Laying Vesper back on the dusty floor, he loomed over her, gazing down at her and drinking in her beauty. With her sculpted cheekbones and bright eyes, she was as perfect awoman as God could have ever made. When he saw that she was inspecting him just as he was inspecting her, he smiled faintly.
“I was wondering if our children will look like you,” he murmured, kissing her cheek gently. “Or mayhap they will look like me.”
Vesper reached up, touching his face. “You mean the grandchildren your mother wants so badly?”
“The same.”
She grinned. “They will have to look like you or I doubt she will accept them.”
Val laughed deeply, kissing her on the cheek again. “I would not be surprised if you were correct.”
His kisses grew stronger and, soon, his mouth was capturing hers again, one big arm around her while the other roamed. As he kissed her lips and suckled on her chin, his right hand drifted down her arm and onto her torso, lingering on her belly. But the kisses grew more heated and that same hand moved up her body, gently closing around a breast. Vesper’s eyes opened wide and she looked at him in surprise. Val simply kissed her chin again and squeezed her breast softly.
“Does this disturb you?” he asked softly.
Vesper wasn’t sure how to answer, but it was clear that she was trying to pretend as if she wasn’t bothered by it at all.
“Nay,” she said quickly; perhapstooquickly. “You are to be my husband and it is your right. But…”
He leaned down, nuzzling her neck. “But what?”
“We are not married yet.”
It was the maidenly virtue speaking, the virtue that had been drilled into the head of every young woman. One was not to participate in the pleasures of the flesh until after marriage, but that was a myth in many cases. There were plenty of young women who indulged because Val had been with a few of them. There had been one of the ladies of the Countess of Gloucester,and then a distant de Bohun relation he’d met at a masque in London, and….
“I will summon a priest tonight,” he said, already feeling his manhood growing rigid for want of her. “If it makes you uncomfortable, then I will stop. But know this… I depart for Winchester tomorrow and there is no knowing if I will return. You know this. If I am to spend a last night of freedom, then I would very much like to spend it with you. There is no telling what tomorrow will bring for us both.”
Vesper met his gaze, her hazel against his brilliant green. She bit her lip. “That sounds very much like a manipulative statement I heard once when a certain knight I was trying to fend off sought to play on my sympathies.”
Val’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “And?”
“Andwhat?”
“Did it work?”
She scowled. “Of course it did not work!”
He started laughing again, low in his throat, and Vesper couldn’t very well be angry with him because she could see that he was jesting with her. Even so, there was truth in his words. He was going to face something unspeakably frightening tomorrow and it was very possible she would not see him for a very long time, if ever. That thought scared her to death.
She loved Val, wildly so. With time, it was a love that would deepen and grow roots, becoming something rich and binding. But now, her love for him was new and exciting and full of the dreams that all young women had– a handsome husband, a home, and children. Perhaps those were Val’s dreams, too. If they were, she didn’t want to leave them unfulfilled.
Taking his hand, she put it back on her breast.
“For whatever comes tomorrow, let us live tonight as if there is nothing ahead of us but our future together,” she whispered. “For tonight, pretend that I am your wife and I will pretend youare my husband. And when tomorrow comes, we will be grateful for this time together– either as our last time together or as our very first of many to come. Either way, I am yours.”
The smile faded from Val’s face as he looked at her. She was so rational and wise, and he appreciated that about her. Everything about Vesper d’Avignon was perfect in his eyes.
He couldn’t wait to make her his own, forever.
“Until I die, I will love you and only you.”
“And I, you.”
The hand on her breast fondled her gently as his mouth found hers yet again. Vesper was becoming accustomed to his kisses now and she had quickly learned to crave his warm lips. He had stubble on his face, scratching her tender skin, but she didn’t care. There was nothing about him that she didn’t love.
His kisses became more forceful and the hand on her breast began to unlace the stays of her shift beneath the lower neckline of her surcoat. His mouth moved from her lips to her neck and finally to her chin, along her collarbone and to the swell of her breasts. Vesper had just become accustomed to his hand on her breast when he suddenly peeled the fabric back, exposing her left breast. Her nipple hardened when the warm air hit it and as Vesper tried not to become embarrassed by the fact he’d just pulled her clothing down from one breast, Val’s mouth descended on a taut nipple.
It was a sensation like none other. Vesper was overwhelmed by his hot mouth on her breast and her back arched in surprise, in pleasure, giving herself over to the newness of the experience. Val’s body was half-covering her, the weight of him pressing upon her, but it was a touch that stoked the fire his kisses had started.
