A Knight In Her Bed (2 page)

She moved against him, testing him, and found he fitted
perfectly after all. He pressed deep inside her, making her melt and moan, her clit a hard little bead of pleasure. She shifted so that his shaft was rubbing against it, sending shivers of delight through her. He used one hand to tug down her neckline, finding her naked breast, and bent to place his wet open mouth on her soft flesh.

Her hips quivered, her belly tightened, and she let her head fall back as he suckled on her breast, her long dark hair almost reaching the floor
.  

Juliet
could feel the end coming, that burst of pleasure that left her feeling that the world was a wonderful place and she was grateful to be alive in it.

And then
suddenly he was lifting her, still joined to him, and carrying her to the bed. Surprised, she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held her tight, his cock embedded deep inside her.

He lay her
down on the furs of his bed and she felt herself sinking into them, trapped. The chair was one thing. A quick, hard tussle and she could leave without looking back, but here in his bed, in his arms, looking up into his ruined face and silver eyes, she was suddenly very much out of her depth.

“
I . . .” she began.

But he
was already thrusting deeply into her, taking her words, stripping her of whatever objections she had. She tried to turn off her feelings, but it was impossible. Her body was rushing toward its climax and nothing could stop it, certainly not when he seemed to know exactly how to touch and caress her to make her come.

Moving quickly now, his
strong back arched, his hands tugging at her hair almost painfully, his body grinding between her thighs. She revelled in the sensation of his skin against hers, their bodies striving to be as one.

The climax was better than anything
anyone had ever given her. It was like spinning into a star filled night, and when she closed her eyes to shut out his rigid features, her head was still spinning.

He rolled off her but
at the same time wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into him and holding her there. They were both breathing hard, and she was glad of his grip, anchoring her to the earth when she might otherwise fly off it and into space. But after a time his grip felt more like a jailer than a lover, and she moved to climb off the furs and stand up. He didn’t let her go.

“I have to leave,” she said neutrally
, trying not to panic. “I have to go to my—”

“Your sister, yes I remember
,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made her think he no longer believed her.

Uneasy now, s
he tried again to pull away from him but again he would not let her go.

“You will ride with us
tomorrow,” he said, and gave a sudden jaw breaking yawn.

“But . . .”

“I don’t think I want to let you go, Juliet. You are like no other woman I know and I want to keep you, for a while at least.”

“What if I have important matters to attend to?” she said with narrowed eyes. “I’m not a pet you can put a collar and chain on, and force to stay at your side.”

“I don’t want a pet,” he retorted. “Will you stay?”

Stay? Juliet had never stayed anywhere in her life
, at least not for very long. She had never had a proper home. It was not that she hadn’t wanted one—it was one of her dreams—but it had never happened. The thought of putting her heart in his hands, of actually letting herself relax and believe she may have found the man for her, frightened her.

He looked at her
. She smiled and shrugged, complacent, all the while knowing that the first chance that came, she’d be gone.

They lay warm in each other’s arms, but when she thought he must be asleep and moved to put some space between them, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

“There are guards at the door,” he said quietly, and it sounded like a warning.

“Good,” she said, to surprise him.

He gave a deep chuckle.

“What is your name?” she said at last. She hadn’t asked before, it hadn’t seemed important when she would never see him again, but now she needed to know
what sort of man she’d gotten herself entangled with.

“
Wulfrich,” he said. “Lord Wulfrich. But they call me—”

“Wolf.”

Had she really spoken it aloud? The shock, of course. Normally she would have been more cautious.

His silver eyes stared into hers for a long moment, and then a smile quirked his mouth on the good side. He was waiting for her to confess
her secret to him but Juliet tightened her own lips and said nothing. She closed her eyes to block him out, and pretended to sleep. Soon she heard his soft snores and gave up pretending.

Lying rigid at his side, Juliet waited a little longer and then she
slipped out from under his arm and rolled away, off the bed, sitting with her knees folded and her chin resting upon them, staring across at him as if she expected him to jump up at any moment. She felt like a cornered animal; a frightened cornered animal.

Juliet
knew the name.
Wolf.
It was a name she had repeated to herself many times over the past months, since her friends the travelling minstrels had vanished from Kendall Keep. She’d sworn the day she found them gone that if she ever met with this man she would cut his throat and smile as his blood flowed. She’d been searching for him, circling him and getting closer and closer, and yet no one had said he had that scar, no one had said he would capture her senses and make her helpless with desire.

No one had told her he would make her heart and body sing, and cause her to betray her friends so utterly and completely.

The Wolf didn’t sleep long.

Before dawn he was up, stretching, pausing a moment when he saw Juliet curled up on the cushions across the tent, her hair
like dark tangled silk about her, her bare feet tucked up under her skirts. She could feel his gaze on her and held her breath, wondering if he meant to come and touch her, turn her over and begin the kisses and the caresses that had led to last night in his bed.

She almost wanted him to. Despite knowing who he was, her body tingled and
grew wet, readying itself for his lovemaking.

But evidently he wasn’t in the mood. She heard him pad across to the tent opening and the low murmur of words exchanged with the guards outside. Soon there were heavier footsteps and the
delicious smell of food. Juliet’s stomach growled and she decided it was time to wake up.

