“Sim, I’m ready for the first lesson,” she teased, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of doing something forbidden and secret.
“The first lesson is the kiss. Like snowflakes, there are no two kisses alike. Each is unique. The different kinds of kisses are infinite.” He lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss upon each finger, then he opened her palm, placed a kiss inside, and folded her fingers upon it to capture and hold it.
She smiled at the pretty gesture. Just then a beam from the late-afternoon sun reflected through a windowpane, making a rainbow arch across her bare breast. He covered it with his hand and then of course the rainbow appeared to be on him. “I’d best hasten with the kissing, we only have ’til dawn.”
She laughed up into his black eyes and slipped her arms about his neck, for didn’t the sun still shine?
They exchanged over a thousand kisses. He began with tiny, quick kisses to her temples, eyelids, nose, and finally the corners of her mouth. His lips kissed her hair, traced along her cheekbone to her ear, then down against her throat. She could not wait for his lips to touch hers, then when they did she could not wait for the kisses to lengthen.
For a whole hour they lost themselves in the bliss of slow, melting kisses. Never once did he try to part her lips with his tongue and force it into her soft exciting mouth. Simon knew that love talk brought a woman to her rapture more quickly than silence, so he held his lips against her throat and murmured, “You have the most wondrous hair I have ever seen, and all men who lay eyes upon it must ache to caress it and play with it like this. Oh, love, you enthrall me. Your image is before me day and night. Your loveliness haunts me. I have an unquenchable thirst for you. When I see you across a room, I have to draw close to you, and then when I am close to you, I have an uncontrollable desire to touch you. I want to touch you all over. Here and here.” He cupped her breast in his hand and caressed its pink tip gently with his thumb. “Your skin feels like creamy, smooth velvet in my calloused, rough hands.”
“Oh, Sim, you have the most thrilling hands of any man alive. They are so sinfully attractive I fell in love with them months ago.” She lifted one to her lips to kiss, but it was not enough for her. She suddenly lost all self-control. One by one she took each finger into her mouth and sucked upon it.
His shaft jumped at the exquisite sensations her sucking aroused, and she felt it seeking against her soft belly. Impatiently she unfastened his scarlet cloak and pushed it aside so she could touch every muscle upon the broad expanse of chest. “Please, Sim,” she begged.
He placed his lips upon hers and murmured, “Little innocent. You think you are ready, but you are not.” With the tip of his tongue he traced the outline of her lips, then when she parted hers in a sigh he allowed the tip of his tongue to slip into her mouth. He went deeper, caressing her tongue with his, tasting the nectar of her honey-drenched mouth. Her fragrance made his senses reel. His mouth became more demanding, then suddenly she began to kiss him back. Their kisses went on and on, fierce kisses, wanton kisses, sensual kisses, erotic kisses, until finally their lips felt bee-stung, swollen with love. Yet still they needed more.
She began to move against him restlessly until his large, warm hand reached between her legs to stroke and play among the silken curls. “Mmmm.” She sighed, arching into his beloved hand as he teased the tiny folds with one strong finger. Very gently he allowed his finger to enter her and to rapidly stroke in and out. “Does that feel nice, darling? Do you want more?”
“Mmmm, yes please.” She breathed raggedly.
When he could feel her begin to get slippery, though she was still impossibly tight and small, he slipped his finger from her delicious sheath and licked off her sweetness.
“Sim,” she protested.
He whispered, “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.” Her arousal was progressing as he had fervently hoped, yet still he knew there was a great deal of pain ahead of her if he did not take steps to deaden it a little. He poured a large goblet of wine and returned to the chair. He scooped her onto his lap, carefully positioning her so that his erect arousal rested in the hot cleft between her legs. Then he lifted the goblet to her lips and urged, “There is nothing like dragonsblood to make you relax enough to let down the last barrier.”
