He’d stripped his own clothes off long before she was out of hers. He frowned a little impatiently, but settled on the ground to wait. A happy thought occurred to him as he watched her strip. He could add her clothing to the brush pile and it would shield his knees even better, because he’d discovered the moment he planted his bare ass on it that the brush prickled more than he’d expected.
When he’d spread her clothes, he reached for her and pulled her down on the pallet he’d made. She lay back, staring at him a little uneasily.
“What is it?”
She cleared her throat. “It’s … uh … I’m a little sore.”
“Still?” He was a little suspicious. “Well, spread your legs and let me have a look.”
She reddened. It wasn’t the faint blush he’d noticed before. Her face turned as red as a ripe fruit, and her neck, and even the tops of her breasts. She parted her knees, however, and he got down to have a look.
He frowned when he’d looked her woman’s place over thoroughly, tsking when he recalled humans simply didn’t heal as they ought to. “Never mind,” he said to himself. “I can fix that.”
“You can?” she asked, doubtfully.
Drake flicked a look of surprise at her. “Of course I can! I am a dragon! I can do anything.” He thought that over a moment. “Well, most anything.”
“How?”
He grinned abruptly, feeling his hunger mount as the thought settled firmly in his mind. “I will smother it with kisses. Nothing is more beneficial than a dragon’s kiss.”
She still looked doubtful and thoroughly confused, but he decided he thought it was adorable. He was mildly insulted, but, clearly, she had no experience with dragons. There was no sense in being insulted that she was too ignorant to realize how truly magnificent a creature he was.
He settled beside her, examining her body with his gaze, savoring the delight it was to his senses merely to study it. There was no rush, after all. He might as well enjoy it properly. It was a luxury and a sheer delight, he discovered, to enjoy the anticipation for a few moments, to savor. He was so inclined to gobble when he was hungry that he rarely spared the time to relish.
It might merely be his imagination, he decided, but she seemed very cunningly designed. She had the pretty, soft mounds on her chest that fit his mouth and his hands nicely. Her waist was tiny, small enough to give him a very good hand grip, especially since her hips flared beneath.
He liked the thick, golden hair that hung about her shoulders like a cape and the matching fleece at the apex of her thighs. It wasn’t as pretty as white gold would’ve been, but it was still pretty.
He discovered that she was staring at him a little uneasily when he finally turned his attention to her pretty little face to admire her pink, bowed lips and her wide blue eyes.
“You are not uneasy, my pet?”
She swallowed convulsively but shook her head.
He chuckled huskily. “Liar,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her. He could hear her heart fluttering against her chest with nerves, poor little dove, but it wasn’t pounding nearly as frantically as it had the first time. Mayhap, he thought wryly, he hadn’t completely tamed his little wild bird, but she was coming along nicely.
He settled his mouth firmly on hers and drank of her essence, feeling it flow through him like the most potent ale. By the time he was drunk with it, she’d relaxed against the pallet he’d made for them.
He got so caught up in suckling at her plump little breasts that he almost forgot that he’d intended to heal her little cunt before he shoved his cock into it. Mentally chastising himself for his impatience, he moved between her legs and pushed them wide enough to get his shoulders between them.
He tried, at any rate. Well, he only needed room for his head. He pushed her legs over his shoulders instead and settled to his task. He discovered it was far more interesting than he’d anticipated. The moment he dragged his tongue along her poor, torn little cleft, her taste filled his mouth and sent a rush of hunger through him. “Mmm,” he murmured. “I will have a more of this.”
She didn’t seem terribly keen on allowing him what he wanted. Her legs tightened around his neck the moment he found the plump little bud at the apex of her thighs and began to lick and suck at it. Her hands clamped onto his head, digging into his hair and pulling.
He disentangled her fingers, clamped his hands around her wrists and held them to the ground on either side of her hips, sucking and licking at her until she was bucking a little frantically against his mouth. Distracted, he lifted his head. She had her head thrown back and was gasping. He listened intently for a moment and decided it was gasps of ecstasy rather than pain or distress and lowered his head again.