Stirr
ing and then stretching, she opened her eyes wide. The food was on the table before her, with a new jug of wine and this time two goblets. Juliet stood up, pushing her hair back over her shoulder, and grimacing at the aches in her muscles. The tent seemed empty, and she made a beeline for the food, reaching for a piece of the coarse bread and lathering it with the soft cheese. She took a huge bite, and snatched up an apple with the other hand, for later.

“You slept well, Juliet?”

His voice startled her and she jumped, swallowing the food painfully.

He was behind her
, near the wall of the tent, and she hadn’t known he was there. Or perhaps she was so focussed on the food she hadn’t realised. Juliet turned, trying on a smile, feeling it waver when she set eyes on him.

He was stripped to the waist,
and he was washing his chest with a cloth dripping with water from a bowl.

A
nd he was a sight to behold.

The muscles on his chest and stomach made ridges under the skin, and there was a smattering of dark hair
s that disappeared beneath the fastening of his breeches. As he wrung out the cloth, his biceps bulged. A tattoo like a Celtic cross wrapped around the right one, and there were scars here and there, the sort of marks a man of war might accumulate in his life. But they didn’t detract from his beauty; rather they enhanced it. Juliet found her gaze slipping lower, imagining her fingertips against his warm skin, running down to the tight breeches that clung to his hips and moulded his long legs.

Her gaze lingered on s
trong muscular thighs and the large bulge between them that she remembered only too well as it had filled her, making her strive to take him all before she cried out with pleasure. The memory brought a tremor to her belly and an ache to the sensitive tips of her breasts.

His
silver eyes were fixed on her as he soaped his skin and then rinsed it, slowly, taking his time, his scarred face intent. She knew he was remembering it too. The food was forgotten. Almost against her will, watching the hypnotic movement of his hands over his body, she took a step, and then another, closing the distance between them.

Today she found the scar less shocking, as if she
had already grown accustomed to it, or maybe it was just that it was as much a part of him as his warrior’s body and his silver eyes. She was close enough now to reach out and touch him, and she did so, letting her finger trail over the damp skin of his chest, pausing to tangle in his dark hairs, down to the place where his breeches clung to his hard flat belly.

“I thought you were hungry,” he said, his husky voice sending shivers up her back.

There was only one answer to that but even as she opened her mouth to give it, her hand brushing the growing swell inside his breeches, she remembered who he was and what he had done.

Her desire
was still strong, but now it shamed her. She stumbled back a step, and then another. He was frowning, watchful, clearly aware that something was wrong.

“Are you well?” he growled, setting down the cloth and moving toward her.

Juliet told herself she didn’t want him to touch her. This was the man who had been at Kendall Castle when her friends vanished. She alone had been left, lying sick in a bed in the village inn, unable to perform. The next day her friends did not return as they’d promised, and when she went to the castle to find them no one would tell her where they had gone. Something was wrong. There had been a death there the night of the feast. Lord Edward of Kendall, who had held the castle and lands for Matilda for many years now, had died, and there was a new lord in his place, Lord Wulfrich. The servants were frightened.

“They’re gone, that’s all,” one of the
m shouted, waving a hand at her. “Go and ask the Wolf if you want to know what happened. Go on. I dare you.” And he’d chuckled nastily.

And now here she was, face to face with
the Wolf, and asking was on the tip of her tongue.

He caught hold of her arm
, pulling her in against his bare chest, and she felt as if she might faint. A combination of desire and fear and exhaustion whirled her around. “Juliet?” she could hear him saying her name, and then she was lying on the furs, breathing quickly, trying to steady her pounding heart.

“What is it?” he said sharply, and she looked up into his face
. He was kneeling over her and his eyes were daring her to answer, to tell him the truth.

The words
spilled out of her. “You killed my friends. Six months ago at Kendall Castle. They went to perform and then they were gone and I was all alone.”

He frowned at her. “
Kendall Castle?” Something flickered in his eyes. “You’re one of the minstrels,” he sighed. “I should have known when you turned your somersaults. Now I think of it they spoke of a Juliet. They wanted me to fetch you.”

Listening to him,
Juliet could only think that the rumours were true.

A tear ran down her cheek and she turned her face away
, burying it against the furs of his bed.

She felt him leaning closer,
the brush of his skin against hers, and then his warm tongue traced her tears, taking them into his mouth. She tried to pull away, pretending she was disgusted, but he held her, his lips brushing against her cheekbone, before finding her mouth. The kiss deepened and the taste of him, the touch of him, almost stripped her of the will to fight. It was only with an enormous effort that she pulled away.

“My friends,” she
cried out. “Tell me what you did with my friends.”

He nuzzled against her, and whispered in her ear,
“They are safe. Trust me.”

“How can I?” she said, more tears falling.

“There was a man called Henry who threatened to fight me, and a girl called Leonora who looked at him with adoring eyes, and an old man called Renton who creaked when he laughed.”

She gaped at him. “You . . . you could have found that out before you killed them,” she said at last, suspiciously.

He gave a huff of disgust. “Why would I kill harmless minstrels, Juliet? Trust me. You trusted me last night in this very bed. Trust me now.” The last words were a command, as if she was one of his army of men.

She wavered, but he must have thought that was answer enough, because his hands became busy
with her gown, unlacing it, pulling it over her
head. At the sight of her nakedness he made a sound of appreciation and cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing them before he began to suckle upon them, twirling his tongue about her budded nipples. When he sucked hard she clung to him, her fingers tangled in his dark hair, her body arching toward him.