by Bonnie Dee
Gwyneth walked through the door without looking back.
Wallace said to her, “You’ve done well, very well, for both of us. One more night, and we’ll all be rich, you and me as well as the king.”
“And the rest of the country?” Gwyneth said with sudden despair. If nothing else, her stay in the palace had shown her that people didn’t need to live in the poverty of those she’d known all her life.
“Prosperity spreads,” Wallace said vaguely. “The whole country will benefit from the king’s wealth.”
Was that true? Was she really doing some good? Or did she just want to calm her raging guilt? She wasn’t even sure what she was guilty of any more. She just knew it had all gotten out of hand. And what she really wanted was to tell her demon so.
Soon she would have the opportunity. As she and Wallace descended the stone steps to the underground passage, her heart beat faster and faster. He hadn’t kissed her mouth last night, despite the other greater pleasures he’d shown her, and now, suddenly, she was desperate that he should. After tonight, there was no guarantee she would ever see him again. After tonight, there was no guarantee she would ever know such pleasures again. She would be lost to a life of duty. A life of unimaginable luxury and wealth for which she should be prostrate with gratitude.
I’ll do it. I will. I’ll marry the king, and as queen I’ll try my very best to look after the people. Surely there are many ways I can help, make a difference… But first, oh, first, can’t I, please…?
Her desperate, incoherent plea trailed off as the door of the familiar room creaked open once more. There was barely space for the door. She had to edge into the room, so packed with straw was it. Even the spinning wheel and the stool, squashed against a high wall of bales, were almost buried in the stuff.
“Good luck,” said Wallace. “And I hope you’ll remember, when honors come to you, that it was I who brought them.”
No, you didn’t. My demon did!
Fortunately, she kept the words inside. The door slammed and bolted behind her, and she was left staring at a solid wall of straw. Laughter caught in her throat.
“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud. Turning, she leaned back against the straw and closed her eyes. She thought of her previous two nights here, of the dark man’s kiss, of his hands on her breasts, on her thighs, of his ecstasy-giving kiss on her clitoris. Her heated body clenched, releasing a pool of warm moisture from her desperate pussy.
One more night with him. And then, then I’ll be good…
“Please,” she whispered. “I need you. I want you.”
He shouldn’t have been able to hear. She wasn’t even sure she meant him to. But something stirred in the room. Soft fabric, like a cloak, brushed against her forearm. She found herself smiling. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and there he stood, close enough to touch, tall and black and hooded. His familiar, faint, smoky scent filled her nostrils and her memory, feeding her galloping lust.
“There you are,” she said, and reached inside his hood. His hand whipped up and caught her wrist, but she’d already found his warm, rough cheek. Mutely, she lifted her face inside the shadows of his cowl, parting her lips. She heard his breath catch an instant before she found his lips. And then their mouths met and fused, and Gwyneth drowned in sensation.
She’d been wrong. She still liked kissing, although it seemed it had to be with the demon. She must be very wicked.
His mouth opened hers and his tongue drove deep, flicking back to lick at her teeth. She caressed his cheek, slid her hand round to his head, tangling in the same soft hair she’d felt last night. With her free hand, she found his gloved one and carried it blatantly to her breast, moaning at the first touch. His fingers curled, cupping while his thumb flickered across her hard, aroused nipple. Then he moved, delving inside the neck of her gown to find her naked breast, and she moaned again as he freed it from its constraints.
The demon released her mouth and raised his head quickly to prevent her, presumably, from seeing more than the dark shadows of his face. But his hand did not leave her breast. Instead he gazed at it, as she did, watching his black gloved hand caress her palely gleaming skin, her anxious nipple rosy under the merciless attention of his finger. It seemed to stretch toward his touch every time he left it. Sparks of bliss spread downward from her breast to her pussy, gathering there while her whole body flushed with growing pleasure.
He said huskily, “We haven’t agreed payment.”
“I don’t care. Kiss me.”
He didn’t. Instead, his cowl moved around the solid wall of straw. “You want all this spun into gold?”
“The king does.”
“For which you’ll give me…” He paused, taking a deep breath.
“Everything,” Gwyneth said desperately. “Anything.” She pushed into his body, glorying in the hard ridge of his cock as it pressed against her abdomen. “The king will marry me for this, for a room full of magic gold thread, spun by you. I’m lost, my angel, my demon… Give me tonight…”
He’d stilled, holding himself stiff in her hold, which didn’t suit her urgency at all. “Anything?” he repeated.
Her whole body tingled. In a web of lust and gratitude and grief that she no longer knew how to untangle, she knew she’d hold nothing back tonight. Not even the virginity that should be her husband’s. The king didn’t care for her but for the wealth she could give him and keep from his rivals. Her stranger, at least, wanted her body. That had been clear from the start.
“Anything,” she said huskily and, with deliberation, laid her hand on his crotch.
He let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-groan, and abruptly she was driven back into the wall of straw, his body hard against her.
“You give me your lips,” he ground out, crushing her mouth under his in a kiss that left her breathless. “Your delicious breasts…” He dropped his head to her exposed breast, lashing the delirious nipple with his tongue before taking it into his mouth and rolling it frantically between his lips.
