Hard Day's Knight

by Katie MacAlister

  She left before I could ask her just what sort of trouble she envisioned me being in, not to mention what the cryptic “doing what needs to be done” part of her message entailed, or question her regarding Marley, and Bos’s lance.

  “Well, she’s up for suspect number one based on that conversation,” I told Moth. His face donned its martyred look as I slung him up onto my hip, heading for the stable. The two teens who were watching the shop told me everyone had gone off for dinner.

  “Ah,” I said as I ran my hands over Cassie, checking for any signs of injury, not that I expected to find any. “I’m just going to take Cassie out for a little exercise. No one’s been messing around with the horses, have they?”

  “No one’s been in the stable at all except the Three Doggers and the Jousting Jesters,” Tim answered. He was the oldest of the two hired to watch over the horses, and looked like a reliable kid.

  I nodded at the mention of the other team who shared the stable and settled the saddle blanket over Cassie’s back. “Good enough. Make sure you watch anyone who comes near. The competition is only just starting.”

  It wasn’t easy to get Moth, the lances, and Cassie to the distant field where the shock quintain had been set up, but in the end I managed it by plopping Moth onto Cassie’s deep Calvary saddle. I spent the long walk out to the field figuring out how I’d brace the lances up on their butt end so I could grab one without having to dismount, but in the end it was all moot.

  “Well, I’ll be a milk-livered gudgeon,” I told Moth as we rounded the corner of the outbuilding next to the field. “Lookie what we found. Sir Hottie himself. Holy cow!”

  Walker and Marley went thundering down the field, Walker in full armor with a shield on his left arm as he lowered the lance, couching it just before it slammed into the shield bolted onto the quintain. I knew from experience just how heavy the shock quintain was (about two hundred pounds, according to Bliss), but Walker didn’t just tip it over; he blasted into it with such force that it flew backward about six feet before crashing onto its back.

  “My God, that must have hurt.” I gasped, noting how Walker’s body recoiled backward against the high back of his Paso saddle. It was then that I saw that he was riding without touching the reins that hung loosely around Marley’s neck, using instead leg and voice cues to direct the big gelding. “Now that’s impressive training in just one week.”

  Walker didn’t spy us coming toward him until he dismounted in order to pull the quintain back onto its legs.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked with a familiar scowl. I tamped down ruthlessly on the various parts of my body that woke up and started cheering at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t forgotten how mean he had been to me earlier.

  The truth can be painful when you refuse to admit it, a traitorous voice in my head said softly. I squashed it down, too.

  “Looks like the same thing you’re doing—practicing, although if that’s how you normally hit, it’s pretty obvious you don’t need much practice.”

  “Everyone needs practice, even experienced jousters,” he said dismissively, grunting a little as he hauled the quintain onto its wooden platform. I watched him rub his neck where the metal plate had rubbed a raw spot on the flesh just above his collarbone.

  “That looks nasty. Aren’t you supposed to be wearing something underneath the armor to protect your skin?”

  “The problem isn’t with the gambeson; it’s this armor. It wasn’t made for me. I’ll fix it tomorrow, between matches. Where’s Bliss?”

  “Come on, your highness, you get the seat of honor,” I told Moth, setting him down on the metal barrel, having first placed one of my towels down. “Bliss is probably partying with everyone else. We had a Promenade and everyone went crazy afterward. What do you mean, you’ll fix the armor? Won’t that require something like an anvil? Blacksmith stuff?”

  “Yes. The metalsmith said I could use the forge he has set up to demonstrate smithing.”

  “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” I asked, visions of hot blobs of molten steel flying onto Walker’s adorable face. He might be the most irritating man in existence, but he was my irritating man, and I didn’t want him hurt.

  “I’m a farrier, Pepper. I know how to use a forge,” he said, giving me a hot glance before striding over to where Marley was dozing in the early evening sun. “Were you planning to practice by yourself?”

