Part 33 (1/2)
Then again, she thought she might die like Desdemona when he got close enough to put his hands on her, but she'd die happy because she knew she'd aroused him.
”Have we declared a king's truce?” Bella asked as his arms encircled her, taking her down onto the quilted coverlet that made a thin mattress on the cot.
”Nay.” His bare knee impacted first, wedging forcefully at the juncture of her thighs. Then his whole body was above hers with only inches separating them. That knee pressed even harder and he demanded, ”Yield, Bella.”
He dropped the last inch or two, his weight pinning Bella beneath him. His mouth slashed across hers, ending conversation. Bella yielded when she felt the enormous size of his c.o.c.k pressing against her thighs.
His lips sealed over hers and his tongue plunged deep inside her mouth. She felt his teeth and his need filling her and in return suckled very gently upon the sweet flavor of him. She brought her hands up to stroke the slick smooth skin rippling down his torso. Strong, bulging arms, knotted with straining, trembling muscle. For her! It was heaven.
He groaned violently over the need building in his loins. He caught hold of both her knees, splitting her wide open.
Whatever cry she might have made was lost in the thrust of his tongue as it mirrored the strike of his shaft. Both sank into her in one unified a.s.sault, seated to the hilt, conquered.
His camp cot was never meant for the service they put it to. He made one mighty lunge at the end and every nerve inside Bella peaked, shattering like chrysanthemum fireworks on the Fourth of July. The cot broke. It wasn't far to fall, but Bella screamed through the whole o.r.g.a.s.m that was taking her body, soul and spirit to the limit.
Chandos pressed his hand over her mouth, crooning silly lover's words like ”I'm sorry” and ”Are you all right?” which was totally superfluous. When she finally came down from the shuddering powerful peak, he was on the bottom, cradling her. His blasted hand remained clamped over her mouth in a belated attempt to keep twenty thousand men unaware of what they were doing. Like it mattered what others in this world thought?
Bella shook his hand away from her mouth. ”Okay, I'm not going to scream again, Chandos.”
”It isn't the screaming that alarms me, milady, it's the way you demand the Son of G.o.d should help you along the way. I don't believe it was ever His intent for a woman to experience such excess.”
”Then He shouldn't have dropped me in the lap of a man hung like you.” Bella laughed. Her head collapsed on his shoulder, her ear pressed against his constant heartbeat. She snuggled against him, loving the way his hair-roughened chest stuck to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the feel of his strong as oak legs cradled by her thighs.
”I hate to give in to a weakness, Chandos, but I think I could learn to love making up like this. Maybe we ought to argue more often.”
”Explain to me exactly what you mean by that.”
”Oh, I don't know,” Bella shrugged the shoulder that lay under the palm of his right hand. ”I'm just glad things are settled now. Give me a minute or two before I have to get up and get dressed. Geoffrey and I have a hard ride ahead of us if we're to reach Calais by noon. I'm looking forward to going home.”
”You think you are leaving?”
”Yes, of course we're leaving.” She emphasized. ”I'm not sticking around to witness this b.l.o.o.d.y awful ma.s.sacre. I'd go ape and I'd just get in the way trying to bandage every wound on the field. Besides, I've commissioned a s.h.i.+p from Mangus O'Donnell to take me and the boys home today.”
”You commissioned a s.h.i.+p from a pirate?” he repeated flatly.
”Sure. Why not? He's perfectly respectable. He is Papa Saint Pierre's next door neighbor.”
”You are not going back to Calais.”
”I have to. Henri's staying with the O'Donnell's, waiting for me to come with Geoffrey. I have to go and get him, too.”
Chados became as still as uncut marble. ”Say that again,” he said.
Bella's eyes slid sideways to gauge the expression on his face. Whoops! she thought, Way to go, big mouth! Did I just make a blunder or what? She wasn't about to repeat those exact words. His arm tightened across her back and that strong, rested hand pressed into her shoulder fiercely.
”Bella, where is Henri?”
”Uh...uh,” Bella ducked her chin down, thinking fast. What rhymed with Henri? Her brain failed her. ”Did I say Henri? I meant Geoffrey. You've got me so stirred up I can't think straight.”
