Chapter 5: Against the Wall
The cold of the stone corridor seeped into her bones, a different chill than the one Cedric had left her with in the stable three nights past.That had been a hollow, exposed cold. This was the damp, clinging cold of the keep’s oldest bones, where torchlight guttered and the carved runes seemed to bleed shadows. Jen waited, her back pressed against the rough wall, the scent of wet stone and old cedar filling her nose. She heard his boot falls before she saw him, a measured, heavy rhythm echoing in the passage.
He rounded the corner, a broad silhouette against the distant firelight of the great hall. For a moment, he was just a warrior returning from the training yard, the smell of leather and male sweat preceding him. Then he saw her, and his stride hitched, just for a second. His eyes, green even in the low light, flashed with something—annoyance, wariness, a flicker of the old shame she’d seen in the stable.
He made to walk past her, giving her a wide berth.
She pushed off the wall, stepping directly into his path.“Running again?” Her voice was low, stripped of its usual teasing edge.
“Move, Jen.”
“No.” She held her ground, her heart hammering against her ribs. The memory of his seed cooling on her skin, the brutal efficiency of his retreat, fueled a reckless fire in her gut.“You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to use me like a fucking chamber pot and then just empty me out into the straw.”
His jaw tightened. “I told you what it was.”
“You told me nothing.” Her hand shot out, not to strike, but to settle flat on the hard plane of his chest. She felt the quick, strong beat of his heart beneath her palm.“You just took. Like an animal.”
“Then why are you here?” The question was a rasp, torn from him. “Why keep seeking out the animal?”
Her gaze didn’t waver.“Because the animal is honest. The man is a ghost.”
His control, already frayed, snapped. He grabbed her wrist, but this time she was ready. Instead of pulling away, she used his grip to pivot, sliding her other hand down the tense muscle of his abdomen to the front of his trousers. He was soft, but the feel of her hand there, so deliberate, made him suck in a sharp breath.
“You think you can just walk away from this?” she hissed, her fingers working at the buckle of his belt with practised speed.“From what you are with me?”
The belt came loose. The laces of his trousers gave way. She dropped to her knees on the cold, damp flagstones, the stones biting into her skin through her skirt.He was half-hard, thickening in the chill air. She didn’t hesitate. She took him into her mouth, her lips sealing around the shaft, her tongue flattening against the sensitive underside.A ragged groan echoed in the corridor, part pain, part surrender. His head fell back against the stone wall with a soft thud. She worked him, her mouth a warm, wet vise, using her tongue to trace the prominent vein, to swirl around the head when it swelled fully.She took him deep, until her throat relaxed and opened, accepting him. His hands came up, not to push her away, but to fist in her wild auburn curls, holding her there, his hips giving an involuntary jerk.
“Gods,” he breathed, the word a prayer and a curse.
She sucked him until he was fully erect, iron-hard and throbbing in her mouth, a bead of bitter salt leaking onto her tongue. Only then did he pull her up by the hair, not gently. He spun her around, her back now to his front, and slammed her forward. Her cheek and breasts crushed against the unforgiving stone wall, the ancient mortar scraping her skin through the thin fabric of her dress.
One of his arms banded across her collarbone, pinning her. The other hand gathered the hem of her skirt, yanking it up around her waist.A rip echoed—her underthings torn and shoved aside. He positioned himself, the broad head of his cock nudging against her entrance. She was wet, a traitorous, aching readiness that shamed her. He pushed in, not with a thrust, but with a slow, inexorable pressure that stretched her unbearably, filled her utterly.
A sharp cry escaped her, lost in the stone.
He buried himself to the hilt and paused, his body trembling against hers with the effort of holding still.His breath was hot and ragged in her ear. “Fuck,” he grunted, the word shuddering through him.“You’re so fucking tight. Even now.”
Then he moved.He pulled back and drove into her again, setting a relentless, pounding rhythm. His hips slammed against her ass, the sound of skin on skin loud in the empty corridor. Each thrust jolted her into the wall, her nipples scraping painfully, deliciously, against the rough surface. The arm across her collarbone tightened, stealing her breath, making her lightheaded. The pure, carnal physics of it—the force, the friction, the deep, grinding impact—drove every thought from her head.
She reached one hand back, blind, grasping the solid muscle of his thigh, her nails digging in. “Harder,” she gasped, the word muffled against stone.“Is this what you needed?To fuck me like a beast against a wall? To prove you can still feel something?”
He answered by sinking his teeth into the curve of her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to brand. His hand left her hip, tangled back in her hair, and pulled, arching her spine, changing the angle. He plunged deeper, hitting a place that made her vision star with white light. Her body clenched around him, a rippling, involuntary spasm that tore a ragged moan from her throat.It triggered him. His rhythm broke, became frantic, shattered. He fucked into her with short, brutal strokes, his control obliterated.A guttural, broken sound tore from his chest, more pain than pleasure. He slammed home one final time, holding himself deep as he came. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his seed flooding her, a stark, intimate violation that left her feeling claimed and utterly discarded in the same instant.
He stayed there, buried inside her, his weight heavy, his breath coming in great, heaving gusts against her neck. For several long seconds, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant drip of water somewhere in the darkness.
Then, as if shocked by his own collapse, he pulled out of her roughly.The sudden emptiness was a cold shock. She heard the soft, wet sound of him tucking himself back into his trousers, the methodical fastening of his belt.
He stepped back.The cold air rushed in to replace the heat of his body. Jen leaned against the wall, her skirt still rucked up, his release already beginning to trickle down the inside of her thigh.She didn’t turn around. She listened to his boots on the stone, steadying, moving away.The footsteps paused.She held her breath.
“The south gate,” his voice came, low and rough, stripped of everything.“Dawn. Don’t be seen.”
Then the footsteps resumed, fading into the shadows of the corridor, leaving her alone with the damp, the dark, and the slow, cooling proof of their connection running down her leg.