She began to utter keener gasps when he decided to run his tongue inside her little hole—just to be sure there was no damage there that require a little essence of dragon to heal it. He discovered then, however, that he liked the taste of her cream and he lapped and sucked at it until he’d gathered all he could reach on his tongue. Momentary thwarted, it dawned on him that his dragon’s tongue could reach more of her honey and he focused a moment on shifting that part of himself.
He discovered he was right. His dragon’s tongue was just long enough to dip all the way inside and lap up all of her cream.
She was screaming a little hoarsely when he finally decided, with a great deal of disappointment, that he’d gotten it all.
Rising up on his knees, he studied her speculatively, wondering if he could persuade her to make more for him. She was gasping and twitching, however, and it dawned on him that she’d come. That was a novel thing!
Pleased, he settled to study the look on her face and decided, yes, he’d certainly pleasured her, and only with his tongue!
He was good. He’d thought he was, but this was proof positive that he was every bit as good as he’d suspected he was!
He smiled at her when she finally managed to open her eyes.
“Did you enjoy that, my dove?”
She swallowed convulsively. “Yes.”
Pleased that she’d acknowledged his prowess, he settled close to begin kissing her again. He’d gotten carried away. He’d lapped up all of her honey. She had to make more for him if he was to shove his cock into her. “There, my pretty baby. It is all better now and it will be better still when I have given you my cock, for that is even more magnificent than my tongue.”
Chapter Seven
Gwyneth struggled, but she couldn’t help but chuckle. Drake lifted his head to look at her curiously. She could see the fever in his eyes, though, knew he hadn’t found the release he’d given her. She touched his face. “You are amazingly conceited.”
He lifted his brows. “I’ll concede amazing, but it is not conceit if it is the truth,” he said dismissively.
She stroked his hair as he kissed her breasts. “It’s conceit even if it is the truth,” she murmured. “You don’t need to point it out, you know. It’s very apparent.”
He grunted. “To you, perhaps, my little bird, but not everyone is as clever and quick as you are.”
“If they haven’t enough wit to see it for themselves, it is a waste of time to point it out, surely?”
“You have a point,” he agreed, lifting his head to study her for a long moment. “You aren’t trying to distract me, are you, my precious?”
Gwyneth couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll be quiet.”
She studied him as he positioned himself between her legs and guided his man-root to join with her. He was amazing, she thought, amazingly beautiful in a purely male sense. Even the harsh plains and angles of his face, although fierce, pleased her femininity.
They were more harsh, now, with his excitement and she felt an echo inside of her even before she felt him stretching her flesh, burrowing inside of her. The expectation of pain never materialized. She felt the discomforting burn of skin stretched to its very limits by his girth, the strain of her muscles to engulf him, but not true pain and the
re was an odd sort of pleasure, she discovered, in the joining itself. To feel his flesh embedded within her, cradled at her core, created a warm sense of belonging.
It was false, of course, she told herself as he leaned over her and began to saw slowly back and forth along her channel, stirring heat from the warmth, but it gave her a sense of goodness, of rightness that she’d never felt before. She lifted her arms to him in welcome when he settled lower, stroking his silky skin and the hard muscles that bunched and flexed with his efforts.
He shuddered, gasping harshly at her touch and a sense of pleasure flowed through her to know that the caress of her hands could affect him so powerfully, could make the giant of a man tremble. Such thoughts gave beneath her own delight at his touch. She felt the ache inside of her begin to grow, reached for it now with the knowledge of experience.
He’d spent so long pleasing her he no patience to wait now. Almost at once, he began to pump into her faster. She raced him to the peak, leapt from it when she felt his body gather itself to expel his seed. The hot bath of it on her womb seemed to carry her higher than she’d been before, to keep her flying longer. She cried out at in ecstasy at the force of it, calling his name in praise.
