Her beautifully formed body was smooth and naked under his weight and, immediately upon taking her lips, he felt himself losing control. Like a man drowning in the midst of floating wreckage, he clung to the small red scrap of her lips, glad she’d surrendered because nothing short of a crowbar was going to stop him now. Restlessly he positioned and repositioned his mouth over the soft, yielding lips that accepted—without reservation—his ravaging onslaught, his tongue thrusting and taking and tasting the warm interior of her mouth as his lips quested for some sort of satisfaction in hers, knowing damn well the answer wasn’t in her mouth—and couldn’t be reached with his tongue.
Pulling her back onto her side, he grasped her thigh firmly and dragged it high on his waist, tucking her ankle behind his back. Sweeping his hand back down her thigh to her bottom, he brushed his open hand across her cheeks, where they stretched apart. Several times he repeated the action, reveling in the humid warmth beneath his palm before dropping his fingers into the damp heat at the base of her open cheeks. Gently, he tugged on a round cheek as he let his fingers brush into the folds tucked into her damp sex.
As Martigay’s breathing changed, the small variation of sound set his heart on edge and his cock expanded inside his doeskin leggings. Carefully, meticulously, he explored every nook and cranny of the fragile ruts and folds tucked inside her puffy labia. As he played his fingertips over her damp, full sex, he found her clit and dabbed it with his little finger while the rest of his fingers slid down to rest at her opening.
Like a young fawn caught in the hunter’s target—too stunned to run—she stilled.
Tucking his chin into his chest, Dye gazed down on her face to find her wide-eyed and waiting for his fingers’ further incursion. Gently, he scraped his little finger over her clitoris while he let the tips of his three remaining fingers press into her opening. Her breath caught in her throat and her knee moved higher on his body, separating her cheeks further, opening her sex wider to allow him greater access. At the same time, a flood of liquid seeped around the fingers set inside her vulva. Her lips parted in a whispered moan and his fingers slipped on the slick, wet surface of her sex as he continued to play with her clit at the same time that he pumped his fingertips into her flooding vagina.
Now small cries spilled from her parted lips and her body shifted, restless beneath his hand, her knee climbing further up his side, almost into his armpit. Dragging his hand out of her pussy, he loosened his ties with one hand and freed his cock as he rolled her onto her back.
With a knee between her legs, he made room for himself, got between her yielding thighs and positioned his blunt tip at her entrance. Expecting little resistance, he pushed into her, anticipating a slick, easy advance.
But in the next instant, he was gritting his teeth to contain his release. Dye heard Martigay’s sharp gasp as her body fought his entry, her vulva choking on the thick head of his cock. Reining in his increasingly heated male instinct, he gave her a moment, unwilling to give any ground or retreat in any manner, then inched into her. Again her cunt cinched tightly around his cock head and again he waited for her body to adjust to his presence before he gave her another careful inch. Sweat dampened his brow as Dye stared down into her face to find an uncomfortable little frown between her wide eyes. Suddenly he was swept with an unanticipated rush of tenderness.
Martigay. She had to be the biggest little fake he’d ever stumbled across in his lifetime. Aye, he had a lot going for him between his legs. But the woman talked like she had men for breakfast, lunch and dinner and ate them whole without swallowing.
But this little fake hadn’t had a man in quite a while. And that was no lie. Lowering his lips until they touched her forehead, he pressed them into her rumpled little frown. “Martigay,” he whispered.
He wanted to reassure her, somehow. Let her know that she was doing all right, that there was no hurry. That he’d wait for her and give her the time along with anything else she needed to receive him—make room for him—inside her. That he’d make it right for her and not leave her behind. That she was safe in his hands. But all he could mange to choke out was, “Easy, Martigay.”
Slowly, he continued his advance in installments, coaxing her legs up beside his body in order to complete his entry and immerse himself to the hilt inside her warm slit. Finally he was there, fully extended, wrapped up and soaking in her warm depths, his cock head nudging the back of her sheath as her vagina held the length of his shaft tightly.
Experimentally, he pulled a few inches and gave them back.
Her body was stiff beneath his, as though still trying to contend with so much all at once.
Mesmerized—the normally savage edge of his passion subdued in wonder—he watched her face as he coaxed her body forward with the brush of his fingers, the caress of his palm. With curving fingers, he stroked her breast, circled her nipple languorously with one rough fingertip, licked his fingers and pulled on the tiny peach peak then blew on it until it was dry and stiff and achingly tight. Slowly, he smoothed his hand down over her waist, past her hip to caress her bottom, lifting it gently, rhythmically to meet his groin, starting her into the action she’d soon take and make her own.
With his hand wrapping one of the round firm cheeks of her bottom, he put a kiss on her lips. And, though the kiss started gently, it rapidly became ravenous. Finally succumbing to the passionate need that rode him with a vengeance, his mouth ate into hers, his tongue intruding roughly between her lips as, with a hand on her bottom, he pulled her body up to meet his grinding hips.
