“My Lord,” Martigay spoke up swiftly. “I don’t think that would be—”
The king’s electric blue eyes flared. “Humor my friend, Martigay.”
“But, sir. Scarface can’t bear to be behind another horse. He’ll want to race too. He’ll try to get out in front.”
The princess laughed. “Well, if you’re unable to manage your mount, he’s welcome to eat our dust.” Warrik tore the parchment in two and pushed one piece toward the princess for her signature. “Still, it’s a shame you can’t handle your horse.”
Martigay’s eyes cut to the princess and narrowed. “Yeah,” she said. “Just like it’s a shame stupidity isn’t terminal. Thanks for the invitation.”
There was a hitch in the princess’s voice and she glared across the table at Martigay. “Of course the race’s outcome will depend not only on the horse’s speed, but on the rider’s ability as well.”
“Not to mention the rider’s weight,” Warrik interrupted in a drawl. “You have me at a disadvantage there, princess.”
“Ganna Reean,” the princess said, signing her name to the parchment then returning her gaze to Martigay. “Tough luck,” she translated for the soldier’s benefit. “I can speak seven different languages,” she announced haughtily.
“Effing good for carthing malaka you,” the soldier said under her breath.
“What was that?”
“I can curse in nine,” Martigay returned pleasantly as Warrik snorted back an ill-advised laugh.
“Malaka,” he recovered quickly. “Isn’t that…Raithan?”
Dye stiffened beside her, caught her eye.
“I’ve a friend who’s a Raith,” she admitted.
“Brand.” The word slipped out of Dye’s mouth. “My Scout Captain,” he filled in, his face tight.
“You have a Raith? I’d like to meet him,” Warrik said.
“You’d like to meet him,” the princess cut in. “I’d like to meet him.” She returned her attention to Martigay. “Is it true what they say about Raithan men?”
Stonily, Martigay eyed her—as one would watch a snake.
“Their cocks are huge compared to other men’s? They make better lovers?”
“I wouldn’t know whether or not they make better lovers,” Martigay replied, “not having sampled a large number of others. Perhaps you’d be the best judge of that.”
The princess stood suddenly, her eyes lit with fury as she turned her gaze on Dye, clearly demanding his intervention. “I won’t stand here and be insulted,” she informed him, coldly.
“Then you have two choices,” Dye pointed out in the ensuing silence. “You can either sit down…or you can leave. And let me warn you, Bruthinia,” he added quietly, “you’ll find there’s a limit to how much the King of Thrall will give up for his wife, after he’s wed. The respect due to him is not on the table.”
With her own words thrown back in her face, the princess turned abruptly, her silk skirts swishing as she swept out through the inn’s doors.
Warrik laughed outright and that got Davik started. And though his wife elbowed him in an attempt to quiet him, she soon joined in, as well. Only Dye remained quiet.
“Sorry,” Martigay mumbled in his direction. “I didn’t mean to insult her…very much.”
Dye twirled his silver goblet between his fingers without looking at her. “So now you’re friends with Brand,” he said conversationally. “You only met him last week.”
Petra caught back her laugh in mid-hiccup and stared at her brother.
“Warrik, here, knows something about Raiths.” Dye turned his attention to the blond warrior. “He had a Raithan girl once. Didn’t you tell me they only wed their own kind, Warrik?”
“That’s usually the case,” Warrik confirmed, with amused interest.
Dye smirked at Martigay as she received this information.
“They’re a proud race,” Warrik went on. “Think themselves better than others. The Raithan girl I knew wouldn’t have wed me, though I was a Prince of Khal and she no more than the stable master’s daughter. Raiths have no reservations, however, about whom they bed.”
At this Martigay laughed. “Brand and I aren’t close friends,” she told him. “But I’ll let you know if and when I find anything out.” Dye nodded at the goblet, his jaw tight and hard. “I could use a good basis for comparison,” she added with a grin of pure mischief.
He raised his eyes and his jaw softened to smile at her.
