Simon's Lady (18 page)

He was entering her lovely liquid by degrees. “By Odin,” she whispered then tickled his ear with her tongue. “He did not make it out alive.”

That was just what he wanted to hear. He entered blindly now, not caring for the danger, knowing that this was far, far different from anything he had experienced before. He sensed that some part of him was in grave peril, but did not know from which direction it was coming or how to protect himself from it. He did not even care to protect himself, but abandoned himself to the raging heat of this gentle, glorious battle. He surrendered himself to her luscious, hungry jaws. He felt his blood surging. He felt spears and arrows flying around him, whizzing past him. His shield was down, yet he felt invincible. He felt invulnerable. He felt a glorious fool.

He knew what lay over the glittering horizon, and just as he reached for that paradoxical death, he felt an arrow pierce his heart. The sensation was so startlingly intense and so real, so painful and so pleasurable that he was sure that a Valkyrie would come swooping down to claim him for Valhalla.

But as his life and seed and strength rushed into her, no magnificent warrior goddess came. Instead, when he collapsed, weak and happy, upon her, he was strangely sure that, at the very rim of the vision of his mind’s eye, hovered a plump and naked male child with wings. The image made no more sense now than it had on the two previous occasions he had seen the baby boy. He drifted off on the comforting thought that the infant was harmless and that the golden bow and arrow he carried was a ridiculous toy.

Gwyneth awoke from her drowsing to blink into pitch black. She was disoriented, as one often is upon awakening in a strange bed. In the split second as she struggled to remember where she was, she waited for that unpleasant sensation to overcome her, the one she always had upon waking from a sweet dream to realize the horrid circumstances of her life.

She knew where she was now and whom she was with. She could not yet remember anything else. Lying very still, she mentally checked her body for bruises or even soreness. She was aware of nothing but a lovely floating feeling. She searched that private space within herself that she treasured, her last line of retreat from Canute’s brutality. There she discovered no trace of violation or humiliation. She let her thoughts drift. Still the unpleasant sensation did not come, and the floating feeling persisted.

She was lying on her side, her hands tucked under her cheek upon the pillow. She was aware that a man was in bed with her, lying at her back. She was certain that it was Simon of Beresford. Bits and pieces came to her. His kiss on the stairs. His challenge. His alarming nakedness when she had not even unlaced one sleeve of her kirtle. His growl of anger at her ineptitude. The hand he raised against her. His intention to rape her.

No, that wasn’t right. She backed up and tried again. His alarming nakedness and readiness. His growl of impatience at her slowness. The hand he raised to help her undress. Yes, that was right. His search for knives. His intimate touch that had at first frightened, then reassured her. His hand. Yes, his hand. Now she remembered. His deep voice rumbling comfortingly. His strange story of Fenrir. And his fingers.

She closed her eyes, trading one blackness for another. His power, strength and size had overwhelmed her, but he had not hurt her or humiliated her. She did not feel ripped or torn; she felt surprisingly whole. Even hale. She wanted to sigh deeply, but she was more cautious than that. She measured her breaths slowly, getting the air she needed without a rustle of noise or the slight movement.

She felt him place his warm hand over the curve of her hip. He said into the blackness, “You’re awake.”

She paused, wondering whether she should go into hiding or if she could better protect herself by revealing herself. “How did you know?”

It was odd how she could feel the slight shrug of his broad shoulders on the mattress behind her. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can always tell.”

The hand on her hip slid up to her breast and explored it, slowly. His fingers played with her nipple. She realized that she was holding her breath again, so she let it out, but too quickly. From her rapid exhalation, she feared that she had exposed herself to him, showing him either her fear or her desire. It was strange to admit to herself that she was more desirous than fearful and that his touch felt warm and good and luxurious.

His hand moved back to her hip, slipped between her thighs and caressed the flesh above her knees. It returned to her hip, where it stayed, caressing idly at first, then with more intention. After a while, he moved against her so that his front was pressed to her back. She felt the rod of his manhood against her buttocks. It felt unpleasant, or at least alien to her.

