Immortal Warrior (8 page)

“He was very kind.” He was also right about his lord not taking her purse, and Alaida wondered what else the seneschal had correct. More to the point, what else did she have wrong? She’d presumed much about this man before her, and thus far was being proved wrong at every turn. Feeling ever more the fool, she wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at her bare toes for a long while before adding with reluctance, “You are . . . also . . . being very kind.”

Ivo snorted. “Pains you to say that, does it?”

“A little.” Her mouth twisted ruefully. “
Kind
is not a word that has been much on my mind since you arrived at my gate.”

“
My
gate,” he corrected. “Is it so strange an idea, that a man might be kind to his wife?”

“No, my lord. But many men are not, especially to a wife who does not want them.” She sounded small even to her own ears, but pushed on. “And I did not want this marriage.”

“So you have made clear. Numerous times.” The creak of the bed as he rose made Alaida look up. He had rid himself of his hose without her noticing, and now his chainse went, too, tossed aside so that he wore only his braies. He stretched vigorously, like a warrior about to begin combat. “And yet you have it. So now you must decide what you will do with it. With me.”

“I will not fight you, my lord, if that is what you mean.”

“Wise. But I want more from you than simply not fighting.” Holding her eyes, he flipped back the furs to reveal the fresh linens. “Much more.”

Alaida’s mouth went as dry as old parchment. Blindly, she reached for the nearest horn. She’d gulped down several mouthfuls before she tasted Bôte’s spices.

Ivo padded over to the last candlestick and slowly put out the final tapers, leaving her standing in the thin pool of light thrown by the fire and the lamp. Beyond its edge, her lord and husband was a ghostly figure against the blackness, with eyes that glinted like shards of glass as he turned toward her.

She looked away, just for a moment, and when she looked back, he was barely a pace away and the wall of his chest filled her vision, all planes and muscles and pale gold skin.

“You’re trembling,” he said, taking the posset horn from her hand and setting it back in its rest.

“I’m cold.”

“You will find it warm in my arms.” He stepped closer, and as his hands spanned her waist, the heat billowing off his body proved that he, at least, was not lying. “God’s truth, Alaida, I would rather spend the night pleasuring you than sparring with you. Tell me what it will be. Will you make yourself completely mine?”

He used the same words he had in the hall, but filled them now with invitation rather than challenge. The trepidation that had been lying in her belly like a rock suddenly thinned and softened into a warm, smoky mist that curled though her.

“That was the vow you demanded, my lord, and the one I gave. I will honor it.” Her voice grew rough as his thumbs traced lazy circles below her ribs, but she saw the triumph that lit his eyes and fought back in what small way she could. “Though I do not see what pleasure I will find in it.”

“Do you not?” he asked softly as he lowered his head. “Then I must help you hunt.”

His mouth covered hers, gentle at first, then more determined, until she parted her lips to his probing tongue.
I can do this,
she told herself. She could let him take what he wanted without letting it touch her.

“No.” He broke off the kiss and brought one hand up to grip her chin. “You gave yourself away with that kiss, Alaida. I know that you know better. I know that you
want
better.” He tilted her face into a better position, then lowered his lips to within a hair’s breadth of hers. “Now kiss me, wife. Properly.”

She had little choice but to give him the kiss he commanded, the kind she’d so foolishly demonstrated in the hall. This time, though, he kissed back from the first, his tongue parrying with hers, and to her shock, he tasted good, like Bôte’s spices but better. And astonishingly male.

How had she missed that earlier?

Her blood began to stir despite her intentions, and as she sought to bring herself back in hand, he changed his attack, shifting off her mouth to kiss his way down her neck and back up to her ear, where he proceeded to do things with his teeth and his tongue that sent shivers down her spine. Waves of shivers, which continued to wash over her even after he finally returned to her lips. And what he did to her then was even worse.

Or better. Alaida suddenly wasn’t certain. She tried to separate herself again, but couldn’t find the place where his lips left off and hers began.