”Is that so?” He moved. Like a mountain erupting and Bella tumbled off his chest and sprawled on the a.s.sorted bedding strewn across the tent floor. ”You left my son Henri in the care of Mangus O'Donnell?”
”Uh, did I say that?” Bella slapped the heel of her hand to her forehead, praying he'd believe her. ”Ha, ha, oops, sorry. No, Henri's not in Calais. Why would you think that? Henri's at home where he belongs, of course. I said I had a s.h.i.+p waiting for me at Calais, that's what I said. Henri's much too young to make a trip across the Channel. Why I wouldn't dream of subjecting a child his age to such a dreadful journey.”
”Is that so? Tell me, little woman, just when exactly did you make this journey to Calais?” Bella didn't like the way he leaned over her at all. Talk about intimidating! ”Uh, why, just last week. I forget which day exactly.”
”Last week, hm?” ”Ah, John, forgive me for saying this, but you're beginning to sound like a parrot. That's not very lover-like, darling.” Bella took the offensive, scooting deliberately close to him, while trailing her fingers up his bare thigh. Can we save the arguments for after we're finished here?”
”Oh, we're finished here, Bella. You may count on that.”
”Oh?” Bella tried to look surprised. ”Don't tell me you're going to get all bent out of shape just because I made a small slip of the tongue. I was only trying to impress upon you how urgent it is that I get back to Calais before the s.h.i.+p sails without Geoffrey and I.”
”And I have already said, you are not going back to Calais for any reason.”
”Okay, okay, don't get hostile about it.” Bella immediately changed tactics. ”I'm not going back to Calais. I'm sorry I brought the subject up. I don't see what so awful or what I did wrong. I just figured you wouldn't want me around when the fighting got started.”
”I'll tell you what you've done that's wrong, woman. You've left my youngest son with my enemy and when this army pulls up outside Calais's gate, the king of England will be compromised by the pirates of Calais. That's what you've done.”
”Oh, s.h.i.+t,” Bella gasped. Then she shut her mouth. She knew when not to say another word.
”A brother is a better defense than a strong city, and a friend like the bars of a castle.” PROVERBS 18:19 -31.
John Gault, Lionel and Geoffrey huddled under the tilted bed of a baggage wain to escape the sudden downpour. The clumsy cart held war chests and tent bags. Every piece of extraneous equipment had been moved to the rear, behind King Edward's division. The cooks and the animal handlers milled about in the open, getting drenched by the rain, but the boys were small enough to take shelter under the carts.
”It's true,” Prince Lionel, the oldest declared, firing a rock at a makes.h.i.+ft target; the spokes of a cart twenty feet away. ”They just got married this morning. Father said so. That means you, Sir Robin and Henri are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds just like I said cause yer parents just got married.”
”We are not!” Geoffrey's hands tightened into fists.
”They've been married all along. My father's the bravest knight in the whole world, even yer father the king says that!”
”You don't look like Sir John.” Lionel fixed Geoffrey with a peculiar stare. ”Ya got funny ears and yer hair's all the wrong color.”
”That's cause I got my mother's hair,” Geoffrey argued.
John Gault dug a muddy stick in the earth, prying up pebbles for ammunition for their idle game. He asked, ”How come the lady's here?”
”Dunno.” Geoffrey peered through the spokes of the wagon wheels, sorting through the forest of mud-caked boots, and legs for a skirt, then he remembered his mother wasn't wearing proper clothes. Guilamu had come and got some of Robin's hose and a tunic for her to wear today.
”She's a spy for the Duc of Lorraine, that's how come she's here,” Lionel taunted. ”She came to see how strong we are and was gonna go back to her lover the Duc and tell him everything.”
”My mother hasn't got a lover and she's no a spy!” Geoffrey choked out those words.
”Yes, she is. She's a spy an' a wh.o.r.e,” Lionel said imperiously.
Protocol demanded he not argue with the older prince, but it took all of Geoffrey's dwindling self-control not to b.l.o.o.d.y Lionel's royal nose. ”Say that again and I'll make you eat your words.”
”Ha! Then how come she's in the prisoners cart?”
”Cause it's got a roof, ya idiot, an' its raining. Father Thomas in in there, too. That don't make him a spy or a traitor or no wh.o.r.e.”