Medieval 01 - Untamed

now?” Dominic asked, smiling.
    Meg started to speak, was caught by a sensual shiver, and stroked her hands down her husband’s back instead of trying to tell him how she felt. Beneath her fingertips she felt a network of scars, the kind that could come only from being tied up and whipped until skin broke and flesh became a bloody ruin.
    Dominic’s body became still, almost distant, as though he had withdrawn from sunlight to a dark, inner place.
    â€œNot exactly scars of ‘honorable battle,’ are they?” he asked ironically.
    â€œYou are wrong,” Meg said. “There is no greater honor than trading your own pain for that of your knights.”
    His breath came out in a rush. “Who told you?”
    â€œSimon.” Meg looked up at Dominic’s shadowed eyes. “He assured me the sultan’s death wasn’t easy.”
    â€œThe sultan died as badly as any man ever has.”
    â€œExcellent,” Meg said on a long, exhaled breath.
    And she meant it.
    Surprise widened Dominic’s eyes. “You are astonishingly savage for a healer.”
    â€œSpring heals winter’s wounds, but spring is rarely a gentle time. The wounds of winter are starkly revealed before they are healed by spring, and only the most hardy of living things survive renewal. Healing is not for the faint of heart.”
    For a long moment Dominic looked at the enigmatic, sensual Glendruid girl who kept surprising him.
    â€œWill I ever know you?” he asked.
    Before Meg could answer, Dominic lowered his head and claimed her mouth once more. Closing her eyes, she gave herself to the kiss and to the warrior whose scarred body called to her senses as nothing ever had, not even the first, delicate tremors of spring stirring through the wintry land.
    Dominic’s embrace was like falling into a magical fire, heat without harm, burning without pain. When his long fingers opened Meg’s clothing and pushed it to her waist, she felt sunlight on her naked breasts for the first time in her life. The caressing warmthmade her lift instinctively, trying to come closer to the source of her pleasure.
    Breath came out of Dominic as though at a blow. He groaned and tasted one breast, teasing the coral peak with sensual forays of his tongue. The rippling cries he drew from Meg made his whole body tighten with violent hunger. He slid his powerful arm beneath her and arched her like a drawn bow. Then he held her there, feeding on her breasts until she moaned and twisted from the searing delight of his caresses.
    The taste and scent and feel of Meg sank like sweet talons into Dominic’s body, drawing him into an arousal that would have been agonizing if it weren’t so great a pleasure. He lifted her higher, holding her with one arm while the other swept clothes from her body.
    When he was finished, he stretched her out on his mantle and looked at her with eyes that burned while he stripped away his remaining clothes. He was fully aroused, hot with passion and hard with generations yet unborn.
    Meg’s eyes widened. She made a ragged sound as Dominic knelt beside her.
    â€œDo I frighten you?” he asked.
    â€œI was just…surprised.”
    Then she looked at Dominic frankly and smiled in a way that made his blood beat visibly in his erect flesh.
    â€œBut I should have known,” Meg murmured, cupping him in her palm, “that a great knight such as you would have a redoubtable sword.”
    Passion almost ripped apart Dominic’s control. He clung to it by the thinnest margin, ceding only one scalding drop to Meg’s unexpected caress. With a low word that was both reverent and profane, he lay beside her, looking at her with fierce hunger.
    â€œYou are the riches, not I,” he said huskily. “Riches fit for a king. Emerald eyes and skin as fine and smooth as silk.”
    Dominic kissed Meg’s taut nipples until they were flushed and hard from his mouth.
    â€œRubies,” Dominic breathed. “But warm, as warm as the breath of life.”
    When Meg’s eyes closed on a wave of pleasure, Dominic’s hands slid down her body, shaping her breasts and waist and thighs, returning to the darker fire that burned at the apex of her legs. Gently he drew her legs apart until he could caress the soft, scented flesh that had haunted him since he first had touched it. Tenderly, relentlessly, he eased his fingers through the tight curls of hair until he found