Sword for His Lady Page 13

  She pressed herself up against him, shuddering at the hard contact. She refused to let her lower back curl away from completing the embrace. The contact was jarring, a soft sound rising from her as she discovered the hard shape of his member pressing against her belly.

  It didn’t leave her cold.

  Not sure when she had closed her eyes, she opened them to discover Ramon watching her. His dark eyes glittered with passion but it didn’t make her cringe. There was something else there, a need that somehow set them on equal footing.

  Of course, such a thing was not possible, but she didn’t want to think rationally. No, she didn’t want to think; in fact, she was going to ensure that she didn’t have to.

  “Kiss me, Ramon.”

  His lips parted in a satisfied grin before he tilted his head and leaned forward.

  But he didn’t give her what she’d asked for. He pressed a kiss against her jawline, then another and another. All of them soft, slow motions that twisted her insides. Impatience was welling up from that knot of need burning in her belly. She moved, rotating her hips as Rauxana had done.

  She gasped as pleasure shot through her. Ramon lifted his head and studied her face.

  “I would like to know the reason behind your new boldness, Isabel…” His gaze lowered to her mouth. “But I have not the discipline to listen to explanations just now.”

  His grip tightened on her nape and he completed the kiss this time. The kiss was hard, but excitement leaped inside her. She mimicked his motions, taking his lead. He pressed her mouth open, growling when their tongues met for the first time. She shuddered but moved onto her toes so that she might kiss him hard in return. There was a desperation clawing at her, filling her with demands that were born from some instinct she hadn’t realized she possessed.

  It was sinful, but that only increased the enjoyment. She wanted to fling herself into the churning sensation and let it wring her until…until…something burst.

  Ramon suddenly set her back, gripping her biceps and lifting her off her feet so that he could move her away from him.

  “Enough.” His tone was clipped and harsh. “As I said, you test me to break my personal vows. I would honor you, Isabel, above all others.”

  Isabel withdrew from him, the sting of rejection burning away some of her intoxication. But the look on his face fascinated her. She would never have thought him a man who struggled to maintain control. Yet in that moment, she clearly witnessed a conflict warring within him.

  He craved her as much as she did him.

  The knowledge was balm for the sting and fuel for the brazenness brewing inside her. “’Tis not enough,” she argued. “You promised me ecstasy.”

  He cupped her shoulder firmly and turned her around. A moment later, he was threading the laces through the eyelets on the back of her over robe. The fabric groaned because he tugged on the laces so hard.

  “We will wed first.”

  Isabel turned to find Ramon trying to convince himself as well as her.

  “Now, Isabel.” He held out his hand.

  But she went cold. All of the confidence and boldness froze as she recalled the words of the law. Everything, even her body, would become his.

  “I cannot.” She choked on the words.

  He ground out a curse. “Would you have me dishonor you?”

  She tried to look away, but he stepped closer and pressed her back against the wall.

  “Would you have me raise your robes and satisfy myself between your thighs without a care for your honor?” he growled. “You want it. You want me inside you.”

  “I do,” she whispered, feeling like the admission scorched her lips because it was so sinful.

  “Wed me,” he demanded.

  “I will become chattel again.” Misery was twisting through her because she could see no resolution. “It is not the same for you. A few days is enough time for you to know if I raise your passions, but it is not truly enough time for trust to grow. Admit you have no true trust in me. Not yet. We barely know each other.”

  “Aye, true trust takes more time to grow.” Ramon drew back, hooking his hands into his sword belt. His expression was tight, his dark eyes stormy. “I suppose I will win none of your favor if I say you should be content with the place the law says is yours in a marriage, either.”

  Surprise flared through her. “You…agree?”

  He drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “Nay, for I would have the blessing of the church so I may claim you. Yet I understand your argument.”

  “Understand?” she asked incredulously. “Men and women do not understand one another. We are as different as the sun and moon.”

  His lips twitched, rising into a small grin that banished some of the sternness from his visage.

  “Aye. Yet you are not alone in feeling the weight of injustice on your shoulders.” He nodded. “I see Jacques Raeburn flying a baron’s pennant, the same honor I earned. I do not care to know it was my king who belittled what he bestowed on me by selling that same honor to another. Yet to my king, I am as duty bound as a wife is to her husband. I must take what he gives without complaint. My questions must be confined to private conversations with those I confide in.”

  Her eyes widened. “I had never thought to hear a man say such.”

  “I’m not sure I would have ever voiced such a personal complaint even to Ambrose. Yet with you, I discover myself at ease.”

  She nodded, feeling some of the walls pressing in on her retracting. “I wouldn’t have told Mildred how I felt about taking a woman’s place. It would have been…well—”

  “Too personal?” he questioned.

  “Aye.”

  Which left her looking into his eyes once more and feeling like they had a unique understanding.

  Ramon reached out and cupped her chin. “Let us not be too demanding of the world, but content in knowing we have passion between us and an…ease when in private. It is far more than many have. Come with me to the church door. I would not act dishonorably toward you.” His lips curved with hunger. “And your touch makes me forget my good intentions.”

