Linda Barlow (49 page)

Roger groaned as he felt the exquisite sensation of her hot flesh sheathing the entire length of him. It sent him careening over the edge. He rolled them both over so her body was beneath his. He lanced inside her with a hard, deep thrust. The feeling was indescribable. The ocean rolled, crashing them together, and he knew he had no more self-discipline. "Witch-woman. You've driven me mad." His thighs pressed hers even more widely apart as he took her, possessed her, made her his own, over and over again. Nothing could stop him now. He was incapable of playing the skillful, sophisticated lover. He was full to bursting; he groaned, he cried out against her mouth as again and again he plunged into her.

Alexandra began to move with him, watching, feeling, learning. His hands caressed her breasts, her throat, her hair. His mouth sucked, his teeth nipped, his long-dammed passion burst in a storm that was as wild and inexorable as the sea heaving beneath them. He heard her cry out too, recognizing the sound as one of passion, not protest. Which was just as well, for he was past restraint now, past control, incapable of slowing or waiting or gentling his drive toward release. He was as wild and frenzied as a man possessed.

And she was with him in his frenzy. Caught up in the tender savagery of love, she remembered what she'd felt the night last summer when he'd caressed her into showers of ecstasy, and she knew it was going to be like that again. She clasped her legs around him, reveling in the feel of his rough body bearing hers ever higher, ever closer to the light. Then, just when she thought she could no longer endure the strange, delicious tension, the universe expanded and sucked her into a place of profound pleasure. All the muscles in her sex throbbed—a dance of joy, a dance of fulfillment. Roger cried out her name and stiffened as he surged one final time inside her. She felt his driving heat, the extreme tension of his sinews, and the stillness that came over him as he spent himself inside her. But there was something else, too: she sensed his essence, his spirit, his strong, primal energy, and all the lovely things that made him the man he was. She saw him, felt him, knew him in a manner that seemed, for an instant, to transcend the physical. Surely it was not only their bodies that yearned for one another, but also their souls.

It was a long time before either of them spoke. Roger was deeply moved. This was different from anything he'd ever known before. This was special. A gift. It was as if their union had begun to wash away all the bitter debris of the past few days, cleansing his heart and mind.

"Am I heavy, beloved?"

"It is a dear burden, but yes, you are," she confessed. Smiling, she kissed his mouth, his hair, his chin. He carefully withdrew from her and rolled to the side, pushing himself up on one elbow and continuing to stroke her gently.

"I was too rough with you." The fact that his uncontrolled, ferocious lovemaking had given her pleasure astonished him. She had such passion in her, his Alix, his Amazon, his dearest love. He kissed her again, giving her all the tenderness he'd been unable to offer her before. She was curled against him, quiet now, unresisting.

His fingers touched her lightly between the thighs and came away wet with her blood—the proof, if any could possibly be desired at this point, of her maidenhood. He cursed and rose from the bed to fetch a damp cloth from a copper washbasin. "Here, love, let me take care of you." He sat down beside her and bathed her gently. "Am I hurting you?" he asked when she shivered slightly and tried to close her legs. "'Tis like this only once, beloved. From now on you will know nothing but pleasure. I promise, Alix. No pain, ever again."

"It doesn't hurt much. Stings a little, that's all. I just felt a little embarrassed to have you doing that. It seems so intimate."

Smiling, he dropped a kiss on the curly mound. "There’s no place for embarrassment or shame between us, Alix. You belong to me now, as I belong to you."

"Roger." She was staring at her own blood on the cloth and beginning to tremble. Her eyes turned dark. "How could you say all those horrible things to me? How could you think...how could you believe….."

"Ssh, love, it’s over. It’s over and we’re both still here." He raked a hand through his dark hair, then tossed the cloth back in the basin and lay down beside her again. "I thought you had finally given up on me after being rejected for so long. I thought you must have chosen your father and the Queen. The idea that you, the woman I love, could betray us all to Geoffrey de Montreau—it was too much."

"It was a trap. I was a fool to fall into it, but I did
not
give up on you or choose against you. I could never do that."

He shivered. "I hadn’t even told you that I loved you. We might both have died without your knowing."

"You love me? Truly?"

"Aye." He kissed her forehead, her temple, the lobe of her ear. "I do. I love you, Alix. And I would beg you to forgive me, if it did not seem too great a boon to ask."

She turned her face against his throat, tasting the sweet dampness of his skin. "I forgive you with all my heart, for I love you more than life itself." But her voice broke, turning the last couple of words into a sob.

He pulled her fiercely against him. "Oh, Christ, beloved, don't."

"No, no, I need this, I need it. I wanted to weep before but I couldn't. I thought there was something wrong with me. I feel better now. I..." Her voice trailed off as she pressed close against him, grateful for the shelter of his arms, as finally, for the first time since Geoffrey had waylaid her, she was able to give way to her terror and her grief. Roger held her, comforted her throughout, murmuring love words in her ear and allowing his own grief to mingle with hers on the bed where he had finally consummated the only love he had ever known.

Chapter 27

Alexandra watched the sunrise through the diamond-paned Venetian glass of Roger's cabin window the next morning, the brilliant pinks and apricots that sprang out of darkness seemed to be a metaphor for the state of her own soul. And his. He was sleeping beside her, his face peaceful and free of tension. Gently Alexandra brushed a lock of dark brown hair off his forehead, loving the silkiness of his hair under her fingers, still feeling, after much sweet loving, the need to touch him, caress him, and have him respond with all his tender violence and passion.

