Chapter 15
Madeleine was knocked out of breath, but she wasn’t complaining. His shell was properly cracked now, and the fire was burning high. Her body anticipated what was to come, what she hoped was to come . . .
“You don’t always have to throw me down, you know,” she said, daring to tease.
A flash of amusement lit his eyes before it was shielded. Emboldened, Madeleine raised a tentative hand to brush his damp hair off his cheek. Her body was humming with delicious expectations.
He shook her hand off. “A man needs to vent his seed from time to time. That’s what a wife’s for.” But his eyes betrayed him. At this moment he desired, and he desired her.
“I’m willing to be used that way,” she said softly. “I would like a child. I’ve had my courses since the last time.” She could see the battle waging in him and didn’t know which way it would go; she feared cruelty and hungered for tenderness.
Aimery looked down on Madeleine beneath him, and impossibly wild desire surged in him.
She was nut-brown from the summer sun, but her soft lips were deep rose and open to him, smiling.
Her warm brown eyes spoke of desire. Her body beneath him was firm and round and willing.
He imagined it rounder, rounded with his child.
He eased to one side and ran his hand over her flat abdomen.
She trembled under his touch. His hand was none too steady. His desire of her was a weakness, and one he had resolved to fight, but he already knew he had lost the battle.
It was hard to remember what the battle was.
He had taken no other woman, for he would not do that in his wife’s house, and his desire for her had been, at times, an agony. And here she was beneath him, weakening him with her dark eyes and soft lips, with the tentative movements of her hips.
She was willing? He’d take his pleasure then, but with no thought for hers.
He pulled up her skirt. Her legs fell open at a touch.
He adjusted her body and entered, swift and smooth.
The first sheathing was so exquisite he stopped with a groan to savor it.
How slick she was, how ready. He looked at her and saw no resentment of his treatment of her, only the flushed cheeks of wanton rapture.
It fired his blood beyond all control.
She gasped, and her body shuddered and tightened around him, drawing him higher. As he pulled back, the tightness of her slid along him, stirring him into a half-crazed mist of agonized delight.
To which he totally surrendered.
When he slid into her, as hard as iron, Madeleine gasped with perfect relief to have him where he belonged at last. A shudder passed through her, and she felt her muscles tighten, heard him groan.
She stared up at him. Against the high, burning sun he was all golden—bright golden hair, duller gold on the skin, and tawny in his linen shirt.
He shuddered as he drew out of her body slowly and then slid in again.
His eyes were closed, and this time she kept hers open, watching this thing she could do to him.
She saw color flush his cheeks and sweat leap to his brow. She could almost see the gasping breaths pass over his lips. Gasping breaths which matched her own, heat and sweat that surely marked her, too, and the movement of him . . .
The sun beat down. The sky above was infinite, a perfect blue. Somewhere a skylark trilled and trilled as if rejoicing in their soaring passion.
An ember roared into flame.
He threw back his head and gave a choked cry as rippling tension passed from his body to hers. A cry of her own escaped as his seed burst into her. She wrapped her legs and arms around him as shudders shook them both.
His eyes opened, more black than green. His mouth came down on hers, hot and hungry, devouring her, and she sought to be devoured. They lost themselves in this new union.
His mouth slipped off hers to her ear. Her hand cherished his smooth neck, his sweat-slicked, scarred shoulder beneath thin, damp cloth. Her fingers found the valley of his spine and wandered down it to his hard buttocks.
She wished he were naked.
His lips trailed gently down her neck, gathering her sweat as she wanted to do to him, causing her to shiver, heat on heat, wet on wet Then his mouth went further, to her breast to nuzzle softly at her sensitive nipples through the cloth.
At the first touch there she shuddered, and when his teeth closed gently on her, she tensed.
He was still inside her, and hard.
“Sweet Jesu!” she gasped, and was not sure herself whether it was delight or trepidation. “Again?”
“Again,” he said, looking up at her with hooded eyes. “Chastity does strange things to a man.”
Madeleine lost her doubts. Delight, definitely delight. She wrapped her legs back around him possessively. “It does strange things to a woman, too.”
“What sort of things?” he asked lazily as his clever hand wandered up and down her body and his hips made small, tantalizing movements against her.
“Oh, things,” said Madeleine shyly, looking away.
“Tell me, Madeleine,” he coaxed. “A man likes to know how a woman feels. Sometimes,” he added dryly.
