Jacq's Warlord (28 page)

“I don’t know.”

He heard the hint of pain in her voice and drew an unsteady breath. “If it’s your choice, will you be here?”

“Again, I don’t know. I don’t feel I belong here.”

Rufus shook his head. “But you
do
belong here, by my side.” He pulled her into a fierce hug, unwilling to let her go but knowing he must.

“We’re so different,” she said into his chest, her warm breath stirring the hairs near his nipple.

He tipped up her chin to stare into her eyes. “You are wrong, sweet Jacq. We are very much alike. That is what I admire about you, my warrior woman.” He kissed her, ending their discussion.

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This woman was his match, his mate, in body and spirit. He wanted to stay by her side to make sure she didn’t disappear, but he couldn’t. He had to go to Duke Henry—

he had his duty to fulfill. But tonight she was his, and he planned to make a memory for each and every moment to carry with him through the trying days ahead. He only hoped she would be here when he returned.

If
he returned.

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Rufus had slept little, determined to make the most of the few hours he had left in Jacq’s company. They had reveled in the privacy and comfort of their bed despite the previous days’ journey and homecoming celebration. They had made love again and again, dozing lightly between bouts of passionate joining.

This time he woke slowly, swimming between dream and reality. It was a pleasurable dream…soft hands caressed him, tugging gently at his chest hair…a warm, wet mouth followed the same path, licking a moist trail from nipple to nipple.

He moaned.

The dark-haired woman in his dream laughed softly, and said, “Just wait. I’m only getting started.”

Her wicked mouth kissed southward, her long hair brushing his belly, causing muscles to jump and clench until heat flared in his loins.

Again, she laughed and darted her tongue into his navel, before sucking softly against the skin of his lower abdomen.

Pushing through the cobwebs of his dream, he shifted his legs restlessly, widening them to ease the ache of his burgeoning desire. He flexed his hips upward, seeking.

Suddenly all sensation ceased, and he relaxed, disappointed the dream ended so quickly. When a mouth closed over the tip of his cock and opened wide to swallow him, he came fully alert in an instant.

“Mother of God!”

All light from the candles and brazier were extinguished. Only ink-black night met his eyes. The lack of sight only heightened his awareness.

He threaded his fingers through Jacq’s hair to hold her there, savoring the slide of her tongue as she caressed his shaft, moaning as her hot mouth sucked and her hands cupped his balls kneading them between her fingers.

She drew away, taking her warm mouth with her, and he lifted his hips to follow.

Then her hands joined her mouth around his cock to complete the warm cocoon he moved inside, wrapping him in wet, creamy heat, until he felt the tension of his impending release build a coil inside his belly. Before he spilled his seed, he pushed her away.

Jacq laughed, deep and throaty. Then she gasped as he rolled over her, covering her from breast to toe, his cock settling between her legs.

“Methinks the wench needs to learn consequences of waking a man from his sleep.”

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“Oh, please, Lord Rufus,” she said in a high, sweet tone, laughter flavoring her tones. “Teach me.”

He rubbed his shaft across her curly mound. Pushing deeper, his straining cock parted her cunt lips, strumming her clit with the hardened ridge. He jerked in anticipation of driving deep inside her velvety core, yet he held back, wanting to pleasure her first, though he feared his body would not be deterred.

His head dropped to capture one beaded nipple between his teeth.

Jacq squealed and writhed beneath him, strengthening her own sensuous attack on his person. Her hands smoothed down his back and over the curve of his ass, fitting him against her. She circled the mounds of his buttocks in broad, massaging strokes growing ever closer to the center crease. A solitary finger found the tight ring of his asshole, and she circled it, softly thrusting into the clenched opening.

Rufus groaned, his muscles squeezing around her finger, blood ripping through his veins, burning a path to his groin. As wave upon wave of sensation rippled across him, his breath caught in his throat, his body stiffened. He rocked his hips, pressing his engorged cock against her heated clit, sliding up and down.

Her fingernails burrowed into his skin, clutching at his buttocks. She leaned forward trailing her lips across his throat, flicking her tongue against his pulse and nipping his shoulder, none too gently. Her body trembled beneath him and she dug her heels into the bed, raising her hips to meet his strokes.

