The Wagered Wench (18 page)

She rode along in the dip, lay back over the horse and let her loose hair spread over its rump. Now she stared up at the canopy of rustling leaves as the gentle beast plodded onward, clearly accustomed to such strange behavior from its rider.

What was she thinking, Dominic wondered, one hand resting on the bark of a tree, while he watched her pass below. Had she made her choice yet between her two suitors?

To let her make her decision without further influence, he slept now in the hayloft with the grooms, just as he’d promised Stryker. She had that big bed all to herself and it had been moved into her father’s old private chamber. He longed to be in it with her again. To hold her while she slept.

Well, he mused with a slight smile, to do other things too, of course.

The carthorse clopped steadily along under the fluttering spill of dry, dead leaves, its passenger swaying gently with that ambling motion, her eyes half-closed. Light from a weak sun struggled through the mist and the dry leaves, painting her face with daubs of gilt and bronze.

Elsinora Gudderthsdottir was, he knew then with frightening certainty, the most beautiful creature he had ever, and would ever, lay eyes upon. And he was a soldier of fortune, a scarred beast with no right, as she’d once told him, to kiss her feet.

She’d wanted this damn decision to be hers. Now it was. There was nothing more he could do, so he’d stay out of temptations way, until she made her choice. He had promised Stryker and he kept his promises. Let the best man win.

Once the harvest was in, she saw little of her husband. He was rarely at the hall, preferring to spend his days at work on his precious stone walls and staying up there on the site late most nights.

“What does he do up there for so many hours in the dark?” she complained to Bertha one evening. And then she looked around the cookhouse, scowling. “Where is Aelin?”

“Who knows. That girl comes and goes as she pleases. Up at the site, perhaps, making the eyes of a cow at your husband. A cow that needs milking.”

Elsinora’s fury was quick to ignite. Had she not pleased him as he wanted? Satisfied him in bed—and out of it? He’d once claimed that he would have no other woman once he married, but nothing was certain anymore. He’d barely spoken a word to her since the night they shared with Stryker Bloodaxe and she often wondered if he was angry with her.

But he had agreed to share her that night, had he not?

“If you want to see your husband, why do you not go up the hill and join him?” Bertha said suddenly, stirring away at her pots. She nodded her head at the table. “Take him a pasty, freshly made. I daresay he could do with some supper brought to him for a change. He works so hard.”

Why not? Would he be surprised to see her? Surprised in a good way, or a bad?

“But if you go,” Bertha added. “Go with peace in your heart. Not war. A tired, hardworking man wants comfort from a gentle wife, not a sharp-tongued harpy, always reminding him he’s beneath her.”

Gentle wife, indeed! Elsinora sniffed. The last thing he needed was a wife who would let him walk all over her like old floor rushes. He needed a wife to stand up to him. But perhaps, this once, it would do no harm to take him food as the other women did for their men. She supposed it would be all right and not give him any idea that she missed his company. He did work very hard, as Bertha pointed out.

She grabbed a basket, filling it with warm pasties and a small jug of ale.

On her way out of the cookhouse, she pulled on her cloak and snatched a bunch of dried heather from a jug, slipping it behind her ear for a dash of color.

* * * *

A chill sting snapped like a whip in the air that evening and Dominic hastened to pull on his tunic as he came to the end of another long day of work on the castle. He stopped, as he did every night, to chat with the master builder and his stonemasons, talking over the progress. Soon winter would be upon them and the work delayed until spring, but for now they pressed onward as fast as they could, aware of time nipping at their heels.

The summer had been hot and dry, leaving the grass on the hill brittle and tired. Like his nerves, he thought grumpily as he hunkered down by the camp fire that evening, under the timber shelter with the other men, listening to their stories and weary laughter.

Suddenly the usual noises stopped and someone whistled low. “Now if that isn’t a sight for sore eyes.”

Dominic looked up and followed the general gaze.

Elsinora came slowly up the hill with a basket under her arm and heather in her hair. The other men fell quiet and he knew, with an intense pinch of pride, that they admired her beauty just as he did. One of them slapped him heartily on the shoulder and exclaimed, “We’d best make our way down the hill and leave you to your wife’s company then, Coeur-du-Loup.”

“There is no need…stay…” The last thing he wanted was to be left alone with her. It wasn’t good for his sanity or his promise to Stryker.

But they all clambered to their feet to greet Elsinora and before he knew it they were off, stumbling down the hill toward the lights of the village and their own wives and lovers. He knew they’d begun to wonder why he spent so many hours at the building site, often sleeping up there under the rush thatch of the temporary shelter. Since he’d also turned down the lusty offer of Aelin’s favors, some of the men had even begun to tease him that his parts must not be working properly.

“I have not been up here of late,” she muttered, still breathless. “I see you make great progress on the wall.”

He eyed her skeptically as he grabbed a pasty and bit into it. “Hmmm.” Flakes of pastry tumbled down his tunic. Lord, he was hungry and he had not realized just how much until his wife came into view.