He breathed gustily for several moments after his body had ceased to shudder and finally pitched himself to one side of her. “That was … quite something,” he murmured, surprise in his voice. “I have not taken the time to savor before. It adds a bit more at the end, I believe. I have not come quite that hard before, which is amazing in itself, for I was entirely certain that I had emptied my seed in you only last eve.”
Gwyneth smiled faintly as she rolled toward him and draped herself over his big body. He was quite something, she thought, a very odd sort with failings a plenty, and yet he was amazingly gentle for such a giant of a man—for a dragon—and surprisingly sweet.
* * * *
Caelin’s satisfaction in his foray with Faine lasted right up until Faine landed at the campsite and he discovered it empty—actually, until he heard the feminine laugh coming from the pool. Dropping his bundle, he stalked toward the pool to see what the devil was going on and stopped abruptly in his tracks when he saw Drake romping in the water with the wench! Romping!
“By the gods! You are not concerned about an enemy coming upon you!”
The smile on Drake’s face faded. He slid a narrow eyed look at Caelin. “I am not, because I would’ve heard—or smelled—the approach of an enemy.”
Caelin’s lips tightened. “Faine and I landed right in the middle of the encampment!”
“I know, and from the sound of it, you were successful in retrieving your travel gear.”
Balked of getting a rise out of Drake, Caelin slid a look at the girl who was the reason, he knew, that Drake was behaving like a complete dolt when he was certainly old enough to know better. She’d been facing Drake when he arrived, but she had twisted at the waist to stare at him, affording him an excellent profile of a tear drop shaped breast. He scanned her with his gaze, searching his mind for a justifiable complaint. His cock rose when he had scanned her length to the buttocks peeking just above the surface of the water. There was a mark on her hip that caught his eye, however.
He frowned, studying it, and finally decided to move closer to better examine it.
He was only peripherally aware that her eyes had widened when he started toward her purposefully until she moved around behind Drake. “Here now, girl! Let me have a look at that,” he said impatiently.
“A look at what?” Drake growled when he caught her arm and dragged her back, bending to study her buttocks.
“Gods! Have you noticed this, Drake?”
“I have licked every luscious inch of her and noticed all,” Drake said calmly.
Caelin threw a glare at him. Catching Gwyneth around the tops of her thighs, he hoisted her buttocks upward, stabbing a finger at the mark. “This! Have you seen this?”
“I see that you are like to drown her if you are going to hold her head down in the water,” Drake observed with a growl, studying Gwyneth’s efforts to beat the water hard enough to hold her head above it.
“I’m damned if that is not a fleur de lis!”
That caught Drake’s attention. He grabbed Gwyneth and lifted her ass high enough to study it himself. “Where?”
“On her hip—just there.”
Coughing to expel the water she’d inhaled when Caelin had tipped her head first into the water, Gwyneth struggled to twist around and see what they were talking about. She couldn’t, but she remembered someone had noticed a mark on her hip before. “It’s a birthmark.”
“It does not look like a birthmark to me,” Caelin said grimly.
“What does it look like?” she asked.
“Did I not already say that?” he demanded testily. “Stay out of this! What do you think, Drake?”
“I think this is a luscious little bottom,” Drake growled. “And you are right. I have not nibbled on this part.” He planted his face in the crevice between her cheeks and inhaled deeply.
Gwyneth uttered a squawk and tried to surge upright.
“Can you get your mind off of her cunt for a moment?” Caelin growled. “Do not tell me you have not been plowing her furrows all day, for I shan’t believe it.”
Drake sent him a resentful look. “Not all day,” he growled sullenly.
Caelin shook his head. “Never mind. If you cannot get your mind off your cock ….”
Drake set her down. “You should dry off, pet. Your skin is burning.”
Gwyneth waded from the water and used her slip to dry off. Drake followed her, popping her soundly on the ass when she bent over to retrieve her chemise and nearly oversetting her. She rubbed the stinging cheek, sending him a frowning look of question.
