaze roam over her body.  Everywhere it lit, her skin tingled, as if longing for more than just his perusal.

Then he reached up to the neckline of her gown, and before she could protest, dragged it down over her shoulder and lower, baring one breast.

“This,” he murmured, “is the place of my choosing.”

Deirdre’s eyes widened, and her jaw fell open.  The knave had tricked her.  “Nay.”

His eyes misted with desire.  “Oh, aye,” he purred.

She shook her head, incredulous.  “Nay.”

“You gave your word,” he warned her.

She closed her mouth again.  He was right, damn him.  The varlet might have been devilishly clever, trapping her with a turn of phrase, but she’d been foolish enough to agree to his terms.  He’d said one kiss in the place of his choosing.

She bit at the inside of her cheek.  It was no matter, she told herself.  A kiss was a kiss.  She’d simply grit her teeth and endure his lechery.

But as he lowered his sultry gaze to her bared bosom, parting his lips, her throat thickened.  Sweet Mary, no one had kissed her...there before.

“One kiss,” he whispered, reaching out to run his thumb audaciously, tantalizingly along the underside of her breast.

Her eyelids dipped as a wave of unwelcome desire washed over her.

“So soft,” he sighed, stroking her bared flesh with the back of his knuckles.  “So warm.”

Against her wishes, her body responded, melting, tensing, aching.  Her eyes drifted completely closed.  It would be over in a moment, she told herself.  Surely she could resist his seduction for that small sliver of time.

But she was wrong.

As he cupped her breast, hefting its weight in his palm, he eased forward, grazing her cheek with his, and spoke softly against her ear.  “So beautiful.  Like a sweet...ripe...peach.”

She caught her lip beneath her teeth as his words wound their way through her thoughts, drawing her in like a sorcerer’s incantation.

With a hand at her back, he nudged her hips toward his, pressing the stone-hard manifestation of his lust against her belly.

“Feel how I hunger for you,” he murmured.

His warm breath made the skin of her neck shiver, and as his fingertips danced lightly over the sensitive flesh of her breast, she felt her knees tremble beneath her.

“Shall I take my due now?” he breathed.

She shut her eyes tighter and bit out, “Aye.”

But he was unsatisfied with her response.  “You’re afraid.”

“Nay.”  But she refused to open her eyes.  She didn’t want to see the naked lust in his leer, the smug curve of his smile.

“Then look at me.”

She drew in a deep breath.  The Warrior Maid of Rivenloch was no coward.  She’d looked death in the eye.  She could endure the countenance of one paltry Norman husband.  She forced her eyes open.

And was astonished.

Pagan was not smiling.  Nor was the glaze over his eyes as self-assured as she expected.  Indeed, he looked almost... helpless, as if he, too, was caught up in the current between them...against his will.

As she watched, she saw him swallow hard, saw a muscle in his jaw tense, as if he suffered under the utmost restraint.  Then he muttered, as if to remind himself, “One kiss.  No more.”

He dipped his head, and she quivered as his hair swept over her shoulder, then lower, lower, until she felt the moist air from his mouth graze her skin.  All the while her nipple tightened in anticipation, and she held her breath, dreading yet desiring what was to come.  The tension was unbearable.

And then his mouth closed, hot and wet and tender, upon her.  She dragged in a ragged breath at the sensation.   His kiss was soft at first as his lips gently surrounded her, bathing her flesh with his tongue.  She fought against the powerful pleasure, choking off the rapturous moan that rose in her throat.  Then he increased the pressure, drawing her deeply between his lips.  Lightning seemed to streak through her, setting her veins on fire.  And even though his kiss centered on that one point, she felt echoes of ecstasy throughout her body, within her ears, at her other breast, between her legs.

He groaned low in his chest.  It was a sound of animal lust, aye, but also of adoration and yielding, an erotic sound that drove her to the brink of surrender.  She let her head fall back, reveling in the glorious torment, never realizing her fingers, of their own accord, crept forward to tangle in his hair.

Pagan felt as if he swirled in a storm-swollen river, utterly out of control, spinning recklessly away, farther and farther from shore.  And yet he was neither capable nor desirous of swimming free.