For many moments she basked in that smile. When the king smiled, it was like the sun coming out. What a lady-killer the guy was. Too bad he didn’t take advantage of it—with her. She was in the mood to be taken advantage of—to be taken, period. So long as it was the king doing the taking.
“What’s your plan to retake Amdahl?” Davik interrupted, as Dye’s face turned serious. “A siege would hurt your people who are inside the walls as much as the Saharat occupying the city.”
Dye nodded. “Nonetheless, my first objective is to take the mines. The Saharat will have a hard time paying for imported food without the gold. Hopefully, the populace will rise up and give us a hand when we get there. Maybe even get the gates open for us.”
Warrik grimaced. “Sounds messy. I suppose your garrison there was wiped out?”
“Aye.” Dye stopped to think. “I might be able to swim across at night and get up the walls before anyone got wind of me. I’d have some warning if anyone was about.”
“Swim?” Martigay interjected.
Petra nodded. “The city is situated against the sea, its walls built close up to the river Donichal that splits to surround the city on its way to the ocean.”
“That Raith in your scouts might be able to help you,” Warrik suggested.
Dye shook his head. “He couldn’t take me through the walls—he’s not powerful enough. And I’d not ask a man to do something I could do.”
“That was fair enough when you were a captain,” Petra pointed out gently, “but you’re the king now.”
At this, the three men exchanged glances. “It would be ideal if we could get a man inside the walls,” Warrik persevered. “I’ll go with you, if you want to give it a try.”
Dye shrugged as he returned his attention to the girl glancing anxiously over her shoulder. Catching her eye, he questioned her with a lifted eyebrow.
“I’d best be going,” she murmured “It’ll be dark soon.”
Rising with her, Dye’s gaze followed Martigay’s departure.
Warrik’s eyes lit up with amusement. “What are you sitting there for?” he prodded. “She said, herself, she needed a basis for comparison.”
Petra nodded her agreement. “I think it’s starting to rain,” she commented innocently. “That dress is going to get ruined.”
“Excuse me,” Dye said, pushing back his chair and grabbing his cloak. The door closed behind him as his three guests grinned at each other.
Chapter Nine
“Martigay.”
She turned, blinking in the gray, drizzling weather.
“Thank you…for having lastmeal with me.” Dye stopped about a foot away from her, holding the cloak out toward her.
Her chin came up as she eyed him critically. “Are you really going to wed that…princess?” she asked.
“Nay,” he said after a pause, “the king is going to wed that princess.”
She nodded. Slowly, she smiled. “The king will be giving up a lot after he’s wed.”
He smiled back at her. “Aye. The king will be giving up a lot.”
“Perhaps you could keep a little something on the side. The Queen wouldn’t have to know about it.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“Not at all. Just making a recommendation. Wouldn’t want the king to lose his sanity.”
It started to rain in earnest and still he held the cloak out to her. His lips ached and more than anything else in his life, he wanted a kiss—even more than he wanted a fuck and that surprised him.
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nbsp; The pour of rain transformed Martigay’s hair into streaming curls and he followed the curls down over her shoulders with his eyes, stopping when he got to her chest. Her nipples stabbed at the wet green fabric as though fighting to get to him. Taking a step toward her, he wrapped the cloak around her shoulders.
And once he touched her, he was done for and he knew it. His hand snagged her behind the neck as he pulled her face to his and his lips slashed down on her open mouth. His other hand traveled to her face, shaking, as his thumb went under her jaw and his fingers furrowed into the hair behind her ear. As the rain turned into a downpour, he twisted his lips on hers at the same time that he maneuvered her backward beneath a tree, pressing her into its trunk. Gulping in a breath of air and rain, his head angled to turn his mouth on her lush lips.
