ground slowly, slowly, extracting every iota of sensation from the long, slow stroke. His breath was rising up from his chest, rising up through his throat at the same time that his knob was expanding in unbearable torture. He felt the quick fire dart in his loins and come racing through. His mouth opened wide as the breath finally, suddenly, reached it. He shattered his sperm up, up into her belly as the breath broke from his throat, twisting his mouth out into an agonized explosion. He felt the pressure of her thighs renewed, fleetingly, heard a faint gasp echoing a recognition of his orgasm.
For several seconds he pumped into her, seeming to loose all the juices of his pent up body into that lovely, waiting receptacle. Then, slowly he collapsed on her warm, cushioning flesh and felt her arms encircle him gently and her lips, light and tender on his cheek.
Later, nude still, she preceded him as they walked to the private chamber Cesare had been allotted off the banquet hall. Watching her buttocks swaying and rounding under the slim, taut waist, Cesare wondered if the Chief Councillor meant it when he said it would be worth getting a stiletto in one's ribs if one could be sure of fulfillment first. Looking at her thighs, slenderly moving under the rounded voluptuousness of the buttocks, he felt pretty sure he meant it.
CHAPTER 4
It was a very cheerful Cesare Borgia that directed his forces for the storming of the citadel the following day. He was to have the delight of Maria's company for the remainder of his nights at Imola. She had fallen for him and was his to do with as he wished. In his mind he was even turning over plans to establish her near him when he finally settled in a permanent headquarters after the campaign.
So touched and pleased by his success had Cesare been that he'd even refused himself the satisfaction of giving the Chief Councillor an account of his conquest.
“She is, indeed, a fiery one,” was the only comment he would make when discreetly pressed by his host.
With a concentration equalling that of his lovemaking of the night before, Cesare set about the quelling of the citadel.
His lieutenants had suggested a storming of the walls immediately a breach appeared. But the Duke, with some acute questioning, was able to establish that munitions in the citadel were not very plentiful and were likely to give out in a very few days.
Content with his host and his companion of the nights, and ever sparing of the lives of his men who would have to cross a deep moat in order to reach a breach in the walls, he settled down to a siege, maintaining a steady bombardment, producing a breach from time to time, which, those inside, panic-stricken at the thought of a resultant assault, rushed rashly to repair, exposing themselves to a deadly fire from the Borgian troops.
The Borgian army, after a week of women-less nights, were very happy, in turn, to remain in a town long enough to win over those maidens who were conserving of their reputation in the first encounters.
For four days the siege continued. The last breaches in the walls were not repaired and it was doubtful whether Dionigio di Naldo, the rebellious captain of the guard, could risk losing any of his dwindling number of men to see to them.
Those days of constant cannon fire from outside, dwindling ammunition and men inside, wore down the defenders with an inescapable psychological inevitability. They had little hope of relief from Forli which was too busy preparing its defense as the next on the Duke of Valentinois' list and they were surrounded by a vast sea of Borgian troops. There was no hope of victory and very little hope of holding out until Cesare tired and moved on leaving just a covering force which might afford some hope, at least, of escape.
At the end of the four days of concentrated pressure, during which he was able to profit from no risks taken by his besiegers, di Naldo begged for a parley.
Within a few hours he had made a formal surrender of the citadel, Cesare having, generously and not without political acumen, granted a safe conduct to his garrison.
Joy at yet another triumph was tempered in the Borgian ranks with a reluctance to leave what had proved to be such a sexual haven. But lusty men will find lusty women no matter where and Forli was likely to prove as welcoming as Imola once the amazon Countess had been removed.
CHAPTER 5
Countess Caterina Sforza-Riario was often described as a virago. She was certainly beautiful, severe and of a fiery independence. Life had hardened her. She had seen her father murdered by patriots in Milan Cathedral and her husband, Girolamo Riario, butchered by a mob in the very city she now defended. Her second husband, too, had been killed by a band of rebels. She had ordered a massacre of all who lived in the quarter from which the rebels came and had ridden, herself, at the head of her men-at-arms, to see that her orders were carried out.
A third husband had died of natural causes. It would be true to say she had, in spite of her terrible revenge for her second husband's death, not been floored by the loss of any of them.
Caterina Sforza-Riario was one of those unfortunate women unable to find her place. She didn't like to be alone, she wanted men, a husband, a lover. But she also wanted independence and was totally unable to make any compromise by which she surrendered any or part of it. She had finished by despising each of the three men she had married. Fascinated by that very independence, their devotion to her had grown in proportion to which hers for them had diminished. They had been unable to lead her as she really needed to be led and consequently she had found herself doing the leading?and that was the way the world saw her, as a severe, often cruel and totally unbending woman.
Like most women in Italy, she had heard of Cesare Borgia. She had, in fact, wondered what manner of man it was who, finally, was coming to attack her city under orders from the Pope. Talk had it that he was handsome and of iron will. She thought of her poor, weak husbands and the thought made her sick. Who knew what Cesare Borgia really was? Certainly she would have little opportunity of discovering now as he ranged his enemy troops in preparation for the assault.
The citadel in which she was ensconced, within the town, was well provisioned. She could and would resist this man of iron will, this “monster” as some preferred to call him. For weeks she had had outworks thrown up all around the city and built in nearly all the gates as a fortification. Now, with the Borgian troops a few hours' march away, she had another trouble: as in Imola, there were rumblings among the townsfolk to whom she had never been overly-generous, rebellious rumblings, which talked of handing over the city, her city, to Cesare Borgia, the upstart son of an upstart cardinal who had bargained his way into the papacy.
Even now, the Countess' brother Alessandro had left the citadel with a strong body of men to exhort the council of the city to stand by their overlord.
The Countess, standing with her guards on the ramparts of the citadel, shielded her eyes to gaze down into Forli. Her ample bosom was heaving slightly. She had heard of the turn of events at Imola and she was well aware of the heavy hand with which she had long ruled her people.
Down in the city, lost in the mass of winding streets and the old, uneven buildings there was noise and shouting. It was impossible to tell whether this was simply excitement and fear at the imminent arrival of the enemy or whether harsh words were flying between her brother and the council.
Below, under the shadow of the citadel's walls, the heavy drawbridge was still down across the moat.
“What's happened to them,” she muttered fiercely.
“There, Madam!” a captain of the guard called from a point some distance along the thick crenellated rampart.
She squinted in the direction indicated and her blood boiled with anger. Her brother and his men, surrounding a couple of the leading citizens of Forli, were fighting a retreating action against a rabble of the townsfolk. While she watched, she saw a couple of her hard-pressed men fall under the sword and stave-blows of their attackers.
“Turn the cannon on them,” she yelled. But it was impossible to scatter the townspeople without risking
