Jacq's Warlord (7 page)

36

Jacq’s Warlord

Disappointment knifed through Jacq, stealing her breath. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to barge in during your bath…” Jacq glanced at the rag in the other woman’s hand, “or whatever.” She turned and was halfway through the flap door when his voice halted her.

“Woman, you will stay.”

“That’s all right, I can come back later.” Jacq kept her back to him.
Why should I care
who he gets his rocks off with?

“Don’t argue, you will stay. I command it!”

Kinky bastard! Does he want me to watch?
Knowing she really didn’t have a choice, she let the flap fall back in place. “Okay, okay, don’t get your underwear in a twist.” She eased her way around the inside wall of the tent, her eyes averted from the naked hulk who sat seemingly unaffected by the two women in the tent—as if being naked around women were an everyday occurrence.

Jacq shook her head. It probably was an everyday occurrence for Lord Rathburn.

After all, this was the twelfth century—women were expected to bathe the men.

Women were possessions and lower on the list of importance than bird plop.

I think I’ve died and gone to hell.
How was a woman raised in the twenty-first century with all the associated rights and privileges going to fit into twelfth-century society?

She was a man’s equal, not his servant.

Discretion is the better part of valor, she repeated over and over in her head. Her father taught her to respect the cultures of others, no matter how foreign. Some backward countries in the twenty-first century still expected women to be subservient and put up with their males’ autocratic ways.

Jacq got heartburn thinking about those countries then, it was bound to give her an ulcer now.

She dropped onto the cot at the back of the tent and studied her shoes. But try as she might, she couldn’t keep her gaze averted from the incredible male sitting only a few feet away. The slosh of the water teased her mind and made her pulse leap. She could only imagine how all that muscle would look, gleaming wet. When she thought he wasn’t looking, she stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes.

Lord have mercy! They didn’t make ‛em like that anymore. His shoulders were broad and the muscles of his arms looked like they’d been carved in oak.

Must be all that sword swinging.
Her breaths came faster as she lowered her gaze.

His gleaming chest was covered with a mat of curly black hair that narrowed to a line extending down his washboard stomach to…

No, she did not just look! Jacq’s eyes widened and her gaze slowly lifted to Lord Rathburn’s.

The arrogant jerk stared straight at her, and he had the audacity to smile.

With her face burning, Jacq turned her head to stare at the walls of the tent, her breath coming now in shallow gasps. Before she did something stupid, like 37

Delilah Devlin & Myla Jackson

hyperventilate, she turned her back to the other two occupants of the tent. Irritation burned through her veins followed closely by a tinge of feline satisfaction.

Apparently, he had not been unaffected by her perusal.

Jacq envisioned that part of him standing at attention during her examination of his…attributes. His thick shaft rose from a dark nest of hair, ruddier than the rest of his skin, with blue veins standing in stark relief against his erection.

Jacq had never considered herself a prude. Yet she was unnerved being in the same tent with a naked, aroused man while another woman performed such an intimate act.

Her anger spiked a little higher. Why had he insisted she stay? Had he no modesty?

Her gaze slid sideways.

The other woman ran the washcloth across
Lord
Rathburn’s chest and down his torso, smiling seductively and leaning her scantily clad breasts close to his face.

Jacq’s blood warmed, increasing in intensity to a low boil. The woman flaunted herself like a floozy, enticing him. Was she trying to seduce him right in front of her? As far as Jacq was concerned the other woman could have him, and more power to her.

But,
puh-lease
, couldn’t she at least wait until they were alone?

She stole another glance and found herself wondering what all that muscle would feel like beneath her palms.

He sported a six-pack any twenty-first-century weightlifter would envy.

Oh, Jacq told herself she wasn’t lusting after the man, she was just…curious. She prided herself on her ability to remain distant from the opposite sex and unaffected by the cravings of the flesh. In her experience with men, she had yet to meet one she felt was equal to her own physical strength and abilities, except her father.

Which would account for her nonexistent sex life.

