The Falcon and the Flower (25 page)

De Burgh and Gervase were talking seriously. Falcon looked up startled as Jasmine flew through the entrance as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. Alarmed, he asked, “What’s amiss, sweetheart?”

She blinked stupidly, then stammered, “N-nothing!” For once she was truly at a loss. She swallowed the accusations she had been about to scream and they almost choked her.

Suddenly he knew exactly why she was there. She had seen him leave with the women and had come to make a scene. Keeping his face straight, he came to her, took the torch from her hand and gave it to Gervase, then whispered, “Sweetheart, you came to share my bed again.” The emphasis on the last word made her blush and Gervase flush.

“I did no such thing!” she denied hotly.

“Gervase will tell no one you came to me in your nightrail,” he cooed.

“Nightrail? Nightrail?” she parroted.

“Well, that’s what this transparent thing is, surely?” he asked smoothly, lifting the thin white silk with his strong fingers.

Gervase fled the tent before the approaching storm erupted.

“Under ordinary circumstances I’d be happy to accommodate you, my love, but I must inform my men that the stag hunt tomorrow has been changed to a manhunt.”

“You conceited, vain, insufferable lout, you should have been drowned at birth!” As his words penetrated, a cold fear touched her. “Manhunt?” she whispered.

He said with contempt, “The king’s sick idea of sport. Tomorrow we rid the forest of outlaws.”

“Ah, no,” she breathed, her hand going to her throat. She would go to the trysting place and warn Robert, but would she be in time?

In the flickering torchlight she looked fairylike, fey. Falcon forgot he had been teasing her as desire rose up within him, filling his head with her fragrance. “My love, I’ll be as quick as I can with the men. Wait for me?” he implored. He cupped her face in his hands and lifted her mouth to his.

With his hot demanding mouth on hers, his powerful arms encircled her and pressed her to his hard length. Locked in his embrace, it was as though she lost separate identity. He overpowered her. She was conscious of every pulse of her blood. She was also terrified. He was too much … too big, too hard, too male, too hot, too driven by lust.

He swept her up in his arms and took her to the furs. Suddenly she knew without doubt that all the women in his varied past had been obligingly willing. He carried her with such practiced ease, accenting the power of his hands and his body. He laid her on the furs and looked down at the lushly carnal picture her silken-clad body made. He towered over her, clothed and booted, as dark as Lucifer. She felt as if his strength and size had already invaded her.

She lay obediently passive, hoping he would trust her to stay once he was gone. He bent to quickly remove his boots, threw the impeding cloak back over his shoulders, and lowered himself to the furs beside her.

“No, Falcon, women come too easily to you. You have been utterly spoiled where women are concerned. Your looks are so darkly beautiful and dangerous, they are all avid to have you make love to them. You must realize I’m different!” she cried.

“It’s not the looks, darling,” he demurred, “women simply want what they can’t have. I’m a challenge to them.” His intense eyes were iridescent in the lamplight. “I do realize you’re different, Jassy darling …
you’re
a challenge to me.” He brushed her cheek with his fingers and immediately felt the blood drumming in his fingertips, his throat, even the soles of his feet. These, however, were nothing compared to the blood-throb of his erection. It was wildly alive and seeking the hot place it longed to plunder mere inches away. Through his soft chamois breeches she felt him rigid just above her mound of Venus and quickly put her hand down between their touching bodies to shield her private part. The effect on Falcon as her hand came in contact with him was overwhelming. He became almost orgasmic and knew if he didn’t swiftly focus attention from the hot core of his manhood to the hot core of her womanhood, he would disgrace himself.

He reached up under her silken gown, sliding his hand up her leg, inside her thigh, dislodged the protective hand she was using to cover herself, and with one swift rip tore her undergarment so that it no longer covered her between her legs. As she gasped, he sighed with satisfaction that he now held in his hand the jewel for which he’d lusted so long. Easy, easy, man, a voice in his brain warned, don’t deflower her with greedy, impatient fingers! More than anything on earth he wanted her to stay with him this night, yet his duty demanded that he leave her for a short time. His male arrogance told him that the only way to keep her in his bed was to arouse her desire to such a fever-pitch, she would wait all night for him to return and give her the bliss of fulfillment.

