The Conqueror

Moisture glittered in droplets on his dark hair as he lowered his head to her neck and grazed the sensitive skin with his teeth. Her breath shot out in a rush. Down her spine went a shiver, bolting across her breasts and belly.

“You want it too, Gwyn, don’t you?” he asked in a husky rumble.

“God in Heaven,” she whispered, feeling surrender reach for her, drag her under.

“Don’t you?” he whispered, taunting her with her own raging need. “’Tis why you came looking for me, isn’t it?”

He pressed her against the wall with his body, pushing her legs apart with his knee, bending her head back with his lips. In a smooth, practiced, breathtaking move, he lifted her up so she was astride his muscular thighs, her legs dangling on either side. He shifted and unlaced his codpiece. It fell away, leaving his arousal throbbing between them. Hot, like a velvet rod, he fell on her and she threw her head back. Her hands entwined around his neck and her body began moving, sliding against him as small explosions of heat sent her dizzy. His fingers searched along her folds and came away drenched.

With a smile damaging to her sanity, he looked at her. “Do not tell me no when your body says ‘aye.’”

In a perfect move, he slid himself inside her with a satisfied growl. He pressed his palms against the stone above her head. She was supported by the wall and his powerful thighs, held between his arms. She ran her fingers down the wet fabric that clung to his torso, feeling muscles flexed with exertion. Her head dropped against the wall, dying in watching him. He was a magnificent beast in his sexual prime, all his impressive skill focused on her. His head was thrown back, eyes closed, neck straining as he moved deeper inside her, sending wave and after wave of wicked pleasure shuddering through her body.

Suddenly he looked down, fixing her in his unfathomable eyes. He leaned his torso back slightly, lifted his hips in a long, slow slide, tilting her pelvis out from the wall. Locking their gazes, he lifted his throbbing erection into her higher.

“Would you like a fair?”

“What?”

“A market, a fair. Here at the castle.”

She tried to focus, but he was keeping up a slow, steady rhythm of thrusts and the way she straddled him, his length never left her much. He was a constant, perfect pressure deep inside her, nudging her up into the second circle of sexual bliss. Tormenting her by making her talk.

“No fairs here for years,” she managed to gasp.

“I know there’s been none, Gwyn. I’m asking if you would like one.”

Another slow penetration. The shudders passed down to her thighs before could she respond. “Very much.”

He bent by her face and lapped a path of hot desire from her shoulder to her ear. “They’ll be here for the wedding.”

“Who?”

“The merchants. And artisans. A fair, a celebration, to fill the week after our wedding.”

“Griffyn

, there’s no one—”

“There are many. And they’re coming to line the Nest. For you. Would you like that?”

In years past there had been fairs and markets at the Nest, great, rambling, festive affairs that brought merchants and peasants from miles around. Weekly markets, special markets, and a great annual fair come Yuletide, when no one could get anything fresh and the luster of summer was but a faint memory, and the whole world, it seemed, crowded into the Nest and, for a time, there’d be peace in the world.

But that had all stopped years ago. The wars had been too long, the money too short. Then Papa died. And for too many seasons the booths had been empty, the fields that once rang with the hawking of wares and the laughter of children were silent.

Could he bring that back too?

He was transforming her world. Everything was different. Every part of her, body, mind, soul was being touched, stilling old aches and stoking new fires.

She dropped her forehead onto his shoulder. “Aye,” she murmured. “I would like it very much.”

“Bien,” he said into her hair, then lifted his hips again. Deep inside her, he touched something, pushed into some deranged region of erotic pleasure that sent her bucking between him and the wall.

“Griffyn, please,” she moaned.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered in her ear. “Say it.”

“Please,” she was crying now, her body trembling at the edge of a sheer cliff, begging to jump. He slowed his pace.