Part 22 (1/2)

Laughing herself, she struck out at him. He trapped her fingers, kissed them one by one until they unclenched, then turned them over, tongued her palm and nibbled his way up her arm, along her shoulder to her throat and back to reclaim her mouth. Slowly, lightly as a drifting feather, his fingertips trailed over her pubic hair.

'Trust me?' he repeated against her lips.

'Yes,' Judith whispered, twining her arms around his neck and arching her hips.

Guyon fondled her gently now, stroking her body, the sensitive zones in particular; the tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her inner thighs, then higher still .

Judith writhed and cried out, striving towards his teasing, knowledgeable fingers. She pushed against his hand and arched.

With firm purpose and great care, Guyon entered her, and held her there, his hips pressed down flat, unmoving while her parted flesh settled around him. 'Judith, look at me.'

She opened her eyes which had been squeezed closed against the moment. The feeling of him fully within her was strange. The dreaded intrusion was accomplished and, although not stricken, she was disturbed and uncomfortable.

'Have I changed?'

She searched his face. His eyes were open and s.h.i.+ning in the dim candle glow, his expression tender. She could see the gleam and trickle of sweat on his chest and feel the trembling of hard-held restraint.

'No, my lord,' she said. Smiling, she touched his face and s.h.i.+fted her hips to ease the pressure.

The movement pressed him deeper within and involuntarily her muscles tightened around him. A keener sensation arced across her loins and was gone. Seeking its source, she pushed against him in a movement older than time. Guyon's head went back, his eyes closed and his breath emerged in a drawn-out groan. She moved again, her own pleasure sharpened by the knowledge of his and, conceding her the battle, he started to thrust in slow counterpoint.

It was like the first time she had galloped Euraidd - wild and exhilarating and a terrifying, delightful risk. The pace increased by steady degrees and so did the imperative needs of her body. She gasped and dug her nails into his shoulders, sought his mouth, demanding with her own, clung to him dizzied, her only thought to hold on to something solid as the world began to tremble and dissolve. And then she did not think at all . She cried his name, unaware that she did so, as her body totally submerged her mind, shattering the barriers to storm-tossed flotsam.

Guyon seized her hips and held her still , panting at her to stop, his forehead pressed into the curve of her neck, but Judith did not heed him and struggled against the restraint, desperate to regain the friction where she needed it.

'Judith, I cannot ...'

Her nails clawed him with sudden urgency and she arched her spine and thrust down hard on him. He felt the small convulsions ripple through her, and, with a gasp of relief, surrendered his own control to the exquisite pulses of climax.

Slowly Judith became aware of his weight on her, no longer taken on his elbows, of his harsh breathing and of his body pressed hard against and within her own. The pleasure still flickered in dying twinges, promising renewal. She slid her hands over the sweat-damp ridges of his ribcage and moved a little beneath him, made uncomfortable by his weight.

Guyon sighed and rubbed his lips over her throat. Then he raised his head and looked her in the eyes.

'You are squas.h.i.+ng me,' she complained breathlessly and stifled the urge to giggle as his face fell .

'Did I hurt you? I thought ...' He narrowed his eyes, considering her. The clawing of her nails could be misconstrued, perhaps even the m.u.f.fled cries, but not the tremors of her inner flesh.

'Wanton!' he p.r.o.nounced, rolling over and drawing her with him. 'I shall not call you Cathfach again. Cath wyllt, perhaps!'

Judith moved sinuously upon him. 'It is better than getting drunk,' she admitted, giggling openly now. 'Just.'

'Remind me to ask you in the middle next time, not afterwards.'

'Next time! You mean we have to do all this again?' She widened her eyes in mock horror. 'Where's the nettle salve?'

'For my back you mean? You must have clawed it to shreds!'

'You should not be so clumsy,' she retorted swiftly, poking out her tongue and then using its tip to flick over his throat, her hips surging playfully.

Guyon laughed. 'Then I needs must practise,' he said and caught her down to him.

