woman’s head. A yawn and a phantom itch gave him an excuse to untangle his arms and limbs and start the process of extricating himself from the bed, but the wench knew his tricks and, in a move so subtle it impressed the breath from his lungs, she parted her thighs and shifted herself sideways, drawing him slowly up and into her sleek warmth.
Half asleep, wholly focussed on the swelling spear of turgid flesh within her, she roused herself with sinewy, catlike stretches, waiting until his blooded fullness was as thick and deep as she could coax it before she lifted her head and purred.
“You were not thinking of leaving me just yet were you, my lord?”
The husky, throaty sound of her voice washed over him, and his hands moved of their own accord to fill themselves with the incredibly ripe, round globes of her breasts. “I confess … I did not want to trouble you further.”
She looked down to where the dark red discs of her nipples had stiffened against his fingers, forming two jutting peaks, hard as berries, tempting as sin.
“When I want you to stop troubling me, my lord, I will tell you plainly enough. Listen—” she whispered, leaning over to nip the lobe of his ear between her teeth, “and tell me what you hear.”
Eduard sucked at a breath and his hands grasped hold of her hips as she began to move over him. Diamond-shaped flecks of blue altered the pewter gray of his eyes, the blue becoming darker and deeper with each stroke of sliding heat that engulfed him. The strong, supple limbs gripped his thighs like a vise and as the greedy fist of her womanhood became more and more insistent, his hips began to surge upward, answering the determined tug and pull of her flesh.
Gabrielle was blissfully aware of the mighty tremors building and gathering in the rock-hard flesh beneath her and she braced her hands on his chest, letting each thrust carry her to a new peak of sensation. He was by far her most virile lover, although his visits came so infrequently she wondered how he could survive with all this pressure stored up inside him. She would never dare ask, but she often wondered why he came to her when there were so many other, younger, prettier maids within the castle walls who would have spun rainbows to please the son of La Seyne Sur Mer. There was only one possible reason she could think of, for she did not flatter herself that her lovemaking skills were any more or less astounding, given the prowess of the man who sought them. Rather, she suspected it had something to do with the fact she was barren, and, being a bastard himself, he had no desire to father another into the world.
Whatever the reason, she was only glad to know that when he did feel the need to release himself, he did so with her.
And did it so splendidly.
A groan shivered in Gabrielle’s throat and she urged her body through a blurred frenzy of ecstasy, not slowing or stopping until the last drop, the last shudder had been wrung from his flesh. Only then, limp and laughing from sheer exhilaration, she collapsed in a weak, trembling heap in his arms.
Eduard held her that way until his own senses were restored, then chuckled softly as he tilted her face up to his. “Why are you always determined to see me hauled back to the castle in a trundle cart?”
Gabrielle smiled so deeply a dimple appeared in each cheek. “It is always a challenge to see if I can keep you here an hour more.”
“An hour more and they will be searching the baileys and bothys for my sapless corpse.”
“Nonsense. A man finds his strength in a woman’s womb. And you, my lord, have never run short of sap yet.”
As she spoke, Gabrielle ran her hand across his chest, combing her fingers through the luxuriant mat of crisp chestnut curls. Her fingers snagged briefly on the gold ring he wore suspended from a leathern thong around his neck, but she passed it by without a thought, continuing to trace lacy patterns down onto the lean, flat plane of his belly, then lower still to the coarse, dark nest of hair at his groin.
They both smiled at the immediate response she won when her hand curled around the thick shaft of his flesh, and, with a sigh, she set her lips and tongue to following