Chapter II
“DO NOT be frightened,” her soldier murmured.
She reacted with shock when he opened her gown and squeezed her breasts.
“I am your master now. Lord Harald can go to hell.”
Tess choked down a retort. Later, later, she told herself. She would break her disguise long enough to hurl abuse at the soldier before she slit his throat.
He guided her hand to his thickening cock. “That’s it, touch me there. Ah, like that ... stroke it ... yes ... oh girl ... it is you who has fired this lust in me.”
Tess’s eyes widened as his member doubled in her hand. He was bent over her, half-dressed, his brais about his knees and her skirts pushed up. She stared up at the starry night sky, stunned by how rapidly he had taken possession of her, and that she was shamefully excited by this possession! The mercenary was a masterful man though he could not be above thirty. She pushed him away a little to examine him better. He grunted and raised his head to look at her.
Her mouth was open. Broderick groaned aloud, imagining those puffy lips fastened on the rigid staff between his legs. Her eyes were dark and serious as his gaze travelled to her breasts.
“By God, you are magnificent,” Broderick breathed. “See how you fill my hand. Generously-sized to suckle a babe—and your teats, they are petals, soft protrusions that incite a man to forget himself. Rejoice in your good fortune, that it was me who caught you and not one of King John’s men.”
He put his lips on her tit and it budded and plucked taut under his tongue. His cock pulled like a wire in response. This would be no ordinary romp. Broderick would take his time with this little maid. The girl’s breasts were high and firm and curved like white marble. Just looking at her had thickened his erection to extraordinary proportions.
Broderick stroked her hair that fanned out around her head. “Lift your arms,” he instructed softly.
She obeyed, raising her arms slightly above her head. There was a strange light in her eyes that shot through him like hot flame. Though she was not a virgin, she seemed intensely curious to learn what he would do next. Broderick could not bear to allow her mind to change at this point—he stripped off her gown.
She squirmed, naked between his massive thighs. The maid had had nothing on underneath the light silk.
“What means this,” Broderick grunted. The sight of her young body was felling him by degrees. “It appears your mistress grabbed you straight from bed when she forced to assume her persona. Don’t hide your face. You should not be ashamed to be seen thus. On the contrary, you were made to give a man pleasure.”
Broderick’s eyes felt hot as coals looking at her. Never before had he beheld such a beauty. Her breasts were the image of youth and perfection. She had no voice but the heavens had blessed her with other attractions ... slim hips and thighs, and a tapered waist that he could encircle with his large hands.
A thick, glossy bush concealed her sex and he petted as though it was a fine pelt. Her slit was juicy beyond description, a cherry red glistening tart that begged to be eaten. No man could have passed up a jewel such as this for long. Still, his conscience gave him pause.
“Lord Harald has a notorious reputation for bedding his daughter’s maids. I should not like to be cast in the same light as that knave. Has his lordship had you, then?”
Tess bit down hard on her lip to keep from bellowing the retort that sprang to mind. What the devil was the beast talking about? Her father, admittedly, had a lustful eye—Tess had upbraided him on more than one occasion for it—but Harald’s conquests were more than willing. Her father was not at this very moment prowling the halls at Castlemuir on the hunt for young women to ravish—his men were!
Tess warmed with the vision of cutting the soldier’s throat but she held her tongue and adjusted her expression to one of demure desire. She shook her head in answer to his question and flattered him with a kiss.
His lips were warm and responsive. Her stomach tightened. Tess was aware she was naked. Being exposed thus had felt terrible at first, but the feeling soon passed and was replaced by something warmer and less familiar than modesty.
The soldier was extremely handsome.
Good God, she was just like her father, Tess realized with a start. Seduced by a pretty face! Though he was a mercenary, she could not deny the man was beautiful. It was rare to see such perfection in one of his class.
She shook herself. Stick to the plan, Tessie. Don’t falter now. You almost have him...
He openly perused her naked body and stroked her skin from her knees to her shoulders and down the length of her arm. Tess grew very still under his caress.
With the tips of his fingers, Broderick lightly explored her nakedness; her skin was like cream, soft as butter. When he next looked into her face, he saw the sultry beauty of a young woman who was sexually aroused.
Broderick’s cock expanded to a desperate size.
He bent lower between her legs and kissed the pillowy folds of flesh that were protected by her silken bush. His warm breath on her mound seemed to stimulate her further, for on impulse, the girl parted her legs for him.
“Are ye so hot to be taken, lass?” Broderick chided. “You know what I mean to do?”