Judith awoke to the noise of a flock of sheep being driven down the road on their way into the city and the sharp whistle of the shepherd commanding his dogs. They were sounds with which she had grown up and it brought to her now the image of the marches greening lushly into summer and filled her with longing to be out of the city and home.

There was a warm weight across her body - Guyon's arm, the fingers in relaxed possession of the curve of her breast. He was still sleeping deeply, sprawled upon his stomach, and had not moved since their last pre-dawn bout of love-making. Her mouth twitched. It was her fault, she knew. She had told him that it was better than getting drunk. Well , indeed it was but, just like wine, it could become addictive.

So great had been her fear of the s.e.xual act as a result of witnessing her mother's degradation at the hands of her violent, contemptuous father, that her own survival of the deed, indeed her enjoyment and satisfaction, had led her to prove to herself several times that it was no illusion. It was not. The last time, Guyon had asked her, groaning, if she was trying to kill him. Her gaze flickered over his lean, sleep-relaxed body.

Coaxed and cajoled, he had become aroused, but it had taken him a long, long time and it had been wonderful. There was a low, dull ache in the small of her back and her body was languorous with content. It was certainly a better aftermath than a drink megrim.

She heard Sir Walter speak to the shepherd and make a fuss of one of the dogs. Secure, and reluctant to break her mood of drowsy contentment, she snuggled back down into Guyon's embrace and closed her eyes.

When Guyon finally roused sufficiently to lift his lids, the morning was high and hot, first ma.s.s a memory and the hunters long gone on their quest.

Sunlight slanted dustily through a warped gap in the shutters and shot the red silk bed hangings to the colour of flame. The night candle was burned to a puddle of congealed wax. He empathised.

He flicked a wary glance at the sleeping innocence beside him ... Innocence! Good Christ, Rhosyn and even the inimitable Alais de Clare were mere novices compared to the supple, oblivious girl in his bed. Rape. She had feared rape. He stifled a chuckle at the irony.

Gently he touched a tendril of her hair and looked at her curled form, remembering when she had cowered from him, a half-grown starveling with terror-filled eyes. They had come a long way since then, not always along the same road, but converging here at a new crossroads. The Conqueror's granddaughter with the Viking blood of Duke Roll o and the common tanners of Falaise mingling in her veins.

In the light of what he had realised last night, he pondered her immediate parentage, wondering what had driven Alicia to mate with a boy of half her age and twice her experience. Probably he would never know and there were good reasons for keeping such knowledge private, not least the needs of this vulnerable wanton at his side.

As if aware of his musing regard, Judith stretched and opened her eyes, and yawned at him.

'Good morning, my wild cat,' he greeted her with a kiss.

'You missed the hunt,' she said with a sleepy smile.

'No I didn't,' he contradicted with a grin. 'I just had no inkling that I was the quarry.' Judith blushed. 'No matter, I can think of better ways to spend the day than aiming a bow at a driven deer or whatever. Besides, I'd rather not straddle a horse today.'

Her blush deepened and extended to include her throat and shoulders. 'Are you angry with me about last night, Guy?'

'Which part?' he teased. 'Where you froze Henry's manhood in the fingerbowl, or when you drained mine to a husk?'

Judith bit her lip. Against her scarlet chagrin, her eyes were brilliant, almost topaz. 'It was like drinking that yellow wine, I did not want to stop,' she excused herself, hanging her head.

'Drunk two nights in a row!' he chaffed her.

'What am I to do with you? No, don't tell me, I haven't the strength. Just don't ask me to show you anything ever again, even if you are desperate to know! G.o.d's life, it nearly killed me!'

Judith fisted him in the ribs and he yelped. 'But if you were content, it was worth it.' He sobered, looking at her rosy, fl.u.s.tered face. 'I have no objection to dying like that, unless it be four times a night!'

She slanted a quick glance through her lashes.

'At least there will be naught left of you for Alais de Clare,' she said with a return of her accustomed tartness and, sitting up, shook back her hair. The sunlight lit her eyes with sparkling glints of mica.

'I don't want Alais de Clare,' Guyon answered, stretching. 'Why settle for dross when you can have gold?'