AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“’Tis not good to keep all that verve bottled up, is all I’m saying,” Gawain returned. “You need to release it. I’m not the only one seeing what the frustration is doing to your temper. You’re nigh combustible.”
“I don’t seeyousuffering from the lack of swiving,” Arthur pointed out.
“That’s because no females look at Gawain when you’re near, Bear,” Kay said with his mouth open while masticating his rabbit.
Gawain drew himself up and puffed out his considerable chest.
“Bite your tongue. I garner plenty of attention. I’m just choosy, is all.”
Conversation devolved from there into a competition of manly attractions amongst Arthur’s warriors. Then a catalogue of the comeliest women they’d partaken the pleasures of.
Arthur contributed his own experiences, which grated upon Lancelot’s ears for some strange reason.
He always liked listening to Arthur. Always paid attention to every word. The warrior’s voice was deep and resonant with a vibrating growl depending on his mood.
Rather like a bear, if a bear could speak.
When Arthur started sharing stories about the women he’d bedded, however politely he alluded to the experiences, versus his men’s more ribald retellings, Lancelot always shut off his listening senses to block out the details, and merely heard the rumbling sounds.
Like warm ale pouring down a parched throat. Or smooth honey melting on one’s tongue.
It was strange, but he could almost taste Arthur’s voice. Could feel it like those big, rough, long-fingered hands stroking comfortingly down his back and across his shoulders.
He fell asleep in the hammock of the oak tree branches to the sound of Arthur’s resonant rumble and his deep-chested laughter. As he often did when he followed Arthur around his camps.
And he was content.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Arthur lay on his bedroll beneath a great oak and stared up into the night sky with one arm beneath his head as a pillow. Only a few stars could be seen, faded into the background as a bright moon stole their light.
The men were right. He was restless.
And frustrated too.
There was the usual tension humming beneath his skin like buzzing bees, but it was more. He’d not lain with a woman for months. Not since the tourney he attended.
The battles in between had helped release his pent-up energy, but the aftermath of victory made the burn inside of him even worse.
He needed tofuck.
This was the longest he’d gone without a bed partner since his first female. He told himself the abstinence made him more ferocious in battle (true). It was simply that he was gettingmore selective with age (true). And it had nothing to do with a certain silver-eyed warrior who trounced him in every event at the last tournament (…).
He squeezed his eyes shut as if that would also squeeze out the inexplicable thoughts swirling in his head—
Of alabaster pale skin, smooth and stubble-less. Stretched over stone-hard, leanly cut muscles. Of a long, corded throat and a sharp, angular jaw. Of waist-length silvery-white hair contained in an intricate braid.
What would it feel like for that hair to be loose and flowing? Teasing Arthur’s chest and arms as it spilled onto his naked body from above?
Or below.
He’d also felt what it was like to have this magical being beneath him, bucking up into him. Their legs tangled, hips and groins shifting together.
Gods!
He moved the arm from beneath his head to drape over his eyes instead, as if he could forcibly blot out the visions running through his mind.
His men were dozing deeply in their own bedrolls, scattered around the banked fire. Arthur was cloaked in the silent black privacy of night.
