Bathing in the River

The river shimmered silver in the late light, its surface broken only by the lazy drift of leaves. Isla slipped into the water, her body glowing with the sheen of sun and spray. Each movement was languid, almost ritual—the way her hands smoothed water down her arms, the curve of her breasts rising and falling as she exhaled, and the subtle sway of her hips as she waded deeper. She longed for this bath after a grueling ride from Nuremberg.

Her thoughts lingered back to the bathhouse, and then to that scented chamber -- where she held her heart closer to herself, away from the knight who wanted to hold her more than just a few nights of passion.

"Marry me," the knight's gentle voice echoed in her mind in this darkness.

Isla hoped that as she rode north, farther from Nuremberg, she would forget that she denied herself love. Lord Konrad gave her freedom and a travel pass as part of that deal. She gave him her body for a time. And that should be enough. To be out of someone's service and not owned by anyone was a feeling she had almost forgotten, and she fought hard to reclaim it. And she won't let it go. No, not even for love.

So she bathed in this river as a ritual to fully embrace this freedom, shutting her eyes to feel the smooth flow of water all over her, imagining that it could wash away all the stains and pains of servitude from the last ten years. She opened her eyes and saw the clouds revealing the full moon, thanking her God that the nightmares of servitude, at least for her, had finally ended. Even if she did not know all the things that lay ahead, she felt that the moonlight kissed her on the forehead, blessing this sought-after chapter of her life.
The moon was high; a silver lantern hung in the heavens. Isla dipped her hands into the current and poured it over her shoulders, her lips moving with words no one could hear. They weren’t German, nor Latin, but softer, older — a remnant of some cradle song her mother once sang beneath another sky.
She closed her eyes and tilted her face to the light, as if the river and moon together formed a mirror, blessing her skin. The water slid down her breasts, her stomach, her thighs — not only cleansing but marking her in a rhythm older than any chapel bell.
From the shadowed bank, unseen eyes followed. Those eyes were grayish blue, and now with a touch of silver -- just when the moonlight touched their pools. These wonderful eyes belonged to Lord Arthur. He was there, watching Isla in awe.
Arthur, hidden among the reeds, felt as though he spied on a ritual he could not name. She was not only a woman bathing — she was something rarer, wilder. A fragment of another world, reborn under the silver gaze of the moon.
He stood still; the spear in his hand slackened as if forgotten. He had not meant to spy—yet the sight of her bare skin, golden and dripping against the green of the river, rooted him in place. His chest ached with something more than hunger, something like reverence. She was unlike any woman of his homeland—carved of warmer suns and softer seas—and he found himself unable to look away.
Then the water broke.
A flash of scales. A streak of muscle. The surface shattered as a great pike lunged, jaws snapping toward Isla’s thigh. She gasped, thrashing, the creature’s teeth almost scraping her flesh as she stumbled backward in the water.
Arthur’s body moved before he thought. He hurled his spear, the iron point striking the beast broadside. The water boiled with its thrashing spray, leapt high, Isla’s scream mingling with the splash of the dying giant fish. In two long strides, he was in the river, pulling her toward him even as the pike writhed once more before floating belly-up in the current.
She clung to him, her breath fast against his chest, water dripping from her hair and shoulders. For a moment, he felt her heart hammering through her skin into his own, and the sight of her lips parted in shock nearly undid him.
The men came running from camp at the noise, finishing the kill and dragging the massive fish ashore. But Arthur barely heard them. His eyes stayed on Isla, the way the droplets ran down her collarbone, the way her trembling slowly stilled in his arms.
When at last she stepped back, he felt the sudden absence like a wound.
Arthur stepped forward to cover Isla’s body with her cape quickly from the feasting eyes of his men. Isla couldn’t say any word; all was like a flash of lightning in the waters. The handsome lord extended his hand as he smiled at her.
“You are safe now.”
She looked at him, her chest heaving, droplets clinging to her skin like pearls. For a moment, neither moved. Then she took his hand.

 
Campsite
The fire roared as the massive pike’s flesh sizzled over the flames. Men laughed for their lord’s victory, voices raised in rough songs. But Arthur’s attention wandered again and again to the woman now wrapped in a blanket by his side.

