A Knight for Love (16 page)

If sorcerer, then he had surely beguiled her for her thoughts at this very moment
fell only on him. If the other, then the minstrels sang true of gallant knights. Either way, she was lost, lost in a storm of deepening love and desire.

“We begin.” Although the words were clipped, abrupt, the tone of them was smooth, seductive and Alyna followed his instructions as if in a trance.

“Lift your arms.” She did and the green kirtle soon followed the tunic. Her hands dropped back slightly and landed on his bare chest and she looked at her fingers splayed against the burnished skin. They almost seemed as if they belonged to another, so foreign was it to see them resting against him.

Beneath her palms, his m
uscles rippled as he dipped the towel in the basin again and began to stroke her arms. Her breasts tingled and peaked, straining against her chemise in twinned splendor.

He must have noticed, for his sudden intake of breath was harsh, loud in the silence of the little room. However, he said nothing, silently rubbing dry her arms before lifting her chemise to peel off her hose and boots.

Again, he dipped the wet corner of the cloth into the basin to begin washing her legs. Goose bumps rose in waves across her arms as he came closer, ever closer to that secret place at the juncture of her thighs. He stopped just short.

She stared at him
wide eyed, wanting to say something but not knowing what. She listened instead to a tower clock somewhere nearby chiming vespers. The sun must have set then.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Alyna, you are so beautiful. That my eyes could not see it that day our paths crossed is a mystery to me for now it is plain as day that you are a beautiful woman.”

Beautiful, he thought her beautiful. She clung to that thought as carefully, he grabbed the hem of her chemise to pull it off. She should feel shame as her breasts stood exposed but she did not.

Instead, she tilted her head back, unknowingly thrusting her breasts ever more forward. She closed her eyes as he slowly began to bathe her torso. He leaned into her as he washed her back and his chest rub
bed against her rucked nipples. Exquisite, how exquisite the sensation.

A little whimper escaped from her throat as he began to lave her breasts. At first she thought it was with the damp cloth, but it wasn’t until she opened her eyes and glanced down that she could see his tongue
dipped and glided, teasing each nub. Gently he began to nibble one nipple as he tweaked the other with his fingers.

“Ohhhh,” she moaned. “Warin
….” His name trailed off her lips as he continued to play with her breasts. Her head lolled back and she closed her eyes again to savor the tingling spreading throughout her body. It culminated in that woman’s place between her legs and she could feel wetness there. For some baffling reason, she wanted to open to him, to spread her legs and she did just that, leaning her weight on one foot to move the other foot further away.

The unconscious movement must have been a signal for Warin, for he again dampened the cloth and began to wash there.

“Alyna, your body betrays you,” he whispered in her ear. “You hunger for me, for something you know naught of. Let me show you,” he brushed his lips lightly over hers, “the beauty of a man and a woman together.”

This time he wet the soap, and massaged it against the damp curls between her legs. Slowly, hypnotically, he rubbed until the wiry strands were thick with suds. Then he dampened the cloth again and wiped off the soap with the same slow, hypnotic pace until she felt as if she would collapse. Something inside her screamed for release, for, instinctively, she began to move in cadence back against his hand, tilting her pelvis upward to increase the pressure.

“Show me,” she pleaded. “Show me, for I yearn, Warin, and I know not for what.”

With a growl, he threw aside the cloth and lifted her onto the bed.

“The anticipation, Alyna, is what makes the coming together special. Watch me,” he commanded roughly. Quickly he stripped off his chausses and his penis sprang free, reminding her of that day in Ada’s hut. Thus he had stood, proudly erect, pulsating with his very lifeblood.

“Remember the bath in Ada’s hut? My body betrayed me. My mind thought you a lad but my body knew better.” He glanced down at himself. “See, my body betrays me again. I hunger for you, Alyna.”

He began to wash, starting with his face and chest, and ending with his groin area. His eyes were on her face as he wiped himself, challenging her, daring her to look away.

Enthralled, A
lyna couldn’t tear her eyes from him as he dragged the linen across his body, for he stood there as a statue, muscles keenly sculpted, belly flat, skin gleaming in the candlelight. She should feel embarrassment yet she did not. It was safe and private here, a privacy shared by only her and Warin and not the affair of the world outside. What happened between these walls belonged to them only.

She began to tremble.

“Cold?”

She shook her head. “Nay.” How could she explain to him her limbs trembl
ed, not with cold, but with expectation?

“Here.” He pulled the bed covers to one side. Obediently she rolled over and now she lay on her stomach.

She could hear the soft thwack as the towel dropped onto the bench and then his breath flared across the back of her neck. The mattress sagged with his weight and she rolled into him a little.

“Alyna,” he breathed. He began to kiss her, light, faerie kisses that made her skin tingle. Gently he stroked her back, whisper soft caresses that caused a tickling sensation in the pit of her stomach.

She clung to the pillow beneath her head, fingers curved and knuckles taut as his hands began to wander over her body, first her buttocks, then her thighs and then slowly back to her shoulders. Each touch was more and more pleasurable and unbidden, her body understood. She arched her back and tilted her pelvis back towards him.

Her response appalled and shocked Alyna, for her physical being knew only too well how to move. Somehow she knew the unfamiliar hardness nestling against her buttocks was the key to her succor and she began to rock her hips against him. The answer lay with Warin – she searched for something from him that would make her complete.

An image flashed through her mind, that of the stallions mount
ing the mares when in heat. With a sudden understanding of what was about to happen, she tried to raise her hips so that Warin could enter, to ease the want inside her that had no words.