Gwyneth’s head fell back against the straw, her mouth open in ecstasy.
“Both your delicious breasts,” he muttered, freeing the other for the same attentions. His lower body ground into hers, awakening deeper longings that she had no name for. Flames seemed to lick her pussy, melting it, opening it for him, so that when he began to bundle up her skirts, she emitted a little mewl of excitement.
“And this, your sex, your pussy, you would give it to me, too?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” she breathed, trembling as his fingers ran up and down her thighs and swept inward.
“Wet, so wet,” he whispered in her ear. “You are so very passionate for a virgin.”
“Is that bad?” she got out, shivering under his hot breath on her skin, his fingers gliding among the folds of her pussy.
Something, laughter perhaps, shook him. “Not from where I’m standing. Will you be faithful to your husband?”
“When he’s my husband, then yes, God help me.”
“I don’t know who to pity more.”
“What does that mean?”
The finger teasing her entrance slipped inside her, making her cry out with shock and unexpected delight at the cool intrusion.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You take away my sanity, my determination, and all I want is to pleasure you, to make you come on my fingers…”
His palm pressed on her pussy, his thumb caressed back and forth across her swollen clitoris while his finger moved inside her, sliding up and down, probing and exploring. Shards of delight followed his every touch, building the pleasure in her core, leaving her curiously helpless as well as desperate.
“It doesn’t have to be your fingers,” she whispered, and for an instant he stilled. She twisted her neck to try to see his face, but the cowl was turned away from her. Slowly, his head bent toward the side of her neck and she felt his lips there.
“You want my cock?” he said against her damp skin, causing a fresh burst of wild lu
st. His teeth grazed her, adding to it. “You want my cock inside you, fucking you to orgasm?”
“Yes,” she whispered, unable to lie. “I know it’s wrong, but I do…”
Another finger joined the first inside her, and together they plunged deeper. “Oh, God!” she gasped.
“Not God, certainly not God. But it seems we both want the same thing. Only…”
She swallowed, feeling the climax begin to rise up from her toes. “Only what?” she managed.
She grasped at the fabric of his cloak, her fingers scrabbling to find purchase. His thumb tapped against her clitoris, glided over it again and again while his fingers swirled and drove inside her. “Only that is not my price,” he whispered and pressed his palm against her pussy.
Orgasm broke over her like a storm, wilder, more intense than anything she had yet experienced. She fell forward against him, and he held her, completing her joy with his kiss on her open, gasping mouth. She clung, helpless, convulsing around his fingers, overcome with profound joy that seemed to go far beyond the merely physical.
There was straw in her hair, tickling her neck, jabbing into her exposed legs. Gwyneth became aware of it very gradually as the world came back into focus. From her bodice, he was drawing the black, silken blindfold that she’d hidden there once more after the women had dressed her. She didn’t really understand why. Nor had she truly meant him to discover it, but she couldn’t be sorry. She smiled at him with lethargic, satisfied intimacy.
Deep inside his cowl, the demon’s eyes burned. A tiny droplet, like a pearl in the gloom, glistened and fell through the darkness. Only when it touched her neck, did she realize it was liquid.
Her happiness froze in a frown of incomprehension and compassion. She couldn’t bear his sadness, if that was what it was.
“What is it?” she murmured urgently. “Please…”
“It’s time,” he interrupted. His fingers slid out of her body, making her gasp at the sudden delight of the motion on her over-sensitized pussy. “We have a lot to do tonight.”
Her skirts fell back around her legs, swished against the straw littering their small floor space. He stepped back, leaving her cold and hungry and anxious.
She said, “I haven’t paid yet, have I?”
It was what gave her hope of relieving his inexplicable sadness. Perhaps he, too, recognized that they’d never meet again. She’d told him she’d be faithful to the king when he was her husband. Perhaps he, too, regretted the ending of—whatever this was. The idea made her warm and cold at the same time.
“No,” he agreed. “You haven’t. You said you’d pay whatever I ask.”
His voice was oddly distant after the husky intimacy of only moments ago, when he’d murmured hot words into her thrilled ears.
She said, “I will.”
She didn’t know what he’d ask. He’d said fucking her was not his price. But whatever sexual favor he required, she was more than willing to pay. To take his sadness away, to give one perfect moment of joy as he had given her.
They still had hours.
He stood behind the spinning wheel stool, unmoving. She inclined her head and stepped in front of him to sit.
“Begin,” he said, bending to lift and bundle straw into her lap.
For a time, they worked in silence. He helped her as before, bringing her the straw, removing and replacing full bobbins.
Once, she said, “What is your name?”
“My name? What does that matter?”
“I know nothing about you. I don’t know your name, who or even what you are. I don’t know where you live, what you look like…”
“You don’t need to.”
“I would like to,” Gwyneth said, leaning back to let him place more straw in her lap. “You’ve saved my life, brought me to more wealth and dignity than even my father could ever have hoped for in his wildest fantasies. And more than that, you make me…”
“Make you what?” he prompted, but as if the words were dragged from him. As if he didn’t really want to ask them.
