Читать книгу Dragon Desire - Lisette Ashton - Страница 7

Owain had a momentary insight into the figure that he presented. He was tall and broad and conventionally handsome. The linen tunic he had worn for travelling was a plain green that hugged the muscles of his powerful chest. With fresh hosen on his legs, and a sword dangling idly from his left hip, he supposed he looked like a debonair and attractive stranger.

Not that the redhead by his side was there because of his appearance, he thought glumly. She would have stood eagerly outside the cage if he had been a hunchback dwarf dressed in motley and burdened by pox scars.

She wasn’t there for him.

She was there to see what was hidden inside the cage behind the flag.

Not that the flag was hiding much, he reflected. The flag showed a red dragon, six foot tall, standing on a white background above a green base. The dragon on the flag was as red as the brightest sun rubies. It was as red as the most heartfelt desire. It was as red as the dragon hidden beneath the flag concealed inside the cage.

On the journey up to Blackheath, Owain had told Laird Gethin ap Cadwallon that using the flag to cover this cage was like hiding the whole of the West Riding’s coffers beneath a flag decorated with golden coins, sapphire purses and diamond-encrusted ingots.

But, not for the first time, Gethin had ignored Owain’s observations.

‘Are you sure you want to see this?’ Owain asked the redhead.

She was a pretty young maid who had taken the time to help him guide the wheeled cage into a covered storeroom beside Blackheath’s stables. The earthy smell of horses filled the air around them. There were no torches or sconces inside the stables but there was sufficient moonlight for Owain to appreciate the young woman’s milk-skinned beauty and the shine of daring that danced in her emerald eyes. He had seen that her hair was the russet colour of an autumn sunset. He had also seen the leather band on her heart finger but he was doing his best to brush that latter consideration from his thoughts.

All men, he knew, were able to brush that sort of consideration from their thoughts.

The redhead giggled and pressed close to him.

His nostrils flared as he caught the sweet scent of her nearness. She wore a perfume that reminded him of the exotic aroma of the flowers from the kingdom’s most forbidden gardens. The bouquet was rich and heady and intoxicating.

His need for her hardened.

‘I’ve seen dragons before,’ she admitted.

There was a musical lilt to her voice. He didn’t know if it was a typical accent for someone from the North Ridings, or a dialect peculiar to Blackheath, but from her it sounded different and enchanting. His yearning for her grew stronger.

‘I can see Gatekeeper Island through my spyglass when I stand in the highest offices of the watchtowers,’ she told him.

She nodded back over her shoulder, as though gesturing toward the main buildings of Blackheath Priory. He glanced at the silhouettes of towers standing black against the midnight-blue sky, blocking the stars from shining down. This was his first visit to Blackheath and it looked as though the entire fiefdom was made up of too many dark towers.

‘I can see the dragons circling the temple through my spyglass,’ she explained. ‘But I’ve never seen a dragon up close. I’ve never touched one.’

She stressed the penultimate word: touched.

He stiffened. She had a warm body and was pressed lithely against him. The well-rounded swell of her thinly covered breasts brushed against the brawny muscles of his bicep. Her small hands, delicate and cool, touched him with deliberate urgency. Her nearness inspired a healthy hardness to spring between his thighs and strain against his hosen. He cautioned himself against being tempted by her before knowing more about who she was.

He cautioned himself to remember Carys.

Owain had suffered for being imprudent in the past. He did not believe himself to be a man who often made the same mistake twice. Whilst he was trying to tell himself to proceed with caution he continued wilfully not thinking about the leather band on the third finger of her left hand.

‘You need to be careful around dragons,’ he whispered.

He found himself murmuring the words into her ear. There was something about her height and shape that made him yearn to share the sentiment in an intimate fashion. He didn’t know if it was the vibrant colour of her hair, the whey-like milkiness of her complexion or if it was simply an effect of working so closely with dragons.

‘Dragons breathe fire. Those dragons that are out there with foul tempers can cause harm and devastation to anyone who earns their ire. It’s something you need to remember whenever you’re handling these beasts.’

