Never Kiss A Stranger (35 page)

“I’m certain there is still time to have it retracted if you wish,” Piers said, more gruffly than he’d intended.

Alys’s brows lowered and she drew her head back. Then her fist. She dealt him a blow in the soft spot between his left breast and shoulder, and although it barely rocked Piers, he knew she’d intended for it to hurt him.

“I can’t believe you would even suggest that!” she said. And then she burst into tears, her hands flying up to cover her face.

Piers cursed softly and gathered Alys into his arms, as he’d wanted to do from the moment she’d stormed the king’s court for him.

“Alys, Alys—forgive me. I am a fool, true,” he murmured into her hair. Piers took a deep breath and, for the first time in his life, spoke unabashedly from his heart. “I love you so, my little wife. Please, please say that you will come home with me to Gillwick, and live with me forever.”

She slowed her sobs with sniffling breaths and after several moments, looked up at him, wiping at her cheeks. Piers raised a hand and brushed at a rogue tear she’d missed near her chin.

“Will you?” he asked, pressed. He cared not that she might refuse him now. He was laying himself open to her, his heart, his home, everything he was and everything he owned. He would never be as wealthy as her family. Gillwick would never be as grand as Fallstowe.

But she was no child, and so she already knew this. Perhaps she had realized it long before Piers had ever thought to.

“I told you once that I would go with you to the ends of the earth,” Alys said solemnly. “That was my vow, and I meant it. I am so proud to be Lady Mallory, Piers. Your wife. So much prouder than I ever was to be just Alys Foxe.”

Piers huffed a laugh. She was remarkable. “You were never ‘just’ Alys Foxe,” he said, smoothing back her hair from her face with his palm.

He released her suddenly from his embrace and grasped her left hand. He brought out the carnelian signet ring once more, and slid it onto Alys’s longest finger. It fit perfectly. He heard her soft cry, and Piers raised her hand to
his lips and placed a kiss atop the carved M, much as he had done with the king’s royal crest.

“Thank you,” Alys said softly, her eyes shining. She squeezed his fingers. “But Piers—”

“Shh,” he said with a smile, and then produced the little string of wooden beads and tied them once more onto Alys’s right wrist.

“Now I truly feel that we are married … again.” She smiled up at him as he took her into his arms and kissed her mouth lightly.

“Tell me,” he asked, pulling her more closely into him, “what outrageous excuse were you forced to concoct that convinced Sybilla to allow you to return?”

Alys shook her head and ran her hand up the fine velvet of the stolen tunic she had purchased for him. “No outrageous excuse. But let us talk about it somewhere else, Piers. The air here is …”

“Tainted, yes,” Piers agreed, thinking of the ghastly culmination of Judith Angwedd’s and Bevan’s fates. He pulled the key from his belt and held it before her. “Allow me to introduce you to the luxuries of a royal apartment, my lady wife.” He smiled, thinking it odd that it was he who had spent the night in the king’s home before his privileged spouse.

Alys’s eyes sparkled. “Ooh! Is the bed as soft as I imagine it will be?”

Piers chuckled and raised his eyes to the ceiling for an instant, his face flushing. “We will find out together, my love. I spent the night on the floor, too fearful of mussing the bedclothes.”

Alys laughed and grasped his face with both palms, pulling his lips to hers for a firm kiss. “I love you, Piers,” she said when she pulled away.

“Not nearly as much as I love you,” he challenged.

She wrinkled her nose at him and began pulling him toward the double doors of the chamber. “Let us make provisions for your grandfather and Layla, and then we shall just see about that.”

The suite of rooms was grand, Alys had to admit, but unlike Piers, she was unintimidated by the plush setting. And so she was determined to waste little time in teaching him how to muss the bedclothes properly.

“Alys, do you want me?” Piers asked, his voice low and, Alys thought, somewhat unsure. “I mean, now. You’ve been through a trial and—”

“I do,” she interrupted him with the two words that had sealed their union before the king. She brought her fingertips to the clasp at her throat and undid her cloak, although she let it continue to hang on her shoulders. “I’ve wanted you since the night you came to me in the Foxe Ring.”

