Dragon Quest

by Heather Walker

His madness threatened to overflow its banks. He dove his hand under her skirt and touched bare skin. Oh, she felt more heavenly than ever, now that he knew she was all his. He claimed her, and she gave her all to him. He never had to worry about her doubts again.

  He slid his hand around her thigh to the front. His fingers sank into her saturated opening, but before he could do anything, she ran her own fingers down his midsection. Before he could stop her, she tossed his kilt aside. Her small, soft fingers closed around him, and he thought he would die.

  He stared straight ahead, but he didn’t see her right in front of him. He knew only the heavenly closeness of her hand around his shaft, rolling the skin back and caressing him down to the root.

  Dear God, she knew how to set him on fire. She stroked him to throbbing hardness. He didn’t know what to do. He blinked, and there she was in front of him. He stared into her bright eyes. Their mouths locked, but they didn’t kiss. Their hands and bodies connected them somewhere beyond this world.

  Robbie quivered all over. He yanked his hand away and sat up. His member fell out of her hand, and his kilt draped over it. He jumped up on his knees.

  Elle gave a cry. “What are you doing now?”

  “We’re no doin’ this ‘ere.” He scooped her up in his arms. “We’re goin’ back tae the castle.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  He didn’t respond. He set her on her feet, where she balanced on her cast and waited while he caught his horse. He stopped the animal in front of her and lifted her onto its back.

  He set off for the castle without a word. He didn’t say anything, not even when he set her down by the stairs. She waited there like she usually did until he put the horse away. He came back, picked her up, and carried her up the stairs to their own room, where he laid her on the bed.

  Chapter 38

  Robbie stretched out on the bed next to Elle, exactly the way he did on the grass beyond the river. They’d done it out there in that field a dozen times, the same way they’d done it in this bed. This time was different, though. She knew it, and she read the same thing in his eyes.

  She agreed to marry him. She always wanted to, so why did she hold back? The uncertainty of not knowing if they could stay together haunted her. It still did, but she agreed anyway. He was right. She wanted to be there. She never wanted to miss a minute of his time, right up until the moment Fate snatched him away from her.

  One of these days, that would happen. Even if they spent their whole lives together and watched their children and grandchildren grow up in this castle, one of them would die first. She wanted to be there for that, too. She didn’t care how they got separated in the end, as long as she was there.

  He kissed her in long, delicious swoops of his lips and tongue. He awoke her fervent desires, and this time, nothing stood in the way of him taking her. They were alone in their own bedroom, and they were engaged to be married. What could be better than that?

  No matter how much he quickened her undying passion for him, he always took his time. He made sure he never to hurt her or put her in an uncomfortable position. He took her broken body apart and put it back together so he knew exactly what he could do and when. He spent so much time and attention attending to her every need he kindled her intoxicated hunger for him more than ever.

  She needed him. She wanted to devour him. She wanted to tackle him onto the bed and have her way with him, but she couldn’t. Her leg and her arm wouldn’t let her. She could only respond to what he did. She could only show him how much she wanted him and dreamed of him and craved him as much as she ever did at the caldera.

  He rolled her onto her side. Her cast lay stiff and dead against the coverlet so she could move her other leg as will. That was one of his favorite positions. God, she longed for the day she could move freely. Then he better watch out.

  His eyes burned inches away from her face. His chiseled features told her what he wanted to do. Her lips parted, and she panted for every breath. Her pupils dilated, and her cheeks flushed. She welcomed every mauling kiss.

  He pushed her skirts up her thigh. He lifted her leg and propped it against his hip. Her tissues yawned open in desperate starvation. Oh, please, yes, she wanted it so bad. Her breasts itched for him to fondle them and suck them between his teeth.

  The next time he darted in to kiss her, she took hold of his head and steered his head down to her neck. He gobbled her alabaster flesh and nibbled her ears. She wrestled him lower to her bodice. Just a little lower, and she could erupt in agonized screams.

