Chapter Twelve #2
He turned back to her, his big body completely nude and stretched out beside her, his heavy, hairy legs against hers, his powerful arms around her, pulling her to him, stroking her back, his hands sliding down to her buttocks.
“I mismanaged the first time, but I will do better this time,” he whispered before kissing her lips again.
This kiss was different, not so gentle but with more yearning and longing in it—and more heat.
Jura’s skin was so hot she felt as if she had a fever.
She did not want him to leave her, but he did as his head began to move downward, down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arm, where he nipped inside her elbow, then he raked her palm across his teeth and Jura’s body contracted with pleasure.
He brought his head to the center of her throat, his tongue licking at the hollow there.
His hands caught both of hers and held them at her side, pinned to the bed as he began to make love to her breasts.
Jura began to moan, her head turning from one side to the other.
She could feel sweat forming on her body as she tried to release herself from some of the intolerable heat building in her body.
His head moved downward, his wet tongue touching her stomach, running along the taut muscles, licking at her hipbones.
He released his hold on her hands and slid his hands under her buttocks to lift her as his tongue slid into her womanhood. Jura gasped, her eyes flying open. “Rowan,” she moaned.
“Yes, my love,” he said, and moved upward to her lips.
Her legs opened to receive him and he slid inside her easily, with no pain, only the most divine pleasure.
Jura arched her body, her head rolling back at the sheer ecstasy of this new sensation.
Slowly, he pulled himself almost out of her, and Jura dug her fingers into the skin of his arms in fear that he might leave her, but he just slid back into her again in that exquisite, torturously slow way.
She opened her eyes to look at him, and the expression on his face made her skin tighten. It was a look of such supreme, all-consuming pleasure that Jura’s heart beat faster.
It did not take her long to catch on to the rhythm of this new sensation of lovemaking. She lifted her knees to better accommodate his deep, slow thrusts. In and out. Again and again. Slowly, gently, smoothly.
It was just moments or perhaps it was days, but Jura began to crave something else or perhaps it was just more that she wanted. She did not know what it was. “Rowan?” she whispered in question.
He opened his eyes to look at her and the fire there made her heart pound.
He changed. Instantly, he changed from gentleness to a wild animal as he roughly grabbed her leg and shoved it around his waist. Jura wrapped her other leg about his waist and lifted her hips as he began to thrust hard and fast. She met his thrusts with an equal force of her own, using her years of training and power to slam together powerfully, building into a crescendo of passion and desire.
When at last she exploded, there were stars in the blackness before her eyes and a roaring in her ears.
She cried out as her arms and legs clutched Rowan with all her strength, holding on to him like a log in the sea.
She strained against him as he shuddered, his body seeming to be racked with spasms.
For a long while they lay together, clinging with the strength of two strong animals, their bodies plastered with sweat, their limbs intertwined.
Rowan was the first to move his head so he could look at her. “I did not hurt you?” he said with a smug little smile.
Jura did not take offense. Her body felt too good to be offended at any words in the world. “I had no idea,” she whispered. “I did not know there was such as this.”
He kissed her cheek. “To be quite honest, I didn’t either. No wonder men…” He trailed off.
“Men what?” she demanded, one eyebrow arched.
“This is why men run from one bed to another. Such pleasure is…” He closed his eyes. “Such pleasure is—”
“Mine,” Jura said coolly.
Rowan looked at her, smiled, and hugged her to him.
They untangled their arms and legs from one another and snuggled close, their sweaty bodies sticking together.
Jura had never felt this way in her life.
It was as if something had always been missing and now was filled.
She turned her head slightly so she could see Rowan’s profile in the candlelight.
Rowan, she thought, not “Englishman,” but Rowan, her husband, a man with a name.
She put her hand up and touched his cheek and he kissed her fingertips, his eyes closed, his body completely relaxed.
“Tell me of your life in England,” she said softly. She had never cared much about his history or about his thoughts but now she wanted to know more about him.
