Under His Guard (31 page)

“Singing, of course.”

“Do you ever think we got really goddamn lucky?”

His gaze hooked on Nathaniel, who sang alongside Miss Eden. “Every day.”

Smitty and his banjo had been booed offstage less than a minute after he took it, but the resident blacksmith had taken no offense. He'd joined Old Tommy and Hatch, who was concocting some new green, bubbling alcoholic drink in a tall beaker just inside the town hall's wide-open doors.

“You're in trouble now,” Cannon mumbled, hiding his grin behind his cup.

Leon was making his sinuous way over to me.

“I sure hope so,” I replied. “Sweet Jesus, this man's driving me insane.”

I snapped to attention. Leon's hair was in a damp disarray, and he'd lost his jacket somewhere along the way. With the short white shirtsleeves bunched up on his biceps, his tawny skin glowed.

I took one last swallow of ale before I forgot how to swallow altogether. I'd already lost the ability to speak, my tongue tied in knots over his graceful approach.

“I think I better cut out of here.” Cannon clasped Leon's arm and quietly said something to him, which only made Leon's eyes glitter even more.

I felt overdressed, but his hungry eyes let me know he appreciated the sight of me in a suit and tie.

Leon gave a slight bow. “Dance with me,
cher
.”

I gulped. “Aren't you thirsty?”

“
Non
. Nate's gonna play that gee-tar, and I wanna dance,
mon mari
.”

“My name's not Marie.”

“Dat means husband.”

Oh.
Yes.

As was part of a tradition lost half a century ago, the dance floor emptied when Leon walked me to the center. Our friends and family stood along the walls. Liz pressed up to kiss Linc. Cannon looked longingly at his lover, who was preparing to sing the next song for us. Farrow flirted with Val. Denver raised Sebastian's hand to his lips in a courtly gesture.

With everyone in position, Nathaniel began to strum his guitar.

The lyrics didn't matter, nor the tune. What held my attention was the man in my arms and the hush around the hall. Our bodies fit perfectly together, and even though I had never felt comfortable dancing, Leon made it easy.

More than easy, it was intimate…and beautiful.

His hands remained on my shoulders throughout the first song, and mine rested lightly on his hips. Our gazes never parted, but we didn't speak. I breathed him in, the feel of him, the look of him, loving him.

Nathaniel left the stage and let Eden continue with the romantic songs. Before long, we were surrounded by a mash of bodies. The tune picked up, and with it, my hands wandered over Leon's ass.

“Remember the last time we danced?” he asked.

The space between us melted away. Where we touched, I sizzled with yearning. The last time was at Madam's Amphitheater in Omega. Jealousy had fueled my need to brand Leon as mine. That dance had almost made me come in my pants. It wouldn't take much longer to get to that point again. Care of Leon's quaint ways, we hadn't fucked for a few days or spent last night together.

I groaned. “Don't remind me…”

“You wouldn't let yourself have me then.” He brought our joined hands up between our chests. Our rings chimed. Our hearts pounded. “Now you have all a' me.”

His fingers slid around my neck.

I tilted my face, touching his lips with the softest brush. “I love the way you move with me.”

“I love the way you move inside of me.”

“Fuck. You can't say shit like that and expect me to just dance with you all night, angel.” I growled with desire.

“I expec' you to make love to me all night long.”

My muscles stiffened to make a move out of this place, but he gentled me with the caress of his fingertips along my arms. “Or we could just keep dancin'. You don' wanna party all night?”

“I'm not as young as you,” I groused.

His laughter was sultry as a summer breeze. “
Mais
yeah, I could teach you a thing or two.”

I yanked back with my face heated. “Oh really?”

“
Mm-hmm
.” He licked his lips with the pink tip of his tongue.

“That's it. We're done.”

With his hand grasped in mine, I plowed through everyone in my way. Leon sent our apologies to anyone I trampled in my hasty exit. He pulled me up short when we reached Liz and Linc. I glared, impatience winning out over any semblance of manners.

