by Georgia Fox
He sniffed and shook his head. "At least no one will suspect you of sending the boy there. I suppose he is safe for tonight."
"I would have kept Gaston at my side, but decided it was better if we are apart. A nine year-old boy can too swiftly be dispatched by a sly hand. Like those poor Plantagenet Princes in England who disappeared from their beds and have never been seen again. So, I sent him away. It is impossible for an assassin to aim at two targets with the same arrow, as Septimus used to say."
Ram turned sharply and squinted at her, suddenly feeling a cold draft, as if that fire had gone out. "You have reason to feel your life is threatened?"
She handed him a note she'd been keeping in her sleeve, but then must have remembered that he could not read. "It is only one line assuring me that if I stay in the palace I will die. It could be a warning, or a threat. I do not know which." She refolded the note and put it back where she'd kept it. "I know Bonneville would like me removed from the scene, to be sure. I am merely a reminder of my husband's reign and barely had the king taken his last breath, than Humboldt was speaking of a new age and a new regime. His own, no doubt. If he tries anything against me here it will be safer if Gaston is kept elsewhere. I suppose Humboldt will expect me to keep my son close by."
His mood darkened further. "If the fine Lord Bonneville lays a hand upon you or the boy, I'll take his smooth, ladylike fingers off, one by one, and make him swallow them whole."
Her eyes flared, striking at him like emerald daggers. "I hope that will not be necessary. I would not like my son's reign to begin with bloodshed."
"Sometimes it's inevitable." He scowled down at her. It amazed Ram that she had just explained her fears for her son's life and yet she was not prepared to kill— to fight fire with fire. That was the fault in women, of course. They were too soft when it came to killing. They were not made for war.
He gazed at her full, tempting lips, the proud, stubborn chin, and below that...down a slender, ivory neck, all the way to a ripe pair of bubbies straining against the thin wool of her gown. More than a mouthful. And they swung very slightly as she turned, tempting him to reach for their hardened peaks. Aye, she was soft all over. Soft as the finest silk. Inside and out, he'd wager.
He should not think of her in that crude way. Especially not at this moment.
But he did.
While she proceeded with another of her pacing circles, he widened his footing, discretely adjusting his cock under his hide breeches. He was hard and heavy, his balls aching. What sort of sick bastard was he, that he thought this way about the widow of his beloved King so soon after the good man's demise? And when she looked to him for help? Well, he'd never pretended to be a court gallant. He was an uncomplicated, red-blooded man.
What was he saying? Ah, yes.
"Some troublemakers are never silenced until you stop their tongue for good, majesty. A king shouldn't be afraid to carve a kingdom with his sword. The earlier your son learns that the better. A king cannot flinch from killing, or he will become the victim."
Her brows arched. "You are in a bloodthirsty temper."
"Bonneville and his ilk bring that out in me. But you know what I am. You didn't send for me to write some poetry."
"No, I did not." She walked closer again, her hands at her sides, fingers fluttering impatiently. "There are others, as you must know. Not just Bonneville. Bosworth, Riaz, Medlar. All of them angling for power. I have heard the whispers already. The scheming has begun. Everywhere I turn—"
"Fuck them all. Fuck. Them."
That brought her to a sharp halt before him, almost tripping over her gown. "I beg your pardon?"
"You heard what I said. Don't pretend you don't know what it means."
She blushed. "It is not a word you should say in the presence of your queen."
"You won't find the expression in any of your books, majesty, but when a man is in a foul mood it helps get his thoughts in clear order. Helps him see what matters and what doesn't." He paused. "You should try it, majesty. You'll find it very beneficial."
A slight line appeared between her brows as she looked up at him. "Perhaps shouting that filthy word helps you, but it can hardly benefit a queen."
He leaned forward, feeling belligerent and something else that was both tender and violent. "Why not? Afraid to speak the word?"
She pressed her lips together, stubborn.