The action between her legs that had started shallow and smooth had, by now, accelerated into a body-jarring, brutal, free-for-all with her soft, feminine cunt on the receiving end of his hard male barrage. Somehow, the corded muscles of his upper arm found their way under one of her thighs, pressing her leg high, opening her sex for his complete penetration.
She cried out—a small, helpless sound of whispered need and his heart wrenched as he slowed to listen. Her breath caught in her throat several times and he knew she was close. When he returned his lips to hers, she whimpered, then clutched, and he realized she was coming, her vagina tightening to hug the length of his cock.
“Ah, Mithra, Martigay,” he whispered, and held hard inside her as he came.
“Oh. My. Lord. Mithra,” Martigay gasped out in fragments torn from a mouth open in surprised bliss and Dye buried his mouth in her neck to muffle his roar of pleasure as his release shot through his shaft to fill her with his jetted stream of cum and her cunt closed to hold his cock.
When her body was finished wringing out his cock, he rolled to lie beside her, collecting her in one arm as she pressed up against him. She purred inside his arm—a high, soft note—a sound of pure female contentment. Sighed and purred again as she snuggled into him as closely as she could.
Dye’s arm tightened around her to pull her closer.
He felt like he couldn’t fucking breathe. Tight and tense, as though one good deep breath would shatter him. There was a hard lump stretching his throat that was impossible to swallow around, and it felt as though a bear trap had clamped on his heart, while at the same time there was a tight knot in his stomach.
He’d wanted this fuck ever since he’d laid eyes on the little wildcat. Dreamed of it. Imagined her spreading her legs wide as he came to her and rose over her, and drove into her, mounting her with one hard, overpowering push as she canted her hips to meet and receive his every thrust. Martigay—taking everything he could give and demanding more with her sexy gutter mouth. Screaming into orgasm as her nails bit into his ass and she thrashed under his body, her legs opening impossibly wide at the last instant to take him hard at the back of her cunt—loving it—screaming to be fucked forever.
But the wicked, wanton Martigay was a little lady on the mat.
He thought his heart would blow into pieces.
Mithra!
It was a mistake to lay the girl, he thought, lying awake with only his guilty con
science for company, Martigay curled and asleep at his side. It had been a mistake. Forcing a breath deep into his lungs, he gazed down on the woman beside him. It had been a mistake, all right. A mistake he’d not change for anything in the world.
With Martigay warm at his side, Dye watched the night gradually give way to gray dawn, bright in his Westerman eyes. Inwardly, he sighed. With the dawn, there were a thousand tasks that must be attended. And he’d best be out of her tent before the whole army was up to see him—to know where he’d spent the night.
Quietly, he slipped from beside her, yanking his ties closed as he backed out of her tent. When he reached his own pavilion, he motioned one of his guards to follow him inside.
“Send Captain Martigay to me the first you see her,” he told the man.
Throwing himself into a chair, Dye went to work, temporarily setting aside the fact that he’d soon have to face the girl, and that he had a lot of explaining ahead of him.
Chapter Sixteen
A rustle of sound caused the king to raise his eyes. Just inside the tent’s opening, stood Martigay. For two instants, he stared at her before he realized he wasn’t breathing. Andarta! The woman was breathtaking if nothing else. He stood without thinking.
Her face was lit with a warm glow, her cheeks flushed pink, eyes filled with a surreal, smoky light. Abstractly, she frowned at him, her fingers twisting the braid in her hair, her expression troubled.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, My Lord?” she put to him, out of the blue.
Slowly, he shook his head.
She nodded. “Neither do I.” She took a few uncertain steps forward and lowered herself into a chair before his table. “We got off to a rocky start.”
He nodded as he slowly sank back into his chair.
“And I’ve known him for years.”
Him!
“I would never have guessed I could feel this way about him,” she said quietly. “I would never have guessed I could feel this way about any man, let alone Pall.”
“Pall!”
“To think of all the times I pushed him away.” Martigay stopped there, as she seemed to search for something in the man seated before her—then flicked her head as if to toss aside some complicated riddle. “I didn’t know what I was turning down! But now…after last night—” she shivered and her eyes lost their focus. “But now—” She stood suddenly, heading toward the exit, apparently having forgotten that the king had sent for her. “I wonder what he’s doing just now.”
“If you find him, send him here,” he put in swiftly.
She turned back with a slow expression of surprise. “Okay,” she said, “but it might take me…oh…twenty minutes or so to find him.”
“If it takes you more than five, you’re a pawyn again, Martigay.”
She looked bemused. “It’s going to be hard to pull off a wedding in five minutes, My Lord.”
“Wedding!” he sputtered. “You can’t wed a man based on one night of—”
“—the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.”
“One night of—” he continued, then stopped. “Was it?”
“Was it what?”
“What you said. The best sex.”
“I don’t joke about things like that,” she said, nodding seriously. “His timing, his delivery was…perfect. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think I’d lain with a god last night. One of the younger ones,” she added hastily. “Thor, perhaps. Although it wasn’t just sex,” she added as an afterthought.
Leaning back in his chair, he arched an eyebrow in her direction.
“You’d not understand.”
“Try me.”
