And the king smiled.
His lips tilted up and the hard vertical lines on either side of his mouth curved as they gave way to the smile. The warmth of that rare smile moved Martigay to action. Shoving backward in her chair, Martigay rose as she stretched in a yawn, knowing her doeskin jerkin pulled tight across her chest as her breasts thrust forward.
“Well, I’m off to bathe,” she announced loudly. “Think I’ll just wander downstream a ways—probably about five hundred paces—and…bathe.” Her left eyebrow made an arch of amusement just before she turned and swung her hips in a sauntering exit.
* * * * *
She was rubbing henweed into her hair as he climbed onto the rise of rock overhanging the pool. An early sunset slashed across the lowering clouds, splashing them deep rose and cyan. The late light spilled onto the water in a wash of rose madder and ultramarine as warm hues of rose and pink separated out to mingle with brooding, solemn purples, merging into bruised shades reminiscent of a woman’s sex-roughened flesh—and a man’s dark, intrusive need.
Crouching on the rock above her, Dye watched Martigay bend over in the shallow water, presenting her perfect bottom for his appraisal and appreciation. He held his breath at the sight of her rounded cheeks enclosing the deep, pink heart of her sex. When his cock shifted to uncoil inside his leggings, he reached down to rearrange his length.
Turning and straightening, she looked up as he did so. “You going to sit there watching all day?” she called up to him. “Or are you coming down here?”
“I’ve a country to run,” he told her. “A war to win.”
Crushing the stalks of henweed between her palms, she rubbed them into the pubic hair that curled on her mound. “Take a break, My Lord. Come down here and be a man for an hour, if you haven’t forgotten how to.”
Dye watched her without smiling. “I don’t fuck my soldiers,” he told her, his voice sharp and clear as it traveled across the open water.
She didn’t seem put off. “Is that in the Handbook?” He raised one eyebrow in question. “The Commander’s Handbook of Appropriate Comportment?”
“Aye,” he growled, “It is. Scroll 10, Paragraph 3, underlined in red. The Leader of the Army shall not fuck his soldiers.”
Martigay quirked a grin at him. “Sound policy, I would guess, for the most part.”
“For the most part.” The king nodded his agreement. “Since I’m not one for men and most of my army is male.”
“There are exceptions,” she reminded him. “As you pointed out.”
“And the exceptional,” he murmured quietly.
“What’s that, My Lord?”
Clearing his throat, he immediately improvised. “There are exceptions,” he agreed. “I’ve two units of slingers,” he admitted. “And some women in the archers. I worked with women in Khal.”
“And you never…”
He shook his head, squinting off into the distance.
“Never tempted?”
Not like this, he thought. He shook his head again.
“By anyone under your command?”
By anyone, he realized. By anyone in his entire life. Not that there hadn’t been plenty of women, only that there’d never been one he couldn’t walk away from. Again, he wished he could read her feelings. Find out what motive she had in tempting him. Was it only lust, or something more—or only something less?
Pure mischief.
Was it anything more than she felt for that sergeant who was always with her—Palleden? Was it anything more than she felt for Brand? His teeth clenched at the thought of the scout’s hands around her waist, then high on her thigh. Too high.
Damn.
Gazing down on her, he longed to feel her skin beneath his hand, longed to feel her nipples tighten inside his palm. His hands ached to follow her curves. His fingers itched to sneak into her dark, female places and explore everything a woman kept hidden from a man. Briefly, he considered joining her—not long enough to compromise himself or his principles, just long enough to get his body up against hers—just long enough to absorb and savor the touch of her soft, damp curves pressed warmly against the hard length of his body.
He shook his head, knowing he’d never be able to stop there.
He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Wanted to bury himself between her legs, cram her cunt full of his cock and pound his way to some kind of peace by spilling inside of her. He gazed down at her naked chest, the ruddy light glinting on her wet curves and wanted to smother himself, face down, between the soft, full pillows of her breasts, to scrape his tongue over every centimeter of those considerable breasts and eat at her nipples while he covered her hand with his own and wrapped her fingers around his dick.
