Enchanted (19 page)

Common sense told Simon that he shouldn’t do
what he was about to do, but the temptation was too great.

“Allow me,” he murmured.

Ariane made a startled sound as Simon’s arms
closed around her body, lifting and turning her in the same swift
motion. When she settled once more, she found herself astride his
lap.

“Comfortable?” he asked blandly.

“Er…”

“Think of me as your mount.”

Ariane bit her lip against a nervous smile. The
part of her that was still chained to nightmare was screaming that
she wasn’t safe. The part of her that had known the healing
enchantment of balm and Simon’s caressing hands was more than
ready to rise to the sensual lure.

“Er…you lack a saddle,” Ariane
pointed out.

“I wear leather,” Simon countered.
“Think of that as your saddle.”

“But where are the stirrups to keep me
upright?”

There was more amusement than reluctance in
Ariane’s tone. The realization increased Simon’s
heartbeat, which further quickened the flesh straining against his
supple breeches.

“I will not let you fall,” Simon said.
Then he added softly, “And I promise to heed your hand on the
reins.”

When Ariane realized what Simon meant, her eyes
widened.

“Simon?”

“I had a chance to learn your body while I
cared for you,” he whispered. “Will you care for me
just a little now that you are well?”

“I…” Ariane’s voice
died.

The hands that Ariane put against Simon’s
chest were cold. They trembled between fear and yearning.

“Am I so disgusting to you?” he asked
evenly.

“Nay! ’Tis only that…”

Simon waited, his jaw clenched against the hunger
to have just one caress freely given by his wife.

“I am nervous,” Ariane confessed in a
whisper.

Her hands moved from Simon’s breastbone
across the width of his chest to his arms.

“And there is so much of you,” she
added under her breath.

Smiling a bit fiercely, Simon fought against the
need to bury himself in the softness that now lay open to him
between Ariane’s widespread thighs.

“Duncan and Dominic are larger than I
am,” Simon pointed out in a low, reasonable tone.

“You would make two of me.”

“I would rather make a meal of you. And you
of me.”

We tasted each
other
.

Ariane’s breath caught as a curious shudder
unfolded deep within her body.

Simon felt his wife’s trembling and swore
silently.

“You misunderstand my meaning,” he
whispered. “There would be no pain in such a
‘meal.’ You would feel only pleasure.”

“Said the wolf to the lambkin.”

Surprised, Simon gave a crack of laughter.

Tentatively Ariane smiled.

“Where is the balm?” she asked.

He blinked. “Balm?”

“For healing. That is, if I am to learn you
as you learned me?”

When Simon remembered the way he had learned Ariane
that last night before she awakened, he thought he might burst.

She doesn’t know what
she is saying. She couldn’t have been awake
.

Could she
?

T
he possibility that Ariane might
actually have shared his dream made Simon’s blood run so
hotly that he was afraid to speak. With one hand he felt along the
bedding for the embroidered bag of medicines that Cassandra had
sent with him. His fingers quickly found the familiar shape of the
pot of balm.

“Here,” Simon said huskily, holding out
his hand to Ariane. “Use this.”

Ariane opened the pot and dipped two fingertips
into the creamy balm.

“What a lovely fragrance,” she
murmured.

“It smells of you. Moonrise and roses and a
distant storm.”

Ariane smiled slightly and shook her head. “I
don’t smell like that.”

“You smell more beautiful than I can say. I
could bathe in your fragrance.”

The look in Simon’s eyes sent a ripple of
awareness chasing over Ariane. Nervousness came in its wake.

“I feel you tugging at the reins,” she
whispered.

“Do you trust me not to run away with
you?”

Ariane’s breath caught. Then she sighed,
nodded her head, and began applying balm.

“Thank you,” Simon said.

“For the balm?”

“For trusting me.” He smiled slightly.
“Although I appreciate the balm as well. No matter how
cleverly made, chain mail always chafes.”

Tentatively, then with more assurance, Ariane
rubbed
her hands and the balm over
Simon’s bare chest. Once she got past the unfamiliarity of
such intimacy, she discovered that touching him felt quite nice.
Intriguing, even.

Pleasurable.

As Ariane rubbed in more balm, she realized that
touching Simon was much more than merely pleasant. It made her
shiver with enjoyment.

And a bit of apprehension, her nightmare seething
with warnings.

“You are so warm,” Ariane
whispered.

“When you touch me, I burn.”

A single look at Simon’s heavy-lidded eyes
told Ariane that he was speaking the truth. Another odd shiver
worked through her body. Heedlessly her hands flexed, pressing her
nails against the muscular pads of flesh that made Simon’s
breasts so unlike her own.

His breath hissed in.

She jerked back her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Ariane said quickly.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Then do it again, nightingale.”

“What?”

“Test me with those sweet claws.”

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“Only when you stop.”

Hesitantly Ariane’s hands settled on
Simon’s skin once more.

“Go ahead,” he whispered against her
forehead. “Test me. And yourself.”

Fingers flexed. Nails lightly scored skin.

