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  Still, he refused to give up the fight for power over his own orgasm, listening intently to her for any signs of distress. She was stiff beneath him but not trying to fight him off, her mouth wide open, head back, moaning but not from pain, he would be willing to bet. She didn’t seem frightened, really, but was more … surprised at what was happening. He didn’t know if it was the mechanics of the act that amazed her or the pleasure she was feeling as two big fingers that he’d dipped into his mouth to slicken unerringly found her clit and began to flick a few times then stroke it, flick then stroke, flick then stroke, until he felt her arch her hips against him. She took even more of him than he’d offered at first and hissing at the way she forced herself to open around him and how much more sensitive that made the part of her his fingers were manipulating.

  He wondered if that had hurt her; he was well and truly as far as he could possibly go within her. He saw a tear creep out from the corner of her eye and made to withdraw, but her hands on his back, grasping desperately as if she thought she was going to lose her life if he left her, convinced him to stay there for a moment longer and begin to pump in place.

  She came alive beneath him even more, rising to meet his hips as if it was something she’d done a thousand times before, and if he hadn’t felt the proof of her virginity himself he might have wondered. But it just seemed that he had hit the jackpot with her—she was very naturally sensual and sexual, and she was all his.

  He reached up to grab her hands, forcing them to bracket her face as he withdrew from her completely to her loud protests, beginning a wild rhythm that his mind had no input about and thus was much more brutish than he would ever have thought to use with her so early on, but she brought it out in him. She didn’t cringe once from the forceful plunge of his hips, meeting him more than halfway every time until she had no more breath and no more strength and absolutely no sense left in her head. It had all been driven from her by him to be replaced by pure, primitive lust.

  Seconds later, a full scream rang from her lips until he could get his hand over her mouth to stifle it, and that barely did the trick. She seemed entirely incapable of lowering its volume, her mouth open in a rictus of the deepest, basest kind of pleasure.

  Two more pumps, almost afterthoughts, had his deep, rough cry joining hers, and he collapsed on top of her, as mindless as she was for one of the few times ever in his life.

  They both fell into a deep sleep, but Fleur was the one who awoke first. He had rolled off her and was snoring loudly from the other side of the bed. She rose, washed her privates—however gingerly—from stem to stern with the wet rag in tepid bathwater and soap, and then boldly rummaged through the shirts in the armoire until she found one that didn’t look like it was a dress shirt and didn’t drag on the floor. She borrowed a length of leather from another drawer and secured it like a belt around her waist, then stealthily threw the bolt, her eyes on his deeply breathing form the whole time until she was able to close the door quietly from the other side.

  At some point she would make a study of the whole place, creating a map of it in her mind, but she had a feeling that it was much bigger than the castle she had grown up in, so for now she settled for following her nose down several sets of stairs to the kitchen, which was right where it seemed it always was in these places—on the bottom floor at the back of the house. Sometimes it was even a little added on room, as if an actual kitchen had been an afterthought to some previous ancestor who didn’t much like to eat.

  There she found the woman who had brought up her breakfast tray and addressed her boldly. “My name is Fleur.”

  Marianne looked up from the onions she was cutting to give the girl a once over look then returned to her chore. “You’re the tribute girl.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not a ma’am, girl. I’m just Marianne, the cook. I’ve been with the master since before he was born.”

  “Well, I wish to be of service to him.”

  Marianne smiled slightly. “I’m thinking from the sound of it that you already have been, girl.”

  The way her face colored made the older woman think that this slight girl might well faint from embarrassment, but she didn’t, and that was a point in her favor as far as the old cook was concerned.

  “There’s got to be something I could help you with. I used to hang around our kitchen a lot and I’ve picked a few things up.” She had done exactly that in her father’s home, until her mother decided that it wasn’t something a lady should be doing.

  “You know how to peel potatoes and not take most of the potato with it?” Marianne gave her a sharp look. She was at least as particular as the master about some things, and wasting food was one of them.

  “Yes, Ma’m–Marianne.”

  Fleur found herself with a small paring knife in one hand and a potato in the other, whittling carefully away at the skin until it was bare. “Would you like to inspect it?” she asked, even though she could see that there was a big pile of potatoes just waiting to be worked on.

  Marianne looked at the potato in her hand and the pile of peelings on the table. The girl hadn’t been lying, which in itself was a rarity, she’d found. Some of the village girls would do anything to get themselves into the castle for the chance opportunity to throw themselves at the master, hoping something stuck, and that thing was themselves.

  But the master was a discerning fellow—much to his father’s disgust—and he wouldn’t go just for any woman. He’d never deigned to take much beyond a second look at all of the worthy princesses and ladies his father had dangled in front of him, hoping he’d show some—any—kind of interest in one of them. But it never happened. His father had died with knowledge that his line was nowhere near secure in his son’s hands. Oh, the boy could fight, but could he produce a son to continue their name? That was the pressing question on King Alfred’s mind for the last days of his life.

