Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (89 page)

“Let me help you with that, milady.” Syr Phillip
takes the keys and gets the door open. Before I can take a single
step inside, though, he scoops me up and carries me over the
threshold.

“You may take me to the bedroom, my lord knight,” I
whisper in Syr Phillip’s ear as he kicks the door shut behind him
with his foot.

“Are you sure that’s what you want, Lisa? Are you
sure you’re ready? Because I don’t want to rush you.”

“Oh, I’m ready all right,” I breathe.

“As you wish, milady.” Syr Phillip carries me into
my unusually neat-and-tidy bedroom and sets me down gently on my
full-sized bed. “This is a lovely little boudoir you have here,” he
says, admiring my freshly washed satin comforter and the
knickknacks and perfume bottles I’ve arranged carefully on the
nightstand. “Very delicate, feminine, and polished—just like you.”
Syr Phillip’s rich baritone has such a sexy edge to it now that I
let out a little groan of pleasure at these words.

“I don’t know about
polished
,” I say. “I’m a
total wreck most of the time.”

Syr Phillip slips off his brown oxfords and settles
down next to me on the bed. “I don’t believe that for a
minute.”

I fiddle with one of the pompoms sewn onto my
bedspread. “It’s true,” I go on. “I’ve always had terrible luck
with relationships. My parents are both dead. I’m always broke, and
I have a crummy dead-end job. I’m shy, I’m terrified of public
speaking, and I’ve also never been much good at making
conversation. I have dyslexia, so a lot of people just assume that
I’m stupid because of that. But I’m not, even if sometimes I say
stupid things—that’s usually just because I’m so shy, and also
because I get nervous so easily. So it pretty much goes without
saying that I don’t exactly have much of a social life. I’ve never
had anyone in my life for very long, except maybe for Pegeen.”

“You have me,” Syr Phillip whispers, kissing me with
a delicate touch of his tongue. “And you’re right—you have your
goofy friend Pegeen, who seems to care a lot about you. And what’s
more, now you have the SCA. A lot of people find that friends made
in the SCA become a kind of surrogate family, a family who will
accept and love you for the person you are. That’s certainly been
the case for me.”

“You know, it took a lot of convincing from Pegeen
for me to even show up at my first event,” I whisper between
kisses.

“I’m glad she managed to convince you,” Syr Phillip
coos, slipping his hand under my dress and caressing the inside of
my thigh. “I owe Pegeen my undying gratitude for that.” He pauses,
nuzzles my neck, lowers his voice a bit. “May I tread upon your
secret softness, milady?”

I guide Syr Phillip’s hand to the place I need it
most. “You’re already there,” I whisper.

Before I know it, my batik dress is somewhere on the
floor. Syr Phillip—who is
definitely
a knight in bed, plain
old Phil Dawson is nowhere to be found—eases my silk panties down
slowly, tracing their journey down my thighs and calves with soft
kisses that send me reeling.

I tug desperately at the buttons on Syr Phillip’s
oxford, ripping a couple of them from their sockets as I tear the
shirt from him. I run my hands up and down his perfect pectoral
muscles, dotted as they are with a light growth of fair hair that
exactly matches Syr Phillip’s sandy head. Once I’ve gotten my fill
of his strong, firm torso and rippled forearms, my hands slide down
to the waistband of my knight’s khakis, which are already swelling
with his need. Somehow, groping half-blind through a haze of
desire, I manage to get them off Syr Phillip’s heaving body, and
soon we settle together, dancing back and forth in a perfect
rhythm, the slick wetness of love the only thing separating our
sweating, thrusting bodies.

We love on in silence. The only sound is our
breathing and the swish of the bedclothes as we climb higher and
higher together up the ladder of passion. Finally I am driven so
close to the edge that I can bear it no longer.

“Please,” I moan. “Please—“

“Yes,” Syr Phillip sighs back. “I have what you
want.” He gives a final push with his hips and sends me to another
place, a world of pleasure I never knew existed. I cry out for the
first time during our tryst, and I keep shouting my ecstasy for
whoever will hear.

“Hush,” Syr Phillip whispers in my ear. “Hush,
milady. You haven’t even begun to know what I can give you.”

And he is right.

****

I awaken early next morning entangled in Syr
Phillip’s strong arms. I glance at the bedside clock. 5:45 am. My
shift at AC Delco doesn’t start until 9:30, so I have time either
to sleep a little more, or perhaps to coax yet another lovemaking
session out of my gallant knight-in-shining-satin-bedclothes.

