Page 10 of The Maiden

He was not prepared for the blow that hit him. Someone swung from a tree branch above his head, feet slammed into Rowan’s shoulders, and caught off balance, he fell to the ground. Instantly, he felt a steel point at his throat.

“Don’t,” said a woman’s voice.

Rowan had been reaching for his fallen sword, but as he looked up, he forgot about his sword. Straddling him, her legs bare to midthigh, was the most beautiful female Rowan had ever seen in his life. His uncle William’s men had always teased Rowan that he lived like a monk. They laughed because he had no desire to tumble a peasant girl in a haystack. He had had a few sexual encounters, but no woman had ever inflamed his senses so that he desired her above all else in life. If sex was offered and the girl was clean, he took it if he had nothing else to do.

Until now.

As Rowan looked up at this woman, up past high breasts, up to her face with black eyes that burned as hot as coals, he felt as if his body were on fire. Every pore in his skin was alive, awake as it had never been before. He could feel her, smell her. It was as if the warmth from her body were merging with his and becoming one.

His hands moved to touch her ankles, clasped them, and his eyes followed his hands as he drank of the beauty of her long, lean, muscular legs. The sword point at his throat fell away but he wasn’t aware of it. He saw and felt only his touch of those magnificent legs, his hands traveling higher, caressing, kneading her tanned, beautiful, smooth flesh.

He thought he heard her groan but he wasn’t sure it wasn’t the sound of his own heart melting in ecstasy.

As his hands traveled upward as far as they could reach, her knees began to bend in a slow way, like a wax candle melting when placed too near a blazing fire. His hands moved up and up, lifting the damp tunic she wore. She had on nothing beneath and he saw the precious jewel of her as his hands moved up to clasp the high firm cheeks of her buttocks.

She sank to his chest, and when her bare flesh touched his, Rowan quivered with desire. Her skin was as hot as his, like red-hot iron in the farrier’s forge. His hands moved up her back and pulled her forward.

Her face was near his, her eyes half closed with desire, her lips red and full and open to receive him, her skin pale and perfect. He pulled her face to his.

At the first touch of their lips, she sprang away from him and looked at him. But she seemed to feel the same surprise that he did. But the next moment his surprise was gone as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion he felt. His arms tightened about her so hard, it was a wonder her ribs didn’t break. He pushed her to her back, never breaking contact with her lips as he kissed her violently, deeply, with years of desire that had been waiting for this one woman and this one moment.

Her legs went about his waist as he rolled over with her and his loincloth came off of its own accord.

“Jura,” someone called.

He ate at her lips, gnawing them, trying to get more and more of her. He nestled his hard body into the woman’s saddle of her.

“Jura, are you all right?”

The woman beneath Rowan was beating on his bare back with her fists, but he was too stupid with desire to feel pain.

“They will see us,” she whispered urgently with a shaky voice that went up and down in pitch. “Release me.”

If a horse had run over him, he wouldn’t have felt it. His hand searched for and found her breast.

“Jura!” The voice was closer.

Jura grabbed a rock and brought it down on the man’s head. She didn’t mean to hit him so hard, only to get his attention, but he collapsed senseless on her body.

She could hear the guardswomen coming closer now. With urgency and a great deal of regret, she pushed the man off of her. For a moment she looked down at his magnificent body. Never had she seen a more perfect man, muscular yet lean, thick but not heavy, with a face like one of God’s angels.

She ran her hand over his body, down his thick thighs and back up to his face. She kissed his lips.

“Jura! Where are you?”

She cursed the stupid trainees who had interrupted her, then stood so they could see her. The tall grasses hid the man at her feet. “I am here,” she called. “No, don’t come any closer, the mud is deep here. Wait for me at the path.”

“It’s growing dark, Jura,” one who was little more than a girl said.

“Yes, I can see that,” Jura snapped. “Go on. I won’t be but a moment.” Impatiently, she watched the women go out of sight then knelt to the unconscious man.

Perhaps she should feel guilty about what she had almost done with this stranger, but she didn’t. She touched his chest again. Who was he? He wasn’t Zerna, nor was he Vatell like Daire. Perhaps he was of the Fearens, the horsepeople who lived in the mountains and kept to themselves. But he was too large to be a Fearen.

He was beginning to stir and Jura knew she had to get away from him before he looked at her again with those hooded eyes that threatened her sanity.

She ran toward the bank, grabbed her clothing, and dressed as she ran toward the trainees. She could still feel his hands and lips on her body.

“Jura, you look flushed,” one of the girls said.