  And now, almost eight years later, it still wasn’t answered. The new king had no by blows, no bastard children of any kind, despite the fact that the village girls practically prostrated themselves in front of him whenever he appeared there, and the empress, whenever he was at court, constantly paraded the eligible young female stock under his nose, not that he’d ever really gone for any of them, either.

  He fought, he drank, he ate, he read, and he rode, usually with a group of sons of lords he’d grown up with along with a couple of the village boys he’d known even longer, most of whom had become lords in their own right by now. And none of that behavior was going to get them an heir. Marianne had never heard any rumors that he preferred the company of gentlemen in that way, either, and she was quite sure she would have by now. Such secrets had a way of being found out by someone or other.

  She had begun to despair of him ever fathering a son, just as his father had–

  She was interrupted, mid-daydream, by the sound of the alarm bell being rung. That bell, in the tower of the oldest part of the castle, was only used in the case of a dire emergency—a fire, an attack, something of that nature, where any and all citizens needed to be gathered, informed, and organized to deal with whatever tragedy was happening at the time.

  She practically threw down her knife and ran for the big hall.

  Fleur heard all of the activity, but she couldn’t imagine that she’d be much help given how short a time she’d been here, so she simply continued the task she was given.

  The hall quickly began to fill with everyone who was within earshot of the loud tolling, which was a good portion of the population of the town and everyone in the castle. They looked to the top of the stairs, from which the master would address them and assign them their roles, everyone speculating loudly about the nature of the disaster.

  He appeared, looking as if he’d just rolled out of bed and he had, apparently and got it out as quickly as he could, knowing that time was of the essence in this situation. “A girl is missing. I know a few of you have seen her. I brought her bac
k with me this morning. She was asleep with my coat around her at that time. She was in my bedroom. I know some of you servants saw her when you brought in the tub and water. I have no idea where she could have gotten or when she left, but I will have her found. A gold crown to whoever brings her back to me alive and–” he emphasized this last word for the men in the crowd “–untouched.”

  Raiz opened his mouth to tell his people where he wanted groups of them to begin looking, but Marianne trotted quickly up the stairs without so much as a by your leave and stood in front of him, blocking his view. “Donovan, I want you and Callum to–”

  “Master, the girl is in the kitchen,” she murmured under her breath.

  His mouth hung open for a moment until he closed it with an angry snap. “In the kitchen, you say?”

  “Yes, milord.”

  “The girl who was in my bed this morning?”

  Marianne nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  With the confidence of a servant who had served an old family for a long enough that she felt she was an indispensable part of it, Marianne teased, “And who would be mistaking those big violet eyes of hers?”

  Raiz sighed heavily and rubbed his hand over his entire face, pushing Marianne to one side so that he could address the ever-growing crowd, saying sheepishly, “It’s a false alarm. I’m sorry. Go back to work.”

  Of course there would be never ending speculation about what that was about, he was sure. Marianne had already begun to leave and, indeed, was more than halfway back to the kitchen when he took several steps in the same direction, then reconsidered what he was going to do, instead yelling down to the faithful servant three stern words. “Don’t let on.”

  Without even looking back at him, Marianne nodded and continued on her way. Someone was in for the licking of a lifetime, she’d bet—and she was only glad that her days of being subject to punishments like that were long gone.

  The girl was right where she’d left her, working on the pile of spuds, and Marianne couldn’t see any reason to disturb her since she seemed to still be doing quite a good job of it.

  “Is something going on that I should know about?” the girl asked without looking up from her task.

  “False alarm,” Marianne answered, and they both continued their work in companionable silence.

  Raiz, however, was nowhere near as calm or quiet. He was biding his time, wrapping and re-wrapping his thick, worn leather work belt around his hand and watching out the window for the crowd to disburse, waiting for the right time to go downstairs and collect the miscreant, to whom he intended to give a very harsh lesson indeed.

  Never mind the fact that, just at the thought of doing so, he was hard again, as if he was a youth again, barley able to control the thing that had always had a very annoying mind of its own. None of the women who’d been paraded about in front of him—not even the very beautiful ones—had stirred him much, certainly not enough to wade through all of the components of a royal courtship. None. Not a one. They might have been good looking, but usually as soon as they opened their mouths, what little attraction he might have felt towards them evaporated. They were vapid, spoiled little bitches, and since neither of his heads seemed to have much interest in them, he never bothered to pursue any of them.

  But Fleur was another matter entirely. She was so beautiful his mouth had gone dry the first time he’d seen her and he’d completely forgotten the necessity of breathing. He’d be trying to get it back ever since. And she’d shown him her intelligence during the hunt, adapting her strategies to remain free almost to the end. That took brains.

  He was generally against the use of tributes. He’d had bad experiences with them attempting to run away or starving themselves or otherwise reacting badly to their plight even before he’d even touched them—as if the mere sigh of him was enough to make them suicidal—that he’d stopped acquiring them entirely and did his best to discourage the use of them in his kingdom, he felt as powerless against the urge to capture her as she probably did against the urge to run from him—and everyone else who was pursuing her.

