Ronan's Bride (17 page)

It seemed forever that he was in the bathing chambers, and longer still before he was standing in the doorway, his wet hair down, his mask on but nothing else. She had left the room dark, allowing only moon and stars to light in the arched windows. It glowed on her hair, the silk robe and bathed her for his sight.

“Was it the trial?”

“Aye. There was no hanging. Only fines, and Guardi cannot step foot on these shores. If he does. He must face me.”

She nodded, knowing he would have insisted upon that, even to his king. “Is that all?”

“Nay.” He walked gracefully toward her, graceful for such a big knight. “Your brother sends his love.”

She smiled.

His bloomed slower behind the mask before he brushed a hand down his chest. “I have brought my message home personally.”

Sefare stood and let the robe drop. She walked to him, standing in the last bit of rays, but reaching her hands to touch him in the shadows. Her palms on his shoulders, she whispered, “And mine has been waiting….aching to feel and see and hear you, once more.”

Ronan lifted her up, his long mane sliding over his shoulders while he carried her to the large bed. Sliding the chemise up her thighs, which were on either side of his hips, Ronan laved her nipples through the mesh before he kissed her lips and murmured against them, “I have never seen one so beautiful…never felt one so giving… It is all I have dreamed of whilst gone.”

She arched her hips, rubbing her sex against the thrust of his. “I have missed our morning rides.”

He chuckled deep as his sex sank smoothly into her. “How far shall I take you, My Lady?”

“To the very stars…” She arched her neck as he rode her with a cadence and grind of his sinewy hips. “Oh, Ronan…I think I was made for this. For you.”

He held her hands above her head, curling himself into her. “Some power beyond my dreams has eased the curse I saw my life to be. God’s truth, Sefare, I forget all save this feeling when I am with you.”

“I too.” She curled their fingers tighter together. “Love me. Love me, and let me love you.”

Ronan did. He made love to Sefare in that bed, then again, standing by the window. She took him beyond flesh as his bronze frame trembled on the fur before the unlighted hearth.

Somewhere distant he knew she touched where he wished her not to—sometime in the rolling and sensual moving, the glide of tongues and hands, he felt her moving down his chest and kissing, felt her shape his thighs and calves with hands that were soft like silk. However, even when the pink blaze of dawn threatened to light the room, he was aware that even apart from her, no night terrors came, only thoughts, memories, of Sefare.

“I am almost ready for your surrender,” she whispered as he grit his teeth, sweat bathing his face behind the mask, and his hands in her hair.

He felt her lips hold his sex captive between silken hot walls. “I accede…to your mastery. Od’s blood, I surrender, willingly,” he managed before the implosion of his climax rocked him.

Later they dozed, tangled in the sheets and her body half over his. In late evening, the scrape of servants setting trays by the door awoke them. Sefare crawled to the end of the bed, letting him cover himself if he wished.

Her nude backside, heart shaped, met Ronan’s lifted lashes. His blood spiked. “Perhaps we should bathe first. Shall I join you?”

She grinned and hopped off the bed. “I’ll meet you there.”

It was past midnight before they opened the door and dragged the tray inside.

“Did Isola obtain…?”

“—Aye. She will be leaving in a week’s time. Will you miss her?”

“Of course. But I want her to succeed.”

Ronan rubbed a hand up her back. “Odd but so does your brother. He took the letter to the king personally.”

Sefare smiled in the dark. She yawned. “We must ready for travel to Dunnewicke. I cannot wait to see Illara.”

“Aye. And there will be a child…an heir.”

She kissed his chest. “After a bit of sleep, I will tell you of your own.”

He sat up. “What!”

She laughed. “Not yet. We are still working on it, Sir.”

“But I thought—”

“I have a feeling that a love this healing, will bring us many such gifts.”

Ronan rolled her over, kissing her until they both groaned.

“My lips are sore.”

He laughed. “Aye. Other parts of us too.”

They laughed and chuckled long at that, more until it filled the castle.

