Lord of Falcon Ridge (21 page)

Kerzog barked and ran after them, then abruptly stopped just inside the longhouse. He cocked his big head, then turned and bounded back into the laughing and shouting people.

“At last,” Cleve said, panting, his chest heaving. He quickly pulled the bearskin over the opening to Rorik's and Mirana's chamber. Bless them, they'd left a lit wick in a bowl of oil. The light was gentle and shadowy, the air warm and soft, and this was his wife. She was his.

He lifted her and laid her on her back, then immediately pulled her up again. “Your clothes,” he said, and nearly tore off the brooches at her shoulders.

Suddenly, she was laughing. He stopped then.

“Let me remove my own clothes, Cleve, else I'll have
to beg a gown off one of the women on the morrow.”

He stepped back and yanked off his own clothes. He was naked and staring at her when she looked up at him, still in her long linen shift. He was breathing hard. He didn't understand this urgency, but he accepted it. He wanted her and he would have her as soon as he could get her onto her back.

“Oh,” Chessa said. She swallowed. “Oh,” she said again. She looked at him, every inch of him, from the whorls of golden hair on his chest to his flat belly, lower, to the golden bush at his groin. She swallowed again. “Oh.”

“Chessa, hurry. Don't be frightened. I'll fit, you'll see. I promise I'll fit and you'll like it. I swear it to you. Hurry. By all the gods, I don't believe this. Hurry.”

When she was standing in front of him, the linen shift at her feet, he looked at her and groaned.

“I wanted to go slowly with you. I teased you all evening, but I suppose I was just teasing myself and look what's come of it. Now, Chessa, now.”

He lifted her, her breasts against his face, and when he suckled her nipple, she arched her back, her body taut as a sapling. Then she was on her back and he was between her legs and he was breathing hard, his hands all over her. It was as if he didn't know where to begin, what to do first. He cursed, lifted her, and brought her to his mouth, his breath deep and hot on her flesh.

She froze, then twisted, so surprised she didn't know what to do. Cleve straightened over her. His mouth was glistening with her. He looked to be in pain. He pushed her knees against her, stared at her woman's flesh, and groaned again. “I can't wait,” he said and he was in pain, she thought, his teeth clenched, his eyes closed, his head thrown back.

She didn't know what to think, what to do. In the next instant, he was pushing himself into her and she wondered what was happening to him, what she was supposed to do now, if she was to move and if so, how was she to move?
What was she supposed to feel? There was no longer an ache deep in her belly. There was no deep ache anywhere.

But she loved him, she wouldn't forget that no matter what he did, and she was curious, but she was also aware that he was very large and she wasn't.

She felt pain and shoved her palms against his chest. “Cleve, please stop a moment. Just a moment, please.”

“I can't, Chessa, I can't. Try to ease yourself for me. By all the gods, you're small, too small, but I must come deeper into you, I can't wait, please try to ease yourself, Chessa. If any woman can do it, you can.”

“All right.” She felt his hands holding her thighs apart, felt him pushing slowly into her. The pain grew. She didn't like it. This act gave a woman a child, she accepted that, but it was also supposed to give her pleasure? Suddenly, he thrust again and again, and she felt tearing pain, felt as if a part of her had ripped apart deep inside her. She screamed, her fists against his chest shoving at him, striking him, anything to get him off her. Then he heaved over her, groaning and trembling, sweat making his golden body glisten. She didn't know what was happening to him but whatever it was, he appeared to want it, thus she did too. Ah, but it hurt. He was his full length inside her body. That was strange that he was deep inside her, that he was part of her. He was hot and tense, ramming into her, sealing himself against her, groaning deep in his chest, then pulling out just to shove forward again. She didn't move. She hurt badly, but she didn't move.

She loved him. If this was what he wanted, then he would have it. She stuffed her fist into her mouth. It was over soon enough. He arched over her, his throat working madly, and he cried out again and again, and she felt the wetness from him fill her. She lay very still. The pain lessened and so did he.

He was lying over her now, balanced on his elbows, breathing hard and fast. He was sweating. He smelled wonderful. She leaned up and kissed his shoulder—sweat and his unique scent. She kissed his shoulder again.

He drew a deep heaving breath. “By all the gods, that was not well done of me. I hurt you, didn't I, Chessa? I hurt you and I'm sorry for it but I couldn't have done it differently. Do you understand? Do you forgive me? I was as clumsy as a raw boy and I am sorry for it. I didn't want to take you this way, at least not the first time. Did you hate it? Do you hate me now for hurting you?”

She was adrift in the feeling of him still inside her and he was over her, kissing her and talking and she said, “You want to know many things, Cleve. Not now, all right?”

He lowered himself so he was flat and heavy on her and she didn't want him to move at all. He was pressed against her belly, his sex still inside her. “Do you know how you feel to me? No, of course you don't. You're a woman and you were a virgin and I hurt you.” He withdrew from her and rolled off her.

“Could you come back, please, Cleve?”

He came up on his elbow and looked down at her. “I'm here. I feel like a sorry husband. Forgive me, Chessa.”

“Is it always like that?”

“Like what?”

She raised her hair and lightly stroked her fingers over his jaw, his lips, his nose. “Will you always touch me like you just did? Like every part of me is yours to handle freely? You'll use me and do exactly as you please to me and hurt me?”

He bit the end of her finger. “Aye. But it works both ways, Chessa. You can do exactly what you wish to me. No, I won't ever hurt you again.”