  But he had a need that demanded his attention, and he as couldn’t achieve it through the usual channels, he decided he had to do something different to fulfill it. Raiz had determined immediately after seeing her that he would have her, even if he had to cheat to do so, and he had, technically, in dismounting. But he couldn’t find it in himself to feel as guilty as he usually would for not having followed the rules to the letter—because he’d won.

  She was his, and she’d damned near given him a heart attack by disappearing like that. He was going to nip that tendency in the bud, even if it meant that she couldn’t sit comfortably for a month.

  After a relatively short while, everyone had headed back to their chores, he had calmed a bit and he did his best to stroll nonchalantly down to the kitchen. But once he got there and saw that she was perfectly all right, and even had managed to satisfy Marianne’s fussy requirements for a kitchen helper, which he’d been trying to procure for her for years, his anger returned, turning his mood black at how helpless she had made him feel, and how much of everyone’s time and energy she had made him waste.

  Without bothering to say anything to either of them, he reached out and grabbed Fleur off the stool she was sitting on, dragging her out of the kitchen to an alley and into a smallish shack that used to be used to store firewood.

  It had long since been given another purpose—one he was reluctantly familiar with on a personal level.

  The sawhorse he had been put over himself by his father when he’d been caught doing something he oughtn’t was still there.

  Raiz put her right in front of it. “Bend over.”

  It was tall for her, not catching her at the waist as it had him, so she practically hung from it, forced up onto her tiptoes to keep some semblance of balance in front and reaching down to grasp the legs from the back in order not to land on her head.

  He wasn’t of a mind to make things more comfortable for her, so he left her just like that, hanging there helplessly. He could see that she’d commandeered one of his shirts—granted, it was an older one and much too big for her, but that worked in his favor. Raiz flipped the hem of it up over her back then stepped to one side and unwound the belt that was still wrapped around his right hand, leaving about twelve inches of it free and bringing most of those inches to bear on the lovely, generous curve of her behind.

  Fleur arched violently up and screamed, repeating that cycle as the belt rose and fell relentlessly until she couldn’t make a sound come out of her mouth, although she was certainly still trying to right on cue, every time he brought the leather down.

  “I had no idea where you were. I thought you had run.” He worried that what he had done to her before they’d both fallen asleep had driven her away from him—despite or maybe because of how she had enjoyed it—but he wasn’t about to say that to her.

  “You don’t leave the room unless you get my permission to do so. You stay exactly where I put you and don’t move a muscle until I tell you that you can. I made everyone in the town drop what they were doing and come here to find you when you were sitting there in the kitchen calmly peeling potatoes.” Which was something Marianne wouldn’t let him do in his own damned kitchen!

  “The very least you could have done was to come to the hall with everyone else. From now on, when that bell rings, I want to see your face first in the hall, or I’ll bring you back here, so help me God, and you’ll wish you had.”

  He let the belt unwind from his hand and fall to the ground and turned to leave, pausing at the door only long enough to issue an order over his shoulder at her. “Go back to the kitchen and make yourself useful.”

  Chapter VII

  Fleur didn’t dare stay there for very long, although she wasn’t at all sure how she was going to be able to collect herself enough in a short amount of time—heck, even in a very long amount of time—to be of any help to Marianne, but that was what
she had been charged with doing, and she would die in the attempt, if necessary.

  Even just straightening from the sawhorse was agony, but she did her best to ignore it, straightening the shirt down over her behind—thankful that it was loose and billowy enough that it didn’t cling or touch that area at all. Walking was an adventure in pain, but she only had to make it a very short way, thankfully.

  As much as she didn’t want to see anyone at that moment, she forced herself to open the kitchen door and then close it behind her, keeping her eyes carefully fixed on the floor. There was no way that Marianne—at the very least—hadn’t heard what had transpired in the other room, and Fleur had less than no interest in discussing it.

  She returned to her previous job without a word, doing her best not to cry into the potatoes. She wasn’t sure what the added salt would do to them, but she didn’t want to ruin his dinner on top of everything else she’d done.

  Marianne handed her a rag. “Don’t sniff. You’ll give yourself an ear ache.”

  Fleur accepted it gratefully and blew her nose.

  The older woman moved the stool that Fleur had been sitting on before her trip to the woodshed, saying under her breath, “I don’t suppose you’re going to be wanting to use this any time soon,” as she tucked it back under the tall work bench.

  Fleur choked on that, and Marianne felt the need to clear the air a bit between them. “I’m not going to poke my nose into your business, as much as I might want to. Let me just say that, despite what you’ve learned so far about Raiz Arndt, Sixth King of Arundel, he is a good man. He’s not an easy man by any means, but he does his level best to try be a good one, which is much more than most men, in my experience.” She stood next to Fleur and whispered, “And you’re not the only one whose been to that woodshed for exactly that purpose, if you take my meaning. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”