AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your facility for quotation and this setting,” Beatrice said to his sternum, hiding her face from his besotted look, “betrays a love for the theatrical.”
Arthur nuzzled the top of her head. “My mum loved the theatre, and Arcadia Demesne was known far and wide as a place traveling players could settle and perform before their feet itched for the road. We provided them with room to store their various properties and welcomed them back with open arms upon their return.”
Beatrice led him onto the stage he’d set, kicking off her slippers to curl her toes into the plush rug and smiling at the candles in their holders. Hidden creatures rustled in the underbrush, unafraid, and she looked up as a light breeze ran through the branches above, a bird call sounding overhead.
Beatrice turned to him. “‘The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders/At our quaint spirits.’”
“Madam…” Arthur fell to his knees. “You take my breath away.”
She held his face in her hands. “I hope I may live up to what the theatre manager intends.”
“I assure you, there is no one better for the role.”
Beatrice cast her costume aside as Arthur leapt back to his feet to toss his clothing around the copse, his shirt dangling from a nearby branch. She laughed as he pulled her to him and dropped them gently to the ground, rolling on his back to sit her almost directly onto his…his manly part. “I believe I mentioned I do not like to ride,” she chided.
“I believe you once did not care for kissing.” Arthur slipped his fingers down her belly and teased her with his thumb. The now-familiar sensation came over her, the paradox of turmoil and languor, and she rolled her hips, his cock hardening against her thigh.
“Oh.” Beatrice moved again, and he moaned, gripping her hips. She wanted to giggle at the way she rubbed along him like a cat but thought he might take her laughter ill. She rose on her knees and felt like one of those goddesses of his; small she may be, but what power she had to make him growl so. She took his hands in hers and stroked her face with them, drew them down over her breasts, settled one on her hip, returned the other to her cunny, laying his fingers in the best place to convey pleasure. She leaned down and braced herself on his chest, and both gusted sighs of contentment and impatience. “I see. This is indeed a class of riding I foresee enjoying, Your Grace.”
“Do not—ah!” He gasped as Beatrice reached down to touch him, to run her fingers over him as he did her. He throbbed in her palm. The strength he called upon to set a leisurely pace was apparent in the sweat gathering on his brow.
Beatrice moved and through a combination of instinct and pure luck brought him to her entrance. She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Arthur. Show me what to do.”
***
He showed her by doing, rearing up gently and sheathing himself in her heat. She lay her hands on his shoulders and rocked. He braced his feet and lifted his hips in tandem, ran his hands from her shoulders to thighs, up her sides, ran his fingers through her hair, the golden strands luminous in the candlelight. He set one hand at the back of her neck, gripping her nape as her movements settled into a rhythm she deemed best, if her breathing was anything to go by. With his other, he teased her most sensitive place to her approval and her censure when he slipped it away.
As much as he desired the release that awaited them, he did not wish to rush their way to it.
Could he feel pride when he was feeling so much else? How well she took command of their pleasure, having not known it before. How quickly she discovered what was best for her fulfillment and for his and sought to give them both the joy of this act. If he’d had any doubts she was his match they were gone—and on the heels of that thought, his ability to think clearly as she found a movement—Baldr, Sif, Loki, Odin,sweet Valkyries—that made him shudder with deepest arousal as she squeezed around his cock and moved, over and over until his blood sang in his veins. He wrapped his arms around her, his mouth worshipping every inch of skin he could reach, inspiring her to further heights of passion as she writhed in response. The tingling in his balls threatened to draw it all to a close, but not until he made them one in truth.
“I would bond with you now,” he murmured.
“Where shall you bite?” She playfully nipped at his shoulder.
Arthur struggled to keep his voice discernible above a growl. “It is often in a private place known only to the bonded pair.”
Beatrice gripped him with her knees, holyFreya, the better to glare down at him. “I want it to be seen. I want all to know you are mine.”
He sat up, keeping her tight to him, huffing at her little giggle at the sudden change in position. They kissed, and he scented her beneath her jaw, trailed his tongue around her earlobe. She tilted her head to his chest and moved her hair away from the side of her neck. He licked it and nudged it with his teeth, and she nodded. As their passion mounted, his fangs lowered, and with as much care as he could muster, he bit.
Their ecstasy exploded, and Beatrice shook in his arms, tightening around him as she found her release, goading his own. As naturally as if he had done it an infinite number of times, as easily as he called Her name every day, when he came he invoked Freya; he said please and thank you and let him give his wife, his beloved, the child she yearned for. He gently laid his mate down on the soft layers of their bower. Arthur embraced his duchess, his lover, and ran a hand over her belly, imagined, and believed.
***
Beatrice wrapped herself in a silken coverlet as Arthur took care to fold the gossamer nightdress before he set it aside. “Have you had Lady Coleman make me a new wardrobe?”
He looked at her, slightly abashed. “This is from the players’ store.”
“A costume?”
“Desdemona, I fear.” He grimaced and offered her a sugared plum in consolation.
“Your beloved dramatist’s heroines do not enjoy pleasant fates.” She took a bite of the treat and started. “Did you know him?”
“Who? Shakespeare?”
How she adored making him scowl. “I know you lot do not age as we humans do.”
