Elena's Conquest Read online

  from her shoulders. ‘You were dreaming of me? Tell me, caran.’

  She shook her head helplessly, her blood already fevered. ‘Yes, I was dreaming. I often dream.’

  ‘You have the sight?’

  ‘No!’ How often had the nuns warned her not to tell anybody about her strange premonitions? ‘No … But this must be a dream.’

  In answer she felt his skilful hand slide down to her private woman’s place, where her flesh churned, soft and melting. ‘No dream,’ he said, ‘but a reality. Elena, let me teach you.’

  She caught her breath as he parted her moist lips and stroked, very gently with the pad of his thumb. He found her little bud of pleasure, and stroked it lightly so as not to over-stimulate her tender sex; Elena gasped aloud and went rigid, her eyes dark with sensation. ‘Wh - what are you doing?’

  His voice came softly out of the darkness. ‘This, my little Saxon maid, is the heart of all your bodily delight, the tiny bud that flowers into sweet passion. You have never given pleasure to yourself?’

  She gasped again, because as his thumb stroked she felt the sweet, melting yearning spiralling like flames through her helpless body. She shuddered in his arms, realising that even if she had the choice she could not leave him now.

  He bent his head to suck gently at the pink, tender tips of her breasts, and she writhed in rapture as the sensations poured through her. He raised his head to gaze at her. ‘Your first lesson,’ he went on softly, ‘is to learn that it is not wicked, but wonderful, to pleasure one another so. As the lady Isobel pleasured you tonight. You enjoyed it, didn’t you? The way her hot little tongue flicked at you - like this - and like this - ‘

  Before Elena could speak, he had moved down the bed, and parted her unresisting thighs. Dear God. His head was lowering to her belly; she felt the hot warmth of his tongue at her navel, and then it was sliding down her flat abdomen to slip between her lips and stab gently at that unbelievable pleasure place, just as Isobel had done earlier, only Aimery’s moist, silken tongue was so firm, so fulfilling. She moaned, and writhed against his wonderful, rasping mouth.

  He lifted his head to gaze at her, and his teeth gleamed whitely in the darkness as he smiled. ‘You liked that, Saxon girl?’

  Her body arched violently against him in reply, desperate for release. He could feel the waves of urgent desire spasming through her. ‘Not yet, little one,’ he murmured warningly. ‘Not yet. You want to learn, do you not, about this wonderful instrument of pleasure?’

  He reached to take her small, trembling hand and enfolded it round the throbbing shaft of his manhood.

  Eleanor gasped aloud at the hot feel of it in her fingers. It was huge and velvety soft, beautiful to touch, yet so full of pulsing power. Would the lord Aimery do to her, now, what the terrifying Saracen had done to the lady Isobel? How could she ever take it within herself? Such a huge, swollen thing - almost like another limb - surely it was not natural! And yet she ached desperately to feel its silken caress inside her secret parts.

  She snatched her hand away, trembling with confusion.

  Aimery gave a low chuckle, and said, ‘You will learn soon enough, caran, to worship my instrument of love. And, whether you realise it or not, you are more than ready to pay homage …’

  His wonderful, teasing hands slid down once more between her moist thighs. He ran a finger up and down her quivering flesh, caressing that wonderful point of pleasure with his circling thumb, until Elena was crying aloud with pleasure and thrusting her swollen breasts against the hard, muscular wall of his chest.

  ‘Ready, little one?’ he whispered. And he arched himself above her.

  Elena stopped breathing when she felt the velvety smooth head of his penis stroking between her lips. There was no room for him! There couldn’t be room! And yet, that swollen glans caressing her own engorged, melting entrance was a feeling so exquisite that she wanted it to go on for ever.

  ‘Surrender to me,’ he was whispering in her ear. ‘Give in to me, Elena. Do you not desire me?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Nothing more …’

  With a husky groan of satisfaction, he thrust gently into her melting flesh.

  And then, something happened. Elena felt the long shaft slip inside her, between her throbbing lips, and slide slowly up, into the very heart of her. There was a sudden, sharp pain that made her cry out, but the Breton kissed her mouth, and she forgot it in the wonder of feeling his manhood moving so slowly, so masterfully within her.

  She lay back, breathless, her eyes wide open. He caressed her parted mouth with his skilful tongue, and then he began to thrust, gently.