She nodded attentively.

‘But the very nearness of dragons has an effect on us humans.’ His voice dropped a notch lower, so that he was sure she was straining to hear him. ‘It’s an effect that we can’t control,’ he murmured.

‘And what effect might that be?’

She returned his whisper with lips so close he could have kissed her without moving his head. Her breath was sweet with the memory of summer fruits and evening wine. Her emerald eyes shone for him with a reflection of the sparkling moonlight.

‘Is it an effect similar to dragon horn?’ she asked.

He pulled away from her with a stiff abruptness. Whatever passion had been blossoming between them was instantly rent apart.

‘Dragon horn is a stupid myth,’ he grunted. His hand fell to the sword on his hip. With a deliberate effort he moved his fingers away from the pommel. ‘Dragon horn is a lie put about by charlatans and bastards and those who know less than a headless cockerel. Dragon horn is nothing but –’

‘I didn’t mean –’ she faltered.

Needing to do something with his hands, he gripped the flag and tore it away from the cage. ‘Dragon horn is a story put about by those who’ve never seen a dragon and don’t realise that dragons don’t even have horns.’

The flag fell to the floor in a noiseless rumple.

He realised that the redhead had stopped listening to him as he prattled on about the inefficacy of dragon horn and its part of the lore of unsubstantiated myths. She was staring into the cage. Her eyes had been wide before. Now they were as large as a berserker’s battle shield. Her mouth had fallen into a broad O of silent amazement. She stood motionless as she stared into the cage.

Owain wasn’t really surprised.

Y Ddraig Goch was an impressive sight. Standing on all fours the dragon would have been an imposing six foot tall. From the tip of her snout to the spike at the end of her tail, she was closer to double that length. The dragon was as scarlet as blood-red dreams. She regarded Owain and the redhead with unblinking onyx eyes. A forked tongue slipped from between her crimson lips.

‘He’s beautiful,’ the redhead muttered. ‘He’s truly beautiful.’

‘She,’ Owain corrected. He reached through the bars of the cage and patted the dragon on the top of its spiny head.

Despite the moment’s irritation that had woken in him at the mention of dragon horn, he found himself warming to the redhead.

She smiled for the dragon. Her expression bore the sort of affection that suggested she was a genuine animal lover who possessed a sincere kindness of spirit.

‘Drusilla is a female dragon,’ he explained with patience. ‘She’s one of the last of her kind from the West Ridings.’

‘Drusilla the dragon?’ The redhead smiled sourly.

Owain shrugged. ‘She was named by a former princess of the West Ridings,’ he admitted. ‘And the girl was only three at the time.’

The redhead seemed to allow this with a nod of her head. Her gaze had never left Drusilla. Cautiously, she took a faltering step toward the bars of the cage. She had one arm extended and a doubtful expression on her lips. She hesitated and then turned to stare at Owain with a submissive expression.

Despite the darkness surrounding them he could see the dark green flecks in her pupils. It was a colour that reminded him of Carys’s eyes.

‘May I pet her?’

‘Gently. Of course,’ he said. ‘But remember what I said before. An irate dragon could burn you alive.’

She nodded and began to slip her arm through the bars.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Remember also that dragons inspire an uncontrollable passion in us humans. Touching dragons makes it impossible to ignore those passions once they’re stirred.’

She nodded and hesitated for a moment longer. Then she pushed her hand through the bars.

Drusilla was one of the friendliest dragons that had fallen under the charge of Owain’s husbandry. She was affectionate to strangers. She was careful around all those animals that she wasn’t expected to eat. In truth, the only person Drusilla had never taken to liking was High Laird of the West Ridings, Gethin ap Cadwallon. In his presence Y Ddraig Goch would snarl and hiss, then catch breath as though preparing to sear his worthless hide with a flurry of flames from her nostrils.

Drusilla purred softly as the redhead stroked her cheek.

