The Virgin Proxy(6)

But as he viewed his bride from behind the screen of animal hides, he felt a searing hot flame leap instantly to life.

She moved in the water, lifting her shoulders against the edge of the tub. Between every wave her nipples bobbed into view, hot pink and splendidly perky. Her breasts were not large, yet beautifully formed, perfect handfuls, just as Thierry hinted.

His loins quickened. Aha. This was more like it. He unfastened his leather chausses. Just when he’d begun to think there might be something wrong with his tools, they started working properly again. With speed too. He gripped his hardened shaft, trying not to breathe too loudly and give himself away.

She slipped back into the water. Damn. He couldn’t see her breasts now. She opened her legs wider and let them hang over the wet sides of the bath. Now she used both hands under the water and he saw her small white teeth biting her lower lip. He ground his jaw, watching the water where it lapped around her arms. Guy knew, without seeing it, that his wife’s cherry basket would be as pretty and well-ripened as her plums.

And he yearned to plunder it, to plant fruit there of his own.

His balls tightened; he exhaled. Just a little too loud.

Her eyes flew open, staring directly at the screen of hides. He halted, the tendons in his arm standing out, his fingers curled tight around his growing, surging manhood.

She sat up, arms crossed over her breasts. Had she heard his breath, or just sensed him there? He wouldn’t be surprised by the latter, for the air was full of hot prickles, tense and thick, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.

“Is someone there?” she demanded. Her voice was soft, but not fearful or timid.

Guy made a quick decision. She was his bride. He had a right to look at her, every part of her, and she had no right to stop him. So he stepped out into her view, still holding his proudly erect cock in one hand. He gave the shaft several slow, casual strokes and looked at the woman in the bath, waiting for her gasp of outrage. She wouldn’t know who he was, of course. Surely she would scream until a guard came. Then she would learn two things in quick succession—his identity and her only duty here in his fortress. On her back with her legs spread.

Her deep brown eyes widened. Still she held her arms over her breasts and drew her knees up to her body.

Neither spoke.

She turned her gaze to his manhood and what was, at first, fear and astonishment on her pretty face, swiftly became curiosity. Then candid admiration. Rather than scream for the guard, she stared boldly at his nakedness.

A spur of anger kicked at his temper. Had that old tight-purse Senclere promised him a virgin and cheated him with a whore? Some nobles from the old country resented the success of fresh, young blood here in this newly acquired land and they looked down on men like Guy, a common soldier raised up by the sword. Sending used stock, instead of the avowed maiden, would be one sly way for the Baron Senclere to bite his thumb at Devaux.

When Guy looked into her wide, rich brown eyes, filled with flecks of gold, and saw her unguarded wonder, her soft lips part in a sigh of excitement, it mattered that he should be her first. It mattered a vast deal.





* * * *





In the beginning, still partially caught up in erotic fantasy, she thought her dream lover had finally emerged into real life. Her deep-rooted craving must have transformed him from a whisper of sensations into a flesh and blood man.

By God he was huge. Built like a bear.

Second thoughts quickly swept away foolish imaginings. He must be one of Devaux’s serfs, she thought. He wore a stained, ripped, sleeveless tunic of rough cloth and, beneath that, muddied leather chausses and boots. He carried his size well, approaching her almost silently, the muscles in his arm moving fluidly as he stroked his cock.

Her next reaction was fear, naturally.

She could yell for the guard like a weak woman. Or, like a brave Saxon warrior, she might reach for the long knife she’d taken from its hook and secreted under her folded gown beside the bath. Both options gave her some reassurance. Any moment now he would be sorry he spied on her.

However, she was not sorry.

The man was outrageously beautiful—all thick sinew, hard, bulging thighs and broad slabs of muscle, visible under his torn tunic. She liked looking at him, as much as he evidently liked looking at her. He stepped closer, one hand stroking up and down that rigid shaft, which kept growing even as she watched.

This was only her first night away from the convent, she mused wickedly, and things were looking up already.

Everyone said Deorwynn of Wexford was a bad girl, born that way and irredeemable. Yet there hadn’t been a great deal of scope for her creativity over the last fifteen years at the convent. Now free at last, she could give her intrinsic naughtiness full rein. Opportunities were here to be taken.