Chapter 22
When she returned with a full water
flask, Edith wondered for an instant if he had abandoned her. The
little stand of trees seemed deserted.
“Here.” A rough cloth flap was opened
and she saw a small “cave” within, lit by a lantern.
She crawled inside, surprised and
pleased by what she found. Ranulf had draped cloths about the
branches and spread cloths and bedding on the ground, making them a
nest that was warm and snug.
“This useful trick I learned from a
shepherd.” He settled cross-legged on a bare but dry patch of earth
beside the bedding. “We need no fire tonight, I think, or do you
feel our English cold?”
Still on hands and knees, she shook her
head and rose onto her knees.
He smiled. “You have no idea what to do
next.”
She almost disagreed, but that might
mean she would have to back her words with action. She warmed her
hands by the small, flickering lantern, and began to plait her hair
for something to do.
Inspiration struck. “I am a little
thirsty. Have we any ale, please?” She knew the river water was for
washing; no one drank water in a camp unless they were
fools.
“We have better than ale.” Ranulf
lifted a cloth to display cups and a flagon, and small baskets
filled with dried apple, fresh raspberries, sugared orange, plums
in cinnamon and honey, cherry bread. The spicy scent of wine filled
the space and, had she not been so nervous, her mouth would have
watered.
He poured her a cup of wine and placed
it carefully on the ground before her. “Fruit?”
He filled her plate. All sweets, she
noticed, and felt pleased and flattered, but more shy. No other man
had taken such trouble to please her, not when they knew her as
simply Edith.
As she reached for a piece of apple,
Ranulf lifted the lantern. He was not crass enough to shine it
directly into her eyes, but he was looking at her
again.
“I asked one of my men, who has an
interest in words and meanings, about your name. ‘Edith’ matches
you. It means ‘royal warrior.’ Apt for a princess, would you not
say?”
She had not known. “What is the meaning
of your name?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “I did not ask that. I was
not interested.”
The bars of the lantern made shadow
lines across his face, like scars. She touched them, feeling him
shiver.
“What now, Princess Royal Warrior?” he
asked, but he was already sweeping forward in a blaze of lantern
light and heat, and he answered his own question by kissing
her.
She had never felt royal until now.
Ranulf’s kiss cherished and exalted her so that she felt to be part
of a warm, glowing wave. She put her hands into his soft
russet-to-fair hair, feeling his skull and the hard tendons of his
neck, relishing the weight of his head, the heavy weight of him.
Always and most intimately, his lips pleasured hers while her mouth
answered his kiss for kiss.
She gave him a gentle, experimental
push. At once, he sank back into the bedding like a golden shadow,
in a whiff of lavender-scented cloths, and held out his
arms.
She entered them without thought,
sprawling over him, delighting at his tough long legs, firm belly,
the knotted muscles that he made “dance” along his arms. She could
feel his chest and stomach hairs tickling her bare navel and
giggled, feeling like a young girl again.
“Princess Prize.” He stroked the small
of her back with the tips of his fingers. She wriggled, wishing he
would stroke lower, aching to touch him.
“Do what you will with me.” He tugged
softly at her hair plait, murmuring, “You make me a youth again,
all wonder and thumbs.”
He would not scold or strap her if she
did anything he did not like. The difference between Ranulf, Adam,
and Peter awed her, while deep in her heart she understood. This
was love.
Slowly—many of the fastenings were
laced in ways strange to her—she untied his green and gold tunic
and leggings. He was as sun-bronzed and obedient as a child,
lifting his shoulders and hips for her to undress him, but he was
very much a man. Seeing him stripped, she clutched at the leggings
in her fist, feeling heat burning up her throat and
face.
Will it
hurt?
She did not know she had spoken until
he answered gently, “Only a brute hurts a woman. We have all night
to learn about each other.” He swallowed, and his soaring manhood
joggled, too, a detail that made her smile. “Do you wish to touch
me?”
He was blushing as well, she realized,
and possibly also shy, while holding himself within an iron
restraint. She wanted to smother the lantern and plunge them into a
safe darkness, while at the same time she longed to look and kiss
and caress.
“May I touch you?” he
asked.
“Later?” And, as he grinned and thrust
out his tongue in mocking protest, she repeated firmly,
“Later.”