She nodded.
He laughed deep in his chest, stricken with a peculiar case of nerves. “Your sex is wet and shivering to give up its prize. Your modesty has abandoned you to the desires of your body.”
He kissed her mouth, thrusting his tongue between her lips and she struggled briefly against his chest. Broderick was not usually a gentle lover, but he wanted to be with her. He stroked between the folds of her sex, fingering the pearl bud that drove whores wild when it was touched. It worked on lady’s maids too, for the girl gave up her weak resistance and returned his kiss with unexpected passion.
Tess took the soldier’s tongue in her mouth, linking it with her own. Between her legs, she felt a peculiar pressure—a tension unlike anything she’d experienced and then fluid—a gush of moisture like she was relieving herself, only she was not. The soldier slowed his sensual assault on her sex to drive his fingers inside her. He pumped in and out, foretelling what was to come. Tess grew weaker by the second. If she did not act soon, she would lose the will to stop him.
He took her breath away.
The mercenary had captivated her—that she could actually desire him! There must be an explanation—a man as coarse as this would have to work a spell to get so far, so quickly. Tess was certain she would feel shame if she understood what he was doing, but she did not. She only knew the rhythmic stroking of her sex made her head swim. A man’s masterful hand touching her down there ... filling her with rising ecstasy, unlike anything she had ever known.
She lunged up against him, overcome by a climax—a pleasure that had no language.
“You are in heat, little maid. I believe what I carry between my legs is what you are craving. Show me it is so.”
His words were coarse and urgent but Tess heard him as a girl hears her lover. She forgot where they were, she could not recall who she was before this moment. Tess had prayed not to be taken—was this man the answer to her prayer? When he kissed her, she entered his soul and he was joined with hers. United in holy passion, matching him kiss for kiss, caress for caress, Tess was falling in love with her father’s enemy.
Her pale, slender thighs parted for him like two birch saplings. Broderick moaned and positioned himself between her legs, lifting her easily in his powerful arms.
“Oh my love, my love....” He whispered endearments, knowing she could not repeat them. His soft feelings for the girl would be locked in her silent heart.
Broderick moved her legs further apart with his muscular thigh and guided his manhood, thickened and swollen to massive size to the core of her womanhood. He offered her the glazed look of a man shattered and overcome—and then drove his staff into her.
The girl made an odd noise of release that could have been mistaken for pain
. She pushed against his shoulders and then went limp. He collapsed too, falling over her, panting as he struggled to control his passion. Broderick was shocked by the strength of emotion he had in taking her. The more she surrendered to him, the sharper his pleasure. He nipped her neck and the lobes of her ears and then forced his mouth over her resisting lips.
Broderick waited until their breathing was joined and the girl’s legs parted wider with a will of their own. It was only natural they would do so for she was made for him. He knew with supernatural clarity that this girl was created to be loved by him and him alone. She was his.
But even in his passion, he found it odd she was wet with both blood and womanly fluids. Broderick assumed she was in her monthly. Unlike the men he served with, he had no objection to loving a girl at this time in her moon cycle. Knowing he could not get the lass with child unleashed a reservoir of passion in Broderick. He did not have to hold back, he could fill her with his seed without risk.
He withdrew his shaft and then plundered her again, inch-by-inch. Her eyes were on his face. Lit by the moon, they gleamed with a look that was intimate and spoke to his soul. They did not need words; Broderick knew her thoughts, for they were his.
He was in love with her.
But it was impossible. Their love was doomed. It could not survive the current political climate. Broderick would be putting her life in danger if he ever attempted to see her again. If she were caught, the girl would be tortured to give up Lady Tess and then executed. How cruel and strange it was that the good God would join a soldier with the servant of his enemy when there was no hope of ever seeing her after this night?
Broderick closed his mind to everything but the love they shared now. He plundered her vise-like pussy with greater heat. Her silence conveyed more to him than squeals and moans would have—she was in communion with him beyond the physical pleasure he took in her body. Though he was near to the brink, Broderick pushed his rigid shaft inside her rhythmically, slowly stretching her to take his size. She was so very wet, milky fluid soaked his balls—and tight; he was twice her size—he ought not to have touched her. But oh, how the maid’s pussy grew hotter and wetter with each thrust!
“Good God ... you make a man weak.” His voice was thick. His breath—he could not draw breath. The girl was maddening him with the innocent hold her womanhood had on his cock, with her silent mystery.
