I didn't think. I didn't even blink. I wouldn't dare to.
I just did the first thing that came into my mind.
I pressed my lips against his and kissed him.
His eyes widened in surprise. For a second there, I thought he would've pulled away. Any sane, honorable man would. But my husband wasn't sane, nor honorable. He only pulled me closer and deepened the kiss.
Our mouths met with feverish rush, breath and desire so tangled between us, everything around us faded away. He let out a groan so raw, right under his breath, I can feel it reverberate through my skin and down between my legs, soaking me through.
I wrap my legs around his waist as our kiss deepened even more. Pressing my pelvis against his hips, I succumb to the pleasure building inside me and moved against his bulge, so large and prominent, poking between my legs.
"You're one dangerous woman," he rasped, his voice so raw and guttural.
He finally let my wrist free, just to grab my throat. His fingers wrapping around it, gripping it tight, just like the way my legs are gripping for dear life around his waist.
"And by the way," he said through gritted teeth, as if he's the only one aching, "our conversation isn't over, dear wife."
"I don't have my memories, dear husband," I replied, echoing his tone, "how am I supposed to remember who that family was? And why I was looking into them in the first place?"
He tilted his head, leaning in closer, deliberately slow even when I'm already panting, out of breath and filled with desire.
"I'm starting to wonder if you've made this all up," he mused.
"Just shut up and fuck me like you promised."
He chuckled low, his eyes glinting with a dark promise.
"With pleasure," he said, tightening his grip on my neck, pulling hard and kissed me again.
He lets go of my other wrist. I hadn't even realize he was gripping it still, until I felt him twisting my nipple, hard. I pulled away and yelped in surprise.
"It's cute that you think you can control me, Iris," he teased, shoving down the top of my dress, and taking my breast into his mouth. I moaned, loud, as he licked, bit, and lapped on my nipple. My head falls back against the wall in surrender.
"You can never control me," he declared, moving his attention to the other, giving it a soft tug that caused me to jolt with surprise.
"No one can," he said it like he's out of breath. "Not even you."
I let out a moan in response as he continued his assault, leaving marks all over my skin like he's marking me for all to see. The fact that we're outdoors must've riled him up some more. With one hand keeping my legs around his hips, while the other disappeared right up my skirts.
"You're mine," he rasped, his voice so raw and visceral I can feel it engraved into my soul.
My hand goes to the back of his head, clutching his dark hair around my fingers while the other holds onto his broad shoulders, gripping it for dear life.
"What are you doing?" I let out.
He plunged his finger into my clit in response, massaging it in soothing circles. The roughness of his touch, sends jolts of pleasure throughout my body.
"Look how wet you are for me," he teased, pressing another finger into me just to taunt me.
"All just for me," he murmured, his voice teasing. "My beautiful, disobedient wife."
He swirls his finger over a spot that elicits all sorts of pleasure inside me. I'm drenched. Weak. All for him. And I hate how he knows this, peppering soft kisses on my chest as if he's rewarding me for being compliant to his needs.
But I don't care anymore. I can't take this torture anymore.
My hands immediately fumbles for his pants, unbuttoning it and letting it pool around his ankles. I need him inside me. Now.
I stroked him with one hand, his warmth a sweet relief to my cold hand as he groaned while I gripped his shoulder with the other, placing soft kisses on his neck, all the way up to the back of his ear. All while breathing in his natural, musky scent. Raw, familiar and intoxicating.
I lined him up to my entrance, and he pushed himself inside me before I could even make sense of what's happening. He let out a deep, guttural groan, as I feel him stretching my walls, his head buried on the crook of his neck.
I moaned when he pulled himself out only plunge back in, deeper this time. As if that's possible. And apparently it is, because the more he does it, the more deeper he reached. Deep, so deep that I could feel him poking at me womb.
Again and again, he kept up that slow, steady maddening rhythm. I dig my nails deeper into his shoulders, still covered by his black riding jacket. I've probably left nail marks but I don't care. I need him to go faster, harder like he did just last night.
"May this serve as a lesson for you, wife," he murmured low, keeping his pace steady, "that you should practice some patience."
I didn't answer. Not because I didn't want to. But he's not going to like what's coming out of my mouth, and he'll torture me some more.
So I remained silent, giving him a silent answer by moving my hips faster, eager to get this over with just as the pleasure rises, and rises some more...
"And perhaps a little obedience," he added, his grip on my throat tighter before he suddenly stops moving.
"But for what it's worth," he began, as I shot him a glare, "I do love you."
I freeze. Suddenly, I forgot how to breathe, as he held my gaze, steady and unflinching, as if his words hadn't just shattered everything.
I didn't answer him. I couldn't. Not when everything is still so confusing.
So I kissed him instead, softer this time, even while he's buried inside me. I can feel him pulsing, his hips starting to move, slower and more gentle this time as we kissed. Like we're wordlessly sharing all the things we couldn't say.
Until he couldn't hold it anymore.