Pulling back enough to moisten the tip of his cock in her velvety cunt juices, he renewed his assault on her clit, this time coated in her passion, the slippery cream easing the gliding motion.

Jacq arched her back, skimming the tips of her nipples through his chest hairs, her finger penetrating deeper into his ass. Her other hand slid between their bodies and grasped his cock, her fingers enveloping his rigid shaft in her warmth and strength. The hand caressing his cock moved up the pulsing shaft to the tip, circling the tiny opening and the extremely sensitive head.

She leaned up to whisper in his ear, “Fuck me, Rufus. Fuck me hard.”

His cock swelled at her entreaty and he kissed her hard, before resting his forehead against hers, dragging in deep, calming breaths. “Damnation, Jacq. Will I never have my fill of you?”

“I sincerely hope not,” she said, her tone prim. Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer. She spread her legs beneath him and coaxed him to her quim with delicious little wriggles.

“Stop that,” he said, bracketing her legs with his own to hold her still. He grabbed her wrists and placed her hands beside her head. “You cannot touch me. ‘Tis my turn to taste your passion.”

“You’re a wicked, wicked man, Rufus of Rathburn,” she drawled.

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“I’ll have you remember that.” He pushed himself down her body, pausing first at her lush breasts. “Mmmm,” he sighed appreciatively over one velvet-soft nipple. He tugged it with his lips. “All the ladies say that.”

“Not anymore they won’t,” she growled.

He grinned in the darkness. Sex had never been playful for him, and conversation with a woman during lovemaking added a new dimension to the experience.

Kneading one soft mound with his hand, he rubbed his tongue on the erect tip of her nipple.

Jacq groaned and writhed beneath him. “Hurry it up, Rufus. I’m dying here.”

“This isn’t about your pleasure, Jacq,” he lied. “This is my journey.”

“Bastard,” she moaned.

He gently bit her nipple, pleased when her hips bucked beneath him. Then he soothed it with his tongue.

His cock and balls grew painfully hard, and he decided to move along before his own need overruled his will to give Jacq an experience to remember.

He scooted down the bed and released her legs, encouraging her with his hands to open them wide and lift her knees.

When he lowered his face between her thighs, Jacq’s breath caught in a ragged gasp. “Rufus?”

He raked through the curly hair covering her mons and spread her folds, then dipped lower to lick her passion-slick cunt.

She sighed and her legs quivered against his shoulders. Then she forgot his prohibition about touching him and her fingers combed through his hair, gripping his scalp, tugging to keep him anchored between her legs.

Rufus groaned and slid his tongue along her cleft, glorying in her trembling expectation.
Sweet Jacq!
He opened his mouth to take her lips inside and sucked her rhythmically, then slid two fingers inside her quim.

“Oh, please, Rufus,” she begged, her voice rising. “Come inside me, please.”

He licked higher, finding the hard, rounded bead, and pulled back the hood of skin shielding it.

“Oh God,” she groaned. “Suck it!”

He rubbed his tongue along her swollen clit, swirling mercilessly.

Jacq writhed beneath him, her body undulating, her voice keening as the precipice neared.

His teeth closed gently on the hardened pearl, then he sucked it with his lips, and she screamed as her channel convulsed around his fingers with the first explosion of her release.

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Rufus climbed over her, flexing his buttocks to enter her moist quim in one hard thrust. He held himself still for one painful moment, willing himself to remember exactly how it felt to slide inside Jacq to savor the memory in the lonely weeks to come.

Then he could no longer resist the woman arching beneath him, pleading for his thrusts. He withdrew, then glided back—slowly at first, then he let his body gather momentum, pummeling against her cunt at last, until her screams echoed in the chamber.

Afterwards he nuzzled against her neck, his passion and strength spent. “Madam, you have accomplished what all of Stephen’s men could not. I think you have killed me.”

“But what a way to go,” she said, sounding drowsy. Then kissing his cheek, she wrapped her arms around him and they slept.

* * * * *

Rufus heard a soft scratch at the door. Untangling himself from the sprawl of his lover’s limbs, he padded on bare feet to the door.

