Lady Gallant (50 page)

"Now," he said in a low, exultant voice, "now I have you." He kissed her nipples, then lifted his head to stare into her eyes. "At last, I have you as you have had me."

She tried to attend to his words, but she found their shift in position distracting. She wiggled her hips, and Christian sucked in his breath. Fascinated, she slipped her hands into his hose and grasped his buttocks. Squeezing the muscles, she turned her attention to the feel of his penis inside her. As she did so, she found that she could
move
her inner muscles to increase the feeling of fullness. It was easy.

"God's mercy, Nora, stop!"

"No."

He cursed and braced his hands on either side of her, shoving to try to withdraw. She pulled him back with her hands on his buttocks and sucked him farther into her body with her newfound muscles. He fell on top of her with a cry, then arched his back, forcing himself even deeper.

"Please, no," he muttered, closing his eyes and flinging his head back. "I can't. Ahhh!"

Feeling the swell of his organ, Nora lifted her hips against him. His penis responded, growing and shuddering in spasms to fill her again. A cry of defeat burst from his lips, and he surrendered with a renewal of his practiced movements. Obediently he pumped his organ back and forth, unable to escape. Soon Nora burned anew and they succumbed to their own lust in a mindless explosion.

Nora welcomed Christian's burning flesh as he collapsed on top of her. His hot cheek rested against hers. His arms and legs lay spread and trembling. He was heavy, but after all, it was her fault he was so exhausted.

She thought about his attempts at love magic and smiled. Only a man deeply in love would risk making a fool of himself. If his friends ever found out he'd consulted goodwife Winnie, he would suffer from their amusement and derision. Goodwife Winnie was a village cunning woman, one of many renowned in rural England for her knowledge of benevolent magic.

She remembered Christian's opinions about love magic, voiced long ago. Secure in his own near-magical appeal to women, he'd scoffed at poor louts who resorted to trickery. What such buffoons needed, he'd declared, was lessons in how to use their bodies to pleasure women, not spells. Poor Christian had been desperate indeed to have fallen so low.

Poor Christian. She turned her face to nuzzle his cheek, and heard his voice, low and vibrant with satisfaction, as he sang to her once more.

I have a gentle cock,

Croweth me day:

He doth me risen erly

My matins for to say.

I have a gentle cock,

Comen he is of gret:

His comb is of red coral,

His tail is of jet…

His eynen am of cristal,

Loken all in aumber:

And every night he percheth him

In mine ladye's chaumber.

Nora hadn't thought it possible for her skin to grow hotter than it was already. She burrowed her head into Christian's neck as he chuckled at her.

Poor Christian indeed.

Dreams relinquish their mastery, yielding to drowsiness, and Christian's wits surfaced from oblivion. A curious and disturbing state was this peace, he mused. He lay on his back, unwilling to rouse further, for when he did he knew he would suffer all the agitation of a spider with a torn web. It was almost Greek in its tragedy, his inability to trust his conquest. As if to underscore his apprehension, one of his eyes popped open to search through the fading darkness for Nora.

He spied a curve, and beholding it was all that was necessary to evoke a twitch between his legs. The other eye flew open, and he snaked his body over the mattress to plant his hips against her buttocks. Burrowing beneath the covers, he found her neck. Nora snuggled into the curve of his body, and he grinned a foolish grin he would never have allowed Inigo or anyone else to see. She had forgiven him, and he was silly with the generosity of her trucemaking.

If only he could be sure it was Nora who willed their communion and not the spells of goodwife Winnie. Nora had laughed at him for following Winnie's instructions about the mandrake root. Even now he blushed to think he'd believed the old woman when she said he mustn't pull the root from the ground himself. Still, Nora had appeared so quickly that night, she could have been ensorcelled to submit to him. Would her love disappear with the magic?

Even as he rubbed his groin against her pliant flesh, Christian had to thrust this fear aside. She had giggled at the notion that she wanted him because he had bewitched her. With an endearing blush she'd adjured him, protesting that his own sweet body was magic enough, and then proving it by worshiping it with her mouth. After this proof, he had spirited Nora to his chamber and refused to let her out for two days.

The two days hadn't been long enough to ease his lust, born as it was of a release from the fear that he would never have her again in any way. Peace was his undeserved reward—peace that arose from the knowledge that he was loved in spite of his most grievous faults and transgressions, and in spite of his rutting and uncontrollable lust. He felt Nora's hand fish behind her to clasp his penis, and he smiled. Mayhap his lust was not a fault in the eyes of its object. He sucked in his breath when she squeezed him.

