Love Above All (21 page)

Quentin pulled her head down, to kiss the
spot and stop the bleeding with his tongue.

“Quentin!” she cried in surprise.

He could feel her trembling, could feel her
soft breasts pressed against him once more. She wasn’t fighting
him.

There was barely room enough for both of them
on his narrow cot, but lack of space didn’t stop him. One quick
twist and Fionna lay beneath him, with her hair spread across his
pillow. When Quentin touched her mouth with his, she put her arms
around him.

Quentin couldn’t stop himself. He was alive;
the wound on his arm was nothing; and Fionna wanted him as
desperately as he wanted her. Despite all the reasons why they
should not come together, it was bound to happen. He had known it
for days and he thought she must have known it, too.

She accepted his plundering kiss, sucking on
his tongue and whimpering with pleasure. She lifted her hips
against his hardness, seeking closer contact.

“Help me,” she murmured when the kiss ended,
using the first words she had ever spoken to him. “Quentin, my
dress; I can’t move.”

As a result of the way he had pulled her onto
the cot the garment was twisted around her legs. Quentin longed to
tear it from her shoulders, but he was still sensible enough to
remember she’d need to wear the dress again. He helped her to
untangle the skirt and to tug the fabric up and over her head. Her
shift followed the same path, both garments flung on top of the
discarded wimple, and Fionna lay naked on his narrow bed. Smiling a
little, surely aware of the huge swelling under his sole remaining
piece of linen, she reached for the drawstring at the waist of his
under-breeches.

A warning sounded at the back of Quentin’s
mind. He knew he had no right to ravish a noble maiden, and King
Henry had mentioned plans for his future. But he had come so close
– so uncomfortably close! – to having Fionna once before, when he
had deliberately frustrated his longing by his own decision.
Furthermore, he had almost unwillingly carried the vision of her
unclothed body in his memory since the night when he had found her
beside Liddel Water.

And he was alive after a vicious battle –
painfully, eagerly, urgently alive!

He brushed Fionna’s trembling hands aside and
himself tore off the last garment that lay between them.

She was smiling at him, apparently unafraid
of his swollen size or of what he was going to do to her.

Quentin bent his head to kiss her breasts.
Fionna groaned and caught at his hair, urging him onward.

Even in his present over-eager condition he
wasn’t going to give way to his body’s urgent demand that he take
what she offered without a care for her pleasure. He had given her
a taste of a woman’s delight during their night in the forest hut,
and ever since then he’d sensed her longing for more.

He proceeded to show her what it meant to be
a woman who was aroused and eager for her lover. As he slowly
caressed every inch of her warm, incredibly smooth skin, Quentin
found his own delight growing with Fionna’s soft cries of mounting
pleasure, and with her innocent attempts to return his every caress
in kind.

Her breasts were soft under his fingers, and
her pink nipples stood up firm and hard when he suckled on them. He
was surprised at his own reaction when she lavished similar
attention on his nipples. No other woman had ever thought to please
him in that way.

Fionna’s throat was a lovely, inviting column
against which to rest his face while he told her how beautiful she
was. Her legs were long and graceful, tapering to dainty ankles and
feet. Her hips were wonderfully rounded, the soft flesh rising to
meet his touch when he stroked her.

“I love your hands,” she whispered.

“As for your hands,” he whispered back,
shivering in impending ecstasy, “they are tempting devils. Fionna,
stop that! You will drive me mad.”

“Do you think so?”

She didn’t stop. Instead, she continued what
she was doing until he feared he would burst asunder and disgrace
himself. Clearly, their mutual torment could not continue much
longer.

He lifted himself over her. Gently he
separated her thighs, while she smiled at him without the slightest
sign of fear. He moved until his rigid hardness was teasing at the
entrance to her sweet body. From the moist softness he found there,
he recognized that she was ready.

Fionna sighed and whispered, “Yes,
please.”

Quentin thought he’d die at that moment,
convinced he was beyond self-control. Somehow, he made himself
wait, holding back until Fionna, with a soft whimper of need,
lifted herself to receive him.

