Saint James’ Way #3
He closed the distance between them, slipping his arm around her waist. “Well. If we do enjoy each other’s company, and this . . . dalliance . . . proves fruitful?”
She smiled wryly. “After so many years of barren marriage, I doubt it will.”
Particularly given the birth-control methods all field agents use. . . There were rumours of certain agents being sent into the past to “acquire” genetic material, but not having been approached herself, Anne wasn’t sure if those whispers were true, or just lascivious gossip.
“I am not your late husband.” Pulling her close, he nudged her with his loins. In specific, with the lump of his manhood. “You may find me to be the better man.”
His line almost made her laugh, except she sensed he meant it in several ways, not just the most obvious one.
Softening her reaction into a smile, Anne lifted her hands to his hair.
Fulfilling the longing she had suppressed throughout the trip, she buried her fingers in his springy blond curls, enjoying their slightly coarse texture.
He complied with her guiding touch, tilting his mouth into the perfect angle for meeting hers.
Then pulled back, apparently startled by the touch of her tongue on his lips.
Anne pursued his mouth, rising up on her toes and bringing his head back down to hers.
He tasted more like the roasted turnips and rabbit they had eaten than like the mint of earlier, but mostly he tasted like a man. Delicious.
It took only a few moments before he returned her caresses.
His own tongue grew more bold, as did the hands on her back, one skimming up to cradle the back of her head, the other sliding down to cup the curves of her bottom.
Anne caressed his shoulders, then shifted her hands to the front of his cote-hardie.
He had changed back into his travelling clothes this morning, to save his good outfit for the visits to the Cathedral, but even his second-best tunic was made of a finer weave of linen than her own.
Unfastening the buttons as they kissed, she reached his belt and fumbled with the knotted leather.
Stepping back, breaking their kiss, James unfastened his belt himself, along with the rest of his cote-hardie.
Anne took the opportunity to remove her own girdle and work on her buttons.
Their garments fell to the ground, which was sparsely covered in tufts of grass and the felted wool of her bedroll.
Moonlight obscured some of the details of his body and highlighted others.
She could see scars from old wounds, and the ripple of muscles bunching and flexing when he stooped to remove his shoes.
She bent over in turn, unlacing her sandals and peeling down her hosen, only to blush when she heard him speak.
“God bless widows who know what they want,” he murmured. “God and all the saints. I’ve never been interested in a shy, retiring maiden who knows nothing of the ways of men and women.”
“I thought my behaviour had been rather circumspect and demure,” Anne quipped as she straightened. She pulled the pins and ribbons out of her hair, releasing it so that he could play with it if he wanted.
“Circumspect, maybe, but your experience of the world shows through in all the little things you do.” Moving back to her, he wrapped his arms around her, bringing their bodies close together. “I like it.”
Anne kissed him again. The evening had cooled enough that neither was damp from sweat, allowing their bodies to rub gently together.
She enjoyed the crisp-textured hair of his chest brushing against her breasts, the soft press and nibble of his lips.
The jut of his arousal rubbing against her belly.
Her fingers skimmed through those chest curls, lightly tugging and teasing until he captured her hands and pressed them flat.
She could feel the rhythm of his heart and knew it matched her own, faster than it should be, and stronger.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had made love with anyone.
At least a year ago. Long enough for each touch, each caress to feel new.
Long enough to make her wish for a softer bed than a scratchy wool blanket laid on a somewhat lumpy stretch of ground.
The shift of his lips from her mouth down to her breasts distracted her, though.
He laved and worshipped them, wringing gasps and whimpers from her as he played with their sensitive tips.
One of his hands caressed her clenching belly, then slipped down between her thighs.
Anne gasped and tossed her head back, thumping it against the ground, but the pain was brief and mild; the pleasure of his seeking fingers was too good to resist. Covering his hand with her own, she showed him exactly where she liked to be touched and how firmly he should rub.