With one hand capturing the back of her skull and the other holding her face, he felt her chin tremble beneath his thumb and he thrust his tongue between her lips to enter her shuddering mouth and scrape over the tongue that shivered against his own. Knowing the little minx fought for control inflamed his senses and his body responded with unreasonable excitement. When her fingers tugged at the hand that bracketed her face, he tightened his grip, unwilling to surrender his hold on her. He felt her other hand grip his hip more tightly and then the yank on his wrist again. Cursing into her mouth, he let her have the damn hand.
She pulled it to her breast.
Moaning his gratitude into her mouth, he crushed his body into hers. The heel of his hand was beneath the warm handful of her breast, his fingers scraping up to cage the taut nipple, his cock pressed into her smooth, warm belly as the thick mound of her rise pressed back, seeking his long ridge of his cock.
Pushing his hand into the open décolletage of the dress, his thumb and forefinger drew together over the chamois-soft skin of her breast as he sought out and found her stiff, upright nipple. Rolling the rough bud of flesh between his fingers, he tugged at it as she gasped into his mouth, and his dick jerked in response to the captivating sound of female arousal.
Taking that sound as an invitation to proceed, again he tugged, a little roughly, as though her body was his to command, his to possess—his alone. And Hadi help the man who ever tried to take his place at her breast.
Simultaneously, lightning flashed and thunder cracked ten paces to the right and he jumped away from her. Together, they blinked breathlessly at the smoking column of steam produced by the vaporized rain.
Gasping for breath, Martigay watched the rain plaster Dye’s hair against his head and mold his clothes to his perfect body. When he shook his head, straight streamers of wet fire flew around his face.
“I need to get you out from under this tree,” he rasped, staring at her like he wanted to eat her whole.
“We could continue this,” she offered breathlessly, “in my tent.”
His eyes were the color found at the hard edge of lightning and they burned through the rain at her. “I’m wedding the Vandal princess,” he stated in a flat voice made sharp with determination.
“Oh, come on, Dye! It’s not like I’m trying to steal you from Bruthinia. I just want to borrow you for a while.”
Staring at her, he shook his head. “You deserve more than this. More than a man…who’s going to wed…Bruthinia.” He shuddered in the cold slash of rain.
She watched the hard lines of rain batter the lean edges of his handsome face and smiled. “After you’re wed, you could always…imagine it’s someone else.”
He nodded at her. “I’d have to,” he said morosely.
Laughing at him, she tugged the cloak closed around her as he pulled her out from beneath the tree.
“Come on, Captain Martigay, I’ll walk you back to your tent.”
Not the least bit anxious to get back to her tent where she’d have to give up the arm that wrapped across her back and gripped her shoulder, Martigay dragged her feet through the sloppy puddles, careless of the fact that she was ruining the soft leather slippers she’d borrowed from the king’s trunk. The wet, chilling weather was excuse enough to pull in close against his side.
“Why fight the inevitable, Dye? We’re going to make love.”
“We are not going to make love,” he said, cutting her with his eyes. “Although,” he muttered, “I may lay you once or twice, just to get you out of my system.”
The woman was hopelessly naïve if she thought they would make love when—if—they got together. It wouldn’t be like that. It would just be sex. Hard, intense, brutal, grinding sex. Sex wasn’t something he wanted to do with her. It was something he wanted to do to her.
He’d have her if he could. He’d take her—hard. When it came to sex, he was passionate about the subject. Violently passionate. He wanted to take the proud little vixen—take her and break her in bed. Break down her confident, cool reserve and hear her helpless cries, her whispered demands for more, her hoarse screams for completion—uttered in raw, uninhibited passion.
It was a struggle to fight the overwhelming urge to give into passionate savagery—and take her. That was why his hand had shaken, earlier, when he had held her face and taken the kiss. It had taken that much effort to rein in the passion she evoked in him.
She shook her head. “You’re wrong, Dye. We’re going to make love.”
“Not tonight,” he told her, stopping outside her tent.
The warm glow from inside her shelter almost demanded that he join her. The thought of their bodies twisted together in the golden glow of light while she watched with open eyes, his body over hers, his cock rubbing against the delicate silk of her skin, his shaft sliding into her pussy as he rose on stiff arms above her, was almost enough to make him spill right there and then.
