A Stranger at Castonbury

Catalina rolled onto her side and hugged Jamie’s pillow to her. She had never met anyone like him before, so intriguing, so full of life. He made her behave in ways she could never have imagined, ways that were wild and impulsive. He made her feel alive, and she would revel in that for every moment she could.

She held on to the pillow and fancied its linen folds still smelled of Jamie. The patter of the rain lulled her into a half waking, half asleep dream state.

Suddenly she heard a soft rustling sound, as if a cloth was being shifted. The bed moved as someone sat down beside her and a hand gently touched her hip through the thin linen of her chemise.

She started to turn over, but Jamie whispered, ‘Shh. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘I was waiting for you,’ she said.

He eased her hair away from the side of her neck and she felt his kiss on the soft skin just below her ear. She shivered at the delicious sensation of it, and his lips slid down her neck to caress her shoulder. His hand moved along her body, and she could feel the hunger in his touch. A hunger that echoed her own.

She rolled over to wrap her arms around him and pull him up against her. Their mouths met in a kiss full of desperate desire. She needed him so much, and she wanted him to need her too. Wanted only the two of them in their own small world for just a little while longer.

She felt his hands close hard around her waist and he turned in one quick movement so that she lay on top of him. His tongue traced the curve of her lower lip, lightly, teasingly, before he slid deep inside.

Desire gathered around her like a blurry, heated cloud, and she felt his hand on her backside, dragging her tight against him. She arched her hips into his hard erection and spread her legs wider over him.

He groaned hoarsely, and their kiss slid into wild, frantic need. He had already removed his coat, and she tore at the lacings of his shirt until she could touch his bare skin. She pressed her palms to his chest, revelling in the hot, smooth feeling of his skin over those lean muscles. His breath, his heartbeat, his strength—how she loved all of it.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered. ‘Please, I need you. I need to see you.’

Catalina sat up, her knees braced to either side of his hips. He watched her with burning bright grey eyes as she untied the ribbon at the neck of her chemise. She drew it up over her head and let it fall away.

‘I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you,’ he said.

‘No,’ she argued. ‘Nothing is as beautiful as you.’ She traced her fingertips over the bare skin of his chest. Lightly, she touched the sharp curve of his hip, the line of his lean thigh—the hard heat of his manhood through his breeches.

‘Catalina,’ he growled. In one swift movement, he knelt before her. His hands at her waist dragged her tight against him until not a single breath could come between them.

He kissed her fiercely, and she felt his touch on her naked breast. His roughened palm slid beneath it to cradle its weight, and his long fingers teased at her hardened nipple, a soft, fleeting caress. He teased her until she moaned and arched her back to press herself against him. He finally gave her what she longed for, rolling the sensitive nipple hard between his fingers.

Her desire burned even higher at his touch. She held tightly to his shoulders, digging her fingers deep into his skin to hold him with her. He slid down her body until his mouth closed over her nipple, sucking deeply.

Catalina’s head fell back weakly as she cried out incoherent Spanish words, begging for yet more of him. He seemed hungry for her too. His open mouth trailed along her skin to her stomach, his tongue circling her navel as his hand curled hard around the back of her thigh and tugged her closer to him. He pressed a kiss softly to the inside of her leg and one finger eased along the seam of her womanhood and slid inside of her.

‘Jamie,’ she panted. Her eyes closed tightly as she concentrated on every touch. Suddenly she felt his tongue touch her there. ‘Jamie, no!’

‘Shh, let me,’ he whispered, and she gave herself over to what he did to her, what he made her feel. He tasted her so deeply she could have no secrets from him. Waves of burning pleasure washed over her and she fell down into them. She drove her fingers into his hair and held him to her—she wanted more and more, she wanted all of him.

Her climax took hold of her, low at her very core, a building, burning pressure. She let it expand over her whole body until every coherent thought vanished and there was only feeling. Only him. As he thrust his tongue deep within her one more time she exploded.

‘Jamie,’ she breathed as she sank down to the bed, her legs spread as he knelt between them. He stared down at her, his grey eyes so dark they seemed almost black, his chest heaving with the force of his breath.

Catalina reached out to unfasten his breeches and push them away from his hips. He was hard with his own unfulfilled desire, velvet over hot iron, beckoning for her touch and she gave in to the temptation. She ran her hand slowly up his length and down again and he trembled at her caress. His erection strained against her hand, yet he held very, very still.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered harshly.

