That’s not what this was. Not at all. She just needed a friend. Everyone on the Lane had always judged her, looked down their noses at her for her choices. Everyone but Arthur.
Lance never had to bear the brunt of what had happened. According to the gossips, he was an injured party just like Arthur and Gwen, well, she was the raging Whore of Babylon.
She and Morgan both.
But Morgan was a slut and a bitch. She hadn’t been overcome with lust or love for Arthur, it had been for service to Avalon that she’d committed her sins. Cold. Calculating. The woman wouldn’t know what love was if it bit her nose.
Not that any of that actually mattered after all this time.
She finally decided on a dress because she’d have to lie down to zip up her jeans and she didn’t want to risk too-tight-jean-induced muffin top. Gwen already felt bad about herself, she didn’t need to give that nasty little voice in her head any more material.
The dress she chose was a little rockabilly number, blue with white anchors and cherry bows on the poplin sleeves. It even had a crinoline, but Gwen didn’t want to add to her posterior real estate.
Of course, she had no problem shimmying into the wonder bra that gave her some respectable cleavage.
Her now ex monster-in-law was always going on about how Gwen was too skinny, didn’t have a good figure, wasn’t fit for breeding. Like that’s all she was good for was to be a brood mare. Instant baby factory, just add dick.
Gwen never understood that mentality. Lady of the Freaking Lake, a woman who commanded armies and she still wanted to shove Gwen in a mold and treat her like breeding stock.
She supposed that was why she drank the wild yam tea for the whole of both of her marriages. Gwen didn’t want to get pregnant until she was ready and certainly not because Vivienne had told her to. She could take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. They all could.
With that in mind, she decided she didn’t care who saw her on the way to visit Arthur. It was none of anyone’s business what she did or who she did it with.
She finished getting ready and stepped out of her front door into the bright sunshine.
“Is it true?” Elaine stood on the steps, with her arm raised to knock.
And the hits just kept coming, Gwen thought to herself. Elaine was the biggest Lane gossip. She always had something to say about someone—probably because her own life was so lacking and miserable. Gwen used to feel sorry for her, until she got that potion from Morgan and pretended to be Gwen.
“Is what true? That Lance I have separated? Yes. He’s all yours.” She was like some kind of vulture there to pick at the carcass of her marriage.
“I knew that you separated. Is it true he moved in with Morgan?”
Speaking of sluts… “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have time for this, I’m busy today.”
“How can you not know? I mean—” She chattered on, but Gwen wasn’t listening. Instead, she pushed past the annoying woman and began her walk to the castle.
Except Elaine chittered on behind her like a sparrow on meth.
“Elaine!” Gwen snapped when they got to the end of the block.
“Wow, you’re so angry. First screaming in the market and now this. You should really do something about that temper. Is that why Lance left you?”
“At least I didn’t have to pretend to be another woman to get him to sleep with me.”
Elaine’s mouth fell open and worked like a fish flopping on a dry dock.
“Nothing else to say? Good. Told you I was busy.”
“Well, I never!“
“Obviously.” Gwen left her standing there and marched with purpose to the end of Roundtable Lane where large meadows sprawled in front of her. She hadn’t planned on traipsing through the grass in the shoes she’d chosen, so she took them off.
When her feet first touched the cool grass, she stood for a moment, curling her toes around it. This was the first time in years she’d gone barefoot in the grass. She took a deep breath, inhaling the menagerie of scents around her--fresh air, green grass, and the apples of Avalon’s orchards.
The sun warmed her skin and she found herself looking up at the blue sky as she walked. Clouds, white and puffy like big wads of cotton bounced around the endless blue. Not enough so that it was overcast, but just enough to make her think about lying down in the grass and watching them pass.
She and Lance used to do that, drinking summer wines and pointing out shapes or people in the clouds. They’d make up little stories about the characters they’d created and why it was either their reward or punishment to spend eternity as a cloud—like the Romans and Greeks and their stories of the constellations.
That used to be her favorite thing in the world to do—after making love with Lance. Gwen thought that she could spend forever doing those things with him. It was so strange to think that forever was over.
It didn’t take her long to get to the castle. Her feet knew their own way. She’d lived there once. When Morgan and Vivienne had brought them all to Avalon, they’d brought much of Camelot too. Including the castle.
Every brick held some memory for her and reminded her of her betrayal.
Why had she come?
The question answered itself when Arthur opened the door for her before she knocked.
The first thing she noticed was the way his hair curled over the edge of his collar. The green dress shirt he wore brought out the subtle flecks of gold in his brown eyes. But what was the most devastating was his gentle smile.
He’d never stopped giving her that smile. Not when she’d broken him. Not when she’d confessed her infidelity and that she was in love with another man. Always, he smiled for her. Even when his eyes had been so full of pain she’d thought she’d drown in it. Still, he gave her that smile and his blessing.
She cringed away from the memory.
“Hi,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“Lance didn’t want to come?”
Of course that would be first. Might as well get it out of the way. “Lance and I are no longer together.”
“I’m sorry, Gwen.” He was so sincere.
