Medieval 01 - Untamed

of purification and rebirth. With graceful, rhythmic strokes she washed the old mistakesand regrets from her body, and then smoothed on the scented soap of possibility and renewal.
    When Meg was finished, she opened her eyes languidly, feeling both calm and vibrant with energy. The calm vanished when she realized that Dominic was standing very close, watching her with eyes that shone like hammered silver. His heavy, dark mantle was a thick slice of midnight within the candlelit room.
    â€œI—I didn’t know you were here,” she stammered. “How long have you waited?”
    â€œA thousand years,” he said in a strange, husky voice.
    Meg’s breath wedged in her throat as her heartbeat went wild. Wary and hopeful at the same time, she looked up at Dominic with luminous emerald eyes. He held out a drying cloth that was as large as a mantle.
    And then he smiled and whistled sweetly, the same intricate five-note call she had used to charm the peregrine.
    â€œFly to me, small falcon.”
    Meg smiled almost shyly, hesitated, and then rose from her bath in a graceful motion. Water hastened from her body in silver rivulets while golden bells whispered and sang as they were freed from the water’s muffling embrace.
    Dominic’s hands tightened on the cloth as he saw his wife’s body glistening with water and candlelight. Silently he questioned his wisdom in coming to her in the scented intimacy of the bathing room. He thought he had been impatient to ask her to ride hawking with him. Now he realized that he had been impatient to see her, period.
    Meg looked very beautiful to him wearing only chains of golden bells and glistening water. Beneath the concealing mantle, his body hardened in a rushthat left him aching from his forehead to his heels. It also left him feeling powerful, fully male, eager to take what Church and law decreed was his.
    God’s teeth, I’ve never wanted a maid like this! Will she never bleed? Perhaps I should do as Simon suggested and slake my body’s thirst at Marie’s willing well .
    Yet even as the thought came, Dominic ruled out taking the leman for his own temporary ease. He needed Meg’s love far more than his body needed relief from its relentless sexual hunger. And he sensed quite certainly that Meg would be angry if he showed the leman any attention. An angry girl wasn’t likely to be a loving one.
    Patience .
    In the name of God, patience has never been so difficult. What is wrong with me? I’m not a beardless squire to slaver after a girl .
    â€œYou look quite fierce to whistle so sweetly,” Meg said uncertainly as she reached for the drying cloth.
    Dominic wrapped the cloth around Meg, capturing her arms against her side.
    â€œI feel rather fierce,” he said.
    His voice was rough rather than seductive, but he could no more help its aroused huskiness than he could soften the masculine sword that had sprung to readiness at the sight of Meg’s naked body. He knew he should turn and walk from the room, but that, too, was beyond his ability.
    Slowly, taking entirely too much pleasure from such a simple thing, Dominic began rubbing Meg dry, beginning with her neck and shoulders.
    â€œIs something wrong with the keep?” she asked anxiously.
    â€œNo.” Dominic took a corner of the cloth and dried the hollow in Meg’s throat where drops of water had collected. “Just with the keep’s lord.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œI came here in a fever to take you hawking. I fear I will leave in a greater fever.”
    â€œHawking?”
    Meg was so excited at the prospect that she danced in place, making golden bells chime.
    â€œOh, aye, Dominic! Let’s go hawking! Send Eadith to dress me and I’ll be ready before you know it!”
    He smiled at the pleasure animating Meg’s face. The smile became somewhat dark as his hands rubbed down the elegant length of her back. Even with cloth separating him from her skin, he could feel the smooth resilience of her flesh.
    And he could remember what it had been like to touch her naked skin.
    â€œWe don’t need Eadith just yet,” Dominic said. “I’ll tend you.”
    â€œBut it will be quicker if Eadith dresses me.”
    â€œAre you in that much of a fever to go hawking?”
    â€œAye. John rarely let me go, for all that I helped train many of the falcons.”
    A distant reverberation of thunder made the air