She would have to be the hottest little fuck ever.
“Last chance,” she warned with a laugh, stretching her arms over her head provocatively.
From the rock above her, Dye watched as she turned her sexy pose into a dive that took her to the middle of the pool. Her bottom flashed at the water’s surface an instant before disappearing from view.
I’ve a country to run, a war to win, and a princess to wed. And if I go down there, he told himself morosely, I might not care about any of it anymore.
With this thought, Dye straightened and turned, putting the pool and the woman at his back. Still, he lingered, allowing the liquid sounds of movement to tease his senses, his mind eagerly supplying pictures to go with the sounds as he snapped a thin branch from a nearby bush and stripped the tender bark away with his fingernails.
Inside the confines of his loose doeskins, his cock stretched and lengthened as lust surged thick through his bloodstream and pooled like a heavy weight in his groin. With a sharp groan of frustration, he threw the naked twig to the ground and stalked back toward camp.
* * * * *
Pronking little imp of a tease, he was still telling himself the next morning—long past the point at which he should have forgotten the whole incident at the pool. Brazen little flirt! Stumbling on a rock, Dye fought to regain his balance and continued toward the mess tent, tugging at the mass of tangled rope in his hands.
He’d fallen asleep with Martigay’s naked image engraved in his consciousness and woken to find the same nude sprite bathing on the inside of his closed eyelids. Somehow it didn’t help when he’d opened his eyes. She was still there, bending over the water, the late light of early evening spilling the colors of sex upon her skin, the water wet and slick, coating her ass like a man’s shining ejaculate.
Like his shining ejaculate.
He imagined his hand on the wet curving flesh of her bottom, smoothing his cum to cover the silky surface of her skin.
If only she wasn’t in his army. He’d lay her in a heartbeat, Bruthinia notwithstanding. Fuck her right out of his system so he could get on with his duties without any further…distraction. In his thirty-odd years, he’d walked away from more women than he could count—let alone remember. Yet, all of those experiences combined were not as hard as yesterday…walking away from that little upturned ass beckoning him down off his rock to wade crotch-deep into Martigay’s waters.
* * * * *
From the corner of her eye, Martigay caught a flash of gold and red, indicating the king approached the open mess tent. Quickly, she threw her feet up on the table in a casual pose as she loosened the ties at her chest. At the same time, she pulled her lips through her teeth to fatten and redden them. Setting her lips in a provocative pout, she kept her eyes on him as he swept beneath the canvas sheltering the camp’s kitchen.
Preoccupied by the long snarl of rope he carried, Dye was halfway into the tent before a glance at his surroundings got caught up on Martigay.
Hung up on Martigay.
And stuck there.
Martigay’s smile was pure, gratified satisfaction as Dye walked right into a heavy wooden bench. She watched as he fought to keep his balance, his gaze still locked with hers.
The merry bell of her lau
ghter made Dye’s mouth draw into a tight, hard line. Slapping the rope against his thigh, he detoured in her direction to tower over her, his face cold and threatening. At his back, three men shuffled out of the tent, leaving the two of them alone but for the cook who was sergeant of the mess tent.
“Captain Martigay.” Disconnecting his gaze, Dye’s eyes plowed across the room, over his captain’s head, as he set himself the task of looking anywhere but at that provocative face. “I’m pleased you find me—and my knees—such a ready source of amusement. Perhaps you could do me a favor in return.” The tangle of rope landed on the table just south of her feet. “I’ve a few knots in my coil.”
Martigay eyed the mess on the table then gave him her attention. “I doubt the rope is in knots, sir…unless My Lord put them there purposefully.” Her feet slid to the floor as her fingers crept across the table and she held his eyes with hers. “Did you?”
“Of course not,” he gritted at her.
With her foot, she pushed a chair out for him on the opposite side of the table.