She drank deeply and felt the effect immediately. It was as if the wine turned to fire as it ran along her veins, igniting tiny flames that heated her entire body with magic, liquid heat. Again she raised the goblet to her lips and again quaffed deeply for the pure pleasure of feeling her blood rush into her cheeks, her throat, her breasts, her belly, and her loins.
Simon dipped his head to take a mouthful, then he kissed her deeply so they both tasted the rich sweetness that flavored their mouths. When his tongue thrust inside she moaned with need and moved in a way that made her hot cleft rub up and down his long shaft. Her head fell back, her throat and breasts arched with her sensual movements. She was arousing herself to such heights that she began to kiss him wildly.
Her lips and tongue traced his throat, his collarbone, then she began to bite his shoulders, leaving tiny, crescent-shaped marks with her teeth.
He whispered, “I know a secret.”
“Wh-what?” she said with a gasp between a kiss and a bite.
“Wine makes you amorous,” he said with unconcealed joy.
“Not wine … dragonsblood, and you my dragon.” She gasped, clutching his wide shoulders and trying to impale herself upon his weapon.
He swept her into his arms and stood up from the chair.
“Finish it,” he directed, and held the goblet to her lips. She drained the cup then looked boldly into his black, magnetic eyes. She was learning the power of a woman’s sexuality. With triumph she knew all he could think of was bed. Physically he was probably the most powerful man in the country, perhaps the world, and tonight she had more power than he. She could control him. She could make him do anything she desired.
Deliberately she wrapped her legs about his back. His hands went beneath her bottom cheeks to steady her, not to support her slight weight, for that rested wholly upon his rigid, pulsing erection. He walked with deliberate slowness across the room to the massive bed. Each step slid his shaft forward then backward along her cleft, which was now creamy with moisture.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as she tried to prevent herself from screaming with excitement. Just as they reached the bed her anticipation became so frenzied, a scream gathered in her throat, but Simon quickly covered her mouth with his and took it into himself.
He rolled onto the bed clasping her to his heart. There was absolutely no way he was going to lie on top of her this first time. The difference in their size might make her feel suffocated, trapped, and he knew that she had lain helplessly imprisoned beneath William Marshal’s body.
“Kathe, my own darling, I am going to let you be in control this first time.” His flexed arms held her high above him. She looked down at the impossibly wide shoulders that took up most of the big bed. She gazed with dismay at the raw, male virility spread out beneath her and felt totally inadequate. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
Her black, silken hair had tumbled onto his chest as he lay sprawled and powerfully lithe below her. “I mean I will let you set the pace. I will let you make love to me.”
She gazed down at his dark face. He looked hungry as a wolf, ready to devour her. “I don’t know how.”
He reached out a gentle finger and touched the curls between her legs. Her need was so great that she sucked in her breath and bit her lip. “I am so erect at the moment you will be able to position yourself above me and take at least the tip inside of you. Kneel above me. Put your knees on either side of my hips and gently lower yourself. Take your time, sweetest. Only do what makes you feel wonderful. When you are on top you can take as much of me or as little of me as you wish.”
She held her breath and raised herself so that her sheath was directly above the tip of his phallus. Then she began to m
ove down upon him. Her movements were slow and delicate. To her utter amazement her lover’s enormous weapon began to bury itself inside her. She knew she would never experience anything more magnificent than the fullness she felt when Simon de Montfort was inside her body. “I did it,” she whispered.
“You took about half of me,” he said huskily. “Is that all?” she cried in dismay.
“That is more than I ever dreamed possible for the first time, my little love. How I’ve burned to touch you inside.”
She took a deep breath and then another, and then she allowed herself to relax her rigid muscles. When she did so he slid in deeper, and they both moaned at the unbelievable pleasure they gave each other. “Dear Christ, don’t let me die of pleasure,” Simon prayed.
