Devil at Midnight (20 page)

“Christian, I can feel you all the way inside of me.”

“Grace,” he groaned. He wanted to thrust too badly. His body was threatening to take over for him again. “Move on me, Grace. Move on me before I cannot stop myself.”

She moved, a tentative rise and fall of a finger’s breadth.

“More, Grace. Use me as your body tells you to.” They were so close that he felt her flush sweep across her breasts. Her body still held a hint of tension, of unsureness. More than anything, he wanted to ease that. Ruthlessly holding his needs in check, he soothed his hand gently up her spine, loving each bead of sweat dewing on her skin. “You cannot do it wrong, love. However you move will bring me pleasure.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he growled and kissed her with all the passion he did not dare express through his prick.

With his hungry tongue shoving toward her throat, she gave over. She rose five fingerbreadths, then six, and then her slow, hesitant thrusts were squeezing up and down the full length of his member. His head fell back from the kiss in order to gulp for air. She felt so good, so hot and tingling and tight. His balls were heavy, the muscles of his thighs like irons heating before a fire. He had one hand to guide her, and it was locked on her sweet bottom. His other was keeping his hauberk from blocking what they were doing. He wanted to tell her to touch herself, but he had alarmed her with that request before.

Determined to make this as good as it could be for her, he altered his hips’ angle, the change strafing her clitoris along his shaft.

Grace’s breath rushed against his ear. “That feels
nice.”

It was hard to speak, but he wanted to encourage her. “It should feel like when I pleasured you with my fingers, except ... the feelings should go deeper.”

“They do. Oh, Christian.” Her hips rolled with inadvertent skill, a trick that nearly had his skull lifting. “You are so
thick
.”

No man could hate hearing this. As susceptible as any of his brethren, Christian ground his molars together and held on by his fingernails. He had never let a woman take him this way before. He was always in control of what happened to him in bed. Giving control to her was hell and heaven wrapped into one. He was reduced to grunting, his words stolen utterly. Lost to the sensation of Grace’s flesh sliding over him, he bent forward to catch her breast. His mouth was his point of action, and he would use it to good effect. Nearly starving to bring her pleasure, he ran his tongue around her nipple as he sucked it—which inspired another spine-tingling roll of her hips.

The reaction was more than he knew how to withstand. His grip on her bottom changed without his willing it. Suddenly, he was pulling more than allowing, speeding her, urging her, until at last she was going just as fast as he wished. Indeed, her pace was almost too fast. He could hardly keep his hold on the pressure swelling inside him. Her cries were soft but thrilling, rising higher as she drew closer to her climax. If she was tender from her deflowering, it did not matter. She wanted this now.
She
was equally desperate.

Christian rose onto his knees to gain more range for his thrusts.

“Yes,” Grace cried. “Oh, my God, keep going deep like that.”

Christian was not certain he could have done otherwise; his body was so hell-bent on claiming hers. Their knees scuffled in the grass as each tried to intensify the other’s efforts. Christian spread his thighs farther, spread her, the instinct impossible to resist. She must have liked her vulnerability. Her spine arched back, pulling her breast from him, exposing the hard churning of his cock in and out of her. He shone with her juices, his veins dark ropes beneath his wet skin. The sight was like a fuse igniting in the deepest heart of him. He took her. He had her. She was his from now on. The dam inside him was not going to hold back the flood a single heartbeat more.

“Please,” he gasped. “Grace!”

Her fingernails dug into the back of his neck where she was holding on to lean back from him. She crashed down on him, loin to loin, and he went; simply gave up like a cannon whose overlarge store of powder had been kindled. He could not halt the violent eruption, only groan and succumb to it. Fire blazed from him as his seed shot free in lengthy gouts.

Grace was holding him when he at last ceased shaking. Both her arms were around him, and his head lay on her shoulder. He was almost peaceful, almost perfectly content. His spent prick slid slowly out of her.

“Perdition take it,” he said, the curse slurred from the fullness of his release. “You did not finish.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you did.”

“The hell you say!”

She laughed softly and kissed his hair.

“Grace, this is not how the love act is supposed to be.”

“I expect it was a lot better than most girls get.”

“That is not good enough for you.” He cupped her face to show how much he meant it. She was smiling, her features soft and relaxed. It amazed him that she was not angry, humbled him in a way. She deserved the best of everything.

Her smile stretched into a grin at his expression. With only a hint of shyness, she took one of his hands, drawing it seductively down her front. Nerves he had thought exhausted began to rouse.

“Finish me now,” she said huskily.

He should have known he would not get the chance to redeem himself. Grace stiffened on his lap. Before he could blink, what had been beautiful, warm flesh had turned to smoke in his arms. He could not find it in him to be grateful that she had not disappeared from his sight as well.

“Damn it, Grace.”

“One of your friends is coming this way. Philippe, I think. You had better straighten your clothes.”

She was correct, but Christian did not have to like it. He set himself to rights, cursing. Her gown had magically rematerialized on her, an annoyance he decided he would think about later.

He got to his feet hastily.

“There you are,” Philippe said once he was close enough to be heard. “Matthaus and I have been looking for you this past half hour. We feared the minstrel had decided to make a meal of you
and
William.”

Though it was dark, Christian thought he saw Philippe’s cheeks darken.

Grace snuffled out a laugh behind him. “I guess he doesn’t hate that idea.”

Christian prayed his own face would not grow hot. Leaving Philippe and Matthaus to their own affairs was not the same as knowing Philippe was imagining things about him. He cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment.