Donald waited outside. “’Tis Prime. The priest would say a mass before we leave.”

Rufus nodded and shut the door gently. His idle was over.

However uncomfortable he was with the strength of the yearning she engendered in him, regret for his departure weighed heavy. He would much rather crawl back into bed with Jacq.

He thought he might even have told her he loved her sometime during the night. At the moment it had felt true. For as near as a warrior could love a woman, he desired her company, her intellect and her passion more than any woman he had ever known.

He lit a candle and gathered his things. Greedy for a last moment, he thought about waking Jacq. But it was best to let her sleep—easier to leave her without having to try to speak past the tightness in his throat—or worse, to suffer her tears.

Quiet as he could, he dressed, aware of the sounds of her steady breathing as she slept on. When he was done, he walked to the bed and leaned over her, inhaling the smell of their mixed scents still clinging to the bedding.

He studied her as she slept. Jacq asleep was…different. Without the sparkle of her jade green eyes, that independent lift of her chin and her animated intelligence, her features were almost plain…except for her lips. They were swollen still and rosy…his doing. He leaned forward and touched those lips lightly with his.

“Be here when I return, Jacq,” he whispered.

She didn’t stir. She’d be angry later when she realized he hadn’t woken her to say goodbye. He smiled a little at the thought, and took that vision of her anger with him as he closed the door.

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* * * * *

Sliding a hand across the space next to her on the bed, Jacq sat bolt upright when she realized she was alone. Truly alone. Rufus was gone—not just from the bed, but from the keep. She knew it as sure as she knew her heart was breaking.

The bastard!
He’d left without waking her and who knew how long it would be until she saw him…or whether she would ever see him again. And he hadn’t even bothered waking her to say goodbye.

Restless, she threw back the covers and searched for the clothing she had left in a trail across the floor. She made use of the chamber pot—recalling wryly how embarrassed she’d been using it the previous night.

Rufus had laughed at her and told her the alternative was another trip to the garderobe—a reminder that horrified her and sent him into gales of laughter.

Which reminded her she had to do something to remedy the stench emanating from that cesspit, as well as the multitude of other chores she had tallied in her head the evening before as she’d made her way around the keep. She would be far too busy for the next few days to even spare a thought for one tall, dark and handsome knight.

After washing herself with cold water and dressing, Jacq descended the stairway to the hall below. Several steps from the bottom, she was startled by the flapping of wings as a big white bird flew at her. Staggering backward, her heel caught in the hem of her dress, causing her to lose her balance and topple down the remaining steps. She landed with a jolt against the hard floor.

“Buttercup, you silly goose, you get yer bloody arse down here at once!” A child with dirty blonde hair raced toward Jacq, waving a stick above her head.

Jacq raised a hand to protect herself from the blow she was sure was coming, when the stick was suddenly plucked from the girl’s hand.

“Annie, you good fer nothin’ little snipe! Stop yer caterwauling and get that goose out in the yard where she belongs,” cried the laundress Gwen as she swatted the girl’s backside. “Many pardons, milady,” she said as she turned to follow the girl.

Annie stopped in the middle of her flight up the stairs, jammed a fist on one small hip and tilted her head to the side with a frown. “Now, Mamma, if I could get the bloody bird to do as I wished, do yer think I’d be chasin’ her around inside the castle?”

The laundress marched up the steps, stepping over Jacq, and pinched the corner of Annie’s ear.

“Ouch! What did you do that for?”

“Don’t you be sassing me, young lady. I’m your mother and don’t you forget it!”

“When yer around,” Annie muttered loud enough for Jacq to hear.

“Now, I don’t care what you do when I’m not around, but you by the love of God better mind me when I am!” Gwen said, pulling the child by the ear and marching her up the steps.

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Jacq watched the two with interest. So Gwen had a child. Seeing her with the soldiers in the camp, she could well understand
why
she had a child, but she seemed anything but mother material. This child was unwashed, uncombed and lacking in manners and social skills. With a mother like Gwen who was off gallivanting around the countryside with a rugged group of men, Jacq was sure the child was left to fend for herself.