Her head was spinning, her body aching. “It feels wonderful. I like it.” After a moment she admitted, “I thought we’d be doing it every night.”
He choked on a laugh. “Perhaps we will. It seems a terrible shame not to. Who knows how long we have?”
A chill drove away some of the fever. His words echoed all too closely her own fears. Madeleine tightened her legs on him protectively. “What do you mean?”
He looked up. “Life’s a chancy thing at best, that’s all. I could be called upon to fight at any time.” He lowered his head to drop kisses along the line of her jaw. Then his mouth lowered slowly to her breast again.
There was more to his words than that. Madeleine took a grip on his hair and pulled. He tightened his teeth and resisted. She felt herself stretch to the point of pain, gave a little cry, and let go. He looked up, laughing. “You wanted something?”
How strange that the small pain could bring back the fever so strongly. Madeleine certainly wanted something. She wriggled her hips against him, encouraging him to feed the hungry ache, but he went still. Hard inside her, but still.
“What did you want?” he insisted.
“Later. I can’t think now!”
“Yes, you can,” he said. His fingers began to torment her nipples again, causing her to whimper.
He grinned. “I’m not going to pleasure you until you tell me.”
Then what did he think he was doing?
But she knew what he meant.
She struggled to organize her dizzy mind, even as her body shuddered and her breath wavered. “Who?” she gasped at last. “Who will call you to fight? The rebels?”
His fingers pressed painfully on her, then left her. He pulled out of her and out of the bondage of her legs.
“No!” she wailed, scrambling to her knees and reaching for him. How could she feel so icy-cold on a hot summer’s day?
He knelt before her. “You think me a traitor? Then you surely don’t want to give your body to such as I.”
Madeleine ached and throbbed with a need she could never have imagined. It left no dignity. She begged. “Please!”
He was half gone in passion, she could tell, but far more in control of himself than she. He gripped her wrist. “Am I a traitor?” he demanded fiercely.
Madeleine wanted to say no, but honesty is a hard habit to break. “I don’t care,” she whispered, tears falling down her hot cheeks. In the face of his implacable silence she added, “I don’t know.”
He gave a sigh and released her. “Nor do I,” he said. “But I won’t fight for the rebels. You have my word on that.”
He pushed her gently back down and moved above her, holding himself high on strong arms. Madeleine’s entrance felt like a hungry mouth, aching to devour him, yet he paused there against her. She could feel him at the opening and raised her hips, but he moved back a little.
“Please,” she begged. “I need you.”
“Remember me,” he said softly and eased down into her, filling tight the aching void.
Madeleine gave a great, shaking shudder of relief and closed her eyes.
Nothing existed in the world for her except him in her.
She worked with him fiercely, matching thrust for thrust until she succeeded in obliterating the feverish pain and replacing it with shattering, fear-devouring delight.
She lay limp and exhausted, felt him leave her, rearrange her skirt, felt the sun bake her. Through her closed lids she saw endless red.
A fly landed on her nose. She brushed it away. It returned. She opened her eyes to see him, sitting cross-legged beside her, tickling her with a scarlet poppy. “You’ll burn,” he said lazily, “and there’s work to be done.”
There was none of the cold indifference that had followed their last mating. She felt joined to him as never before. And he’d given her a promise. He wouldn’t fight for the rebels. She took his hand and kissed it.
She smiled and received a smile back. It wasn’t full and open, but it was far better than cold indifference.
She remembered that moment when it had all been threatened, but then smiled again. He’d given her a promise. He wouldn’t fight for the rebels.
He rose smoothly to his feet, extended a hand, and pulled her up, then picked bits of grass from her hair and gown. He put a finger beneath her chin. “Feel more like a wife?”
She tilted her head. “I thought wives were for bed. What does a whore feel like?”
He grinned. “They’re all different. Some hard, some soft . . .”
She playfully slapped his hand away, then turned to pick up her basket.
She gave a tut of annoyance when she found all her herbs scattered. He moved to help her. “Do you need more herbs? We should be able to buy some in Lincoln or London.”
“Can we afford it?”
“No, but it’s doubtless a necessity.”
They began to amble toward the castle, savoring a sweet moment and each other.
Madeleine hated to disturb this time together, but she wanted to be rid of all the doubts that hovered between them. “What did he want?” she asked.