Free The Virgin Proxy by Georgia Fox Page A

them again, he placed his hands flat to the stone battlements on either side of her shoulders. “You lie, Deorwynn. You want my lusty sword, as much as I long to thrust it inside you. You told me so with your eyes when you lay in that bath.” He leaned closer, sniffing her neck. “I smell the soap on you still. Something else now too. The scent of coupling. Like the musk I left on my bedmate last night.” He whispered silkily, “Feel how it rouses me?”
    “I doubt it takes much to rouse you.” Her wriggling only succeeded in snagging her gown on his belt buckle. She was trapped.
    “You came to my bed and took the place of your mistress. Why?”
    She felt his rampant arousal event through his chausses and her gown. “No,” she gasped, her breath shredded by another gust of wind. “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.”
    “You try my patience Deorwynn!” he growled, staring at her lips.
    Her half-dead heart fell to her knees. “It wasn’t me. For pity’s sake why would I do such a thing? Are you mad, Norman?”
    His eyes bore down into hers. She couldn’t look away. “Confess.”
    “Never. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.” She amazed even herself with her bravery today, but seeing him so soon again this morning had brought back every painful and pleasurable sensation from the night before. She feared that shameful, misplaced yearning would be clear upon her face. “Let me go. People watch us.”
    His hands slid down to her buttocks, gripped her tightly and squeezed. His bold rod pushed at her stomach. “You were a virgin two nights ago in that bath,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “If you are not one now, I’d know the truth. Would I not? Let me …”
    “No. Stop! Norman swine! Don’t you dare touch me again. I’ll put a curse on you.” Fists curled against his chest, she shoved him away. But he arched his groin against her again, his big hands covering her buttocks, holding her intimately against him. “I hate you,” she cried, her voice echoing against the stone. “I would sooner lie with an old boar!”
    Fury raged in his eyes. He struggled to get hold of her wrists and she screamed at him again, “May you never have a child! May your over-eager cockerel crow once too many times, when and where it is not needed, and find itself stewing in a cook pot!”
    Finally he released her. He stepped back, one thumb pressed to his lips, while his eyes roved over her body, measuring, considering.
    “Go wench,” he grumbled suddenly. “Get out of my sight.”
    To make the point that she went on her own command, not his, Deorwynn swept regally by him and down the stone steps. Everyone inside the bailey was watching her; watching his reaction to her, amazed that their lord and master had not slapped her into next week for her insolence. Even the relentless clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer stopped temporarily.
    She was almost at the main door when Thierry appeared through it, moving at speed, not looking where he went. At the last moment he saw her and halted. “My lady Deorwynn,” he murmured giving her a little bow.
    Yesterday, at the wedding feast, Thierry’s friendly chatter had put her at ease. She liked being called “my lady”. So she returned his smile, staying a moment to exchange pleasantries. Purely because he was nice to her. Nothing to do with the other man watching them like a bird of prey.
    “You are comfortable here, I hope?” he asked. “You have everything you need?”
    “Yes. Thank you.”
    “We are a fortress full of men,” he muttered apologetically, “and we haven’t much experience of tending to women.”
    She raised an eyebrow.
    He laughed sheepishly, “I mean—the accommodations. I know they are simple and less comfortable surroundings than those you must have known before.”
    “I can assure you, sir, my bed at the convent was no more luxurious than those you have here and the food far worse.”
    “I am sorry to hear that,” he exclaimed.
    Across the