Gwyneth stared deep into the glinting gold threads flashing past her eyes. “You make me feel what no one else does. You—touch me.”
He swung away from her, pulling down the next bale of straw. “I won’t touch you again.”
Startled, her gaze flew after him. The wheel spun, empty of straw. Won’t you?
Hastily, she reached for more straw. “I meant you move me.”
The demon turned, dropping the bale on the floor at her feet. “As you move me. And yet you will marry the king. And I will break your heart.”
Blindly, she wondered if he already had. These few days had all been so strange, encompassing the heights of happiness and depths of despair, fear and security. She’d lived in a palace by day and worked her fingers to the bone by night. And yet the nights had been her strange, dark joy. She hadn’t felt the rush of fresh air or the sun’s kiss on her skin since she’d come here. She suspected she’d lost all sense of reality and proportion. But right now, this dark, unknown, magical creature who made her spin faster and faster, seemed the most important thing of all.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“In darkness.”
She waited, but he said no more, merely reached across her to remove the full spindle of gold thread. She caught a whiff of his distinctive scent, and her whole body tingled from the lightest brushing touch of his arm against her shoulder.
“Do you have a family? A wife? Children?”
“No.”
“What’s your name?” she pleaded.
“Spin faster.”
The hours passed in a blur of straw and gold thread flashing past her eyes and through her fingers. His presence, mostly silent by her side, gave her a strange comfort as well as excitement. The sadness she pushed away for another day. She would not spoil their last hours together. Instead, she wondered what he would ask of her, longed for the curious softening she sensed in him when they were physically close.
Somewhere, her demon was vulnerable to her as she was to him. She longed to give him his moment of joy, as she had done last night. And as she began on the last bale of straw, her heart began to skip faster as she wondered how it would be done.
She felt his gaze on her face, heavy, unmoving. She liked him to watch her. It made her smile, though she didn’t look up from her work. It was he who closed the distance between them. She felt his touch on her shoulder, his gloved finger under her chin, turning her face up to his. Or at least up to the hooded shadows that hid his.
His gloved finger brushed against her lips with soft, aching tenderness. She kissed it. A sound spilled from him, like a groan of pain or distress, yet so faint that she couldn’t even be sure she heard it.
He released her and stepped away to stand behind the wheel facing her.
“You ask my name,” he observed. “But not my price.”
“I’ve already said I’ll pay.”
He nodded. “Then it’s time I told you what I require.”
Her breath caught. Delicious anticipation flushed her body. “Tell me.”
“I want your firstborn child.”
Again, her hands fell from the wheel, which spun, empty. She stared at him, unsure she’d heard him right. “What?”
“Your firstborn child,” he repeated.
“I don’t have a child!”
“I’m sure you will when you marry the king. You must give the child to me.”
Gwyneth closed her mouth, shook her head as if that would clear it, make his words mean something else. “Are you serious? Insane?”
He shrugged. “Serious, certainly.”
“But…what do you want with a child? With my child?”
“You will produce a good child. Strong, just and honest. As you are.”
“I hope I do,” she said flatly. “And if and when that happens, it will stay with me.”
“You promised. You owe me. And you must pay.”
“No, I mustn’t. It’s
not a price anyone can pay. It’s not human!”
“I’m not human,” he pointed out.
“I am and I won’t pay!”
“You must, and I should point out that I have the means to compel you. I will come for the child. Your subsequent children will remain your own.”
She stared at the still, implacable figure, feeling as if the world were falling on top of her. It was a nightmare. Suddenly, it was all a nightmare. She could not doubt the powers of the being who came and went through solid stone, who made it possible for her to spin gold thread from straw. He could and would take anything he wanted from her. From anyone, even the king.
“Spin,” he said. And obediently, she did, because she could do nothing else. Her brain felt as numb as her hands. She didn’t seem to move them, and yet they went through the motions of lifting and spinning the gold threads that wound rapidly around the spindle, ensuring her future.
“You tricked me. You were never going to ask for sex.” She didn’t mean to say the words aloud but they spilled out in a whisper, harsh, accusing. And accusing herself as much as him. She had thrown herself at him, offering herself to the demon whom she’d been determined to see as at least part angel because she needed his help and because his mysterious body aroused the lusts of hers.
“No,” he agreed. “My ultimate price was determined by the first kiss. I tasted your soul and found it…suitable.”
“What have I done?” she whispered. “Dear God, what have I done?”
He shrugged. “You may have saved two kingdoms.”
She tried to swallow down the lump of tears in her throat, but they wouldn’t go. She could no longer see the straw, the gold or the demon.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “If you were ever good, please don’t ask this of me.”
“It’s asked and promised. You must pay.”
“Please!” Desperately, she dashed her fine, silken sleeve over her eyes. “Anything else!”
“I don’t need anything else.”
With the last of the straw spun, the wheel slowed and stopped. Gwyneth’s hands fell numbly into her lap.
The demon stirred. “Since you care so much, I’ll give you a way out, but you have to find it for yourself. If you know my name by the time I come for the child, you may keep the infant.”
