Medieval 01 - Untamed

greyhound’s head appeared next to Meg’s thigh. Baron gave her a woeful glance. She rubbed his ears absently.
    Simon stared. “If I called him down like that, he’d have my hand.”
    â€œBaron? Nay, he’s a gentle beast when he’s not on the hunt.”
    Laughter and a shake of his head was Simon’s only answer.
    A feeling of imminence came over Meg, telling her that her husband was near. She turned from Simon to the entrance to the great hall. An instant later Dominic appeared.
    Despite the sunlit promise of the day, Dominic was wearing his heavy black mantle. On his wrist rode the large falcon. When he walked through a shaft of sunlight, the subtle gray and cream coloring of Fatima’s feathers shone like steel and pearl.
    The peregrine knew her own aristocracy. Certainty of prowess was in every line of her body. Her clear, penetrating black glance summarized and dismissed the cheerful chaos of dinner in the great hall. With the indrawn stillness of a supremely patient predator, the falcon awaited the signal for a hunt to begin.
    Murmurs of admiration and excitement rose from the rank of knights as Dominic strode past with the peregrine riding calmly on his wrist. Many of the other birds, some of them with long training, wenthooded to their perches in the great hall. Not Dominic’s falcon. Her eyes were calm with elemental knowledge of life and death.
    And from her legs dangled new jesses studded with emeralds and precious golden bells.
    â€œBy God, she is a beauty,” Simon said.
    Dominic smiled and held his wrist next to Fatima’s perch behind his chair. She stepped onto the perch without a fuss. Then she cocked her head from side to side and looked at the banquet hall as though trying to decide if there were anything worthy of her predatory attention.
    â€œI pity any mouse brave enough to venture into the hall,” Simon said.
    â€œNay. Fatima won’t be bothered by such tiny prey,” Dominic said.
    â€œTry not feeding her for a day or two,” Meg retorted. “She’ll catch mice fast enough to put Black Tom to shame.”
    Dominic gave his wife a sideways look. He had been careful not to be alone with her since he had so nearly taken her in the bath. Staying away from her hadn’t been easy; just remembering the act of opening her thighs and beginning to press into her as she sat on the table had the ability to make him hard, hot, ready.
    With an inner curse, he stifled his lusty thoughts. Before he touched her again, he must be certain she wasn’t breeding. He could not trust himself to hold back a second time.
    â€œYou look beautiful, as always,” Dominic said.
    He lifted Meg’s hand and brushed a kiss against the underside of her wrist. The sudden, frantic race of her pulse beneath his lips made him want to groan with a mixture of triumph and sexual hunger.
    Will she never bleed?
    â€œâ€™Tis the jewelry and mantle,” Meg said. “They are beautiful, not I.”
    â€œâ€™Tis you,” Dominic said flatly.
    Though Meg said nothing more, Dominic read her disbelief in her expression. His mantle flared almost impatiently as he sat down next to Meg.
    â€œDuncan must have been a miserable lover,” Dominic muttered under his breath as he sat between Simon and his wife.
    Meg couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” she whispered.
    â€œDuncan must have been a miserable lover,” Dominic repeated obligingly.
    Simon made a choked sound and carefully looked away from his brother.
    â€œWhat are you saying?” Meg asked, shocked.
    â€œHe never got around to mentioning your beauty,” Dominic said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Therefore the bastard must have been a miserable lover.”
    â€œâ€™Tis hardly surprising the matter never came up,” she retorted. “I am not beautiful and he was never my lover!”
    Dominic’s eyes gleamed as he remembered Meg’s body gilded with water and passion, each of her breaths echoed by softly crying bells. The familiar rush of blood pooling into rigid flesh made him want to laugh and curse at the same time. By the time Meg bled, he was going to be walking around doubled over from the pain of constant arousal.
    â€œYou are wrong,” Dominic said in a low voice. “I have never seen another woman as beautiful to me as you.”
    The sensual blaze of his eyes and the rasp of desire in his