But at the same time, that warm, revealing glow would betray them both, he reminded himself. And the shadows that rose to move on the tent’s walls would be testimony to a king’s weakness as well as proof of a royal princess dishonored.
Knowing he’d regret it, knowing his body could hardly afford to be pushed even a small inch closer to climax—to her—he, nonetheless, couldn’t resist pulling her body against his, his right hand spreading to hold the left cheek of her bottom. As he did so, his mind was tormented by the memory of the girl, last night in the inn, her legs pushed open and spread wide on the stool, her cunt spilling for him, her shimmering wet slit a shuddering open flame begging to be fucked.
If he didn’t pull away now, he realized, he never would. At the same time, he prayed for her touch on the thick width of his shaft.
Somehow, she got her hand between their bodies, and his prayer was answered when she palmed him roughly at the ties. He let her, unwilling to stop her, pulling away only enough to watch her stroke the thick ridge that threatened to break through his laces and overfill her small hand. Hungry for her touch on his cock, unable to deny himself, he allowed her rough treatment of his doeskin-covered cock. Rain pattered at his back and worked its way under his collar to trickle down his spine as, resting his forehead on the crown of her head, he let her stroke him to within an inch of satisfaction, only pulling away when she started to tug at his ties.
“That’s enough,” he rasped in a raw voice. And it was. On the verge of spilling, he backed away, his fists clenching on empty air as he let the pelting rain fill the space between them.
“Your cloak,” she reminded him, shrugging the heavy wool off one shoulder.
But he shook his head, sodden strands of scarlet whipping his cheeks. “Get inside,” he ordered her. “You can return it tomorrow.” With these words, and his eyes on the pale, beckoning curve of her shoulder, he forced himself backward a few more steps before he finally turned away.
When he’d put a hundred paces between them, he stopped to lean his burning forehead against the cool stone of a small shed, unlacing his ties with shaking hands. The hut’s wide eaves sheltered him from the slash of rain as, sliding down to his knees and spreading his legs, he took his cock in hand.
Five pumps later h
e had forced himself. Body taut, eyes blinking, he watched his semen fly from his cock head to make shining lines of dripping silver on the gray stone. Depleted and drained, he stared at the wall’s rough surface, wishing it were—instead—the sweet, smooth skin of Martigay’s upturned ass.
Unsatisfied and edgy, Dye breathed out a curse for the circumstances that had placed him here, alone in a dark corner of a dismal night, pumping his cock instead of thrusting between a woman’s legs and experiencing the fuck due a man—due a king.
He groaned as he stared down at the ruddy, used flesh in his hand. How could he have thought one woman as good as the next—when he’d signed that wedding contract? How could he have known otherwise?
A lifetime of eager and available women had never given him reason to think anything else. And Martigay was just as eager and available as all the others! What was it about the proud, arrogant…bold, daring…defiant, insolent—but the Vandal princess was proud enough if that was the attraction.
He shook his head. The princess was haughty and cold—cold to her roots. She lacked the warmth and fire Martigay kept bottled up inside that laughing exterior—the fire he’d glimpsed every time she’d challenged his authority. He didn’t get hard for the princess—even when she was standing next to him! Whereas the mere thought of Martigay had the blood racing from every extremity to pound its way into his cock.
Feeling wrung out and worn, Dye pushed his cock inside his leggings, pulled himself together and stumbled back to the inn. The door banged against the wall as he pushed inside the long room, where only Petra remained to greet him. Davik and his brother had each retired to one of the two pavilion tents outside. Shaking the rain out of his hair, he stalked across the room, ignoring the question in his sister’s eyes.
But Petra wouldn’t let it go that easily. “You finally find a woman who doesn’t bore you?”
Rubbing a small blanket through his hair, Dye turned to frown at his sister. “Don’t meddle, Petra.” His sister looked disappointed. “I can’t read her,” he offered reluctantly.
Dye's Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Page 7