Slowly, delicately she began to move upon him. Though he had an iron control, it did him no good at this very special moment. He too began to move. She rode him faster and harder, and he held her breasts cupped in his strong palms so they would not bounce until they became sore. Finally she arched backward and released a cry of shattering bliss into the still, dark air. He allowed himself the final rapture of letting his hot seed spurt up inside of her, then he gathered her close in a tender embrace while he experienced every last pulsation of her exquisite woman’s center.
When at last they lay still with only their heartbeats intermingling, he poured out his love to her. “I have never felt this way in my life before. I love you so deeply from the bottom of my heart and the depth of my soul that you have made me feel immortal. You have given me this night and you have bound me eternally. I pledge my love to you now and forevermore. Kathe, you consume me, waking or sleeping. Now that I’ve tasted your exotic flavor, it will plague my every waking hour, every moment of my dreams. Never tell me you are regretful that we are lovers!”
He was amazed at the enormity of the love he felt for her. If it was the last thing he ever did, he would make her love him in return. Nothing would stand in his way. The love she had known before his would pale into insignificance and be blotted out to nothing more than a faint, forgotten reminiscence. The all-consuming love they would share could be experienced only once in a lifetime.
Strangely she was not guilt-ridden over what they had done, but she was frightened by the sense of perfection and rightness, the feeling of contentment that filled her heart, her mind, her very senses when she lay naked in this man’s arms.
“You were made for love, made for a man like me. I will never regret that I forced you to become a woman rather than a chaste widow.” He pushed up the pillows behind them and drew her up against him. Darkness had begun to fall and the shadows in the room did not allow him to see her as he wished to. He rose and lit the candles. “We will share a loving cup,” he said, and refilled their goblet. They drank the wine as lovers have since the dawn of time, sipping from the same place on the rim, then shared lingering kisses with the taste of the dragons-blood rich upon their tongues.
His eyes, black with passion, devoured her. Then his fingers followed, touching her everywhere, tracing intricate patterns upon her silken flesh. His body was an open invitation to her curiosity, and her fingertips caressed his small, hard nipples, the crisp black pelt covering his chest, the line about his hips where his torso stopped being tanned from the sun. She was gathering courage to examine his maleness, but was not quite ready. Her eyes swept down his muscled thighs and legs, noting how the black hair covered the front, but not the inside of his thighs. Then she realized it was long hours gripping his saddle that made them almost hairless. He was more male than any man had a right to be, she thought, dismay mingled with awe and admiration. Her eyes at last could not resist exploring his sex. She saw a thick forest of black fur with what looked like a felled tree lying semihard along one thigh. Nestled beneath were two tight, hard spheres, as large as swan’s eggs. The candleglow reflected upon the head of his manroot and she saw a pearly drop fall upon his thigh. Her finger flashed out to touch it and examine its texture. A rosy blush followed at her own boldness.
Sim laughed deep in his throat, boyishly delighted that she was unfamiliar with such things. She drew back from him and knelt upon the bed to gaze at him. She would never get enough of looking at him. He made other men suffer mightily by comparison. She was so absorbed in him she had no idea of the fetching picture she made with her wildly disheveled hair falling to her waist, her pink nipples impudently peeping through the black silk tresses. Her mouth was love-swollen and tempting as sin to the man who sprawled before her with night-black eyes.
He was so masterful and had a delicious way of enforcing his will that let others think they were having their own way. She decided to test her power over him. At that moment Simon was thinking if a man married for love, his woman could lead him about by his member.
“Sim, if I gave you an order, would you obey me?”
When she called him Sim, it raised goosebumps on his skin. “If I gave you an order, would you obey me?” he parried.
Her chin went up stubbornly. “I asked first.”
He could not resist teasing her. “Well, let me see. If you ordered me to make love to you again, I would not obey you, but if you ordered me to leave your bed now, I would obey you.”
She was so taken aback by his answer she forgot what order she had had in mind. “Why wouldn’t you make love to me again?” she asked fearfully.