  He understood, and he ripped her bodice laces loose with frantic hands. He pulled the knots free and whipped the laces out fast. Her bodice fell open before him, and he attacked her in rabid mouthfuls. He delivered wicked bites to her chest until he found the taut nubs of her nipples hidden underneath.

  She wept and sobbed into his hair. She dreamed of this moment so many times, even when she lay spent and satisfied in his arms at night. Everything he did woke her to intense passion until she couldn’t get enough.

  He laced his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. She tossed and heaved in fermented boiling delight. She had to get hold of him. She had to fill him with the same volcanic rapture.

  She raised his kilt out of the way and took hold of him one more time. He groaned into her mouth, but she wouldn’t leave him alone. She caressed him while he sucked her nipples. His shaft throbbed in her hand. It searched for any way to claim her as his own.

  She didn’t want to wait any longer. She already waited all these months and weeks to be his. She guided him between her legs and rubbed the frilled head into her wetness. He whimpered under his breath, and his midsection contracted in agony, but she wouldn’t stop.

  She pushed him farther in and coated him all over with her perfumed juices. His breath rasped in his throat, but he didn’t resist. He spasmed in ecstasy at every move she made. She loved watching him like this, so responsive, so vulnerable, so hungry.

  She steered him to her molten core, and there she released him. He knew what she wanted. Now she could trust him to go ahead and do it. He closed his arms around her and glided into her hidden recesses. She melted against his chest with a broken groan. He completed her as never before.

  He took a gentle bite of her bare shoulder. Her body exploded all over in fervent sparks. She welcomed him. She pushed herself onto him as much as this shattered body would let her. Every inch of his length ignited her dreams. She closed her eyes.

  He pressed his ear against her mouth to catch her sighs. Every pulse tightened him inside her. He matched her throbbing spasms to stroke down his shaft and milk the mystical essence from him. Oh, God, that was so good.

  He cradled her head behind her neck. His power supported her and carried her into bliss. Her sighs escalated to high-pitched whines and sobs. He increased his pace, and her flesh burned to receive him. She wanted to fling herself at him, to impale herself on him, but she had no choice but to lie still and let him do all the work.

  He drew back to look at her. His eyes read her inmost soul. He commanded her to love him and worship him. He possessed her to the depths of her being, and she succumbed to it all. He would make it all right, whatever happened. She would follow where he led.

  He curled his lips back from his bared teeth. His hair tossed over his forehead, and his sweat stung her sensitive skin. He was ten times the man she ever expected him to be. He knew every inch of her. He desired her, and her body and heart and soul answered him. Yes! Yes! Yes! Every stroke of his shaft into her screamed Yes!

  Her inner nectar bathed his steaming length. He squeezed the juice from her fruity tissues. Her leafy petals ached for so much more of him. His muscles contracted down his abs to the tight triangle where his hips met hers.

  Oh, dear God, yes! She clenched her fingers into his shoulders and squirmed on the end of his blistering spike. He penetrated to her limit and teased her to endless ecstasy. She clung to him for dear life, and he took full control. What
they agreed in the field became fact now in this room where they shared so much.

  She bowed her head against his chest and shuddered all over at the rising crescendo of torrential delight rushing through her. It illuminated her pores and cells to incandescent flame. Her swollen flesh starved and quivered for his ridged member delving through her insides.

  He forced her back. He took a firm hold behind her neck and lifted her head to gaze into his eyes. He wanted to see her cave to his power. He wanted to watch her catapult into heaven on his shaft. His masterful hands and body filled her to bursting with unstoppable love and passion. Her eyes drifted half-closed, and she drowned under a tidal wave of catastrophic climax.

  Her cries split the heavens, but he never stopped his terrible driving work. He gripped her in his fists and forced her down on his spike. Her inner muscles clamped around him so tight she couldn’t stand it. Wave upon wave of delirious rapture rocketed her into outer space. Her molten honey gushed around him and dampened his hair. Sweat trickled down his chest and mingled with her vital essence.