Ram sighed and shook his head. "That's the difference between men and women. That's why we will always lead. Women place too much importance on manners. A man simply is and does. If he is a man at all, of course."
"Gracious," she exclaimed wryly, "I do not think I've ever heard you give this many speeches at once. You're usually so begrudging with your words... in my presence at least."
"Because I do, while others merely talk of doing."
After a long moment, during which he almost drowned in the green lake of her frustrated regard, she turned her back to him. "Will you help us? Protect my son from those who would harm him?"
He stared at her dark hair. Uncovered tonight, weaving down her back in that snake-like braid, it tempted his fingers. Would she notice if he just let his fingertips caress that silken serpent of hair? The heavy lengths of it were combed smooth, not a tangle or knot in sight. If it was unbraided, he could catch his fingers in it and run them from crown to softly curling tip without obstruction. It was scented too, with lemons and rosemary.
Ram took a deep breath. "If you ask it of me, Ariana." Fuck. Did he just say that? Did he call her by her name? Bloody words. That was why he shouldn't be allowed near them. Or near her.
Now he knew he was definitely in his cups.
She whirled around again. "This is why I brought you here in so much secrecy, you fool. I am asking. Why do you suppose I went to these lengths to meet with you alone?"
He felt his lip quirk. "I thought you just enjoyed the drama. The four-leaf clover was a nice touch." Now he was really getting in over his head, chancing his luck.
Another faint pink washed over her cheeks. "I did not know if you would come. I have heard you once swore never to answer the commands of a woman."
"But you took a chance."
"Yes." She licked her lips. "I hoped the clover might appeal to your gentle side. If you have one."
"I don't."
With a quick, terse sigh, she nodded. "So I am told. But I am stubborn and I thought it worth a try."
"Against the odds, your scheme worked. I was too curious not to come."
He saw the little swallow in her slender throat. "Then you will pledge yourself to protect Gaston? I ask you, as your Queen...for Ersadonia. For the memory of King Septimus."
He looked into her eyes and in that moment he knew what he must say. Ten years was long enough to keep a damnable secret. "No."
Her lips parted, she paled. "I don't—"
"I will stay if you ask me. For you."
"But I have asked—"
"I mean that you must ask me for yourself. Ask me not as a queen, but as a woman." He paused. Don't say it. Don't say it, you pathetic, drunken imbecile. "Kiss me."
There. He said it.
Chapter Four
She stared up into his eyes, trying to read his thoughts.
"Well?" he demanded gruffly. "Am I too lowly to be entreated sweetly, rather than ordered to obey?"
"How dare you speak to me thus?" she managed at last. "Have you forgotten your place?"
He gave a harsh laugh, sharp as a blade. "You want me to put your son's life before my own. Yet you still treat me as a servant."
"I ask for your loyalty. No more and no less than you once gave to my husband."
She had never seen his eyes so light and yet also heated. Usually he didn't keep her gaze for long, but blinked and lowered his eyelids, or turned away in disdain. This evening he settled his regard upon her face and did not retreat. Ariana felt scalded by it. Yet she did not want to save herself from the sparks that burned her skin. At least she could feel th
em. She needed to feel something, for she had begun to experience a strange numbness these past few years. It was so long since her husband touched her. So long since anyone did. Nobody embraced a queen— it was not allowed.
He had taken two steps closer and now she could smell ale. A strong wave of it.
"Are you drunk?" she exclaimed, her voice quaking. That would explain the fierce look in his eye and these forward words.
He jerked a shoulder upward in a careless shrug— a shockingly casual gesture in the presence of his queen. "You knew where I would be. Knew where to send the boy to find me. I'm sure you knew what I was doing there."
Yes, she had heard he spent most of his time in that small tavern when he was not working, or on the training field. Too much of his time, in her opinion, although at least he didn't frequent the town's brothels, which was the main pastime for most other soldiers while on leave.
"My husband always admired your self-discipline, but it seems you've become lax in recent months."
