“Relax,” he said. “Feel me.”
She fell back with a cry of surrender. How could she do anything but feel him? He caressed her intimately, acquainting his tongue with every one of her secrets. Driving her relentlessly to a place she’d never been before. Sensations built one on top of the other, threatening to wash over her.
He slipped a finger inside of her. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. He stretched her gently, never ceasing his scandalous caresses. Her muscles tightened. A scalding flush brought perspiration to her skin. She felt fevered, a little frightened by the intensity of her pleasure. Surely, if she let herself go, these feelings would consume her.
Without warning, he covered her again. His mouth sought hers, and he kissed her deeply, hungrily. Tasting her woman’s musk on his lips, she became a creature of instinct. Her hips rose to greet his tumescence, needing, longing for him to ease the sudden emptiness.
She expected some measure of pain, but it would be far worse a plight to be deprived of the sensations she’d just felt. He continued to kiss her as the tip of his manhood nudged her opening. Then with a sudden surge, he tore through her resistance, and sank himself to the hilt. The sting of pain was so intense, she failed to swallow her cry. She tried desperately to back away from it, but she could not. She was impaled by him.
Just as suddenly the pain receded. She let out a sigh of relief. And then she became aware of a gratifying, overwhelming fullness.
“Clarise?” he whispered, his voice strained by some private torment. “Are you all right?” He lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes glazed with passion.
“Fine,” she reassured him, though her own voice was thin and high. “The pain is gone.”
He pulled out of her slowly, leaving a trail of fire along her woman’s passage. Clarise hissed at the scalding heat, yet at the same time she felt a sudden deprivation.
He sank back into her softness, making her sigh. There was no pain this time, only a warm rush of fullness. “Again,” she cried, as the pleasure she’d felt before gathered unexpectedly.
“By God, I don’t deserve this,” he murmured, breathing heavily. “You are so lovely, so sweet.” He raised her legs higher, so that on his next thrust, he sank even deeper. Clarise moaned at the sweet satisfying sensation of his claim.
Their shadowed gazes merged. Buttered in the moonlight, he looked somehow familiar to her, his body ridged with passion. Had she dreamed him? Their lips gently touched. Their bodies came together, sweaty now, taut and straining. She arched her hips, craving more. He set a tempo that nudged her higher with every thrust. She fisted the bedsheets in one hand and clutched him with the other.
He began to whisper as he’d done before, scalding words that made her shiver and pant. She clung to his broad shoulders. I am one with the Slayer, she marveled. He is part of me forever. She opened herself to be ravished. Gently, but inexorably, he slid inside of her, again and again, deeper and deeper. He told her how she made him feel—how sleek, how wet, how tightly she held him.
His words pushed her over the top. With a soft cry, she came undone. Her pulsing muscles beckoned him to follow. He groaned against her mouth, thrusting three more times. Then he stilled, his heart thudding hard against her breasts.
After a moment he took his weight on one elbow and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Then he traced the graceful arch of her eyebrow, the full sweep of her lower lip. “You make me forget,” he whispered on a note of wonder.
“Forget what, my lord?” She could barely think, let alone remember anything.
“Christian,” he said, reminding her to say his name.
She smiled, cherishing the intimacy. “Forget what, Christian?”
He looked down at her breasts, pressed to his chest. “Who I am,” he said at last. His lashes swept up again. He gave her his semi-smile and kissed her, lingering with such tenderness it made her eyes sting.
She didn’t know what to say to his confession. She savored the closeness of their bodies, of their mind and spirits. “What will we be when tomorrow is over?” In the unguarded moment the question slipped out of her.
He held her more firmly. “What do you mean?” he asked, sounding as worried as she felt.
She smiled ruefully and looked away. “Never mind.”
“Nay, tell me what you meant,” he insisted.
How to put it in words? “Will I ever be more to you than a mother for Simon?”
Her question visibly startled him. He took a deep breath and pressed himself deeper. She fancied she could feel him swelling inside of her again. “You are already more,” he growled.
The answer pleased her, as did the echoing tingle at her core. He caught her mouth in a kiss that was frankly ravenous. His sudden hunger sparked her own. She met his thrusts with a deep, answering need.
A long time later they lay among the twisted sheets, a sheen of sweat on their skin. She asked him another question that was nagging her. “How will you kill Ferguson tomorrow and make it look like an accident?”
She felt him tense against her. “I don’t want to talk about the morrow,” he replied, his tone suddenly dangerous.
The sound of his voice made her shrivel inside, but she was not so easily turned away. “Why won’t you tell me what you’ve planned?” she persisted. “All you’ve said is that you’ll kill him in a joust. How, without rousing the suspicions of his men, without causing a war?”
A full minute passed, and still he did not answer. Disappointed, she laid her head back on his shoulder, fearing she had angered him.
“There will be no war,” he whispered with certainty.
She wondered how he could be so sure. She listened to the even thud of his heart. Her fingers coiled gently around the soft whorls of his chest hair. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of repletion.
They would still have this when tomorrow was over. Perhaps their passion would deepen to abiding affection. It was a simple thing to imagine, a natural thing. She snuggled closer. She felt treasured and replete. She had a strong arm to protect her. A lover to warm her on winter nights. It was more than most women had in a husband.
A soft snore followed on the heels of her observation. Christian had fallen asleep. At least he had the peace of mind to do it. Her mouth quirked. For herself, she doubted she would sleep at all on the eve of Ferguson’s demise.
At the crack of dawn Christian garbed himself in chain mail and led his mount across the drawbridge. With the visor of his helm open, he absorbed the scene that awaited him. Ferguson’s warriors were up and stirring, their green plaid buried under thick, steel hauberks. They had traded their costume swords for sturdier weapons.
They milled about a campfire, their expressions grim. What had begun as an alliance would end in war if Ferguson failed to meet the challenge the Slayer had put to him last night.
Christian recalled the Scot’s expression when he’d charged him of his crimes before the wedding guests. He had sent Clarise to their bridal bower to shield her from any potential ugliness. He wished he could have done the same for her mother and sisters, who’d looked on, as pale as ghosts.
At his challenge, the Scot had spewed ale across the table. He’d blustered and protested. He’d turned an alarming shade of red. Kendal had lunged across the table with his costume sword in hand, only to be restrained by his own men. The Slayer’s men-at-arms displayed the points of their swords to discourage the Scots from reacting rashly.
Ferguson’s protests could not sway the warlord from standing in judgment of him. To prove your innocence, Ferguson, you must meet me tomorrow in a contest of arms, a battle to the death.