  It was the most wonderful thing Elena had ever known - beyond her dreams, even. Aimery was send­ing wave after wave of hypnotic pleasure flooding through her with each slow stroke. Once, he paused, and gazed down into her transparent, wide-eyed face; she gasped and clutched him to her, running her fingers up and down his muscular back. ‘Don’t stop,’ she pleaded. ‘Oh, please don’t stop - ‘

  For answer, he lowered his head to suckle at her aching breasts. Then she moaned with pleasure and instinctively coiled her slender legs round his thighs as he slid his hard length deep within her again. He continued to lick her breasts, sucking hard at the taut nipples, and Elena cried out with a new fever of delight as his hand moved down to touch her engorged clitoris, very gently. Her blood was on fire, her breath was coming in short, ragged gasps as wave after wave of rapture engulfed her dazed body.

  ‘Oh’ She gave a long, shuddering cry and bucked wildly against him as her senses exploded in a shim­mering orgasm of pleasure. ‘Oh, dear sweet Christ…’ He continued to move gently within her, his lips flick­ering at her jutting nipples, and she gripped his penis fiercely with her inner muscles, clenching at the won­derful, hard length of him with wild sensuality. She cried out, again and again, as he used all his skill to prolong her ecstasy. Then, as her strange little animal cries subsided, he lifted himself high above her, so that she could see the engorged shaft wet with her own juices in the darkness, and he plunged into her, over and over, driving himself to his own fierce, shuddering release. Elena quivered with renewed orgasm at the feel of his hot release within her. She held his sated body tight in her arms, glorying in the feel of his hard nakedness, her body still warm with delight.

  Aimery was shaken as he lay there in the darkness. It was a long time, almost longer than he could remember, since he’d taken such pleasure in conventional lovemaking. She was truly innocent, just as she had claimed. Perhaps, too, her claim that she knew nothing at all about the Saxon rebels who visited the convent was true as well.

  He reflected with some surprise that normally, a clinging, innocent girl such as this one would bore him out of his mind, and he’d turn away in disgust to find more sophisticated pleasures. Yet the Saxon girl’s rap­ture had moved him strangely as he watched her exquisite face light up the darkness.

  Not part of his plan, he reminded himself. His plan was to coldly arouse her, as he’d aroused others; to make her hunger desperately for him, then reject her. Remember Hugh’s death - remember Madelin. Wasn’t this girl tainted with the same Saxon blood?

  He withdrew sharply from the girl’s innocent, tender embrace and stood up. Elena looked up, bewildered, and saw how harsh his scarred face was in the shaft of moonlight that glanced through the shutter. She felt suddenly cold. ‘My lord …’

  Aimery reached for his clothes. He said, flatly, ‘Not bad for a first time. But you still have a lot to learn. Isobel will teach you some new tricks.’

  She shrank back as if he’d struck her. ‘No! Not Isobel!’ She put out one trembling hand. ‘My lord - I only want you!’

  Again, Aimery le Sabrenn felt that stupid wrench at the heart he knew he no longer possessed. He buckled his belt over his tunic and said abruptly, ‘Isobel; Hamet; you will submit, Elena, to whoever I decide will teach you. Remember that you’re nothing but a slave. You will do exactly as I say.’

  The girl gazed up at hi
m from the bed, her soft face dazed with misery. ‘I am your slave, lord,’ she whis­pered. ‘I will do whatever you command. Only - will you come to my room again - like you did tonight?’

  Aimery’s mouth twisted as he glanced down at her. Her little breasts were adorable, her sweet face still flushed by that intense, fevered orgasm. Damn it, but if he stayed any longer he’d be making love to her again in a few moments.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he forced out coldly. ‘But not for some time. As I said, you have much to learn.’

  As her dark blue eyes clouded over in sudden pain, Aimery turned and swiftly left the room.

  Elena lay on the cold little bed and hugged her aching body. She was racked with an empty sensation of loss at the memory of the sweet, dark pleasure the Breton lord had bestowed on her. Already, she yearned for him again.

  She’d given herself, body and soul, to Aimery le Sabrenn, and she knew that she’d do anything, any­thing, to persuade him to return and pleasure her again

  in his powerful, exquisite way. And she knew, she was sure, that he desired her.