Looking directly at her, so he’d notice the
first hint of pain or rejection on her lovely face – though how
he’d stop himself if she changed her mind, he didn’t know – Quentin
pushed slowly into her until he reached the barrier of her
innocence.

Fionna caught her breath but did not look
away from him, nor did she cry out when he pressed himself more
firmly against the barrier, stretching and breaking it, making her
his, owning Fionna’s warmth and grace, possessing her for all time.
He moved resolutely past the tattered remnant of her maidenhood
until he was buried so deeply and truly within her that they were
no longer two beings but one, indissoluble and complete.

She sighed and shifted a little, as if to
adjust to his penetration. The movement drew him deeper still, to
the very core of her.

Quentin gazed into her eyes, bright as
sapphires, warm with trust and happiness. He watched her smile, and
in that moment a new kind of happiness blossomed within him,
growing, unfurling, warming his weary heart. He forgot all other
women. From that moment until the end of his life, he knew there
would be no one else for him but Fionna.

She moved again, innocently encouraging him
to move, too. The last twinges of discomfort from his wound
vanished. So did the last, faint warning of his conscience. What
they were doing was not wrong, it was gloriously, beautifully
right. Fionna lifted her mouth to his and with soaring joy Quentin
accepted the offered gift of her parted lips.

She wound her arms around his back and began
to stroke along his spine with a light, skimming touch. Down, down
her fingertips moved until they reached his buttocks and the cleft
at the end of his spine.

Quentin dissolved into intense, wild joy. He
could no more stop the bliss transfusing his being than he could
prevent his heart from beating or the moon from rising. He scarcely
realized that he was moving faster, driving into Fionna with an
urgent, primitive need, hearing as if in a dream of delight her
soft, gasping cries. Those wordless feminine sounds conveyed her
rising passion, the sounds carrying him onward, luring him toward
sweet completion until he felt her convulsing around him, and
became aware of his own approaching climax.

He retained just enough sense to cover her
mouth with his, to catch their mutual cries so no one would hear
and interrupt them before they were finished. And then he floated
free with Fionna, into the richest, most profound release he had
ever experienced.

Quentin slept with one arm draped loosely
across Fionna’s waist. She nestled against him, reliving in memory
the way he had touched her, and her eager desire for something more
than the simple release he had given her during their first
intimate encounter. She could still feel the hard pressure of
Quentin’s body moving into her, the remarkable sensation of his
size and heat stretching and rending her flesh – and the incredible
wonder that followed. She retained a deep awareness of his
possession in her aching muscles and in a slight stickiness between
her thighs.

Never in her life had she known anything so
beautiful. Never had she felt so close to another person.

She lay contentedly in Quentin’s arms until
she heard the sound of Janet’s voice raised in annoyance.

With a sigh of regret, Fionna slid from under
Quentin’s arm and sat up. He didn’t stir. She found his blanket on
the ground at the foot of his cot and used it to cover him, tucking
it in around his shoulders, letting her fingers stroke his short,
dark hair, half wishing he’d waken and pull her down to lie with
him again, while knowing he needed to sleep.

She located her shift and put it on, then
splashed her face with some of the cold water Braedon had brought.
Quickly she donned her dress and her shoes, all the time aware of
Janet talking to someone a short distance from Quentin’s tent. Not
wanting to bother with the wimple, she tried to braid her tangled
hair. She was almost finished when a hand pulled the tent flap
aside.

“Quentin?” Braedon stuck his head in and
looked around.

“Wait,” Fionna said softly. “I’ll come
out.”

“Is Quentin asleep?” Braedon asked when she
stood next to him beside the tent entrance.

“Yes. Must you wake him?”

“No need for that,” Braedon said. “I only
disturbed you because your sister has been asking where you are. I
told her I’d find you and send you to your tent.”

“Thank you for not letting her wake Quentin,”
Fionna said. “He’ll likely sleep for the rest of the night.”

“I’m sure he will.”