“I am well,” he said. “Though I thank you for your concern.” He drew in a breath as something beyond his own situation occurred to him. “How fares William?”

“Happily, I should imagine.” Philippe’s eyebrows wagged. “He has not returned from Mistress Wei’s chamber.”

Christian cast his gaze toward the star-dusted sky. “Charles left her tent close to dawn.”

“He did,” Philippe said, seeming unsure why Christian thought this worthy of mentioning.

Christian was not sure himself, just a feeling tightening his gut. Nim Wei had promised to leave William with more gifts than when he came to her, but what exactly did she mean by that? More than giving him a flask of oil, he presumed. His mind slid to a new thought. Charles’s performance during the battle had been impressive, perhaps unnaturally so. Was his time with Nim Wei somehow linked to that?

He turned his eyes again to Philippe. “I shall sleep in the barn tonight. Someone should guard Mistress Wei’s horses, just in case. If you see William before I do, bring him directly to speak with me. It does not matter if he is tired, this is important.”

“As you wish,” Philippe said. “Shall I tell Michael where you are as well?”

“Yes,” he said. “He and I will take second watch again. And Philippe? If it is possible, keep William away from my father and his followers.”

Philippe did not ask why he wanted this, but only nodded, as obedient to his captain as Gregori’s men were to him.

“I shall do my best,” he promised.

W
illiam was not as giddy as Charles had been after his time with the minstrel, but then his nature was not as giddy to begin with. Christian still had to slap him to alertness before he could question him. Though Michael’s golden eyebrows shot up at the action, he did not object.

Per Christian’s request, Michael was the only ... well, the only
living
witness to this interrogation. Christian could tell his best friend was uneasy with the honor—or at least concerned. Then again, perhaps it was the topic of Nim Wei’s seductive powers that had the former novice’s hackles up. Michael looked uncharacteristically slight sitting next to William on a bale of hay, his long legs stretched and stacked at the ankles, his hard arms folded over his chest. William, the comrade who dwarfed him, was hunched sleepily forward with his forearms propped on his knees. Too tightly wound to sit, Christian paced the stable floor in front of them.

Grace sat in the shadows by the tack, silently observing. Though he could not see her from his position, his awareness of her presence was a quiet warmth in his mind. Grace lent him a steadiness he had not known he lacked before he met her.

It seemed no amount of interrupted coitus could change that.

“I told you,” William said wearily. “Mistress Wei did naught to harm me.”

“Are you certain you remember everything she did?”

At Christian’s question, William sagged back against the rail of the sheep pen. “I doubt I could forget it. It was ...” His eyes unfocused as he traveled back, the softness of his expression sending a prickle down Christian’s spine. William looked beatific. “Swiving her was wondrous. No doubt you and Michael are accustomed to women being eager to bed you, but I have never known one who was that hungry for me. Mistress Wei pulled things from me, capacities for pleasure I did not know I possessed. I am surprised you did not hear me shouting myself hoarse. Repeatedly, as it were.”

The state of William’s muscles supported his claim. His hulking shoulders were relaxed, his huge boots sprawled wide on the dirt and straw of the floor.

“How repeatedly?” Michael craned around to ask.

The question was reluctant, not to mention intrusive, but William did not take offense. The grin that stretched his mouth was as foolishly prideful as one of Charles’s. “Six times. In scarcely more than an hour. I did not know I could rise that often. And if I look exhausted, I assure you, that is the sole reason why.”

Though Christian was aware that Michael’s wide eyes had turned to him, and that his palms were rubbing nervously down his thighs, Christian kept his attention on William.

“She did not offer you food or drink? Anything that did not taste as it should?”

“She did not drug me, Christian,” William insisted. “All she did was wring out my balls. Perhaps you should let her do that for you, if this is how you behave when you go without.”

Christian blinked at him, any impulse to deny that he was
going without
dying in his breast. William’s tone was sharper than was his wont, and he was famed for his steady humor. He had never, that Christian could recall, lost his temper with him. Christian would have let the matter drop, had he not noticed William rubbing his throat just then. Charles had done that, too, though the skin both stroked was perfectly unmarked.

Christian did not believe in coincidence. The minstrel had to be doing something to the men once they were alone, something more than wrapping them in her energy as Grace described, and definitely more than just wringing out their balls.

“Did she say anything?” Christian pressed with renewed vigor. “A chant or a ritual? Maybe she lit a candle or spilled some blood.”

At the mention of blood, William’s face went lax. His eyes were absolutely empty, as if he had gone deep inside himself. The blankness seemed a strange reaction. Horror or disgust would have made more sense. Michael thought so, too. He sat up straighter and shot a look at Christian.

“For the love of heaven,” William burst out, exactly as if the odd pause had not happened. “What are you suggesting?”

His hand had remained on his throat while he had his fugue. It fell now as Christian watched.

“I am suggesting nothing,” he said. “Only that we have no reason to trust Nim Wei. Perhaps we would all do well to keep our distance from her.”

“Good luck with that,” William snorted. “Mistress Wei is hard to say no to.”

His eyes were drifting shut again as he spoke. Always quick with a kindness, Michael laid a gentle hand on his broad shoulder.

“Lie down at least,” he advised. “You will get a crick if you sleep like that.”

William did not hear him. He was already out, so much so that when Christian and Michael tried to move him he was dead weight. This was no common occurrence for someone trained to awaken at the snap of a twig.