by Kai Andersen
She climbed atop him, brushing her nipples over his hairy chest. “Is it very bad of me?”
“Very --”
She kissed the words from his mouth, kissed him with an enthusiasm and passion usually found between new lovers. Her mouth moved over his aggressively, drawing first his upper lip and then his lower lip into her mouth and sucking on each in turn. She slanted her head and fused their lips together. Her tongue stole into his mouth, stroking and caressing, as she stretched out over his body so that her damp pussy rested against his cock. She rubbed against him, coating him with her juices.
She lifted her head, her whole body shaking with need. “That better?”
“Lots,” he rasped out. “I want to touch you.”
“Later.” She turned around, their heated bodies sliding against each other. “You’re going to like this one even more.”
Wrapping a hand around his cock, she steadied him as she went down on him, her mouth closing over the purple head. He lifted off the bedroll, almost throwing her off him.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” She heard the sheepish tone in his voice. “Your mouth just feels so good, so hot and sweet.”
“How do you know it’s sweet?”
“Giselda!”
“Gotcha. Now where was I? Oh, yeah.”
She bent her head and licked the whole length of him with one long swipe of her tongue. He tasted divine, like fine ambrosia. Her hand felt like it was holding steel encased in velvet, his texture so luxurious that she wanted to rub her breasts against it. Without conscious thought, she inched forward, moaning when her fantasy became reality. She maneuvered herself so that she was stroking his cock over her breasts, laving the head over and over her nipples until they hardened and budded. She sobbed, barely hearing Rodin’s own hoarse cry as her excitement was heightened by her erotic act.
Some pre-cum slid out, leaving liquid trails over her body. She slid back to her original position and licked his cockhead, tasting the salty emission and wanting more. There was also an urgent need in her pussy, a terrible hunger that built up proportionally to the pooling wetness. She enclosed his cock in her mouth, licking and sucking lightly.
A tongue snaked out, lapping at her pussy. She moaned and sucked him harder, taking him deeper into her mouth. Rodin’s hands came up and squeezed her buttocks, holding her steady for his marauding tongue, which teased and circled around her clitoris, pulling gently.
She nipped him lightly with her teeth, brushing her lips down his entire length to the base of his cock before coming back up and taking him into her mouth again. He grunted, and she felt his tongue dart into her pussy, tasting the juices that were seeping out, then thrusting into the tight moistness. He circled the circumference of her opening with his tongue, and the erotic act made her shiver and cry out against his cock.
He stepped up the rhythm of his tongue thrusts, stabbing into her opening with the fierceness of his cock as his thumb and forefinger encircled her clitoris, rubbing and pulling lightly on it. She sucked harder on his cock as the spiraling waves of pleasure engulfed her, her pussy clenching tightly around his tongue. He bucked violently at the same moment that her convulsions overwhelmed her, his tongue not letting up in its invasion as he repeatedly thrust into her mouth, shooting his seed into her. The jet hit the back of her throat and she swallowed frantically, trying to take in all that he had to give, even as waves of ecstasy rolled over her.
Finally, they lay spent on the bedroll, breathing hard. Rodin pulled her up against him so that they were lying face to face. He kissed her tenderly, bringing tears to her eyes, the taste of their juices still on their mouths, intermingling into a sweet flavor.
“You cheated!” Giselda accused him when she could speak, tugging a little on his chest hair.
“What did I do?”
“You touched me before I gave you permission.”
“All right,” he sighed resignedly. “You have another chance to torture me.”
She snuggled against him. “Good. Not that I didn’t like what you did, mind you --”
He laughed. “I think I’ve created a sex monster.”
“I’ll accept no less than a sexy sex monster.”
“A very sexy sex monster. How’s that?”
“Better.”
She lay her head down on his chest, sighing in contentment. Tomorrow, they would have to travel again, go onward in their search for Michael. Maybe they would find him in the next village, injured or sick. The thought produced only a mild anxiety, like that toward an acquaintance or someone she barely knew.
Well, she did barely know Michael. But maybe she would feel more anxiety for him when she knew him better.
“How do you feel about Frederick right now?”
Lost in thought, Giselda was startled at the seriousness of his tone. However, she somehow knew that the question he meant to ask was ... “Am I still in love with him, you mean?”
Her head rose due to his brief laugh. “You read my mind.”
The question obviously meant something to him, for his body had tensed, though so subtly that she wouldn’t have noticed if she weren’t so attuned to him. She hooked a leg around one of his and hugged him like a bolster.
“Actually, I don’t think I was ever in love with him.” She rubbed his chest with feather-light strokes to soothe him.
“What!?” he roared. “What about all those years of running after Frederick and making cow eyes at him? Or being so jealous of that castle maid that Frederick was wooing into his ... uh, affections --”
“Bed! I’m not blind where Frederick is concerned.” Giselda recalled the incident and giggled. “You knew about that?”
“All right, bed. Frederick wanted her in his bed.” He curved an arm around her and stroked her arm. “I saw the whole incident. You deliberately tripped her when she was serving you so that she fell face-first onto the table. Good thing her face missed the dishes, or else she would have burned pretty bad. As I remember, she didn’t look too good after that ... er, bump.”
