Hard Day's Knight

  He stabbed his fork into the salad, shaking a piece of lettuce at me. “You’re incorrigible, Pepper. Just when I think you’re nothing but a sweet, sincere, slightly mad, but loving woman, you say something lecherous like that to me. I’ve told you before, I do not like aggressive women.”

  “Well, drat, I guess that means you won’t want to wear the studded dog collar, or call me Mistress Pepper?”

  “You know what I mean,” he said, munching a mouthful of salad.

  “Yes, I do,” I answered, wondering just how much of what he was saying was a little courtship teasing, and how much was ingrained into his psyche.

  We talked about his life in England, mine in Seattle, and a lot of trivial subjects, but beneath the easy conversation there was an unmistakable sense of anticipation, a kind of electric excitement that left us both periodically silent.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Walker asked after one such moment.

  I smiled. “I told you before—I like looking at you. I like listening to you. I like pretty much everything about you, although sometimes you’re a bit frustrating, what with that whole obstinate male thing going on. But even that I’ve learned to like—you just wouldn’t be the same wonderful Walker if you weren’t quite so stubborn.”

  He set down his glass of wine with exaggerated care. “One moment you’re arguing with me, trying to boss me around, and the next you say something like that.”

  “Argue? Moi?” I tried hard to look innocent. “I don’t argue. I debate.”

  “Ha.” He snorted.

  “Well, all right, maybe just a little, but only because it’s so much fun with you. I love it when you get indignant. I can’t help but want to kiss you when you have that outraged look on your face.”

  He gave me a long-suffering look, shaking his head. “I never know what you’re going to say next.”

  “It’s the element of surprise—it keeps you off balance,” I said, grinning and waggling my eyebrows suggestively. “The better to sweep you off your feet.”

  He tried to look stern, but failed miserably. “That’s my job, Pepper. I’m the strong knight; you’re the delicate, gentle lady. Thus, if anyone is going to be swept off her feet, you will be. Once you have that straight in your mind, there won’t be anything to argue about.”

  “Gentle.” I giggled, putting away the remains of dinner in an ice-filled cooler, wondering when was the last time anyone had ever applied either description to me. “Delicate. Sounds more like downtrodden, which I certainly am not. Take off your clothes and lie down.”

  Moth, having spurned his own dainty bowl of cat food in favor of eating the pepperoni off of three pieces of pizza, lay curled up inside his shoe box, watching us with interested eyes.

  “There, you see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Walker glowered at me, his nostrils flaring dramatically. “You may think that dominating me in such a fashion is a sexual turn-on, but I don’t find it so. And I think you’ll agree that both of us have to be aroused in order for either party to benefit.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake . . . I wasn’t telling you to strip so I could jump your bones! Sex, sex, sex, is that all you men can think about? I told you I was going to give you a massage! If you prefer I do it through your clothing, I will, but I can tell you from experience it works better if I can rub my hands over your bare, oil-slicked flesh.”

  A little tremor shook him, but he managed to peel off his tunic without too much trouble. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  “It’s okay; I know you’re tired after the long day. Hmm. No codpiece,” I said sadly, eyeing the manly bulge in his tights.

  “Have you ever ridden in one?” he asked. “It’s like a hamster rattling around in an exercise ball.”

  “Now there’s an image I’m not soon going to forget. Vandal wears one and he rides.”

  Walker blinked at me. “How do you know Vandal wears a codpiece?”

  “He showed it to me. I think I was supposed to be impressed by its size.”

  “Don’t be. He stuffs his with socks.”

  “Really? That’s interesting, but not as interesting as you. Come on, McPhail, strip. I’ll turn my back if you’ve suddenly gone shy.” In fact, I did turn my back as I poked through the duffel bag of my things, looking for the bottle of massage oil I’d bought earlier.

  “I’m not shy, I just didn’t realize that you were serious about a massage.” Clothing rustled as he stripped off his boots, tights, and blocky white underwear.