  She climaxed so many times she lost count, but he wasn’t finished. He pulled out and rubbed his wicked rod against her puffy slit. Everything he did brought her to the brink of insanity. Before she could finish climaxing on him, he hopped over her and lay down on his side behind her.

  In an instant, he took hold of her in his iron grip. He pulled her back on him, and his shaft weaseled between her legs. She shrieked in startle shock as he found the slippery cleft where he just stroked her to her limit. He pressed in tight, and his crest popped into her tight opening.

  She sagged in his arms, but he already had her. He pumped in deep, and the veins and ridges along his shaft excited her all over again. He hooked one arm around her waist and hugged her down on his intruding shaft. His hips bumped her choice flesh, and the glistening elixir flowed down to lubricate his passage.

  He growled in her ear, but she couldn’t make out the words. The sound came from somewhere beyond the fringes of time. It reminded her of the roar of a dragon. Ushne lashed his tail around her body while he lowered his massive bulk over her. His sheer size overpowered her and drove her wild.

  She thrashed against that terrible thorn penetrating her deepest anatomy. He worked his other arm around her and took hold where her neck met her chest. He controlled her every movement. No matter what she did, she sank farther onto him. He blasted her into the stratosphere on massive jets of hot golden light.

  She screamed her ecstasy to the vision of his big green form. He cast his spell over her, and she submitted. He mesmerized her into cosmic arousal until her flesh melted into his. She became part of him. His desire fueled her passion, and his fulfillment became her fulfillment.

  She couldn’t stop screaming. She collapsed against his chest, only to rise on another bubble of beautiful climax all over again. Would it ever end? Would he never tire of hearing her moan and sob in blissful satisfaction? He showed no signs of slowing down, and neither did she.

  One hand cradled her neck, and his other hand trailed down her stomach to her blazing inferno. He tickled her hard nub to one furious climax after another. Somewhere in all that pleasure, she lost all sense of where she ended and he began. None of that mattered anymore. They were together.

  His manhood burned and smoldered inside her boiling cauldron. He roared in her ear, and he swelled to split her tight channel. His flesh injected its bright stars into her being, and the glowing concoction poured over them both to cool the volcanic fury of their union.

  Elle somersaulted through a dizzy sky on angel’s wings. She swam in an array of blazing color on one cosmic peak after another. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t act. She could only be in this majestic world he created. This was all she ever wanted. She could dwell here for the rest of her life and never want anything more.

  His hands tightened around her. His whole being spasmed in a mighty explosive contraction that shot her full of himself. She accepted him in such love as she never experienced before. She sheltered him in this most vulnerable moment. She enveloped him and soothed his fevered need.

  He relaxed against her, but she couldn’t stop sighing. She held him close inside her until they both collapsed into a pool of bliss. Stars and galaxies swam before Elle’s eyes. The world spread out beyond this room to the limit of consciousness. She understood it all, and she loved it as an extension of him. She never loved the world this way before. He did it. He showed her what could be possible if she only opened her heart to him.

  Chapter 39

  Robbie paced back and forth in the guard room. He stopped in the door and gazed across the courtyard to the stables. Then he turned around and walked back to the window looking out over the fields.

  Ewan and Robbie’s three younger brothers sat on a bench nearby. They all wore their dress kilts with silver and gold decorations pinned to their plaids. They carried silver-hilted daggers in their socks and wore seal-skin sporrans instead of their usual leather ones.

  Callum rubbed his hands together and kept turning his head right and left. Fergus stared straight in front of him the way he did when he had something on his mind. Jamie leaned back against the racks of armor and weapons behind the bench. He kept his eyes closed and feigned sleep, a sure sign he was as nervous as everybody else.

  Ewan smacked his lips. “Do ye ha’e tae pace aboot licht that, mon? Ye’re drivin’ allus tae distraction. Sit ye down and wait licht the rest o’ us.”

