Page 58 of Hers To Command
Was he holding back for her?
He must not. The worst—if worst it could be called—was over and it had not hurt. Now there was only a glorious, wonderful fullness, his body joined with hers. This was no invasion, no taking of her worth. This was giving, loving and exciting and wondrous.
To show him all was well, she kissed him fervently, with all the passion he inspired.
He responded in an instant, deepening their kiss, stroking and caressing her body, quickening the pace of his thrusts as he made love with her.
It didn’t hurt. It felt good. And right. And wonderful.
She wrapped her legs about him to hold him closer still. He was Henry, her lover. Her savior, in so many ways. Her beloved.
Tension climbed. Her body stretched taut with anticipation, like a drawn bowstring. Her blood pulsed through her body as if she had run for miles, her breathing panting gasps of expectancy.
Then the tension snapped. She let out a cry of release as her hands clutched at Henry as if she was about to fall.
Above her, Henry threw back his head and groaned. As the glorious throbbing slowed, he kissed her on the lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, her delightful ear, before he pulled free to lie beside her.
He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. She nestled in his arms, her head on his chest. Brushing her forehead with his lips, he reached around to pull the bed coverings about them.
“We should get under the covers,” he noted with a lazy, sated smile, “lest we get a chill.”
“I’m warm enough, and I don’t want to move.”
“I suppose you’re going to have to, eventually.”
“Eventually,” she murmured, tracing the edge of the areola of his nipple with her fingertip.
He caught her hand, and his look was sober when she glanced up at his face. “Before the household stirs. What will Giselle think if she wakes and realizes you aren’t there?”
Mathilde laughed softly, enchanted by his concern. “I’m never there when she awakes. I’m always dressed and gone before she opens her eyes.” She grew a little more serious. “And I have no reputation to protect anyway.”
He raised himself on his elbow and regarded her gravely. “You are an honorable woman, Mathilde, in the truest, best sense of the word.”
“And you are the honorable man I love,” she whispered as she drew him down to kiss.
“DID YOU SLEEP?” Mathilde asked as the stars began to dim in the coming light of dawn, and after spending the night in Henry’s arms. She had dozed off once or twice, but no more than that. Although she was tired and comfortable, she was too aware of what might happen come the morning to even try to sleep.
“A little. More than I thought I would. I usually never sleep before a battle, or a tournament, either. Too anxious.” He lightly kissed the top of her head. “Something must have tired me out.”
Marveling that he could sound so cheerful even on such a morning, she rolled on to her side. “You’re nottootired, I hope.”
He rose from the bed. What was left of the candles in the stand still flickered, casting their feeble light on his magnificent body. “Never before a battle.” He looked over his shoulder as he went to the ewer and basin. “Afterward, I used to sleep like the dead.”
She inwardly cringed at that final word even as she sat up and watched him wash, her hungry eyes roving over him like a starving man’s a loaf of bread. “Used to?”
“I haven’t been in a battle or tournament since…recently.”
Since the days in the dungeon, she suspected.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he said as he dried off. “I won’t fall asleep in the middle of the fight. I’ll be very wide-awake.
“And don’t worry about the battle, either,” he added as he came to sit beside her on the bed. “The men are prepared, and we’ve got a good plan.” He nodded at the window. “Cerdic and fifty of the men should already have gone out the postern gate under cover of night. When Roald attacks the main gate, they’ll circle around behind him and come at his men from behind.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan.”
“Ranulf was all for having them go over the wall, but I said why go to all that trouble and risk having them picked off by archers? Send out a few of the Celts who can move as if they’re invisible to deal with any men Roald’s got watching the gate, then go out that way.”
“That does sound less risky,” she agreed.