“Merci.”
Leon shook Linc's hand and accepted a hug from Liz.

He looked at me, lifting his eyebrows.

“Look, I know you're taking off in a couple of days for Beta, but we gotta go.” How long could this night go on? I gave backbreaking hugs to both of them and hoped that was good enough.

Cannon watched it all, a smirk on his lips, Libby asleep in his arms.
Asshole
.

Liz wouldn't let me pass. “Oh, don't think you're getting out of sending us off, Darke, just because you think you're gonna be spending the next three days inside Leon's ass.”

“I don't plan on coming up for air.” I gave my short reply.

“Not even for me, your old pal?” She batted her eyelashes, to no effect but a rumble of amusement from Cannon.

“No,” I bit out.

“
Bien sur
. We'll be there,” Leon promised right before I whisked him out the doors.

At first I couldn't locate our caravan. The village dickheads had pulled the same stunt on us as they had on Caspar and Nathaniel. I was desperate enough to use the solid trunk of a pine tree as a bedstead, but not on our first night as husbands.

We'd been relocated to the meadow. When I glimpsed the lights shining across the frozen field, I took off at a run, Leon racing beside me. At least Tommy wouldn't have to worry about being kept awake, especially since our caravan was the subject of one more commune tradition. Tiny silver tinkling bells looped in strands all around our home.

I stopped at the steps, where candles lit each side of the stairs. Wood smoke pumped from the chimney, its gray trails wispy. “Grab on to me.”

“What?”

I lifted Leon to my hips. His thighs curled around my waist. His lips meandered up my neck.

I took the steps carefully because of my precious cargo, and when we ducked inside, I faltered. “Did you do this?”

“Some of it.” He craned his neck to see the bed in splendid new linens. To take in the many lit candles. To smile at our red satin ribbon displayed in a carved case on the table.

“How'd you get the ribbon?” I patted my pocket, where it'd been folded flat.

“You were a little distracted when we were dancin'. I passed it off to Tommy.” He winked.

I slid him down my body and he led me to the other room. A giant claw-foot tub filled with steaming water took up most of the space.

“It's beautiful,” I murmured.

“Has anyone taken care of you?”

“I…”

“I din't think so.” Leon swirled a hand around the hot water, beckoning me closer. “Look at you, all suited up and perfect.”

I shoved out of my boots and hooked my thumbs into the waist of his pants. “Why don't you undress me, boy?”

“You ain't called me that in a while.” His shirt dropped off first, then his pants, underneath which he was completely naked.

I wondered if I could go blind from the sight of his sheer perfection. “You didn't like it.”

“Depends.” He quickly loosened my tie and let it flip behind him in a black arrow. “If you say,
Boy, get over here and suck my cock
”—moist lips peppered around my throat—“
Ça va,
I don't got a problem with dat.”

My clothes hit the floor as he undressed me. I stood as still as I could, a statue when he dragged my pants down. Leon bit his lip the moment my cock lunged upward in front of his face, but he didn't touch me.

He motioned me to the warm water, waiting until I settled in. With my knees against either side, there was enough room for two, yet he knelt on the braided rug, lathering his hands, soaping me all over until my breath rasped and my knuckles turned as white as the porcelain beneath my grip.

Every time he rose up, I sucked on his skin, dewy and damp. His stomach, his thighs. His balls dangled over the edge and I slurped them, too.

Foam dripped off my chest and down my back. I shivered.

“Dis is how I love you. Dis is how I care for you.” He kissed my chin, his hand dipping lower beneath the water to tangle in the hair at my groin.

The water waved as my body moved to his every teasing touch.

“Let me love you, too.” I pulled him into the tub, settling him on my thighs. “Let me.”

“You gave so much for me.”

“No more than you.” I wrapped Leon in my arms as our wet skin found a new rhythm.

We kissed, taking our time to feel the smoothness of each other's mouths and the sleekness of bare body to bare body, buffeted by the bath's hot water.