  “Yup. Now you can watch and tell me what I’m doing wrong, and I’ll do the same for you.” I didn’t see it, but I just knew he rolled his eyes at that suggestion. “Then maybe after we’ve practiced for a while we can joust together? Mano a . . . uh . . . femo?”

  “No,” he snapped, sliding smoothly into the saddle.

  “Oh, come on—dammit, Cassie, stand still!—don’t be such a poop. I hit Bliss’s shield almost every time yesterday when we jousted.”

  “That wasn’t jousting; that was training. You’d be dead in a real joust,” he said dismissively, and watched with one eyebrow cocked as I hopped up and down a half dozen times before managing to hoist myself into the saddle. I adjusted the girth, fiddled with the stirrup length, and rearranged my mail until it was to my liking, all forms of procrastination. The truth was that part of me really didn’t want Walker around to watch me hit the dirt again, but the other part, the girlie part, went all giggly around him and wanted to patch things up and live happily ever after.

  Instead of giving in to that desire, I straightened my shoulders and told myself that I’d brazen it out. “Yeah, well, I might just surprise you. So, you going to stand there all day, or are you going to nail the quintain?”

  He gestured a graceful hand and moved Marley to the side. “Ladies first.”

  “That’s Sir Lady to you, buster,” I said haughtily, taking one of the lances to which he’d already fixed the breakable balsa tips. As I turned Cassie toward the other end of the field, I called back to him, “We brave knights of yore demand respect from common folk. We’re virtual gods upon the earth, just you remember that.”

  Walker said nothing, but sat easily on a bored Marley, both of them watching as I lined Cassie up with the dreaded shock quintain.

  “All right, old girl, let’s refrain from snacking until Pepper is steady in the saddle, hmm?” I took a deep breath, got a good grip on the lance, and dug my heels in, gripping Cassie firmly with my knees.

  “What was that you were saying about being a god?” Walker asked twenty seconds later while I spit out grass and dirt, groaning just a little as I got up on one elbow to glare when he dismounted and started toward me.

  “I mentioned earth,” I grumbled. “This is a form of worship.”

  “Ah, is that it? I could have sworn it was a form of inexperience.”

  I let him help me to my feet, taking the opportunity to throw a clump of grass at Cassie as she grazed. “You great big four-hoofed traitor! I said no snacking!”

  “The sign of an inexperienced knight is one who blames the horse rather than himself,” Walker said, his hands still on my arms.

  I threw grass at him, too. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes impossible to read in the creeping evening shadows, but his jaw was tense and tight as he ground out the word. “Everyone knows that. Give it up, Pepper. You can’t do this.”

  “Never!” I swore, glaring at him, alternating between the desire to strangle him, and throw him to the ground and have my way with him. “Bliss says I can do this, and do it I shall.”

  “Bliss is wrong,” he said roughly, moving closer to me. “She’s never trained anyone before. I have. You don’t have what it takes to be a jouster.”

  “Says you.” I snorted, my body taking a step forward until my mail brushed with a metal whisper over the surface of his plate armor. “I say I can.”

  “You can’t,” he hissed, his breath hot on my face, his eyes glowing with a molten light.

  “Are you as aroused as I am?” I asked, unable to resist the offer his body was ma
king me.

  “More,” he growled, jerking me forward, his mouth claiming mine to the sound of chain mail scraping across steel armor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This is ridiculous,” I complained, my fingers working desperately on the buckles holding Walker’s armor on. “We’ll hurt ourselves. Or someone will see us. Or the horses will run off. Or Moth will eat my gambeson. Stupid buckle!”

  Walker snarled something as he ripped at the leather buckle on the shoulder of his breastplate. Truly, what we were considering doing was idiotic in the extreme. Voyeuristic aspects aside, it was ridiculous to think we could possibly make love while one or both of us was covered in protective armor.

  That didn’t stop me from ripping my mail hauberk off, though. I had it, my gambeson, and my tights off before Walker had the first buckle of his pauldron—the shoulder armor—off. I stood in nothing but my tunic fighting with his buckle until I realized just how foolish we were being to give in to our passion this way. There were better, more comfortable, sensible ways to do this. “Stop! This is silly! You’ll hurt yourself, and you’re breaking the armor!”