She ate little and spoke less. But every tilt of her head, every curl of her lips as she smiled faintly at some soldier’s jest, pierced him deeper than any blade could. He found himself staring at her hands as she warmed them by the fire—slender fingers, yet scarred faintly, traces of a past she hadn’t spoken of.
She moves like she belongs nowhere, he thought. And yet she makes this camp her own with only a glance.
He asked her, “Where does your road lead? ”
She met his eyes across the firelight, her gaze steady.
“North,” she said. “As far as my freedom will carry me.”
The words, spoken in an Iberian accent, burned into him. He wanted to ask more, but the men grew louder, and the fire spat sparks into the night.
Still, in his chest, the thought grew: If she asked me, I would ride with her. This would mean leaving everything else behind.

In Arthur’s Tent

Later, when the camp quieted, Isla stepped into Arthur’s tent.
“Your leg wound,” Isla said simply, nodding at his side where the pike’s teeth left some gashes.
He smirked. “It is nothing.”
But when she came closer, unwrapping her bundle of herbs and cloth, he obeyed.
“The dirt in your damp tunic will make the wounds worse.”
Slowly, as if some magic did not make him question anything, he shed his damp tunic with blood stains in front of this beautiful lady. The fabric slid from his shoulders, baring the breadth of him.
Isla forgot to breathe. Arthur's arms were thick with the corded strength of years spent wielding steel, every vein and sinew alive beneath his skin. His stomach was tight, ridged, and hard as if sculpted by a master’s hand, a living statue. Every line of him spoke of brute force, yet when he moved, it was with grace.
Her eyes traveled down—from the gleam in his hazel eyes to the dampness of his mouth—before they found the small, reddish-brown spots scattered across his skin. They dotted his neck, spread across his broad chest, and trailed down toward the hard lines of his stomach. They formed constellations only she could read, a map of stars begging for her lips to chart them.
She then knelt, holding his right leg. Her fingers grazed as she pressed a cloth to his wound. He flinched, but not from pain. His breath quickened.
Arthur’s thoughts tangled.
Does she know what she does to me? Every glance of hers could cut me open. Every touch could undo me. And still, I would beg for more.
Her hand trembled just once when she finished applying the last touch of balm.
As she stood up, their eyes met. 
“Show me your scars,” he said softly.
She stilled. But slowly, as though compelled, she pulled her sleeves. Pale welts marked her skin—lashes long healed but never erased on her arms and hands. Arthur’s jaw tightened.
Without hesitation, he bent and kissed the ones on her wrists. Then another on her arms. Then all of them, his lips tracing her pain with reverence.
She gasped, trembling now for reasons that had nothing to do with the past. He looked up at her, eyes burning.
“I adore you,” he whispered. “Body and soul. Use me as it suits you.”
Before she could protest, he lay back on his cot, pulling her gently forward. Her brow furrowed, but his eyes held nothing but devotion, burning and open. He sank back onto the furs, his tunic discarded, his chest bare, the constellation of moles glowing like embers in the firelight. Then, slowly, he lay flat—spreading himself in surrender.
“Come,” he said, voice husky, lips parting. “Sit over me. Make me worship you so you can forget every lash.”
Her pulse throbbed hot in her throat. The scars on her back prickled with the memory of chains—and yet here was a lord offering his body not as a master, not as a captor, but as a man undone by her. What's so different about this man, she would like to know -- or feel. Especially because the way he beseeched her made her undress and step out of her beige chemise.
Their silence was like a prayer, broken only by their deep breathing.
Isla locked eyes with Arthur. What a unique thought to be the one to capture someone like this. At least like this. She climbed over him, her knees at his broad shoulders. His hands, reverent, steadied her thighs. His breath fanned over her inner flesh, already slick with longing. His shaft hardened, straining as her heat pulsed just above his lips. When his tongue finally pressed into her folds, she gasped—the sound raw, startled, and helpless.
Arthur groaned beneath her, as though her taste itself was salvation -- from his agony, from his longing; he did not really know. But he was so sure he must have her right there. He licked her soft folds, slowly at first, then deeper, circling, teasing, plunging, and devouring as if his very life depended on her pleasure.