Somewhere in the laughter, Sefare saw tears poised in his eyes. He grasped her to him tightly and she scarcely heard him whisper in desperate wonder, “I had forgotten what joy and freedom felt like. God’s mercy…though death and danger shadow our every step, I will fight with my last breath to hold onto this, to you.”

Sefare’s own tears bathed his scarred neck. She whispered back, “You found my heart, and I yours. My Crimson Knight. When you are inside me, my soul feels bathed, cleansed, by the power of your own. Your courage, your willingness to love me, make love to me, even when you feared to show your own body—awes me.”

She raised her head and looked into those silver grey eyes, seeing the tears had wet the mask. Her own aqua ones swimming until crystal drops tumbled out, Sefare added, “May God give me sons and daughters possessing half so much heart as you give to those you care for. May there be no darkness, no hour in the night, where I cannot be there, to hold you through the dreams that haunt you…Aye, even those I will fight with you.”

He raised his fingers and touched her lips. His lashes damp but his eyes a pure washed gray. “I once thought that I would sell my soul for one kiss from a woman’s lips. Now ‘tis only you and yours I thirst for. The only dreams I have had since you gave yourself to me, were of you. God grant us children or none, my life, my heart, is forever changed. Now I thirst and I crave such as I never knew before…”

He reached up and caught a tear, staring into her aqua eyes. “I have the sky and sea, the stars and the white moonbeams—I have heaven, such as a man never dreams of, such as I dared not. It tastes sweeter than water or wine.”

“Ronan.” She took his scarred hand and held it against her cheek. “When I was a girl and dreamed, ‘twas you I dreamed of. A brave knight who would love me, know me, desire me, as none other. ‘Tis I who feel blessed, to get this second chance, this life, however long it is, with you.”

He rolled her under him and after kissing her a long time, breathless in fact, he said gruffly in her ear, “I want to hear you laugh again, ‘tis music.”

She sputtered hoarsely, “I cannot laugh on demand.”

He raised his head. “Nay?”

“Nay.” However, she was already smiling.

He pretended to consider her and then laved her ear with his tongue. Sefare squirmed and giggled. By the time he tickled her ribs and blew in her ear, she was bucking and swatting at his large form astride her.

His laughter joined her own, and Ronan, so deprived of his boyhood joy, his childhood, got into the play as she grabbed a down pillow and smacked him in the face.

The romping went on, progressing to her crawling from under him and trying to jump from the bed. He caught her foot and she turned hitting him with the pillow until feathers spewed up and drifted down like snow. Coughing, laughing, they romped, chased around the room, across the bed, guffawing. Sefare, screaming with it when he picked her up, stark necked and carried her over his shoulder to dump her on the disaster of a bed.

Ronan watched her get tangled in the sheets trying to scramble off. His own helpless laughter held behind it a heart swelling joyfulness at her play.

Aye, he mused as he helped her get free and watched her stand in the center of the bed, hands on hips, daring him with a brow raised—He was keeping her—forever. His bride. His wife. His little star. The sparkling light that came suddenly into his darkness.

He threw himself to the bed with a low rumbling chuckle and knocked her off her feet where he could gather and hold her close. Ronan watched her laughter, laughing with her—and he saw the love, the expression in her eyes that looked into his own. God’s mercy, he wanted to weep and to laugh too, to hold her and be inside her, to kiss and breathe and taste her all at once.

What Sefare did though was to push at him and set up suddenly, her eyes wide. “Would you like for me to dance for you?”

“Dance for me?” he choked just imagining it.

“Yes. I’ve my bangles and veils, and I know all the traditional —”

—His body aroused, heart beating like a wild drum and mouth dry, Ronan nodded. “Aye. Yes. Dance for me.”

Sefare smiled and winked at him. “You acquire wine for us whilst I find my costume? There isn’t much to it.” She jumped up and left the chamber.