He was monumentally aware of her virgin state, knew she’d be sensitive in the extreme to plundering fingers, and therefore he would have to use the magic of his lips, first on her mouth, then lower as her fever built. “Sweet,
sweet,” he whispered huskily as he brushed his lips across hers, then entered her fragrant mouth with his tongue. He gasped. “Can you die of pleasure?” Then his mouth returned to hers, but it was out of control, plundering her in a barbaric invasion. Jasmine had no choice but to yield to his overpowering onslaught. A small measure of control returned to him as he began the delicate business of her first orgasm. Experience had taught him that it was entirely possible to bring a virgin to climax without tearing the hymen, but it called for a certain amount of very gentle and delicate manipulation. How to manage touching her with the strokes of a butterfly’s wings when all his urges demanded he be a battering ram?

His mouth was dry, his manroot throbbed with bursting blood; he thought he could taste the blood in his mouth. The pad of one fingertip gently traced the hot, dry lips between her legs. He felt her shudder … or was it he who shuddered? He stroked her gently, softly, over and over, holding his breath, waiting for a tiny drop of wetness on his finger that would be the signal for him to proceed. She was fever dry, so different from any other woman he’d ever touched. By now most females would be slippery with desire. Some he knew would be spilling their love milk onto their thighs in anticipation.

He increased the pressure of the pads of his fingertips and increased the speed of his rubbing friction. “Do you like me to touch you here, darling?” he whispered.

She squeezed her legs together tightly to prevent his fingers from their erotic teasing. “No!” she said fiercely.

As he held her cupped in his hand, his fingers curled ever so slightly inside her, he felt her heat until she burned him. He could not help imagining what his shaft would feel like if he plunged into her this moment, and a low moan escaped from his throat. This was a new sensation for de Burgh. Up until now, sex had been a playful diversion, a sport that brought pleasure, a casual game.
Now it was driving, urgent, his body demanding, clamoring, starving for her.

Try as he would, he could not control his lust; rather it controlled him. He told her in heated detail what he was going to do to her when he returned, how many times he would love her, and how she’d feel when he did those things. “Sweet, sweet, wait here for me; promise me you won’t move? The first thing I want to do when I come back is give you your first kiss.”

“Don’t be silly, de Burgh, you’ve been kissing me all night,” she said, gasping.

He chuckled. “Sweet innocent, I mean kiss you down here.” His possessive fingers curled inside her. “Darling, when I take your virginity it will hurt you. My shaft is very large and will stretch you to the limit. I know you want to wait until we’re married for the consummation, but starting tonight I’ll make love to you with my mouth. By the time we are wed you will be more than eager to try something longer and harder than my tongue.”

She was shocked to her soul. Not really comprehending fully, she whispered in disbelief, “You would kiss me, there?”

“Like this, darling,” he said raggedly as his mouth took hers and he used his tongue deeply, intrusively, filling her totally with thrusting, dominant possession.

Her woman’s cunning was the only thing that saved her. “I don’t know how to do anything,” she said softly.

He smiled down at her and slipped his fingers from her delicious heat. “By morning you will, darling.”

“If you don’t hurry, morning will be here, Falcon,” she said breathlessly.

He rose from the furs and pulled on his boots. “Sweet, sweet, I’ll hurry,” he swore.

She was afraid to move until she was very sure he had gone, then she threw back the furs and stood up. She swayed dizzily, as she realized her legs had turned to
water with fear. Fear of de Burgh, fear for Mary-Ann’s lover Robin, fear of the morrow’s manhunt.

De Burgh cursed silently as he moved about the camp. Because of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s incompetence, compounded by exaggeration of the outlaw’s daring deeds against the crown, his men were committed to take part in this travesty. He’d been ordered by John himself. When he learned that Chester, Nottingham, and Falkes de Bréauté were taking part, he had protested that it was superfluous to add his knights and men-at-arms to hunt down a few freemen, farmers, and peasants who used the forest for their refuge, but John had been adamant. John himself wanted to enjoy the manhunt and would feel safer with de Burgh’s men about him. It wasn’t that Falcon minded ridding the area of outlaws—he was in the business of killing—but somehow it seemed obscene to him to make a sport of it.

