He licked her lips, sucked at her tongue. Alys raised her hips up and took an inch of him; Piers followed her motion back to the cot and gave her another. She knew she was small, and she had witnessed that there was still so much of him left to give her. She knew a moment of fear.
She whimpered and pressed upward once more, her passion urging her past the discomfort, opening to him, taking him in. He pushed forward and was at half.
Alys cried out and gripped his waist. Piers withdrew only slightly, enough to give his hand room to increase their ministrations for a moment. Then she was pantingagain, and Piers sank into her. Withdrew. Deeper now. His fingers moved faster.
Alys began to move in counter rhythm with him, her swollen flesh pulsating, crying out now with longing, and impatience. With two more thrusts, she took the full length of him. A pair more, and Alys felt a wild expansion in her, an explosion, and she arched away from the magnificent bed to gain every bit of him. While she held him like a grasping fist, he gave his length to her fully and hard, and a moment later he filled her.
Alys covered his face in tiny kisses as he panted into her ear, “I love you, Alys. I love you. I love you …”
They made love twice in as many hours, slowly, savoring the familiarity of the act more each time, as well as committing to memory those private details between lovers. The heat of a sigh, the length of thigh against thigh. The curve of a shoulder and the pattern of gooseflesh raised by a kiss and a breath. The reward of separate climax, and for Alys, a repeat of such a miracle before they collapsed together on the sheets a final time.
A servant had rapped on the door, offering food, which Piers had accepted with such effusive thanks that Alys had giggled while he shut and bolted the door, balancing the heavy tray on one hand. He slid the tray with exacting care onto the large square table near the hearth and then rejoined her beneath the thick blankets. They stared out the window, curled together, at the glow of afternoon sunlight—all they could see from their position on the bed. Simply blue sky and sunlight.
“Are you going to tell me now?” Piers prompted, rousing Alys from a half doze.
“Tell you what? I told you so?” she teased.
“I believe we’ve already covered that bit.” His fingertips skittered down her side to pinch the curve of her buttock. “I want to hear the wild tale you told your sister that gained you return to court.”
Alys smiled, although being behind her, Piers could not see. “I simply told her the truth—what had happened to you and to the both of us in the wood. That I loved you, and that you needed me.”
She felt him go still behind her. “And that was it? Sybilla let you go without argument?”
“Not exactly,” Alys admitted. “After I told her that, she still insisted that I return to Fallstowe. And so I agreed. Sybilla risked her life for me, risked Fallstowe, by coming directly into Edward’s home. I owed her, for that and for many other things that I never even realized before you came into my life. And I thought you didn’t want me—you did little else but try to get me to leave you for weeks. I thought mayhap it was because you didn’t love me after all.”
“Alys, I—”
“Shh,” she interrupted, and patted his forearms, wrapped around her middle. “I’m not finished. When we reached the gates of the city without detection, Sybilla stopped. She turned to me and said, ‘Alys, I want you to be happy. You have shown great bravery in standing by Piers alone these many weeks. You are not a child, and Clement Cobb is a piece of shit.’”
“She called him a piece of shit?” Piers said in a laughing voice.
“She did, although she did not explain her change of heart about him. She said she wouldn’t allow me to marry him now were he the last titled man in the realm. She said she trusted my judgment, and if I found you worthy, then so did she.”
“I’ll be damned,” Piers mused.
“It was also a fact of standing behind her vow,” Alys admitted. “Remember, she’d told me when I left Fallstowe that if I found a man at the ring who would have me, he was welcome to me. Sybilla places great value on keeping her word.”
“Thanks be to God.”
“Indeed. She embraced me, kissed me, told me that if things did not go in our favor to come home to Fallstowe, and then she left me at the gates.”
“I think I love her,” Piers said, his amazement clear in his voice.
“I know I do,” Alys said softly.
After a long, peaceful silence, Piers said, “On our return, I would go to Ira’s town. See who would join us at Gillwick.”
“I think that is a wonderful idea,” Alys said firmly.
“It will be more difficult than just that,” Piers said, and Alys could hear his doubt. “There are so many, and Gillwick is modest. I don’t know how I will house them all, how much strain Gillwick’s coffers can withstand.”
“Worry not about it, husband,” Alys said, squeezing his arms to her, snuggling her head into the pillow and closing her eyes with a sleepy yawn. “We’ll visit Sybilla en route to Gillwick.”
Piers was quiet for a moment before he gave a wary, “Why?”
“Besides the fact that I carry the king’s message, you still have to claim my dowry,” Alys murmured. “I’m certain Sybilla will have it ready for us when we arrive. It is quite a large amount.”
Piers gave a disbelieving huff. Then he kissed Alys near her ear. “I will do whatever I can to help your family,” he said. “I’ve never had one before. Barring an act of outrighttreason, I will stand with Fallstowe when the king sends his man.”