She shifted. She wanted to escape. She said, “I need to get up.”

She felt the vibration of his chest when he said, “You know where the chamber pot is.”

She almost smiled at that. They had wrangled over that before. She did know where the chamber pot was, and that was exactly what she wanted. She found it, used it and decided that coy embarrassment did not suit the moment. As she climbed back into bed, she asked, “And you, sire? Do you not need it?”

“I’ve already been out of the chamber and down the hallway for that.”

She did not remember hearing him get out of bed or opening and closing the door. She had trained herself to be a light sleeper and wondered how it was that she had slept through his movements. She lay down again on her side, facing away from him. He did not put his hand on her hip. She snuggled into the pillow and said, “I can never seem to force myself to get dressed in order to leave the room.”

“Neither can I.”

She rose up and turned to look at him over her shoulder. She could see only the gleam of his gray eyes resting on her. From the shadowy outline of his body, she could see that he was lying on his side, his head propped in his hand. “You went out into the hallway naked?” she asked.

“I prefer leaving the room, and the guards do not pay me the least attention.”

She turned back around and laughed once, quietly. It made perfect sense that he would travel abroad naked in the middle of the night. “I do not think that I would try such a thing.”

“I do not think that I would let you. The guards would surely pay more attention to you than they pay to me.”

“It’s not just that,” she said. “Even in fine weather, I imagine that going out unclothed makes one very cold.”

“I suppose,” he said indifferently, “but I have not really noticed.”

“Not even your feet?” she asked. Leaving the bed for just these few moments, her soles had been chilled by the cold stone flooring.

“They’ve warmed up again.” To prove his statement, he rubbed the tops of his feet against the bottoms of hers.

The effect was unexpectedly arousing, and his feet were indeed very warm. He moved against her again, and she discovered that he had lost none of his earlier desire. His arm came around her and grasped the shoulder on which she was lying. He rolled her toward him, gently but firmly. He moved across her, so that he could mount her. He was hindered only by the braiding of the bedclothes and their bodies, leg, sheet, leg, sheet, leg, leg, sheet. He untangled them and drew her into the strong circle of his arms. He was almost atop her and needed but a nudge and a stroke to be within her. He nuzzled his chin into her neck, breathing in deeply.

She felt the contradictory effects of excitement and fear. She felt his alien part against her thigh and belly and wished he would go away. Yet his arms and shoulders and chest were glorious in muscle and sinew and felt extraordinarily good against her. His skin and hair smelled unusually good to her, too. She breathed in his earthy scent, and thought of lying in a field of fresh-scythed wheat. However, the bristles of his beard burned her.

“You’re hurting me,” she murmured, trying to push him away.

His reflexes were always quick. He relaxed his hold on her and eased away immediately. “Where?”

“My neck. Your beard.”

His hold on her reasserted itself. “That should not prove an insurmountable problem.” He turned her over, away from him, so that she was lying on her side again.

The contradictions continued. She felt torn between relief and disappointment, though the disappointment was the lesser part. She thought it would be pleasant to drift back into sleep. “Good,” she said.

“And my solution has the added merit of being one of the ways I like it best.”

At that he turned her again, so that she was lying on her stomach. When he rose up on his knees and seemed to be positioning himself behind her, her disappointment fled completely and her relief was replaced by alarm. His hands came down on her waist, and he drew her hips up against him.

Her protesting “No!” was quiet but unmistakable. To her own ears, it held a note of panic. The next moment she could have cut out her tongue to have so betrayed herself.

She felt him pause. He held her backside against him a moment longer, then eased her down on her stomach. He stretched himself along her, wrapping himself around her as before, his front against her back, so that she could feel all his strength and desire. However, she was aware that this time he was holding himself in check.

