< previous page page_231 next page >

Page 231
examine him while he caressed her face and throat and hands. It would have been possible to lift her skirts and deliver more intimate caresses, but it never occurred to Simon to do so. Such behavior was for common hedge-whores or a serf girl in the fields. Those were acts of physical relief in which the woman was not a partner but nearly an inanimate vessel.
Although most casual sexual encounters took place out of doors, Simon had no association of those acts with what he was doing with Rhiannon. One never bothered to bare either body for a swift, impersonal coupling like that. In any case, that was the smallest part of Simon's sexual experience. He had a strong distaste for low whores and stinking serf girls. Most of his associations with coupling were in the dim light of a shuttered room or in the stuffy darkness of a curtained bed.
To lie with a woman he cared for in the open light of day was new and thrilling. To do so with Rhiannon was somehow "right." She was a creature of field and forest; hall or keep were only temporary shelters for her. Suddenly Simon was washed with urgencynot to take Rhiannon, but to see her body white and bare, glinting in the sunshine.
Simon broke the long kiss they had held and lifted Rhiannon to her knees. Her hands clung to his body, slipping from shoulder to waist to thigh as he raised her more upright. Gently he disengaged her skirt and lifted her dress. She had been reluctant to change positions at first, but now she understood what he wanted and rapidly pulled off her gown and the simple shift she wore beneath it. She had been barefoot when she left the house, so there was nothing else. Simon drew a breath at the strong, lithe perfection of her body framed by the green, waving brush behind her.
Now he touched her, stroking berry-brown cheek, smooth tanned throat, golden satin shoulder, and on down to the white velvet breast with its warm brown

 
< previous page page_231 next page >