“My name is Annavieve Rosamund ferch Rhodri,” she said quietly. “Don’t you want to know anything of the woman you are about to bed? The king addresses me as Annavieve Fitz Roderick, but that is not my name. It is ferch Rhodri. I was born almost nineteen years ago. My mother is a Marshal from the family of William Marshal but I have never met her. She was forced to turn me over when I was born and has been forbidden to have any contact with me. I have spent the past eighteen years at Sempringham Priory in Norfolk and now I find myself here, married to a man who wants nothing to do with me. That is my life up until this point. Now, will you please tell me something of you? I should like to know of the man whose children I am to bear since this is what my husband wishes. Mayhap we may actually be civil towards one another if we know something of one another.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable request but Kevin found himself becoming conflicted.Don’t do it,he said to himself. Now that Annavieve had told him something of her background, she ceased to become merely an object and was now taking on more human characteristics. It was a clever move on her part, to perhaps make him more sympathetic towards her, but he doubted she did it to wreak havoc with his sense of duty; she more than likely did it simply so they would know something about one another. As if she wasn’t about to be deflowered by a stranger.
“As far as you are concerned, it was the duke who bedded you and the duke whose children you will bear,” he told her, standing up to release his breeches. “No one must ever know differently. Is that clear?”
Annavieve sighed softly. “It is,” she said quietly.
There was surrender in her voice. Finally, it seemed as if she was accepting what he had told her and she was defeated. Pulling his breeches off, Kevin tossed them onto a nearby chair and turned to look at her. She was lying on her side, facing away from him. He could see that she was trembling and his soft-centered heart took a hit, just a bit. The compassion he’d felt for her earlier, the pity, was back, stronger than before. The Kevin from old was an incredibly sensitive man… he often wondered if that Kevin was still in there, somewhere. He’d done quite a bit to kill him off. But now, he could feel the familiar old Kevin stirring. He didn’t like it but that Kevin, those dying embers of the former man, were strong. They pushed forward before he could stop them.
“I was born in Northumbria thirty-four summers ago,” he spoke from a personal level when he knew he should not. “I have three sisters and three brothers. Having just returned from the Holy Land, I was informed by the king earlier today that my father died two years ago. I did not know that until today. It was my wish to travel north to see my mother and family, but instead I am here, with you, at Thorney Island Palace. I have no more desire to be here than you do, my lady. You may trust me on that.”
Annavieve rolled onto her back, gazing up at him in the firelight as he sat, naked, on the edge of the bed. She didn’t even notice his nakedness. She was shocked he had actually spoken of himself, shocked that the stiff and formal knight had let his guard down. She took it very seriously.
“I am sorry for you,” she said quietly. “I… I do not know my father. If I was told of his death today, it would be as if a stranger died. Did you know your father well?”
Kevin nodded numbly, thinking on the man who was everything he had ever wanted to be. “Very well,” he said,struggling against the grief that threatened. “He was a great man.”
Annavieve watched his features, his handsome face. He was fairly expressionless but there was something in his eyes that told her of his grief, a faint flicker of sorrow. She could see it. Suddenly, she felt as if he had let her into something very personal, as if revealing that there was a soul behind the assassin’s façade. It made her very curious.
“Would it pain you too much to tell me of him?” she asked timidly. “Having never known my father, I would like to know what having a father is like. Did you spend a great deal of time with him?”
Kevin nodded. “I did not foster until I was almost ten years of age because my mother could not bear to let her children go,” he said. “Consequently, my early years were spent with my father training me. He was firm but fair, and gentle when the situation called for it.”
Fair and gentle.Annavieve smiled softly, letting go of the coverlet and propping herself up on her elbows as she warmed to the conversation.
“What would he do if you did something wrong?” she asked. “Did he punish you? Or could he not bring himself to?”
It was Kevin’s turn to smile, lopsided. “My father was not the disciplinarian in my family,” he said. “It was my mother, a short Scotswoman with a fiery temper. We feared her far more than my father.”
Annavieve’s smile broadened. “There is a nun at Sempringham like that,” she said. “We call her the Antichrist although she does not know it!”
