Crusader Captive. Merline Lovelace

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      She had not reasoned this enforced mating through, she now realized. Obviously, it would require some effort on her part that she had not anticipated.

      Frowning, she cast back through her mind. She might be a virgin, but many of her ladies were wedded. She’d also overheard more than one giggling maid whispering to another. Such frank and often ribald talk of what one must sometimes do to bring a bedmate to hardness now burned in Jocelyn’s mind.

      Apparently this one needed to see her naked to stiffen his lance. So be it. Naked she would get. Yet as she unwound the linen band that framed her face, her nerves were all ajangle and she could scarce draw breath.

      One night, she reminded herself fiercely. One night with this man was a hundred times, nay, ten thousand times better than a lifetime walled up with bored, idle women. Women who, if the rumors were true, must needs pleasure themselves since they so rarely went to their lord’s bed. Still, her hand trembled as she laid the linen headband atop the chest that held her folded gowns.

      He watched her. Eyes hard, arms crossed against his chest, he followed her every move. As though she were on the auction block this time, to be stripped and displayed for his approval.

      “Continue.”

      She would not flush or cower like a timid maid. She would not!

      Gritting her teeth, Jocelyn removed the girdle belted low across her hips. Her keys and the various accoutrements attached to the belt clinked against each other, the only sounds in the taut silence other than the crackle of the fire.

      Her heart hammered as she reached for the ties that held her bliaut at the sides. Her ladies usually disrobed her. She wasn’t used to contorting like a traveling juggler to reach the laces. Thankfully, the first set gave easily enough. Her rose-hued outer robe gaped on that side, displaying the fine linen tunic she wore beneath. But her fumbling fingers couldn’t work the ribbons on the other side. They knotted and drew tighter rather than looser. Lifting her arm, she thrust aside her long sleeve for a better view and pulled on the stubborn strings. They would not give.

      Sweet mother of…!

      Frustrated and filled with a growing trepidation she refused to acknowledge, Jocelyn was forced to raise her head and meet de Rhys’s unyielding stare.

      “The strings are knotted. I cannot loose them.”

      He closed the distance between them. His eyes never left her face as he hooked two fingers in the finely woven ribbons. One hard tug ripped them apart. And ripped, as well, the costly fabric they secured.

      Jocelyn’s nervousness fled, and years of absolute authority as the chatelaine of Fortemur rushed to the fore. “This gown is made of pail loomed in Alexandria,” she cried angrily. “It’s worth more than a warhorse, or sword of the finest Toledo steel. You will treat it, and me, with respect or I will—”

      “You will what?” he cut in with a swift, tight smile she did not like in the least. “Shout out to Sir Hugh? Have me stretched on the rack? Broken on the wheel? How then will you forfeit your maiden’s shield?”

      His disrespect fired her fury. Were she not in such desperate straits she would most definitely see him racked. She’d gone this far, however, and by the bones of Saint Catherine, she would have done with this deed and with this man!

      With fire in her heart, Jocelyn stepped back, tugged the torn bliaut over her head, and threw it to the floor. Her under-tunic fastened at the neck with buttons of shimmering pearl. They came free of their loops without resistance, and the soft pleats fell to her feet. Shoulders back, head high, she stood before him clad only in her thin linen bellyband, silk-stockings gartered just below her knees and the curved-toe slippers so in fashion at the moment.

      Jocelyn was not vain. She knew her breasts were smaller and her hips less rounded when measured against some of her ladies. Nor did she possess the pale, almost bloodless complexion so prized by the women who journeyed to Outremer from the West. Despite potions, gloves and veils, the East’s blazing sun had tinted her face and hands to warmest ivory.

      Yet troubadours had composed songs to the luster of her pale tresses and more than one knight had compared her lips to the ripest cherries. Many more had begged to carry her token in the lists, although she knew well their ardor was more for her inheritance than her person.

      Still, she was not without wit and a modicum of female attributes. So never, ever had she imagined that a man seeing her disrobed would stand like a stone obelisk and regard her with such seeming disinterest!

      “Your shoes and stockings,” he said in a voice as hard as flint. “Remove them, too.”

      She did, so furious with him now that she was able to ignore the stinging embarrassment of being forced to bend and display her bottom cheeks.

      Heat seared her face when she straightened. It flamed even hotter when he looked her up and down again, as if appraising a mare led into the stable yard for a stallion to mount.

      And like a skittish mare, she quivered under his unrelenting gaze. Despite the warmth from the fire, enough drafts slipped past the tapestries covering the walls to cause shivers to ripple across her skin and her nipples to pucker. She could feel them growing tight, see how they drew—and held—his gaze. When those piercing blue eyes met hers again, they were no longer so cold and flat.

      “Now me.”

      The abrupt command made her blink. “What say you?”

      “Remove my clothing.”

      Her jaw dropped, then snapped shut again. Enough of this! She was no serf, no scullery maid, to be treated so.

      “Remove it yourself.”

      He shrugged aside her flash of temper. “You wish me to service you, lady? Then you must use your hands on me. And your mouth. And whatever else I so desire.”

      “It takes all that to make you stiffen?”

      Something sparked in his blue eyes. Surprise? Derision? Or was it some jest only he understood?

      “Fear not, lady,” he drawled. “I am as stiff as a lance even now. But if we’re to do this, I would have some pleasure of it…and of you.”

      “Pleasure was not part of our bargain.”

      “Not part of yours, mayhap. It figures large in mine.” He beckoned her forward. “You may begin.”

      For the life of her, Jocelyn couldn’t understand how he’d turned the tables on her. He was the bound servant, she the mistress. Yet now, apparently, she must needs strip the dolt to his skin if he was to perform as she needed him to.

      With a thunderous scowl, she stepped forward and reached for the unadorned leather belt Sir Hugh had obtained for him. It came off easily, but she had to work to remove the coarse wool tunic.

      Heavens but he was tall! Nor would he bend to make her task easier. To drag the tunic over his head, she had to go up on her toes and press close to his chest.

      So close the tips of her breasts brushed against him. The springy gold hair that arrowed from his chest to the drawstring of his breeks made her nipples tighten even more. Jocelyn near СКАЧАТЬ