Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [52]
There was some fumbling on both their parts. He raised his head from her breast and looked at her, ruefully, absolutely scarlet with embarrassment.
“I’ve—never done this before—” he whispered hoarsely.
“Neither have I,” she replied, and pulled his head back to her breast.
Finally, his hardness found her secret place, and with a desperate thrust, he entered her. She bit back her exclamation of pain, as with a few sharp lunges, he climaxed.
He cried out, shuddered, and was still. But she very well remembered her mother’s instructions about men and lovemaking, given when her breasts had first begun to bud. And after his breathing steadied, she began to kiss and fondle him again. Slowly, he responded, kissing her, making the fires rise in her again, making more free of her body this time than he had the first. He found new places to make her gasp, new ways to raise shivers. She made him gasp, too, nibbling at his earlobe, holding and slowly stroking his member, running her nails lightly along his sides. By the time the pain between her legs faded, he was hard and ready again.
And so this time, they came together slowly, with care, and fell into a rhythm of thrust and response and what she had thought was a fire before became a conflagration, a ravenous hunger that built and built until she thought she could not bear it, and then it exploded within her, making her world go white for a moment as it swept over her and carried her away. A moment later, he cried out as well, and the two of them shuddered, stiffened, and then collapsed, still entwined.
Their breathing slowed. A breeze cooled the sweat on her body. His arms tightened around her.
“Marry me,” he said into her ear.
“Of course,” she replied.
He chuckled. “Good.”
Chapter 9
By common consent, they elected not to talk about all the complications, the hows and the whens and the wheres. “We’ll talk about this—” she began.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed, as if he had read her mind. “Or the next day. But not now.”
They made love again, in the warm afternoon sunshine, then bathed in the stream, then ate, feeding each other little tidbits. They told each other stories of their childhoods, and laughed a great deal, and kissed a great deal more. He played and they both sang, and then suddenly in the middle of a song, he stopped and began laughing hysterically.
She looked at him askance, as he bent over, shaking his head. Finally he got control of himself, and wiped his eyes on a napkin.
“The next verse is about the unicorn that follows Kalinka about,” he said, still wiping tears of merriment from his eyes. “That’s all very pretty in a song, but the reality is a plague—”
Her eyes widened and she began to chuckle. “Oh, that is why you were so stiff when you saw the White Doe!”
He nodded. “I thought it was another unicorn. I can’t get rid of them. They follow me everywh—”
“Not anymore,” said a voice full of disgust from the place where the path entered the glade. They both looked up.
A unicorn stood there, her lip curling, but her eyes wet. “Oh, Prince. How could you?” she cried. “And not even with a proper Princess after a proper wedding!”
“I wouldn’t want a proper Princess,” Sasha replied. “I’m not sure what you would call a ‘proper’ wedding. And I’ve been your mascot for far too long. It is time I had my own life. Now go and find some good little farmer’s boy and bring some magic into his world, for he surely needs it.”
With a snort, the unicorn turned and trotted back into the forest, every muscle expressing silent outrage.
“Why am I not a proper Princess?” Katya wondered aloud, more amused than anything.
“Because you are not pink, and white, and demure,” said Sasha, with a flip of his hand that said wordlessly how little he cared for pink, and white, and demure. “A proper Princess would not survive me. I should drive her mad in the first day.” He leaned over and kissed her, and she answered the kiss with rising passion. “Now, now!” he cautioned, laughing, as he pulled away. “More of that and we will never get back to the