Chapter Twelve
When Diara opened her eyes the next morning, it was to Roi staring at her.
Startled, she blinked a few times, trying to orient herself and quickly remembering where she was and whom she was with. And why. Very clearly, she remembered why.
She remembered everything.
“Good morn to you, angel,” he purred.
With a smile, Diara wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her.
In little time, he was sheathing the matrimonial sword again, buried down deep in the mattress where it was warm and musky and smelled of him.
His flesh against hers, her legs wrapped around him, feeling his manhood as he brought her to a climax rather quickly.
Roi followed, spilling himself with the greatest of pleasure, as his lips feasted on her neck and shoulder.
He feasted on everything about her as Diara lay there and let him.
She let him do anything he wanted.
“I had not expected to do that,” he muttered as he kissed her ear. “I thought it might not be too comfortable for you so soon after last night, but evidently, I was mistaken.”
Diara laughed softly. “You were mistaken, indeed, my lord,” she said. “Do not make that mistake again.”
“Then I am to assume that you like the matrimonial sword when it is sheathed?”
Her laughter grew. Since nearly the moment they were introduced, Roi had had the ability to make her laugh, and she loved that. Even when it was slightly bawdy. She’d never known such genuine, unbridled joy.
“I do,” she said. “Truthfully, I did not know what to expect, but you have made it easy for me. You are a thoughtful and considerate husband.”
He smiled, stroking her cheek as he gazed down at her. “I awoke at sunrise to watch you sleep,” he said. “You are so beautiful when you sleep.”
She put a hand to her mussy hair. “Like this?” she said. “I must look like I was caught in a tempest.”
“You look like an angel.”
“You are sweet to say so.”
“It is the truth.”
The cry of a bird caught her attention, and she turned her head slightly, seeing that the oilcloth had been removed from one of the windows and the sun was streaming in. But she had no intention of getting out of bed, not with Roi so warm and cozy.
“How long has the sun been up?” she asked. “Please tell me we do not have to rise right away.”
He glanced over his shoulder, at the window. “About an hour,” he said. “Oddly enough, mornings are not my favorite time of day, which is not usual for a knight. Every knight I know is up before sunrise, tending his duties.”
“But not you?”
He shifted so he was lying beside her and not on her, gathering her into his arms. “Only out of necessity,” he said. “I prefer the dark. The twilight. The moment the day turns to night.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “There is a peace to it, I suppose,” he said.
“The twilight, I mean. But the dark… that is when I feel the most alive. That is when the earth is the most alive. Creatures and people and things move through the dark and there is an entire world we do not see. Twilight is the birth of that world. A rebirth of the day it was part of.”
Diara’s head was against his shoulder as she tried to picture the world that his words were painting. “That is interesting,” she said. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“No one does.”
Her hand was on his chest, and she patted him gently. “Only you,” she said. “That makes you unique. I think it also makes you a predator.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Don’t predators hunt at night?”
He turned his head so he was peering down at the top of her head. “You are the only prey I want to catch.”
“You have already caught me.”
He pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head, but before he could say another word, he began to hear voices from the bailey.
They were calling his name.
“God’s Bones,” Diara muttered. “Them again? Can they not leave us alone?”
Roi was torn between great irritation and great amusement. He let her go and rolled out of the bed, marching across the floor, stark naked, to the window.
“You idiots have angered my wife!” he shouted as he approached the window and subsequently hung out of it. “I am trying to convince her not to go down to the bailey and flog every one of you, so if you are wise, you will leave us alone!”
But the usual crowd wasn’t down below—it was Curtis and a man Roi hadn’t seen at the wedding or the subsequent feast. He found himself looking down at his cousin, Daniel de Lohr, the son of Christopher’s only brother, David.
David was, in fact, the Earl of Canterbury through his marriage, a title Daniel would inherit someday.
He was also the liveliest and most emotional, humorous, and impulsive member of the de Lohr family.
They used to call him the Prodigal Son because of his inability to stay in one place for too long until he married nearly ten years before.
Then Daniel had settled down with his wife and children up in Yorkshire, which was why Roi was quite surprised to see him.