Simon’s breath quickened as a sensual shudder
raced through him, tightening his loins.

“Are you certain you like it?” Ariane
asked doubtfully.

“Aye. Someday, I will show you how much you
like it, too.”

The huskiness of Simon’s voice intrigued
Ariane.

“Someday?” she whispered.

“When you no longer draw back in disgust when
I touch you.”

“You don’t disgust me,” Ariane
said.

“Only in my dreams,” he said beneath
his breath.

“What?”

“If I don’t disgust you,” Simon
challenged softly, “would you kiss me while you touch
me?”

“How? Like this?”

The warmth of Ariane’s mouth—and then
her tongue—against Simon’s shoulder drew a low oath
from him.

Ariane straightened quickly.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” she
asked.

“’Tis exactly what I wanted and more
than I expected,” he said huskily.

“Oh. Would you like another?”

“And another and another and—”
Simon reined in his hungry words. “Yes. Please. Another kiss
from your warm mouth.”

With a sigh that sent her breath rushing over
Simon’s chest, Ariane bent her head and caressed him with her
mouth once more. While her hands stroked healing balm into his skin
and tangled sweetly in the thatch of hair that covered his chest,
her mouth explored him with a growing urgency she didn’t
question.

The sleek texture of Simon’s skin stretching
over supple muscle intrigued Ariane’s tongue, as did the taut
line of tendon up Simon’s neck. She decided that his beard
was made for nuzzling and nibbling upon, as was the soft lobe of
his ear.

Without understanding why, Ariane closed her teeth
on the rim of Simon’s ear and bit delicately.

The sensual laughter that met her caress—and
the fact that Simon wasn’t forcing her in any way—made
Ariane more confident in her explorations. Soon she found herself
tracing Simon’s ear with the damp tip of her tongue,
following the curves down and in until she could go no farther.

Ariane’s tongue probed repeatedly, her teeth
biting gently all the while. She enjoyed the shivers of sensation
that coursed through her own flesh while she explored Simon. As her
mouth caressed, her fingers returned to the tiny male nipples that
she had felt harden when she had first stroked the curly hair on
his chest. Sucking lightly on his neck, Ariane plucked and teased
his nipples.

“Who taught you?” Simon groaned when he
could take no more.

Reluctantly Ariane lifted her head from its warm
nuzzling of his neck.

“Taught me what?” she murmured.

“This.”

Simon lifted Ariane’s hair aside. His teeth
and tongue caressed her ear until she shivered and sank her nails
heedlessly into his skin. Delicately his fingertips circled the
tips of her breasts. Her nipples budded in a velvet rush that made
Simon’s whole body clench.

Ariane cried out softly and covered his hands with
her own. Simon froze, expecting her to pull away. Instead she
swayed subtly, pressing against his hands, caught in the sensual
thrall of his touch.

“Who taught you?” Simon repeated
against her ear.

Then his tongue thrust down again. The burst of
sensation that went through Ariane made it impossible to think,
much less to speak.

“I dreamed—it was—done to
me,” she whispered.

A ripple of hunger went through Simon at the
thought that Ariane might have shared his sensual dream.

“Did it disgust you in your dream?” he
whispered.

“Dear God, no.”

“And now?”

Simon caught the tight velvet peaks of
Ariane’s breasts and rolled them lovingly between his
fingertips.

“Does this disgust you?” he
whispered.

“Nay.”

Ariane made a ragged sound as Simon’s tongue
and
teeth caressed her ear. Dimly she realized
that her hands were covering his as they roamed over her breasts,
flicking and squeezing and arousing until her nipples pouted,
flushed with heat.

Then he bent his head and curled his tongue around
a taut pink bud. The amethyst cloth served to magnify rather than
diminish the sensuality of the caress. Her head rolled back on her
neck and she shivered as his mouth suckled her.

“Are you afraid?” Simon whispered.

“Aye. Nay. I…do not know. I feel like a
bud must at the first touch of the sun. Flushed and quivering on
the edge of…something.”

Simon took a deep, steadying breath and
straightened until he could see Ariane’s face. Her eyes were
both shadowed and sultry, caught like her between nightmare and
dream.

“What else did you dream?” Simon
whispered. “Tell me, nightingale.”

“I cannot!” Ariane whispered.

The heat of her blush radiated out to Simon through
the thin cloth that was all she wore.

“Then show me,” Simon said, smiling
against Ariane’s ear.

She shook her head. “It will shock
you.”

“If I faint, bring me wine.”

The thought of being able to fell with mere words
the man whose body flexed powerfully beneath her hands disarmed
Ariane. She dipped up some more balm and resumed rubbing it into
Simon’s body.

When her fingers swept over his nipples, he groaned
softly. She repeated the caress, thrilling to the sense of power it
gave her to so affect him.

“Tell me your dream,” Simon said
huskily.

“You tempt me, my lord.”

“How can I? ’Tis your hand on the
reins, not mine.”

The reminder quivered through Ariane, a brightness
that pushed her dark fears back a bit more.

“Tempt me, nightingale. Share the dream that
makes you blush like the dawn.”