She giggled again, her shoulders shaking with her mirth. “She fell all by herself; she said so.”
“Obviously His Majesty didn’t see the venomous look she sent your way a split second after you so courteously helped her up, while I happened to be standing behind Frederick and saw your stealthy movements.”
“You couldn’t have!”
“I did.” Laughter tinged his voice. “I trained in stealthy movements. Not only do I know how to make one, I can spot one, especially one as amateurish as yours.”
“All right,” she admitted grudgingly. “So I did that. Are you going to tell Frederick?”
“Not if you answer my question.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Well, Frederick is handsome, and he has a sex appeal that would attract any red-blooded girl. And I have found out that I am as red-blooded as they come.” She was embarrassed to find that she was blushing, though Rodin couldn’t see her in the dark. “Also, I had a crush on him from the moment I saw him, so I suppose it wasn’t really surprising that I would want a taste of what all those castle maids were giggling about.”
“And now?”
The growl in his voice thrilled her. “Now? He has Serena. I do have some standards, you know; I don’t go after married men.”
“Good.” Relief was evident in his voice. “I wouldn’t want you to break up their marriage.”
“Is that really the reason?” She didn’t pause for him to answer. “Anyway --” Her hand stole down to stroke his cock. “-- I have this. What do I need Frederick’s for?”
“And the prince of Ermont?”
The soft member had grown hard at her touch, and she was loath to leave it. But the tension emanating from him was now more tangible. She didn’t understand it, unless ... he was jealous? But why? There was nothing between them except friendship and, now, sex. Or maybe he was afraid he didn’t measure up to Michael’s prowess as a lover?
Giselda was am
used. Men were so funny sometimes; they were actually still little boys playing grown-ups.
She propped her elbows on his chest and rested her chin on her palms. She gazed at him with an earnest expression, though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Actually, I have something to confess.”
“What is it?”
“I was after Frederick more for the chance to be queen of Mithirien than because of desire or curiosity.”
“Why?” His voice was a quiet rumble beneath her. The sensuous movement of his hand at her back caused her to shiver, though the night was warm. Or maybe because his body heat made her warm.
“My father -- my real father, that is -- died when I was ten, an age which was young, yet old enough to understand things.” She lay her head back down on his chest, sobered by the ugly memories of her childhood. Normally, she didn’t want to talk about those times, preferring to lock them up in one small corner of her brain and pretend they didn’t exist, that she had never gone through them. But something about the quiet intimacy in the atmosphere invited confidence. There was also this driving need in her to explain, to make Rodin understand, so that he would not ... judge her too harshly.
“My family owned a small piece of field in the southern part of Mithirien, where we planted corn and wheat. It was doing all right, I suppose, because I remember how the stalks were always bowed with the weight of the grains. There was also a small pasture where I rode my pony every day.” She smiled over the happy memories.
“You are rich,” he said in a flat voice.
“Were.” She shrugged. “I suppose my father inherited it from his father, who inherited it from his father, and so on. But we lost everything when my father died. That was when Mother found out that Father had mortgaged everything -- the land, the house, even the furniture. Overnight, we became destitute and homeless.”
“I take it your father didn’t expect to die so soon.”
“I’ve always believed that.” Her voice choked. “I’m sure he would have been horrified had he known how things were for us after his death.”
“You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.”
That was when Giselda realized tears were falling silently down her cheeks and dripping onto his chest. She dashed them away. “You wouldn’t have recognized Mother then. Before Father died, she was carefree and gay and loving. But afterwards, she became tightfisted and calculating and scheming. She did it to survive. If not, we would have been cheated again and again, an unprotected widow and her daughter.”
“And how did you suffer, Giselda?”
His voice was so gentle that she broke into tears again. “Neighbors who previously curried our favor turned their backs on us. Oh, there were one or two nice people, but they were the small-fry, insignificant people with no sway over the larger community. Children taunted me for being fatherless, for being poor, for wearing secondhand clothes and eating scraps from the garbage cans.” Her hand fisted. “I can still remember all the ugly things they said, and I vowed, I promised myself, that no one, no one, would ever do that to me again. I would have wealth and power and rank, and no child of mine would suffer what I had suffered.”
So now he knew. He knew what drove her, what motivated her toward her seemingly one-track goal of being queen. He had always admired that trait of hers, her persistent, dog-teeth-in-the-bone attitude, the way she never let anything detract her from her purpose, the way she kept on when other girls would have been blushing in shame.
Now he knew.
He also knew that the prince of Ermont’s main attraction for Giselda was his attainability of the kingship of Ermont, something he, Rodin, would never have, not even if he worked his fingers to the bone for the next thousand years. Despair welled up in him, despair and a sense of helplessness so deep that he choked.
But at least he had this time with her. He would jealously guard every minute, every second. He would not give her up until he absolutely had to.