She melted into him, fully giving up herself to his lovemaking. There was no shame in her now. Her body and senses were overpowered by physical ecstasy and she responded with passion he did not expect to find in one so young. Her youth and beauty fired his lust as she submitted to his strength and desire.
“By faith, you have me in your snare,” he cried, through clenched teeth. “I shall burst inside your sweet, honey womb if you do not take care!”
And then, with a roar that shook the night birds from their perches, Broderick ejaculated inside the lass, filling her with his seed. He was thirty-three; a looter, fornicator and killer. Broderick was a mercenary soldier who’d seen all manner of evil and committed even more. But he’d never lived a day until this moment of climax inside this silent, willing girl.
Broderick rolled away and lay flat on his back facing the night stars, catching his breath.
“I have no daughters or sons,” he said quietly. He suddenly needed to tell her about himself. “I have only my Kylie, my sword and the men who fight alongside me. They’ve been life enough for me.” He twisted to look at her. “Until now.”
Broderick lifted his hand and hesitantly drew a finger over the girl’s tender mouth. She watched him with the same expression of love he felt in his heart. They were suspended in the still quiet of the forest, joined in supernatural union that transcended the act of physical intercourse.
“Do you believe it is possible for a man to fall in love with a woman in the space of an hour? In the blink of an eye?”
A smile lit her face. Then she trembled and nodded and the smile faded. She understood as he did that these few happy minutes they shared in this time of war were at an end. They must part and never see each other again.
The realization was unsettling. This is why a man must keep only to whores, he thought irritably. A lusty wench did not incite anguish when the act was finished other than the sorrow at parting with a sovereign. He was already suffering at the thought of leaving her.
“You may get up now. You are free to go,” he said gruffly.
He stood up and reached for his brais—and just in time for he heard horse’s hooves thundering down the path on the other side of the trees.
“Broderick, you whoring bastard, where have you got to?”
One of his men, Davey, was looking for him. Broderick turned back to the girl with a wink and pulled up his pants.
The instant his attention was diverted, the girl lunged for his sword.
“Hold there! Drop it or I swear I shall take off your head!” Broderick was quicker and taller, with a longer reach. He snatched the blade up and buckled it to his waist. The hilt of the sword was secured under his arm. “Love or no love, we are on opposite sides again. Is that how it is to be? I’ll give you this once, little maid, for I am in closer sympathy with your instinct for self-preservation than you might imagine—but do not test me!” he hissed. “Do not trust my affection to shield you from harm. I have a neck to save as well as you.”
Davey’s voice boomed through the wood. “Broderick, get off whoever it is you are fucking and let’s away, man! The horn has sounded!”
Broderick cast Lady Tess’s maidservant a last look. And then, tongue-tied and angry with his weakness, he lunged out of the wood to the path. “Aye, here I be—hold your bloody noise. I could hear you the length and breadth of the forest.”
“Did ye find her?”
“Who?”
“The Lady Tess, for God’s sake! The reason ye bolted off into the damnable forest in the first place leaving me to fight alone. Well, did ye find her?”
Broderick rubbed his mouth, cleared his throat and cast a quick glance behind him. “Nay, I caught a little fawn, but she made good her escape. I’ve been wandering this wood lost for the past hour.” Broderick caught up the reins and vaulted astride his horse. “Let’s away then.”
“Nay, hold fast! We’ll find the little chicken yet. She can’t have got far. She may serve as a bed warmer for one of John’s nobles if she be comely.”
“Comely! By God, I never beheld face so ugly.” Broderick snorted with disgust. “A goat is better-featured. She was naught but a waste of time and I’m for bed. My good lady awaits me. Let us away.”
Tess curled up into a ball on the moss that was damp with her blood and the soldier’s seed. She waited until the horses’ hooves could no longer be heard before she rose to her knees and pulled her tattered gown on over her body.
The mercenary’s name was Broderick. She had tried to kill him—her conscious was clear on that account. She had done her duty to her father and the people at Castlemuir who had trusted her to protect them by attempting to kill the man she loved.
Tess pressed her shaking hands to her face. What if she had succeeded? What if she had spilled his blood and watched him die? How could she live in a world that did not contain him?
The events of the night taught Lady Tess an important lesson: in time of war, love was a luxury she could not afford.
She wiped her eyes and drew herself up to her feet. No man or night of bliss would divert her from her mission ever again. She would put Broderick out of her mind and reclaim Castlemuir one way or another.
She only had to stay alive until she saw her chance.