As if he sensed her desire, Roger's thick lashes lifted, revealing his sparkling brown eyes. He gave her a lazy smile. "Good morrow, fair lady. I trust you slept well?" As he spoke, one of his hands moved lightly over her flank while the other sought her breasts.

"I slept very little, as well you know. You kept waking me up for more lecherous debauchery."

"Well, we did get
some
sleep." He laughed. "Rather more than we might have had if I hadn’t been so exhausted when I came to you. Still, I fear you're thoroughly corrupted now, beloved." He blew gently on her ear. "Regrets?"

"One," she replied so promptly that a furrow formed across his brow. She kissed it away. "I regret only that it took me an entire year to seduce you. A more virtuous rake I've seldom met."

She expected him to smile again, but instead, in a swift surge of physical power, he rolled her under him, pinning the arms that playfully came up to push against his shoulders. "Vixen," he said, parting her lips with a rough kiss. "And I was trying to be so noble, protecting you from myself."

"We were meant to be together. It is our destiny."

"I love you." He had said it over and over throughout the night. "We will be wed as soon as possible."

"Our bodies, our spirits are wed already. The rest doesn't matter."

"In the eyes of the world it does. As it will matter to our children."

The thought of children gave her pause. Because of the circumstances of their coming together, she had in her possession none of the herbal ingredients recommended by Merwynna to forestall such an event. She would welcome Roger's child, it was true; but she had no wish to be quickly pregnant. Particularly aboard a ship sailing for a strange land.

Unwilling to dwell upon the subject, she said lightly, "To think you will wed me after all, when you swore so many times 'twould never happen!"

"Are you gloating, my lady fair?" His legs moved subtly between hers and pressed, spreading her thighs.

"Just a tiny bit, perhaps."

In a long slow stroke he joined their bodies once again, making her gasp with delight. His mouth took hers fiercely. "I haven't been so lusty since I was a callow youth who'd just discovered love."

"As I am now," she laughed. "I never thought it would be so perfect. It makes everything bearable, almost."

"Almost," he agreed, turning his mind from the things that weren't bearable, the things he'd succeeded last night in forgetting. She'd given him the first peace he'd known since he couldn't remember since when. Perhaps he had never been at peace before. It was like a lovely dream, the sort that usually fades with the morning light. Yet it was morning, and the dream continued.

He felt her catch his rhythm as instinctively as if they'd been lovers for years. He raised his head and smiled; her eyes were open, she smiled back, her features relaxed and sweet. It was slower this time, gentler. They spun out their pleasure, rising gradually toward a peak, watching each other and communicating without words as the fire built and flashed and swept them into its heart and out the other side. When it was over, she giggled with joy, and he, too, joined in her laughter. Afterward, she closed her clear green eyes and fell asleep in his arms.

Roger couldn't go back to sleep, although, God knew, he could have used the rest. Yet his wakefulness was reflective, not fitful. As he lay beside her, holding her close and feeling her breath against his throat, his sense of peacefulness persisted.

All was explained, or nearly so. He understood now how cleverly Geoffrey de Montreau had manipulated them all. Rage leapt in him as he thought of Alix being waylaid by Geoffrey, tortured, nearly raped. For this, he swore, he would kill the Frenchman someday. But fantasies of revenge did little to relieve his own guilt at having treated the woman he loved scarcely less brutally himself.

"When I saw you there on the strand, with his arm around your waist, his hand on your breasts, it's as though I went mad," he tried to explain to her. "The dissenters who hadn't yet reached the ship had been butchered and Francis lay there in extremis after taking a sword cut that had been intended for me. The world was falling to pieces, and I prayed, irrationally, to be able to hold you one last time before I died. Then suddenly there you were, but in the arms of my enemy—"

"Ssh." She held his tension-slick body tightly against her own. "Your reaction was natural. I understand."

"I should have known at once that you had been coerced. You're no more capable of betraying me than I was capable of murdering Will."

She smiled weakly up at him. "We haven't done very well at trusting each other, have we?"

He kissed her then, slowly, earnestly, determined that she should feel his love, know it, believe in it. "We'll do better, I swear to you. You're my soul, Alix. I adore you."

Later he had raised his head to gaze into her honest eyes while the sea churned and rolled beneath them. "It was Alan who revealed our plans to Geoffrey, wasn't it?" He didn't know why he hadn't realized this before. She had denied it, but lying to shield Alan was exactly the kind of thing he'd expect her to do.

"No," she said, far too quickly.

"Beloved, I may have been a credulous idiot, but I haven't lost every bit of sense I possess. Alan has always been more easily intimidated than you. One serious threat of torture or death and he'd have buckled like an empty coat of mail. You're protecting him, aren't you?"

She had sighed then and told the truth, insisting that Alan had had no choice, that he had, in fact, acquitted himself bravely. "He didn't buckle. He defended me stoutly." She explained how Geoffrey de Montreau had ordered her bound to the rack in Alan's presence. "They commenced turning the wheel, making poor Alan watch. It was him they questioned, not me. I begged him to keep silence, but of course he could not."

"No. Nor would I have."

"It was a diabolical situation for him. Geoffrey must have realized that it can be even worse to watch someone you care about being tortured than to suffer the pain yourself."

"Of course. Alan loves you. I’m not sure whether it’s brother/sister love or something more ardent, but when torture is involved it almost doesn’t matter."