16 #2
Smiling, knowing how much she was exciting him, Amber shook her head until her hair fell like a veil over Duncan’s loins. But not all of him could be easily veiled. Passion stood forth proudly, demanding to be eased.
Or teased.
“I particularly like this,” Amber said. “Hard, yet so smooth to my fingertips, like polished silver warmed by the sun.”
A deep shudder went through Duncan as he watched and felt the pink flame of her tongue licking over him, setting him utterly ablaze. Strong hands buried themselves in her hair.
“Come here,” Duncan said hoarsely.
“Soon,” she whispered. “But first…”
Amber’s mouth circled him, tasted him, tested his hardness and resolve with loving caresses. The wildness that gathered in him also gathered in her. At any instant she expected Duncan to overturn her, draw up her knees, and bury himself within her.
Abruptly Duncan sat up and drew Amber’s leg across his thighs until she was astride him, open to him. He found her drenched with the same passion that made his body gleam as though polished with oil.
His hand moved between her thighs, testing and savoring her in the same caress. His fingers came away glistening with her desire. Watching her, he lifted his hand and breathed in deeply, infusing himself with her fragrance.
“Next time,” he said, “I shall know your taste as well. But not this time. This time I am already undone by your sweet mouth.”
“You look quite whole,” she whispered.
Her fingertip rested for an instant on him, just long enough to steal the single, hot drop that had eluded his control. When she brushed her fingertip over her lips, tasted, and smiled, Duncan made the sound of a man in torment. Another drop welled up, called by her pleasure in him.
“Come, witch. Ride the dragon you have summoned from mortal flesh.”
“How does a maid ride a dragon?”
“Like this.”
Duncan’s hands closed on Amber’s hips, pulling her closer even as he lifted her. A instant later his blunt, eager flesh parted her. With a cry of fulfillment, she slid down on him, claiming him as deeply as he was claiming her.
Amber tried to say Duncan’s name, but could not.
His pleasure in her had stolen her voice.
The sudden clenching of his hands on her hips scattered her thoughts and focused her desire.
She began moving, riding him more surely with each slow motion of her hips, feeling his passion and her own with unusual clarity.
When he would have speeded the pace of the ride, Amber lifted one of his hands, kissed it, and put it on her breast.
“You’re enjoying tormenting me,” Duncan said through his teeth.
“Aye.”
His fingers closed on the taut peak of Amber’s breast. A delicate convulsion shivered through her, forerunner of the ecstasy to come. When his hands caressed both nipples into hardness, her back arched and her breath tore. The sweet heat of her passion flowed between their joined bodies.
“Yes,” Duncan whispered. “Let me feel your pleasure.”
Without warning, ecstasy ravished Amber, setting her to shivering and crying. He thrust into her, fusing their bodies together with the searing pulses of his own release.
Feeling Duncan’s ecstasy increased Amber’s, driving her even higher. He rocked his hips against her until she called his name and came completely undone once more.
Then he held her against his chest until both of them could breathe evenly again. Only then did he move, reversing positions until he lay between her legs. He kissed her slowly, deeply.
“Each time you please me more,” Duncan said.
“And you please me more. ’Tis almost frightening.”
“Why?”
“If I enjoyed you any more,” Amber whispered, “I would die.”
“And I would bring you back to life.”
“’Tis impossible.”
“Nay. ’Tis inevitable.”
“We can’t,” she whispered, understanding what he intended. “Can we?”
“We must. We will. Watch me as I watched you. Learn how much I cherish you.”
Slowly Duncan slid down Amber’s body, turning his face from side to side, caressing her with his lips and his words.
“Take me to the place where there are no shadows, only fire,” he said. “Give me the flower that blooms more beautifully each time.”
Amber had no defenses against Duncan’s aching need. Nor did he. It was a passion more complex than any he had ever felt. It was an emotion whose name he did not know, for he had never guessed such a feeling existed.
It was thirst in the midst of sweet water, need in the midst of plenty, hunger in the midst of a feast.
He could not get close enough to her.