I lay on my side, staring transfixed at my sleeping
lord’s stunning, angular face for what feels like hours. Syr
Phillip looks so peaceful with his closed eyelids that flutter the
slightest bit with each breath he takes, with the near-translucent
blonde stubble that has cropped up on his handsome cheeks
overnight, with his left arm flung up over his head pell-mell as
his right snuggles itself tighter and tighter around my waist.
Lying here, staring at my sleeping, strong-as-a-gentle-ox knight
after a long night of earth-shattering sex (I lost count at how
many orgasms I had somewhere around eleven)—this is a moment I want
permanently etched in my memory, right alongside the image of the
balmy spring afternoon more than ten years ago that was the last
time I saw both my parents alive. This exact moment, this early
Thursday morning in May, will last in my mind forever.

Syr Phillip’s eyes ease open. He looks at me and
smiles.

“You’re a nice sight to wake up to,” he whispers,
and kisses me.

We kiss for a long time, but soon the mutual urge
for an early-morning pee separates us. Once we’ve both relieved
ourselves, we settle back into a light embrace, just listening to
each other’s heartbeats as the first light of dawn starts to peek
its way through my miniblinds.

Syr Phillip finally breaks the silence. “Do you have
to go in to work today?”

I sigh. “I’m afraid so. I’ve used too many sick days
as it is.”

Syr Phillip sits up and runs a hand through
bed-tousled locks. “That’s too bad. I was looking forward to
spending the day with you. I’ve finished up my regional sales
rounds for the month since I’ve already met all my quotas. I was
really looking forward to a few days off to spend with my new
lady.” Syr Phillip gives me a light kiss on the top of my head.
“Plus, I need to get some fight practice in. Too many days away
from my sword and shield, I get rusty. And I can’t be rusty for
Crown Tournament.”

Syr Phillip stands up to stretch and I catch a nice
view of his firm buttocks. I notice that he has a small tattoo of
crossed swords, outlined in blue, on the left one.

“Nice tattoo,” I giggle. “I’d never have pegged you
for the tattoo type.”

“Oh, that’s left over from my drunken fratboy days,”
Syr Phillip says. “I was the only guy in my fraternity who played
with swords in his spare time.”

“I’d never have pegged you for the fraternity type,
either,” I say, standing up and wrapping my arms around Syr
Phillip’s waist. My fingers trace the prominent outline of his
pubic bone where it rises along his hips.

“I was considered the resident oddball at Ohio
State’s Delta Tau Delta chapter. But enough about that, Lisa. Have
you decided whether you want to be my most favored lady at Crown
Tournament yet? Were you able to sleep on it?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t exactly do a lot of
sleeping last night,” I protest.

Syr Phillip takes my chin in both his hands and
kisses me on the nose. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you,
dear, but I really need to know now. Today is the deadline for
submitting my Crown Lists application, and I have to indicate whose
honor I will be fighting to save.”

“What if I say no?” I ask, backing away from Syr
Phillip’s fast-rising groin and grabbing my bathrobe from its hook
on my closet door.

“Then I would be eternally disappointed,
milady.”

I ponder this for a moment. “So disappointed that
you wouldn’t fight to save the honor of someone else?”

“Well, I suppose there’s always Duchess Danyel,” Syr
Phillip laughs, swatting my bare behind. “Or maybe even Baroness
Barlonda.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I shoot back as I give him a
return slap on the right buttock.

“I
will
dare if you were to place me in such
a difficult position, milady,” Syr Phillip grins. “You see, I
desperately want to be King. I’d much rather have a beautiful young
woman such as yourself as my royal consort, although if you force
me to fight to save the honor of a fat, middle-aged, unattractive
woman almost twice my age, so help me, I will.”

I throw my arms around Syr Phillip’s neck. “Well, I
won’t force you to do that. I would love for you to fight to save
my honor, Phillip. I’m ready to be Queen of the Midrealm. I’ll do
whatever it takes, but I definitely want to be your Princess, and
then your Queen.”

Syr Phillip tears off my bathrobe, picks up my naked
body, and twirls me around. “And I’m ready to be your Prince and
King,” he replies, kissing me passionately. “But remember, I have
to win the Crown first. And that’s easier said than done,
especially considering some of the competition I’m going to
have.”