“I have frightened you,” he said. The statement was bald, his tone unapologetic.

She would not demean herself with hasty denial. He had frightened her just now, it was true, but she did not know why she should let her guard down this time, given that she had kept her composure the night before in the face of greater terror—or, rather, she had almost kept her composure. She had kept it until the moment she had flinched from him, automatically ducking away from the hand she imagined would slap her into submission or senselessness. Still, she had been proud that she had not uttered any foolish protest that he could use against her later.

Earlier, upon leaving the festivities in the hall, he had reduced her to utter helplessness with his blunt arguments against the bedding ceremony. It had seemed to her that he was telling her that he could do with her what he liked and that she had no one to protect her from him and no recourse against him now that they were wed. Based on what he had said and how he had said it, she had imagined a truly gruesome scene in the bedchamber, and had donned her emotional armor then and there to see her through the night. Then he had kissed her on the stairs, charming her, disarming her.

He had not charmed her or disarmed her enough to have prevented her from flinching away from him a few minutes later. She had thought at first that she had made a very grave mistake with that minimal movement she could not control, but his reaction to her had not been at all what she had expected. Nor was hers to him any more expected. Why was the memory of her strong and positive reaction to him not helping her now?

She knew she should yield to him. That was what a good wife did. It would go easier for her if she were obedient. “I was frightened at first, yes,” she admitted, “but not anymore.” She had to surrender her body to him in the way he wanted. She willed herself to relax. She had her breathing under control. “I’m all right now.”

He caught her at the waist again and held her against him. “Are you? I’m not so sure.” He moved behind her, squaring himself on his knees. He raised her buttocks to meet his hips. “And even if you’re all right, I am not.” The strength and heat of his manhood startled her. “Now, my intention is to spare you the rub of my beard against your chin. But that is all I intend to spare you.”

She imagined that now would come the humiliation. It seemed so demeaning, this position, on her knees and elbows, her legs spread against him and around him. She feared his unnatural appetites and knew what could happen to her, exposed and vulnerable like this. She felt her throat constrict. She felt the channel between her legs constrict. If only she could breathe. If only she could be done with this.

He leaned forward over her and touched his fingers to the spot between her legs he had touched before. He stroked, he explored, he tickled. His extended “Mmm” was appraising and considering, ultimately dissatisfied. He withdrew his fingers after a moment, and she realized that he was wetting them with his tongue. She felt a little rush of anticipation. Sure enough, when he put his fingers again to that tiny pearl and applied sliding pressure, she felt her rush become a spurt, then a little liquid spill.

She was surprised, excited, enthralled, desirous and still a little fearful. After a moment or two of adjustment, she found the contact of her backside to his front was not humiliating, but stimulating. She might have moaned. She might have moved her hips against him. He increased the pressure of his fingers, slipped around and inside her, spreading wet lips. She felt the beginnings of pleasure and desire, like little waves lapping against a shore. Then he replaced his fingers with his manhood, filling her instantly. His penetration was deep.

Although this act of joining was not new to her, her experience of it certainly was. Before this night she had always wondered how a woman could actually want to engage in an activity as hideous as this. Now she began to understand the power and pleasure of taking him and stretching herself around him and moving against him in a way that she knew he liked and needed. The touch of his fingers combined with his penetration made her feel gloriously plowed, as if dry earth were being turned over for the rich black humidity beneath. Until tonight, she felt she must have been a fallow field left long untended, awaiting cultivation. Now her soil was being readied for his seed, and she found the fit and felt the pleasure, moving this way and that, marveling in his size and strength.

Finding, feeling, moving, marveling. The experience changed from moment to moment. His fingers pressed and caressed her slick pearl and produced swelling, swollen waves. She could feel the waves move through her to him and back to her. The waves became rhythmic and organized, gaining force. They grew to fearsome proportions, but it was a new fear. This was not the fear of anger and loss. This was a fear that edged out into exhilaration and awe.