‘Aren’t you a pretty girl? Aren’t you a lovely, crimson girl?’ the redhead cooed. A forked tongue slipped against her wrist and she giggled. ‘It tickles,’ the redhead laughed.

Her gaze turned to Owain. There was a moment when he could see the unbidden desires shining behind her eyes. The longing inspired by the dragon’s nearness had clearly begun to stir in her nether regions and he knew her pulse would be racing and her loins would now ache with the bitter pain of unsated lust. Her cheeks flushed to the same colour as the dragon’s leathered wings and the redhead looked away and busied herself with petting Drusilla and allowing the creature to stroke its forked tongue against her wrist.

He patiently allowed her to continue.

He had seen the signs before and knew how the game would develop.

The redhead would be fighting the arousal that grew within her. She was still not convinced that her contact with the dragon was causing her to become driven by a need for him. As she tried to disguise her responses, she would busy herself by petting the dragon which would only serve to exacerbate her arousal. Eventually her need for him would outweigh whatever practical considerations were making her arousal such a source of embarrassment. And when she did submit to him, her acquiescence would be far more noble than any conquest won by a charlatan peddling dragon horn.

As long as he could continue to overlook the fact that there was a leather wedding band on her heart finger, Owain knew he would enjoy rutting with the redhead in any one of the hay-filled stalls.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you with my ignorant comment about dragon horn.’

She didn’t look at him as she said the words. Instead they were spoken over her shoulder as she continued to pet Drusilla. The dragon continued to purr as she caressed its cheek and wings.

‘You weren’t to know,’ he assured her. He was thankful for the darkness of the stalls. It stopped her from seeing the solemnity of his features. ‘I once had a bad experience because of someone spinning lies about dragon horn,’ he explained. ‘I suppose I overreact whenever it’s mentioned nowadays.’

He looked up to see she had stopped petting the dragon.

Silently, she had moved to stand by his side. She stared up at him, her emerald eyes sparkling softly. Her chest seemed to rise and fall with a quickened pace. His gaze fell to the heave of her breasts. The thrust of her nipples jutted sharp against the light cotton of her kirtles.

Unable to stop himself, Owain licked his lips.

‘Do you like what you see, sire?’ she asked coyly.

The red and gold kirtles were laced with ribbon at the breast. She reached for the dangling thread of one ribbon and teased it so the binding began to unravel.

‘Would sire like to see more?’

The coquettish lilt to her voice was thoroughly endearing.

Owain dearly wanted to show decency and propriety. He wanted to mention the fact that she wore a leather band on her heart finger and was therefore either married or betrothed to another. But, whilst he wanted to act like a gallant knight or chivalrous suitor, his actions were dictated by the needs of his loins.

‘I’d like to do a lot more than see,’ he told her.

He pulled her into his embrace, snaking one arm around her waist so that she was brought close to him. He lowered his face to her lips and then they were kissing with a passion that was as ferocious and fulfilling as he had expected.

Her tongue explored his mouth. She curled one leg around his hip, pressing the centre of her sex against her thigh. A sob of raw desire whimpered from her throat as she ground herself against him. Her hands pushed at his chest, fumbling to remove his tunic and gain access to his bare flesh.

With a moan of desperation she wrenched her mouth from his.

‘Take me,’ she pleaded.

He couldn’t hide his smile.

‘If you insist.’ He lowered his face to the unfastened décolletage of her kirtles and pressed his nose between her breasts. Drinking in the dusky scent of her nearness he moved his mouth over one orb and suckled against the stiff, throbbing tip of her nipple.

She groaned.

He stiffened at the sound and cast a wary glance toward the doorway. When he realised that no one had been alerted by the cry of her pleasure he allowed himself to relax and enjoy the experience and stop worrying that she might have a husband or fiancé lurking in the shadows ready to accuse her of being adulterous or challenge him for being a swiver.

When the redhead groaned again, Owain savoured the sound.

He resisted the urge to buck his loins against her.

Working with dragons fuelled him with a constant arousal but he was loathe to surrender himself so quickly to such a base response. Holding her in one arm, teasing the shape of her exposed breast with one hand as he suckled against the hard and unyielding tip of the other, Owain revelled in her heightened responses to his teasing.