  Walker was panting with frustration as he ripped the second pauldron off. His eyes met mine, and any further protestations dried up as his mouth descended on mine again, the heat and taste of him enough to drive me wild with need.

  “Screw sensibility,” I muttered into his mouth.

  “I second the suggestion,” he answered, his tongue swirling over mine. While I kissed him with everything I was worth, he managed to get the breastplate and armpieces off without once taking a lip off me.

  “Mail,” he murmured against my mouth as I writhed against him.

  “Yes, you are very male,” I cooed, reaching for the proof of just that.

  “No, chain mail. Let me get it off—”

  “No time!” I shrieked, grabbing his shoulders tight and jumping up, wrapping my legs around his hips, using one hand to jerk his mail and arming tunic out of the way. Walker lurched a few steps to a small stand of fir trees that would give us a modicum of privacy, not that I really feared anyone would discover our illicit activities. Everyone was too busy toasting the Wenches’ breasts to wander out in a distant, seldom-used field.

  “Pepper—oh, god, sweetheart, this is going to be fast. . . . Can you reach my hose?”

  “My darling, I will always be able to reach your hose,” I said in between scattered kisses to his lovely mouth.

  “Not that hose, love.” He groaned as pressed me up against one of the tree trunks. “Lord, the way you taste—can you reach me? I’m going to burst if you don’t—”

  “Just a sec. Ow!” I dug a branch out of my back before reaching down between us, jerking at his tights. “Good god, were you this big last night? You haven’t been taking Viagra or something, have you? Because I don’t remember you being so . . . gigantic!”

  I couldn’t see that particular part of him, but the way he pressed up against me was a bit intimidating.

  “I’m just the same as I was before,” he groaned, shifting me a bit against the tree. I wrapped both arms around his neck, kissing his neck and jaw. “Christ, I’d like to do this slowly—”

  “Never mind,” I said, squirming around as the tip of him teased all my squishy parts, my legs tightening around his hips. “Boy, these last few days of horseback riding have done a lot to increase my thigh muscles. Up just a bit, my darling. Now to the left. No, no, not your left, my left. Your right. No, Walker, that’s my leg; you’re not going to get anywhere if you start thrusting away there—”

  “For Christ’s sake, woman, help me!” Walker all but sobbed as he lunged upward.

  “I’m trying to help you, but you’re not listening! Left! I mean, right, right! Go right!”

  He leaned his forehead against mine, his breath as rough and ragged as my own. “Pepper, love, would you please use your hand to help me? Not that I don’t appreciate your directions, but if I have to rely upon your navigation to do this, we’ll be at it all night.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound too awful,” I said, giving his lower lip a quick suck, just so he’d know how much I adored it. I reached between us again, grabbing his now seemingly humongous penis and directing it to where it was sure of a hearty welcome. He surged into me, filling me, nudging himself into areas that were all but quivering with anticipation of his arrival, and I almost let go of his neck, the feeling was so overwhelming. It was good, it was right, and when he started to move within me, it was the most beautiful thing in the whole world.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as he nipped my ear, his tongue soothing away the sting.

  “ ‘All right’ is a bit of an understatement, my lusty knight. Oh, yes, do that again!”

  He surged upward, and my muscles rippled around him, the breath caught in my chest. Pressed as I was against the tree, I was limited in my movement, but I managed to do a little swivel that damn near had him singing with pleasure.

  “You’re so good, so hot, like liquid fire around me,” he gasped into my ear. I couldn’t answer; my brain had stopped working by that point. All that was left was the knowledge that there was nothing in my life that would be as important as my decision to take this man into my heart and keep him there forever. I twisted my arms around, grabbing his hair with both hands and yanking his head back.

  “You’re mine, Walker, and I’m never going to let you go. Do you understand?”

