The Druid Chronicles: Four Book Collection

by Phillips, Christina

  He worked her tense muscles, the sensation of oil and silky smooth skin an erotic combination. She sighed and melted, and he moved down her body, lavishing the same concentrated care over her back.

  “Your talents are many and wondrous.” Her voice was languorous, her eyes closed and a blissful smile curved her lips.

  He shifted position, moving farther down her body, so that her luscious arse was displayed to view. He dripped oil from the bottle onto her rounded buttocks and she smothered a giggle and wriggled her behind. Fascinated, he watched the oil slowly trickle over her flesh and slide into her exposed crack.

  His mouth dried and cock jerked with desperate need. How easy it would be to give in to the lust thudding through his blood. With torturous effort, he tore his gaze away and began to massage her thighs. He’d promised her a night to remember. He would ensure it would be a night she would remember with pleasure and nostalgia and without the faintest trace of regret or unwarranted pain.

  He would take her only when she was incoherent with lust, boneless with need and mindless with primal desire. Gods give him strength to survive that long.

  “Gawain.” Her breathy voice lingered over his name, stretching it out, making it sound unimaginably seductive. He gritted his teeth and glided his fingers along the inside of her taut thigh. “You have forgotten to tend to my bottom.” She wiggled her bottom as if she imagined he might need reminding as to where it resided. All he could see was her delectable behind. It was all he could think about. He dragged his hypnotized gaze from her taunting arse and redoubled his efforts at sculpting her perfect calves.

  “I have forgotten nothing.” His voice was raw. Still she mocked his self-restraint by swaying her buttocks in his face. He palmed one teasing cheek and forced her flat on the bed. “We’re doing this my way, Antonia.”

  She gave another of her seductive sighs and continued to shift beneath his restraining hand.

  “But I’m ready for you now. You are teasing me beyond endurance.”

  Although fire consumed his groin and licked through his veins, he laughed and squeezed her buttock in a possessive grip. She hitched in a shocked breath and shot him a startled look over her shoulder.

  “You can endure more.” He rubbed her abused cheek with the palm of his hand and caught tantalizing glimpses of the dark entrance to her untouched tunnel. The thundering desire to take her now scorched his mind. Only the force of his Druidic will enabled him to unpeel his fingers from her tempting arse.

  His lust would not rule him this night.

  * * *

  Antonia squirmed in helpless delight as Gawain massaged first one calf and then the other, his fingers sure and firm. The scented oil heightened every magical touch and her skin tingled from his torturous ministrations.

  He grasped one ankle and lavished as much care and attention on her heel and toes as if they were the most enticing part of her body. She thrust her knuckles into her mouth to prevent her moans escaping, but they escaped regardless. His body shook with silent laughter as he released her foot and began on the other.

  She pulled her knuckles from her mouth. “You’re killing me with eroticism.” Her words were jerky, inelegant, and she couldn’t stop her fingers from flexing in a futile attempt at release.

  “Not quite my intention.” His voice was gravelly and insanely arousing. She groaned and wriggled her bottom again. Perhaps he would grip her the way he had just now. It had been unexpected, but the look on his face as he had gazed on her captured arse had been riveting.

  Instead, he straightened and loomed over her. The lamps cast shadows that defined the sculpted perfection of his biceps and shoulders, and his earring and torque glinted with mystical allure.

  She forgot how to breathe as anticipation constricted her chest and closed her throat. Will he take me now?

  “On your hands and knees.” It was a harsh demand and her pampered limbs trembled as she attempted to comply. He wrapped one strong arm around her waist and held her steady, his wide chest an erotic wall of living muscle against her back.

  “Don’t tremble.” His raw whisper against her ear caused another delicious quiver to claim her body. “This night is for your pleasure, sweet Antonia. I’ll take it as slow as you need.”

  She wasn’t sure slow was what she wanted. “I’m not afraid.”

  Still holding her around her waist, his other hand cupped her mound. She sighed and ground herself against him. Needing the pressure. Needing him inside her. His finger teased her sensitive bud and liquid warmth trickled from her pussy.

  Slowly he eased up from her, and his hand skimmed the slippery curves of her waist and hips. Her head dropped and she gazed, mesmerized, along the length of her body to where Gawain spread her intimate folds and continued to tease her swollen clit.

  Oil dripped onto her bottom and slid with sensuous intent across her flesh. Gawain palmed her arse cheek and then rubbed in a circular motion, the heat of his hand and slide of the oil warming her buttock with delicious promise.

  Each rotation brought him closer to her crease and when the tip of his finger slid into the valley between her cheeks, she gasped and jerked involuntarily.

  “Relax.” Gawain didn’t sound relaxed but his finger continued to stroke and the sensation was beyond anything she had ever imagined. “Don’t think, Antonia. Just feel.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. How could she relax when Gawain teased her pussy without mercy and lubricated her rear with his oil-coated finger?

  Surely she couldn’t hold out much longer. “I need to come,” she gasped.

  “You will.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise and as he dipped into her wet sheath, he worked one finger into her tight anus.

  She bucked in shock and he instantly stopped his invasion. “Antonia?” It was a rasp in the charged air and she sucked in a strangled breath as her body accommodated his penetration.