“Once is enough tonight. If I took you again and lost control, you wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed, “but why would you leave my bed?”
He jumped up and grabbed her. “To show you what we look like together in the mirror,” he teased. He swung her high into the air and sat her upon his wide shoulders. She screamed and clung to his hair, thinking she would fall, but as he walked across the chamber to the mirror she forgot about falling. All she could think of was that his tempting hands were holding her legs and that her woman’s center was rubbing against the back of his neck. He stopped in front of the mirror. “See, you are riding me again,” he teased as she gazed at the unbelievable reflection they made.
“Let me down, you great ox.” She laughed.
He flexed his neck muscles to tease her, then said, “Damn you, wench, it’s just one order after another with you.” He went down upon his knees so that she could dismount, but even then her toes were barely able to touch the carpet. He bent his head until she could climb off him, then he slipped an arm about her waist from behind and held her before him in front of the mirror. Her head only reached to his rib cage and she began to giggle at their disparity. Then wickedly she rubbed her bum against his groin and was thrilled that she had the power to make him grow against her.
Still laughing she asked, “And what was your order for me, my lord earl?”
“Marry me.”
The laughter fled from her face. “Oh, Lord God, Simon, don’t say that, please. We are to be secret lovers, no more.”
He said lightly, “I will only ask you once a night.” He could see that his words had shaken her.
She begged, “Pour us some more wine.”
He shook his head. “No more dragonsblood for you, my darling, it will make you insatiable.”
She twisted in his arms until her pelvis pressed against him. “Too late,” she whispered as she went up on her tiptoes to lift herself onto his jutting erection. Simon carried her back to the bed and stood her upon its edge. Then he started at the top of her head and traced kisses down the length of her body. When he reached her mound of Venus, his hands went behind her bottom cheeks and he forced her forward to his mouth. At first his lips touched her as softly as a moth’s wing. Then as his tongue thrust into her, learning the mystery of her treasured folds, she cried out in ecstacy and threaded her fingers through his long, black hair to hold him at her center. She thought wildly, His tongue is violating me as surely as if he were raping me. But she loved it, knew too she loved him. His mouth drew all her sweetness and all her strength from her, s
haking her with a sensation that frightened her even as she surrendered to it.
Later, curled together in the big bed, she realized he had changed her life forever. Her body was still vibrating to his touch, and she realized how close she had come to missing out on experiencing the mysteries of true womanhood. He had commanded that she join him in the ancient act of worship of man for woman. She felt so safe and secure locked in his arms, entwined in the bed. She felt invincible, for now she had all his great strength to add to her own. In her innocence she thought she had conquered him.
Simon came up from the dark depths of sleep, dreading what she was saying. This woman he had marked for his own was no longer in her rightful place, locked in the curve of his arm. She was clothed in a bedgown, shaking his shoulder with frenzied hands. “De Montfort, begone! ’tis almost dawn!”
The last stub of the candle flared and guttered as he sat bolt upright with his hands upon his knees. He looked into her face as the candle momentarily flared and reflected in her dark-blue eyes, making them look like cold, glittering jewels. She was almost distraught. “Devil take you, Frenchman, make haste to your own chamber!”
“I see my precious Kathe has evaporated with the mists of dawn and Princess Eleanor has returned with a vengeance.” He threw back the bedcovers and planted his feet firmly on the floor.
A great wave of relief washed over her and she quickly averted her eyes from his nakedness.
“You fear your dragon has some mortal hold upon you,” he stated knowingly. He snatched up his clothes and wrapped the scarlet cloak about his nakedness. That was her undoing.
She flew to his arms and begged, “Forgive me, Simon … this is the way it must be.”
His mouth came down upon hers and his tongue plundered her mouth. The kiss was abandoned and ravenous. “Tonight!” he stated. “I’ll have you or die.” He had not closed the door before she threw herself in the warm hollow he had left in the bed to cry out her heart.