The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (12 page)

He would not breach her maidenhead, but he would lay hands upon her, that she knew. His eyes betrayed all. And his manhood, high and hard and pulsing with intent. Aye, she knew what he would do if God had not taken the chance away from him. But what he would do while he waited for the days to pass she did not know. She only knew she was embattled and that her foe used his beauty as a weapon.

His beauty was formidable, and she knew enough of men to understand that he realized it. All men knew their weapons and kept them well honed. Even men from Jerusalem were only men, after all. Yet had her mother not warned her of this? Had she not said that sin entered through the eyes, consuming the soul? Elsbeth kept her eyes lowered in defense.

If the fire would die or the taper flicker out, her cause would be helped, but with his aversion to cold and dark, she did not see much hope. She closed her eyes, creating her own dark world.

It did not help much. She could feel his nearness and his heat as he slid into the bed. And then she felt his hands—nay, his fingertips—trailing down the center of her chest, between her breasts.

She drew a shaky breath and kept to her private darkness, ignoring the tremors he unleashed.

"The cross looks well on you," he said, touching it with his fingertips. "You have warmed it. It carries your heat, Elsbeth, and glows in the firelight."

She said nothing. All her effort was on breathing and keeping her eyes shut against him. The firelight would show the golden glow of his skin and hair. She did not seek out such an assault on her senses. Her battle plan was prudent and one of defense, her only recourse. Still, it would serve. It must.

"You hide from me, Elsbeth," he said, his tone amused.

"I am here. I do not hide," she said, pressing her lips together in irritation.

Ever and always the laughter was at her expense. Would that, just once, a man could feel the bite of her humor when it was aimed at him. It would be a gift indeed if she were able to attack. But she was a woman; that way was not open to her, not if she wanted to win her freedom from him. He held the key to all, and so she must fight softly, inching her way free. A bold attack would serve her ill.

"Nay, you do not hide. Only your sight is hidden. Or is it the sight of me you wish to hide from?" he said, releasing the cross and touching a finger to the hollow of her throat.

"I do not hide, my lord," she said. "I am but weary. The day has been long."

"Aye, a full day we have had between us. But the night will be longer still," he murmured.

His touch was light, a whisper against her skin, yet she felt it as a weight that threatened to crush her. She could not draw a breath that she did not will into her lungs.

Her very heart was pressed and flattened by the weight of his presence in their shared bed. Why could he not find accommodations elsewhere? Why share a bed with her when there was naught he could do to fulfill their marriage contract?

Why? Because he was a man and he wanted to stay, tormenting her.

"Breathe, Elsbeth," he said, his mouth hovering over her ear. "Breathe. I will not hurt you. Nor will I leave you, no matter how still and quiet you keep yourself."

"Stay, then. I have said naught to encourage you to go."

"Nay, you have done all that a wife should do. None could fault you. But if you would only open your eyes?"

She would not. "Did you not say that it was the hour for sleep?" she said.

"I believe the word I used was rest," he said, trailing his hand over her breasts. Her nipples rose up in alarm, throbbing their outrage. "Let us each find our rest in our own ways, little wife. I have found mine." He leaned toward her again and said against her brow, "I could fondle you for an age and not weary of the task. Lie quiet and still for me, if it is your pleasure; I will not complain, not when I am so happily entertained."

She could not help it: One eye opened a slit, just enough to admit light and the vague outline of him in the shadowy chamber. "Am I your entertainment, my lord? Is that my function in your life?"

"Let us say instead that you are to be my pleasure," he said.

Aye, she could believe it. What man did not want a woman to share his bed and his body? What man would not want a woman to appease his lusts, satisfying his every base desire?

What woman would not welcome Hugh of Jerusalem into her bed, welcoming his lusts, base or lofty?

Here, in this bed, she was the woman. She did not want him, nor did she want him to want her.

"Will you not say it?" he said, cupping her breast with a single hand. His other hand supported his head, the muscle of his arm bulging in the dim light.