Tears filled Amber’s eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. Never had she thought to be cherished so sweetly, tiny kisses and secret tastes, his breath warm against her breasts, her navel, her thighs.
Then Duncan’s mouth discovered her, tasted her, circled the bud that was the burning center of her passion. The unexpected caress was like lightning transfixing her, startling a cry from the back of her throat.
“Precious Amber,” Duncan said, shivering with a torrent of desire. “I swear I can feel your passion like lightning transfixing you.”
Delicately he caught her tender bud between his teeth. She cried out his name with each slow movement of his tongue. Then she could speak no more for she had no breath, she was splintering, crying, dying, consumed by an ecstasy that had no beginning and no end.
In the midst of fire he came to her, and they burned together in a place where there were no shades of darkness, only fire.
AMBER looked out upon the great hall. There were still many serfs, freeholders, and villeins standing about. Only a few of them had expressions that suggested they were still waiting for their seneschal’s attention.
“Are you finished, my lord?” Amber asked.
She had left Duncan long enough to translate a particularly difficult fragment of a manuscript so that Cassandra would have it when she returned from the north. But as soon as the translation was done, she had sought out Duncan.
When Amber wasn’t with him, she felt uneasy, as though he would somehow be taken from her without warning.
“Come sit beside me,” Duncan said, holding out his hand. “I’ll be finished soon.”
The instant Duncan touched Amber, she sensed some of the tension leave both of them. At the moment, his memories weren’t stirring. He was concentrating only on the present and his duties as Erik’s seneschal.
While Amber sat beside Duncan on the raised dais in the great hall, he listened to complaints, resolved them, and listened again.
As he listened, he caressed her hand, recalling for both of them the pleasure and peace they had found in the hours before dawn, when their interlocked bodies had defeated the memories which stalked Duncan like a pack of wolves.
“Has it been a tedious morning?” Amber murmured.
“I have come to believe that all pigs should be hamstrung,” Duncan muttered as the next vassals stepped forward.
Amber saw who the petitioners were and hid her smile.
“Ethelrod must have let his pig root about in the Widow Mary’s garden again,” Amber said.
“Does it happen often?” Duncan asked.
“As often as Ethelrod and the widow lie with each other.”
Duncan gave Amber a sideways glance.
“The pig is quite fond of Ethelrod, you see,” Amber said in a voice that carried no farther than her husband.
“No, I don’t see,” Duncan muttered.
“The pig follows Ethelrod like a faithful hound.”
Duncan’s smile was a white flash beneath his mustache.
“I begin to comprehend,” he said. “Does Ethelrod have an enclosure stout enough to hold a pig?”
“No. Nor can he afford one. He is but a serf.”
“Do they wish to marry?”
“The widow is a freeholder. If they marry, any children they have would be serfs.”
Frowning, Duncan watched the couple who stood so uneasily in front of their new seneschal.
“Does Erik lack for serfs?” Duncan asked very softly.
“Nay. He is a strict lord, but not harsh,” Amber said. “No one flees his service.”
“Has Ethelrod been a faithful vassal?”
“Aye. He has never shirked.”
“How is he thought of by the people of the keep?” Duncan asked.
“They bring their problems to him sooner than they bring them to the priest or to the lord of the keep.”
Duncan kept Amber’s hand within his as he turned back to address the couple standing in front of him.
“Widow Mary,” Duncan said. “Other than Ethelrod’s status as serf, have you any objection to him as a husband?”
The woman was so startled by the question, it took her a moment to answer.
“Nay, lord. He be a hard worker and a kind man to those as is weaker. But…”
“But?” Duncan said encouragingly. “Speak, woman.”
“That pig of his will nae see the inside of my cottage save it enter on a roasting spit!”
The vassals who had remained to watch their new seneschal at work laughed. The running battle between the widow and the pig was a source of much amusement at the keep.
Smiling, Duncan switched his hazel glance to the serf who stood uneasily in the great hall, his cap in his gnarled hands and his ill-shod feet flat as a cart bottom.