The Queen's Tale (3 page)

“Where ever you like. I can’t stop you, can I? It’s all up to you.”

Heat whipped up her spine, flushing her face. So many tiresome things were all up to her. For once, it was wonderful to be the one deciding. She glanced down. Swollen and flushed, the tip of him was a deep royal red. She had never seen anything like it.

“I wish to touch your…cock,” she whispered. Moving back onto her stool, she tenderly laid her hand, wrist to fingertip, against the long, hard rise of his penis, pressing as if it were a wound to soothe.

Dante’s answer was a slice of indrawn breath.

“Still hurts?”

“Mmm,” he answered, closing his eyes.

“Poor thing,” she murmured.

He rocked his pelvis into her palm, a sound vibrating from deep inside his chest. He pushed at her so strongly, Philomena had to reach up and grip his shoulder with her other hand, steadying herself as she might with a demanding waltz partner.

The movement brought them chest to chest. Dante strained forward, nuzzling her ear with a whispered kiss.

Philomena began to curl her fingers one by one around his thickness. He made a handful, all of it warmer than she’d expected. She tested firmness and length with a long, slow, heart-stopping tug.

Dante strained as far as the rope would allow to press his lips to her throat. Philomena recognized the sharp nip, immediately swallowed by the same hot pulling comfort she’d felt on her palm. She released him immediately and stumbled backward off the stool again, twisting herself in a circle of confusion, once, twice.

His chains clanked with frustrated restraint. “Your nipples. They’re darker now…and so tight.” Dante’s voice dripped honey over her thoughts. “Do they ache? I can help with that, if you’ll come back. Come to me.”

How did he know? Her hands twitched with the need to press and soothe her aching breasts, to bind them tightly into her corset, anything to end that burning distraction.

Her expression seemed to amuse him. He shook his head, half-laughing. A shock of blond hair dropped across his brow. “I know what would help.” Disheveled, he was even more appealing, more approachable. “Let me suck them, Philomena. It’s good for the ache. It makes it so much—” he stretched the rope to its limit, looming over her “—
worse
.”

She almost jumped. Embarrassed, she pushed hard at his chest, setting him back on his feet. “Behave, or I’ll call the guards and have you gagged.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said, assessing her with a narrow look.

“Oh, I think I would.” Throwing her shoulders back, she asked, “But now you have me wondering, would sucking ease your ache or make it worse?”

She’d heard of such things, hints and jokes and whispers. That men liked a woman’s mouth as much as other parts.

His eyes glittered. He seemed to be struggling with the urge to laugh or lunge for her.

The air prickled with possibilities. Philomena sank down onto the stool. His penis bobbed right under her nose, a thick, rosy flower. Taking him in hand, she inhaled the scent of the dewdrop at the tip. Sugar musk. Sweet spice.

“Just a taste,” she whispered. Her tongue slipped out and ever so lightly touched the tip of him. The skin was smoother, softer than the rest of him, closer to the feel of his mouth when they had opened to each other. She licked again. Again.

“Perhaps a little more.”

It felt odd to open so wide; a very unladylike amount to put inside her mouth. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with all of it. She wiggled her tongue around the fullness, surprised that there was no taste, really, only smoothness, slicked by the wetness of her own saliva.

Somewhere above her, she recognized the hurried twist and tug of his arms. There was a swish of rope falling, but she was too busy to care. The heat of his open hands suddenly hovered over her head in benediction, then dropped with a faint metallic jingle as his fingers slipped behind her neck into her hair, gripping hard.

“Mehhnaaaa…” He exhaled the last of her name with longing.

No one had called her Mena in years. It was a sweet name, a pet name, far too undignified for a queen. Philomena smiled, accidentally popping him free of her lips.

He groaned and shivered in her hands.

“You like that?” She tried it again, tightening her lips as she pressed the head of his cock in and out. His hips began to shift, almost imperceptibly, then more forcefully, the chuff of his breath marking the motion.

The sound and motion made her giddy as she realized what he sought to mimic. He liked it; he liked it very much. One hand awkwardly cupped her head, encouraging her.
Don’t stop.
Don’t go. Once more
…

She released him, pressed her tongue to trace a wide path from the stiff root to the smooth tip.

