"Godric," she said obediently.

And it seemed to appease him. He tongued his way down her throat, making her arch, making her wonder how very different he was from Roger. They'd met in trysts, Roger and she, and thus, perhaps by the very nature of their meetings, their joinings had been hurried-the flare of passion fast, nearly out of control, and over again much too quickly.

Godric, in contrast, seemed to enjoy simply exploring her. Taking his time as if he wanted to wring something from her. Something more than mere passion.

The thought made her uneasy.

He lifted his head suddenly as if he were aware her attention had wandered, his eyebrows drawn together over stormy gray eyes. "Say my name."

"Godric," she whispered.

He lowered his mouth to her right breast, licking around the sensitive nipple before abruptly drawing her into his mouth.

She gasped, her hands flying instinctively to his shorn hair, grasping uselessly at the too-short locks. He suckled strongly, his tongue working against the underside of the nipple, his fingers petting her other breast. That one point of pleasure was so intense, making her mouth open soundlessly.

He moved to her other breast, laving it before sucking for many long minutes. Her legs moved restlessly, her thighs clenching.

He raised his head above her, his eyes on her breasts, red and wet now. "My name."

"G-Godric."

He thumbed her nipples-in reward or punishment, she wasn't sure-as he began mouthing over her ribs and down her belly. He was heading in the same direction as he had the night before and she instinctively tensed.

He placed both hands flat against her hip bones and took the time to kiss her lower belly, just above where the springy hair began.

Then he looked at her face.

She licked her lips before parting them. "Godric."

He watched her as his hands grasped her thighs and slowly parted them, pushing until her legs were spread wide.

Then he looked down.

Instinctively she tried to bring her legs together again, but his hands were hard and firm. Not even Roger had examined her so closely. So intimately. The rooms they had trysted in had been dim. Even when he'd kissed her there, it had been only a fleeting touch. She'd been so embarrassed ...

Was so embarrassed.

She knew-knew-she was wet there, her curls moist, and she couldn't possibly be pretty. Why would he want to do such a thing? Stare at her so long without moving? She looked wildly at all the candles lit around the room. Would he put them out if she asked?

"Say my name." His voice, even lower, even more gravelly than usual, interrupted her frantic thoughts.

"G-Godric."

It was as if his name on her lips put spur to him. He lowered his head so fast she hadn't the time to react, to try to pull him back, and once he'd found his goal ...

She didn't want to.

She'd never felt such a wicked thing. He was licking her. Licking into her folds, lapping at that hard pebble at the apex of her slit, tonguing his way in deeper, circling and probing. She caught her breath and then couldn't exhale, her body shivering, her soul quaking. How was she supposed to endure this? How was she supposed to survive it? There were sounds-moist, intimate sounds. The sound of him pleasuring her in an act that felt like a primitive branding. How did he know? Where had he learned such monstrous, awful, excruciatingly wonderful things?

He opened his mouth, placed it over her clitoris, and sucked, and then she completely lost her mind.

It went flying out the window as she arched under him and moaned, low and embarrassingly loud-well, it would've been embarrassing if she'd still had her mind, which she did not. Because he was doing something so deliciously sinful that she was actually pushing against him with her hips, whining under her breath, wanting more. And he just kept doing it. Sucking and licking and-oh!-thrusting a finger inside of her until she exploded. She felt the combustion, the tremors, the roaring in her ears, and then the wonderful, languorous warmth. It snuck through her limbs, turning her muscles to pudding, her bones to ginger biscuits, utterly weak and sweet and open.

Megs giggled. Perhaps she had lost her mind.

She opened her eyes to see Godric sitting up beside her, watching her, his lips curved gently and his gray eyes almost warm.

"Godric," she whispered, and held out her hand to him.

He took her hand, spreading her fingers and kissing each one.

She caught her breath, her eyes blurring. He touched her as if he cherished her. As if what they were doing here was more than a simple physical act. He was standing beside the bed now, stripping off his breeches and stockings and pulling his shirt over his head. She watched him and saw that his pendant was a small key around his neck on a silver chain. Then she was distracted by the sight of his bare chest, and here in the light from all the candles she could see the scars: a twisted white line along his rib cage, a raised welt on one shoulder and an indent on his left forearm as if a chunk of his flesh had been ripped away sometime in the past. And yet, despite the scars-maybe even because of them-she found him beautiful. His chest was wide, the curves of his upper arms and shoulders well delineated. He had a diamond of body hair centered between his dark nipples, and his belly was taut and lean. His waist tapered gracefully into his hips, and- He lowered his smallclothes and she stared. He rose ruddy and proud, the round crown of his penis shining with liquid and his balls drawn up tight underneath. She'd never seen Roger completely nude. Never seen any other man completely nude. It was a glorious sight. She was glad, suddenly, that he was her husband. That she could be selfish in this one thing: no one else could ever see him like this. He was hers.

