Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (18 page)

“We have all night,” he whispered against her throat.

She smiled, and he could see her smile. “Magnus.” She stroked his hair. In this kind semidark, oily blackness, he could feel whole again, and then, as she skimmed herself on top of him, he recognized that she made him whole. They could be in bright summer sun in an Eastern pleasure garden and he would feel needed, handsome, desired.

She truly wanted him, he thought in wonder, as she undid his tunic and fumbled with his belt, whispering, “Let me, let me, you are so big, my lovely troll...”

She kissed him on his mouth, jaw, chin, throat, and chest, light, swift embraces that poured heat and honey into him. Her hands trailed up his arms and legs, down his flanks and across his belly.

She was shy and bold together. “Do I do right?” she whispered, and he nodded and caressed her in return, delighting in her sleek, lithe shape, though all too soon, she lifted his hand away.

“Do I do right?” she asked again. “Only, I have not, not...” she paused as if seeking words, and he understood at once.

His bold, shy, loving little witch was a virgin.

And she chose me.

The brutish part of him wanted to holler her name to the rafters and make her his at once, but Elfrida needed more than that, far more
.
Her first time,
he thought tenderly, shaken out of any doubts of her wanting him by her own brave, sweet admission.

“Never fret, my sweet, we shall do well together.” He slowed his caresses, wanting her to delight in them and to take only pleasure, never pain or fear, from their union.

“You are too sweet in your favors,” she breathed as he touched her. “You make me forget and stop—Magnus!”

She shuddered above him as he lightly tongued her breasts, her head falling back as she surrendered to the moment.

His desire was strong, but he told himself to forget it. He knew Denzil was out there in the hall, prying and spying, even if he had a girl of his own, but told himself to forget that, too.

Love Elfrida as she deserves to be loved
.

Feeling took the place of thought. He gathered his witch-lass close and turned her to her side, shielding her from greedy eyes with his own rough body.

He nuzzled her breasts and settled her in the crook of his arm, running his fingers slowly down the smooth links of her spine. He heard her swallow and felt about for his flagon, offering it to her.

She gulped a draft and spluttered thanks in her own dialect, her voice strangled into a gasp as he dripped the mead onto her nipples and tenderly licked it off her. She raked at her clothes and his, endearingly clumsy in her need, slipping her hands into the revealed gaps in his tunic and braies to touch and caress him. By the single torchlight he saw her eyes, wide with looking—she could not see enough of him. And she kissed his arms and legs, once even his peg leg, and flicked her hair teasingly across his loins, too diffident to caress him intimately, without invitation.

Had he both hands still, he would have used one to guide those warm, little fingers of hers and the other to pleasure her. He had one, and he used it gladly in his lady’s service.

He swirled his fingers down her flanks, around her bottom, between her thighs. She hissed a phrase in her own tongue and rammed her haunches high to meet his hand, her arms catching and gripping around his neck.

“Hang on, lovely,” he murmured, stroking her moist, secret parts with long, sure strokes, taking delight in her rising crisis. His own need ached like an old wound in winter, but he was hot, slicked over with sweat, and she burned like a phoenix.

She shrieked and stiffened, her body arching like a new bow, her eyes dark with passion as her hips battered against his busy fingers.

She sagged, and he caught and lowered her, hoping she did not know that her love cry had awakened most of the hall. Oblivious to earthly grumbles, she was kissing any part of him she could reach as men groaned and stretched and cursed about them in the gloom, and her fingers were as lovely and delicate in their straying as butterflies.

He hugged her tight to let her know all was well. If she was truly spent, then she should sleep a little.

She opened her eyes and met and held his, saying quietly, “Much, so much. I did not know. Is it always this way? Am I wrong to enjoy it so?”

“Not a bit, my heart.” Her pleasure was his and, after so many years of reluctant, hastily couplings with women who stared at the coins he gave and never at his face, a healing, loving balm.

“Truly, Magnus? It is no sin?”

“None, little elf, and there is more.”

He heard her sigh and felt her cling even more tightly against him. She was passionate, his witch, as well as wise. He was awed by her trust in him, the ways she so freely gave of herself. And all of it so very new to her—that was obvious beyond all telling.

He would have smiled had he not been aching himself, and hard. He wiped a tear from her cheek, and she turned her head to suck his thumb.

“Not wise.” He growled, tenderness and need a battleground within him. Much more of these jolts of tingling pleasure and he would take and take.

But Elfrida gave and freely, opening her thighs and arms to him as he guided and prompted her, her slender hands beckoning as he hesitated, wanting to take care and never hurt her.

Entering her was every heaven and garden of delights in one. He thrust home swiftly to cause as little discomfort as possible, then eased her onto her side, clamped against his side, so she could become used to their new intimacy. She had given a startled yip, half shock, half surprise, but now he could feel her relaxing again, trusting him.

“Am I yours, Magnus?” she whispered. “Am I finally a woman?”

“You are always that,” he answered, “And we are each other’s.”

What fools the villagers have been in never paying court to her, never showing her how glorious she is! Yet now I am glad they did not, very glad.
She felt so delicious, and she embraced him, welcomed him fully.

