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Roland cocked a black eyebrow.
“I heard she was running like a hen from the fox.”
Roland said nothing.
“Did the fox catch the hen?”
“No, the hen brought herself low with no help from the fox. I see that Dienwald and Philippa are unaware of us, Sir Thomas, and likely to remain so. I venture to say they will shortly retire abovestairs. Shall we go to the chessboard?”
Daria was awake when Roland came into the chamber, quietly closing the door behind him, but she held herself very still. She didn’t want to argue with him, didn’t want to hear his cold emotionless orders, or, perhaps worse, his silent indifference, his contempt. She could see him clearly from the silver stream of the moonlight through the window slit; he was disrobing and she couldn’t keep herself from watching him if she’d been ordered to. His movements were beautiful, supple and lithe, and as he turned or bent down, moonlight glittering off his back, his arms, the long shadowed line of his leg, she felt his grace touch her deeply.
She didn’t move. She thought she heard him sigh, but wasn’t certain. The bed gave under his weight. He settled on his side, his back to her. Within moments she heard him breathing deeply and evenly. Still she didn’t move. She awoke during the night to the sound of rising winds. A storm would probably blow in from the sea before morning. But it was cold now, and would become colder soon. Slowly Daria curled up against her husband’s back. His legs were drawn up and she fitted herself against him, snuggling closer, feeling the warmth of him, and settled her cheek against his back. She lightly laid her arm over his side onto his chest. His breathing didn’t change.
She kissed his back and pressed closer. His flesh was smooth and firm and the muscle beneath solid. He was naked. She was wearing a shift, but it had ridden up and her legs were bare against his. In the dark, in the deep silence of the night, she could pretend that he loved her, pretend that he was once again the Roland who’d come to her as a priest, who’d saved her from those two bandits in Wales. Not that other Roland who was her husband.
She kissed his back again, savoring the feel of his flesh, the scent of him, the taste of him. She wished she could tear off her shift and be naked against him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine what his reaction would be. He would leap from the bed, cursing her, or perhaps he would take her, as a man could a woman, and he would hurt her.
She closed her eyes against that pain. This moment of time was hers and she intended that it be what she wanted it to be. She would deal with tomorrow when it came. She fell asleep unaware that his hand clasped hers now.
Roland was fully aware of softness and warm breath against his back. He awoke alert, his eyes wide in the dull light of dawn. It wasn’t yet raining, but the winds were high. Daria was pressed against his back. He felt the smoothness of her bare legs against his. He closed his eyes a moment, savoring the feel of her. He held her hand against his chest, his fingers lightly caressing hers. He supposed he’d held her hand all night, but he hadn’t awakened before. He’d accepted her closeness, something that was odd, for he was a light sleeper, having learned through the years that a man drawn deep into sleep was very likely a dead man soon enough. But she’d lulled him.
He was hard as a stone. He wanted to laugh at himself, at his randy body. Instead, he grimaced even as he very slowly turned to face her, drawing her close against him. Her shift rode higher; he felt her thighs against his. Felt her warm breath against his throat, her long hair tangled over his shoulder and chest. Her legs moved, twisting until his covered hers. He closed his arms around her back, drawing her closer to him. His sex was near to bursting. He could simply ease her onto her back, come over her, and slide deep inside her, all within the space of a moment. The thought nearly sent him over the edge. But no, she wouldn’t be ready to accept him. She’d be tight and cold and he would hurt her as he’d done the night of their wedding. No, he would control himself. He would make her ready; he would have her moaning for him before he sank deep inside her. He would give her a woman’s pleasure, he would make her tremble with the power of it, and when she accepted him through her pleasure, then and only then would he take her.
His touch light as a moth’s wing, Roland’s fingers stroked down her back, curving inward, and he realized he hated the shift, hated anything between his fingers and her flesh. He shoved the linen upward, pausing only when she moaned against his throat, then burrowed more closely against him. He closed his eyes against he regained some semblance of control. He wanted to touch her, ease his fingers inside her and feel the tightness of her, the damp that his caressing would bring to her.
His fingers closed between her thighs, and to his surprise, her thighs opened and she was pressing back against his fingers, her back arching slightly, pressing her breasts more firmly against his chest. Was she awake? Did she know what she was doing? But then she sighed softly, and she was soft and relaxed again, and her breath was deep and even once more. He wondered at the dreams that were coming into her mind now, and he smiled, a nearly painful smile as he gently eased his middle finger inside her. He sucked in his breath, holding his finger still with a will he didn’t know he possessed. The feel of her—it was something he couldn’t have imagined, and yet he’d known many women, caressed them with his fingers and his mouth, knowing them as well as it was possible to know a woman, but this was beyond his experience, beyond anything he’d ever felt, and it frightened him. Suddenly he shoved his finger upward, deep inside her, and he felt her muscles clenching around him, tight
ening and squeezing, and a harsh moan came from his mouth.