“Send her down!” Daniel called back to him. “I would like to meet this poor woman you have forced into marriage. I must tell her what she is in for with you.”
Roi beamed at the sight of his cousin. “Danny,” he said with delight. “When did you arrive?”
“Before sunrise, little prince,” Daniel said, taunting him.
“Uncle Christopher’s precious little boy was still in bed, and I was told not to wake you, but it is more than an hour after sunrise and the day is wasting away.
Pull yourself away from your new wife and get down here.
I did not come all the way to Lioncross only to be saddled with your boring brothers for entertainment. ”
Roi laughed. “I must ask my wife,” he said. “We have only just been married, you know. She may not want me to leave her anytime soon.”
Curtis chimed in, waving a big arm at him. “Come down here, you gutless knave,” he said. “The games are already being organized in honor of your wedding, and you do not want to miss them.”
Roi wagged a finger at his brother. “I told you,” he said. “No targeting my knees, buttocks, ballocks, or anything else I might need. Did you tell the others?”
Curtis nodded patiently. “I told them,” he said.
“At least, I did last night, but Douglas and Westley are still in bed, sleeping off the massive amounts of wine they consumed last night. So are many of the others. I’m not entirely sure we’ll have an adequate amount of competitors for any of the games after that drunken orgy last night. ”
Roi rolled his eyes. “I am not surprised,” he said. “Give me a few moments to get dressed and I shall meet you in the hall.”
With that, he turned away from the window with the full intention of getting dressed and rushing down to see Daniel.
But his eyes fell on the bed where Diara was sitting up, the coverlet clutched to her naked breast, and it took him a moment to realize that she was looking at him with a rather startled expression.
“I am sorry, angel,” he said. “I’ve not seen my cousin, Daniel, in quite some time. May I go down and see him?”
Diara nodded, but she quickly averted her gaze. “Of course,” she said. “You should go, right away.”
He smiled gratefully and went on the hunt for his clothing.
His tunic was on one spot, his breeches in another, and he had to walk to both sides of the bed in order to find everything.
He went over to the big wardrobe against the wall to hang up the silk tunic he’d worn for his wedding and collect a more durable one that could handle the events planned for the day.
But the entire time he was prancing around naked, he noticed one thing.
Diara wouldn’t look at him.
He walked to one side of the bed and she’d turn her attention to the other.
Then he’d walk back only for the same thing to happen in reverse.
When he realized that, he could see that her cheeks were a dull red.
It occurred to him that she was embarrassed to have a naked man parading in front of her, being that the lass hadn’t even been kissed until a few days ago, and he thought it was rather sweet that she should be so prim.
With his clothing in his hands, he sauntered over to the bed.
“Shall I send Iris up to help you dress?” he asked.
She had her head lowered. “I would appreciate that, thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He was standing right next to her, his flaccid manhood at the level of her head. “Which tunic do you think I should wear today?”
She only glanced up, sort of, to see what he had in his hand. “I… I like the blue one,” she said.
He was fighting off a grin. “You did not even look.”
“I did.”
“Don’t you like what you see?”
Diara began to catch on to the fact that he was teasing her, and she knew why.
It embarrassed her to realize that he knew why she wouldn’t look at him.
From the moment he left the bed and crossed over to the window, she’d been confronted with perfect buttocks, a tight waist, impossibly broad shoulders attached to big arms, and legs that were rippling with muscles.
Everything about him sang of perfection, and as she stared at his backside, becoming accustomed to his nude form, he’d suddenly turned around and she was confronted by his flaccid manhood.
That had sent the flames into her cheeks.
And he knew it.
“I like what I see,” she said, still unable to look at him. “I like it very much.”
“Then why don’t you look at me?”
She sighed sharply. “Can I simply not take the time to get used to the idea?” she said irritably. “I have to lust over you like a dog over fresh meat right from the onset?”
He began to laugh. “I have lusted over you from the onset.”
“But you have seen a woman without her clothing on before,” she pointed out. “I’ve never seen a man lacking… attire.”
His laugh deepened, and he took pity on her, pulling his breeches on and tying them off. “There, you coward,” he said. “I am modestly covered. Will you at least look at me now?”