Chapter Twenty-two #3
Lara unwrapped a folded length of
iridescent green cloth that slipped lightly through her fingers.
She rubbed her cheek against the sleek softness. “Is it
silk?”
Talon grinned. “It is. I saw it in the
marketplace at Tours and thought of you.”
“Oh Talon. I love it.”
Lara let the silk unfurl over her arm. “It’s so light and sheer.”
She pulled it up over her shoulder and the silk fluttered in the
fire’s light. “It’s like having wings of gossamer.”
“It’s to make you a gown
of gossamer.” He hooked a finger between her shoulder and the silk,
then ran his knuckle along her skin. “I’ve dreamed of you wearing
such a gown for so many nights now.”
He unfolded the cloth and wrapped it
over both her shoulders, groaning as it fell over her breasts.
Lara’s nipples pebbled at the featherlight touch of the silk and
went rock hard as Talon ran the callus of his thumb over one, his
groan deepening.
Lara leaned into his touch until he
cupped her breast. “I’ve missed this, missed you.” She sighed. “So
much.”
“I know, love.” He pressed
her to him and took her mouth with his. “Me too.”
The next thing Lara knew, they were
stripping each other’s remaining clothes off and tossing them to
the floor. Lara took in the sight of Talon’s naked body greedily,
the sight of his broad shoulders tapering down to his trim waist
ridged with muscles and the dark trail of hair leading to his
half-hard cock stoking the ache growing between her legs. She
reached out and touched the telltale weal of a newly healed scar
that slashed across his right hip.
“It looks worse than it
was,” Talon told her. “Nor was the king’s healer half as comely as
my west-end witch.”
She ran her finger along the scar.
“Are there any more scars newly added to your
collection?”
He shook his head and laid his hand
over hers. “None any worse than the nick from your
arrow.”
Lara touched the light scab that had
already formed over the scratch on his arm. “I am sorry I shot at
you.”
“It’s of no
matter.”
He pulled her down onto the bearskin
rug, where they lay on their sides whispering soft words of love
while rediscovering each other’s bodies. Talon straddled her and
probed between her thighs with the blunt head of his cock until the
ache between Lara’s legs became a throbbing need. Her breath caught
as he slowly buried himself inside her, filling that need. She let
her breath out in a low moan as her intimate muscles tightened
around him.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he
whispered, his voice low and rough. “You feel so good, and it’s
been so long, I fear I can’t hold back.”
“Then don’t,” she
whispered back fiercely. “I won’t break.”
But she did. She broke atop the peak
of their passion, shattering into a thousand shards of light and
flame and raw nerves, then melting back into her boneless,
weightless self, held together by his body wrapped around
hers.
***
Talon
Talon threw the outside bolt to the
door, then mounted the sorrel’s bare back and nodded to Lara, who
sat in the roan’s saddle with Isabeau snug in her sling. “Let’s go
home.”
Home. The first one he could call his
in years.
He turned the sorrel’s head southeast,
with Lara following and Wolf herding the two milk goats. He’d been
at the Hollow for twelve days, and he’d savored every moment of
them with Lara and Isabeau, but it was time to return to Crossroads
Keep, to assume their new lives as lord and lady of the keep with
their daughter. A life he’d left his old one as a soldier for
without regret. A life he looked forward to.
He also looked forward to dealing with
Nithard. Lara told him what she’d heard the men say before they’d
torched her house, that they’d been ordered by Nithard to burn her
alive, and though they had no other proof, her word was enough for
Talon. Plus, if Lara’s dream had been true, and they always were
one way or another, then she was Nithard’s illegitimate niece. Both
situations which Talon intended to confront as soon as they
returned to Oloron.
But before he dealt with Nithard or
the keep or anything else, he intended to marry Lara.
They made the Abbey St. Marie at
nightfall, where the Abbot Rogert took one look at Lara and the
babe and fell to his knees.
“Thank God.” He raised his
hands to the sky. “Thank Mary, Mother of Jesus, you survived.
Mother and child survived.”
Lara pushed the blanket back from the
babe’s head as the abbot stood. “Abbot Rogert,” she said, “meet
Isabeau Juditha.”
“To be christened Isabeau
Juditha Guiscard,” Talon added. “Right after you marry her mother
and father.”
The abbot placed his hand over the
crown of the babe’s head and smiled down at her as she blinked up
at him. “Isabeau,” he murmured. “Welcome home.”
The reverence of his voice, his
manner, stood Talon at attention. “You knew,” he said. “You knew
Lara was Isabeau’s daughter.”
The abbot dipped his head with a
beatific smile.
“How long?”
“Since the day Sophie
brought her down from the mountains as a one-year-old child and had
me write her name and birth beneath the recording of her parents’
marriage, which I officiated at in this very church.”