Secret Song (Medieval Song 4)

He said nothing, merely looked at her. Then suddenly his expression was furious and he yelled, “Joan, you damned bitch. Get out of my sight before I wrap my fingers around your throat.”

He grabbed her wrist and twisted it hard. She cried out and pushed at him.

But he was strong, and now he was twisting and panting and muttering at her, “Aye, I loved you, I gave you my heart, I offered you everything that I was and would become. But you betrayed me and now you return to taunt me. Bitch, damned perfidious bitch.”

He released her wrist suddenly and slapped her, hard. She reeled back, falling to the floor. “Roland,” she gasped, coming quickly onto her knees, “nay, don’t move. Nay.”

He was lurching upward, flinging back the blankets. He rose, weaving until he gained his balance, and she stared up at him, terrified and amazed and joyous at the sight of him.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, his spurt of energy was spent and he fell backward onto the bed. She managed to ease him onto his back again and covered him. An hour slowly passed. He sighed and opened his eyes again. Without warning, he reached up his hand and grabbed a thick tress of hair. “Joan, it is you. You won’t have my soul again.”

She leaned over him because his hold on her hair was painful, and clasped his shoulders. “Nay, Roland, nay, it is I, Daria.”

He was mumbling now, words she didn’t understand, words in that strange guttural language he’d spoken in the dream. The language of the Muslims and the Arabs. Then he said to her, his voice deep and soft, “Forgive me, Lila, of course it’s you. You could never be like Joan. Come to me now. I want your breasts in my hands and your hands on my belly. Yes, Lila, bring me your soft body.”

Daria sucked in her breath, stunned and fascinated, but she didn’t move. Roland raised his hand and now he gently stroked her breasts. “You are still clothed. What is this? Do you not desire me? Why are you still wearing clothes?”

He raised his other hand and caressed both breasts, weighing them in his palms, his thumbs moving slowly over her nipples. She stared down at him, at the intent expression on his face, at the gleam of pleasure in his dark eyes.

“Remove your silk jacket now. I want to feel you.”

He believed her to be a woman he’d known in the Holy Land, a woman whose name was Lila. She didn’t care, not now. She touched his hands, caressed t

hem as his fingers caressed her breasts, and she could feel the urgency of his need, feel the desire that came from the depths of him.

And she knew then that nothing was more important in her life than this man. She knew that he would be the center of her life, knew that he would be with her until she died. Or, she thought with a pained moment of truth, it was what she wanted to believe. Still, with no hesitation Daria calmly unlaced the boy’s tunic she wore. Roland wanted her breasts bare; she would give him whatever he wanted. She pulled the tunic over her head and tossed it to the floor. Thankfully, the chamber was very warm from the fire in the crude fireplace. She saw him smile, and he was looking at her breasts, at their motion as she moved back beside him.

“Come closer. Lean into my hands. Ah, yes, that is what I want. You feel like silk and . . . What is this? You want me, Lila? So quickly? Your nipples are tight, for me?”

She leaned over him, her breasts filling his hands, and whispered, “Aye, Roland, for you. I would be whatever you wished. Just tell me what to do.”

His fingers stroked her and she moaned, then gasped, from her surprise. Never had a man touched her thus. She felt stranger still as he continued to explore her, and she knew that she was on the threshold of something wonderful, something she would like very much. She wasn’t ignorant of what men did to women, for she had lived in her uncle’s house for five long years. She knew very well what happened between men and women, her uncle had seen to that. He enjoyed flaunting his women in front of her. And she’d seen him naked, his rod standing out from his body, but she’d always felt only revulsion, deep, soul-searing revulsion. But not with Roland, never with Roland.

“Lila, bring your breasts to my face. I wish to suckle.”

She stared down at him. This was something she knew nothing about. Suckle her? She couldn’t imagine a man suckling a woman as if he were a babe. But it didn’t matter. She lowered her body and felt his fingers again stroking her breasts, gently tugging at her nipples, and then his mouth was on her flesh and she drew in her breath with the wondrous feelings that were building deep inside her body. She closed her eyes, feeling his warm mouth, his wet tongue, and gloried in the sensations that were growing more intense low in her belly.

“Roland,” she whispered, and her hands were on his bare shoulders, sliding beneath the blankets to his chest.

“So sweet,” he said, his breath hot and urgent on her. His hands came around her and stroked down her back to her waist, then up again, his fingers tangling into her hair, pulling the braids free. “Lila, you still wear clothes.” He sounded surprised and faintly displeased. “I want you naked and over me.”

“I’m not Lila,” she said even as she pulled off the boy’s pants and hose and unfastened the chausses.

When she was naked, she slid down the blankets. She looked at his man’s body, taut and hard and shadowed. She smiled and covered him with her body. At the feel of him beneath her, she felt something pass from him to her, something strong and gentle and demanding, something so powerful that for a moment it frightened her. Then she accepted it completely. But he must feel only his own building desire. He sighed at the feel of her pressed against him. He slid his hands over her back until he was cupping her buttocks.

His breathing became quite suddenly fast and raw. “Bring me inside you, Lila.”

He wanted her to bring his rod into her body? She lifted herself and gazed down the length of him. His sex was swelled and hard and he moaned deeply, his hips jerking when she lightly touched her fingers to his hot flesh.

And again she felt this urgency in him, this overpowering need, and her fingers tightened around him. He was bucking now, moaning hoarsely. “Now, Lila. By Allah, my need is great. Wait no longer.”

Still, Daria wasn’t certain what to do. He was very large, surely too large to come inside her. She leaned down and kissed his hard belly. He flinched and moaned. She kissed him again, her mouth lower this time. When her lips touched his sex, his body heaved wildly, and then, suddenly, she saw a glorious naked woman with hair black as a night of sin who was straddling him and holding him between her hands and guiding him upward into her.

Daria cried out with the vividness of what she saw. She felt dizzy and frightened about the step she was taking, a step that was irrevocable. She was on her knees over him, staring down at him, and then she touched herself, felt the wetness of her flesh and knew it was to ease his way into her. She took him between her hands, ready, but he forestalled her. His fingers were on her belly, stroking her, kneading her, then lower until they sifted through the hair covering her. She lurched straight up when his fingers found her, and she cried out.

“Ah,” he said, and he sounded profoundly pleased with himself. “You are always ready for me, aren’t you? Always ready to take me. I’m pleased. Shall I give you pleasure now? Before I come into you? Before you ride me wildly?”

“Nay, come into me now.” She feared this pleasure he spoke so confidently about, feared what it would do to her. She held herself stiffly above him, feeling his fingers begin a rhythm on her flesh even as his other hand was pressing against her belly, and then he stopped.