He sat back, his cock aligned with mine. “The wings healed perfectly.”

His lips were firm and wide and sensuous—and oh so talented—as he traced the shape of my angel's wings in flight, the moko on my chest. I shuddered as a volley of need lit its way down my torso. I let him play with his lips and tongue and hands and fingers until I was tense as a wire unraveling with desire.

We slowly toweled each other dry, rediscovering the valleys, the hills, the dips of bare skin. Mine ebony, as dark as night against his golden sunniness.

“Maybe we should start callin' you
light
.” Leon smiled from the bed he climbed onto.

“Hmph.”
My face heated with a blush barely visible beneath my skin.

“What? I'm serious. Look at you. Grinnin', whistlin' all night.”

“Leon.” Grumbling, I fought a smile.

“See? Leon and Light.”

“Leon.” I stalked him, and he leaped off the bed.

I chased him to a corner of the caravan. He may have sprinted faster than me, but I had longer limbs. “Gotcha!” I threw him over my shoulder and swatted his pert ass.

I tossed him onto the bed and jumped on after him.

Leon rolled me over and pinned me down. “Uh-uh. I got you.”

“Yes, you do.” I captured him against me.

There was very little preamble to our lovemaking. The need to consummate our union with our bodies made me slip wet fingers into him after kissing up the insides of his tensed thighs. Leon's gaze drew low as he watched along the length of his body. He arched and twisted, gasping, pumping against my coned fingers.

“Love me!” He shuddered.

When we joined together as one, I lay slowly on top of him. Our bodies met from lips to chest to groin. His thighs rose to my circling hips and my arms hooked around his shoulders.

I gasped against his mouth. “I love you so much, Leon.”

I languidly withdrew, his strong legs curling me back to him as he bowed into my hold. Our bodies, always in sync during times of battle, were completely in tune with our lovemaking, too.

“We made it.” Leon's eyes took on dizzying depths. His channel pulled me deeper.

“We made it together.” I thrust inside of him. His body wrapped around me like the red ribbon had, with nothing that could come between us.

Hands and hearts. Mouths and mumbled sighs and moans, the music of lovers.

I cried out when I came, lowering my lips to his. Leon climaxed in the next instant, clutching at me. His heat and warmth and wetness spread over my palm and onto my stomach.

I'd always loved the clean, salty scent of him after we made love—I didn't want to wash him from my body, and he looked too sated to move. Dragging a blanket over us, I thought about banking the fire in the woodstove. Instead, I fell back to the bed with my beautiful husband lying across me. We'd keep each other warm through the night.

And in the morning, when only coals remained from the crackling fire, I'd tiptoe from bed and start up the kindling. I'd bring him breakfast. I'd have the bath refilled. I'd soap him and caress him and love him all day long, and for all the days and nights to come.

In His Command

On Her Watch

A Yankee transplant via the UK and other wild journeys, Rie happily landed in Charleston, South Carolina, with her English artisan husband and their two small daughters—one an aspiring diva, the other a future punk rocker. They've put down roots in the beautiful area, raising children who meld the southern “y'all” with a British accent, claiming it's a comical combination.

After earning her degree in fine arts, Rie promptly gave up paintbrushes and canvas for paper and pen (because she decided being a writer was equally as good an idea as being an artist; of course it was). That was fifteen years ago that her writing career started. With a manuscript of super-epic proportions! Safely stored under a lace doily in a filing cabinet. Possibly in England…

Since then she's done this and that, here and there, usually in the nonprofit arena, until she returned to her dream of being a writer. Even though Rie basks in the glorious southern sunshine as often as she can, she's mostly a nocturnal creature, adjourning to her writer's atelier (spare bedroom) in search of her next devious plot twist or delicious passionate tryst.

No matter what genre or gender pairing she's writing, she combines a sexy southern edge with humor and heart—and a taste of darkness. Enjoy!

www.riewarren.com

Twitter: @RieWrites

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RieWarrenRomance

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