Dante’s hands dropped heavily to her shoulders. He swayed, his breath cutting the silence with short, sharp pants.

Nuzzling the smooth muscled cradle of his pelvis, Philomena wrapped one steadying arm around his thighs. Her other hand slid up the back of his leg to cup the weighted muscle of his bottom cheek. She inhaled deeply, holding him tight, feeling everything low inside her twist with the luscious scent and feel of this man’s skin. She could not sit still.

“Did that make it better or worse, Dante?” she murmured.

Her eyes were closed but she recognized the jingle-clink of his chains, right before he caught her under the arms and pulled her up in a motion so sure and sudden she could not resist.

He opened his arms, resting the weight on her shoulders, encircling her. Startled, she gasped. Dante pulled her close,
capturing the sound that might have summoned the guards in a kiss.

Philomena tensed her neck, resisting. She jerked her bottom backward, rocking the footstool off balance. One second they were together, the next they were tipping.

His reflexes were better trained than hers, thank heavens. Slipping free of his linked arms, Philomena plopped butt-first onto the carpet. Dante followed, his grim expression floating over her before he flipped to land with an undignified thud alongside her.

“So help me, Mena—” He sounded winded. “When I get…”

Philomena covered her face with her hands…and laughed. “I don’t believe I’ve given you permission to speak to me so familiarly, sir. However, under the circumstances—”

“Under the circumstances?”

“—I shall make an exception.” She wiped tears from her eyes. When was the last time she’d laughed so hard? Ages.
Years
.

“You honor me, Your Highness.” Dante rolled onto his back, studying her painted ceiling as if it held the secrets of the night sky. His hands were cupped casually over his belly, his erection resting lightly on top of them. He turned his head and grinned. “Care to honor me again?”

“Perhaps.”

Philomena marveled at his aplomb. What would that be like? To be so aroused, and still calm. To enjoy the sensation for minutes at a time, even with another person watching. Her own body was creating a panic of awareness: the piercing tightness in her breasts, the slippery moisture between her legs, the throb that made it hard not to flex her private muscles and squirm…

“What next?” She forced the whisper through her tight throat.

“Next?” He rolled close, kissed her mouth softly, pushed up on one elbow and slung his leg over her. “Reach me the keys, so I can show you.”

“Keys?”

“I need my hands free, Mena, to do what comes next.”

This kiss opened her. His tongue erased the boundaries between them; thick and wet, it reminded her of having his cock in her mouth and she couldn’t hold back the sound of the hungry yearning she felt.

“Oh God, Mena. My hands. Now.”

“No.” She shifted out from under him and sat up. “
No
.”

Even handcuffed, he held so much power over her. Shaking, she pushed him flat on his back. She shifted to her knees, looked down into his wide blue eyes. “Twelve years I was married. I’ve never been the one to say how, when or where. I don’t need your hands. I need your cooperation.”

She crawled over him, one knee to either side of his hips, one hand flat over his heart, his wrists chained, hands open, reaching… She took his cock firmly in her other hand, and stopped breathing as she notched him into her wet folds. She meant to go slowly, to give herself time; it felt so different than she remembered, so full, warm, harder, stiffer…

But Dante had other ideas. He thrust quickly upward, crying out as if he were the invaded party, catching her wrists in his shackled hands.

Trapping her. Trapping himself.

“Oh, oh my.” Philomena tipped and rolled, locked in place above him.

“Again,” he groaned.

Panting, she tried to feel one thing separate from the rest, to repeat what he needed, to understand the sensations lighting her body on fire. She pushed back, sitting up straight, sending his cock higher inside.

Dante’s head tipped back, exposing his throat and releasing a gasping, guttural: “Oh, fuuuuck.”

Philomena nearly laughed aloud—again. Happiness bubbled through her, making her lighter and lighter inside. She lifted her hips off her heels and slid down hard and fast, hoping she might be able to make him do it again.

It worked. Three times in a row, in fact.

Then all at once, they began to gasp together. Lift to meet each other. Separate with intent. It was the sweetest feeling she’d ever experienced. Her palms pressed solidly over the bones and flesh of his hips, she lifted and fell… “Dante,” she whispered. “Shouldn’t we move to the bed?”

