Captive Heart

Know the minute my next book is available! Sign up for my mailing list today. You’ll ONLY receive a newsletter when I have something new on offer, and your email will
never
be sold or spammed.

http://smarturl.it/PhoenixNews-
C
H

MORE TITLES BY PHOENIX SULLIVAN

Arthurian Hearts Series
(Arthurian Paranormal Romance)

HEARTSONG (Book 1)
QUEEN’S HEART (Book 2)
CAPTIVE HEART (Book 3)

ANGEL HEART (A Christmas Novella)
– Releases Nov 26, 2015

~

Arthurian
(Non-Paranormal with Romance Elements)

SPOIL OF WAR

~

Medical Thriller

SECTOR C

Find Phoenix’s Books on Amazon

Copyright © 2015 by Phoenix Sullivan

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.

I stretched on the samite sheets, twisted now and knotted into the small of my back, as the knight laboring above me stroked my long breast. His breath shuddered in my ear, the gasps deeper and slower now.

With a grunt, he pulled out of me and rolled to his back, my skin cooling quickly where he had been. “So will you help me or no?”

I smiled at the demanding tone with its hint of exasperation. Few men dared address me so. That this one seemed to have no fear of me excited me in all the best and secret places.

The soft cord that wrapped about my wrists and bound me to one of the iron rings driven into the wall at the head of the bed teased at me. He had left only enough slack so the wicked metal would not burn me, but where too I could not escape its threat. “Only so long as the older sister, the one with fae blood, will be mine to direct.”

“As long as Lynette suffers more than I’ve suffered over the death of my father, she will be yours to command. Agreed.”

“She will be as Job unto my devil. And the younger one?”

Sir Ironside, ruler of the Red Lands now that his own father was dead at the hands of the sire of the sisters over whom we bartered, rolled to his side and spread his hand over my naked belly. “Only eighteen, and the bards are already singing of Lyonesse’s immeasurable beauty. The whip for her, I think. Lash upon lash, her fair virgin skin blushing for my pleasure.”

His hand slipped lower, fingers curling over the thatch of hair and arch of bone to caress and thrum my eager flesh. “I would only she had her maidenhead to give over and over again.”

Lifting my hips, I pushed into his hand, saw him hardening with the thought of thieving away Lyonesse’s innocence. “Take it again,” I whispered.

From the tangle of sheets he produced two soft cords tethered to the bed’s sturdy frame. The first he looped over my left foot, the second over my right. I struggled, but only to hasten his lengthening and rising.

Tracing a line from my throat down with the ruby ring on the back of his hand he ended its journey with one, two, three sharp slaps to my tender mound. “Burn for me,” he commanded.

It did burn, like the welcome sting of fire on frostbitten skin. “Again,” I begged.

He complied before turning to thumb the peaks of my breasts, touching nothing more than their sensitive tips. I writhed with impatience.

Smiling, he slid between my knees. I held my breath waiting for him to plunge in. But no, it was a gentle tap only as he lowered himself over me. When I looked down between the planes of our bodies, separated by the length of his shaft, I saw him throbbing, as eager for the consummation as I.

Yet he held himself back, teasing me senseless, while my body, tied, could only struggle so far in protest.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

I
was
looking at the him of him that mattered most to me in that moment, but I dragged my gaze up to the deep brown eyes of him that bored intently into mine. His thumbs continued their relentless circling for one breath, two, and three. Then with the twitch of his hips he stabbed into me. My eyes rolled back with the force of him.

“Look at me!” he growled.

Pleasure flooded me with every thrust. Every pleasure reflected in his eyes, amplified between us.

And at pleasure’s height he cried out, “Lyonesse!”

“Yes,” I echoed in kind.

Long moments later I added, “We will make Lyonesse yours.”

The Red Knight untied my hands and draped them about his neck. “We’ll make her
ours
,” he said.

I sincerely hoped he didn’t expect protest because I certainly wasn’t going to offer any. Instead, I told him, “Your cause is my cause too. Together we will avenge your father’s death. Together we will see that the bloodkin of his killer pays for their father’s crime. This I swear.”

And together we sealed that vow with a kiss.

“Do you think God will be angry if I said I can’t wait to be gone from here?”

I smiled, if only because Nessie’s frustration was mine as well. “Even God’s own Son didn’t spend all His days behind holy walls. I don’t think He’d begrudge you longing for home.”

Nessie sighed as I undid the laces at the back of her gown and helped her out of it before she turned and did the same for me. “At least it’s just one more night.”

We tangled in the tiny cell when we both tried stripping our undergowns off at the same time. We weren’t ungrateful, of course. The abbot, after all, had given up his private bed to my sister and me for the three days we’d been here before Father was interred and the two days it had now been since. The abbot and his monks had been more than kind as Nessie and I shed the last of our tears for our dear Papa, cut down in some meaningless show of arms in the Red Lands. He had lived with his wounds for two days while his squire and page bore him homeward, but he was dead long before he reached us, and his men had brought him to Sibton Abbey to be given to God.

“He fought honorably,” his squire assured us. “He slew the Baron Knight who killed him.”

“Papa was on the Baron’s lands,” I pointed out. “Was he not wrong to offer challenge?”

“The Baron was a despot. The people of the Red Lands joyed in his death.”

“And what of his knights? Did Papa not win them in fair battle?”

The squire, no older than Nessie’s eighteen years and a year or two younger than me, squirmed, clearly unsettled by what should have been an easy answer. “As vile and discourteous as the Baron was, his son is doubly so. When the Baron was slain and with your father wounded, we fled for our lives. No Red Land knights will be yielding to you. Sir Ironside holds them still.”

“Then the people of the Red Lands are no better off than they were before, and my sister and I will see no profit from Papa’s victory. His death was in vain.”

“His honor—” Geoffrey mumbled.

“His honor won’t feed our household or the serfs who work our fields. I daresay even you won’t stay at Castle Savage much longer, though it was Papa who lodged you and trained you up.”

When Geoffrey wouldn’t meet my eyes I knew I had guessed true.

And when I was more than ready to be gone from the austerity of Sibton Abbey, I dreaded the long task ahead of keeping Castle Savage ours. Nessie had no head for such things. She slipped through the world on gentleness and beauty. More than being innocent of body, she was innocent as well in worldly ways. Endearing when she was the spoiled and pampered daughter of a noble knight whose wife had died in the birthing of her. Frustrating when I needed her to be a helpmate in the business of running home and holdings.