He’d kissed bosoms before, of women far more buxom than Deirdre.  Breasts were one of God’s finest creations—soft and supple and delicious—and he worshipped them as much as any man.  But never had that adoration had such an intense and dramatic effect upon him.

A moan was torn from his throat as he suffered an agony of his own making.  God, he wanted her.  With every fiber of his being.  His tongue had never tasted anything so sweet, and he feasted upon her flesh like a starving man set before a king’s table.  His body shuddered with barely suppressed lust, and his cock throbbed insistently, demanding he bring it relief.

He’d thought his desire couldn’t possibly increase, that his willpower was strained to the breaking point.  But when he felt her hands move up to clasp his head to her bosom, holding him close, welcoming him, longing surged in him like a tide upon that river, hauling him past reason, past care.

God, he wanted her.  Nay,
needed
her.

Damn his promise!  Damn his honor!  He must claim her.  Now!

Deirdre whimpered once in sweet distress.  The soft sound, so full of feminine yearning, was assurance that this time she wouldn’t refuse him.

And yet even from the depths of desire, the cursed wench somehow managed to fight her own instincts with a stubbornness that defied nature.

“Nay!” she gasped, the word at obscene odds with her tightening embrace.  “Cease!”

Disbelief and dismay and outrage warred within him.  Cease?  Surely she didn’t mean that.  She desired him.  He
knew
she did.  How then could she say him nay?

But when her fingers began to tug at his hair, reversing to pull him away, it was clear she intended to frustrate him again.  Her breast slipped free of his mouth, leaving his appetite whetted for a feast never to be served.

He staggered back a step, unable to do more than stare at her, his eyes half-lidded, his mouth open, his breath coming in great gulps.  She, too, seemed dazed with desire, fumbling to pull her gown up over her shoulder again.

For a long moment, there was no sound in the room but the counterpoint of their haggard breathing.

When she finally spoke, her voice was rough and trembling.  “I’ve paid your price.  On the morrow then...in the tiltyard...at dawn?”

Pagan slowly closed his jaw until his teeth ground together.  How dared Deirdre reduce this moment of shared passion to a mere bargain!  Surely she realized it was much more than that.  Was the wench heartless?  Did ice run in her Norse veins?

Defying the urge to ram his fist through the plaster wall in frustration, he snarled, “Aye.”

She nodded curtly, then turned her back on him, making a show of folding back the coverlet, appearing to dismiss him as easily as a swatted fly.

He simmered with impotent rage, resisting the overwhelming desire to snag her arm, spin her around, and kiss her so fiercely on the mouth that her lips would burn for days.  But he’d said it himself.  One kiss.  No more.

So he wheeled and stormed out into the hall, slamming the new door behind him so hard that he heard weapons from the bedchamber wall crash to the floor.

The first wench he laid eyes on he’d bed, he promised himself as he stomped down the stairs.  His loins could only take so much frustration.  Bloody hell!  It was unhealthy to dam the tide of lust this way.

As he entered the great hall, he glimpsed the serving maid from supper, weaving her way among the other servants who cleared away the trestle tables.  She gave him a coy smile.  He raised a brow and nodded toward the buttery.  Her smile widened.

The buttery would give them privacy enough.  In his present state, it would take only a moment or two to alleviate his pain.  Across the hall, Deirdre’s father gathered men around him to play his nightly game of dice.  Pagan would be discreet, and none would be the wiser.

He watched the wench slip past the buttery screens, waited a moment, then made his way toward the spot where she’d disappeared.

The buttery was dark and cool and smelled of ripe cheese.  He would have preferred a more comfortable place for coupling, but his need was imminent.

Her soft giggle led him to the dimmest corner of the cell.  He wasted no time, seizing her by the shoulders and placing a rough kiss upon her eager lips.  While she wriggled closer, hiking her skirts up, he slipped a finger inside her low neckline, freeing one of her generous breasts.  Slanting his mouth across hers, he mashed the soft flesh of her plump bosom in his palm.  One more moment, he thought, and he’d get the reward he deserved.