Grinding his jaw, he considered the chair.
“In that case, the rope won’t be knotted. It’s only tangled. And normally, when things tangle, they get tangled in pairs.”
Motioning to the army cook, Dye snorted as he dropped into the chair, curious to see how far she would take this bit of nonsense. “And what’s that supposed to mean? I suppose the next thing you’ll tell me is that it takes two to tangle.”
Her fingers tugged at the cord.
“Well?” he prompted her.
“Yes, sir. You’re not far off in that assessment. See here, where two lengths of cord lie together. The key to unraveling a knotted rope is to follow the pair to where they join, looped together at the head. Then,” she said softly, “find where the loop is constricted and tease the loop free.” She demonstrated.
Quietly, without comment, he watched her work the rope through several tight constrictions. “What now, soldier?” he asked her, as he saw a cord now split the loop she’d been working with. “You’ve reached the end of your rope,” he pointed out, reaching for the mug of steaming chicory when the cook placed it on the table.
She shook her head slowly, eyes still on his, as her fingers worked the cord deftly. “Now you look for the next loop.”
Dye tilted his head. “I don’t see another.”
“It’s there, nonetheless. It’s only a matter of finding it. Here we are,” she said gently, and he watched her stroke her fingers through the thick cords just before her hands wrapped and slid, suggestively, along a whole handful of thick rope. All at once, she lifted the heavy skein, gave it a shake and held the orderly length out toward him. Returning his clay mug to the table, he reached to take the rope from her. Her fingers touched his as he did so, causing his eyes to lock on hers.
She gave him a long, warm, sultry look. “Next time you have a knot in your coil, come to me first. I’ll be happy to straighten you out.”
His voice was a quiet warning. “Don’t tangle with me, Martigay.”
“It takes two to tangle,” she reminded him lazily as she pushed back in her chair. “Like anything else, sir, the key to unknotting life’s obstacles is a little confidence and a great deal of patience.”
Together they stood, the king with the rope on his shoulder and the mug of hot brew clamped in a fist held tightly against his chest—the mug and the fist a boundary marker staked between him and the girl. But Martigay pushed in close to him—the bold little hussy—her full breasts bracketing his mug to warm his clenching fist.
“Fortunately, My Lord, I have both.”
Her face was tilted upward, her lips mere inches from his as he vaguely noted the cook departing the mess tent on some errand. His eyes were on her lush, parted lips as his white-knuckled fingers tightened around the handle in his fist and a warning shiver of tension traveled across the surface of the hot chicory. As his doubled fist expanded and filled the tight space inside the handle, there was a sharp retort of sound at the same time the handle separated from the cup and the clay mug exploded in his hand.
She jumped away from the spill of hot liquid that burst in his hand and spattered down the front of his body. Crushing the remnant of mug still in his fist, Dye stared down at his stained doeskins then at Martigay, untouched by a single dark drop. Angrily flinging the broken clay to the ground, his left hand shot out to manacle her right wrist, twisting her arm behind her before she could finish the breath she’d started. The next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed against the wooden table top as he doubled her body over the table and kicked her legs apart, placing his feet just inside hers.
With his crotch jammed tight against her firm little bottom, he leaned into her as she finally finished that breath she’d started earlier with an audible gasp.
“Don’t push me, girl,” he told her in a quiet voice of menace. “Or you’ll find yourself ass-up over a table with my cock buried between your cheeks while I pump myself off inside you.”
With an upward jerk of his hips, he pushed the thick mound of his groin into her crease. “You might think it a fine ambition to make love to a king, but I’ll remind you—it’s not so long since I was a very common soldier with only a very rough taste in women. I’m not picky about where and when and how. And I don’t care who’s watching when I’m fucking a woman up against a wall in some back alley or over a table in a crowded tavern. I’m warning you, Captain Martigay—you dick with me and you won’t walk for a week.”