“It was…like we were made for each other. As though we came together and the point at which we came together was the point at which everything started and ended, and was the point at which everything mattered.” She shrugged with an apologetic little grin. “I told you that you’d not understand.”
“Nay,” he admitted, his eyes never leaving her face. “I’d not understand. Unless…it was like the ultimate fuck. The fuck you want to last forever, the fuck you want to never end, the fuck you want to hold onto for all time, knowing you’d do whatever it would take to hold onto it. Finally losing hold, letting go in arrival, and finding the losing even better than the holding. Opening your eyes at the end of orgasm and hardening again, just thinking of the perfect coming.
“And afterward, telling yourself—arguing with yourself—that it could be just as good, just the same, with the next woman. Knowing in the same instant that you’re wrong, that you’re kidding yourself at worst and lying to yourself at best. Knowing that it will never be the same again. Knowing, knowing, that your life was going to be useless without the next one. The next fuck. With the same woman. For as long as you can possibly keep her.” His eyes cut a challenge at hers. “But I’d not understand.”
She stared at him gape-mouthed for two instants before her jaw snapped closed. And for those two instants, he feared he’d offended her. But she smiled slowly. “I think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard out of a man. I’ve underestimated you, Dye,” she said, “you do take sex seriously.
“But,” she said, with a sigh. “You should have taken me up on my offer when you had the chance, My Lord.” Turning, she moved toward the exit again. “Because, as of today, I’m no longer available.”
“Martigay!”
Once more, she turned to face him.
“As disappointing as that news is, let me remind you that I sent for you and, lest you’ve forgotten, I’m your commanding officer.”
She blinked at him in recognition as the dreamy haze in her eyes dissipated.
He motioned toward the chair before his table. “Take a seat.”
Moving across the room, Martigay obediently slipped into the chair as Dye considered her face for several moments, planning his approach. She looked defensive.
“We need to talk,” he started, “about last night. As well as your next assignment.”
She gave him a curt nod, as she fingered her braid. “I imagine you’ll be wanting this ribbon back.”
“No. No,” he answered swiftly. “Let’s leave that for now. But about last night.”
“Did Pall tell you? About the cave?”
“Yes, but—”
“He shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad he did,” he said gently.
But she took it the wrong way. “I’ll just bet you are,” she returned in a flat voice.
She might as well have smacked him across the face. A long silence separated them before he stood and turned his back to her. Wrong approach, he decided, forcing himself to be patient. Evidently, she assumed he would use this information against her, perhaps to demote her once more.
“Captain Martigay,” he spoke the words with great emphasis. “Let me tell you about your next assignment. I’d like you to take over supply.”
“But you said there weren’t any positions…”
“Let me speak, Captain!” Turning to face her, he continued in a very businesslike manner. “I’d like you to take over supply. Several wagons are arriving this morning and I need someone I can trust in charge of management and distribution. There have been a few complaints from Destri’s unit and I’d like someone to oversee the distribution of his allotment, in particular. Make sure that everything is fair. Are you comfortable doing that?”
“Sir?”
“Do you want the job?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You’ll have to put off your wedding plans,” he pointed out with a straight face, “for today, anyway.”
She grinned and nodded.
“Thank you, Captain. Please find Sergeant Palleden and send him to me, then ask Lieutenant Greegor to pull out fifty men for you.”
“Will I be under Greegor’s command?”
He shook his head. “You’ll report directly to me. If you’ll report here at the end of the day, I’ll help you get started on
the next requisition. In addition, we still have some unfinished business to discuss.”
“Sir?”
“It would be better discussed later, Martigay. After you’ve had a day to adjust to your new duties. You’re dismissed.”
Her duties would delay any plans she had for wedding—at least for today—he decided wryly, standing at his tent’s opening and watching Martigay’s sexy saunter through camp.
Grinding his teeth in the next instant, he watched her with Palleden and almost launched himself across camp when he saw her hand linger to caress the sergeant’s thigh. He saw Palleden’s surprised reaction. She told him something—spoke to him—and the blond’s eyes traveled across camp to connect with the king’s. With a brisk turn, the sergeant made his way toward his commander.
Moments later Pall stood within the king’s tent.
“She thinks it was you with her last night,” Dye muttered in a low, rough-edged voice.
“I gathered that!”
“Why didn’t you set her straight?”
“Why didn’t you?” Pall shot back.
“I tried to!”
Dye glared at the young sergeant before he shook his head. “If I’m close enough to tell her, she’ll be close enough to kill me. I don’t want to be anywhere near her when she finds out. She’s going to be mad.” His expression was wry as he fell into his chair. “She said the two of you got off to a rocky start.”
Pall nodded, dropping into the chair before the king’s table. Reaching to his waist, he pulled three nutshells from a pouch tied to his belt and placed them on the table. Holding a dried pea between his thumb and forefinger, he showed it to the king then placed it carefully beneath one of the shells. Slowly, he began to move the shells on the table’s smooth surface. As he wove the shells in and out, around each other, at increasing velocity, he spoke to the king.
“This little trick was always good for a few drinks,” he explained just before his hands stopped. “Where’s the pea?” he asked the king.
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