CABALLERO DEL NORTE - Sex Stories

CABALLERO DEL NORTE

... heart pounded, and she felt as if she couldn't catch a full breath. It was ridiculous, absurd, but why couldn't she pull her eyes away from his? He still held her hand in his. Why hadn't she pulled that away? Shouldn't she pull it away? Had he used some sort of enchantment upon her? She was familiar with such, her father's lands had held enchanters and astrologers both aplenty, along with poets and philosophers. Her father! What would he say? But even as she asked herself she knew it didn't matter, nothing did. Nothing but this.

"Yes," she said, though it felt as if she were outside herself, incredulously watching and hearing herself say it. "Yes, I will marry you." Scandalous! "I will be your lady, your wife." Outlandish! But no less true for that.

He kissed her hand, "Negocio feito," he said in what must have been his language, though she did not understand the words. There was a pause then, a silent moment as if the universe was aligning around the new reality they had made.

A jolt of...something, something she had never felt before, shot through her. She pulled her hand from his, and he stood. Was it fear? Yes, but more, much more. This was nothing like her first betrothal. That had been, at first, blind hope mixed with disappointment at the distant, border-march location of her husband-to-be. Then more disappointment, and perhaps a touch of dread, once she had arrived and seen the corpulent prince in person during the ceremony. And that had finally all given ...

... way to resignation at her lot, and the finding of what consolation as there had been. This, on the other hand, was nothing for which she had any precedent in her own life, regardless of the fact northerners had taken Andalusian ladies to bride before (and, of course, vice-versa).

But more to the point, *he* was nothing for which she had any precedent before. She was at a loss as to the churning emotions inside of her as she looked at him, as he looked at her, eye to eye. They shouldn't be looking at each other that way, should they?

"I hope you will not think me too uncouth if I begin preparations immediately. Delay really does us no good, and anyway I do not mean to short-shrift it in any regard, so it will all take time."

She looked him over again appraisingly. He spoke and acted like a proper, educated noble rather than the rough highland bumpkin she had always pictured the Christian kingdoms in the north produced. By Allah, the man knew poetry! And he bore an aura of easy authority, doubtless from long battlefield command, as opposed to her now-dead husband, who had always seemed more like a spoiled, petulant child when he tried to be authoritative. It confused her, but maybe...maybe she was feeling hope, maybe there was room for hope in this. It was the best of her choices anyway, wasn't it?

She realized he was waiting on her for a response. A man, waiting on her word! Another shot of emotion surged through her. Who *was* this man, and how was he doing this to ...