But even as he availed himself of her ripe and willing body, he realized she didn’t send his heart hammering like Deirdre did.  She didn’t steal his breath away.  No wave of desire swept him along.  Her mouth was not nearly as sweet as Deirdre’s.  And beside Deirdre’s firm, small, lovely breasts, this maid’s were as spongy as unbaked dough.  Even her mews of contentment seemed feigned and shallow in contrast to Deirdre’s ragged gasps.

He tore away from her and felt his cock go limp.  “Lucifer’s ballocks,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” the maidservant whined.

“Go!” he barked.  “Just go!”

Mumbling curses of disappointment and scorn, she scurried off.

When she was gone, he leaned forward against the wall and banged his head on the cold plaster in exasperation.  Never had his body connived against him so pitilessly.  It was ludicrous.  He was like an urchin who’d rather starve than eat anything less than lord’s fare.

On the morrow, he vowed, he’d exhaust Deirdre in the tiltyard, work her till her limbs collapsed from fatigue.  Maybe
then
she’d lack the will to resist him.

“Get up, you lazy wench!  ‘Tis past dawn.”  Pagan swatted Deirdre on the hindquarters, waking her with a jolt.

Even before her eyes opened, her hand thrust instinctively beneath her pillow for a weapon, coming up empty.  “Where’s my dagger?” she mumbled.

He banged open the shutters at the window, letting in the light of the rising sun.  “You sleep with a Knight of Cameliard to guard you,” he said, buckling on his sword belt.  “You need no dagger.”

She frowned, but was obviously too sleepy to argue.  She sat up, her eyes only half-open, her hair an intriguing mess, her shoulders delectably bare.  God help him, it was all Pagan could do not to strip out of his armor again and dive back into bed with her.  If that coverlet lowered one more inch, he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

But he forced his gaze away.  He’d had a long night of watching his tempting wife slumber in self-satisfied repose while he lay mere inches away, fitful and frustrated, and he’d come to the conclusion that he only tortured himself with wanting her.  It was apparent from her behavior last eve that Deirdre wasn’t likewise tormented.  She might experience a measure of feminine longing, she might feel the stirrings of lust, but she still managed to refuse desire with all the resolve of a tonsured monk.

Very well, he decided.  If Deirdre wished to deny her womanhood, if she wanted to be treated like a man, if she wanted nothing from him but a political alliance, then, damn the wench, he’d oblige her.  He’d ignore his body’s cravings.  He’d forget she was his wife.  In his eyes, she’d be no different than one of his knights.  No matter how difficult that was to imagine.

“I’ll be in the tiltyard,” he said.  “Don’t be late.  I have a full day.”

Before he even opened the door to leave, Deirdre was out of bed and eagerly diving for her chest of armor.  He didn’t dare turn to look.  He knew she was gloriously naked.  If he looked, he’d never make it to the tiltyard.

He was still finishing his breakfast of a bannock and ale, idly spinning the quintain with his hand, when Deirdre came hurrying toward the gate.  How the wench managed to make chain mail appear feminine, he didn’t know, but she looked as desirable as the goddess Athena, rushing breathlessly toward him.

The morning wore on as they engaged in a battery of military exercises.  Pagan believed he’d never worked with a more dedicated soldier or a more voracious student.  They sparred together for more than an hour, and he showed her no mercy, training her the same way he trained his squires.  He had her lifting buckets of water to increase her arm strength.  He showed her how to throw her body into her lunges to achieve more force.  And he taught her a few shield defenses she didn’t know.

But he learned from her, too.  Deirdre possessed a speed and cunning he’d never seen in a man.  She fought with uncanny instinct, and she showed him a couple of innovative tricks she’d perfected for overthrowing much larger opponents.

For a man accustomed to doing but one thing with a woman, Pagan was surprised to find that he rather enjoyed Deirdre’s company.

Eventually a small crowd gathered outside the fence, armored knights waiting to enter the field, watching the curious battle.  But even though Deirdre’s arms trembled and her legs kept crumpling beneath her, she refused to quit.