She really ought to close her eyes again, but she could not seem to turn from him. Both eyes were opened now, mere slits, but open. It was most difficult to tumble into darkness when such a golden presence was so near.

"Say what?"

"Say that you are my pleasure, fashioned by God's own hand for me. For by my troth, Elsbeth, you are everyman's dream of a woman."

"I am not."

"I will not argue it, but I will defend. You are
my
dream of woman. The Lord must have read every dream of my boyish heart to have fashioned you so perfectly."

"I am not perfect."

"You are for me," he said, rubbing his hand over her nipple.

The sensation was intense, painfully erotic, an inducement to continue, to seek more at his hands, to hear more sweet words from his lips. Yet she could do none of those. Her path was set, and it was only folly to continue on this course. How to stop him? He was her husband. He had the right to lay his hands on her. And what he would speak was his own affair. She could not stop him. She had not the right even to try. All that was left to her was to quietly resist. To let his words and his touch wash over her, a light wash of rain against her skin. She could not let him linger long enough to penetrate her heart. And she must never, ever respond.

"You are kind to say so. We both know I am far from perfect," she said, closing her eyes with difficulty.

He laughed and pulled her into an embrace. The scent of him was of woodsmoke and wine, his skin as hot as embers. She could feel his manhood pressing against the soft mound of her belly, and her joints softened in response.

Response? She must not respond.

"I am not kind," he said. "A night in this bed will prove it, little wife. I mean to torment, you see. A night of perfect torment we will share."

She pulled back and looked up at his face. His jaw and throat rose above her, large and covered in a light brown stubble that caught the light of the fire and was lit to shimmering gold. He spoke of torment, he who had promised not to hurt her?

"Do not fear," he said, looking down at her from beneath his lashes. "It is the way of a man to say such. It is nothing to fear. I only have made myself a promise, little wife, to make you scream and moan for release."

She could well believe that. She was not far from screaming now. Her skin was hot and prickly, her breasts heavy and tender, his hands the cause of all discomfort within her. She had always found her skin most comfortable, before Hugh and his soft caresses and his careless laughter. If he would only release her and go to another bed, all would be well.

"The release of desire, the need for satisfaction," he said. "That is the torment of which I speak. You drive me to torment even now. Should not the wife of Hugh of Jerusalem share his fate?"

Nay, she should not. She would not. Her vow had been made before God, and He would not want her released from it. Some things were bigger than a man's desire; indeed, all things should be.

"I do not wish you in torment," she said, crossing her arms over her aching breasts.

"Of course you do not. You are not a cruel woman," he said, uncrossing her arms and holding them over her head.

Her chemise was stretched tight against her breasts, her nipples dark and erect beneath the fine linen. It would have been a fine night to wear wool—nice, thick, scratchy wool.

"What are you about?" she said. Her voice came out a squeak that would have rivaled a mouse caught in the talons of a hawk. An apt comparison.

"Only the torment of my wife. Fear not, little one, I will not harm you," he said. His eyes said otherwise. They were hooded and sleepy, green and sharp. "Close your eyes, if you wish. It will not help," he whispered.

He spoke true. It did not help.

She felt his breath on her skin first and then the soft weight of his lips. He kissed her cheek and then the corner of her mouth and then the underside of her jaw and then, and then her mouth. It was a gentle kiss, gentle and warm, and yet her arms were over her head, her wrists trapped in his hand, and the feeling of powerlessness she felt made the kiss not gentle at all. Nay, it was a kiss of power, and all the power was his.

She shifted against him, trying to politely pull her hands free.

"Nay, wife, you are just where I want you," he said, his mouth trailing down her throat. "Keep still and let me torment you at my whim. I vow that you will not be harmed, at least not permanently."

"What say you?"

"Oh, a bruise here, perhaps," and he bit her softly on the side of the neck, sucking gently. She tried to jerk away from his mouth, freeing her hands, but he only gripped her tighter, throwing his leg over hers for good measure. "Or mayhap here," he said, taking his mouth from her neck and lifting her breast to lay his mouth over her nipple through the linen.

"Nay! Do not!"