  It was far more than any husband had to promise. “I am…torn.”

  It was the kindest reply she could make. He deserved more from her, had earned it. Guilt slammed into her with the force of a winter storm.

  “I have known you but a few days.” She was pleading, but not entirely sure with whom. Herself or him? “I would not have you think me fickle.”

  He suddenly grinned at her. “I think many things of you, and most of them make me want to haul you to the church over my shoulder so that I may get down to the business of immersing myself in your sweet flesh. You are not fickle, merely…wise. Yet I know what it is I crave, and the knowledge is nearly undoing me.”

  He moved toward her, pinning her against the wall and kissing her until she was breathless. Her heart was hammering as he boldly cupped one of her breasts, stroking her beaded nipple with his thumb. She arched toward him, pressing her flesh into his hand.

  “And you crave what I’ve promised you.” He pulled back. It felt as though he were ripped from her.

  “I will satisfy you, Isabel. Yet I crave trust from you almost as much. You wish to be courted? Then prepare to have yourself held under siege until you surrender to temptation. Such is the only sort of engagement I know how to conduct.”

  He left her sagging against the wall, his challenge ringing in her ears.

  And passion burning in her belly.

  Never before had she realized that an honorable knight might be so hated a creature.

  For in that moment, she loathed the chivalric code.

  * * *

  “I would have thought you’d be at church,” Ambrose remarked.

  “I would like nothing else.”

  Men were hauling stone into the courtyard. Sw
eat glistened on their brows as they stripped down to under tunics to move the heavy load. Larger foundation stones had been dragged up with teams of horses, one at a time, to form the foundation of what would become a second keep. A wall would be built between them the following season.

  Ambrose took a long look at Ramon before he chuckled. “The lady proves herself resistant to your charms?”

  “Tread carefully, Ambrose.” Ramon closed his hand into a fist and sent it into his opposite palm. “I could use a good fight.”

  “Aye, I see the need for release burning in you sure enough.”

  Ramon popped his knuckles.

  Ambrose threw his head back and laughed. “And to think…the lady is such a dainty thing to look upon… Yet she has you by the balls.”

  “The day may come when retribution is mine, and I shall recall quite clearly how much amusement you are enjoying at my expense.”

  Ambrose turned and flattened his hand over his chest. “Unlike you, my friend, my heart has room for many, many, and even many more lovelies. God has not made a single lady who can satisfy me.”

  “You may hope so, for when you face her, you will wish you had not tempted the Creator to test you.”

  Ambrose threw his arms wide. “I await all temptations!”

  Two women nearby giggled. Ambrose looked at them and curled his arm so that his bicep bulged. They smiled, their expressions turning carnal.

  Ramon turned away. He wanted something different. No one was more surprised than he was, but Isabel’s scent was clinging to him, stirring his cock, and no other woman would satisfy him.

  So he would just have to make sure the lady suffered as greatly as he. He would have her, but conceded that trust needed time to grow. So he would give her until sunset before pressing her again.

  His cock throbbed, proving it was going to be a very long day.

  * * *

  Ramon was watching her.

  Isabel snorted. Nearly everyone at Thistle Keep was eyeing her, yet it was the baron’s dark gaze that she noticed. She could feel it.

  When she crossed the yard, he watched her. She suddenly realized her hips were swaying as Rauxana’s had.

  By supper, she was on edge, exhausted by the way her body heated and cooled. She fled to her chamber and brushed out her hair before Ramon finished his meal. At last sleep claimed her, granting her a shred of mercy.

  But it was only a small reprieve. She woke a few hours later, darkness close around her. She still felt Ramon near her. His scent and the sound of his even breathing touched her senses. She tried to fall back to sleep but her mind refused. She was awake, unable to quiet her thoughts.

  “You suffer needlessly, Isabel.” Ramon lifted his head and rolled toward her. The window shutters were still open, allowing the moonlight to glitter off his eyes.

  “I am simply—”

  “Aroused,” he interrupted. “Something you need not suffer.”

  He leaned down and smothered her protest beneath his lips.

  In truth, she didn’t have any words of protest in her. There was only need and craving, and Ramon was what she hungered for. The night seemed like a cloak, shielding them from everything except one another.

  She reached for him, opening her mouth to let him deepen the kiss. He teased her lower lip with a longer sweep of his tongue before seeking hers. She arched toward him, the carnal nature of the kiss snapping through her. It broke through the last of her inhibitions, and she purred when she encountered his swollen member.

  Thick and long.

  It was hard against her belly as he pressed her down onto her back and trailed his kisses down her neck.

  She remembered what it looked like.

  But now, the image was a welcome one. Her passage was needy. She rolled toward him, pressing her body to his. For a moment, the connection pleased her, sending a rush of enjoyment through her, but it wasn’t enough. She yearned for a deeper connection.

  Ramon didn’t disappoint. He ran his hands down her, boldly cupping her breasts through the thin, worn fabric of the chemise. She groaned and opened her eyes, surprised to hear such a carnal sound coming from her own lips.

  Ramon chuckled. “Sinful or not, I enjoy hearing such things from you.” He lifted his head for a moment, capturing her gaze. “And knowing my touch is responsible.”