She glided her hands over his legs and
feet, across his arms and shoulders. He was warm and strong to her
touch, strong as a smith, and more beautifully formed, with his
calves and thighs as sinewy as his forearms. She kissed his ears
and forehead, his stomach, and the shadows in the crooks of his
elbows. His skin tasted of salt and musk and beneath those a
sweetness that inspired her to kiss his mouth. He embraced her
fiercely in return, clamping his arms about her tightly and
squeezing until she cried, “Too much!”
At once he let her go and in response
she daringly lowered her head and licked his navel, teasing the
golden hairs that swirled there. He stifled an exclamation and
reached for her anew.
“Patience, knight.” She nipped his arm
and he chuckled, flicking his foot against hers, then snaking a
long, lean leg over her bottom and trapping her against him. Her
arousal was hard and obvious against her flimsy silk.
“Shall we offer each other terms,
lady?” He cupped her behind with his hands.
“Or favors,” she gasped, rocking
against him, stiffening as the space between her thighs sweetly
itched and ached. “I have one for you.”
She wanted to please him. As a wife she
had pleasured Adam with her hands often, but she was shy of showing
her reddened, burned fingers with Ranulf. “Close your eyes,” she
coaxed.
“After, my lady, it will be you,” he
said, then he did as she asked.
He looked like a glorious sleeping
statue come to life, she thought, as the lantern cast its soft
light over them. Her hands looked very rough and coarse beside the
tender white and pink flesh of his manhood, but he sighed as she
caressed him, blowing her a kiss.
She stroked him softly, then firmly,
running her thumbs over the tip of his sex, cradling his balls. He
grew even harder and thicker, his breath sounding harsh against her
ear as she quickened her fingers. His hips jerked on the bedding
and his face reddened and even as she was thrilled by his strong
response, he spilled his seed with a great shout.
“Forgive me,” he said, shamefacedly,
when he had caught a breath. “You are so giving, so loving. I could
not stop myself—”
She kissed him into silence. “It is
wonderful to me, Ranulf.” Her loins still felt moist and open, but
she did not care overmuch. Neither of the other men she had known
had been so swift, so ardent, and so touchingly grateful. Already
she knew there would be other times when they would join in truth
and then she expected to be well-sated.
She snuggled down beside him, expecting
him to roll over and sleep. Instead he took her hands and lifted
them to the light.
“Do not be afraid,” he said as she
cringed a little at his examination. “You kissed the scars on my
flanks and arms. These, too, are honorable wounds.” He pressed his
lips to a long red scar on her smallest finger and then sucked a
mark in the middle of her palm, the remains of an old burn. “Lady
of lilies and fire,” he muttered, sucking each fingertip in turn,
kissing her reddened knuckles. “Hands of a maker.”
He took her hands in one of his,
saying, “What dainty wrists,” as he trailed his other hand from her
breasts to her belly. Kissing and tonguing her breasts through the
silk, he deftly parted and lifted her skirts and slipped his
fingers between her legs.
The intimate contact made her buck and
whimper as the sense of pressure and need for more overwhelmed her.
Always with men before she had savored their pleasure and sometimes
gained some sweetness for herself. This time she felt so giddy she
was afraid she might faint.
“I—I—”
“Enjoy,” he whispered, kissing her
lips. “Come to me, sweeting.”
His coaxing released her. A bright,
sweet comet of pleasure exploded in her hips, breasts, mouth—even
her toes. On and on she rode the wave, her hips jerking, reaching
upward as Ranulf quickened and slowed and quickened his caresses,
extending her pleasure, kissing her tautened throat and
chin.
The piercing moment was gone and she
glowed in the aftermath, feeling joyful yet close to tears. She had
sought to give herself, the true gift she had, yet had she brought
him such happiness?
“Thank you,” she whispered. She felt
awed.
He hugged her and began to slide the
silk from her shoulders. “Forgive me, Edith, for not doing this
earlier. A lady does not expect to be tumbled clothed into her
bed.”
“I could not have waited
longer.”
He smiled.
What fools had lain with her, that she
should be so unknowing of her own desires? The base part of him
exulted that he would be the one to teach her, that she would learn
such joys and tenderness with him. Yet overwhelming his sense of
triumph was a surprising feeling: pity.
Am I going
soft?
“You were finally tender with me,
Rannie,” said Olwen in his mind.
Surely I was not as bad
with you as these fools were with her.
“You know you were not, merely
youth-hasty. But now you have another chance to share that gentle
unguardedness with another, and from the start. Take
it.”