“Daria,” he whispered, and he was kissing her temple, her cheek, nudging back her head with his other hand, kissing her lips, her throat. And his finger moved deep inside her, widening her for him, feeling the heat of her and wanting his sex where his finger was, and his belly was cramping and hurting, his sex heavy and aching with his need. She was ready for him now, soft and moist, and all he had to do was ease her onto her back and draw her thighs apart . . .
But still he held back, even though he couldn’t stop kissing her. He eased his finger very nearly out of her, then pushed and probed, sliding in deeply again, and she groaned, her body stiffening, then shuddering slightly. He wanted to shout with the pleasure of it. Then he touched her woman’s flesh and found it hot and swelled. He couldn’t wait further. He eased her onto her back and came over her, still kissing her face, and then he reared over her, coming up to his knees.
“Daria, wake up.”
Even as she focused on him over her, he pulled her shift up, baring her breasts.
Just as suddenly, he was covering her, and he was kissing her breasts, kneading them gently, sucking at last on her nipple, and she wanted to scream with the sensation of it. The dream had been making her wild, but the reality of Roland and his fingers and his mouth knew no comparison. She wanted him, no dream of him, no soft illusion of him.
But he couldn’t wait, simply couldn’t, and he slid down her body, parting her legs wide, and his mouth was on her as she wailed, a high, thin sound, and he smiled even as he felt himself near to bursting. She was tightening all over; he felt it, felt her thighs tensing around his shoulders, felt her fingers clutch his hair, heard the tearing moans from her throat. He raised his head just a bit, his breath hot on her swelled flesh, and he commanded her, “Daria, let go now. Let go and come to me.”
She didn’t understand his words, but her body did. Her flesh heaved with the knowledge, she opened the very depths of herself to him, fully and eagerly, and in the giving she found a pleasure that neared pain, so intense it was, so powerful and demanding, so urgent.
She screamed, but his hand was covering her mouth, and it freed her to cry out again and again, and her body bucked and heaved and she felt damp with sweat and loose and apart from herself, but it didn’t matter, nothing outside them mattered, and it just went on and on. He raised his head and she wanted to weep with disappointment, but only for an instant, for his hands were sliding beneath her hips, lifting her to him, and in the next instant he thrust deep, filling her. She cried out again, her hips rising to pull him deeper, and the shocks of pleasure renewed, pulsed through her and her fingers dug into his arms. She lurched up to kiss him, even as he came into her, only to nearly withdraw again. When he emptied himself into her, he covered her mouth with his and she took his moans and knew the dream could never rival the man.
He fell on top of her, still deep inside her. Almost as soon as she felt the wonderful weight of him, he pulled back and she wanted to protest, but he was mumbling, “I don’t wish to hurt your babe,” and then he brought her with him onto her side and he was still inside her, only not so deep now, and she felt his words sear through her mind. Your babe. She wanted to weep with the pain of it, but her body was languid and soft and his body was against hers and he was gently rubbing his hands up and down her back, over her side, lightly touching her belly, then moving quickly away, to her breasts, weighing them and caressing them lightly, as if he’d guessed at their new tenderness.
“You liked that,” he said, nibbling her earlobe. “You liked that very much.”
“You’re inside me, Roland. That is wondrous—you’re a part of me.”
“Aye, and I always will be. Every night I’ll come deep inside you and you’ll cry out to me to bring you more, and I won’t disappoint you, Daria. Never again will you accuse me of misusing you. You now understand a woman’s pleasure. I’ll not let you forget it, and know that no other man can give you what I can. You screamed when I brought you to your release, and you screamed again when I came inside you. I liked that very much. Your breasts are as soft as the flesh between your white thighs. The way you feel—” His voice hitched and he fell silent.
She was exhausted from the force of this pleasure, and he seemed to know it. “Sleep now, dearling. Sleep.”
And she did, knowing that he held her tight, knowing that in this she had pleased him, yet knowing too that in the end, nothing had changed between them. Except perhaps—aye, now perchance he would come to her with gentleness as he had tonight and there would be no more distrust and anger. He would come to her with pleasure for both of them.
When she awoke some hours later, she was alone. There was a basin of water and she quickly bathed and dressed and made her way down into the great hall. It was still fairly early and Dienwald and Philippa were seated at one of the trestle tables, eating and talking to Roland and Sir Thomas.