  He was still holding her breast, massaging the tender globe. Pleasure surged through her. She arched, unable to remain still. Somehow, she’d never noticed how sensitive her skin truly was or how much she wanted to be stroked.

  Ramon stroked her, his hands unleashing a delight that left her breathless. From her breasts and down across her belly and farther still, until he cupped the mound of her sex.

  She cried out, unable to contain the swirling mass of sensation he was stirring inside her. She was alive with impulses. To move, to stretch toward him, to seek…something.

  “Aye…anything but cold,” he said.

  She opened her eyes, trying to focus on his words, but her thoughts were clouded, her lips dry and unwilling to form a reply.

  Ramon didn’t let her. He pressed a kiss against her lips and boldly thrust his tongue inside her mouth. She writhed, reaching for him and twisting her fingers into his hair. He wasn’t close enough. She needed to be…something.

  Instinct offered the answer. She thrust her hips toward him and sighed when she felt the hard shape of his member.

  But he pressed her back, rubbing her belly with one large hand before venturing lower again. He tugged her chemise up, baring her naked body. The touch of the night air was blissful relief from the heat blistering her. A moment later, his fingers stroked her sex, sending a jolt of sensation through her passage.

  She broke away from his kiss but he pressed her down on her back with the weight of his body.

  “I will show you ecstasy, Isabel…”

  She licked her dry lips, shocked by the fact that he was touching her in so forbidden a place, but gasping because it felt so very good. Somehow, she’d never truly understood the meaning of the word delight, because what his fingers were sending through her flesh was more enjoyable than anything she had ever experienced.

  He dipped his fingers between the folds of her flesh and growled. “Your body welcomes me…”

  When he drew his fingers back to the top of her slit, they were moist. She shuddered, clawing at the bedding, needing release.

  But she had no idea how to gain it.

  “Show me.” Her voice was raspy and almost unrecognizable. He looked at her and the breath froze in her chest as she saw the look in his eyes.

  It was a savageness, but a welcome one. A burning need that existed only between them. He bared his teeth at her and plunged his fingers into her sex.

  “As you demand…”

  She cried out, losing the will to keep her eyes open. The only thing that mattered was the motion of his fingers. In and out. He worked two of them against the troubling point hidden at the top of her sex, drawing more of her juices from the opening to her passage as he went.

  “Yes…” It wasn’t really a word, but more of a sound. She twisted and strained toward him, her thighs clamping around his forearm. Everything was spinning, sweat dotting her brow in spite of the coolness of the night. Her heart beat frantically inside her chest, like a bird trying to escape a cage.

  Yet it wasn’t enough, not just yet. She lifted her hips, and her hands twisted in the bedding as her entire body was tightening beneath Ramon’s fingers. Every thrust sent a new bolt of pleasure through her, and her only thought was to gain another and another and another, until she burst.

  She shuddered, caught in a moment of pure rapture. The intensity held her like a vise, squeezing the breath from her as she moaned with delight. It twisted through her, burning away the hunger and dropping her back into reality, with the rich glow of satisfa
ction warming her. She couldn’t move, except to drag in deep, hard breaths to feed her burning lungs.

  Ramon pressed a tender kiss against her temple, his scent filling her senses and bringing her another measure of satisfaction. It was bliss, like she’d never expected to feel.

  He withdrew from her and lowered her chemise. The bed rocked as he settled back to lie beside her. The moments moved by, seeming long and drawn out as slumber tried to pull her down into its embrace.

  But she resisted, needled by the fact that she had given nothing in return. She rolled toward him.

  “Sleep, Isabel.” He turned his head to look at her in the dark. “I know you want to now.” She did, but his expression was tight once more.

  He craves what he just gave you…

  Of course he did. She rolled her lips in and moistened them, because she realized that she wanted to please him. She moved onto her side, shifting her legs so that her thigh brushed his.

  “Yet you are unsatisfied…”

  He rose and pressed her back, cupping her shoulder with a firm grip before he buried his face in the nest of her hair and inhaled.

  “Aye,” he confessed, his breath warming her neck.

  He settled onto his back, the bed ropes groaning. “You are not the only one who wishes to maintain their sense of what they are. I am a knight. You are a lady I wish to wed. I will not dishonor you.”

  He turned his head and reached out to stroke her jaw with one finger. She shivered. “When I lie with you, it will be as your husband.”

  He drew in a stiff breath and settled, sounding as though he was pressing his back into the mattress.

  “Yet now you know what ecstasy is and that nothing but lying with me will truly satisfy you.” There was a hint of smugness in his tone, but what rang in her ears was the warning.

  She very much feared she was going to learn exactly what he meant.

  Six

  Ramon was waiting for her.

  She had never desired to have a man dependent on her will, for such would be vain, but Isabel was giddy knowing so powerful a man was willing to wait for her to decide to wed him.

  Of course, he was also inflicting a very devious sort of torment on her because he refused to bring her to ecstasy now. The memory of that release drove her nearly insane when the man withdrew from her after kissing her breathless each night.