Toward that end he brought his other hand forward, skimming along her tunic, fingers slowly smoothing over the fabric. He just barely felt her quick inhalation of surprise, felt her control it and steel herself to his touch as comprehension of what he intended flashed in her eyes. And now every action and reaction became a dare, a challenge for who would yield.

He held true to course, his hand slipping beneath the tunic, stroking slowly, so slow that to watch her flat and unresponsive stare was hypnotic. It was deliciously obscene, the way his hand slipped beneath her layers of linen and mail to find the swell of her hip, small and barely rounded, a soft curve hidden beneath the steel. It roused him to wonder what other curves he could find in her body, what other woman’s secrets were hidden among the sharp angles and hard muscles.

His hand reached her curls, and he imagined them as night-dark as the black tresses her Welshmen named her for. He watched her eyes widen slightly as her mail gave a faint chink, his fingers moving to the moist warmth between her thighs, some of it her own wetness, some of it from the water at his feet. As he touched her, her hand shot out. She grasped his arm just above the wrist, as though to stop him from going further.

He raised an eyebrow at her, questioning. Curiosity and a faint fear were there in her, but both were overpowered by the distinct feel of her outrage. He welcomed it. She was stubborn and prideful, and if she was angry then he knew she would not back down, not even from this. Even as he thought it, her expression changed from angry surprise to a defiant indifference, a determination to show him that what he did had no effect on her. Her hand remained on his forearm, but relaxed, the rest of her still as stone. He felt the blood leap up in him, now the contest was fully engaged.

It was a strange sensation, to have his hand up the skirt of a woman, fondling her as her armor gently sounded with every movement of his hand. He shifted his gaze from her eyes that hid too much, and looked instead at her mouth. The full lips pressed against his thumb as his other hand moved, sliding silently, slow and steady, teasingly sure.

He had not thought of her like a woman, not her body. But it was surpassing soft, her skin. It was a softness he felt like a fire. And she was hot there, like any woman. Hot and soft and slick, and her mouth so ripe, so ready to be kissed. His body reacted as with any woman, only more urgent, more aroused by the novelty of it, the thought of her submission, of her defeat. The thought of her lips, so full and opening now, softly, slightly, there beneath his thumb.