No sooner had the whisper escaped her lips than Piers claimed her mouth with his own. He wrapped his arms around her and half lifted her off the floor, as if trying to absorb her.

His mouth was slick and cool and wet, and she met his passionate need with one of her own every bit as fiery and demanding. Her fingers clawed at his belt, and Piers turned them both until Alys’s back was toward the bed. He let her down onto her feet and then brought his hands over hers, stilling them. She whimpered.

“I am unlearned in the manner of a lady’s clothing—it would be best for your gown should you remove it yourself.”

Alys glanced down at the perse gown which now held so
many memories. And now it would mark her emergence into her life as a married woman. “You mean this old rag?”

Piers only smiled, and took a step back from her to give them both room to move. She undid her laces quickly, and when she was to slide her gown from her shoulders, she noticed him watching her. She paused, her face pinkened, and then she lifted her chin minutely.

Her eyes never leaving his, she pushed the left yoke of her gown away from her collarbone with her right hand, slowly, slowly, the fabric bunching and damming before it finally slid away. She caught the right side of her gown quickly before it could fall, and bringing her left arm across her chest, she slid her right arm free.

She paused, glanced down at his hands which had frozen in the action of removing his belt. “I’m a bit ahead of you already,” she said pointedly.

He was staring at her exposed skin above her gown. “I’m in no hurry,” he said hoarsely.

Her eyebrows rose briefly and one corner of her mouth lifted. “Very well.” She slowly, slowly brought her arms from her chest, and the gown slid away by its own sheer weight. In an instant, Alys stood naked before him.

“Alys,” he choked. “You are so beautiful.”

She smiled, feeling proud, powerful. Her eyes flicked to his chest. “Your tunic, milord.”

Piers’s hands started up the motion of undoing his belt once more. He dropped it to the floor with a dull clunk. His fingers found the ends to the intricate laces on his chest, and Alys was surprised at the ease with which he untangled them. Piers pulled the thick garment over his head, and she saw his nipples puckered in the cool air of the chamber. He glanced down at the erection deforming his hose, and then looked boldly to Alys once more.

Alys sat on the edge of the bed and raised each knee
in turn, removing her feet from the circle of gown on the floor before taking off her shoes. Piers gasped when she lifted her heels and slid beneath the heavy coverlet, the motion parting her legs for a brief moment. He lifted one leg and put his foot on the edge of the bed frame, untying his own boot, then the other. Alys watched him openly, her cheek propped on one hand, the other holding the blanket to her chest.

Piers stepped out of his boots and then began to unfasten and remove the expensive woolen hose. He stood a moment at the side of the bed he was about to share with Alys, naked, shivering. She looked at his body boldly, his manhood, and then back up to his face where the pupils of his eyes seemed to have doubled in size. Alys herself felt heated and flushed and ready to be loved.

Piers gave her a moment of pause. “Alys, have you ever—”

“No,” she answered right away, saving him from asking fully. “Aren’t you the fortunate man? A pure, sweet virgin in your bed on your wedding morning.” Her smile grew with the daring and love she felt. “At least for the next few moments.” She held the blankets aside, an invitation.

Still, he hesitated. “Are you frightened?”

Her smile faded away. “I’ll never be frightened of anything ever again with you by my side.” She gestured with the blankets. “Come.”

He slid into the cocoon she offered, her slightly warmed skin feeling afire once pressed against his cold flesh. Her arms went around his neck and she pressed her breasts against him while her mouth sought his. Her nipples felt like hard little buttons, the hair between her legs whispered at his rock hard thigh as she drew her knee over his hip. His hands seemed to each span the width of her back and waist as he pulled her to him, pressed his hips
forward. She groaned at the feel of his rough skin on her flesh.

He skimmed his right hand down over her buttock and then reached beneath it with his fingers to find her, and when he touched her with a firm swipe, she mewed into his mouth. Piers rolled her onto her back and pulled away from her mouth.

“Take hold of the blanket,” he commanded. Then he slid beneath, backing carefully over her until his shoulders were between her legs. And then he tasted her.

Alys cried out, and she reached her hands down to find his head through the blanket. He nipped and licked and explored with his tongue until she was panting, and then he began to ready her with his finger.

