Chapter 9 #2
In the next moment, she heard the sound of renting linen as he ripped free her breasts and pressed one upward, his head bent as he took it into his mouth, his tongue playing again.
Desire so strong she cried out his name swept through her and she pressed her hips down on him, wanting more, needing more, so much more.
He slid down from the saddle, his arm clamping her against him and he carried her--feet dangling off the ground, him still suckling her—over to the trees and backed her against one with his knee and body.
His mouth moved to her other breast and his hand finally lifted and cupped her possessively through the crotch in her trouse, one long finger rubbing the rough cloth between her legs.
He did not stop, over and over, and she moaned, rising a little with each stroke.
When her breath was out of control and her need almost too much to bear, he took her hand and pressed her palm to him.
He taught her his need with his hand over hers, up and down, showing her what he wanted while his touch and the rough cloth took her higher and higher.
She was blinded by feeling, and though her eyes were open, she could not see anything and found she was capable of naught but a single sense: she could only feel, and she was flying, soaring like a hawk in the stormy skies, and her whole body raced and raced toward the heavens, feeling lighter and as if she were going so high she would shatter among the stars.
And she did.
Lyall was mad, completely, absolutely mad, insane, knocked senseless by the fall in Steering mad.
Or he had somehow in the past three days turned into a formless being driven into idiocy by his cock.
Her soft, sweet cry of ecstasy was like a bucket of cold water over him, and he tried to catch his shallow, panting breath, all the while staring painfully down at her awe- and passion- washed face, at her flushed skin bright with satisfaction from the upturned, sweet pink tips of her bared breasts to her glistening, kiss-swollen lips.
The sweet, salty, and smoky taste of her, the lingering taste of the sea on her skin and the smoked fish in her mouth was still on his tongue, driving him secretly insane and he wanted nothing more than to take her there against the tree.
His lack of control scared him. His hands shook slightly when he stepped back away from the tree and eased her down until her feet were on solid ground.
Her eyes were the color of coal they were so dark, now rimmed in moisture and glowing from pleasure.
The soft, sweet, unguarded way she looked at him then, with something akin to her heart in her eyes, touched him in a place where he was most vulnerable, a place he hid from all and told himself did not exist… could not exist, not ever again.
He turned his back to her, his brain hot and feeling as if his head was going to blow off.
She should hate him. He needed her to hate him. Eventually, she would hate him. That was inevitable.
He stepped farther away and drove his hand through his hair, frustrated and trying to find a way to fix what he had just done, find some way to change the bewitched look in her eyes.
At that moment the rain began to fall cool and wet against his own hot and flushed skin. He looked up at the dark sky, half expecting a lightning bolt to come down and drive clean through his black heart.
But there was only the rain dripping through the trees.
She stood there, unmoving, looking at him in a way that made his man’s pride almost want to take her to pleasure again.
He reached out and pulled her under the shelter of the trees, releasing her arm as quickly as if burned before he stepped back and away from her, putting a safer distance between them.
“Glenna,” he said gently. “I should not have done that to you.”
“Why?”
Frowning, he looked at her. He had not expected such a blunt question. “Why did I do it? The truth is that I wanted to punish you for disobeying me. I wanted to frighten you. The kiss was…natural. It came without thought or reason.”
Her expression did not change.
“I cannot explain the way a man thinks, or acts when his blood boils. I can only say that what happened between us a few moment ago went much too far.” He paused. “And I am sorry for that. ‘Tis my doing. ‘Tis my err.”
She was quiet for a moment, before she laughed at him, which made little sense. He expected her to lash out at him, to call him the fiend he felt he was.
Where was the storm he expected from her?
God’s teeth but the woman looked pleased. He began to pace.
“You are a foolish man,” she said not unkindly and half laughing again. “Not why did you kiss me. Why are you begging for forgiveness?”
Begging? He stopped abruptly and faced her again. He was not begging, he thought in a puff of pride. He did not beg.
With one word she had put his manhood at stake. The silence between them drew out for a long time and the rain picked up, pounding on the ground beyond and starting to slip through the thick crowns of the wide and ancient trees.
Why would he expect her to act like other women, to be meek or practiced?
Why would he expect her to know of men and morals and the rules of courtly love?
She was truly innocent,--as innocent as a thief could be--he thought with irony—and had been raised outside of the world he knew and lived in—a world that taught him not to have faith in much of anything. Faith only made betrayal all that much easier and more devastating.
But Glenna had nothing to do with his past, but his guilt was not done eating at him. Perhaps he should have been begging.
Standing before him as she was, without fear or modesty, bare to her waist and facing him as if they were on equal ground was startling.
Truth was: she was high on a hill and he was already deep in a dark pit.
There was nothing equal about the two of them.
Hell was his future. The day he found her, he had secured his damnation.
His gaze went to her breasts and his body tensed even more, his head ached. He could taste her… “Pull up your tunic!”
She was startled and frowned at him. “Why?” She stood there so proudly naked, her shoulders back, hands on her hips, without a bit of modesty, and she strolled casually in front of him, then stopped barely a foot away and she looked right at him, her gaze narrowed when she said, “You do not like my breasts, my lord?”
“God’s blood, Glenna, cover yourself!” Then he did the only thing he could do to save her innocence: he stalked away, walking deeper into the forest and away from her before he lost control and took her completely.
His whole body was on the verge of betraying him.
There was the constant rhythmic crunch of leaves beneath his boots, and the crack of a twig sounded like thunder to his raw ears.
He stepped over a felled log and moved even faster into the darkness of the trees, with long strides, his breath coming hard and harder.
His hand was already inside his hose, moving and seeking the release he needed.
When he was well out of sight and hearing distance, he stood with his back to a tree and facing away from her, his jaw clenched and his teeth locked tight, head thrown back against the rough bark of a tree, and he closed his eyes closed until his seed spilt far away from her warm and submissive body.
But in his mind’s eye he saw her face as clearly as if she were carved on the back of his eyelids, and he imagined her beneath him, her soft pale skin the color of ivory, her lithe legs along his, him looking down into her face and those dark, dark eyes—the ones that had some kind of strange and powerful draw, like a lance that pierced straight through his heart.