Hugging her cloak around her shoulders, Elsinora walked over to the stone wall and paused at the foot of some newly built steps. As she tipped her head back, her loose hair shone in the light of the rush torches, gleaming like a molten stream of precious metals. “I suppose, when it is done, a person will be able to see a great distance from the top of the wall.”

He threw the rest of the pasty into his mouth and followed her as she began to make her way up the steep steps. He would have warned her against it, but his mouth was full, so he could only go after her, gripping her hand. She turned, looking down at their joined fingers.

“Come with me,” she said, not hesitating in the least. No other woman he knew would dare go all the way up to the top of the wall.

He swallowed, wiped the back of his free hand across his lips and then followed her, letting her tug on his fingers. This was the first time he’d touched her since their night with Stryker. It shot through him like a flaming arrow to the heart.

The new laid steps took them to a narrow ledge that would one day be a walkway along the ramparts. He cautioned her to mind where she walked, because on the other side of the wall there was cliff edge and a long fall to the sands and rocks below. Her fingers curled tighter around his and pasty stuck in his throat. He coughed, sputtered. She spun around to face him, hair billowing around her shoulders.

“We should go down,” he managed, finally swallowing the stuck food.

She ignored that. “‘Tis strange to be so high and look down.”

He tried to pull her hand, urging her back to the steps, but she resisted. Her gaze had found a carving in the stone wall. It was the figure of a man with an arrow through his body. “What is this?” she exclaimed.

Dominic laughed low. “One of my enemies sends me a message. A good likeness no?”

She looked puzzled.

“The same mischief-maker, no doubt, who puts nettles inside my boots and salt in my ale,” he added. “The same who made holes in my bucket the day of the competition, switched my tools and made certain I would not win against Stryker.”

“I don’t—”

“Since I came here Elzinora, this person had waged a campaign against me.” He’d always thought she was behind it, but she seemed genuinely shocked now. “Alf tells me the boy Nat follows you about like a pup.”

“I know. But I didn’t promise not to touch
you,
did I?” A mischievous glimmer lit her eyes tonight with little stars.

“Have you made your decision then, Elzinora?” He tried to sound very formal and haughty, but his heart was in his throat now, right where the pasty had been stuck a moment before.

She swept her hair back with both hands, took the heather, split it into two bunches and tucked it behind his ears. “You know! The boots that caused you to be scarred, Norman.”

“So do I.” She giggled. His belt fell to the stones and then she followed it down on her knees, tugging on his breeches. He knew he should move away, prevent this. But his cock had its own thought in mind and once she’d dragged his breeches down to his knees, he was incapable of walking away without tripping in any case. What was a man to do when such a determined and wicked wench wanted her way with him?

He glanced down the hill, but no one was in sight now. It was just the two of them and the sputtering torches, their flames trailing smoke that he could taste. Elsinora lifted his erect cock from beneath the hem of his tunic. He froze at her touch; his balls tightened, aching because they hadn’t released now for too many excruciating nights without her. She shifted closer on her knees.

“Elzinora,” he moaned. “You cannot—”

But he knew, of course, that anything she was told she could not do was simply a red rag to a bull.

She opened her mouth and he felt her soft, wet lips touch his crest. He jerked and the heather fell from behind his ears, blown away on a sudden gust of sea breeze.

* * * *

“I don’t know how to do it,” she murmured, her words pressed into the salty skin of his cock head. “Tell me what to do first.”

She raised her lashes and saw him gazing down at her, his cheeks sucked in, eyes wide and very dark. He seemed to be at war with himself, his chest heaving, hands twitching at his sides.

“You may as well tell me how,” she added, licking at the tiny bead of liquid that quivered before her lips. “I’m going to do it anyway. So you should instruct me or I won’t do it right.”

He exhaled another low groan. “There is no right way.” His voice was taut, his words thrust out under duress as she stroked and cupped his heavy sac with one hand. “Just follow your instinct.”

She remembered the way she felt when he licked her pussy and suckled on it, so she did the same for him, carefully mouthing his testes, sweeping her tongue up and down the bulging veins, and then closing her lips over the reddened helmet of his tall, fine warrior. That was when he finally moved his hands to hold her head, guiding her, stroking her hair. His hips swayed toward her and she read that as permission to suck harder, take in more of his length.

“I won’t come,” he mumbled, evidently reassuring his conscience. “I’ll just let you suck a while.”

That’s what he thought, she mused. He tasted of sweat and the first bead of liquid dripped sticky and hot on her tongue already. She squeezed his balls and felt him tremble, heard a husky laugh spat out over her head. Again she sucked, drawing more of him into her throat and down.

He took his hands from her head, evidently remembering his promise to Stryker, and she didn’t know where he put them next. Elsinora was too busy enjoying her naughty, stolen treat, forcing him to submit to her mouth. She wanted him to spend.