That was the shit of it. He was sorry. Noble bastard. “It’s okay. It’s been over for a long time. We just hadn’t gotten around to burying the corpse, you know?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” She shook her head. “Elaine pounced on me as soon as I stepped foot out the door and you know how she is.”
Arthur wrinkled his nose. “That woman’s mouth never stops.”
“I was a little harsher than I needed to be, but I just want to be left alone. She’s gossiped about me for hundreds of years. You’d think she be sick of me by now. I’m really not that interesting.”
“You’ll always be interesting to her, Gwen.” Arthur led her inside. “You had what she wanted and she’ll never understand why he chose you instead. She’ll analyze everything about you from the way you wear your hair to that one crooked tooth.”
“My teeth aren’t crooked.” Gwen slapped a hand over her mouth.
Arthur laughed, but didn’t say anything else.
She wondered briefly if he knew what was going through Elaine’s head because that’s what had gone through his own when she’d chosen Lance. The very idea made her insides brittle and frail.
She had to stop this. She couldn’t live in the past. It was over. If he wasn’t bringing up the past, why couldn’t Gwen leave it alone?
“What do you say we have dessert first?” He led her into a small salon and then from there, out onto a gorgeous veranda she didn’t remember.
“This is new.” She looked around to take in everything he’d added to that part of the castle.
“Time brings change to everything. Even Avalon.”
There was a small table covered in white linen and a bowl of what looked like her precious gelato.
“Is that…” she began hopefully.
“It is. I heard you were a little
upset that the market was out.”
“How did you get it?” Gwen narrowed her eyes.
“I bribed a fairy.”
“I could kiss you!” she blurted and then closed her eyes at the great, big pile of crap she’d just stepped in. Number one, he was her ex-husband. Two, he was a manwhore who had women throwing themselves at him. Three, she was just pathetic.
“Yeah, you owe me. The fairy wanted a kiss instead of gold, so it’s only fair. Pay up.” He pointed at his cheek.
Gwen leaned in and pressed her lips softly against his smooth cheek. His goatee tickled her chin and she couldn’t help but giggle.
For which she mentally slapped herself.
“Kissing him was totally worth it.” He mouth quirked into a half-grin.
Gwen choked. “Him?”
Arthur shrugged as the half-grin bloomed into a smile. “Seems everyone is agog at my reputation.”
“So, was there tongue?”
“Why, you want to watch?”
“Sure. I mean, all this manwhoring and everyone else gets a piece of the action. Why not me?” Oh, she should’ve just let it go and not said anything. Now she’d backed herself into a corner. Why was she even flirting with him? She needed someone to take a wet newspaper across her snout like a puppy that had shit on the floor. That’s what she was doing, shitting all over the floor.
“Guinevere, my love, any time you’d like a piece of anything, all you have to do is let me know. You’ve got a VIP ticket.”
She blushed and not knowing how to respond said, “You still didn’t tell me if there was tongue.”
“No, there was no tongue. He just wanted the blessing of a king. He was playing some twisted treasure hunt game. I told him I’d trade him for the gelato.” Arthur smiled again. “I know, it’s nowhere near as racy as you were thinking.”
He pulled out her chair for her and she sat down, quickly plunging her spoon into the gelato. She struggled not to use her spoon like a steam shovel, but she’d been craving it.
Soon her bowl was empty and he pushed his own toward her.
“No, no. I couldn’t. It will go straight to my ass.”
“I will enjoy watching you eat it much more than if I ate it myself. After I kissed a fairy for you, the least you can do is indulge me.”
“Hey, I already kissed you.”
“That wasn’t really a kiss.”
“You’re the one that presented your cheek,” she blurted.
“Didn’t know anything else was an option.” He raised a brow and for some reason, Gwen thought it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “Oh look, it’s melting. It’s such a shame to waste all that creamy goodness.” Arthur nudged the bowl again.
“You’re really not going to eat it?” Yeah, she could shove more gelato in her mouth and she wouldn’t have to remember what it was like to belong to him, to have him belong to her, and worse, remember that she never wanted him while he was hers.
“Not a bite.”
Gwen couldn’t resist. She needed either the gelato or an orgasm. The gelato would have to do. Not that it was a punishment, the gelato was almost a religious experience for her every time it touched her tongue. When she was finished, she licked her lips and set the spoon down gently in the bowl with a sigh, after licking it clean.
“I have decided to make it a crime for the market to ever run out of gelato.”
“You’re the king. You could do that.”
“Or I could make it a crime for anyone to give you gelato but me.”
“Why would you do that?” She tilted her head to the side.
“Honestly?”
“I… yes. Of course, honestly. Why would I ask a question if I didn’t want the answer?”
“I don’t know how you’ll feel about the answer.”
“Well, it’s built up now. Just tell me. Did I humiliate myself or something? Do I have a ring of chocolate around my mouth?” She started dabbing at her lips with a napkin. Something like that would be par for the course.
“No. What you did to that spoon was illegal in some countries.”
“Sorry.” She bit her lip.