“Piers,” she gasped. “Please.”

She was so close to achieving her own pinnacle, and she knew it even without ever having proper knowledge of it. He slid up her body once more, leaving his hand in place. When he was over her, her moist heat touching him, bucking against him, Piers arched his hips and used his hand to push the head of his penis into her. He left his hand between them, holding his weight on his other forearm, and continued to rub her with his thumb.

He licked her lips, sucked at her tongue. Alys raised her hips up and took an inch of him; Piers followed her motion back to the cot and gave her another. She knew she was small, and she had witnessed that there was still so much of him left to give her. She knew a moment of fear.

She whimpered and pressed upward once more, her passion urging her past the discomfort, opening to him, taking him in. He pushed forward and was at half.

Alys cried out and gripped his waist. Piers withdrew only slightly, enough to give his hand room to increase their ministrations for a moment. Then she was panting
again, and Piers sank into her. Withdrew. Deeper now. His fingers moved faster.

Alys began to move in counter rhythm with him, her swollen flesh pulsating, crying out now with longing, and impatience. With two more thrusts, she took the full length of him. A pair more, and Alys felt a wild expansion in her, an explosion, and she arched away from the magnificent bed to gain every bit of him. While she held him like a grasping fist, he gave his length to her fully and hard, and a moment later he filled her.

Alys covered his face in tiny kisses as he panted into her ear, “I love you, Alys. I love you. I love you …”

They made love twice in as many hours, slowly, savoring the familiarity of the act more each time, as well as committing to memory those private details between lovers. The heat of a sigh, the length of thigh against thigh. The curve of a shoulder and the pattern of gooseflesh raised by a kiss and a breath. The reward of separate climax, and for Alys, a repeat of such a miracle before they collapsed together on the sheets a final time.

A servant had rapped on the door, offering food, which Piers had accepted with such effusive thanks that Alys had giggled while he shut and bolted the door, balancing the heavy tray on one hand. He slid the tray with exacting care onto the large square table near the hearth and then rejoined her beneath the thick blankets. They stared out the window, curled together, at the glow of afternoon sunlight—all they could see from their position on the bed. Simply blue sky and sunlight.

“Are you going to tell me now?” Piers prompted, rousing Alys from a half doze.

“Tell you what? I told you so?” she teased.

“I believe we’ve already covered that bit.” His fingertips skittered down her side to pinch the curve of her buttock. “I want to hear the wild tale you told your sister that gained you return to court.”

Alys smiled, although being behind her, Piers could not see. “I simply told her the truth—what had happened to you and to the both of us in the wood. That I loved you, and that you needed me.”

She felt him go still behind her. “And that was it? Sybilla let you go without argument?”

“Not exactly,” Alys admitted. “After I told her that, she still insisted that I return to Fallstowe. And so I agreed. Sybilla risked her life for me, risked Fallstowe, by coming directly into Edward’s home. I owed her, for that and for many other things that I never even realized before you came into my life. And I thought you didn’t want me—you did little else but try to get me to leave you for weeks. I thought mayhap it was because you didn’t love me after all.”

“Alys, I—”

“Shh,” she interrupted, and patted his forearms, wrapped around her middle. “I’m not finished. When we reached the gates of the city without detection, Sybilla stopped. She turned to me and said, ‘Alys, I want you to be happy. You have shown great bravery in standing by Piers alone these many weeks. You are not a child, and Clement Cobb is a piece of shit.’”

“She called him a piece of shit?” Piers said in a laughing voice.

“She did, although she did not explain her change of heart about him. She said she wouldn’t allow me to marry him now were he the last titled man in the realm. She said she trusted my judgment, and if I found you worthy, then so did she.”

“I’ll be damned,” Piers mused.

“It was also a fact of standing behind her vow,” Alys admitted. “Remember, she’d told me when I left Fallstowe that if I found a man at the ring who would have me, he was welcome to me. Sybilla places great value on keeping her word.”

“Thanks be to God.”

“Indeed. She embraced me, kissed me, told me that if things did not go in our favor to come home to Fallstowe, and then she left me at the gates.”

“I think I love her,” Piers said, his amazement clear in his voice.