“Not that I wish the former queen, Frederick’s mother, any harm, but I am glad that she died when she did.” Her fierce voice jarred him out of his thoughts. “And I am glad that Frederick persuaded his father to tour the countryside. If not for that, he would not have met my mother, and I would never have been a princess. I’d probably still be scouring the garbage cans for food.”
I’m glad, too, because if it were not for that long chain of events, I would not have met you, and I would not be holding you in my arms tonight. He could only make a noncommittal sound of agreement, as his throat had closed up and speaking was impossible.
“Do you think I’m being too much?”
He cleared his throat -- once, twice. “Too much?”
“Frederick said I was too mean, too cold-blooded, too unscrupulous, too deceitful, too ruthless, too --”
“What did you do, anyway?” he cut in, voice amused. “Frederick couldn’t be referring to that incident with the castle maid. He didn’t know about that.”
“Well, when Serena came to the lodge during the storm, remember, and she didn’t have any clothes other than the wet ones she was wearing?”
“Yes?”
“Well ... I didn’t lend her any underwear.” He felt her shame down to his toes at the same time shock short-circuited his brain.
“You mean she --”
“Yes.” Her voice was waspish now. “She was naked beneath the dress.”
He couldn’t help it; he laughed. He laughed until his body shook and Giselda’s head was dislodged from his chest.
“I’m glad you have a different reaction than Frederick.”
He could imagine her with her arms crossed over her chest and a disgruntled expression on her face. He laughed harder. Finally, he gasped, “Princess ... I really don’t ... understand Frederick. He should be thanking you ... not scolding you.”
“Thanking me?”
“Yes. You actually made things easier for him.”
Realization dawned as she gasped, and he heard the sound of her hand slapping over her mouth. “Oh.”
“But I suppose I can understand his rebuking you. Serena is the love of his life. He wasn’t about to let anyone get away with mistreating her.” The same way I would protect you and watch over you.
“What I did wasn’t nice; I admit that now. But I was so desperate at that time, you know. I couldn’t let Serena steal Frederick away from me.”
He deliberately gentled his voice when he said, “You never had a chance with him.”
She took in a deep breath. “Yes, I know that now. Good thing for Michael. Now I have another chance at being queen.”
That was a solid blow to his solar plexus, and he hadn’t even seen it coming. “Yes, well, we have to find him first.” He wasn’t surprised at his testy voice. Did she have to remind him when he had almost forgotten about that prince?
“Rodin, what’s wrong?”
It was too much to hope that she didn’t notice.
“What’s wrong is that my cock has been waving for your attention for the past few minutes, and you didn’t even spare it a glance.”
She giggled. Gods, he loved the sound of her laughter.
“I’m sorry. Let me rectify the situation immediately.”
Her sweet mouth closed over his cock, washing him in erotic delights and sensations. He wished he could see her, see her small pinkish mouth moving over his cock. His toes curled at the arousing vision, and he thrust into her mouth involuntarily. His hands tangled among her curls, loving the silken feel of her tresses. The way they had wrapped around his cock a while ago had been sheer torture, but he wouldn’t mind experiencing it again.
He opened his legs, and she moved between them, her mouth sliding off the head of his cock to lick and lave at the whole length, sucking his balls lightly as she rubbed her cheek against his cock like a cat purring against its master. All the lust and love and desire and need he felt for this one precious, tenacious, unpredictable woman overwhelmed him, and he reversed their positions in one graceful m
ove, laying her beneath him. Without finesse or control, he pounded into her with hard, swift strokes, barely feeling her strong legs hooking around his waist as an extreme wave of pleasure engulfed them both and carried them over the edge into a place only lovers can reach together.
Chapter Eighteen
“Tell me about the stranger and his friends.”
Giselda strained to hear the conversation that was taking place a few feet away.
That afternoon, they had reached the village of Halcyon, where the stablemaster was a friend of Rodin’s brother. Upon inquiry, the stablemaster had verified that a person fitting Michael’s description had been in the village two days before and had left early the following morning after resting overnight in what passed for the village’s only inn. But just as the stablemaster had hinted of some trouble and was about to divulge the information, Rodin had changed the topic, saying that they could reminisce about the past later, as they were going to stay the night anyway.
After he thought she was asleep, he had crept out of the room on silent feet. She had been right behind him, though maybe not as silent. But he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. She had followed him to the stable, where the man was waiting for him with some ale. After some small talk and much laughter (she did notice that there was no mention of Talina), Rodin had stated his request in a quiet voice.
“Och, ’es a bad one, zat one. Came ’ere as if ’e own ze place, ’im in ’is fancy clothes. ’Is two friends waz no better.”
Giselda could imagine the stablemaster shaking his head and then gulping down a swallow of ale.
“What happened?”
“Wants ze best food -- fish, crab and ... and something wi’ a fancy name. But we waz simple folk, no fish, no crab, jes’ corn and green leaves. ’E carried on something fierce, wants our heads --” He heaved a great sigh.
Giselda waited with bated breath to hear what had happened next.
“Ze village louts and sluts git on well with zem, zough. Party all night, zey did, keep us all awake.” The stablemaster grunted his disapproval. “Never a more welcome sight when zey all go away ze next day.”