Chapter 5 A Single Taste - 2

• 05 A Crescendo
• I shook my head. Trying to sweep away the daze of feelings I was experiencing.
• Think of something else.
• The sin of this moment.
• For a moment I wondered how many women he’d had.
• How many have been taken in this castle? In this bed?
• He was moving over me. His smooth body, slicking with a sheen of sweat as he slipped in and out. Stretching me to accommodate his length. Then moving back out.
• At first, I was very still. Unsure what to do because I was so shocked by the sheer intimacy of having a man’s body in mine. His thighs moved within the nest of mine. His ankles draping over mine. One hand caressed leisurely circles around my breast. The other held my cheek as his lips descended. Tasting mine from different directions as he stuffed me full.
• “Please...” I begged. Not even certain what I was asking for.
• “Not yet, Sweet Thing. Not nearly yet.”
• ***
• I understood why soon after that. Muscles in my body began to draw tight as a bowstring. My knees curled up slightly. My toes winding tight. My back bent at an angle I’d never contorted before, dropping my weight to the back of my head. My hips shoved themselves more firmly against him to meet his writhing thrusts. Even when he ground his hips into circles against me. Dragging himself through me at different angles.
• I made some short, primal, female noises as he took me. Soon writhing beneath him as everything in me tensed.
• Then I exploded. My body feeling like it shattered into a million fragments. Lights burned behind my clenched eyes and the air became purer. My nostrils filled with his alluring male scent. My nails raking into his back and down his arms only made him give a low, pleased chuckle.
• He wants it all.
• All of me. I suddenly understood that with him I could do no wrong.
• As long as I’m beneath him. At mercy to his sway.
• “Let me go.” I croaked.
• He laughed unsympathetically. “Why would you ever want to leave. When I could take you each night. Cover you in this sweat. Bring you to these heights and watch your towers crumble night after night until you are vulnerable to only me. Mine entirely.”
• “And who would you belong to?” I countered viciously. Trying to gather something to put between us, at least mentally.
• “You.” He pushed into me hard to make his point. “Don’t you feel that I do right now. You have me. My most vulnerable places at the mercy of your body. The things you could do to harm me.” His voice dropped dangerously. “To please me...”
• Why did he make me shiver when he said it like that?
• ***
• Before I could even clear my muddled mind, he sat up and caught my legs tighter around his waist. Working into me more deeply and becoming more feral as he took his pleasure from my body.
• I wanted to resent him. Wanted to feel filthy for what he was doing to me. But looking at his chorded, beautiful body, all I could think was that I wanted more of him.
• I want to possess him.
• I want him for mine. But instantly a tiny voice asked me how many other women had lain beneath him in this bed wondering these same things.
• I won’t be one of those hapless women! I promised myself.
• But despite all my valiant thoughts, I came again. Quaking around him. Vibrating him inside me as my walls caved to suckle him warmly. Taking the wild spurting of his pleasure deeper within me. Touching my very womb with the evidence of his animalistic ecstasy.
• “See, Sweet Thing?” His head fell and his dark eyes were on me again. He was very still, buried inside me. “I told you it would be like this. And don’t we belong to each other now?”
• ***
• Before he could say anything more in that persuasive, appealing voice, I lifted off him and skid between his elbow and hip to slide from under him. Rolling to my feet and taking the sheet with me. Twisting it around me hastily.
• “No! I do not belong to you!” I looked out the window and saw the first glimmers of an orange dawn creeping through the gold trees. Making the light explode of their gilded leaves.
• “See! It is morning already!” I cried. Pointing triumphantly. “And I ate none of your blasted food!”
• The fiend had not won. My body may have surrendered shamelessly to him, but my spirit has not.
• He sighed and rolled onto his back. A pillow tucked behind him as he sat up against the headboard. Carefully inspecting his fingernails.
• “Be careful you don’t annoy me in your triumph, Sweet Thing.” His voice held a harsh, commanding note now that warned me of something bad.
• My stomach sunk. Why not?
• What more will he do to me?
• -
• 06 Freedom
• I had earned my freedom, hadn’t I?
• He can’t take it from me.
• I ate none of his food. I recalled the conditions he’d put on me here.
• I was staring at him, waiting for him to make some move. But he made none. I picked up my dress but found it tattered as though a bear had clawed through it.
