Medieval 02 - Forbidden

called meadowlarks from a midnight sky.
    “That would be very disappointing, sweet witch.”
    Slowly Duncan lowered his head to Amber’s breasts, tantalizing her with the warmth of his breath while he teased her with silky touches of his mustache and tongue. His reward was a series of broken sighs and tiny sounds as she twisted against the cloth binding her elbows.
    “You tempt me,” Duncan said.
    “And you torment me.”
    “A sweet torment?”
    He cupped his hand around one of Amber’s breasts, lifting and caressing, testing the tight peak.
    “Aye,” she said. “Very sweet.”
    “Not as sweet as these pink buds.”
    Amber drew her breath in swiftly. She could feel the passion sweeping through Duncan in hot pulses as he looked at his fingers on her breasts.
    “Nor as sweet as making you moan beneath my mouth,” Duncan added, bending down to Amber once more.
    “My arms,” she said.
    And it was all Amber could say, for Duncan’s powerful forearm was beneath her shoulder blades, arching her back, and his mouth was on her naked breasts. With a ragged sound of pleasure, she gave herself to his caresses, hiding nothing of her own response.
    It wasn’t until Duncan lifted his head that Amber realized he had unfastened her clothes completely. He sat up and pulled the long sleeves down over her wrists one at a time. Then he eased her clothing farther down her body, revealing more creamy skin and the long, inward curving lines of her torso.
    Though Duncan wanted to keep undressing Amber more than he wanted air itself, he forced his hands to stop at her waist. He kneaded her resilient flesh lightly, hungrily.
    It wasn’t enough for either of them. With a quick, graceful movement, Amber sat up. The rush of cool air made her shiver. Instinctively she shrugged the folds of her mantle forward, covering her shoulders even as she reached for the laces at the front of Duncan’s shirt.
    “Be as I am,” Amber said, pulling laces free. “Naked but for the mantle.”
    “And if I take chill?” he asked, smiling slightly.
    “Why, I will warm you, of course.”
    Duncan’s smile widened. He threw off his mantle. His shirt soon followed. With a slow care that was both torment and pleasure, Amber drew the mantle back around Duncan’s shoulders and fastened it at the side.
    The amber talisman he wore shimmered with an uncanny light, as though infused with Duncan’s own immense vitality. Amber bent her head and brushed her lips over the ancient talisman in silent greeting.
    Only then did she give in to the temptation that haunted her, running her fingers through the cloud of dark hair on his chest. Eyes closed, smiling, kneading him as a contented cat would, she tested the muscular flesh of Duncan’s torso with fingernails like delicate, unsheathed claws.
    “I love the feel of you,” Amber said softly. “When you slept so unnaturally, I spent many hours rubbing oil of amber into your skin to keep away fever.”
    “Did it work?”
    “Of course. Amber is noted for its ability to take fire from a body.”
    “It wouldn’t work on me now,” Duncan said.
    “Why not?”
    “Your hands bring me fever.”
    Amber didn’t doubt it. She could feel the passionate heat radiating from Duncan’s body.
    And if that wasn’t enough, she had the truth of his words pouring into her through the medium of touch.
    “’Tis like bathing in a magical fire,” she whispered.
    “What is?”
    “Touching you. Feeling your passion.”
    The smile Duncan gave Amber was rather fierce, but she didn’t care. She felt the truth of him, and that truth was his restraint. He had given his vow,and he was a man who would die before he was forsworn.
    “But I must confess something to you,” she whispered.
    “Why? Do I look like a priest?”
    Amber laughed. “Nay. You look like what you are, a warrior both fierce and sensual.”
    “Then why confess to me?”
    “Because I only now realized that I smoothed oil over you long after the danger of fever was past.”
    Duncan’s breath caught. “Did you?”
    “Yes,” she admitted.
    “Why?”
    “For the forbidden pleasure of touching you.”
    One of Amber’s fingertips brushed over a male nipple. The sudden surge of pleasure that went through Duncan was as clear to her as a cry. Her fingers returned, lingered, and teased with a skill far beyond her experience, for his response was her unfailing sensual guide.
    “But touching me isn’t forbidden now?” Duncan asked almost roughly.
    “No.