She was breathless and trembling and desperate for his cock.

‘Take me,’ she begged. ‘I’m so wet for you now.’

She grabbed at his tunic with her left hand. It was the same hand that bore the leather band on her heart finger.

‘I’m so wet,’ she insisted.

He refused to think about the fact that she was in a relationship with someone else. Instead he caught her nipple between his front teeth and pressed the tiniest nibble against her exposed flesh.

‘Yes!’ she breathed. ‘Oh! You can do that all season. Yes!’

He could hear the tears of need being squeezed from her voice. He would have carried on alternating his kisses from one breast and then onto the other if she hadn’t managed to slip her fingers beneath his tunic.

The sensation of her cool hand against his warm flesh was too much to resist.

Her fingers stroked downwards, pushing beyond the drawstring waist that fastened his hosen. He knew she was reaching for the pulsing hardness at the centre of his loins.

And then she had a fist encircled around him.

‘My goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘I see you’re smuggling a longsword in your pants.’

She squeezed her grip around him and he shivered.

‘I trust you know how to handle such a weapon,’ she teased.

‘I think you’re handling it just fine for me,’ he grinned.

It wasn’t the first time he had enjoyed such banter. Lifting her in his arms, comforted that she didn’t remove her fingers from their hold around his shaft, he carried the redhead to one of the hay-filled stalls. They lay down slowly together, their bodies buoyed by a mattress of prickly hay.

As he moved his head back toward her breasts, anxious to suckle again against her stiff nipple, she pulled herself away.

He frowned, concerned that he had done something to dampen her ardour.

‘Please don’t tease me,’ she insisted. ‘I want you now. I need to feel you inside me.’ The hand around his erection gripped tight as she added, ‘I need to feel you inside me right now.’

He laughed and nodded.

The nearness of dragons had that affect. Aside from the pleasure of working with the beasts themselves, it was one of the main benefits of being responsible for the husbandry of the dragons. Every man or woman who petted a dragon was filled by the immediate urge to rut.

He pushed the redhead’s legs apart and knelt between them.

She shifted the hem of her kirtles upwards and lay back for him.

In better light he would have been able to appraise the sight she revealed. He would have been able to admire her moonlight-pale thighs and the sight of her exposed sex. He could imagine that the curls around her labia would be as rich and vibrant a red as the russet-red curls at her head.

But the light in the stalls transformed every sight into shadows and shapes and every colour was simply saturated in darkness. He could make out pale skin touched by shards of moonlight, and dark curls that glistened sharply with dewy wetness at their centre.

Then he realised the urgency of her need matched the strength of his own arousal and he tried to understand why he was wasting time admiring the woman when he could be rutting with her and satisfying both their appetites.

The redhead tugged at his erection, urging him toward her.

As eager to be inside her as she was to accept him, Owain made no attempt to deny what she wanted. She fumbled to release his shaft from his hosen and then she was guiding him toward her sex. Her left hand was cool against the super-heated ferocity of his hardness. He was gratified to note that she held her fingers so he couldn’t feel the unwelcome weight of that wedding band on her heart finger.

She had been right to describe herself as wet.

The slippery secrets of her sex were oily around his length as she rubbed the swollen head of his erection back and forth against her nether lips. It was a languid motion that had him torn between wanting to push into her and desperate to revel at the hand of her masterful taunting.

‘Do you want me?’ she asked.

‘You know I want you.’

‘Say it.’

‘I want you.’

Her fingers squeezed around him. She held him over the moist centre of her sex, her dewy lips lightly kissing the end of his length. ‘Say it as though you mean it,’ she insisted.

‘I want you,’ he repeated. He wasn’t sure how else he could say the words without sounding stupid.

‘Louder,’ she demanded.

‘I WANT YOU!’