With this exaggerated threat and a separating thrust, he pushed himself away from her as she whipped around to face him. Her hair tumbled around her face and her eyes glinted with a smoky fire as two bright points of rose burned high on her cheekbones.
“Don’t make me break my own rule, soldier. Stay away from me or you will get fucked,” he told her in soft, cutting words. “And it won’t be nice. Have I made myself clear, Captain?”
“Just one thing, Commander,” she stuttered back at him, obviously shaken, but tossing her proud head to move her dark hair out of her eyes. She took a deep breath and plunged on. “Is that a threat, sir? Or a promise?”
Chapter Six
Situated now for several days within a few hours ride of the walled city, Dye had moved his army and set up camp at a village on the outskirts of Amdahl. The many tents of his soldiers surrounded and almost engulfed the small hamlet, and though the inhabitants were awed by the sudden influx of men from the north, they adjusted rapidly to the influx of wealth and supplies that accompanied it, happily offering services in return. Only the young men of the village glowered when the local girls flirted with the soldiers of his army. Yet more than one of the same young men was caught with his eyes following the confident stride of a group of slingers making their way along the beaten track that traveled through town.
Dye found himself avoiding Martigay whenever possible, sending the messages she was to carry through the hands of his attendants, keeping to the small inn that he’d made his headquarters, striding through his army’s camp with his eyes straight ahead.
Anything to stay away from her.
Then, all at once looking for her, calling for her on a pretense when there was no real need for her services. Wandering through camp without purpose, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
In the middle of the night, he’d find himself standing outside the inn, sleepless, his eyes drawn to her shelter—always able to identify her tent, regardless of its location because of the light she kept all night, painting the canvas walls of her shelter a pale yellow.
Watching from a distance one night, he saw her shadow moving on the yellow canvas and he held his breath, hoping for a glimpse of her undressing as she readied herself for bed. But the outline of her body melted into the ground and he watched intently as she struggled out of her clothes while lying on the mat. Staring at the blank canvas, he hated her for this stingy, prim withholding. Glancing around the camp, he realized that other men might be watching, as well, a
nd immediately loved her for the same act of modesty. Then—at the thought of other men—he stood there for some time, watching long enough to assure himself she was alone.
* * * * *
Finding himself staring at the ceiling one evening, Dye shook himself.
Is that a threat, sir? Or a promise?
Her defiant voice rang in his head as he smiled. For the first time in ages, he felt alone, wishing a friend was there to share the story with. Shuffling through the correspondence on his table, he picked up the missive that had arrived earlier in the day—sent by his sister from Tharran. Petra and her husband, Davik, the King of Khal along with Davik’s brother, Warrik, were on their way south with four thousand Khallic volunteers. He expected their arrival two days hence. Dye stared at the curling parchment for several moments then tossed it back on the pile, reaching for his cloak as he headed toward the nearest tavern. Warrik would want to meet her, he decided, impatiently waving off his guard when they tried to follow him.
Dye stepped inside the crowded tavern, backing toward the wall as his pupils opened in the dim, smoke-filled room. The large inn was packed with tight knots of people who alternately laughed, sang, fought, argued or gamed. Drawing his hood down to cover his hair and shadow his features, he pushed around the crowd at the perimeter of the room.
He found her when he heard his name.
“Dye? The King? Oh, he’s a clever enough commander,” she was saying. “Competent leader. Can’t fault him there. But man, the guy needs to develop a personality.” She snorted. “Any sort of personality. Even a bad one.” She laughed. “Even a closet personality. The poor guy’s so busy being King and Commander, so busy being a cold bastard bent on discipline—”
Someone cut her off. “Can’t lead an army and be everyone’s friend, Martigay.”
She swigged at her ale and wiped her mouth. “The king isn’t anyone’s friend. I pity his betrothed, Bruthinia. The guy has no sense of humor, talks about nothing outside of his work and is completely lacking feelings—or anything else that might be mistaken for warmth or passion.”
Dye's Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Page 4