Jacq rolled her eyes. Why the hell was she thinking about sex while sitting in a tent with another woman and a naked warrior? She’d never been into threesomes, and this tent, in this century, was no place to start having such kinky thoughts. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered beneath her breath.

As the woman washed lower on his torso, Jacq kept tabs. She gave up trying to fool herself she wasn’t curious about how far this seduction would go.

She also gave up any attempts to harness her own arousal. Her nipples drew into tight aching points, her pussy swelled and the crotch of her panties grew damp.

A triumphant smile edged across the washerwoman’s face as she reached for his erect penis. Before she could wrap her fingers around it, his hand shot out, stopping her before she snagged her target.

Or so Jacq thought…until he guided the woman’s hand along his shaft, slowly, smoothing up and down.

“You’ve a speck of dirt here, milord,” the woman murmured, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper.

“Mustn’t miss a spot,” he said, a small smile curving his lips.

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Jacq’s Warlord

The woman knelt before him, both hands now clasping his cock, working soapy water with her fingers up and down, up and down.

“Better?” she purred.

Jacq’s breath caught and held as the woman moved her face nearer and stuck out her tongue to capture a glistening pearlescent drop of pre-cum from the tip of his cock.

A protest gurgled inside Jacq’s throat, drawing Lord
Rufus
’ gaze.

“Enough!” He dug his fingers through the woman’s hair and pushed her away.

“Leave me.”

Startled by the barked command, Jacq jumped up from her cot and made for the door.

“Not you…her.” His pointed finger indicated the washerwoman, not Jacq.

Darn.

The woman shot an angry glance at Jacq, gathered her skirts and marched for the door.

As the other woman stalked out of the tent, Jacq couldn’t help feeling a little victorious.

“You will dry me.” Rathburn’s voice was hard and left no room for

misinterpretation.

“I’ll what?” Jacq’s eyes widened, the wind completely sucked from her victory sails.

“You heard me, woman. Dry me.” His brow rose in an arrogant arc. “You will serve me. And remember, I have no patience with those who refuse my direction.”

Jacq still didn’t move. She felt frozen to the spot. Did he really expect her to touch him…there? Perhaps complete the act the woman had begun?

“Do it now.” His voice lashed out like a whip.

With a start, Jack found herself responding to the command like an automaton. She took two steps in his direction before her brain engaged and she thought about what she was about to do.

No way!

She grabbed a dry square of material she assumed was the towel and tossed it at his face.

The towel landed against his chest then fell to the floor. He crossed his arms over his upper body.

Jacq recognized his “this can take all night, if you want it to” expression. Her heart hammering against her rib cage, she tried to brazen it out. “Let’s get this straight, I am not one of your camp followers to be ordered about. You’re a big boy, do it yourself!”

Silence followed as Lord Rathburn’s face hardened into granite. He bent to reach for the towel, and then rose from his seat to stand towering over six feet of self-righteous female flesh.

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Delilah Devlin & Myla Jackson

Jacq had to tip her head back to follow his ascent and maintain eye contact. She refused to back down, despite all that shiny wet skin standing so close she could count the freckles dotting the tops of his shoulders.

“You will do as I bid, or I will withdraw my protection. My soldiers have been long without a women.” His low, dangerous voice was a glistening dagger, beautiful but deadly, slicing the air with each word.

He was magnificent, naked with shimmering drops of water sliding down his body and fire blazing from his dark eyes.

The proximity to his powerful muscles had an alarming effect on Jacq’s mental capacity and natural body functions. Breathing—which she had always taken for granted—was something she had to remind herself to do. Her lack of control in this situation was frightening. Before she completely lost her mind, she placed the tip of one finger against his solid chest and pushed.

“Back off!” When her words came out, they were little more than a wheeze. Too late, she realized, it takes air in the lungs to blast out a command. With the needed deep breath, her finger still on the unmoving chest, she opened her mouth to repeat her demand.