  “We need to get you some seriously sexy undies.” I allowed my eyes to go wild on him for a few seconds, just long enough to start all sorts of fires in my belly.

  “These are quite functional,” he answered, folding his clothing and laying them nicely on the chair.

  The muscles in his back rippled as he moved, sending a sympathetic ripple of pleasure down my own back. “You really are beautiful, Walker.”

  He frowned, turning to me, touching a spot high on the left side of his chest. “I am not anything of the sort. I have scars. Right here, I broke three ribs the first time I was thrown from a horse. And here, this is from when I fell into a line of barbed fencing and was cut up.”

  I stood clutching the bottle of massage oil, warming it between my hands as my eyes feasted on the magnificence of his body. “Scars aside, you’re absolutely gorgeous.”

  His frown darkened. “I am not.”

  “You take my breath away, you’re so beautiful.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  I walked a slow circuit around him, eyeing him from every possible angle. “You’re like a god come to life. Your feet are nice feet, big but attractive in a feet sort of way, and you have great legs, not in the least bit scrawny or otherwise chickenlike.”

  Walker sighed and crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Do you plan on cataloging all of me?”

  “Yes. Stop interrupting. Your calves are nice and bulgy. You have adorable knees, strong and yet not too bony. Your thighs are a work of art—”

  “For the love of God, woman!”

  “You have an adorable stomach, with just a lovely bit of belly so that you aren’t too perfect.”

  His hands closed over his stomach protectively. “I’ve been working out. It’s getting better.”

  I pulled his hands away, bending over to bestow a little kiss on his tummy. “No, no, it’s not a criticism; I like it like that. Don’t do anything to change it. And then your chest! Well, Walker, I’ve seen a few chests before, but I have to say that yours—broad, masculinely hairy without putting you into the realm of Walker the Ape Boy, and with the two most adorable nipples I’ve ever seen—is truly the king of all chests.”

  He relaxed a little, one side of his mouth quirking upward. “I’m glad you approve.”

  “Oh, I do approve.” I smiled and kissed the quirk. “And as for the rest of you, your arms are nicely muscled but not bigger than my thighs—always a plus!—and your hands are marvelous. I like big hands.” I made a little tour to the back side of him. “Your back is particularly nice, and your butt positively makes me drool; it’s just that wonderful.”

  “Thank you,” he said, trying to look over his shoulder at his behind.

  “I like it very much.”

  “Ah. That’s nice.”

  “I just want to take it in both my hands and squeeze,” I said, flexing my fingers and thinking about doing just that.

  “Bum squeezing doesn’t sound much like a massage to me,” he said.

  I sighed and returned to face him. “No, I suppose not, but perhaps later you’ll indulge me. You know what I think about the rest of you—your eyes are beautiful, and I love your chin, and you have the nicest ears I’ve ever seen.”

  “Really? And you’re a connoisseur of the male body, are you?”

  “No, but I know a nice one when I see it. On your belly, gorgeous, and let me at those muscles of yours.”

  He shot me another one of his quasi-peeved
looks, but at least he lay down on my sleeping bag. I hiked up my skirt and spread his legs in order to sit between them.

  He looked back at where I was rolling the bottle of massage oil between my hands. “You’re smiling at my bum.”

  “I know, I just can’t help it, it’s so adorable. It’s even more adorable when you tighten it like that. I don’t suppose you have a quarter handy? I’d like to see if I could bounce it off your butt.”

  “Are you going to get on with this, then, or talk all night?”

  “Testy, testy,” I said, flipping open the lid to the oil and squeezing a line of it from his ankle to the back of his knee.

  “I know I am,” he said, sighing into the sleeping bag. “I’m sorry, Pepper. I told you I wasn’t very good company tonigh—Oh, lord, that’s good!”

