His head dipped. His dark hair feathered against her face. A new pleasure, sharp and insistent, flowed through her. She realized he used his mouth on her breast now. It was the last clear thought she had.
Sensations too amazing to handle piled up then. Licks on her breasts and caresses on her legs. His hand on her mound sent her to the stars. Touches down there, first gentle then less so, brought her close to screaming.
Then he was in her arms, on top of her, his hips settled between her thighs. “I know you are a maid, Elinor. If you do not fight it, it will not hurt much.”
She knew when he started. A fullness pressed, then continued. Her body did rebel, and he paused. She looked above to the stars. He lifted one of her legs over his hip and pressed again. The tear of her maidenhead made her gasp, but after that she only felt that fullness stretching her more and more.
He stopped, his weight resting on his forearms so he did not crush her, his head bent so he could see her face beneath his chest. He dipped his head down and kissed her. The intimacy of this joining, of two bodies made one, overwhelmed her.
“Kiss me again, Zander,” she whispered.
He did while he pulsed inside her. Then he moved, so the joining became a living action. She gripped him tightly. It didn’t hurt much, but it still hurt. Yet his spirit and care and arms surrounded her, and she savored every moment.
When it was done, and he laid atop her, his breaths short and deep, his hair hanging onto her face and his eyes closed, she branded her mind with the beauty of his face in this expression of spent passion, and the sensation of him still in her.
“Don’t leave yet,” he said after he had fixed her gown and his own garments. “Lie with me a while.”
Elinor had not said anything about leaving, but he knew her mind was going in that direction.
“I heard the curfew bell.”
“Do not worry. I will get you out.”
He gathered her in his arms and laid in the ivy with her warming his side.
“Did I hurt you?” He had said he wouldn’t much, but he really had no experience with knowing about that. Knights did not take maids who were not their brides. It wasn’t done, but then again, it was sometimes, as he had just proven. One more example of how knightly honor was little more than fine words. It was his first time for doing it, though, and his reassurance had been a hopeful lie.
“Some. Not too much,” she murmured, turning toward him so their faces rested closely. “I am glad we did this, Zander. I am glad it was you.”
At the moment he did not seek absolution, but he thought it sweet she gave it anyway. He was too contented to have any worries, least of all those about sin and retribution. He’d had many women, but had never been this moved by it. He had known more than pleasure with Elinor, and he did not think he would ever regret following his darker inclinations.
“You left Sir Morris as a squire,” she said. “When were you knighted?”
“While fighting for King Henry.”
“So then, after Henry died, and Richard finally followed his vow to go on Crusade, you went with him as my father did. It was why you had joined that little band going to France to begin with.”
“It took a long time to get there, what with his coronation, then his raising the funds to pay for his army. I thought we would never leave France. Eventually, we did, sailing first to Sicily, then to Cyprus. We took Cyprus before finally going to Acre.”
“Which he conquered. There was much rejoicing here when word finally came. Was it glorious?”
He supposed people did think it glorious to win battles, especially ones like that. But talk of this had dimmed his joy in having her, because she did not understand what that Crusade had taken from him.
“There isn’t much glory in war, Elinor.” He caressed her face, stroking some damp locks off her brow. “It is a black moment when you kill your first man. It matters not what his religion or birth was. It becomes easier with time. For some men, too easy.”
She gazed at him as if she pondered his words. “If it did not become easier, there could be no wars.”
“That’s the truth of it.” Being a woman, she probably thought that preferable. There were times when he did too.
“Is that why you left? Because it had become too easy?”
He looked at her, surprised. How like Elinor to see more than anyone else.
“Forgive me,” she said. “But. . . you said the years had changed you, and they have. Not all the time. But there are moments when you appear far away in your thoughts, and quite old.”
His soul churned. Her words conjured memories that he did not welcome. They came at night sometimes, in dreams, when he had no control over his mind.
“I left because killing had become too easy and still not easy enough for the king’s purposes.”
She rose up on one arm and looked down at him. He felt her gaze searching his face as if she could read the truth there without asking for it in words.
He pulled her back down into his arms. “After the victory at Acre, Richard and Saladin, the Saracen leader, made a truce. An exchange of prisoners was part of it. Saladin handing over the True Cross was another part. There were other things