James proved a willing student. Between her breasts and her loins, he sculpted her into a squirming, gasping, shuddering thing of bliss with his mouth and his hand. Drifting down from her climax, Anne sighed. “Oh, James . . . I wish I could take you with me . . .”
“If I had my way,” he murmured, kissing a path back up to her lips, “you’d never leave me.”
Lifting her knees, she made room for him.
Welcomed him with her lips and her palms and her thighs.
He pressed himself home with a sigh of her name and a slow flex of his hips.
It felt better than she remembered, much better.
Each inward stroke had a near-perfect angle to stimulate everything she liked best about this part of lovemaking.
It didn’t take him long to have her gasping and shuddering again, whispering his name until he, too, climaxed and slumped, breathing heavily himself.
He finally rolled off her, but not to abandon her.
Instead, James pulled her close, cuddling with her.
Sweat made their skin stick awkwardly in places, though the cool air wafting up from the river did its part to help dry them again.
But the sweat and the breeze and the lumpy ground under the blanket couldn’t distract her from the warmth of his embrace.
Tired from a long day of walking and a delicious round of lovemaking, Anne dozed for a little bit. She was sure James did, too. When she finally decided to move, inhaling slowly and deeply to wake up a little more, she felt his arm tighten around her shoulders.
“Ready for more?” he murmured, proving he wasn’t asleep.
Her internal transceiver warned her it was getting close to midnight.
But I still have time. And this feels too good to skip a second chance.
Smiling, she pressed a kiss to his collarbone.
“Nothing would please me more. Since you’re a scholar at heart, the same as myself .
. . let me show you some of the things I’ve learned. ”
His murmured consent was the last coherent thing he said.
It didn’t take much to reduce him to gasps and half-bitten oaths, just the application of her tongue, teeth, and lips from his throat to his groin.
The lattermost goal made him choke on her name and bow his back, fingers tangling in her hair.
From the surprise in his voice, she guessed he had never experienced this before, and applied herself with more enthusiasm and care, wanting to make it as enjoyable for him as possible.
Her attentions invigorated him so much, she found herself flipped on to her back, her head pointed down the modest slope of the bank and her legs hoisted high.
Hands clenching in the blanket and the sparse tufts of grass, Anne accepted his enthusiasm for the compliment it was, and for the delights of the inventive position.
He growled as he climaxed, trembling and sweating all over again.
Shifting a hand to touch her folds, he rubbed as she had shown him, and chuckled when she, too, trembled in bliss.
Breathing heavily, James lowered her hips back to the ground, then her legs, before slumping once more at her side.
“I think . . . I know . . . how your husband died,” he muttered between breaths.
“Oh?” she managed, wary of his sudden choice in topic.
“Very, very happily.”
Anne laughed. Not because it was the truth – far from it – but because his compliment tickled her.
She wanted to tell him the truth about her so-called marriage, but between her orders and this latest bout of passion, she kept her mouth shut.
Content, she snuggled against him, reminding herself not to doze for long.
She still had to leave by oh-one-hundred hours so that she could be returned to the future.
Her weeks of observations needed to be recorded and analysed.
Including this interlude, however much she wanted to keep these moments by the moonlit river to herself.
Just a little bit of a nap . . . then I really will leave him . . . I will . . .
The crack of a twig woke both of them. James scrambled for his belt, grabbing and drawing his sword even as he stood. Anne rolled away from him and rose in a defensive crouch of her own, eyes straining to see through the night-shadowed trees.
“Who goes there?” James demanded.
“A friend. I mean you no harm.”
Anne relaxed slightly, recognizing Simon’s voice.
Then blushed hotly, mindful of two things: her naked state, and the hour.
A mental check of her sub-dermal transceiver showed the hour was half past one.
She was late. That was a potential sin in the temporal handbook, a black mark on her record. But her superior didn’t sound upset.
“I do not recognize you,” her lover stated, blade still bared and held between them and the source of that shadowed voice. “Name yourself!”