Something in Braedon’s voice made her look
sharply at him. Though it was dark, she could see his sharp
features in the light cast by a nearby campfire. She could see the
twinkle in his deep blue eyes, too.

“You know,” she whispered, startled to
discover she wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. “How do you
know?”

“I could smell it,” Braedon said. “Any man
who’s not a monk recognizes the smell of sex. Sometimes Quentin
acts like a monk. I’m glad you’ve changed that for him.”

“You are? I thought you disliked me.”

“I did,” Braedon said, “until I saw your
reaction when I told you Quentin was wounded. Then I realized you
care as deeply for him as his friends do. Though, I suspect you
care for him in a somewhat different manner,” he finished with a
mischievous grin.

There was no reason to deny what Braedon
said. Fionna didn’t want to deny it. But she couldn’t discuss her
feelings for Quentin with him.

“Have you cleaned up your wound?” she
asked.

“It’s nothing,” he responded, grinning as if
he understood her need to change the subject. “It’s a graze, no
more.”

“Even a graze can fester.”

“I doused it with wine,” he told her. “It
will heal soon, leaving me with an intriguing scar that I can tell
stories about, to beguile the ladies. Now, I suggest you go to
Janet before she comes looking for you and begins to scold you for
spending so much time alone with Quentin. If she scolds, she will
certainly waken him and, as you said, he’ll sleep until morning if
he’s left undisturbed.”

“Thank you, Braedon.”

“By the way, Janet has spent the evening
sitting beside the fire with Cadwallon while the two of them argued
over any subject either of them could think of. She never missed
you until a short time ago. You may want to remind her of that if
she turns difficult with you.”

“I will.” Fionna couldn’t resist the urge to
pat Braedon on his muscular arm. She distinctly heard him chuckle
as she headed toward the tent where Janet waited.

In early morning Royce held a conference with
Quentin and Cadwallon.

“Have you any idea what they are discussing?”
Fionna asked of Braedon.

“I know Quentin is worried about your
sister’s safety,” Braedon said. “He doesn’t think you were
recognized, but he is seriously concerned over the threats of
vengeance the Scots made yesterday before they rode away from the
battle. Quentin thinks your brothers may well return soon, this
time with a force large enough to defeat us. I suppose he and Royce
are deciding on our best defense against an attack.

“There is another problem,” Braedon
continued, frowning. “It seems to be a time-hallowed tradition in
Scotland for some of the nobles to disapprove of their current
king, whoever that king happens to be. From the disrespectful way
Murdoch spoke of King Alexander, Quentin thinks he’s one of those
untrustworthy men who would like to disrupt the peaceful relations
Alexander has established with England, so he can use the
disruption for his own ends. Quentin wants to warn King
Alexander.”

Quentin was right about Murdoch, as Fionna
was well aware. Murdoch was plotting treachery. She hadn’t told
Quentin everything she knew about her brother’s plans, because she
had originally assumed that Quentin would soon be gone from
Scotland. He had remained for her sake and as a result his life was
in danger. She did not doubt that Murdoch still wanted Quentin
dead.

“If we ride as fast as we can, for as long as
daylight lasts each day,” Fionna said, “we can outrun Murdoch and
his friends and reach England before they catch us.”

“Are you sure?” Janet had been listening, and
now she regarded her sister with a frown. “In order to reach
England by the quickest, most direct route, won’t we have to pass
dangerously close to Dungalash? Having lived on the border all his
life, Murdoch knows these lands better than any Norman stranger
possibly could. Wherever we are, Murdoch will find us. Royce should
have killed Murdoch when he had the chance.”

Startled by Janet’s comments, Fionna stared
at her for a moment before saying, “If Murdoch were dead, Gillemore
would take his place, with the authority of a blood feud behind
him. No one would dispute Gillemore’s right to exact vengeance for
his brother’s death.”

“Then,” said Janet, undeterred by the
murderous possibilities, “Royce should have killed Gillemore,
too.”

“You are certainly bloodthirsty for a girl
who spent ten years shut up in a convent,” Braedon said.