The Maiden

  “As pretty as your Englishwomen?” she whispered, watching him. “As pretty as the woman you should have married?”

  He laughed deep in his throat. “There is no Englishwoman to compare with you.” He put her arm down in her lap and looked at her. “If you are to rub my shoulders, perhaps you should remove some of your own clothing.”

  Jura could feel the blood rushing to her face. She had undressed before him repeatedly, but somehow, now, in the soft candlelight, it seemed different. And, too, she knew that if she undressed now it would lead to another painful episode like the last time. But, somehow, she wasn’t afraid. There was just that feeling of excitement that she always felt before a battle.

  Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she slipped the outer layer of velvet over her head and she was left wearing only the very tight silk garment. Years of exercise had given her layers of muscle that molded her hips and made her waist tiny and her breasts high and proud.

  Rowan, looking up at her, gave a groan that was so heartfelt that Jura smiled. It was frivolous the way this Englishman valued physical beauty but it did feel good to have him look at her so. It was almost as if her skill with a lance didn’t matter.

  “Jura,” he whispered, and held out his arms to her.

  It was the most natural thing in the world for her to go to him. To deny him would have been to deny a drink to a man dying of thirst.

  He kissed her lips tenderly, not hard or fiercely, but as if he had all the time there was. He played with her lips and touched them with the tip of his tongue. By the time he finished, Jura’s body was so fluid he could have tied her in knots. She lounged against his arms, her entire weight supported by him, her eyes closed.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at him. His lids were lowered slightly and his lips were softened from their kiss. She had never seen a man look like this before and certainly not this Englishman who usually frowned in displeasure. But now there was desire in his eyes but gentleness too, and a kind of contentment, as if he wanted to be nowhere else on the earth but here with her. Jura’s heart began to beat a little faster. This Englishman said he loved her. Could that be true? Could this expression on his face be love?

  He caressed her face with his fingertips, then with his whole hand, his palm against her cheek, his fingers entwined in her hair, then kissed the corner of her mouth, then her eyelids. Jura lay still in his arms, accepting his gentle caresses, but her heart was beginning to beat faster with each second. Who would have thought that this big man who cursed and fought and raged could touch a woman so softly?

  He kissed her lips again but this time she kissed him back. She put her arms about his neck and pressed her silk-clad breasts tight against the warm, bare skin of his chest.

  “Jura, my love,” he whispered against her neck, his lips hot against her skin.

  Her pounding heart was beginning to rise in her chest, making its way toward her throat until she wondered if she might suffocate. His fingers touched the laces at the side of her gown, and as skillfully as he might play a stringed instrument, he untied the knots and loosened their hold.

  She gasped when his big, warm, callused hands slipped inside the silk and clutched her bare waist. He squeezed her as a playful boy would, and to Jura’s disbelief, she laughed in delight like one of the empty-headed girls who aspired to be a guardswoman—one of the girls who was always turned down. But Rowan wasn’t disgusted by Jura’s giggle as a Lanconian warrior most assuredly would be. Instead, he grinned, his blue eyes twinkling with merriment. “Jura ticklish?” he said. “The great warrior Jura ticklish?”

  She tried to get away from him, but she couldn’t move from his hands that held her so firmly about the waist. His fingers began to move, and try as she would, Jura could not control her laughter. She pushed at him but she may as well have tried to push an oak tree down. Torturously, his fingers began to move inside her dress and Jura kept laughing. Helplessly, she fell backward onto the carpet.

  When she heard the dress tear, she cried out in protest, but it didn’t sound like a serious protest and Rowan’s hands kept making her laugh.

  Suddenly, he stopped tickling her and looked down at her. Somehow, Jura was nude, or at least nearly so, for the gown was split from neck to knees. Her breasts, even as she lay on her back, stood up high in excitement and pleasure as Rowan, on his knees, straddled her thighs.

  His face changed from teasing to serious as he looked at her, his blue eyes almost black, a vein at his temple extended and pounding, the muscles of his chest rigid and pronounced. His nostrils flared slightly as he looked down at her. Then, smoothly, he picked her up into his arms, tearing the last of her dress and hose away, and carried her to the bed.

  Jura’s body felt alive as it never had before, but she was also a little afraid. “Your sister will not like her gown being torn,” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer as he put her on the bed, then stood over her and stared down at her body. His eyes traveled slowly from her bare toes, up her legs, to her breasts, and at last to her face. By the time he finished his long perusal of her, Jura’s heart was pounding in her ears.

  He sat beside her, his broad, gleaming, muscular back to her, and began to remove his clothing. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, but more as if he had waited all his life for this moment and planned to enjoy it to its fullest.

  He turned back to her, his big body completely nude and stretched out beside her, his heavy, hairy legs against hers, his powerful arms around her, pulling her to him, stroking her back, his hands sliding down to her buttocks. “I mismanaged the first time, but I will do better this time,” he whispered before kissing her lips again.