  “Told you it would be. Boy, your calf muscles are really tight.” I drizzled the oil up the back of his thigh, spreading it around so his skin was wonderfully slick before digging my thumbs into the tense length of muscles. For a few minutes the only sounds were those of Moth snoring in his box and Walker’s soft whimpers of pleasure into my pillow as I loosened the muscles in both his legs. “So, while you’re lying there moaning and groaning, would you like me to tell you just what I’m going to do to you once the massage is over?”

  “I don’t know—oh, god, yes, right there. Again!—will it kill me if you tell me?”

  I added a little extra oil to the small of his back and used the heels of my hands to sweep long lines upward. I knew how tight my back was after spending an hour practicing with Bliss, so I could imagine that indulging in the bat-out-of-hell style of jousting Walker had had to perform with Veronica had left his back tight and sore. “Kill you? I sincerely hope not, because I have most definite plans for you after the massage is over.”

  He stopped moaning for a second and half rolled onto his side, tipping me off his butt and onto one knee. “What? What do you want from me?”

  I frowned at his frown. “What do you mean, what do I want?”

  “All women want something—even I, with my limited skills with females, know that. So what is it you hope to get from me?”

  I slapped my hands on his back and pushed him down flat again, gripping his hips tightly with my knees as I resumed rubbing the muscles in his back. “Boy, you really know how to make a girl feel good. I don’t want anything from you, Walker. I have no ulterior motive other than the fact that I receive a great deal of pleasure in being with you, and I had the impression you felt the same.”

  He mumbled something.

  “What? I couldn’t hear you; you’re talking into the pillow.”

  He lifted his head. “I said, I do feel the same way, but I still want to know what you want. Sex? Is that it? You’re another groupie who wants to say she’s laid a jouster? Well, you’ve done that, so hurrah for you.”

  My first instinct was to smack the back of his head, so temptingly close before me, and chew him up one side and down the other, but I reminded myself that not only was Walker in a crappy mood, but the reason he was in that crappy mood was because he was filled with self-doubt and a horrible belief that he was likely to injure someone in his attempt to save his teammates’ honor. Anyone would lash out under those circumstances. It was all part and parcel of his alpha-male he-man makeup. If I was serious about him—and despite the fact that sometimes he drove me nuts, it was getting quite hard to pretend I wasn’t—then that meant I had to take the bad with the good.

  So instead of smacking him as he deserved, I said simply, “You know, you’re perilously close to insulting me to the point where I kick you out of my tent, but despite the urge to do just that, I’m not going to. And do you know why? I’ll tell you why—I won’t because I know that this is your defense system kicking in. I matter to you, and you just don’t want to admit that, because if you do, then you’ll have to deal with me on an intimate, personal level rather than how you might treat a normal jousting groupie. I’m not going to let you insult me to the point where I leave you, just so you can crawl back and lick your wounds, and tell yourself that all women are alike, and what a lucky thing it was that you found out about me before you got involved. Like it or not, McPhail, you’re involved.”

  He said nothing as I moved up onto his shoulders, not even groaning with pleasure as I worked the heavy muscles.

  I sat back on his butt. “Oh, this is a waste of time.”

  “Me, you mean.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, a statement that wrung my heart because I knew he truly believed he wasn’t worth any woman’s time and trouble.

  “No, not you. I meant it’s a waste of time massaging your shoulders when you are lying there tense as a bowstring. I want to help you, Walker, I really do. But you have to unbend enough to meet me halfway. Either relax and enjoy this, or go back to your own tent.”

  He went perfectly still under me for a couple of seconds. I held my breath, unsure of whether the barriers he’d erected around his heart would cause him to reject me, but after a few moments in which I was beginning to believe he would, he relaxed.

  “Good choice,” I told him. “So, would you like me to tell you, in excruciatingly glorious detail, exactly what sorts of things I’m going to do to make your eyes roll back into your head and that wonderfully big, broad chest of yours heave with the attempt to suck enough oxygen into your body so you can survive my attentions?”

  He mumbled something incoherent that I took to be assent.