Ronan pulled on his clothing haphazard and paused only a moment to look up at the plaster ceiling. His bride. His. He swallowed and went in search of wine, some fruits and returned to wash hastily, fix the bed and light candles which he sat on the floor. He lit incense and watched it waft past the haze of candlelight.

Sefare floated in with her head covered in a gossamer blue spangled veil, her midsection and breasts bare…and a veil tied low on her hips, below a belt of diamonds. On her arms, across her forehead on each ankle were bangles of silver that twinkled in the night. At her first sensual movements, they made a tinkling sound.

In those surreal moments Ronan’s eyes could not drink her enough, follow her sensual moves enough, or see enough, though she ground and undulated her hips and made sluggish sensual turns around the bed. She arched, leaning far back. Her body glowed and its taut form moved sexually and erotically. Dew bathed his body. Blood went rushing and every muscle and inch of sinew was afire.

Sefare felt his fixation, his entranced focus that was wonder and desire. She felt euphoric with the power to put that look in her brawny knight’s eyes. Wetting her salved lips, having bathed, lined her eyes with kohl, perfumed with jasmine, she came close and arched her back, rolling her hips and moving her hands to cup her peaked breasts.

Ronan shuddered, pulled his gaze from that touch, up to her eyes and rasped, “You are lovely, maddeningly exquisite at dancing. My blood is hot enough to boil in my veins. God’s mercy, I want you, Sefare!”

She smoothly tugged the veil off her face and let it fall to her feet; gliding a hand down her tummy to her hip, she reached the tuck of the other, until she stood before him only in the diamonds and bangles.

Running her tongue over her lips, Sefare husked and reached for his hand, “Show me, my knight…show me how much.”

He moved off the bed and into the spill of candlelight.

First Ronan unbound his long raven hair and removed his shirt. His mane flowed like black silk around his powerful shoulders and arms, glowing on his dark skin. Next, he slowly removed the breeches, carefully pulling each tie and peeling them down his powerful thighs- exposing a full arousal, sex thick and potent.

He stood still, bathed in the amber glow with only his mask, all other scars and skin exposed in saffron light.

As he reached for the ties of the mask, Sefare, her heart filling her entire chest, went to him, knelt at his feet, and began kissing from there upwards. Rubbing and caressing, laving ankles, calves, past scars, ridges, dents. His legs wide with his stance, she went up, around, and around him, moving caressing, as sensual as the dance had been—bathing him, kissing, laving, and tasting him, the man, the lover.

His scars hurt her, the thought of how he suffered, but she knew she must show him the beauty she saw in him.

She was on her tiptoes laving his nipples when his knees bent and he dropped to the floor on them.

Sefare brought his scarred face to her breast without looking at it, feeling warm skin even as she felt the scars on his brow and cheek. His hands cupped her, caressed her, his breathing hot and thick, his body holding a tremble of intense emotion, need and hunger.

She plunged her hands into his cool silken hair and fisted it while lowering herself down, down until his sex slid into the wet heat of her own. Locked snug and full, throbbing, feverish and drugged by the intensity, she began to move upon him whilst he held her buttocks and moved sensually with her.

Through the veil of her half-mast lashes, Sefare saw his burning silver eyes; his white teeth sank into his sensual lower lip. Her lips parted, wet, her moans were the erotic music they moved to.

His big hands lowered, lifted and clasped her waist moving her as he undulated and stroked her, stroked himself with her snug, wet, sex.

They were two bodies, two lovers, dancing unashamed in the haze of candlelight and incense. Two souls giving and taking, burning hotter and reaching deeper into the passionate world they were only just beginning to explore.

Sefare drifted, arched back, lost in the pleasure, the burn of lust and love, abandoning herself to the fever he evoked in her blood. She was free as never before, truly the core of her woman’s soul, she felt unbound, uninhibited and her every pore and sense open to the man who drew that out.

When his hand glided, moved between them, to stroke the swollen and slick nerves, abraded already by his undulations, she whispered his name, molten and melting, soaring on waves that drew a cry of wonder from her lips.