I sit down on the bed. “Like who? There aren’t many
other knights, are there? Or at least many knights with forty grand
to spare.”

“Well, no, there aren’t. There will only be
twenty-four fighters and knights qualified for the Lists this year,
all of whom are also financially qualified to be royalty. But I’ll
still be up against some of the greatest fighters the Middle
Kingdom has to offer. Plus, you might remember Master Melphus.
Rumor has it he might publicly abandon his Dark Horde affiliation
for just long enough to fight in Crown, which is highly unusual for
Masters-at-Arms to do, since they don’t swear fealty to any one
king or kingdom.”

“I remember Master Melphus all right,” I say as I
head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. “He seemed like a real
jerk.”

Syr Phillip starts pulling on his boxers. “Well,
Lisa, Master Melphus certainly isn’t my favorite person, either.
But the Dark Horde has asked Master Melphus to make an attempt on
the Midrealm Crown. Or so I’ve heard, anyway.”

“Where did you hear this?” I inquire. “Do you know
any of these Dark Horde people? Other than Master Melphus, I mean.
And is he even qualified to fight in the tournament? I heard from
Barlonda he’s severely injured people before. And he sure doesn’t
seem to have an extra forty grand lying around, either.”

Syr Phillip makes an odd face before answering.
“Well—you just hear these things here and there,” he finally says.
It’s obvious he knows more than he’s choosing to reveal, but I
don’t press him on it. Syr Phillip seems to pick up on my
skepticism, though, and after a moment he continues. “As a belted
fighter, Melphus is qualified to fight, even if he’s a
Master-at-Arms instead of a knight,” he says. “Normally, Melphus
wouldn’t have enough money to qualify under the financial
requirement, but rumor has it several members of the Dark Horde
have agreed to personally underwrite his reign if he wins. Which is
a pretty huge development as far as the Horde is concerned,
considering that the Dark Horde hates kings, kingdoms, and
everything else that symbolizes fealty.”

“Why? What would make these Dark Horde people, or
whatever they are, do something like that?”

Syr Phillip sits down on my bed and makes that
strange, grimacing face again. “Well, because of me, quite frankly.
Apparently Master Melphus didn’t take to kindly to me beating him
at the Blood and Roses Tournament.”

I take the time to brush my teeth before I say
anything more. Syr Phillip definitely knows more about the Horde,
Master Melphus, and Master Melphus’ bid for the Crown than he’s
telling me, but I’m not sure I want to know all the details,
either. “These Dark Horde people don’t sound very logical to me,” I
finally say through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“They’re not, Lisa. In fact, the Great Dark Horde
was founded on the principles of chaos. Hordesmen tend to like
things to be as crazy and chaotic as possible. That’s why they
don’t like kings and kingdoms. Kings and kingdoms are symbols of
order, and the Horde isn’t very big on orderly things.”

I spit my toothpaste into the sink. “You seem to
know a lot about the Great Dark Horde for someone who isn’t a
member.”

Syr Phillip makes that strange, grimacing face
again. “Well, let’s just say I’ve known a few Hordesmen over the
years. And let me say, Lisa, they’re not bad people. At least,
generally they’re not.”

“What are they, then?”

Syr Phillip sighs. “Just different. That’s the only
way I know to describe the Horde. But whatever they are, the Great
Dark Horde is going to be giving me a rough time at Crown.”

I turn on the shower and motion for Syr Phillip to
join me. He shucks off his boxers, steps into the stall, and starts
tenuously running his fingers up and down my soapy, wet back. “What
else should I know about these Horde people?” I ask.

Syr Phillip shakes his head and grabs my half-empty
bottle of Pantene. “Rumor has it the Hordesmen have gotten the
Tuchux involved. Not
at
Crown Tournament, but at Pennsic
should I
win
Crown Tournament. And wherever there are
Tuchux, there is trouble.”

“Tuchux?” I ask, incredulous. “Everybody keeps
talking about the Tuchux. What are they?”

Syr Phillip shampoos, rinses off and steps out of
the shower stall, dripping water all over the place. His gorgeous
body is slick with water and steam, and I feel myself heat up
between the legs as I stare at him, even as I soap up in the
shower. “You know what, Lisa? I really don’t want to discuss the
Tuchux right now. I just bathed, and the very thought of those
savages makes me feel dirty. I’ll explain another time.”