Pressing my knees against the wall, I kept my grip on his shoulders, holding for dear life as he fucked me hard against the wall. Our arousal dripping down between us, down onto the ground. The sound making him go harder, wilder, even.
He elicited all sorts of noises out of me, as he grunted against my neck, giving it a small bite that sent me flying until I couldn't hold it anymore. As the pleasure builds, and builds, and builds...until it finally exploded.
I let out a shout as I came, making him fuck me harder while my walls pulsed around his dick. Mimicking his thrust. Hard.
I might've scraped my ass against the rock but I don't care. This is the only way I'll let him hurt me.
With half-lidded eyes, I watch as he chased his own high before he, too, shattered inside me, filling me with his cum. Full and dripping down my legs, ruining my dress. I didn't want to think what it means. Yet. I can't. Not right now.
Not when he's still riding down his high, slowly moving out of me, panting while his head's still buried in my neck. No. I can't think about that right now, so I watched the sky instead.
I watched how the blue sky had turned into a beautiful shade of orange, and the clouds at a lighter shade. It's almost sunset now. The way the colors bled together like a painting still drying, soft and unreal, and for a moment, it felt like time had paused just for me.
He puts me down, gently back onto the ground before moving back to see the result of what we've done. Vala had flown away sometime around that mess, and thank god for that. I wouldn't want her to see all that. What would the dragon think of me? But then again, we must've done that a lot if she flew away like that, unfazed.
I felt my feet leave the ground again, a surprised gasp escaping me as a pair of strong arms swept me up bridal-style. Instinctively, my arm looped around his neck for balance.
"Put me down, Vesper," I said, trying to sound firm.
"I'm taking you to our room to clean up," he replied, eyes fixed ahead as he carried me away from the balcony and back into my office.
"But the Scribes..." I began, the thought of Sir John, of all of them seeing me like this...
"There's a secret passage," he cut in smoothly, as if he'd anticipated my worry. "I built it just for us. You won't have to see anyone."
"Even though it's perfectly normal for a husband and wife to make love," he mused, far too casually.
I shot him a glare.
He only laughed, unfazed and kicked open a door I hadn't even seen. How could I? When it's disguised cleverly as a bookshelf. Of course.
I silently committed the path to memory as we moved through a narrow hallway lit by lanterns, then up a winding staircase. At the top, he kicked open another hidden door, and just like that, we stepped into the dressing room nestled between our bathroom and bedroom.
Did he truly built all this? For me?
I didn't get to ponder long before he set me down at the entrance of our bathroom.
I gaze up at him, confused when he started to strip. Thank god he remembered to pull his pants back up just now because I definitely didn't.
"What, you want me to strip you too, my Queen?"
I rolled my eyes, tugging down the top of my dress. Modesty seems pointless now that he have been inside me more times than I cared to admit. I should've been stronger to hold off his allure, but for some reason I just can't.
I take off the pins in my hair, letting my dark curls freely fall down my back before I turned my back on him.
"Last time I did this," he murmured, fingers deftly working on the laces of my dress as I pull my hair to the front, each of his movement deliberately slow, sensual. There's something intimate about this, I realized. Something tender, simmering beneath the heat. "It was the night before you left."
"Was it the night I caught you with her?"
"Yes, it was," he admitted. He finally admitted it.
"How did it happen?"
"I left you to rest shortly after we finished," he said, his fingers working deftly on my laces, slowly unraveling. "I've got some work to finish before I leave the next morning, so I decided to do it in my office. She found me that night, somehow, and stripped down naked before I could say anything. I tried to push her off."
"Did you kiss her?" I asked, turning as he finished and letting the dress slip to the floor.
"No," he said, and my shoulders sagged in quiet relief.
"I wouldn't have let her get that far," he added.
"Then what happened?"
"She dropped to her knees, crying," he said softly. "Told me she loved me. Blamed for abandoning her to my brother. I was pushing her away and she fell on the ground, when you walked in."
I remained silent, taking his words in. So where had I run off to? This doesn't make sense. This was supposed to be the night before he went off on his campaign. Supposedly I would've been carrying his child by then, wouldn't it? Or had that happened even deeper in the past?
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, pulling me out of my mind.
I only shake my head, muttering, "Nothing."
"Well then," he said, lips curling with a hint of something sinister, "why don't we get ourselves ready for dinner?"
I didn't get to respond before he carried me inside our bathroom once more, where our bath is already steaming and ready for us. The servants must've done this while we're out. I don't know how, but well, there it is.
We ended up doing it in the bath, twice.
Once, when he lifted me onto the counter beside the basin and sank into me without a word. Then again, as I lather the soap over his body, the warm water swirling around us like a cocoon. I couldn't help myself, and so can he. I was already growing weak for him, and he knows it.
The worst thing is, it had only been a day.
Oh, fuck. I need to ask Nadine for contraception tomorrow.
The last thing I need is to carry his heir again before I figure all this shit out. Not to mention my memories.