  I dug my fingers into the muscles of his shoulders, rolling and compressing and working out all the knots. “First of all, I’m going to lick every inch of you, from the tips of your toesies to the sweet spot behind your ear. Then I’m going to nibble. Legs, arms, nipples—they’ll all be nibble fodder. Following the nibbling comes the teasing with hair, whereupon I pick particularly ticklish spots and allow my hair to drape over them, inciting you to thrash around in an attempt to escape the sweet torture. After that, I’m going to spend a good hour or so exploring your naughty bits, seeing exactly how much more sensitive that foreskin is supposed to make you. Once I have you bucking beneath my hands and mouth, pleading with me to end your torment, begging me to allow you to grab the brass ring, so to speak, why, then I’ll just up the ante by totally ignoring that part of you that will be hot and hard and near to bursting, and I’ll kiss you for a while. I’ll teach your tongue to boss mine around—yes, I will—and when you are properly submissive, then, and only then, will I sink slowly down upon your rampant nether parts, moving up and down, up and down, slowly, so I can feel each inch of you sinking into my body, pleasuring myself at great length and numerous times before I finally allow you to seek your own moment of sheer, unadulterated ecstasy.”

  In a blink of an eye I went from sitting on his butt rubbing his shoulders to lying flat on my back, Walker’s eyes molten with passion as he spread my legs and settled himself on top of me.

  “Or we could just do it right now and to hell with my grandiose plans.”

  “That was my thought,” he rumbled as he nudged himself forward into me.

  “Wait! Condom!” I gasped, my body lunging upward to meet him even though my mind knew it wasn’t a good idea.

  He froze, the tip of his penis inside me, all my inner muscles trying to grab him and welcome him back home where he belonged. “Are you on birth control?”

  “Yes,” I said, writhing around, my hands going wild on his slick, oil-coated back.

  “I don’t have any diseases. At least, I didn’t four years ago when I was tested, and I haven’t been with a woman since.”

  “Welcome to the party.” I sighed, lunging my hips upward to capture him. He sank into me with a groan that I felt all the way to my bones, the hot steel of him piercing my burning flesh, firing me to greater heights than I thought possible. “Do you have any idea what it feels like when you do that?”

  “Probably it’s similar to the effect you have on me,” he groaned into my ear, our bodies making all sort
s of wet, slicky noises that just made me wilder.

  “Tell me.” I gasped, pulling my knees up higher around his waist. “I know you like to be on top, which is just fine by me, because I like the way you squish me, but tell me what else you like.”

  “I like the way your body welcomes me,” he said as he thrust his hips forward. “It feels like I’m diving in pool of fire, sweet fire, fire that burns under my skin.”

  I locked my ankles around his back and nibbled on his neck and jaw, my body moving in time to his, our pace quickening as our breath grew shorter, the sweat on his chest mingling with mine, our joining more than just physical. I bit his lower lip until he opened for me. “More,” I whispered.

  He levered himself up on his hands, my legs still locked around his hips, changing the angle of his entry. I moaned and ground my hips against his, too overwhelmed with the tension he was building with every touch of his flesh to mine to manage words.

  “You fit me perfectly, every curve meant for me, every soft part of you a pleasure to touch.” His head dipped and he took my nipple in his mouth, his teeth scraping along its tautness as his body thrust into mine, his strokes growing shorter, stronger, quicker.

  “Oh, god, yes,” I moaned, arching my back and clutching desperately at his shoulders. The tension inside me was so tight I knew it was going to explode at any second. With the tiny fraction of my mind that was still rational, I slid my hands down his back, digging my fingers deep into his gluteus muscles as I pulled him even tighter, needing to feel him as deep in me as possible, so deep that no matter how much physical space there would be between us, we’d never really be parted again.

  “You’re heat and warmth, like a sun burning only for me.” The last words were spoken on a growl that turned into a shout of triumph as his back arched, his face locked in an expression of purest joy.

  “Yes,” I whispered as my body spasmed around him, my soul crying with happiness even as the tears snaked down the sides of my face. “Only for you, Walker. Only for you.”