"Yes, he admired my discipline." He laughed again, cheerlessly. "Ram the King's Fool is nothing if not self-disciplined and self-sacrificing for Ersadonia."
Ariana could see he was in a mood from which she was highly unlikely to pull him out. Didn't know how. In the past, when it came to dealing with Ram Thruster she left that task to her husband, the King. But now the management of this brute beast was up to her.
"Will you vow to guard my son's throne or not?" she demanded. "This has been a long day."
"Ask me. As a woman should ask a man."
"What difference does it make?" she exclaimed.
Abruptly he stooped to push a fallen log back into the fire, saving the hem of her gown from stray sparks. Ariana hadn't realized she was in danger, but even in his cups he acted speedily to save her. Looking down again at her feet, of course.
"Perhaps you have been too long a queen and forgotten how to be a woman. Or you never knew how." He set the log back in the flames, unflinching when a shower of hot ash landed on his hand. In the next moment, to her surprise, he was heading for the door.
Leaving already!
Ariana knew she must act. He was a mule, thick-headed and infuriating, stuck in his ways, uncivil, impossibly bad tempered and eccentric. But they needed him.
She needed him. Is that what he wanted her to say?
"As a woman then!" she rushed after him and placed her hand on his arm as it reached for the bolt. "Not as a queen, but as a mother and a woman, I beg you to stay and protect us."
Ram stopped. He glowered down at her fingers against his sleeve. How dark and thick his lashes were, she realized.
"I...I can trust you, as I can no other. I know that, and Septimus always told me—"
"No. Do not mention his name." He spoke in a low voice, head still bowed. "You are asking for yourself, remember? Just yourself."
She bit her lip and nodded. "Yes. I know you are the best man to protect us. Please...stay." As she spoke the last words, Ariana felt desperate. She could see no emotion on his face. His eyelids were heavy, hiding his thoughts. Summoning her bravery, she raised her hand to his stern jaw and then his cheek, touching the rough bristles, running her fingertips across the hard contours. "I need you now, more than ever. Ram. Please."
Suddenly he caught her wrist in his firm grip and held it. She could not tug her hand away and after only a cursory attempt she went still. Slowly he drew her hand to his lips, pressing her fingers there.
Her pulse galloped and she knew he would feel it in her wrist, but she couldn't stop the mad racing that betrayed her. It didn't seem real. Was she dreaming?
His tongue flicked out and licked her fingers.
Real or not, this thing he did certainly wasn't chivalrous, not with her husband barely cold. What could he be thinking?
But Ramon Villaverde made his own rules. They didn't call him "The Thruster" because he hung back meekly, minded his manners and waited his turn.
She knew her face must be scarlet as her thoughts took a decidedly wicked turn.
He pursed his lips against her fingers and kissed them, leaving her skin wet and trembling. Then he released her hand.
Ariana was speechless— a state she'd once heard him say he preferred in his women. Now he pointed to his lips and waited.
He meant it then. He wanted a kiss.
Outrageous as it might be, what else could she do but concede to his demand?
There wasn't particularly anything else she wanted to do at that moment. So she lifted up on tiptoe— he made no move to adjust his height for her— and leaning slightly forward, she pressed her lips to his mouth.
A touch. Oh, a touch of skin to skin at last, after so long.
His hands went to her waist and lifted her. Suddenly he took control, forcing her backward until her spine was against the door, his mouth slanted to hers, his tongue thrusting between her lips. It was savage. What else would it be from such a man as he? With his body pressed to hers, she was trapped, at his mercy. The taste of ale was strong on his tongue, almost enough to make her drunk too.
Good god, what was she doing? Her husband's corpse barely cold, her son in danger...her own life on a precipice...
She reached for his hair, needing something to hold on to. His scalp was damp with sweat, his black hair surprisingly soft. The heat coming off him was immense, raising her own temperature until she too felt moist all over.
Finally he let her slide down the door again until her feet touched the ground.
"Very well...Ariana," he muttered, sounding hoarse, "since you entreat me so warmly, I will stay and guard you."