She sat up and pushed him down in her place so she could strip away his breeches and see the beauty of his naked body at last. The light from the fires through the canvas walls of the tent turned his skin to gold, and she touched every inch of him, wondering that he could be her husband.

‘Catalina, I can’t bear this much longer,’ he said as he reached up to caress her hair. She bent her head to kiss his shoulder, to bite lightly at his flat brown nipple. Suddenly he seized her by the hips and rolled her down to the bed as he rose up above her. He buried his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder, kissing her skin as she wrapped her arms around him and laughed out of sheer happiness.

‘Do you want me, Catalina?’ he whispered. ‘Do you want me inside you?’

‘Yes,’ she cried. She opened herself to him and he slid deeply into her, home at last. She wrapped her legs around him and closed her eyes as she felt him with her.

He drew back only to drive forward again and again, a delicious friction rough and hot inside of her. She listened to the harsh, uneven rhythm of his breath as they moved together, seeking their pleasure. He was part of her now, but she wanted everything he could give—and she wanted to give him everything in return.

Faster and faster they moved, their cries mingling. She rose up and caught his lips with hers as she felt her climax build again. She cried out at the sudden release, a shower of white and glowing blue sparks that seemed to fall over her. His back tightened under her touch, and he arched back as he shouted out her name.

He fell heavily to the bed beside her, facedown as he trembled. Catalina was shaking too, exhausted and exalted by the pleasure of their lovemaking.

By the sheer joy of being with Jamie. She opened her eyes to stare up at the canvas ceiling above them, breathing slowly and deeply until she could float back down to earth again. She smiled, feeling so wonderfully free. So perfectly where she should be.

Jamie wrapped his arm around her waist and hugged her close as she turned on her side with her back pressed to his chest. She ran her fingertips over his arm as she listened to the sound of his breath mingle with the night breeze outside.

‘Tell me a tale,’ she said softly.

Jamie chuckled sleepily. ‘What sort of tale?’

‘One of your home.’

‘I have told you about Castonbury already!’

Catalina laughed. ‘I want to hear it again. I want to know everything about you.’ Just as he knew her stories of her own life—her parents and their cold, correct home; her brother, lost fighting against a tyrannical king; her first marriage, so brief and so disappointing. She much preferred to hear about England and his family there.

Jamie laughed. ‘I don’t think you would want to know everything. You might not like me so much then.’

‘Never!’ Catalina protested. ‘Your home cannot be so awful. From what you have told me it sounds beautiful.’

‘Castonbury is beautiful, in its own terrible way.’ Jamie kissed her hair, but she could hear from the faraway note in his voice that he was somewhere else in his mind for the moment. ‘When I was a child I thought it was its own world, a playground for me and my siblings. We ran over the fields, fished and rowed on the lakes, played hide-and-seek behind the marble columns. Chased one another in front of gilded mirrors and under Waterford glass chandeliers and frescoed rotundas. We never realised how grand it all was.’

‘It sounds like a palace,’ Catalina murmured, trying to picture it all in her mind. Her own family’s home in Seville was ancient and filled with heirlooms from her relatives, but it was all crumbling and faded, past its grand days.

‘It was built to make everyone think that, to awe every visitor with how spectacular the Montague family has been. To make them think they have been transported to the villa of a Roman emperor.’

Jamie pressed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder. ‘It’s beautiful, but it is also deeply lonely.’

‘Is that why you left it? Why you came here?’

‘A person can so easily get lost at Castonbury and never find themselves at all. Perhaps that is why I came to Spain.’

‘To find yourself?’

‘To find you.’ Jamie turned her in his arms until she lay on her back, gazing up at him in the shadows. ‘Did you come here to find yourself?’

Catalina laughed. ‘I think I came here to escape. Bandaging wounds seemed much preferable to living as a proper Spanish widow, all swathed in black. My house never felt like a home either, not after my brother died.’

Her brother—he had been a brave man, willing to risk all for his belief in a constitution for Spain, a country free of tyranny and a better version of itself. Until he’d fallen foul of a king who wanted the exact opposite, and was willing to deal with the French to gain his ends. No, Seville had never been a home once he was gone.