“Stop it!” she hissed at her sister. “Are you trying to show everyone what an idiot you are?”
Atia yanked herself away from her sister and ran straight for her father who, having seen his youngest daughter waving at him, made his way towards his girls. Atia grabbed hold of his arm, pulling on him, as he smiled tolerantly at her.
“Have you gone to Pullum as I have instructed?” he asked his girls.
They nodded in unison but Lygia answered. “We have,” she said. “Pullum asked us to help bathe and tend the lady, but it would be too difficult to do it in Pullum’s hut. May we bring her to ours, Pa?”
Antillius considered it. “It might be better if we put her someplace where she would not be disturbed,” he said. “There would be noise in our cottage with many people walking about. There is an empty hut near the pool since the death of old Drucilla. Why not put her there? It would be quiet and peaceful.”
Lygia thought that was a good idea. “I shall have the copper tub put in that cottage for her,” she said. “We shall go and make her bed. Where are her possessions?”
Antillius shook his head. “With her soldiers, I would imagine,” he said. “I will ask.”
“About the soldiers, Pa,” Atia said, hanging on his arm. “Who are they?”
Antillius knew his youngest well enough to know that she wasn’t asking purely to be polite. Atia had an eye for young men and was quite enamored with the opposite sex as a whole.
“They are from France,” he told her. “They have come to our lands seeking a comrade who has been abducted and they are simply passing through.”
Atia was thrilled to hear they were from a mysterious, far-off land. That’s what France was to the isolated young woman, something she’d only heard about in stories. “Can we speak with them, Pa?” she begged. “I would like to hear of their travels and of their home. Please, can we speak with them?”
Antillius knew that question would come, at some point. He just didn’t think it would come so soon. He patted Atia on her soft cheek. “Not yet,” he said. “I do not know these men. I do not know their hearts. Let me determine that they are men of good character before I permit my daughters to be around them.”
Atia’s face fell with disappointment. “But –!”
Antillius grasped her chin and gave her a gentle shake. “Not yet,” he told her firmly. “We have allowed these men into our world but I do not trust them yet. We do not know them. You will stay away from them until such time as I deem it appropriate to have contact with them. If you do not obey me, I will take a branch to you, Atia. Do you understand?”
Atia sighed heavily, grossly disappointed. “Aye,” she said. “But I have heard you speak of finding new blood for our people, Pa. You have said yourself that our numbers are less and less every year, that less babies are born. Would not men such as these bring the new blood you have spoken of?”
Antillius had, indeed, spoken of that very thing at times; after centuries of inbreeding and sickness, his people were a dying race. He knew that. He had hoped for strong husbands for his daughters to bring new bloodlines into their tribe. And it was, indeed, possible that these warriors were the new blood that he had hoped for, but it was far too early to tell. He couldn’t even guess. As he told Atia, he did not know these men. He didn’t know their hearts or their deeds and, until he did, he would continue to be wary of them.
“I cannot know this and you will not speak of it again,” he said, kissing Atia’s unhappy face before turning to his elder daughters. “I have just seen Pullum over near the kitchens and she is finished binding the lady’s leg, so go and prepare the empty cottage for her. Get along with your tasks and I will see you later.”
The girls nodded and he headed off, moving in the general direction of their cottage. Lygia turned in the same direction, pulling her sisters along.
“You have heard him,” she said. “Let us prepare Drucilla’s old cottage for our guest. Atia, did you find something for her to wear?”
Atia made a face at her sister but that face quickly changed into a fake smile when Lygia turned to look at her. Lygia knew her sister was upset with her but that couldn’t be helped. Strangers in their midst had them all edgy with excitement and some fear, for it was extremely rare for them to have any visitors at all.
Truth be told, Lygia was already thinking ahead to the meal that night. She and her sisters would help supervise the meal, as daughters of the tribal chief, and she was already wondering how she was going to keep Atia from making a fool of herself over the handsome strangers.
Secretly, Lygia thought they were fairly handsome as well.
Gaetan had bedded many women in his life, but not like this.
Never, like this.
In the old woman’s hut, as the sounds of a gentle rain began to fall outside, Ghislaine and Gaetan were only partially disrobed as their bodies came together in the ancient primal mating rhythm. Because of Ghislaine’s bad leg, she ended up on her hands and knees, her tattered trousers down around one ankle and her cote and shift up around her shoulders as the bulk of her tender white body was laid wide for Gaetan’s touch.
Her buttocks were elevated to him as he held her aloft by the hips, his manhood deep in her body as he thrust repeatedly into her, trying to keep any pounding off of her right leg. It was tricky, to be sure, and Ghislaine was contorted rather oddly, but the beauty of the moment, the sensuality of it, was beyond measure.
Having been married before, Ghislaine knew how to welcome a man’s body. She knew how to move with him, and how to give him pleasure, because the moment Gaetan had entered her, she’d tightened up the muscles of her slick sheath to maximize his bliss. Gaetan had groaned with delight when he felt her body contract around him but the excitement of it, and her expert touch, very nearly threw him into a climax at the onset.
He had to still himself, slapping her buttocks gently to distract both him and her from what she was doing, but the slap against her buttocks had given Ghislaine the first of what had, so far, been two releases. Gaetan had felt them both against his manroot, that great throbbing that signified a woman’s satisfaction.
He wasn’t able, at the moment, to touch any other part of her body because of the way he held her hips elevated against his, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Everything he was doing below the waist, with his manhood as he ground his pelvis against her buttocks, was enough for the moment. He never knew lovemaking could be so euphoric to his heart or so satisfying to his soul.
It was heaven.