Breathless she waited, her fingers fidgeting and restless among the soft pleats of her gown. His gaze lifted, taking her in thoroughly and critically, just as he did in that forest glade ten years ago. It made her feel seventeen again, nervous, feverish, naïve. And trying to hide all of that in front of this man who looked at her as no one ever had. As no one ever dared. Before or since.
"I will make the arrangements," he said.
"Arrangements?" Her voice sounded distant. She had trouble moving her lips since they felt now as if they belonged to him.
"To keep you well guarded and ensure the Prince ascends his throne without opposition."
She took a breath. "Thank you. We are in your debt."
"Yes." She caught just the trace of a faint smile. "Soon I'll collect what you owe me. I've waited long enough."
Ariana took a step sideways, away from the door, trying to recover her wits. "Collect?"
"Fret not," he added, eyes gleaming under those heavy lids. "I'm not such a brute that I would ask for payment in full tonight. Your husband's not been dead five hours and I will honor his memory. Until after the funeral."
She fought to catch her breath, but it kept slipping away through her devil-possessed lips faster than her lungs could pump another. "I gave you your kiss. What more payment did you have in mind?"
There was only a brief pause. "Let me fuck you."
A shattered gasp flew out of her. "Are you addled?"
"Or find another man to help your boy."
So he meant to keep raising his fee? First a kiss, now this. "If you were not drunk, you would never dare speak this way to your queen."
"But I am drunk. And I am speaking. Not to a queen. To a woman." He rubbed two fingers across his mouth and then reached over. "A woman in need."
Blood rushed through her in a hot flood, for she had no idea what he meant to do, this unstoppable force of manhood.
And then he touched his two wet fingers to her left breast, stroking them over the side curve, then across the tiny pip where her nipple had stood on alert since he first gripped her wrist. She remained still and let it happen. She told herself she was in shock, because she could not allow any other explanation at that moment for why she allowed this man to touch her so brazenly with neither invitation, nor permission.
"Let me have you, just once, and I will serve your son with my life. There. Is that
not a trade fairer to you than to me?"
He cupped her breast, curving his warm palm under the weight of it, his broad thumb teasing her nipple until it hurt. But gloriously. Slowly he squeezed the swelling orb and an ache swept down through her belly. Between her thighs she was wet, softening with desire to be stroked there too.
"Just...just once?" she clarified haltingly.
He nodded, his gaze on her lips. "It won't take long. It'll be quick, hard, not tender, but satisfying."
Ariana struggled to form a reply to that and finally settled for, "As you wish then."
Did he almost smile? Almost? Or was it a sneer, because he thought her too easily persuaded, a hussy ready to spread her legs for a stallion the moment her aged husband was gone?
She was horrified by her own arousal, and yet it could not be prevented. This man had some sort of wicked hold upon her and the barrier that had always been betwixt them, was suddenly gone.
She had met with him alone, unchaperoned. Naïve of her, she thought, chagrinned.
Or was it? Had she known what she was doing?
Confused she looked down at his hand caressing her breast, his thumb teasing her nipple through the cloth of her gown and shift.
"Soon then," he muttered huskily, "your debt will come due, Ariana. And then I will come too. Deep inside you with my big, rough, commoner's cock."
She swallowed hard and turned her face away.
He reached for the bolt again, but she knew he looked over his shoulder as his tone swiftly changed, back to business. "You will be safe in here tonight. I'll post two men I can trust near this door and they'll make sure no one gets near you."
"What about my ladies-in-waiting?"
"I will tell them you are grieving alone." His eyes smoldering down at her. "I doubt Bonneville would dare try anything this soon. He hasn't the balls."
She nodded.
"And as for the others...remember what I said?" he added in a low voice. "Fuck 'em. They can't hurt you now. I won't let them."
Amazingly he had made her feel more confident already, as if she could handle any scheme they tried. "Fuck them," she murmured thickly.
