Medieval 03 - Enchanted

merely…dutiful.
    Simon closed his eyes and stopped asking questions
that had no answers. All that mattered to him was here, now, and it
was on fire.
    “Your fingers are like tongues of
flame,” Simon whispered, shuddering. “Licking all over
me, making me burn. Sweet God, you are killing me.”
    “No,” Ariane whispered, caught by the
strain in his voice. “I wanted to heal your pain, not make it
worse.”
    “Then heal me.”
    “Can it be done without…” Her
voice died.
    Oh God, bad enough that
Geoffrey taught me to fear what other women seem to enjoy. But it
is worse, far worse, that he took from me the virginity that should
have been my gift to Simon .
    I cannot bear to look at Simon
and see disgust for me in his eyes .
    Like my father .
    Like my priest .
    Loathing me, believing that I
was wanton rather than innocent .
    How could Simon believe
differently? Look at me with him, touching him, stroking him,
wanting nothing more than to be closer to him and then closer
still .
    He lures me rather than pins
me down with his greater strength. He doesn’t hold me in a
vise of male power that leaves me helpless to escape .
    “Can it be done without coupling?”
Simon asked when Ariane did not speak. “Is that what
you’re asking?”
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    “Aye. It can be done. ’Tis less than a
grain against a bushel, but ’tis one grain better than
naught.”
    Simon’s words made little sense to Ariane.
She understood only that there was something she could do to ease
the tension raking through Simon’s hard, hot body.
    “Tell me,” Ariane urged. “Let me
heal you.”
    Simon’s only answer was that of his hands
fitting over hers, teaching her how to stroke and how to hold, when
to tease and when to end the teasing.
    Suddenly Ariane felt the shudder that convulsed
Simon, heard his ragged groan, and sensed something spilling
between her fingers like silky blood. She lookeddown, but saw only his mantle and a wedge of darkness
that was his body.
    “Simon?” Ariane asked anxiously.

“Are you all right? I felt…blood.”
    Simon almost smiled despite the shocks of pleasure
that went through him at each delicate probe of her fingertips over
his still aroused flesh.
    “Nay, nightingale.”
    “But I did,” she insisted. “It
was too thick to be anything but blood.”
    “What you felt was the children you will
never know unless I taste ecstasy while our bodies are
joined.”
    Ariane’s eyes widened into mysterious pools
of darkness. Her breath caught as fire licked through her. She
became aware of herself in an unfamiliar way—breasts both
taut and heavy with sensation, a throbbing promise that was
repeated in the sultry flesh between her legs.
    Slowly, gently, Ariane stroked Simon’s still
swollen flesh, thinking to soothe him, for shudders came to him
with almost every breath. Warmth and the scent of balm laced with
something even more elemental rose from the opening of the mantle.
She breathed deeply, infusing herself with the heady mixture.
    And then something that was more than a dream and
less than a memory blossomed within Ariane.
    Firelight and the scent of
roses. Balm smoothed over my skin, sinking into me .
    Everywhere .
    “Did you care for me in this way while I lay
healing?” Ariane asked starkly.
    The accusation in her voice caught Simon on the
raw. She had just given him sweet release, her hands were even now
making him swollen with new need, and she was looking at him as
though he were a dangerous stranger.
    Simon’s jaw clenched as he fought to still
the wild race of his blood. He wasn’t successful. Ariane was
too close, her hands too soft, the smell of ecstasy too fresh.
    “Only once,” Simon said in a low, rough
voice.
    “When?”
    “When you were almost well. Do you
remember?”
    “I…”
    Ariane’s breath caught as a streamer of
memory coursed through her.
    She had been held in thrall, but not in the
darkness and rage of her nightmare. The hands and mouth caressing
her body had been gentle rather than harsh, the voice husky rather
than drunken, the breath sweet rather than rancid with ale.
    “You touched me,” she whispered.
    “Yes.”
    “Even…”
    Her voice died, but Simon understood.
    “Yes,” he said. “Even
here.”
    Simon’s hand moved between Ariane’s
thighs. His palm cupped her tenderly.
    Ariane gasped and jerked back as though Simon had
taken a whip to her. Even as Ariane’s mind reassured her that
Simon would never brutalize her as