Candle in the Window by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page A

bearded lips. The tiny
squeaks she let out were charming, showing spirit but not
resistance. This girl knew all the tricks.
    His manhood rose in immediate response to such
blatant encouragement. Her hips rubbed against him as she kicked
out and weakly tried to rise. Her fists pummelled his shoulders as
he gathered her to him, turned her sideways and slanted her
derriere across his lap. Her head fit into the crook of his elbow,
her braid slid over his arm. With a laugh, he captured her flailing
fist and tightened the crook of his arm beneath her neck. She was
held now, stationary enough for him to find her mouth with his
own.
    In only a moment, he changed his opinion of her
experience. Her mouth yielded, easily opening for his insistent
tongue. But she didn’t know what to do with it when it surged
inside. She didn’t meet his thrusts, didn’t answer his
lures, but she reacted. That mouth was sweet and hungry, amazed and
willing. His intentions gentled and turned to guidance.
    He relaxed the grip of his arm on her head and
supported her back with his huge hand. He massaged up and down her
side, petting her, mellowing her. He freed her hand and placed it
against his chest, on the flushed skin above his heart. She
snatched it back, but he patiently retrieved it and replaced it,
still stoking the fires of her innocence with his lips. This time
her hand stayed. Her fingers flexed into the curling hair
blanketing his skin, trembled and flexed again.
    He broke the kiss with a moan. “Sweet
thing,” he whispered into her ear as he searched the rim with
his tongue. A moan of her own puffed across his cheek.
    His remaining hand went exploring. Cupping her
breast, he circled the nipple, tight with chill and nerves. The
heel of his palm kneaded the mound warmly, tenderly, thoroughly,
until the woman stretched across his thighs melted into limp
pliancy. Gratified with the return for his effort, William bestowed
one last fond stroke and searched further. The tuckof her waist confirmed his first hasty diagnosis, and
her firm belly quivered as his fingers slid across. The drenched
material of her skirt bunched at her knee and his hand eagerly
sought the bared skin of her calf. As his fingers made contact, his
breath caught and she sighed and tossed, jerked from her lethargy.
With the instincts of a magician, William captured her mouth again,
delighting her with the return of his lips, and slid his hand up
the long, silken pathway of her leg. The pathway to heaven.
    And heaven was so close, so close.
    A dose of ice cold water splashed his back and
brought him crashing to earth. Two powerful hands pushed him
backward and grasped the girl by her armpits. She was yanked from
him and dragged out of his reach.
    He rose to his feet in fury, restrained from attack
only by his blindness.
    His indignant roar would have frightened lesser
women, but Maud was no lesser woman. “Are ye crazy, Lord
William? Would ye attack a young damsel in full sight of the
maidservants?”
    He roared again, inarticulate with wrath, and then
as his sense returned, he shouted, “Attack? Attack? All she
had to say was ‘nay,’ and I would have released her. By
our sweet Savior, Lady Saura, did you hurl that cold
water?”
    Saura, soaked and shivering by the fire, answered,
“In a manner of speaking.”
    Liberated from the restraint of silence, her voice
sounded quavery, and his temper cooled proportionately. “Give
the wench back and I’ll forget about it.” The group in
the window seat released a collective giggle, and he sank back into
the water. “Give the wench back and send these she-lackeys
away.”
    Wringing out her full draped sleeve in both her
shakinghands, Saura swiped her hair off her
forehead and refused. “I can’t do that, my lord. The
girl is spoken for.”
    “Spoken for! She is a serf. I am her
lord.”
    Saura smoothed the rough wool of her garments and
cursed her own industry. Her sense of responsibility had demanded
she perform the jobs