  Robbie paid him no attention. If he had to pace, he better do it. He adjusted his plaid for the hundredth time and picked invisible specks of stray wool off his kilt. He straightened his shirt and shrugged his shoulders one more time, but it didn’t help him much. His heart crashed back and forth between exploding out of his chest and stopping altogether. He couldn’t stand the strain much longer.

  Ewan started to stand up and collided with Robbie coming back the other way. The impact knocked Ewan off balance so he sat down heavily on the bench again. Robbie stepped back and waved his hand. “Wheesht, mon! On ye go.”

  Ewan bowed his head and gestured toward the door. “No, mon. After ye.”

  Robbie hung back. “No a bit o’ it. Ye go ahead.”

  “It’s yer bloody weddin’ day, mon,” Ewan replied. “Ye’ll go ahead, and I’ll sit richt ‘ere until ye go.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and crunched his face into the closest thing to a scowl Ewan Munro could muster. He pretended not to see Robbie standing there. Robbie sighed and walked on to the door. He stopped at the threshold—not because he wanted to, of course.

  He wanted to keep walking. He wanted to get out there in the clear, fragrant air. He wanted to keep walking to the woods and fields beyond the river and even into the mountains. He would go anywhere to get away from what he had to do, but he didn’t dare. He got himself into this. He just had to get through the next hour, and he would be free.

  He walked back to the window, but the view outside didn’t give him any encouragement. Where was Elle right now? Was she as nervous and excited as he was? What would she look like right now? Was she entertaining second thoughts? What if she didn’t come?

  The guard room door opened, and all four men exploded off the bench at once. Robbie whipped around. A servant boy stood in the doorway and stared wide-eyed at the five big men menacing him.

  Robbie’s shoulders slumped. “Awricht, lad?”

  “Aye,” the boy replied.

  The brothers filed out first, followed by Ewan, and Robbie brought up the rear. Thank the stars they didn’t get tangled up with each other. They proceeded with calm, quiet dignity to the grand entrance foyer outside the Throne Room. Robbie felt anything but calm and dignified, but at least he managed to keep his feelings hidden.

  In the foyer, they found about a hundred nobles from all over Urlu assembled in their finery with their ladies on their arms. Ewan’s lieutenant of the Guard organized the procession, and a good thing he did, too, as Ewan himself couldn’t be
more useless in his state of heightened nerves.

  The lieutenant instructed everyone where to stand. He positioned all the nobles in pairs at the front. He waved Ewan into place at the very end of the line. “Now then, Captain, if ye’ll tak’ yer place ‘ere….”

  Ewan obeyed the young man like a meek little lamb. Next came the brothers in ascending order of age: Jamie, Fergus, Callum, and last of all, Robbie. He did his best not to fidget and shift his feet while he waited. The closer he came to the moment of truth, the more his chest hurt. He couldn’t go through with this. It was asking too much of any man to wait like this.

  Why in heaven’s name didn’t he just take Elle to Angus and marry here in private? Why did everything that happened in this castle have to turn into an affair of state? He might be the King’s brother, but he was still just an ordinary man.

  The lieutenant said something Robbie didn’t catch. All of a sudden, the great doors swung open and a blast of coronet music gusted into the foyer. Robbie’s heart leapt into his throat. He wanted to run. He could duck out the castle’s front door and no one would see him until it was too late. He was at the back of the line. Yes, that’s what he would do.

  Then he caught sight of the black wooden dragon stooped over the Throne at the far end of the hall. It narrowed its eyes at him. He couldn’t disobey that silent command. He served the Phoenix Throne, just like everybody else here. He had to go through with this.

  Before he could do anything, the procession started moving. The nobles and ladies filed forward into the Throne Room. They marched down the long red carpet between crowds of other admirers in rich clothes and gem-encrusted crowns. They turned either way and lined up in front of the Throne.

  At last, the lieutenant himself moved forward and left Ewan and the brothers alone in the foyer. For one terrible moment, Robbie doubted Ewan and his brothers could go through with this, either. Would Ewan have the fortitude to walk into that room?