He spent longer with his men-at-arms this night than he did with his knights, for he knew common soldiers had a dread of the uncanny and the forests around Nottingham were legendary for their tales of the brotherhood of little people, of Mount Folk, Stone Folk, and Tree Folk who were supposed to rule the greenwood. Tales abounded of high mounds in the lonely deep forest where you could enter into entrancing lands of green twilight where lovely fiends dwelled and dreadful wizards worked their soul-snatching wiles and enchantment.

When Falcon returned to his tent he was sorely disappointed that Jasmine was not there awaiting his return, but he was not surprised. He had known somehow that she would flee the moment he left her. He knew she would have to be a wife, decently wed, before she gave herself to him. Even then it would be a reluctant mating on her part. He sighed. She was innocent, unawakened. No burning of the flesh, no hot desires, not even yearnings
to be held in strong arms and stroked plagued sweet Jasmine.

He groaned aloud as he slipped inside the bed where her lingering fragrance clung to the furs. He closed his eyes and willed his demanding body to take rest while it could. His hot blood coursed through his veins, throbbing incessantly, making the heavy ache in gut and groin almost unendurable. He asked the impossible of himself. How could a man as hot and lusty as he rest at ease in a bed where his heart’s desire had just been lying almost naked? He made an endless night of it, his body’s frustration keeping him tense, aware, demanding. His thoughts prowled like a foraging wolf. Gervase must have been mistaken about the man. It may have been a thief climbing from a window, or some young squire scaling the wall on a dare, or the man could have sought a damsel other than Jasmine. His seeking mind went over the unlikely alternatives. Finally he groaned, gave himself up to the agony of her lingering presence, and buried his face in the fur’s female fragrance.

Dawn had not paled the sky when he arose. His mind and body demanded action and his men were probably in like case. A stag hunt would have been an ideal remedy, but the abomination that was planned for that day presaged a bad feeling inside of him. He made a quick decision and started to waken his men to give them their orders, beginning with Gervase. “Anyone spotted in the forests, round them up and take them prisoner. I don’t want a wholesale slaughter. No bloodshed unless your life is at stake.”

The breakfast fires were lighted and the men were arming themselves and readying their horses. De Burgh mounted and rode off toward the River Trent. Perhaps if he doused himself in the cold river water, he’d be able to shake off the dirty feel of contamination. As he rode toward
the river the sky began to lighten imperceptibly and for a moment he thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. Damn it all to Hellfire, it wasn’t his eyes that were playing tricks, it was the wench he’d almost given his heart to who was playing the tricks! She had just emerged from the forest, riding directly in his path, and he had seen her before she had seen him. The moment she spotted him, she jerked on the reins, then wheeled her mount back into the trees. He touched one knee to his war-horse and its powerful muscles gathered then surged ahead, overtaking the smaller horse in less than a minute. He reached out one long arm and snatched the reins from her, bringing her palfrey to a quivering halt beside the heaving, dangerous destrier. He was on the ground before the horses stopped, quickly looping their reins to a tree.

Jasmine lifted her riding crop, but he gave her no opportunity to bring it down. He reached up and wrenched it from her hand with such force she lost her seat and came tumbling down to him in a flurry of skirts and petticoats.

His emerald-green eyes were blazing with anger. He slashed her short, heavy whip against his boots to release some of the anger he felt, for before God he needed all his willpower to keep from striking her. She had been to meet someone—a man—and by the divine power of St. Jude he’d know his name
now!
“Whom do you secretly meet?” he demanded.

“I was out riding, I saw no one,” lied Jasmine.

“That is an outright lie. Whom did you meet?” He slashed his boot again and the sound of the whip was ominously threatening.

She turned her face from him and caught her breath on a sob. Cruel fingers took a firm grip on her chin. “You will look at me when I speak to you. Whom did you meet?” he shouted.

“No one,” she denied, her face drained of color.

“Don’t impugn my intelligence by treating me like some gullible fool. ’T is obvious you’ve just come from a tryst. Have you been out all night? Did you leave my bed and go straight to his arms?” The questions came swiftly. He took her shoulders in his hands and began to shake her like a rag doll. “Answer me! Have you no brains? Don’t you know these forests crawl with outlaws?”