He grinned at the flicker of temper, quickly squelched, in her eyes. She had more spirit, he decided than she displayed and the cleverness to hide it. “That is a luscious bottom, precious. I believe when next I tumble you I will begin feasting there.”
She sent a glance in the direction Caelin had disappeared, and he frowned. Shrugging, he pulled his clothes on and headed back to the campsite.
Caelin had settled to stir up the fire beneath the cow that had been slowly roasting all day. “There is not much beef left,” he commented.
Drake shrugged. “I was hungry. I have been nibbling.”
Caelin’s lips thinned. “So I heard.”
Drake chuckled. “When you reach my age, youngling, you will be wise enough to know that the gods are stingy bastards! It is rare indeed that they drop a gift in one’s lap and one should relish them when they come along—regardless of the circumstances. What are you thinking about the mark on the wench’s hip?”
Caelin frowned thoughtfully. “Mayhap she is right and it is only a birthmark.”
“But you do not think so?”
Caelin wrestled with himself for a moment. “King Gerald slew the royal family.”
Drake grunted, sliding a glance toward Gwyneth when she appeared on the trail from the pool. “So they say. Of course, there are the rumors that some survived. Artimus claims her as his spawn.”
“She is deceitful enough to be his spawn,” Caelin muttered.
Drake studied him thoughtfully. “How has she deceived you, elf?”
Caelin reddened uncomfortably, but he had no intention of admitting that he had been too blinded by his lust to see what he should have. In any case, she was deceitful! “She knew of secret passages within the castle that no one else seemed to know and used them to reach the dungeon where I was held. She outwitted the entire guard save the one stationed directly in the dungeon and she outmaneuvered him,” he said tightly. “Almost. He awakened when she snatched his keys to release me.”
Drake studied him for a long moment. “And this displeases you? She risked much to free you.”
“I did not need her to free me,” he growled. “In any case, I have to wonder why.”
“What tale di
d she spin for you?” he asked when Gwyneth, having seen that they were deep in conversation, stopped uncertainly instead of approaching them.
Caelin shrugged. “That she thought I might free her. She asked me to take her with me.”
“Mmm,” Drake said thoughtfully. “This is a very curious tangle we have here. One would almost suppose that she knew of Artimus’ design, and yet she seemed genuinely frightened when we spoke of the ritual.”
Caelin mulled that over and finally scrubbed a hand along his neck, massaging it. “It is a curious tangle,” he agreed. “A series of coincidences, you think?”
“Hmmm. I have always thought coincidence the design of the gods—when they are truly coincidence. The rest of the time they are design, someone’s.”
“The girl has magic,” Caelin murmured. “It led me to her—or at least I noticed it the moment she found her way to me. It seems too insignificant to be no threat, and yet ….”
“You think it might be? Hers? Or Artimus’?”
“I thought of it, but dismissed it. Now I am not so certain we should dismiss it.”
“It?” Drake prompted.
“Suppose she was designed as a lure?”
Drake’s brows lifted. He turned his head to study Gwyneth. “She is certainly alluring, and very much to my taste, but I can hardly credit her as a lure. She is a pretty little thing, true, but not beautiful and one would expect a lure to be, wouldn’t one? What would be the purpose? And how could he think to preserve her innocence if he designed her as a lure?”
“That is why I dismissed it before,” Caelin admitted. “But I lust for her and you lust for her and Faine does. Does that not seem … unusual?”
Drake grunted. “Unusual … yes, I suppose, given that we are three very different creatures but, from what you said, it was not that unusual for the men of the castle to rut her. Mayhap she has an entirely natural appeal? I have observed that it is like with some women—human females—just as it is with some human males. There is not always rhyme or reason to it—nothing discernible. They are not always beautiful, and the beautiful are not always as avidly sought after. Some merely have a very wide appeal to many,” he said with a shrug.
A Lamentation of Swans Page 9