It was the posset, she thought. Bôte’s spices. That must be why her body was behaving so traitorously, why it was turning all warm and liquid when she didn’t wish it to.

Or perhaps it was the kissing. She liked kissing, what she knew of it, and he did it well, nipping and sucking at her lower lip and then soothing away the ache he created with yet more kisses. Her May Day knight had not used that particular trick, nor had he made her knees go so weak. If he would just keep to kissing . . .

But of course he didn’t. He began to explore her body, his hands moving over her with confidence but also with a gentleness she hadn’t expected. Slowly, she realized she hadn’t lied to Bôte. She wasn’t afraid of him. Nervous about what would happen once he took her into the bed, but not afraid of the man himself. So when he stepped back a half pace and reached for the opening of her chainse and said, “Time to be rid of this,” she blushed, but she nodded.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Ivo,” he said. Carefully, he spread the opening. It parted to reveal a wide wedge of neck and shoulder but would go no further. He placed a kiss at each edge. “You have yet to say my name, except in your vows. I would hear it from your lips.”

“The neck is too narrow,
my lord
,” she said softly, defiant even as she told him how to undress her. “It will not go that way.”

“No?” He dipped his fingers in and brushed his knuckles over her breasts, smiling as her eyelids fluttered, then took the cloth in both hands and gave a sturdy tug. It tore to her navel. “I think it will.”

She blushed more deeply, but stood fast. “Perhaps you are right, my lord.”

“Ivo.” He dipped a hand into the tear and flattened it against her belly. Awareness quivered through her as he slid it lower. She tensed, waiting for that touch,
there
, but he switched directions, slowly tracing a line up her belly with his fingertips, trailing fire between her breasts and up over the soft skin of her throat. Carefully, he tipped the chainse off her shoulders. It slid to her hips and hung, barely. Letting it be, he took his fill with his eyes, then slowly slid his hands up to cup her breasts. She gasped as his thumbs circled the peaks, and his eyes darkened with desire.

He bent to taste her, and that was when she discovered that kissing could be more than lip to lip, that a tongue could do things to her body she’d never imagined in her most sinful daydreams. Sensation spiraled out from where he suckled, joining with the spices to make her giddy with want. Such want. With a harsh, almost unwilling sigh, she curled her fingers into his hair.

He had her.
Ivo would have crowed his victory, except his mouth was full of her summer-sweet flesh and he had no wish to give her up. He tongued over her again and shifted to the other breast, working both until her breath came in uneven gasps.

By Freyja, it was going to be hard to go slow, with his body already screaming to be buried in her. There was a hunger on him he hadn’t expected, keen as the edge of his sword and growing sharper with every breath. He could slake it easily enough, carry her down onto the bed and simply have her, but he wanted more than simple release. The memory of women long ago, women like Ingigerd, who had lain with him not for money or out of obligation but for the joy of it, drove him even more than his wager with Brand.

“Come lie with me, Alaida,” he whispered. She nodded, and he scooped her up and carried her the few feet to the bed. Kneeling over her, he looked down at the woman who would be his, her lips and breasts smudged and swollen from his mouth, and her fair skin carrying the flush of a woman ready for a man. He reached for the tie to his braies, but thought better of it. If he bared himself now, he would be in her in a heartbeat, maidenhead or no.

“I will not hurt you,” he vowed to them both as he reared back and dragged the torn kirtle from her hips.

Her legs splayed a little as he yanked the linen free, enough for him to see the shadowed gate to her womanhood. Reddish curls, the same rich copper as her hair, surrounded it, begging for his touch, and only force of will kept him from falling on her like the raider he had once been. Like the eagle he was.

To slow himself, he started with her lips and kissed his way down, pulling another gasp out of her as he locked his lips over her breast again. She reached out for him and he let her pull him down, twisting to land beside her instead of on her, so that he retained both his sanity and free range of her body. His hands wandered over her skin as he suckled her again, making her fingers clutch at his back and his hair. He shifted and kissed his way to her belly.

“My lord,” she panted, tugging at his hair, trying to bring him back to her breast.