  This kiss was different, not so gentle but with more yearning and longing in it—and more heat. Jura’s skin was so hot she felt as if she had a fever. She did not want him to leave her, but he did as his head began to move downward, down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arm, where he nipped inside her elbow, then he raked her palm across his teeth and Jura’s body contracted with pleasure. He brought his head to the center of her throat, his tongue licking at the hollow there. His hands caught both of hers and held them at her side, pinned to the bed as he began to make love to her breasts. Jura began to moan, her head turning from one side to the other. She could feel sweat forming on her body as she tried to release herself from some of the intolerable heat building in her body.

  His head moved downward, his wet tongue touching her stomach, running along the taut muscles, licking at her hipbones.

  He released his hold on her hands and slid his hands under her buttocks to lift her as his tongue slid into her womanhood. Jura gasped, her eyes flying open. “Rowan,” she moaned.

  “Yes, my love,” he said, and moved upward to her lips.

  Her legs opened to receive him and he slid inside her easily, with no pain, only the most divine pleasure. Jura arched her body, her head rolling back at the sheer ecstasy of this new sensation. Slowly, he pulled himself almost out of her, and Jura dug her fingers into the skin of his arms in fear that he might leave her, but he just slid back into her again in that exquisite, torturously slow way.

  She opened her eyes to look at him, and the expression on his face made her skin tighten. It was a look of such supreme, all-consuming pleasure that Jura’s heart beat faster.

  It did not take her long to catch on to the rhythm of this new sensation of lovemaking. She lifted her knees to better accommodate his deep, slow thrusts. In and out. Again and again. Slowly, gently, smoothly.

  It was just moments or perhaps it was days, but Jura began to crave something else or perhaps it was just more that she wanted. She did not know what it was. “Rowan?” she whispered in question.

  He opened his eyes to look at her and the fire there made her heart pound.

  He changed. Instantly, he changed from gentleness to a wild animal as he roughly grabbed her leg and shoved it around his waist. Jura wrapped her other leg about his waist and lifted her hips as he beg
an to thrust hard and fast. She met his thrusts with an equal force of her own, using her years of training and power to slam together powerfully, building into a crescendo of passion and desire.

  When at last she exploded, there were stars in the blackness before her eyes and a roaring in her ears. She cried out as her arms and legs clutched Rowan with all her strength, holding on to him like a log in the sea. She strained against him as he shuddered, his body seeming to be racked with spasms.

  For a long while they lay together, clinging with the strength of two strong animals, their bodies plastered with sweat, their limbs intertwined.

  Rowan was the first to move his head so he could look at her. “I did not hurt you?” he said with a smug little smile.

  Jura did not take offense. Her body felt too good to be offended at any words in the world. “I had no idea,” she whispered. “I did not know there was such as this.”

  He kissed her cheek. “To be quite honest, I didn’t either. No wonder men…” He trailed off.

  “Men what?” she demanded, one eyebrow arched.

  “This is why men run from one bed to another. Such pleasure is…” He closed his eyes. “Such pleasure is—”

  “Mine,” Jura said coolly.

  Rowan looked at her, smiled, and hugged her to him.

  They untangled their arms and legs from one another and snuggled close, their sweaty bodies sticking together.

  Jura had never felt this way in her life. It was as if something had always been missing and now was filled. She turned her head slightly so she could see Rowan’s profile in the candlelight. Rowan, she thought, not “Englishman,” but Rowan, her husband, a man with a name. She put her hand up and touched his cheek and he kissed her fingertips, his eyes closed, his body completely relaxed.

  “Tell me of your life in England,” she said softly. She had never cared much about his history or about his thoughts but now she wanted to know more about him.

  He turned to look at her as if he were studying her. He smiled at her in a way that made Jura feel a bit soft inside, a softness that had nothing to do with passion.

  “There is a cold dinner waiting for us,” he said. “Shall we eat while we talk?”

  Rowan put his knight’s loincloth on, and Jura, having nothing else to wear, put on his big embroidered tunic. It left her long legs bare, and when she saw Rowan glancing at them, she made sure they showed at every opportunity. And the tunic kept slipping off one shoulder, but Jura did not bother to straighten it.

  The food was indeed cold but, to her, she had never tasted anything better. They set the dishes on the carpeted ground, and between the free-flowing wine and Rowan’s eyes looking at her with great intensity, she felt giddy. His voice—why had she never noticed the golden tones of it before—further intoxicated her.

  He told of the responsibility of being king that he had always lived with, how he had rarely been able to please old Feilan or his father.

  “You worried that you weren’t pleasing Thal?” Jura gasped. “But he talked of you as if you were a god. The son my mother gave him was nothing to him. He taunted Geralt with you.”

  “But he sent instructions to Feilan that I was to do more and more. When I was sixteen and I thought Feilan and I were going hunting, instead, four Lanconians attacked me at once. We fought for hours while Feilan stood and watched.”

  “You did not kill them or they you?”

  Rowan grimaced. “I realized later that they toyed with me, one protecting the other. I cut a few of them but they merely bruised me. Merely, ha!” he said. “I limped for weeks after that, and I was so angry at Feilan that I could barely speak to him. He was a hard, loveless old man.”

  “But he praised you to Thal,” Jura said. “Thal always held you up as an example to Geralt.”

  “Who now hates me.”

  “With reason. He is a Lanconian prince while you are—” She stopped because Rowan jammed a large piece of bread into her mouth.