  His eyes crossed as I tightened every muscle I had around the long, hot, velvety-slick length of him.

  “Pepper, my sweet, fiery Pepper, you warm me when no one else can—oh, god!”

  “Yes, yes, I know it’s good, isn’t it? We fit so perfectly together.” Walker’s hips went wild against me, his body all but dancing as he thrust into me again and again. The pressure was building within me, my muscles cramping in anticipation of the big moment.

  His back arched, thrusting his hips even harder against me. “Oh, god, I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can, my darling,” I answered, sucking his neck, trying to reassure him with the tiny fragment of my brain that was left lucid. “I know it’s overwhelming, but just stay with me a few minutes longer. . . . Merciful heaven, you feel so good inside me!”

  “Moth, no!” Walker’s voice was hoarse, his face caught between a grimace of pain and a stultifying look of the ecstasy that I sensed he was within seconds of reaching.

  “Moth? My name is Pepper, you deranged and yet adorable man! Don’t stop!” I yelled, moving against him as his fingers bit into my thighs, shifting me against him. “Not now, not yet, please not yet!”

  His eyes blazed at me as he writhed, but he didn’t stop his heroic attempt to send me to heaven and back, no, sir, not my Walker. Tears collected in the corners of his eyes, tears that I kissed away as I gave in to the red wave of rapture that crashed over me, filling me and binding me to him in a way so profound, it shook me to my core.

  “Walker!” I yelled, my nose touching his, my body consumed with everything that we were together. I wrapped my fingers into his hair and shook his head until his teeth rattled. “I love you!”

  He shuddered, his back arching even harder as he, too, surrendered his soul to the amazing, wondrous entity we had become. His eyes went wild as he shouted my name to the heavens while I melted against him, one great big puddle of Pepper goo, mindless to everything but the man who had so effectively filled my heart.

  I gasped into his neck, his breath as rough as mine as he collapsed against me, pinning me to the tree. Beneath my hands a fine tremor shook his body, but whether it was from the stress of holding me up or from the power of our joining, I didn’t know. I kissed his neck, wanting to stay in his arms forever, but knowing that even hidden in the trees as we were, it was too exposed a spot to linger.

  “My darling, my dearest love, my scrumdillyicious Walker, we have to . . .” I lifted my head from his sweaty neck, only to come nose-to-nose with the most annoying cat in the western hemisphere, a cat
that evidently thought nothing of scaling Walker while we were making love. No wonder the poor man was twitching and writhing—I knew from experience just how sharp Moth’s claws could be. “Stop puffing your breath on me, you horrible beast. You smell like cat food!”

  “I do?” Walker asked. “I don’t know why I would. I haven’t been eating any.”

  “Very funny, Mr. Comedian,” I said, turning my head and giving his adorable chin a little love bite. “You know I was talking to this damned cat. Why didn’t you tell me he was climbing you?”

  Walker also turned his head, this time to meet Moth’s inscrutable cat eyes. “It didn’t seem very important at that moment. We really have to do something about him. I’ve never been one for a menage à trois.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, one finger beneath his chin turning his face so his lips were back within range of mine. “I have a plan.”

  The next five days passed in utter and complete bliss, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. My days were spent watching Walker and his team perform in the competitions, rooting on the Three Dog Knights during the competition hours, training with Walker in the off hours, spending my nights with my knight . . . and falling deeper and more irrevocably in love with each beat of his heart.

  The time wasn’t without moments of lunacy, however. When I trained with Walker, he ceased being my adorable dream knight, turning into Walker the Hun, scourge of my life. We argued about everything, from the way I held the lance to the fact that I had stolen his favorite black Venetian hat and claimed it for my own (it was a very cool hat and looked good on me, a fact Walker had to admit one night when I stood before him wearing nothing but it). After spending ten minutes with Walker instructing me at jousting, I understood completely why Veronica had warned me against training with him.

  “Are you deaf, woman?” Walker yelled at me the third day into training. “I told you this morning not to brace the lance against your shield, and yet you just did it again!”