Slowly his hands slid up and around to cup her breasts, his fingers spreading out to stroke the nipples. They hardened at once, stiffening beneath the fabric of her tunic as if they were straining to reach him.
‘And this?’ His lips skimmed the side of her throat.
‘Much...better...’
She sagged against him, engulfed by the feeling of his strong body moulded to hers. How could two hands—hands that had held her imprisoned, hands that she’d pushed away in anger—now be controlling her so effortlessly? Her whole body throbbed with pleasure.
He pulled her round gently, his lips drifting across the line of her jaw towards the neck of her gown, his teeth grasping the lacings and pulling them loose until she gasped aloud, feeling the whisper of air on her skin.
She murmured his name, unable to bear the tension any longer, feeling a stirring sensation deep in her stomach. It was a warm glow and a yearning at the same time...an intense pleasure and a tantalising pain all mixed into one. If she didn’t kiss him now she would scream. She grasped his head and pulled it down to hers, lips seeking his hungrily.
This kiss was different—not slow or tender, but hungry and forceful...a kiss meant to last. His tongue traced the line of her lips and she opened them eagerly, letting him inside and entwining her own tongue with his, searching, questing, losing herself in the touch and taste of him.
They came apart at last and she clung to his shoulders, dazed. Her heart was beating so fast she felt dizzy. She’d never imagined that a kiss could be so all-consuming. If the Thane and his family had stood watching she doubted she would have noticed. How long had it been? Time seemed to have stopped. It felt like hours and yet not long enough.
‘I’ve wanted to do that from the first moment I saw you.’ Svend’s breathing was as unsteady as hers.
She started to smile and then stopped. ‘You kissed me after the ambush! Had you forgotten that?’
‘How could I forget? But that was different. You caught me off guard.’
‘I caught you off guard?’
He grinned. ‘I knew I wanted to kiss you, I just didn’t realise how much. This time I was better prepared.’
She smiled, appeased, swaying back into his arms as his lips brushed her neck.
‘I never knew it could be like this.’
‘What’s that?’ His teeth tugged gently at her earlobe.
‘Like this.’ She stretched her body like a cat, wanting to feel every inch of him. ‘I never imagined it could feel so wonderful.’
His lips stilled against her ear, his grip on her waist tightening imperceptibly. ‘Not even with your husband?’
She froze in his arms, brought down to earth with a jolt. In that moment she’d forgotten that she was supposed to be Cille—forgotten everything but him and the feelings he aroused in her.
‘Cille?’
‘It wasn’t... That is... It’s different.’
Desperately she tried to remember what she’d said. Had she revealed too much? Did he suspect her?
‘You didn’t feel the same way?’
‘No.’ She tried to pull away, but his arms held her tight.
‘And now?’
His voice was insistent, demanding, as if her answer were important to him.
How did she feel? She didn’t k
now what to say. He didn’t suspect her. He really wanted to know—as if he truly cared about her answer, as if he wanted her to care too. She felt a wholly inappropriate desire to laugh. She felt like a traitor and a slave at the same time...as if she were standing on the very brink of a precipice, peering over the edge, unable to take a step backwards and save herself.
She opened her mouth, the words on the very tip of her tongue. She wanted to tell him the truth. That she’d never felt this way about anyone, had never imagined such a feeling was even possible, that she wanted him—a Norman—more than any Saxon she’d ever known! But how could she tell him any of it without admitting who she really was? Without failing Cille?
She couldn’t.