Even if it was only for a time.

Her eyes rose to his and she saw that he stood watching as she looked her fill at him.

She blushed. "Godric."

And he smiled, tight, approving, and predatory in a wholly masculine way.

He placed a knee on the bed and leaned over her. "Now. Now I take you, just you and me, Megs."

There was still a twinge of doubt in her, a fearful shiver that she was betraying Roger. But she'd hurt Godric, she knew that, and he'd never done more than offer her kindness.

So she smiled back tremulously. "Just you and me."

He lowered himself over her, settling between her spread thighs, and she could feel the heavy, slick weight of his cock, sliding from her thigh to wedge in her cleft.

She inhaled. She'd just come, lovely and hard, and her flesh was sensitive to his heat, his weight, his intimate dominance of her. He framed her face with his hands and lowered his head toward her. The kiss was gentle, almost reverent, and tears sprang to her eyes. This wasn't what she'd wanted, what she'd thought she'd needed. He was weaving a web of intimacy, strand by intangible strand that, knotted together, would become an unbreakable net, holding her tight until she no longer even considered escape.

Her thoughts scattered as he lifted his hips a fraction and his erection dragged through her valley.

Her breath hitched.

He was rubbing, their mingled dampness making the glide so slick, so sweet. She smiled at him in invitation and saw as he raised his head that his lips were curved as well.

"Now."

He notched the tip of his penis in her and began to push. Inexorably, relentless in his strength. In his determination. He watched her, locking eyes as he breached her entrance, as he made a place for himself within her, as he joined their bodies together.

She was open beneath him, her body, her cunny, her mouth, her face, everything. Open, splayed wide, absolutely vulnerable.

Then he began to move.

Just a little, hardly retreating at all, as if he couldn't bear to leave the welcoming warmth of her body. Hard little shoves that jolted her each time.

She arched her neck, her head tilted back against the pillows, her eyelids half lowered, but her gaze still locked with his. She widened her legs even more, receiving him like the offering, the promise this was.

And he seemed to know what she was doing. His expression didn't change, but his breath caught, his eyelids lowering just a fraction as he hitched his elbows under her knees and drew her legs up even farther. He held the upper half of his body up off her now, putting pressure on that one point of contact between them as he ground and ground and ground against her.

It caught her by surprise when it came, no slow buildup, no warmth diffusing through her body. This was fast and hard, a fire sweeping through limbs already weakened by the previous orgasm. She was dimly aware of her hands scrabbling at his sides, his shoulders, as she tried to urge him to do something. She was going to expire, to die, if he didn't pick up his pace, didn't take his cock and ram it into her.

And whether because he could sense her extremity or because he was there himself, he did it. He let her legs fall and braced himself on his strong, straight arms and slammed his hips into her, making violent, urgent, blissful contact with her. The bed rocked, the headboard banging rhythmically against the wall, and any other time she would have been mortified, but right now ... right now she was in paradise. White light obscured her vision as bliss flooded her being, seizing her, shaking her, giving her life.

She could fly like this, perhaps live eternally.

She came down from the heights with her limbs liquid, just in time to see Godric. His head was arched, his eyes closed, his chest shining with sweat, and his lips drawn back over his teeth as if he were in extremis. He was beautiful like this, a god made mortal in his physical delight, and she stared in awe. At the last minute, his eyes snapped open, staring at her, gray and fervent, and she gasped.

It was as if he let her see into his soul.

He dropped then, his head falling forward limply, his body collapsing down. He rolled to the side as if he feared crushing her, and she had a moment's disappointment: she wanted to feel his weight.

She lay there, catching her breath, feeling her skin grow chill. She turned her head to look at him, her husband. He lay, his expression more relaxed than she'd ever seen it before, the lines smoothed from his face, one arm thrown over his head, those elegant fingers lax and curling. A single drop of perspiration trembled at his temple and she wanted to touch it, to rub it into his skin and feel the man beneath the armor he wore. She reached out a hand, but he was moving now, rolling from the bed, getting up without a word.

She stared, drawing the coverlet over herself. "What are you doing?"

He didn't look at her. "I need to go."