“Beds are for old, married people. Lovers prefer the carpet.”

“They do?”

“Or the wall, the closet, the carriage…”

His words filled her mind with images as his body filled her with sensations. “But why?”

“Lovers…need…quick…fierce.” Each of his words punctuated a thrust. “I’ll…teach you…Mena. Every…single…way.”

“How?”

His answer was startlingly swift. The muscles of his stomach tightened, his thighs flexed. He pushed forward with his chest, cradling her in the vee of his lifted torso and raised knees. The moment she’d adjusted her limbs for comfort, he pressed his advantage and carried her backward, flat onto the floor, rising on his splayed knees. Frustrated by his restraints, he pulled her into him, one side then the other, locking her tight to his body, her bottom wedged against the slant of his thighs, her knees wide on either side of his hips.

Here again, the sensation of him changed. How many different ways could it feel? Now there was more than his
thickness and heat. She felt the stroke of some sweet, sharp nerve inside. She felt the pinch of tears.

“More, more. Oh, please…”

“More like this? How beautiful you are, my Mena, my queen.” Talking while tilting his hips the smallest amount, just enough, Dante pressed inside. He opened her with his body and his words. “Look at me here, on my knees for you. Still wearing your chains. You’re safe with me, yes you are, my queen….” His words wove a spell. “Let go.”

He bent forward and, with his teeth, caught the tiny blue ribbons that held her silk chemise closed. Tugging, tearing at her last covering, and always tilting, tipping, rocking her inside.

She hadn’t wanted to be naked in front of him. She’d chosen to keep that thin garment, mindful as a queen of every layer of meaning. A warning flared through her oversensitized body.

“Stop. Wait.” She squirmed and her own motions shrugged the fabric from her shoulders, exposing her. “Oh no, don’t. I’m too…”

“You’re beautiful. Let me see. Please.”

He locked her wrists in the circle of his fingers—held them tight as any handcuffs. He never stopped moving, stroking her, asking for something she didn’t know how to give.

“Mena, look at me, on my knees. Begging. Do you feel me begging?” He straightened his thighs, pulling her up into him. His shoulders relaxed, his eyes closed and he thrust, hard.

And did not stop.

She answered with a sound that mingled exclamation and warning. It was different again—the sweet and sharp punctuated by crashing violence. She arched her feet, digging her toes into the soft carpet, and still was rocked with each powerful thrust.

“Let go.” His voice was deep, clear, his words a command. “Let go. Now.”

No one could resist. No one.

She went in all directions, with a heart-stopping disintegration, disappearing inside and suddenly beginning again, all at once, all together.

“Yes!” he shouted, chest thrust forward, head back, fingers sprung open releasing her, snapping the chain between his cuffed hands.

The next moments were disorderly.

Philomena heard his footsteps, then the jingle and clink of keys and metal falling on the nearby chest of drawers. A rustle of linens preceded the soft warmth of a blanket falling around her, a pillow being tucked beneath her head.

He slipped in behind her, pulling her bottom into the warm nest of his body.

“Can we try the wall or the closet next?” she whispered, fighting to hear his answer before sleep.

“Another time, my queen. Rest.”

“Promise me.”

“Yes?”

“I know we have never encountered one another before in the palace,” she covered his hand where it lay against her belly. “But should you ever by chance come upon me, at court perhaps or even in some state procession, will you turn away? Quickly. Don’t speak to me. Don’t even look.”

She felt him pull back, cold air slipping between them. “Why?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“I will be another man’s queen. I’m afraid I will not remember my duty, should I ever see you again.”

With a sigh, the distance between them closed. “Fear not, my queen. Fear not.”

Philomena melted into his warmth and let herself go again…this time into deep, restful sleep.

“
Poor queen,” Dev murmured
.

The rain pattered softly now, on the roof. He pulled
Maeve in close, rocking his hips steadily against the pillow of
her ass, nestling his cock along the damp warmth of her cleft.
He could come like this, spooning, her voice creating pictures in
his mind. The longer the story, the harder it was to resist
.