Isla’s hips began to rock, unbidden, in rhythm with the strokes of his tongue. His strong chest rose beneath her, a living altar, and she gave in—grinding softly, then harder, gasping as the waves built inside her.
Her fingers tangled in his ash brown hair, pulling, guiding, her voice breaking into moans that filled the tent as she arched her body backwards. Arthur did not stop, did not falter. His arms tightened around her thighs, holding her to his mouth as if he feared she would flee before he could worship her fully.
Isla sank lower to his mouth, now lapping up the water gushing from her cave. She pushed her hips down his neck at a faster pace as his tongue thrust deeper and deeper, hitting her cave’s inner walls, making her catch her breath. Arthur pulled her more towards his face so he could hit her innermost core. He could feel his shaft almost exploding, but he held himself together.
More water tore through her, and she cried out—a sound between rage and release, a lifetime of chains breaking in one shudder. Her hips quaked against his lips, her body dripping onto his tongue. He drank her down, eyes closed, lost in her as if she were the only truth left on earth.
Isla’s cry filled the tent.
Her climax came in waves, wet and fierce, spilling all warmth onto his tongue. He swallowed greedily, eyes locked with hers still.
“Again,” he murmured, breathless. “Let me serve you at your pleasure.”
She looked down at him—this English knight with constellations on his chest and fire in his devotion—and thought, "Perhaps I am not the only one who carries storms."
Her thighs still trembled as she lifted herself from his mouth, her body slick with release. She adjusted, sliding back, her breath ragged, her eyes never leaving Arthur’s. He pushed himself up slowly, muscles shifting, his wound forgotten in the fever between them.
She settled on his lap, the swollen head of his hard and purple thick shaft pressing against her wetness, and they both paused—not rushing, savoring the moment before she sank onto him.
His arms wrapped around her waist, steadying her as she enveloped him inch by inch, their sighs mingling into the warm tent air. 
Her lips found his chest, kissing along the constellation of moles she had studied earlier. One star, then another, a trail of soft, reverent kisses that made his breath catch. Arthur buried a hand in her dark hair, caressing gently, guiding her closer even as he let her set the pace.
They moved slowly, their rhythm unhurried—hips rocking, lips exploring, hands learning. She kissed his neck and his jaw before finding his mouth at last. Their kiss was deep and wet, a union of hunger and tenderness.
Arthur whispered between gasps, “Yours… I am yours.”
Isla’s fingers pressed into his shoulders, her body answering with rolling waves of pleasure. This time, there was no bargaining, no debt—only two bodies locked in quiet surrender, rising together.
Isla lifted her head from kissing Arthur’s neck. Then she touched his face and pulled him closer to her breasts. Arthur instantly obeyed. Enchanted by the full, ripe breasts bouncing in front of him, he planted his lips and nibbled on them.
“You are so lovely.”
Soon, he bit her breasts hungrily and lapped up the sweat on her cleavage and her neck. He thrust faster and faster, which made her whimper. He shook her inner walls as his shaft reached her core, deeper, stronger, and more passionate.
“Don’t stop!" Isla screamed. Arthur groaned.
He bucked his hips upwards to hit her most hidden spot, strongly that she felt she would melt down there like a waterfall.
His seed began to spill, hot and urgent, deep inside her. Torrents of warmth flowed into her cave, and her legs gripped his shaft even more.
“Give it all to me, my Lord,” she lovingly commanded.
And in his last thrust, with a deep grunt, her waterfall gushed and flowed down his shaft buried within her cave. They reached ecstasy in full abandon. So warm, so free-flowing, so new. Then a slow surrender, a breaking open into one another that left them trembling, foreheads pressed close, wrapped in the heat of shared breath.
Arthur ended his worship of his goddess with a deep kiss.
“You are like my fantasy that came alive.”
Isla smiled. For the first time, she understood what it was to be adored.

Now the Lord and the free woman whom he worshipped collapsed onto the cot. He opened his arm wide, urging her to curl into his chest. She grazed her fingertips along the chiseled strength of his arm. He nuzzled her hair and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. She guided his hand to press her chest so he could feel her heartbeat.
There, they stayed in each other’s arms, fingers entwined, listening to each other’s breathing until they drifted to sleep to welcome the next sunlight.