"Where?" she whispered, feeling lost, abandoned.

"St. Giles."

Chapter Fourteen.

Grief leaned forward with an oily smile and touched Faith's sleeve. "Do you see the souls drifting here and there in the wind? They are what remains of babes, dead before they were born. They'll stay here, wailing for their mothers' teats, until the earth falls into the sun." Faith shivered. "How awful! 'Tis not their fault that they died thus."

Grief grinned, his impish tail whipping back and forth. "Aye, but there is no justice in Hell. For them or for your beloved."

Faith frowned and pushed Grief from the horse. ...

-From The Legend of the Hellequin "Over there," Alf said later that night. He whispered so close to Godric's ear that he could feel the boy's panting breaths. Alf was scared, though he hid it well. "In that cellar across the way. Do y'see?"

"Aye."

This was the second-and biggest-workshop of the night. He'd already freed six girls from a shed in the back of a foul courtyard-a relatively easy operation, as there had been only two guards, one of them drunk.

Now both Godric and Alf lay prone on a roof catty-corner from the cellar he'd indicated. "Is there another way in?"

Alf shook his head decisively. "Not that I ever saw."

Godric grunted, analyzing. The lassie snatchers had chosen a good spot for the workshop. The cellar door lay within a narrow well-any attackers would be exposed from behind and perforce would have to enter single file.

Of course, he'd always planned to enter by himself, so the point was moot.

Winter had argued in favor of bringing in more men for this second workshop when Godric had delivered the first six shivering girls to him. Godric was loath to trust anyone else, though, both with possible exposure of his identity and with the attack itself. He was used to working alone. This way he didn't have to rely on another's skill and dependability.

No one could fail him if he only had himself.

"There's two guards." Alf's whisper was barely audible even this close.

Godric glanced at him, and for a moment his eyes were caught by the delicacy of his profile. Something twinged at the back of his mind-something that bothered him about the boy.

Alf jerked his chin forward, distracting him. "See? One by the door, one at the entrance o' the alley."

"And another one on the roof," Godric replied.

Alf started, his gaze swinging in that direction. "Sharp eyes," he said grudgingly. "What'll you do? There's only one o' you."

"Let me worry about that," Godric whispered, rising to his haunches. "You stay here and don't get involved. I don't want to have to worry about you as well as them."

Mutiny flashed in Alf's eyes and Godric respected the scamp more for it.

Then the boy looked at the three toughs guarding the workshop and nodded. "Luck, then."

Godric smiled at him. "Thank you."

He was off, running silently across the roof in a crouch. He leaped away from the building housing the cellar, moving in a wide circle as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. He was careful about it, taking a good fifteen minutes to work his way around until he was in back of the guard on the roof over the cellar. Then it was a simple matter of stealth and quiet. Killing the guard wasn't hard: a firm, quick grasp on the guard's hair, a vicious tug to bare his neck, and a lightning-strike cut across his throat. The difficulty came in making sure the guard made no sound before he died.

But he didn't. Godric had more than enough experience to make sure it was so.

The man at the end of the alley was next; the fact that he stood in the open made it a bit more complicated. When the man turned at the last moment as Godric rushed him, Godric was forced to jab him hard in the throat before he could kill him. The man fell, wheezing quietly-the vulnerable hollow of his neck was crushed; he'd suffocate before too long.

Godric's dagger thrust was quick and merciful.

He couldn't waste a second after that. It was only a matter of time before the third guard noticed that his compatriot no longer stood at the end of the alley and gave the alarm. Godric scaled the building again, his chest heaving silently, his arms and shoulders burning as he hauled himself up. He ran over the rooftop, pausing only to see where the guard stood below, and leaped into space.

He landed square atop the guard and the man fell, smashing his head against the cobblestones. He didn't move again.

But as Godric landed on the guard, he tumbled to the side, instinctively bracing himself on his left hand. Pain, white hot and blinding, flashed through his wrist. For a moment, nausea boiled in his throat and he feared he'd lose his stomach.

He stood, staggering a little.

Godric ran down the cellar stairs and kicked in the door.

The interior was black. A figure came rushing at him, but Godric was ready for the attack. He used his left shoulder to deflect the man's body and then thrust his sword into his belly. The interior guard slumped, his eyes wide as he looked down at his bloody stomach. Godric withdrew his sword with a heave that made him swallow convulsively and looked around.

A second man dropped his pistol and backed, hands raised. "Mercy! Don't kill me!"

"Bob," the bleeding man moaned. "Bob."