At the same moment he cried out, she bucked her hips forward. There was one moment when it felt as though she was squeezing hard around him with a grip that was unbearably tight and painful. Then his length was filling her and her warm, sultry wetness sheathed his hardness as he pushed all the way into her moist and welcoming confines.

They cried out together.

It took Owain a tremendous effort not to release his climax into her with that first thrust. She was tight. She was simultaneously slippery and heated and he thought it was like having his erection caressed by the perfect embrace of an angel. His chest was pressed against her exposed breasts. Her lips were at his neck, whispering encouragement and telling him that his size was massive and impressive and unbearable and divine. And he wanted to savour the pleasure of simply allowing his length to pulse and thrust and pump into the haven of her dark confines.

But, more than that selfish impulse to simply take what he could from the experience, he wanted to make the rutting pleasurable for the woman beneath him.

Resisting the urge to give in to his climax he savoured the pleasure of having her appreciation made manifest in the words she poured into his ear. Resisting the urge to give in to his climax, Owain rode himself slowly back and forth and in and out of her wetness.

The redhead groaned.

It was a throaty moan of approval. It was a sound borne from absolute bliss.

He quickened his pace, relishing the sultry friction of her muscles clutching at him as he ploughed in and out. He maintained the same languid pace and discovered that she was raising and lowering her pelvis in an adopted rhythm that perfectly matched his.

Each time he pushed himself into her wetness, the redhead urged her hips upwards to meet the thrust of his penetration. She stroked at his nipples, pinching them lightly with the tips of her gaily painted nails. In retaliation, he trapped the buds of her nipples between the calloused knuckles of his fists.

As she raised one leg to encircle him, he found himself shifting a leg to get closer to her.

The change in position allowed him to slide deeper into her sex.

The fresh sensations had them both sighing in unison.

‘You’ve done this before,’ she laughed softly. Her words were carried by breathless grunts of approval. ‘You must be a guildsman in this art. Is that your profession, sire? Do they call you the Owain the fucker?’

He smiled at the idea of being known as Owain the fucker. The smile hardened to an expression of self-reproach when he realised he didn’t know her name. He had either never bothered learning what she was called, or, if she had told him her name, he had forgotten it in the urgent desire to get between her legs. It was not the first time he had ended up rutting with a woman whose name he did not know. But knowing that he had fallen into this habit repeatedly did not make Owain feel better about himself.

‘I’m not a guildsman between a woman’s thighs,’ he grumbled apologetically. ‘I just happen to be a gifted amateur.’

She reached behind him and clutched at his backside. ‘I’d say you were a very gifted amateur,’ she conceded. Pulling him deep into herself she rubbed her hips vigorously up and down until they were both gasping with the choking need for release.

When the thrill of his climax finally struck, Owain knew the release was only coming in defence against the rush of satisfaction that she was enjoying.

The redhead pressed and squeezed at his length with a furious grip from the inner muscles of her sex. Her fingernails raked at his backside as she clutched him in her embrace. Her body convulsed with paroxysms of animalistic satisfaction.

And Owain groaned as the pleasure was wrenched from his body.

His erection throbbed as it pumped his thick seed into her. Each pulse was powerful and driven by a vigorous force. The muscles at the base of his shaft clenched hard and tight with each spasm of his ejaculation. The force of the climax was so powerful it was almost painful.

Spent, Owain and the redhead collapsed together on the hay.

They lay side by side, basking in the aftermath of pure satisfaction that was being expelled from their bodies by exhausted sighs.

Behind them, from the confines of her cage, Drusilla purred with soft approval.

Owain could hear other sounds beyond the walls of the stable where they lay.

He could hear the conversations of those untroubled by the care of dragons, the falseness of circumstantial fealty or the need for vengeance. He could hear the sounds of guards in chain mail marching noisily around the castellum and he figured he was listening to the powerful presence of the castellan’s dark knights.

The castellan’s Order of Dark Knights were the heavily armed protectors of Blackheath. Their presence was imposing and, Owain knew, the dark knights of Blackheath were one of two reasons why High Laird Gethin ap Cadwallon was approaching this mission with diplomacy and tact rather than his usual application of brute force and ignorance. The other reason, Owain believed, had something to do with a mage in the castellan’s employ.