She said it as if it was all very scandalous and Kevin actually laughed at her. A soft chuckle, but a laugh nonetheless, and it was so surprising that he almost looked around to see where the sound had come from. He hadn’t laughed openly in quitea while, now in the most unexpected of places– in bed with a woman he had been ordered to deflower. He knew very well that he should cut the conversation short and get down to business, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Much to his horror, he realized that he actually liked talking to her.
“When I fostered at Northwood Castle, there was an old knight that we called much the same thing,” he said. “Ranulf Kluge was a great friend of my father’s, a terrifying old knight who had trained two generations of Northwood’s knights. We called him Lucifer’s Father because surely Lucifer would have been frightened of the man.”
Annavieve giggled softly. “It seems to me that being raised amongst nuns or being raised amongst knights is much the same thing.”
Kevin nodded. “I would agree with that,” he said, daring to look at her. In the glow of the firelight, she was a hauntingly glorious creature. He was coming to think that doing his duty tonight would not be such a bad thing after all. As the conversation lagged, he cleared his throat softly. “I suppose we should get to it. If you are ready, my lady, we shall commence.”
The smile faded from Annavieve’s lips. “May… may I ask you a question, my lord?”
“Aye.”
Her brow furrowed and she appeared uncomfortable. “After… after tonight,” she said, hesitantly. “What will happen? Is the duke planning on sending me away? Surely he does not wish for me to return with him to Ilchester. I could tell by the way he was speaking to the king that he did not wish for me to go with him to his home.”
Kevin lifted his eyebrows. “I would not know,” he said truthfully. “He has not made his intentions known to me.”
Annavieve averted her gaze, lowering herself back to the bed. “I see,” she said, sounding sad and hollow. “Aye, I suppose we should get on with it now.”
She kept her eyes away from him as he pulled back the coverlet and climbed into the bed beside her. Without hesitation, he reached out and threw an arm around her slender waist, pulling her up against him. The moment their naked flesh touched, it was as if a lightning storm erupted. Kevin felt something powerful bolt through him, something so strong that it made his fingertips ache. Hearing Annavieve gasp as his mouth latched onto her tender neck only seemed to fan the flames. Suckling her neck furiously, his free hand closed over a soft, naked breast.
God’s Bones… what is happening to me?He thought as lust stronger than anything he’d ever known filled his veins. Fondling her soft breast, it occurred to him that it had been several months since he had bedded a woman and now, all of that pent-up physical need was finding an outlet. Annavieve’s skin was like silk, smooth and warm against his hand, and he growled as he threw a big leg over her hips, pulling her between his legs and rubbing his stiff erection against her belly. The mouth on her neck moved to her shoulder, suckling and nibbling, tasting her.
Suddenly, she was on her back as he covered her with his big body, ignoring her pants of fear and awakening desire as his mouth moved from her neck to her left breast, suckling her nipple furiously. She was squirming and gasping so much that he couldn’t tell if she was enjoying it, but at some point she tried to put her hands up, perhaps to slow him down, but he would have none of it. He pushed her hands aside, trapping them above her head, as he fed hungrily on her breasts. He suckled from one to the other furiously, dragging his tongue over her skin, leaving her breasts wet with his saliva. He wanted to move lower on herbody but he couldn’t with her hands trapped, so he had to let her go in order to move to his next target.
Swiftly, he moved between her legs, planting his face in the warm, furry folds of her woman’s center. His enormous hands grasped her buttocks, pulling her pelvis up against his mouth, as his tongue lapped her senseless.God’s Bones, it’s been so long!He thought to himself as he suckled the wet, pink folds, mildly aware that her hands were alternately beating at his head and caressing it. She was squirming, trying to get away from him, but he had her trapped and pressed to his mouth. His tongue sank deep into her hidden passage, feeling how tight it was, imagining how it would feel around his manhood. Already, it was driving him mad.
Intoxicated.She was intoxicating him with her female taste and scent, and as her hand slapped weakly at his head, his thumbs parted her buttocks and he sank a finger into her puckered love hole, listening to her scream as he did so. His tongue was in her wet, heated passage and he felt her climax around him as his thumb plunged in and out of her anus, mimicking the rhythm of love making. The thumb in her anus had been enough to throw her over the edge as Annavieve experienced her first lightning-fast release, but Kevin wasn’t done with her yet. He had only started.