  He had fingered her there before. But this time he was behind her. This time he was watching. And knowing that he watched as he pushed his finger inside her body was unnerving. But although she tensed, cream trickled from her core. I want this.

  “I’m all right. Don’t stop.”

  A second finger joined the first. “I have no intention of stopping.” He tweaked her throbbing clit and pushed his oiled fingers into her.

  She panted, fisting the bedcovers, her muscles rigid. The burning sensation wasn’t too bad. Through glazed eyes, she watched him continue to tease her, dipping into her cleft and coating her juices over her pussy lips. A low moan vibrated through her body and it took a moment for her to realize the moan didn’t originate from Gawain.

  “That’s it. Let me hear you, sweet Antonia.” Gawain’s growl stoked her passion and she backed into him, wanting more. He rotated his finger and she shuddered, lost in sensation, and when he withdrew from her, she gasped in protest.

  “Wait.” He sounded rabid and with her head hanging down she watched him, from between her parted thighs, lubricate his magnificent shaft. “I’m going to fuck your tight virgin arse, Antonia. I’m going to make you mine.”

  “Yes.” She wanted him to fuck her. She wanted to belong to him. Most of all she wanted to tell him but coherent words were beyond her. “Yes.”

  * * *

  Gawain gripped his cock and slid the swollen head into her luscious valley. Her erratic gasps filled his mind and the shudder that claimed her ricocheted along the length of his shaft in torturous delight. He nudged, felt her stretch around his penetration and she went rigid.

  His breath came in harsh pants, his blood pounded in primitive need. He slid his arm around her, held her close, found her silken, swollen clit.

  “Antonia.” It was all he could manage but she gave a jerk of her head as though she understood.

  “Yes.” Her voice was hoarse. It was the most erotic sound he had ever heard. He teased her clit until she squirmed, her beautiful bottom rubbing against his engorged length. He pushed in a little farther, and the
tight clamp of her muscles expanded, granting him entry.

  A groan seared his throat. She held him in a mind-shattering vise, her tunnel so tight and hot the urge to thrust and possess splintered his reason.

  The gods only knew how he held back. How he remained motionless while her body adjusted to his invasion, to his size. Her uneven breath stoked his lust, and the vision of his cock embedded in her sweetly puckered arse caused every fantasy he had ever harbored to crumble to dust.

  He forced words to form. The hardest thing he had done in his life. “Still with me?”

  For answer, she slowly raised her hips, adjusting her position, and his cock sank deeper into her tight embrace. “Fuck.” It slipped from him, unintentional. “That feels so good, Antonia.”

  “Take me.” Her words were jagged and she backed against him a little more, forcing him farther inside her. “Make me yours, Gawain.”

  Air hissed between his gritted teeth. She was his. She would always be his. He pushed two fingers into her wet slit and teased her clit with his thumb as he thrust into her, and his balls slammed against her vulnerable pussy.

  His other hand cradled her breast. She fit so perfectly into the palm of his hand. He pinched her erect nipple and her ragged gasps and seductive little moans licked across his senses like molten fire. His beautiful Roman noblewoman, so reserved in public, was on her hands and knees. Impaled on his shaft. Her body undulating with lust, her hair wild and abandoned.

  Then she contracted around him and the sensation sent lightning splintering along his cock, into his balls and deep into his groin. Primal demand thudded through his veins, glazed his vision. All he could see, all he could feel, was Antonia as she writhed beneath him; every movement an exquisite lesson in uninhibited pleasure.

  He abandoned her breast and gripped her hip. Still she writhed, still she whimpered, her choked moans stoking him beyond endurance. He fought to go slow. But his body rode her the way he needed to ride her, and her tight tunnel gripped each possessive slide of his cock with eager submission.

  Her back was arched. Her body slick with scented oil and sweat. Her tangled hair tumbled over her shoulders and his grip on her hip became brutal.

  Crimson ribbons streaked his world as everything but Antonia faded to black. He cupped her sex, pressed his finger against her clit and tried and failed to avert the inevitable.

  The pressure built. From the base of his spine, the dark pit of his soul. Primal need thudded. He fucked her virgin arse and the feel of her body constricting his cock pushed him over the edge.

  A guttural roar tore his throat as he buried himself deep inside and came with frenzied need. As he irrevocably made her his, her hot cream spilled over his fingers as Antonia’s climax entwined with his, and they became one.

  Chapter 18

  For long moments, Gawain held Antonia close, his body enveloping her back, his head against her shoulder. Her uneven breath and the erratic thunder of her heart cocooned him in a false sense of serenity. A haven of bliss, where nothing existed but the two of them.

  Only when her legs began to shake with fatigue did he finally, reluctantly, withdraw from her addictive embrace. She whimpered and he nibbled kisses along her damp throat. He might have left her body but he had no intention of leaving her.

  Not just yet.

  He draped a sheet around her and they lay on their sides, facing each other. He brushed her tangled hair from her face, winding the stray curls around his fingers. His gaze never left hers. “Was it how you imagined?”