I heed you. In
life he had done so too little, sometimes too late. These days he
did not make that mistake.
Thoughts are swift, and he had only
drawn the strange halter top from Edith’s arms. Now he looked at
her and all thought was gone.
As if tugged by invisible strings, his
fingers stretched out. “May I?” His voice was a croak.
She nodded and he traced the start of
her blush by her throat and then swept his hands lower. He cupped
her naked breasts and they both sighed.
“Kneel up,” he whispered. He wanted to
see her more by the lantern light and feel those delicious soft
curves jouncing slightly in his hands.
She did so and he rose with her. Her
breasts were rounder and more pert than apples, with lovely dark
nipples that reminded him of the half-opened roses in his mother’s
garden. He gloried in running his hands over each breast, feeling a
fresh surge of passion and tenderness as she leaned into his
fingers and kissed him wherever she could reach.
They knelt together and he fed her
raspberries and dried apple, washed down by wine. She drank
eagerly.
“I cannot understand why I am so
dry-mouthed,” she remarked, a complaint that amused him although he
said nothing, focusing on her smooth navel and gently flaring
hips.
He had touched her there but now he was
greedy. He must see and taste. Savoring the moment, he eased her
skirts down over her bottom, letting the mass drop
away.
His first glimpse of that dark triangle
made him go hard again. Reluctant to relinquish the paradise of her
bosom, he bent his head and kissed her nipples as his hands quickly
explored her tiny waist before dipping to her freshly exposed
behind.
Outside, incongruously, a donkey began
to bray in the darkness, and a man cursed it. Ranulf heard the
rustle of the river and Edith’s skirts as she wriggled against his
fingers. He pulled her toward him, and she surprised him by
pitching forward onto her hands and knees and lowering her
head.
Her backside was another paradise:
round, unblemished, glistening in the lantern light. An inviting
prospect.
He kissed her nicely presented bottom,
loving how round yet firm she was, how smooth. He wrapped his hands
across each raised cheek, fondling her bottom and her thighs. Her
forearms were rigid, he noticed.
“Rest on me,” he instructed softly,
scooping an arm about her tender, tiny waist, pillowing her navel
on his brawny, hairy forearm. He circled her raised nether cheeks
with his other hand, marking how she pushed back against his roving
fingers.
He kissed and softly nipped the back of
her neck where her hair plait had lately lain. Recalling her wide,
anxious eyes at his own size and her clear arousal in this
position, he whispered, “Do you like making love this
way?”
“The single time it was done to me,
yes.” She groaned, laying her head on the sheets and closing her
eyes as he caressed her over her haunches and between her
thighs.
Once only and she had
no choice? Her previous menfolk were worse than
pigs!
“It will be excellent with me,
sweeting,” he promised.
He began a long, slow, trailing fondle,
round her bottom and down to her sweet intimacies. He took his time
and his pleasure from her response, reaching with his other hand to
caress her bush from the front, too.
Olwen had been warm and slow and steady
to please. Edith was hotter in nature, or more starved; in a few
more strokes her face crimsoned and she stiffened in rapture. He
embraced and caressed her as she blossomed in her release, ready to
stop and cuddle if it should prove too intense, if she was
well-satisfied.
“You!” she managed to gasp, trying to
roll over and embrace him, but he kept her hung over his
arm.
“Edith.” She was close again, making
small endearing squeaks that he might tease her about one day, but
not tonight.
“You are as snug as your gloves,” he
praised, deepening his caresses. She reveled in the attention, her
mouth open in a long gasp of wonder.
But he could wait no longer.
Withdrawing his fingers, he piled the cloths beneath her so she was
curved nicely over them. Cupping her full breasts with one hand, he
guided himself into her.
Her parts embraced him in warmth and
silken, pliant strength: she welcomed him. Wanting to plunge and
plunge, he steeled himself to take care, experiencing sensations he
had never encountered before as he slowly sank his full length into
her. Then they were sheathed together.
“Lord!” he heard her breathe. “Lord,
Lord.”
“Too much?” He began to shift back, but
she backed up with him.
“More!”
Her plea released him and he reared and
bucked within her, accelerating as she screamed her satisfaction.
On and on they moved as one, and his yielding powered and stormed
within him. Then, as he felt her strong young muscles clamping
about him as she spiraled again into further desire and release, he
too was flying.
He bellowed her name, tumbling against
her, drawing her with him as they sprawled on the bedding, together
and content at last.