"No wonder Mag caviled at giving you up," she said.

He shoved himself into her grip and bit the back of her neck. "She's had me since I was a babe and thinks she owns me."

"Not now. I do." Nora turned to face him.

"No one owns—
God's blood
!"

Christian's entire body arched as Nora pinched him with one hand while bringing her other hand up to cup him and squeeze. Before he could recover, she dove beneath the cover, took him in her mouth, and sucked hard. Clawing at the sheets, he only succeeded in tangling his arms into immobility. He fought the covers, trying to pull free of Nora's mouth at the same time. He almost won, but she outwitted him by shoving his thighs apart and using her teeth.

Searing jabs of pleasure drove him past thought, and he lifted his hips from the bed, pumping into her mouth while he writhed and gasped with a loss of control beyond his experience. When she squeezed the pouch beneath his sex, he hurled himself up blindly, lunging for her. Trapping his giggling wife beneath him, he set about erasing her triumphant smirk.

Though it cost him, he held her motionless, legs apart, while he cast the covers from the bed. Placing his hand over her sex, he cupped her firmly, yet did nothing else. She tried to wiggle, but his only concession was to lick her breasts. For long minutes he devoted himself to sprinkling long kisses on her nipples while refusing to remove his hand. He could feel her swelling and moistening, yet he kept his hand still.

Knowing she was trying to guess when he would move, he kept her in suspense as he took a nipple between his teeth and tugged, first one way and then another. Stiff and wet when he released it, the nipple jiggled before his eyes, and Nora hissed at him. Chuckling, he molded his lips around the peak and sucked. Then he stopped.

Still holding her, he lay his head on her breast and waited, listening to her ragged breathing. When it was almost normal, he slowly pressed with his index finger, sliding between moist folds, drawing it up to the apex of her thighs. He repeated the act again before parting her and loving her with his mouth. He kept at it until her nails scored his back. At that sign he rose, lifted her legs, bracing her thighs on his arms, and shoved into her.

It was then that he misjudged. His penis already ripe and painfully swollen, it took only that plunge to vanquish his precarious control. He rammed hard, and Nora clawed at his back. Working his hips with raw fury, he pleasured himself while she tried to swallow him with her mouth and her womb.

To his awe, Nora grasped his thighs and manipulated him to her own satisfaction. She forced his hips up against hers, then released a crescendo of groans as she climaxed. Her moist flesh sucked at him, and he ground himself into her mindlessly until he burst, spewing his wet release into that demanding vessel.

As he quivered in the aftermath of his pleasure, awareness returned. He opened his eyes to find himself on all fours, embedded in his voluptuous tormentor. Bewildered, he looked about the chamber, unable to believe his surroundings were the same, for surely he was not.

Sated though he was, a feral possessiveness flooded him, and he briefly considered sweeping this woman away to Castle
Montfort and locking her in a tower where no man but he could touch her. Madness.

A whimper escaped him as he pulled free of Nora, then lowered himself on top of her. He sighed, and she stroked his hair. He smiled at her whispered words of admiration, vowing to himself not to let her know how near to submission she'd driven him. There was no imagining what she would do to him if he surrendered mastery. Intrigued by the thought, he drifted into slumber wrapped in the soft arms and legs of his love.

Christian woke some hours later to the sight of Nora lacing her overgown. A caul of silver rested on the back of her head, in no way containing the wild locks that curled around her face and shoulders. She tied a last bow and looked up to find him watching her. At his frown, she sidled away from the bed, then sprang for the door. He leapt after her and threw himself against the portal in time to block her way. She bumped into his chest.

Catching her by the shoulders, he set her away from him. "No, sweeting."

"This is the third day," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

"I don't care."

"I have work to do."

He pointed behind her. "In that bed."

"You're afraid."

He lifted one brow. "Not of you."

"Yes, of me."

"Get back in bed, wife. I've more bawd's tricks to teach you."

"Christian de Rivers, your subtleties and cozening fool me not." She stepped close and poked him in the chest with one finger. "When roused you're capable of all evil, but you've cast aside your devil's mask with me, and I won't allow you to don it again. You're afraid the past days have been but a spell. That's why you're acting like a bee with a plucked stinger."