“Nay, Alyna,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck. “We do not couple like animals. Let me guide you.” He rolled her over and began to kiss her with a thoroughness that would have
unnerved her under different circumstances. As it was, she opened her mouth eagerly and accepted him. She teetered on the verge of something wonderful and Warin would show her at his own leisure. She had naught to do but enjoy.

Yet Warin delayed the final act, choosing instead to lavish attention again on her breasts. He suckled first one, then the other as his hands moved lower to hold her buttocks. Again, she arched her back and her legs spread open involuntarily. Her eyes were closed, squeezed tightly shut as if that would keep everything to her.

Please, Warin, please, what is it you are to show me? Thoughts tumbled through her mind incoherently as the sensations began to build even more, as he moved himself against her nub, tantalizing her, teasing a response.

Warin
could hold back no longer. With a groan, he slid the tip of his man shaft between her legs. Wetness cascaded around him, showing him her eagerness, easing his penetration and guiding the way. He had done his preparation well, for he slipped in smoothly.

He checked himself for a scant moment, although the reality was that he wanted to plunge and buck and loose the torrent of life fluid that would be his ultimate release.

Her muscles quivered around him and that proved his undoing.

With a jubilant cry, he plunged through the final delicate barrier and claimed Alyna truly as his own. Finding her lips again, he drank from her sweetness as he thrust, gently at first then faster, harder, following the wild rhythm of procreation.

Alyna clung to Warin’s steel tempered body above her, wrapping her legs about him and hooking her ankles together.

It was everything that had been promised and more, a fulfillment that had no words.

She had become one with the man inside her, moving with him and following him in the ageless dance. And when her release came, for what else could it be but the sudden loosening of sensation that had coiled about her, she cried her pleasure into his ear, biting hard on the ear lobe.

One last thrust and she heard him scream too, primal and exultant, a scream echo
ing up into the heavens.

And then they lay there, panting hard, breaths mingling. She could feel him yet inside, could feel his weight pressing down then could feel the wetness as finally, gently, he pulled himself free.

He rolled over to his back, catching her by the shoulders and maneuvering her close so that she lay on her side, nestled within his arms against his left shoulder, face against the hollow of his shoulder blade. It felt natural to crook her leg and drape it across Warin’s flat stomach and now her foot lay in line with his far leg. In the golden flicker of the tapers, she could see her leg on his, an intimate posture that spoke volumes of the new realm they had just entered.

Shyly, she reached her hand over and curled her fingers about Warin’s right shoulder. She gave a contented little sigh and snuggled her cheek deeper into him. She lay there easily while first one then the other taper died out.

The room wasn’t in total darkness, for small slivers of light came in under the door and feathered their way across the floor. From afar, clock bells chimed compline and closer by, a burst of laughter flitted down the hall.

Alyna closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift a minute or two before sleep over took her.

Tonight, she would not dwell on the fact he didn’t love her.

Tonight was pure enjoyment. Tonight, his arms were her haven, what she had been wishing and wanting for.

Tonight was her destiny.

*****

If Alyna but knew it, she would have been much more at ease, for Warin’s thoughts closely tracked hers. He lay there relishing the aftermath of their lovemaking, relishing the triumph of making Alyna his own. Mayhap he didn’t deserve to find the happiness and peace within himself that he sought but for tonight, he could believe in it just for a little while.

Alyna.

Her name echoed through his mind and he glanced down at the tousled tawny head pressed so sweetly to his shoulder. Whisper soft, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

The clerics, the priests, the monks, all were wrong. Heaven, the ultimate paradise, wasn
’t an unknown concept of the skies above. Heaven could be found here on earth, here in the arms of Alyna.

In her arms, he could forget the cruel foibles of mankind. In her arms, he could find the strength to push away the doubts and self-recrimination that followed him always, circled about him always, phantom birds of prey, waiting to swoop down and tear away what few shreds of contentment he could gather.

Alyna. He listened to her breathe, deep and even and calm.

Now came a new fear – could he grow to love her too much? Was she the ultimate irony? Would he find the peace of mind he sought only to have it snatched away by some cruel fate? Snatched away, taken from him as his family had been taken?

Suddenly fearful, he held her even closer, nuzzled his chin into the feathery soft curls.

Nay, fate would not whisk her away. He would not allow it.

Alyna belonged to him.

Chapter Eleven

Autumn must have brushed her ethereal fingers over the earth for seemingly overnight her colors cloaked the land. When they had ridden into London, the forests were still lush and green but now
shades of gold and scarlet covered them, the colors so brilliant they fair pierced the eyes against the crisp blue of the autumn sky.

Alyna
sucked in a lungful of clean air, thankful to be gone from the odors of the city. Was it her imagination or were the colors a little more intense today? Or was it just that her senses were so keenly tuned after the physical awakening of the previous night? Whatever the reason, a happy little smile played on her lips and a contented glow emanated from every pore.

For that, she had to thank Warin. Every now and again she glanced at him, in awe and total disbelief that he was now her husband, both in word and in deed. Aye, she was sore between her l
egs but it made her feel as if he had marked her as his own.

She rode at Warin’s side. Close behind them
jingled the bridle of Bennet’s horse, and behind him some distance, the muffled hoof beats of the company of men provided by King Henry for the recapture of Caperun Keep.

Stalwarts all, they numbered some two and twenty. Their voices lifted in sporadic song, peppered with lewd comments and shouts of laughter. Her cheeks flamed as she caught some of the words but they meant no harm and she didn
’t take offense.