Free Hot Summer's Knight by Jennie Reid

was floating on the surface, her hands held securely by his, his face only inches from hers.
    “I'm doing it!” she cried, “I'm floating!”  She laughed, reveling in the delicious sense of freedom she was experiencing in the cool water.
    “You are,” he answered, “now let’s see what happens when we move.”
    Half crouching, half walking along the bed of the river, he pulled her along with him.  Her tunic, or rather his tunic, billowed out around her. 
    Whereas on the river bank the garment had provided a degree of modesty, in the water it provided none.  Gareth found he had an unimpeded view of her exquisite body.  Her legs were long for her height, and gracefully tapered.  Her breasts were small and high and round, their nipples taut in the cold water.
    He used every ounce of his self restraint to hold her hands, instead of drawing her into his arms as he longed to do.  He’d unwittingly discovered a form of torture far worse than any a Saracen slave master could devise.
    He forced himself to concentrate on her face.  Her eyes were shining, her lips were slightly apart, her breath was warm and gentle on his face.
    “Now,” he said, “move your legs a little, backwards and forwards.”
    She kicked experimentally at first, and found she enjoyed the sensation.  Soon they were moving together, through the water.  She laughed again with the sheer joy of the experience.
    “What would happen if you let go my hands?” she asked.
    It was his turn to laugh.  “You’ve got to walk before you can run!  Get used to moving your legs first, then I’ll show you what to do with your arms.”
    “Very well.”  She pouted a little, a small moue of disappointment, but her grin was impossible to suppress.  “I would never have believed it would feel so good!”
    She kicked out again, more strongly, propelling herself forward and into Gareth’s arms.  Chuckling, he pushed her away again.  She came back, he thrust her away, again and again.  Each time her kicks grew stronger, and her confidence in the water increased.  Each time, the tunic billowed around her, revealing the curve of a breast, or a pale shoulder, or her firm, round rear.
    In her innocence, she was imitating the act of love.  Gareth was grateful the water was as cold as it was.  He forced his attention back to her face, to the sparkling drops of water clinging to her cheeks and hair.
    “Enough!” he cried, when he knew he could take no more, “that’s enough for your first lesson.”  He stood up, bringing her with him.  The wet tunic clung to every delicious curve, and the water had rendered it completely transparent.  “We’d best get you back into your own clothes.  They should be nearly dry by now,” he croaked.
    Berenice led the way back to the shore, chattering all the way.  “I would never have believed it! To think, when I fell off the river bank, I could have drowned!
    “I never thought of myself as being afraid of the water before, but I’d never tried to master it either.  The river has always just been there, all my life.  We all know it’s dangerous, but it brings us life too, water for the fields, and to turn the brothers’ mill, and there’s fish in it, of course.  But to float in it, to move in it!  That was marvelous!”
    She reached for the linen that served as a towel.
    “Now don’t look,” she called, as she gathered her slightly damp clothes from the bushes where they’d been drying, and disappeared.
    “Would you bring me my basket, please, Gareth? I left it near the trees at the top of the bank,” she called.
    Ever your faithful servant, madam, he thought, as he clambered up the bank where he’d first seen her.  Sure enough, her basket was there, not far from where the bank had collapsed.  He brought it to her, and she retrieved her headdress, neatly pinning it over her coiled braid.
    Now she was dressed appropriately to continue her walk to her brother’s monastery.
    “Thank you,