“No, don’t be sorry. Let me get you another bowl.”
She thought for a moment about how vociferously she’d enjoyed the gelato and realized she’d practically fellated the spoon. Gwen blushed hard. “At least there’s proof I didn’t forget how.” Hell, her tongue had staged a full on rebellion saying whatever popped into her head and after she’d just given it gelato. The traitor.
“That’s not something you forget, Gwen.”
“After a hundred years, I’m sure it’s possible.”
“Are you telling me that you and Lance…”
She held up her hands. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I really don’t want to talk about it, but I seem to blurt out whatever nonsense happens to be tra-la-laing through my head when I’m with you. “
“You know you can tell me anything. I’m not going to judge you. I was just surprised.”
“Yeah, you had all the sex so there wasn’t any left for us.” Gwen made a lame attempt at a joke.
“Dance with me,” he commanded.
Gwen found herself swept into his arms and she didn’t have the heart to refuse him, not when he flashed her that Teflon grin—that ever present smile that shined through every shadow.
The strains of Airborne Toxic Event’s Sometime Around Midnight started playing. She relaxed into his arms, surrendered to his tender guidance and he spun her around the white-tiled veranda.
Gwen remembered the first time she saw him, their wedding, and their wedding night. Memories slammed into her just like the lyrics of the song. Feral waves, discordant and wild. The arms that held her had been so strong, so sure. His voice had been clear and confident as he’d spoken his vows to her. He’d meant every word.
She’d spoken the words, too, and she’d betrayed him.
A single shudder echoed through her body with all the force of a bullet. She’d broken Arthur and Camelot. She knew in that moment, she deserved everything she got.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his chest.
“For what, Gwen?” He stroked her hair.
“Everything.”
“I forgave you both a long time ago.”
“I haven’t forgiven myself.” She clung to him. “Why couldn’t you be a bastard?” Gwen sniffled.
“Are you crying?” he asked softly.
“No,” she mumbled.
He pulled back from her and tilted her chin up so she had to look at him. “Gwen.”
She closed her eyes. He could always see through her so easily.
“Look at me, Guinevere.”
She opened her eyes and fell into the pool of his gaze. It was a long way down, but she owed him this. If he wanted to see her pain, it was the very least she could do.
“Not a goddamn one of us on this shit island is worth even one of your tears. Not Lance, that’s for damn sure. And certainly not me.”
Gwen wanted to bury her face in his chest and hide away from everything she’d done. She wanted to believe him, but that was the problem. She’d believed she deserved more for so long that she’d failed to see what she’d had in both Lance and Arthur.
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed away a tear.
She would’ve twined her arms around his neck and taken everything he wanted to give, if not for the voice of Bimbo Number One.
“Arthur, I left my panties upstairs.”
Her voice, her words, what Gwen was doing in Arthur’s arms, it was all like a bucket of cold water.
Gwen felt like she was trapped in the oncoming path of a runaway semi.
“Sorry, didn’t know you’d already have more company or I would’ve called.” Bimbo Number One grinned maliciously.
“I have to go,” she squeaked. Gwen hated that she sounded like a mouse when she wanted to roar like a lion.
How could she have let herself forget he’d moved on? This woma
n had more business here with him than Gwen did.
“Don’t,” he began.
She didn’t even grab her shoes, but made a beeline for the stairs off the veranda and didn’t stop until she was sure he couldn’t see her. Then she crumpled in the grass like a new flower in a rainstorm and sobbed.
13
MORGAN
M organ woke up sticky, broken and confused.
She was on her back on the floor, with one leg propped up on the couch, the other hooked around part of the broken coffee table, one arm lying in a discarded hot wing plate, and she didn’t even want to think about what she’d gotten in her hair.
She was naked.
There was still pie filling on one of her nipples.
Because Lance had wanted to lick it off.
A slow, lazy and satisfied smile curved her lips. She’d just banged the hell right out of Lancelot du Lac.
Best sex of her life, hands down.
She grimaced as she sat up, her girly bits ungrateful at their thorough use. Morgan would be lucky if she could walk, but that was a good thing. She’d think about Lance with every step she took and it would cement the memory of their time together in her head.
Morgan got to her feet gingerly and wondered if Lance was already gone. She wouldn’t blame him for sneaking out at first light. It’s what she’d do in his position. When she heard his heavy gait in the hall, she realized she should’ve known better. That wasn’t his style.
Thank the Goddess for magick; she didn’t want him to see her like this. Or the living room. She snapped her fingers and the mess disappeared, her nakedness was covered by a filmy white sarong and her hair lay neat, shiny, and clean. Morgan zapped herself an instant mani/pedi for good measure.
When he came in, she saw he’d made use of the shower. His golden hair was damp and hung in a rebellious sweep over his forehead. He smelled of her honeysuckle conditioner.
Something about that made her want to pounce on him.
“So, is it out of your system?”
She remembered she’d told him she wanted to stay until she got him out of her system. If he left it up to her, she’d keep him forever. “Not a chance.”
Ambrosia Lane 1-3: Saranna DeWylde Page 35