  “One night, Jura,” he said, with the eyes of a lost puppy begging to be taken home. “One night of peace, please.”

  She could not help laughing as she bit off half the bread then, on impulse, put the other half in his mouth. “All right,” she said, smiling, “you may be king tonight, but tomorrow you must prove to me that you are fit to rule.”

  “Fit to rule,” he said, and his eyes darkened. “I will show you who is fit to rule.” He began crawling toward her on his hands and knees like some great predatory animal.

  Jura started to laugh, but then his loincloth “accidentally” came unfastened and he left no doubt as to his intentions. Jura’s mouth was suddenly dry and this time there was no fear. When she flung the tunic from her body and opened her arms to him, she saw the momentary surprise on his face, but she did not understand it. She had not been raised to be coy, to cover her true feelings with pretense and playacting. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and she did not pretend otherwise.

  After his first shock, Rowan smiled happily at her eagerness. There was no reason to go slowly this time, and his passion for Jura was raging. He had looked at those bare legs of hers for two whole hours and he had thought of nothing but mounting her again, but he had been cautious, for an Englishwoman, at least the ones he had known, liked to pretend virginity with each coupling.

  But Jura was Lanconian, not English, and she said what she thought, acted upon what she believed, and went after what she wanted. He need never worry about her deceiving him. She would tell him to his face that she believed him right or wrong.

  After their first coupling, which he had stupidly bungled, he was afraid she would never want to bed him again, but it looked as if she were about to change her mind, he thought with some smugness.

  “Here, my eager darling, let me teach you a few tricks,” he said, smiling at her. He picked her up and set her down on his manhood and smiled with pleasure at the look of surprise then grateful pleasure on her face. At least here was one area where she was not calling him a fool. Here was one place where he had all the knowledge and she had none.

  Within seconds, Jura changed his mind on that. She was strong and clever and lusty and creative in ways Rowan had never dreamed possible. His encounters with women had not been frequent, as old Feilan had believed war training was more important than bed training, and, too often, Rowan’s encounters had been with jaded women who wanted to say they had been to bed with the handsome prince. They had forced Rowan to do all the work.

  “Jura,” he whispered as his hands stroked her long, hard thighs as she moved up and down on top of him. He thought he might die from the ecstasy she was causing him.

  Suddenly, he could stand no more, and never breaking contact, he threw her to her back on the carpets and finished with a few deep, desperate strokes, finishing with deep shudders that seemed to come from within his soul. He held Jura so tightly she cried aloud.

  “You are breaking me,” she said, struggling to make him loosen his grip.

  He chuckled. “I will bend you to fit into my pocket and I will take you out only when you are the Jura-by-the-water.”

  “I am always that Jura,” she said, fitting her body close to his.

  He gave a jaw-popping yawn. “Perhaps you are used to sleeping on the floor but I am for the bed.” He picked Jura up as if she were a child, ignoring the protest she began, but soon stopped, and took her to bed. He pulled her into his arms, drew a cover over them, and was instantly asleep.

  Not so Jura. Her mind and body were too full of new sensations to sleep. When Rowan’s breath was deep and his body relaxed in sleep, Jura eased from the bed, picked up his tunic from the floor, drew it over her head, and left the tent.

  The night air was cool on her face and bare legs, and she turned her face to the moon. Smiling, she hugged her arms about her body. At last, she was truly no longer a maiden. This is what she had felt the day she had first met Rowan after she had been swimming. And this was what she had never felt with Daire, she thought. If only
she could feel with Rowan the safety and serenity that Daire made her feel.

  A cool wind blew across her, making her shiver, and she went back into the tent. In the candlelight she looked at Rowan sleeping as bonelessly as a baby, one palm upward trustingly. She must have made a noise, for he stirred, his hands reaching out for something. Me, she thought with a smile, then blew out the candles and climbed into bed with him.

  She woke with something tickling her nose. She jumped when she opened her eyes to see Rowan bending over her brushing a piece of her own hair against her nose. For a moment she was startled at the sight of this man in her bed, and when she remembered, she blushed.

  Rowan smiled knowingly. “Good morning, wife,” he said, and kissed her softly. “And what entertainment do you have planned for me today? I’ll wager you’ll not outdo yesterday with your velvet dress and leading me to this den of earthly pleasures. Had I known you’d react so to Brita, I would have seen that she attended our wedding.”

  Jura was not used to being teased. “I did not plan this,” she said indignantly. “Your sister said I should try to look like an Englishwoman in order to…to…” She gave him a weak smile.

  “To what?” he asked innocently.

  “Brita had nothing to do with this. If you want to follow that old woman about like her pet dog, that is your choice.” She started to roll away from him to get out of bed, but he held her fast.

  “Brita is not old. She is a beautiful, powerful woman, and power like hers appeals to a man, especially a king like me.”

  “She is not so beautiful as I!” Jura half yelled, then saw by Rowan’s face that he was laughing at her. Her voice lowered. “Brita is the better off, for I saved her last night from a boring evening.” She gave a yawn. “Perhaps she found herself a lusty Lanconian lover, someone as handsome and virile as Daire.”