“Are you ready for more?” he murmured. He felt her nod and began.

He stroked into her, deep and long, kissing her as their joint passion flamed and tumbled. He bellowed her name when his thrusts melded into a hammered point and then exploded in bliss, flinging him into her receiving arms.

When the furnace in his mouth and the ringing in his ears had eased slightly, Magnus shifted so his weight would not crush her. She followed him, muttering drowsily, “Should show that Denzil I’m your woman.”

“I think he knows that.” Magnus wrapped his cloak over both of them, hugging her tight against him, and listened to her sleep.

He did not sleep at all.

Demons tugged at him, tormenting his thoughts. Had her loving been a ploy? Were her advances a ruse to confuse the Denzils?

Brace up, man! Of course not! True, Elfrida may in part have begun her “seduction” as a device to confuse our hosts and convince Gregory Denzil that she is my leman, for she is a clever lass, but she did not finish that way
.
She was a virgin before tonight, and she chose you!

“My Lord?” Her sleepy question had him hugging her anew. “My Lord, is all well with you? Is there anything amiss?”

He heard the tension in her voice and was ashamed. “Nothing, love. Nothing,” he answered in the old tongue, brushing her hair with his hand.

“Love. Mine, too, Magnus.” She yawned and patted his arm and slept on.

Does she dream of me?

Magnus smiled in the dark and planned for the morning.

* * * *

Elfrida felt boneless and languid in the morning, as tranquil as a forest lake in summer. She ran her fingers across Magnus’s hairy shoulders, amazed he was still beside her. None of the men she had known before him had wanted to linger in the company of a witch, or, indeed, had wanted her at all.

“He loves me. He called me love,” she whispered. No one had called her love before. She longed to shout the news through the slumbering hall.

Magnus rolled over toward her. In the gray light, the deep scars of his face looked less grotesque and bestial.

If only Christina could meet him
.

Anxiety plowed into her. She sat up, starting and gesturing a sign for protection against evil as a long arm wound about her like a massive adder.

“Good morrow.” The sunburst in Magnus’s eye as he grinned was very bright.

Should I kiss him?

Her dilemma ended as he kissed her, taking his time. As his lips relearned hers, she felt as if a field of roses had bloomed within her.

“Love.”

“Christina,” she reminded him and herself. She longed to drag him into the solar and spend the day amidst the cushions with him.

He says it is no sin, but is he right? Should I feel this way? I was a virgin yester evening, and now I am a woman. Do other women feel as I do?

He tightened his hold, then released her. “I hunt today.”

No “I must hunt,” or “I am sorry to leave you,” or any kind of plan. Elfrida did not allow her mouth or body to droop in disappointment. “As do I.”

Now Magnus sat up, his face gone rigid in disapproval. “What do you mean? You are coming with me.”

It was one thing to be asked on a hunt but quite another to be told she was going. The free woman and witch in her rebelled, the more so as Magnus added, “I would not leave a dog with the Denzils, much less a woman.”

“A woman.”

Magnus was tugging on his tunic but then grew still.

“Ah!” He yanked on a sleeve and looked at her directly. “Forgive me, Elfrida, that was not well put. After years on campaign and in war, I am unused to courtesy. Will you come with me, please?”

She smiled, mollified a little by his plea, and knelt up to help him with his laces. “I should stay to try to make friends with the other womenfolk,” she explained softly, thinking how very hairy his chest was and wishing he would say he
wanted
her to go with him. “You will seek out forest paths and strange towers with the hunt, I take it? That is what I shall do here, in a different way. I shall seek out news of the Forest Grendel inside this keep.”

“I do not like it.” He gripped her arm. “These men are slavers, and you would be a great prize, beyond price.”

Foolishly perhaps, her heart felt to soar like a sky-bound lark within her breast. “A squire can stay with me.”

“Two squires. No, three.” He shook his head. “Still, I do not like it. I will be gone all day from you, when I would far rather stay.” He puffed out his cheeks, and chuckled. “But then, so will the Denzils, so all is not lost.”

She laughed, reassured, her heart soaring a little higher at his wish to stay with her, and flicked the laces of her gown at him. “Help me?”

“With pleasure, though I rather be undoing than dressing.” He did so very neatly, too, using his one hand.

They helped each other to their feet, ready to face the Denzils as the rest of the hall stirred for breakfast.

“Be careful,” Magnus muttered, squeezing her hand before he let her go.

“And the same,” Elfrida replied, stepping forward to begin her search.

Chapter 13

During the next two days, Magnus hunted from morning till moonrise with the Denzils. Elfrida spent her time in the castle keep. With her were three youths whom she called Ale, Meat, and Pie to herself, for they did little but eat and drink. They prowled the kitchens and the stores as she wandered around, trailing her at a respectful distance, usually with a trencher in their fists. Elfrida had no notion of their fighting abilities, but since Magnus had ordered them to stay close, she assumed they knew what they were about. They endured the taunting of the Denzil guards with no sign of heeding it.