• Apparently, it had been my dress tearing. That answered that question.
• “There are more in the armoire.” He gestured with a thumb to a vast wooden construction standing near his side of the bed. Still seeming preoccupied with his own hands.
• Hands that’d been all over me.
• I stepped over his white dark shirt and realized it too was in pieces.
• I tore his clothes as well. I’d been in great haste to feel his skin.
• The images of me touching his chest before he’d shoved me back on the bed, came in flashes. How I’d caressed over him reverently. Wanting to feel every part of his body.
• ***
• Closing my eyes against the images I fled to the armoire. Tossing open the doors to grab the first dress I saw. One of silver satin with shimmering lace over it. I snatched it out and climbed into it. Not even bothering to do the fastens on the back, I clutched it to my chest.
• “Which way is out?”
• Giving me a lopsided grin, he didn’t move.
• After what seemed an eternity, he slid from the bed onto his bare feet.
• My gaze was instantly drawn to his cock. The bare piece of him that had sunk into my flesh. It was large and imposing. Making me take a step back as I wondered if he’d take me again. Certain I could no more resist him now then I already had.
• As my gaze slid up, he smirked.
• And he was instantly dressed. His clothes from the floor gone.
• But what he wore now, was in pristine condition.
• Fey magic.
• ***
• He walked toward me, and I turned to bolt but my feet locked in place. His arms draped over me, placing a white cloak over my shoulders then circling before me so he could drop his face into the crook of my neck.
• A touching gesture for one so wicked.
• Jason had held me like that, but it had never felt so intimate. So blatantly sexual. But Jason wasn’t as tall or dominating either.
• I swallowed hard. Realizing I didn’t want to move. I wanted to enjoy the way this felt.
• I felt warm, safer than I ever had, sheltered in his arms. As if he’d look after me all of my days.
• Probably how they all felt when he trapped them at court. I told myself. Forcing the bitterness back. And driving me forward from his arms.
• I could feel him behind me. Staring at my back but saying nothing.
• “This way.” He finally whispered.
• I barely heard the words before he caught my arm and turning me to lead me before him out the doorway of the chamber. Down the stairs. He tugged open the dual front doors and let the morning sun pour in and disperse over the marbled floor. Brightening the room.
• I didn’t look back at the banquet table. Afraid I might be tempted when I was so close to freedom.
• ***
• He walked me out the doors and to the trees. Then everything became blurred flashes as he pulled my hand. Guiding me through the woods expertly. But too fast for me to remember how I’d gotten there.
• Soon the trees grew thick and dark, and we stepped through them to reveal the creek where I’d been bathing.
• “Just know...” He stood next to me, staring at the water rather than looking at me. “you’re the first one I’ve ever let go. And to do that when you have something so precious to me, speaks to how remarkable a woman you are.”
• I frowned at him focused on his first words. “Let go? You couldn’t keep me. I ate nothing.”
• “I didn’t say eat, Sweet Thing.” He turned his head to level that brown gaze on me, coldly. “I said taste anything.”
• I gasped and put a hand to my lips. Realizing what he meant.
• I’d tasted him. I vaguely remembered nipping him. His kisses, my lips showering wet kisses along his chest.
• I blinked at him in horror.
• “Now you see...” He blinked slowly. “I am indeed, releasing the pretty little bird I’d caught in my web.”
• I wanted to ask why but was too afraid of the answer.
• “Just remember that what you have, is still mine. No matter what your precious fiance says.” There was bitterness with a tinge of annoyance marking his voice.
• I was quick to defend my love. “His name is Jason Charters, Lord Charters.” I said proudly. “He’s a good man. The best I’ve ever known.”
• “Good. I wouldn’t want you with anything else. Nor for else to raise my offspring.” He turned and was stepping through the trees. His dark figure already being swallowed by their depths.
• “What?”
• “My son. You may marry the man but my son you name after me. A bit of remembrance to comfort you all the nights you’ll lie awake thinking of my touch...” He didn’t look back.
• I took a step after him to keep him in view a moment longer.
• “I don’t even know your name!” I squawked. Praying he was wrong.
• About all of it! What he’s saying is insanity.
• “Bodin.” He called back. His voice fading into the woods as he vanished.
• Leaving me there alone.
• As if my life hasn’t changed forever...
• THE END