Delicately Simon plucked at Ariane’s nipples,
which still thrust hungrily between his fingers. He felt again the
heat of the blood rushing from Ariane’s breasts to her
forehead. Slowly he released her nipples from sensuous
captivity.

She gave a ragged sigh and leaned her forehead
against Simon’s shoulder. The tips of her breasts brushed
against his chest. It both soothed her and made her restless.

“In my dream…” Ariane
whispered.

“Yes?” he encouraged.

“I can’t say it.”

“Then show me.”

“On your body?” she asked.

“Would it be easier that way?”

“I don’t know. Simon…”

“Yes?”

“Would it disgust you to be
touched?”

“By you? Never.”

“I mean…” Ariane took a swift
breath, gathered her courage, and ran her hands down Simon’s
torso. “Here.”

“
Mother of
God
,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ariane snatched back her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said unhappily.
“I warned you that you would be disgusted but you
didn’t listen.”

Breath hissed back in through Simon’s
teeth.

“You misunderstand,” he said
raggedly.

“Nay, ’tis you who don’t
understand!”

Simon put his forehead against Ariane’s.

“Again, nightingale.”

“What?”

“Touch me again.”

“There?”

“Aye.”

“Are you certain?”

“By all the saints,
yes
.”

Hesitantly Ariane’s hands slid down to
Simon’s waist,
then skimmed over his
abdomen to a point between his legs. Her thumbs went back up,
tracing the blunt flesh that poked out above the waist of his
breeches.

“You are very hard,” she whispered.

“How can you tell?” he asked huskily.
“Your touch is light as a butterfly’s.”

When Ariane ran her hands over Simon again, he
groaned and moved urgently against her palms.

Fear rushed through her, a harsh warning of a
lesson that had been learned at great cost. A man in the throes of
lust was a beast.

“Simon?” she whispered.

“Again, nightingale. Or do I…disgust
you?”

Ariane drew a broken breath and then another,
nightmare and dream warring within her. Simon didn’t sound
mindless or brutal. But neither had Geoffrey the Fair, until that
final night when he had raped and ruined her in the eyes of Church
and family.

Dear God, what am I to do?
Despite all common sense, despite all past pain, I yearn to become
Simon’s true wife
.

And the moment I do, he will
hate me as my father did. Whore. Wanton. Witch
.

“Ariane?”

“You don’t disgust me. But I
am…frightened.”

“Of what?”

The seething thoughts within Ariane’s mind
were too complex to sort out. So she chose the most simple, potent
truth.

“I am afraid of this,” she said,
running her fingers over Simon’s aroused flesh.
“’Tis made to tear a woman apart.”

“Not so. It is made to pleasure a
woman.”

“I’ve heard no woman describe it
thus,” Ariane said bleakly.

Simon would have argued if her touch hadn’t
drawn his whole body upon a rack of passion so intense it was
painful.

“Smooth balm into me,” he said in a
low, hoarse voice. “It will help me and it will be a way for
you to learn that not all men are vicious beasts.”

He took Ariane’s lower lip between his teeth,
bit gently, and flicked his tongue over her lip. She made a small
sound and trembled.

But she leaned toward rather than away from
him.

“Touch me,” Simon whispered.
“Learn me. It is your hands upon the rein, not mine. This
time.”

Even Ariane couldn’t say if it was fear or
excitement that made her hands tremble as she lowered them to his
body once more. After a few hesitant strokes, she pressed more
firmly.

Then she lingered, curious about the contours of
Simon’s surprising masculinity. She stroked the length of him
several times before returning to explore the inch of hot flesh
that had pushed above the waist of his breeches.

“So smooth,” Ariane murmured, circling
Simon with curious fingertips. “I hadn’t expected that
of something so hard. Are you sensitive here?”

“Dear Christ,” Simon hissed. “I
ache.”

Ariane froze. “I didn’t mean to wound
you. Truly. I—”

“You can heal me,” he said across her
quick apology.

“How?”

“My breeches are too tight. Pick apart the
laces.”

For the space of several ragged breaths, Ariane
looked into Simon’s smoldering eyes.

Touch me. Learn me. It is your
hands upon the rein, not mine. This time
.

With trembling fingers, Ariane did as Simon asked,
loosening the laces until the length of him lay hot and hard
between her palms. She stroked with gentle care.

“Is this better?” she asked
anxiously.

Simon groaned and bit back a searing curse. Sweat
broke over his whole body.

In the firelight, his face seemed drawn by
pain.

“Do you truly hurt so much?” Ariane
whispered, shaken.

“God’s teeth,” he said
hoarsely.

“Would balm help?”

A shudder went through Simon.

“Yes. Oh God, yes,” he said through his
teeth. “Heal me, nightingale.”

The fragrance of balm rose from Simon’s
heated flesh as Ariane caressed him within the concealing warmth of
his fur-lined mantle.

“Some day I will caress you like this,”
Simon said huskily.

“I am not shaped as you.”

“Aye. You are softer than any petal ever made
by God.”