  She had much to learn, she knew. But he was all that she wanted; and if this was to be a contest, then she resolved that she would win him.

  Isobel, who had heard Aimery go to Elena’s chamber and had suffered a violent hour of intense jealousy as the stupid girl gasped away her virginity, heard her lord return to his own room at last. Only one hour, and he had had enough of her.

  Isobel cheered up immediately, and revised her plans for tomorrow. Pierre would be a part of them, of course. But what else? With a sudden smile of pleasure, she remembered the little wooden chest where she kept her most precious possessions. She found the key and unlocked it, and fingered thoughtfully through its con­tents. At last, she withdrew a wonderfully carved piece of ivory that had once been brought to her by a traveller from the Mediterranean lands. It was shaped like a man’s phallus, of more than generous proportions, and was designed, with careful carvings and protuberances, to stimulate a woman’s pleasure zones; though not all women were capable of taking the huge shaft within themselves, especially not virginal Saxons. By the time Isobel and Pierre had finished with her, the girl wouldn’t even want Aimery to touch her again for, oh, a good while.

  Isobel fondled the instrument, rubbing it gently against her still tingling breasts until her nipples peaked and strained against the fabric of her shift. She smiled, imagining the Saxon slut’s innocent face when con­fronted with this formidable weapon. Would Isobel show it to her first? Or would she wait for Pierre to finish with the girl, and then …

  Her green eyes gleaming with anticipation, Isobel kissed the ivory phallus and locked it away in its box. Then she went to bed, and laid her plans for tomorrow.

  Chapter Six

  Earlier that same night, soon after the slave convoy had arrived at the castle, Morwith, the young, redheaded Saxon woman, had been herded into a low, thatched hovel along with the other female serfs. Dis­consolately, she lay in the darkness on her crude, straw-filled pallet with just a rough blanket for cover, and turned her back on the other women. After all, she Morwith, was different. Hadn’t she, in the most delight­ful way possible, entertained the lord of Thoresfield and his Saracen servant on the way here?

  A Saxon reeve, who’d been here in the days before Hastings when Thoresfield had been no more than a fortified manor house, had brought the women food: dry bread, and stale cheese. Morwith had caught his arm before he left, and said haughtily, ‘I think there must be some mistake. You see, I shouldn’t be in here, with the others. I wish to speak to the lord Aimery.’

  The man had laughed sneeringly. ‘They all say that,’ he mocked. ‘Will I do instead, wench?’

  Morwith was disappointed that a mistake had been made, and that she’d been put in this hovel. But she was confident that the lord of Thoresfield would send for her, in his own good time. Since the sacking of York last winter, she’d lived with a band of homeless Saxon outlaws in the forest, and was used to looking after herself. She would wait, and watch for her chance.

  While the other women tossed and muttered in exhausted sleep, Morwith lay awake, her pale blue eyes glittering, her ripe body in its tattered chemise feeling unbearably warm and restless in the stuffy air of the windowless hovel.

  She remembered every minute of that wonderful encounter in the half-ruined hut in the forest. The Saracen’s muscular, gleaming body and dusky skin; the lord Aimery’s coldly handsome face as he looked on impassively. She’d serviced the Saracen well, hadn’t she? Used all her practised skill to tease him with her warm tongue; taken him smoothly into her willing mouth, huge though he was, while cupping and strok­ing the heavy pouch of his testicles until he had groaned aloud in ecstasy.

  The Breton lord could hardly have failed to be aroused. But he’d taken her silently, impersonally, so Morwith had not been able to witness his powerful release.

  She stirred restlessly on her scratchy pallet and her hand closed round her aching breast as she relived that sublime moment when the Breton’s wonderful, iron-hard shaft had slipped slowly inside her juicy love-passage from behind. Oh, she’d never known such masterful, exquisite pleasure. While the Saracen’s eager mouth had suckled her dangling breasts, each slow, muscular thrust of the Breton’s phallus had built up the waves of sensation shamelessly quivering through her body, until the final orgasm had washed through her in warm floods.

  She gave a little moan and cupped her aching vulva with her cool palm, feeling how it pulsed moistly, hungrily, at the memory of the Breton’s darkly satisfy­ing manhood. She would have him again, the Breton lord. Her chance would come, and she would take it.