“Ivo,” he said into the soft mound of her belly. He dipped his tongue into the almond shape of her navel and felt her shiver. “Say my name.”

He turned his head to watch her face while he slid his hand down and filled it with all that copper. She stilled. Her eyes got very wide, and her mouth opened in a round
Oh
. She clamped her thighs together.

As if that would stop him.

Grinning at her innocence, he curled his fingers down to find the tender bud he knew was the source of pleasure in womankind, took possession, and began to toy with it as he had her breasts. It swelled to his touch, and as it did, her legs began to churn restlessly, gradually easing apart. The scent of her curled up and grabbed him. Musky. Woman-y.

With a groan of surrender, he pressed her thighs apart and put his mouth to her. She arched and cried out in shock, pushing at his head. “What are you doing?”

Chuckling, he caught her hips and held her as she tried to scoot away. “It is the sweetest part of love-play, Alaida. The sweetest part of the hunt for pleasure. Let me show you.” He let his breath warm the place he’d kissed. “Give yourself over to it. You will see.”

He lowered his mouth to her again. She held herself rigid at first, but before long, she relaxed and slowly opened to him, and he settled in to enjoy himself as he helped in her hunt. She began to stir, to shift and squirm under his tonguing and the gentle exploration of his fingers. He looked to her face again to see if it was pleasure or unwillingness that made her move. She had squeezed her eyes shut, as women oft did in their passion, and was biting down on her lip. It was pleasure, for certs, and if he had any doubts, they burned away as she suddenly lifted to take his fingers into her. Her dew flooded over his hand, warm as summer honey.

By the gods, for all her supposed reluctance, she was as wet and heated as ever he’d known a woman to be. And yes, she was virgin. With a smile, he swirled his tongue down into the folds to taste her more deeply.

That’s when he heard it, a distant keening that faded as quickly as it rose. He stilled, not sure it was truly there or that it came from her. Testing, he rasped his tongue across the same spot. The sound rose again, faint and low, but real. With mounting excitement, he closed his lips over the spot and drew her into his mouth.

And then the most amazing thing happened.

She moaned.

The sound was guttural, almost vicious with need, and as it broke from her lips, the need to make her truly his thudded through his veins like life itself, shattering what little remained of his patience. He wanted that heat she held within her. He needed it. It suddenly became impossible to wait. To breathe. To think.

In one motion, he stripped away his braies and was over her, pressing her down as he positioned himself and slid into her, just a little.

She froze, then squirmed, trying to escape him.

“Be still, Alaida. I can’t . . .” He slipped in a bit more. He was hurting her, he knew he was, but with her moving like that, he couldn’t help himself. He tried to pull back.

“No.” Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she squirmed again.

“Shh, sweet leaf. Shh,” he soothed. He fought to move slowly, to do it the way he’d planned, but she was so warm, so alive, so young and sweet. She moved like flame beneath him, bucking and writhing, drawing him deeper even as she tried to throw him off. He pinned her hands down, kissing her, ready to demand again that she lie still so he could do this properly, but she lifted again and in a heartbeat he was buried in her, too fast. She cried out, but still she wouldn’t stop moving and the lust was on him and there was nothing he could do.

He came suddenly and hard, shoving into her, taking her, claiming her.

His. His wife.

For as long as the gods would let him keep her.

His.

 

SAINT PETER’S KNEES, what had just happened?

Alaida stared up into the draperies, a single tear dampening the corner of each eye. For all her high words, she wasn’t able to stop those two tears.

Just like she hadn’t been able to stop herself from moving against him, showing him she was a whore, after all, and for naught. She hadn’t found it, whatever it was he had set her seeking. It had been there, almost, and then gone as he came into her, dissolved in the stretching fullness, her cry of disappointment following it away.

And now she had to lie here beneath him as his passion ebbed and his breathing slowed. He would roll off her soon and fall asleep, if what little she’d heard of these things was true, and she would be able to ease away from him and find some way to take herself back. She closed her eyes and waited.