He turned to look at her as if he were studying her. He smiled at her in a way that made Jura feel a bit soft inside, a softness that had nothing to do with passion.
“There is a cold dinner waiting for us,” he said. “Shall we eat while we talk?”
Rowan put his knight’s loincloth on, and Jura, having nothing else to wear, put on his big embroidered tunic.
It left her long legs bare, and when she saw Rowan glancing at them, she made sure they showed at every opportunity.
And the tunic kept slipping off one shoulder, but Jura did not bother to straighten it.
The food was indeed cold but, to her, she had never tasted anything better.
They set the dishes on the carpeted ground, and between the free-flowing wine and Rowan’s eyes looking at her with great intensity, she felt giddy.
His voice—why had she never noticed the golden tones of it before—further intoxicated her.
He told of the responsibility of being king that he had always lived with, how he had rarely been able to please old Feilan or his father.
“You worried that you weren’t pleasing Thal?” Jura gasped. “But he talked of you as if you were a god. The son my mother gave him was nothing to him. He taunted Geralt with you.”
“But he sent instructions to Feilan that I was to do more and more. When I was sixteen and I thought Feilan and I were going hunting, instead, four Lanconians attacked me at once. We fought for hours while Feilan stood and watched.”
“You did not kill them or they you?”
Rowan grimaced. “I realized later that they toyed with me, one protecting the other. I cut a few of them but they merely bruised me. Merely, ha!” he said. “I limped for weeks after that, and I was so angry at Feilan that I could barely speak to him. He was a hard, loveless old man.”
“But he praised you to Thal,” Jura said. “Thal always held you up as an example to Geralt.”
“Who now hates me.”
“With reason. He is a Lanconian prince while you are—” She stopped because Rowan jammed a large piece of bread into her mouth.
“One night, Jura,” he said, with the eyes of a lost puppy begging to be taken home. “One night of peace, please.”
She could not help laughing as she bit off half the bread then, on impulse, put the other half in his mouth. “All right,” she said, smiling, “you may be king tonight, but tomorrow you must prove to me that you are fit to rule.”
“Fit to rule,” he said, and his eyes darkened. “I will show you who is fit to rule.” He began crawling toward her on his hands and knees like some great predatory animal.
Jura started to laugh, but then his loincloth “accidentally” came unfastened and he left no doubt as to his intentions.
Jura’s mouth was suddenly dry and this time there was no fear.
When she flung the tunic from her body and opened her arms to him, she saw the momentary surprise on his face, but she did not understand it.
She had not been raised to be coy, to cover her true feelings with pretense and playacting.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her and she did not pretend otherwise.
After his first shock, Rowan smiled happily at her eagerness.
There was no reason to go slowly this time, and his passion for Jura was raging.
He had looked at those bare legs of hers for two whole hours and he had thought of nothing but mounting her again, but he had been cautious, for an Englishwoman, at least the ones he had known, liked to pretend virginity with each coupling.
But Jura was Lanconian, not English, and she said what she thought, acted upon what she believed, and went after what she wanted. He need never worry about her deceiving him. She would tell him to his face that she believed him right or wrong.
After their first coupling, which he had stupidly bungled, he was afraid she would never want to bed him again, but it looked as if she were about to change her mind, he thought with some smugness.
“Here, my eager darling, let me teach you a few tricks,” he said, smiling at her.
He picked her up and set her down on his manhood and smiled with pleasure at the look of surprise then grateful pleasure on her face.
At least here was one area where she was not calling him a fool.
Here was one place where he had all the knowledge and she had none.
Within seconds, Jura changed his mind on that.
She was strong and clever and lusty and creative in ways Rowan had never dreamed possible.
His encounters with women had not been frequent, as old Feilan had believed war training was more important than bed training, and, too often, Rowan’s encounters had been with jaded women who wanted to say they had been to bed with the handsome prince.
They had forced Rowan to do all the work.
“Jura,” he whispered as his hands stroked her long, hard thighs as she moved up and down on top of him. He thought he might die from the ecstasy she was causing him.