  Her smile was tired, but dazzled him all the same. “It was beyond my wildest imaginings.”

  With her hair enmeshed between his fingers, he stroked her flushed face with his knuckles. “Something you would like to do again?”

  She gave an exhausted laugh and flattened her hand against his chest. “Very much.” She stroked him with the tips of her fingers, and it was oddly comforting. “But I’m not sure I could manage that again this night.”

  He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. He’d had no intention of doing any such thing. “Another night, then.”

  “I shall look forward to it.” She shifted, and a fleeting frown marred her brow.

  “Are you uncomfortable?” He propped himself up on his forearm. He hadn’t intended to finish so brutally. But her ragged gasps, her seductive writhing and the way she had clenched around him had all served to shatter his self-control.

  No excuse. She had been a virgin. He should have taken more care.

  She trailed her fingers along his jaw and across his mouth. He resisted the urge to suck her finger inside.

  “Why the glower?” She traced the outline of his lips and then sighed, as if resigned that he had no intention of bypassing the question. “I’m not uncomfortable, Gawain. I feel pleasantly,” she hesitated for a moment and then shot him a sultry glance from beneath her lashes, “fucked.” Her blush deepened but a smile teased her lips. Enthralled, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. She truly was an enchantress. “But I must confess. I’m relieved I don’t have to spend all day tomorrow in the saddle. I fear my bottom would violently protest.”

  “Next time I will not ride you so roughly.”

  “Oh.” Her breath feathered across his hand as he cradled her jaw. “I was hoping that next time you might lose control earlier.”

  Speechless, he stared at her. Despite her enchanting blush, she didn’t drop her gaze. She knew exactly what she meant and the knowledge that she didn’t consider herself a fragile piece of spun glass caused his cock to thicken in delicious anticipation.

  His beautiful Roman might not be a warrior but she was far from the pampered, spoiled patrician he’d first imagined. Hadn’t she told him, the first time they had made love, that she wasn’t made of spun glass? But it wasn’t only her sensibilities that were tougher than he’d first assumed.

  A satisfied smile curved his lips. “Beware of what you wish for, Antonia. Are you sure you could handle me if I lost control?”

  She tugged him down beside her once again. “There’s nothing about you that I couldn’t handle.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers and pressed their hands against her heart. Her words touched him but it was a bittersweet sensation. Antonia might think she could handle anything that concerned him but what would she do if she discovered he was a Druid?

  Gods, what was he thinking? There were some things that could never be shared.

  They lay in companionable silence, content to merely look in each other’s eyes. When was the last time he’d done this?

  Never. Not even with Morwyn. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to move, to bring this strange sense of harmony to an end. Instead he traced a finger over the bracelets that adorned her wrist. They were of exquisite quality, but he expected nothing less from a family as wealthy as hers.

  The gold locket around her throat drew his attention. Whenever they had met her earrings and bracelets had complemented her gowns but her locket remained constant. Idly he picked it up in his free hand and examined it as it lay on his palm. Antonia didn’t say anything but he felt her tense, as though he had just crossed an invisible and incomprehensible barrier.

  He met her eyes. She stared back, oddly defiant. Intrigued by her attitude he didn’t allow the gold chain to slide through his fingers as had been his original intention. “This is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.”

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she sighed and broke eye contact. “Yes. My father gave it to me on the day of my birth.”

  He knew there was a genuine bond between Antonia and her father, but her reaction didn’t ring true to him. His thumb grazed the clasp and once again she stiffened. Why was she so alarmed at the prospect that he might open her locket and see what secrets she kept within?

  Memory stirred. At the praetor’s insufferable feast, Antonia’s calm façade had cracked when Maximus had defended his daughter’s honor. Gawain knew Antonia had been pregnant in the past and from her rea
ction earlier this night, he guessed she had at least one daughter. Was it her children’s portrait she kept close to her heart? Had she been forced by her despicable former husband to leave them in Rome?

  He allowed the locket to slide from his fingers and once again nestle between her breasts. Just days ago it hadn’t interested him one way or the other whether Antonia had children, or how many. But now it mattered. He wanted to know. Because whether they shared her life now or not, they were still a part of her.

  She stared at his chest, deliberately avoiding his gaze. He lifted her chin with one finger and made her look at him. There might be secrets they were forced to keep from each other, but this wasn’t one of them.

  “Would you allow me to look on the faces of your children, Antonia?”

  The blood drained from her face and she stared at him in what looked abject horror. What had he said? Had he made a terrible mistake?

  “What?” Her voice was a tortured whisper and she clutched at her locket as though she imagined he might snatch it from her. Unease snaked through his gut. This was far from the reaction he’d expected.

  Why had he asked her? Why did he want to see her children? It could mean nothing to him. And yet it did. They were hers, and he wanted to know everything about her.

  That realization did nothing to calm his rising unease.

  “You do have children, don’t you, Antonia?” Why was she being so evasive? Why didn’t she want him to know of them? Most of all why did her reluctance to share something so important with him sting?

  “I—” Her voice was husky. With a stab of shock, he realized she was vibrating with fear. “I conceived five babies. I lost my two sons during the sixth month of each pregnancy.”