  She stroked her clitoris, rubbing quickly with her fingers, imagining the Breton’s long penis soothing her hungry flesh. She spasmed quietly, biting on her lip to stop herself crying out.

  Morwith slept at last.

  Early the next morning, Elena woke with a start. She sat up jerkily, feeling frightened and confused. Then the sounds of the castle courtyard came floating up through her narrow window, and she remembered. The early morning sunlight danced across her bed. Some­where, a distant bell tolled.

  The hour of prime. At the convent, the nuns would be filing into the little chapel for the first service.

  No. The convent no longer existed. That life was over.

  Elena slid from her rumpled bed, her skin golden in the sunlight, and ran her hands dreamily through her tousled blonde hair. Her naked flesh was warm and sensitive; her breasts softly flushed. Had last night really happened? Or was it all a dream? The colour rose in her cheeks as she remembered. Walking slowly to the window, she pushed the oiled hide shutter to one side and peeped out.

  It was all true. She was really here, in the very heart of Aimery le Sabrenn’s northern stronghold. The court­yard below was already a hive of early morning activity, full of bustle and noise. Servants from the kitchen were hurrying across to the bakehouse carrying trays of warm, scented bread; young squires frowned in concen­tration as they carefully polished their masters’ armour on the trestles set up outside the guardhouse; a groom was leading a big warhorse from the stables, while some female serfs giggled and gossiped as they scat­tered grain to the hens.

  Aimery’s castle. Aimery’s people. And last night, Aimery le Sabrenn had taken her in his arms …

  Elena breathed in deeply, the sunshine warm on her face and her bare shoulders. This was to be her new life. There was no going back now. She knew that, and accepted it willingly. Her heart stirring in that knowl­edge, like a challenge, she turned to pick up her silk chemise from the floor, where the lord Aimery had cast it so carelessly last night. She held the soft fabric to her cheek.

  Suddenly, the door opened. Elena looked up, start­led, as the lady Isobel glided in; she looked exquisite in her beautiful green silk gown, with her dark hair coiled smoothly at the nape of her neck. Over her arm was a folded garment of rough homespun wool.

  ‘My dear,’ she purred, ‘I trust that y
ou slept well after our little entertainment last night?’

  Elena, conscious of Isobel’s slanting green eyes flick­ering with interest over her vulnerable, naked body, clasped the silk chemise she’d just picked up close to her breasts and said quietly, Thank you, my lady. I slept well.’

  Isobel’s words were kind enough, but there was something cold, assessing, in her eyes. Elena shivered suddenly, in spite of the warmth of the room.

  Isobel’s eyes rested on the beautiful silk chemise Elena was holding, and her mouth curled in amuse­ment. ‘As for today,’ she went on briskly, ‘I’m sure you understand, Elena, that as a serf you are expected to earn your keep. Edith, the housekeeper, is expecting you in the kitchens this morning. Here - I have brought you suitable clothing.’ And she pressed a coarse serf’s tunic into Elena’s hands.

  Elena’s blue eyes widened; she could not stop her gaze wandering to the beautiful gown she had worn the night before, lying on the oak chest at the foot of her bed. The - the kitchens?’ she stammered out in confu­sion. ‘But last night my lord Aimery said - ‘

  Isobel’s eyes snapped with annoyance, and she arched her exquisitely shaped dark eyebrows. ‘Oh, dear. I do hope you’re not going to be difficult, Elena.

  Naturally, I am informing you of Lord Aimery’s specific commands, however could you think otherwise?’

  Elena swallowed down the sudden ache in her throat. Last night she’d been too eager, too open. She’d repelled him. ‘If it is my lord Aimery’s wish,’ she said in a low voice, ‘then of course I will obey.’

  Isobel smiled, satisfied. So, this was the way to subjugate the girl! My lord Aimery’s wish. What an innocent little fool she was! Lord Aimery, in fact, knew nothing at all about all this, as he had ridden out on the dawn patrol with his men and would not be back till this evening. But how was the Saxon slut to know?

  In fact, Isobel had felt a desperately fierce pang of jealousy as she’d entered the room and seen the unclothed girl standing there as if she was in a dream. The sunlight had played magically on her high, perfect breasts, on her slender hips and long legs; on that soft golden fleece at the top of her thighs and the clouds of glorious silken hair cascading round her shoulders.