"Nay? Do not?" he said, lifting his head and looking into her eyes. His eyes were the green of spring, sharp and bright. "These words from a submissive wife to the husband only seeks to worship her with his body? Nay, my little wife would not deny her husband what is rightfully his. Is your body not mine now, as mine is yours? Take of me, Elsbeth, I will not say nay to you. Or let me lead by example, if I must."

"If you must," she repeated on a snort of irritation. Aye, in that he would most willingly lead by example. What man would not?

"Would you torment me, little Elsbeth? Would you lie beneath my hand and lift your body to my kiss and open for me? Would you have eyes like a moonless night and skin like alabaster and breasts like fruit, ripe and swollen and heavy? Ah, but you already torment me. Do no more, else I shall never rise from this bed nor from your arms, all thoughts of knightly valor flown to the distant moon. Fight me, Elsbeth, else I shall tumble into you with no though of escape."

Fight him? She could not fight him. He could not want her to. In one breath he wanted her to submit, and in the next he demanded that she fight. In truth, she could do neither. By all the laws of matrimony, her body was in his keeping; she could not deny him the joys of the flesh without being damned by God and priest. But she could not submit, not to this... invasion.

Still, her blood protected her from his ultimate siege into her. She was safe from that. Let him kiss her, touch her, fondle her, she would have to endure it, knowing she was saved from penetration. It was the mercy God had granted, and she was going to rest in that, submissive to her husband yet proving that she was not the stuff of which wives were made.

He would let her go. He had to.

Besides, how much would Hugh want to toy with her without the release of consummation?

She did not know Hugh of Jerusalem.

He lay atop her, fitting himself between her legs. She thanked God again for her padding, for it blunted the feel of him. It was a blessing most generous. To feel the weight and height of Hugh on her was battle enough.

"You taste like bread and wine," he said, "Like the sacraments."

"Do not blaspheme!"

"I do not. You are the food on which I will dine every day of my life. Is that not a sacrament? Your body will sustain me, Elsbeth. There will be no one else, first wife. Only wife."

He kissed her then while the words rang in her heart. Only wife. Nay, he could not make such a vow. She wanted no such vow.

His kiss filled her. Almost she forgot that she could not move. Almost she forgot that she was to lie quiet and loose-limbed under his assault. Almost she forgot that this wanting was her enemy, and because he brought the wanting with his hands and his mouth, he was the enemy, too.

She could not forget that. He was the enemy. This was battle.

She sank beneath his kiss, his tongue finding hers, his breath invading her, his scent filling her.

He untied her chemise, lace by lace, and uncovered her breasts. His hands were gentle, as gentle as a warrior's battle-roughened hands could be against a part of her that no man had ever before touched. She sucked in a hard breath when his palm skimmed over the peak of her breasts, teasing her by touch. Tormenting her.

A man of his word, was Hugh of Jerusalem.

"I will be your first," he said, his mouth on the skin of her breast. "I will be the man you remember, even in the cold cloister, where even memory is banished. I will live on. You shall not forget me, Elsbeth. You shall never forget this."

He pressed against her, his hips to hers, and she lifted to him in spite of all vow made to God and to Ardeth and to herself. She lifted to his weight, feeling the man weight of him and wanting more. His mouth suckled her breasts, tugging a nipple past his teeth, and she cried out at the surge of sensation that thrust down into her womb, sharp and sweet, a pulse that was ignited and burned in the glow of him. Because of him.

"Do you say then," she gasped, turning her head upon the mattress, snarling her hair, gasping for reason and remembered vows. "Do you say that you will release me?"

He looked up from her breast, her nipple between his teeth, his eyes hooded and sharp as the falcon's. She met his look and felt her inward parts convulse. Had ever a man looked so? Nay, never upon her.

He bit her nipple softly and she jerked in response, her eyes trapped in his gaze.

"Release you? Nay, do not think of release, little wife. Think only of now, this bed, this oneness we are commanded to achieve. That is your duty now. That is your divine calling. Be one with me," he whispered. "Be one with me and you will make God smile."