The redhead nuzzled against Owain’s chest. She placed a gentle kiss against his nipple and absently suckled against him. The familiarity was instantaneously warming and comforting. It was also wholly disheartening because she wasn’t Carys.

Even though the sex he had just enjoyed had been superlative, the redhead had not been Carys. The experience had been great for him. It had clearly been good for the redhead. At the back of his mind he suspected what he had just enjoyed would be galling for the man who had placed the ring on the redhead’s finger. But that wasn’t something he would think about. It was enough to acknowledge, even though the experience had been satisfying for the participants, it had not been an experience he was sharing with Carys.

He pulled himself away from the redhead’s kisses.

She didn’t seem to notice that his mood had swung toward impatience.

‘Are all the men in the West Ridings as well-equipped as you?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t lain with all of them,’ he said. ‘Are all the maids in Blackheath as welcoming as you?’

She considered the question and then nodded. ‘Yes, we are. Especially, it seems, once we’ve been able to stroke a dragon.’

He considered pulling on his hosen and trying to find where his sword and tunic had been discarded. A sliver of moonlight glanced against her bare breasts. Despite the suggestion of melancholy he had suffered a moment earlier, the need to experience the woman by his side again struck him with sudden and unexpected force.

‘Would you like to stroke my dragon again?’ he asked coyly.

She reached for his spent shaft. Her fingers slid against the slippery meld of her juices and his own spent climax as she teased him back to erection.

‘I’d rather stroke this until it was ready to fill me again,’ she said earnestly.

And that was all it took.

This time, when he entered her, she seemed to accept the pleasure with less surprise and more satisfaction. This time, when he pushed deep into her sex, she managed to meet his gaze in the darkness and study his face as he rode back and forth.

‘You do know I’m married, don’t you?’

He had tried not to think about the fact that it was her left hand that guided him into her sex. He had tried to stop himself from dwelling on the fact that she had caressed his length with the same hand that bore the leather band on her heart finger.

‘I’d noticed your ring,’ he admitted. ‘But I’d figured it wasn’t troubling you.’

‘My husband is a captain in the Order of the Dark Knights,’ she explained. ‘He spends many months on foreign shores. Currently he’s away leading the Blackheath Cavalry to quell an uprising on the Silver Sands. I know he spends many nights with other women. He knows I spend many nights with other men.’

Owain didn’t know what to say.

He thought it safest to say nothing. Her words weren’t exactly souring his arousal. But they were adding nothing to it either. He figured that as long as she spoke about the arrangement she had with her husband he could prolong both their pleasures.

‘We have a relationship where we try not to embarrass each other,’ she explained. ‘I take visitors to Blackheath between my legs when the mood strikes me. He takes foreign women when the mood strikes him. As long as neither of us does something as embarrassing as being publicly exposed as a swiver, it’s a relationship that we both find convenient and satisfying.’

‘And is there a reason why you’re telling me this?’

‘So that you know there is nothing more between us, just sex.’

He nodded. As he continued to ride in and out of her, he said, ‘Not that I could tell anyone about you, or what we’ve done. I don’t even know your name.’

She gripped him tight with her inner muscles.

He came close to climaxing in response. She giggled as she saw the frown of concentrated consternation that wrinkled his brow.

‘You’ve got no need to know my name either,’ she laughed. ‘I can call you Owain the fucker and you can call me the apprentice to your longsword.’

He laughed at that and found himself gliding into her with increased passion. She wasn’t Carys. But she was pleasurable company and skilled in the art of sex.

This time, when they hurried toward their respective climaxes, he was struck by the stronger focus they each seemed to have on ensuring that the other was properly sated.

His length teetered on the brink of explosion for an age.

She sighed and moaned and clutched at him with brittle ferocity. Her inner muscles convulsed wetly around him as she shivered to the point of explosion. And then they were holding each other tight as the ripples of blistering satisfaction bound them together.