Medieval 02 - Forbidden

I’m not hurting you?” Duncan asked hoarsely.
    A broken sound of pleasure was the only response Amber could make.
    “Look at me,” he said.
    Amber’s eyes opened slowly. They were golden, smoldering, almost wild. The sight of them drew another hot pulse from Duncan. She felt it as clearly as he did.
    “Can you take more of me without pain?” Duncan asked.
    “There is no pain when you lie within me, only pleasure.”
    The husky whisper of Amber’s voice was as sweet to Duncan as the secret movements of her body andthe heady scent of her passion, more exotic than sandalwood and myrrh.
    “Lift your legs and wrap them about me,” he said in a low voice.
    When Amber did, the pleasure heightened.
    “Hold on to me,” Duncan said. “Hold tightly and hard.”
    Amber started to ask why, but the feel of him slowly, completely, filling her body took away words, took away thought, took away everything but piercing ecstasy. With a shivering, broken cry, she gave herself to the pleasure of being fully joined with her dark warrior.
    “Can you feel how much I want you now?” Duncan asked through clenched teeth.
    “I can feel you within me. All of you.”
    “Is there pain?”
    “Nay. ’Tis a pleasure so intense it’s frightening. Your desire and mine together.”
    Smiling rather fiercely, Duncan slowly began to withdraw from the silken depths he had taken with such excruciating care.
    “Nay,” Amber said almost frantically. “I need you!”
    “No more than I need you.”
    Her breath broke as Duncan returned, sliding deeply into her, filling her once more. He repeated the movement with a restrained power that was all the more exciting because Amber so clearly knew the wildness of his desire.
    A strange, fey shimmering spread out from their joined bodies. Amber’s eyes widened as she felt herself being consumed by a fire both tender and fierce. She began trembling helplessly.
    “Duncan, I am coming undone. I cannot—”
    Amber’s voice splintered. Her body convulsed delicately, repeatedly, and each motion served only to draw him more tightly to her, increasing the ravishing fire.
    Duncan drank the rippling cry from Amber’s lips as her release washed over him, caressing him with each deep, hidden pulse of ecstasy. Every breath he took was infused with her passion.
    For sweet, agonizing moments, Duncan held himself motionless above Amber as he savored the certainty of the pleasure he had given to her.
    When he could bear no more, he began to move with increasing power. Every motion he made within her brought forth more silky pulses. Her face was taut, drawn with effort as she flew higher and higher, spurred by the potency of his body driving into her.
    Suddenly Amber arched and shivered, transfixed by wild ecstasy. The rippling cry she gave was Duncan’s name. She clung to him with all her strength, for he was both the storm and the shelter surrounding her.
    The sleek, primal heat of Amber tugged at Duncan, caressing him, promising him a pleasure greater than he had ever known. He felt control slipping away and fought against it, for he wanted to hang suspended forever between the certainty of her ecstasy and the anticipation of his own.
    “You are perfect,” Duncan said hoarsely. “God help me, I want you more than I want anything, even my own memory.”
    Then he could endure no more. With a groan of surrender, he let go his savage restraint and poured himself into the amber witch whose passionate depths matched his so completely.

15
    F ULLY dressed for battle, Simon rode his huge war stallion up to Blackthorne Keep at a swift canter. On one side of him rode another knight in chain mail and battle helm. On Simon’s other side he led a dark brown stallion that was fully as big as his own mount.
    The brown stallion was riderless, his saddle empty of all but a sheathed broadsword and a long, teardrop-shaped shield. On the shield was a drawing of a black wolf’s head, sign of Dominic le Sabre, the Glendruid Wolf.
    All around horses and men swirled the cold, silent mists of autumn. The horses thundered over the lowered drawbridge that opened into Blackthorne Keep’s inner bailey. Moments later cobblestones rang beneath the three stallions’ steel-shod hooves.
    A woman appeared at the forebuilding’s stairs, looking anxiously toward the bailey. When she saw the riderless stallion, she picked up her rich green skirts and raced down the steps. Her cowl slipped off, revealing hair as red as flame, and