Chapter Thirteen #3
which were surprisingly gentle as he massaged the soap around her
sores, expertly working his thumbs into the muscle and sinew up and
down her spine. She swayed forward as he found a tender spot below
her shoulders and dug her feet into the sandy bottom to keep from
stumbling. He kneaded his strong fingers up her back and around the
base of her neck where he pressed his thumbs into the point where
her spine met her shoulders, and Lara groaned and stood three
inches taller at least. He continued to knead his way up her neck
and into her hair, rubbing delicious circles into her
scalp.
“There.” He stopped, and
Lara almost swayed back into him. “I’ve wanted to get soap and
water on that mop for days.”
His breath tickled Lara’s ear before
he lifted his head from hers, and Lara craned her neck to get a
glimpse of his face. He loomed over her shoulders, his gaze fixed
on her breasts, which swelled under his rapt attention, her nipples
growing instantly hard and pushing up to the heat in his eyes like
seedlings to the sun. Lara’s breath came hard, but it was Talon’s
she felt as he stepped closer, the entire length of him pressing
against her backside. He laid a hand on her bare hip, then traced
it up her side until he cupped her soapy breast. Her legs turned to
wet sea grass as he drew circles with the pad of his thumb around
her nipple. Lara could barely think, much less see
straight.
“Ahem, ah,
Captain.”
He stopped his play and growled low in
Lara’s ear. “Christ, if it isn’t your hound interrupting us, it’s
mine.” He stepped away from her, standing between her nakedness and
the shoreline. Phillipe stood with his back to them. “What?” the
captain snarled as Lara dunked and rinsed.
“Sorry, Captain,” Phillipe
said over his shoulder. “But Ranulf’s pitching a fit, demanding the
right to whip our girl Hamm here. Thought you’d like to
know.”
“What I’d like to know,”
he muttered to Lara, “is a woman less troublesome, which would be
any woman other than you.” He pulled his rolled-up tunic from the
back of his waistband and held it out to her, his gaze raking her
bare breasts. Lara hastily donned the tunic. “Come on.” He took her
by one hand as she pulled the tunic down to her knees with the
other. “Let’s get this over with.”
They made the shore as Ranulf,
Lothair, and two more of the count’s men came down the path.
Phillipe stood to one side of the group with both his short and
longswords drawn as Talon strode right up to Ranulf, still holding
Lara’s hand.
“What do you want, boy?”
he growled.
“Your bitch
lidi.” Ranulf stared at
Lara. “I owe her a knock upside the head.”
“You touch my
lidi…” Talon dropped his
hold of Lara’s hand and pulled his falcata from its sheath and
pressed the point to the soft underside of Ranulf’s chin. “You
won’t have a head.”
Ranulf’s face contorted as Lothair
made for his sword.
“I wouldn’t.” Phillipe
shook his head at Lothair, who looked from their four men to the
captain’s and Phillipe’s two with a smug snort. Phillipe closed the
distance between them and pressed the tip of his longsword against
the brute’s belly before Lothair could draw his. “Numbers don’t
count for everything,” Phillipe said. “Were I you, I’d go right
back up the way you came with your belly intact and your young
master’s head still on his shoulders.”
The captain twisted his sword under
Ranulf’s chin enough to draw a bead of blood on its point, and Lara
didn’t move, let alone breathe, not until Ranulf gave a snort and
stepped back, both hands palm up.
“Just keep a short leash
on your bitch,” he spat when he was out of the captain’s
reach.
“Just keep your distance.”
The captain didn’t lower his sword. “You and your father’s
men.”
“She has got you whipped,
Guiscard.”
The captain said nothing, but the scar
on his cheek was white and his jaw set as Ranulf headed back up the
path, making whipping sounds and laughing with Lothair.
“That was an amusing
night’s entertainment.” Phillipe gave an exaggerated waggle of his
blond brows before swiping sweat away from them. “I must say, Lara,
you’ve livened up a boring march a bit. And we haven’t even met up
with the rest of the army yet.”
“Now you see why I told
you no?” the captain said through gritted teeth as he sheathed his
falcata. “You couldn’t keep out of trouble with only forty men,
what do you think will happen with four thousand?”
“I was doing well enough
as Hamm.”
The captain laughed, short and harsh.
“You had Lothair intent on strangling you as Hamm and another of
Ranulf’s men bragging on how he was going to give it to Hamm up the
ass first time he got the lad alone.”
Lara dropped her chin, embarrassed
beyond speech.
“Phillipe,” the captain
ordered. “Set up my tent, two guards each shift, three shifts a
night.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“And you.” He pierced Lara
with his gaze of honed steel, taking in his tunic on her, which
only covered her legs to her knees and was soaked up to her belly.
“Go dry yourself and your clothes by the fire. I can’t have you
walking through camp like that, or I’ll be fighting my own men
off.”