EXTRACT FOR
The Maiden's Choice
(Alana Church)

When she turned back to him, Sean was stunned. Gone was the elegant woman of a moment before. In front of him was a wild creature, her dress ripped, showing vast expanses of her legs and bosom. Her hair was mussed and her chest rose and fell spasmodically, as if she had just been engaged in some desperate exertion.



"Oh Captain," she cried, hurling herself into his arms, "Thank the Deity you came to save me from those vicious bandits!" Her face was pressed against his chest, but her hands worked inside his shirt, caressing his muscled stomach. She lifted her face to look at him, and he could not help look down the length of her throat to the curves of her heaving breasts. "However shall I thank you?"



Sean's mind raced. "Thanks are not needed, Lady Angela..."



"Lady Angela?" she exclaimed. "I am not she. Do you not recognize me? I am Priestess Diana, whom you agreed to guide to my new temple. But I see now, my lord Captain, you are wounded. Did the blow on your head addle your wits?"



"Only for a moment, my lady priestess," said Sean. He was beginning to see how the game was played. "Pray, tell me," he continued, striving for the tone and rhythm of the plays he sometimes attended in the town, "Are you well? You come to me so disheveled that I must think those bandits have done you an injury."



"Nay, my good Captain, for you arrived in time to save my virtue, if I had any virtue to be saved," she said with a throaty laugh. Her hands drifted lower, teasing his body. "Indeed, I was impressed by the work you did with your...sword. Please, accompany me to yonder bower, where I may bathe your wounds and put you at ease."



She led him out of the parlor and into the hall. Sean watched, amazed, as he walked beside her. Without breaking stride, Diana somehow managed to remove her gown. A loosening of a belt, a quick rip of a seam, and rags and tatters floated to the floor. Within moments, the priestess of the Wanton was strutting next to him, clad only in a pair of heeled sandals.



Taking Sean by the hand, she led him to her private rooms. Early in her marriage to Paul, she had realized the time would come when she would need her own place. The Wanton was strong within her, and her wisdom foretold that one day she would take a lover other than her husband, and that their bedchamber would be a poor place to consummate a relationship.



Indeed, this chamber was very much like her rooms in the temple of the Wanton. The bed was different, but no less magnificent, and she had managed to convince the temple to sell her many of her favorite tapestries.



"Lie down, brave captain, while I tend you," she said.