The Conqueror

She ducked her head and muttered some inaudible reply. She could have said Stephen’s army was marching for the inn and he wouldn’t have heard. Such a hard, hot pounding hadn’t surged through him in many a year. It was so powerful and close at hand he felt short of breath.

“What did you say?” he asked, dimly aware she’d been speaking.

The query brought her head up, which he did not want at all. It would be better if she kept her head wrapped in a poultice all night long. No, he amended, glancing at the body concealed beneath a thin layer of linen and nothing else, her entire body should be swathed in woollen, wrapped from hairline to toes.

“I said, I did not expect such a thing as all this from my night,” she murmured. “Did you?”

He groaned audibly. This would never do. She could be swathed in sacks and buried under a haystack and it would not help. Already the image of her stretched out and sighing beneath him, black hair streaming over the pillows, was more vivid than the whole past year of his life.

“Nay, I never expected such a thing as you.”

She smiled faintly. “Fools, I think we agreed.”

“Without sense.”

“Entirely.”

He drew back, leveled his tone. “I would have you regain yours, Raven, ere something happens you’ll be sorry for.”

“Sorry?” She shook her head, her smile fading. “I think not. I have regrets, ’tis true—”

“So do I, and I would not have this night become one of them.”

She looked around, at the worn furniture, the glow of the brazier coals, water dripping down the stone pathways in the walls in narrow, silent rivulets. “I am convinced we too often measure regret against the ways of the world.”

“There are worse things.”

“Even so, that would not protect me tonight. The things of the world are far away right now. I can scarce recall them to mind.”

“I can,” he said firmly. “You like mushrooms, but hate eel. You think yourself foolish, but wish for a certain blue gown. You can afford neither the dye or cloth, so never buy a bolt of a lesser fabric. Your steward—William of the Five Strands, no?—does not see to the fish traps as he ought. The harvest was never fully brought in this year, and may never be again. Too many have died. Once, you had a dream of the window in your mother’s bedroom being fitted with stained glass, like a chapel, for she’s an angel to you now, and it would bring her closer to home.”

Gwyn’s lower jaw started to fall open as he worked his way through her panicked ramblings from the beginning of their ride, partially verbatim, partly paraphrased, but dead on in content. By the time he reached “an angel to you now,” she was staring open-mouthed.

“Pagan! I did not even know you were listening!”

“Oh, I was listening,” he murmured in a steel-edged voice, his restraint drawn to snapping. “And you ought listen to me right now, little bird: Be careful.”

“Sensible, you mean.”

“Most assuredly.”

She paused, and he had a momentary thought he might escape unscathed. That she would do the prudent thing, save him from this rampaging desire. But her next words smashed the thin hope, taking him with it like water over a falls.

“Sense is only one way to know a thing, Pagan,” she whispered. “I’m sure we could find another.”

In a single move he was up, around the table, his arms around her waist, pulling her to her feet. He swept her hair off from her face. The half-dried curls picked up coppery glints from the firelight and her hair glowed in a black-fire curtain of silk around the delicate, sense-damaging beauty of her face. Their lips were inches apart; he could feel each shaky breath she dragged into her lungs.

“God forgive me,” he muttered, then plunged in after his words.

Their mouths locked, hard and greedy. He claimed her with no gentleness; the moment was betide and he moved in with unchecked assurance. Her hair was like silk, and her skin hot. Her lips were parted wide beneath him, her tongue meeting him with every stroke. He gathered fistfuls of her hair, gripping the dark silk with savage passion, and cupped them at the nape of her neck. When she dropped her head back and moaned into his mouth, it almost broke him.

Gwyn knew nothing but that her life was changed forever. Wide-open and demanding, his hands engulfed her ribs. He bent her backwards and plied her mouth wide, hunting deep in the recesses of her mouth, dragging free shuddering sensations she’d never dreamed of before, pulsing, hot, greedy urges.

He pushed her backwards with gentle, insistent hands and, when her buttocks pressed against the table, he stepped between her knees. Flexing the muscles in his thighs, he lifted her off the ground and pressed her onto the table, his hands and mouth like a well-informed thief intent on its plunder.

His body was a wall of heat and muscle, the tapestry a thin veil he would heed only so long. His powerful thighs were between her knees, muscles pressing forward. His hands were everywhere, coaxing her body into moves she’d never imagined before, bending back, reaching up, her hips sliding in an unconscious rhythm. Firm, thick fingers cupped her head and lifted her half off the table to his mouth, until her torso was

stretched against his and she could feel his hammering heart. His arousal was hard and pushing ever closer to the place that quivered and wept moist desire. Invading her.