The Knight's Fugitive Lady

The soldiers moved away from them, their bawdy teasing drifting on the breeze, but Lussac barely noticed. The faint awareness that he should end the kiss now, that the ruse had worked, tickled at his conscious mind. The thought was an unnecessary irritant; he dismissed it, flicking it away like a fly on the window-pane. The maid tasted of roses, this silver girl who could swing through the air with ease, a sweet powerful nectar that twisted around his senses, winching him in, stronger, closer. Bracing his sturdy frame against her, he curved his big arms around her back, lifting the lithe fragility of her body against him. At the intimate, shuddering impact of his body, Katerina gasped, hands clutching at his bulky shoulders for support. Her feet swung inches from the ground. Against her lips, he smiled, his tongue delving into the warm recesses of her open, unsuspecting mouth. Exhilaration, boiling, spiking, swept through her, a thrill of pleasure as his tongue entwined with hers; and for one single precious moment, she forgot who she was, and where she was, surrendering to the astonishing sensations coursing through her body.

And then it was over.

Wrenching his mouth from hers, Lussac stepped back, his breathing hoarse, ragged. Unsupported, her limbs strangely weak, fluid, Katerina flopped back against the solid stone, bracing herself against the wall with flat palms. Like a piece of linen cloth forced through the mangle, a strange, wrung-out sensation gripped her body. Her lips burned.

‘How dare you kiss me like that!’ she flung at him, across the tense, icy silence. But her accusation sounded feeble, pathetic, like a mewl of a half-drowned kitten.