A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [55]
Finally, he was all the way inside her. Shivering, she leaned back, her eyes smoky with desire, and Mace wiped a tear from her cheek. “Should I be doing this?” she whispered, and he nuzzled her neck. “I feel, I feel . . .” Mace moved inside her, arching his hips up, and she bucked, biting down a sudden scream as the abruptness of her orgasm took over. Gasping, she started to lift herself up and down against him, and Mace lay back on the straw.
She moved against him as if she’d been born to it, her pleasure already growing in her again. Mace stared at her in wonder, stroking her breasts as he moved his own hips against hers, their rhythm already settling into a fast, wild pace that had her climaxing again as his own pleasure started to overwhelm him.
She peaked a third time before he let himself finish, just as she collapsed against him in exhaustion. Mace wrapped his arms around her, carefully shuffling himself up so he was half leaning against a wall and she could lie on him, her cheek against his chest and his length still within her.
“I didn’t know anything could feel like that,” she whispered, limp. Mace stroked her hair in answer. She shifted herself a bit and looked up at him. “You’re still hard,” she said, blushing.
Mace rumbled a laugh.
Biting her lip, she squeezed him experimentally, that courage still there and even stronger now. “Again?” she asked hopefully.
Mace obliged her at least three more times.
She left before dawn, exhausted but happy. She told him her name then, and that she’d welcome him anytime. She told him the latter with downcast eyes, but he could see the flush on her cheeks went all the way down inside her chemise to the breasts he’d held and nuzzled such a short time before. Mace would have loved to oblige, but Jasar took him away, and then the queen rose and he was made the battle sylph of Lily Blackwell. He’d never thought to return.
He’d certainly never thought she’d still be waiting.
“It’s a gift,” she whispered, her face still pressed against his chest. “The best Winter Festival gift ever.”
“More of a nightmare,” her brother muttered. He was the innkeeper, and Mace felt his disapproval clearly. The rest of the family was there, men and women both, though the other visitors to the inn had left, many with bruises.
Battle sylph or not, Mace felt the family’s determination to get rid of him if they could, along with a very real degree of disgust and shame for the slim woman in his arms. For whatever reason her brother and the rest of them had attacked Mace, it wasn’t because they thought it was the best thing for her. There was resentment there. For whatever reason, they hated him and they blamed her for it.
Sally knew this, and she kept her face against him, saying nothing. Mace stroked her hair and looked at the innkeeper, whose name was Falon.
“What have I ever done to you?” he asked.
Falon gaped at him. “Done? You have the bloody nerve to come here, now of all times, and ask that? After you ruined my sister?”
Mace raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t ruin her.”
“You seduced her!”
“So?”
The men all stared at him, horrified. It was different in the Valley, Mace reminded himself. Whom a woman chose to sleep with was her own business. They must have called Sally a whore here. That was close to a death sentence in the Valley for any man who said it. At least, it had been in the first few years before the queen found out her battle sylphs were attacking anyone who disparaged a female. After that, they could only attack men who hurt them. These days, no men dared.
“Leave him alone,” Sally whispered, lifting her head and looking fearfully but defiantly at her brother, that bravery he remembered still shining far back in her eyes. “He