He could not help himself, his body surged even more wildly, more impossibly, in response to her—he wanted complete, instant surrender. He expected it. He needed it— now. But to his amazement, she suddenly pulled her face away from his. “No—we must not.”
“Do not tease me now,” he gritted, catching her chin in one hand. He forced her mouth up to his again.
She cried out in another halfhearted protest. She raised her small fists against his chest, then clutched his tunic. Stephen would have laughed with primitive elation except for the fact that he was too intent now to laugh about anything. Their mouths were fused, their tongues mated.
Suddenly she tore her face away. She writhed frantically in his iron embrace, as if to escape, yet her every gyration, brushing his manhood, was as artful and agonizing as a whore’s purposeful caress. As an actress, she was superb. For it was almost as if she were not a seductress, as if, knowing the end was near, she was truly panicked. Despite his brief confusion, he could not stop himself now. He managed to reassure himself that she deliberately provoked his confusion to incite him even more wholly.
Stephen had had enough of these games. He had no desire to spill his seed upon them both, which he feared he might actually do. He pushed her down on the pallet. She continued to play the unwilling woman, her fists bouncing pitifully off of him, making small, fearful sounds. He took her mouth again. When their loins touched as he settled himself upon her, she went still.
Lightning appeared to have struck them both. “I cannot wait,” he whispered, words he had never whispered before.
The eyes he gazed down into as he spoke were wide with emotions he could not identify. Her face was flushed pink and sheened with perspiration. She did not move. And her palms curled about his massive shoulders, gripping him tightly.
Stephen spread her legs wide with his knees, beginning to shake fiercely. He was aware of the drops of sweat that rolled down his face and onto hers. He flicked her long tunic up to her waist, and for a single moment, was poised above her.
Their gazes met, held. She opened her mouth but said nothing. Stephen looked at her breasts, heaving beneath her gown, her nipples tight and erect. He touched one. She closed her eyes and sobbed, the sound laden with anguish.
He looked down at her and could no more help himself from touching her now than he had before. He slid his hand between her legs and found the folds of her flesh swollen and heavy with the pulse of her blood. She was as hot for him as he was for her, spy or not. This was no act. He thrust a finger into her.
He froze. There was no mistaking the barrier he had come up against. He was shocked. She could not be a virgin—she was a whore sent to spy. But she was a virgin; it was a fact.
And in the midst of confusion there was a sudden and sweeping sense of elation—she had never known a man; he would be the first.
This far aroused, he had never denied himself. But he had never taken a virgin before—unlike many men he knew, rape had never excited him. And if she was a virgin, then she was no whore sent to spy upon him.
Stephen’s mind reached these astounding conclusions in mere seconds. It was probably the hardest deed he had ever done, but he launched himself off of her. Dazed and panting, he lay unmoving on his stomach beside her, wishing that the fur pallet he was pressing himself into was much, much harder.
Sanity returned swiftly despite the persistent ache in his loins. There were no virgin whores, no virgin spies. Was it possible that she had been telling him the truth? Was her father some northern laird, her mother a dairymaid? It was plausible, yet he doubted it. Her hands had never seen rough labor, but she was dressed as one who labored. If she was a bastard, she had been raised as a lady. This costume was a disguise. Why?
Suddenly she moved. She slid from the pallet, as quick as a wild vixen. Stephen was even quicker, reaching out and grabbing her before she took a second step, without moving from the furs. His leg hurt too much now for such antics. The force of his grip caused her to fall in a heap at his side.
Restraining a groan, he sat up and extended his hand to her. “Mademoiselle?”
She was panting. Although he saw that she was furious, he allowed her to take his hand and he lifted her to her feet. It was a mistake. Immediately she drew back her fist and hit him with all of her strength in his jaw.
He didn’t move, stunned speechless.
“Norman bastard! You are a pig and a brute! And a liar!” she shrieked. She raised her fist to hit him again.
This time Stephen reacted. He caught her wrist, pulling her forward. She wound up in his lap.
“No!” she screamed, twisting to leap free of him.
He held her in place. “You have deceived me, struck me, and maligned me,” he said harshly, shaking her once. She went still. “I thought you brave, but now I am beginning to think you very foolish—or mad.”
She lifted her chin, a defiant gesture, despite the fact that her eyes were glazed with unshed tears. “I am not mad.”
His jaw tightened. “You have lost your burr, demoiselle.”
She paled. “When can I leave?”
“You were not so eager to leave me—and my bed—a few moments ago.”
She flushed. “No, I am eager to leave your bed—to leave you. This minute is not soon enough.”
“Who’s the liar now?”
“I speak the truth!”