An iron grip clenched around her raised hand, yanking it down to her side. As her other hand reached up to block against the attack, it too was pulled down to her side.

Her attempt to put distance between them had backfired. Now standing toe-to-toe, she could feel the heat of his body burning through the velvet of her dress and the long ridge of his cock pressing into her belly.

With a gulp, she dared to look up into his face. As her head tipped back, his descended. Her jaw dropped in surprise.
What the hell?

His lips claimed hers, sliding, nibbling at her lips. Jacq gasped, and he stabbed inside her mouth.

Her hands pinned to her sides and her mouth likewise occupied, Jacq’s body warred with her mind.

Fire licked at her skin, her blood heated, searing a path throughout her body in a way she’d never experienced. His impact on her senses alternated between energizing her like an adrenaline rush, and sapping all of her strength, leaving her as limp as an overcooked noodle.

At this latter point, he set her away and smiled, his quirked eyebrow signaling his triumph.

Jacq dragged air into her lungs, her knees going weak. Why did this man have such an effect on her? She willed iron into her spine and straightened, anger building quickly at the humiliating way he’d treated her, and more so at herself for responding.

Without a thought to repercussions, her hand darted up and slapped the smirk off that cold, hard face. The resounding smack of her palm against his cheek echoed in the harsh silence that followed.

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Jacq’s Warlord

Her hand stung like the dickens. Her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat.

Uh-oh.

The white palm print stood out against the dark tan on
Lord
Rathburn’s cheek. A mottled flush spread up his neck into his face, and his eyelids lowered dangerously over his eyes. When a twitch began near his left eye, Jacq knew it was time to retreat.

She dove through the tent flap and, without looking back, dashed past the row of tents and men milling about the camp. She didn’t have to turn to know he was close on her heels. The ground fairly thundered with the pounding of his bare feet against the hard dirt.

Before she reached the edge of the camp, a soldier stepped into her path to block her way. With the desperation of a trapped animal, she kneed the man, sending him to the ground groaning. She leapt over his inert body and took two more strides before another soldier clapped a heavy hand upon her shoulder.

Putting her father’s self-defense training into action, she stopped suddenly and crouched low, using his forward momentum to roll him over her shoulder.

He landed on his back, his eyes wide, the air forced from his lungs in a loud

“oomph”.

Jacq sprang past his sprawled form and made a break for the dense forest beyond.

Just as she reached the tree line, a hurtling form clipped the back of her knees, bringing her down hard, face first in the dirt. When her senses cleared, she tried to scramble to her feet, but her legs were trapped beneath a huge weight. No amount of wiggling or squirming could dislodge it. A glance behind her confirmed her worse suspicions and she groaned. “Damn.”

Lying naked in the dirt, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, was the pigheaded warrior, Lord Rathburn. And he looked mad.

When he rose to his feet, he lifted her from the ground in one fluid motion, flinging her over his shoulder before she could utter a word of protest.

Survival instincts took over. Jacq kicked and pounded her fists against the muscles of his back.

In response, he wrapped the fabric of her skirt tightly around her legs to still the wild motion.

He could do nothing about her hands, so she continued to pummel his back with all her might.

“Cease, woman!”

“Put me down!” she yelled right back, intensifying her assault.

An iron hand whacked her upturned bottom hard enough to make an impact through the velvet layers of her gown.

“Yeeooow!” she screeched. Her pummeling was momentarily forgotten with the shocking realization he’d just spanked her. Rage shot through her like Old Faithful at showtime. She dug her nails into the skin on his backside and raked them upward.

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Delilah Devlin & Myla Jackson

Again his hand landed, stinging with the force, bringing tears to her eyes. His strides lengthened as they traveled back through the camp.

Snickers sounded from the crowd of men gathered along Rathburn’s path. Jacq leaned up to deliver blistering glares at the men they passed, which only made them laugh harder.

“Need a hand with her, milord?” offered one soldier.

“She’s a big one, it may take two to hold her down,” shouted another.