She doubted that, but kept silent. Then she wailed, “But I don't know anything.” She grabbed his ears in both her hands and pulled him down to kiss him. He was laughing, then quickly moaning. She put her tongue in his mouth, not realizing really what she was doing, how it would make him feel, not at all how it would make her feel.

“Oh,” she said into his mouth, felt his tongue touch hers, and felt a jolt of pleasure so intense she whimpered. “That's very nice.”

“Good,” he said and kissed her until she was struggling to get closer to him, her hands on his back, his chest, all over him, save his belly and groin. He said as he licked her ear, “Touch me, Chessa. Touch me.”

She knew where he wanted her hand, aye, she knew, but still she wasn't certain. When she touched him, felt the heat of him, the wetness of him and knew it was from both of them, this wetness, she jerked back her fingers. He moaned.

She closed her fingers around him again as she kissed him. It was incredible. He was warm and tasted of sweet ale and of her and of himself. He was hard and strong against her fingers. He fascinated her. She was beginning to feel those feelings again, deep in her belly, and in her breasts, that was very nice when he'd kissed her breasts, but he'd stopped only a moment after he'd begun. She wanted him to do it again.

“Cleve?”

He kissed the side of her mouth. His hand flattened on her hip bone. He was slipping from her hand.

“Cleve?”

He moaned softly, falling away from her onto his back.

She lurched over him and stared down at his face. He was asleep. She wanted to hit him. Instead, she lightly kissed his mouth. She snuffed out the wick.

“Well,” Chessa said to the dark chamber, “I suppose it's a beginning. Not much of one, but a start.”

 

Dawn light shadowed the chamber. Chessa suddenly cried out in pain and jerked awake. She remembered she was married, she remembered everything. She felt sore between her legs and sticky. Again she felt a sharp jabbing pain in her ribs.

She shook her head, realized that Kiri was between her and Cleve and Kiri's elbow had poked her twice.

She and Cleve were on the two edges of the bed. Kiri was lying flat on her back between them, her legs and arms sprawled away from her body. She was dreaming, tossing a bit now, and that elbow flailed again.

“Nay,” Chessa said, grabbed the child's hand and brought it down. “Cleve, do wake up. We have a guest.”

Cleve awoke immediately, a habit he'd quickly learned when he was very young from his first master, an old merchant who sold furs and young boys. Thankfully, he'd believed Cleve too young to be used, and thus kept him in his shop, counting and sorting furs. Cleve looked at Chessa's shadowed face, then down at his daughter. He groaned.

“Papa,” Kiri said, and yawned. “You were holding her really tight. It took me a long time to get between you.”

Cleve groaned again and fell off the side of the bed. When he opened his eyes, his daughter and his new wife were on their hands and knees, staring down at him.

“Papa,” Kiri said. “You don't have any clothes on.”

Chessa threw him a woolen blanket, drawing Kiri back to the middle of the bed. “Now, sweeting, what are you doing here? Couldn't you sleep?”

Kiri smiled and slipped away from Chessa. She called out, “Kerzog! You were right. Come here, Kerzog. No, stay, I'll come with you now.”

“What was that damned dog right about?” Cleve said as he eased back between the woolen blankets.

“I'm afraid to know,” Chessa said, and snuggled against her new husband.

“No,” he said firmly, “don't touch any part of me, Chessa. You're sore and I won't ravage you again until you've healed.”

She cursed and he laughed.

 

 

C
LEVE STARED DOWN
at Utta's porridge. For the first time since he'd tasted his first blissful spoonful, he didn't even like the looks of it. He set his bowl aside. He heard a laugh and looked up to see Chessa grinning and shaking her head at something Laren had said.

How could she laugh after what he'd done to her? She was strong, this wife of his. She wasn't one to complain or cry. But still, did she have to act so very contented? So happy? Didn't she realize what he'd
not
done to her? And she'd smiled at him and wanted to have him hurt her again after Kiri had left at dawn. At least he'd been civilized enough to be firm about it. He didn't begin to understand her.

He rose from the bench only to be pounded on his back, in turn, by Hafter, Rorik, and Gunleik.

“She looks pleased,” Hafter said. “Not as pleased as Entti after our first married night together, but still, she's smiling and laughing.”

“Aye, it appears you didn't exhaust her with your lust,” Gunleik said. “It's always uncertain what will happen with an innocent girl like Chessa.”

“I'm just pleased she can still walk,” Merrik said, walking up to them. “You'd been a long time without a woman,
Cleve. Truth be told I was a bit worried you'd be too enthusiastic.”

Rorik said. “Mirana told me Kiri ended up between the two of you.”

Cleve nodded. “She kicked me off the edge of the bed, then called Kerzog, thinking it all a great jest.”

Gunleik said, frowning at Cleve, “You don't look like a man who's enjoyed himself all through a long dark night with a new wife who worships you.”

“Gunleik's right,” Hafter said, adding his frowning to Gunleik's. “You look like you've got a cramp in your bowels, that, hmmm, or you've done something incredibly stupid with your new bride.”

It was too much, damn their interfering eyes. He shouted, “Damn all of you. My bowels are just fine. You want the truth, you damned meddlesome sods? Very well, I failed her. I fell asleep like a stuporous goat.”

Rorik groaned and struck his fist against Cleve's arm. “You didn't. Truly, you fell asleep? Quickly? Aye, I see by the guilt in your eyes you did. By all the gods, Cleve, you give us all a bad name.”