First Epilogue
The concubine wished to give her king a gift. But what could she offer a man who possessed a kingdom?
After their shared pleasure that night, she donned one of his silk tunics so he would not be distracted by her breasts and sat cross-legged on the bed.
“Once upon a time,” she began.
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
“And then what happens?” Henry asked.
Susannah was sideways in his lap. Her bottom rested on his thigh, her legs draped over his other thigh, and her tiny nose nestled just under the angle of his jaw. She claimed it was her nose’s second-favorite place, the first being tip-to-tip or side-by-side with his own nose.
However, Henry needed the area in front of his own nose clear right now because he needed to see. His arms bracketed her, his right hand held a quill, and his left hand rested on his desk, which was littered with pieces of paper covered in writing.
Autumn had set in, and the Earl of Ashthorpe was taking dictation from the noted storybook author Augustus Puddlewick.
But he needed to prompt his sweet Puddlewick.
“Love? What happens next?”
“Hmmm,” she hummed.
She had probably taken a bit too much wine with dinner. For her, that was a glass and a half. But Susannah was delightful when tipsy.
She was delightful all the time.
She answered him in a low voice. “You take me to our bedchamber and undress me and . . .”
This was an even more interesting story than the one she had been relating to him about Tommy and Willa tricking a dragon into giving them his treasure. Henry’s hand slipped off the desk and held Susannah’s knee.
“And?” he asked.
“Oh.” She sighed. “You kiss me and touch me and worship me.”
“What form does this worship take?”
“The most heavenly kind.” She pulled her nose away from its second-favorite place and craned her neck back so he could turn his head and look at her face.
She went on, “The kind that begins with your head between my legs.” Her eyes glinted. “And ends with you inside me.”
He dropped the quill and seized her rather roughly and stood, still holding her. She put her hands on his shoulders and laughed gaily.
“And is that the end of the story?” he asked, backing her against the desk.
“That’s not even the end of the chapter.”
“What is the end of the chapter?”
“Drifting off to sleep together, sated and warm and naked.”
“Sounds like a good end to a chapter.”
“Yes.”
“And the end of the story?”
“I don’t know yet. Do you?”
“So you still won’t marry me?”
He had meant it in jest, but Susannah’s face grew serious. “If you made it a condition of loving you, I would.”
“But?”
She ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, and he leaned into her touch.
“But I don’t want to be a countess,” she said. “And you know marriage won’t make me belong to you more or you belong to me more. You know that.”
Yes, he did.
“And I’m too old to be a mother,” she said in that way she had, as if she were discovering something surprising when she had known it all along.
“You were already a mother,” he said. “To five boys.”
She made a face. “A terrible mother.”
“No. I know you weren’t.”
“Perhaps we should not talk about my brothers just before you ravish me.”
“Is that what I’m about to do?” His eyes went to the settee, a place where he had previously enjoyed Susannah and she, him.
She trailed her hand along the edge of the desk. “I’ve often thought of you taking me on this desk.”
Susannah lying on the desk, her legs spread, and Henry atop both her and the desk, pumping into her. His cock grew rigid, began to throb. Then he thought of his knees, the hard desk, and—damn it—the knees set up a throb, too.
As if she knew what he was thinking—she almost certainly did—Susannah added, “Bent over. You behind me.”
“Standing?”
“Yes.”
“Turn around then, Miss Beasley.”
She turned, and he gave her bottom a loving spank.
“What do I have here?” He kneaded her buttocks and pressed his cock against them. “An enchantress at my mercy.”
She laughed and leaned over the desk. “Yes.”
“I need a magic wand to conquer you.” He forced her against the desk fully by pushing at her hips as he continued to rub his cock against her.
“You have one,” she said.
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“But I can cast a spell and overpower you.”
“Shall I provide a gag to muffle your spells and cries of anguish as I split you wide with my cock?” He released her bottom and reached for his cravat.
“No, wicked knight. I’ll be good.” A pause. “And I can never get the knot in your cravat as Carruthers does, and then our secret will be out.”
Henry returned his hands to her hips. He was fairly sure the servants knew what happened during his and Susannah’s late nights in the study. Susannah’s full-throated shrieks were telling.
He pulled up her skirts. Lovely, lovely, lovely bare arse. And lovely strong thighs. All of her, lovely.
He growled. “Are you ready to surrender, siren?”
“Never.” She pretended to struggle, to come off the desk, but he put one hand on her back and forced her down, pinned her there as she squirmed.
“I will treat you as a wench upon which I shall take my pleasure.”
He fondled her bottom, and she widened her stance, stood on her toes. He sucked his finger into his mouth to wet it and went between her cheeks and stroked her folds.
“Ahhhh,” she said.
“See? I can cast a spell, too. A spell that will put you in my thrall for a thousand years. You will have to submit to my caresses. You will have to take my cock whenever I demand. Three times a day. Nay, five.”
Authors weren’t the only ones who could dream fantastical, impossible things.
“I will take your thickness whenever you wish, sirrah, and beg for more.”
His finger found her clitoris.
“Oh, a magic bean you’ve been hiding from me, enchantress. What should I do with it, I wonder?” He circled it with his finger.
“Rub it,” she gasped. “Rub it.”
“It’s a magic lamp instead?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
He slicked his finger back and forth over the nub and felt it grow. Henry was glad Susannah did not mind inconsistency in their erotic play because, in the middle of heated intercourse, he often forgot whom they were pretending to be and what they were supposedly doing and what he should be saying.
But she never complained. Maybe because she herself was often guilty of transforming from an evil queen to a helpless serving girl and back again, all within the span of a minute or two.
He ground out, “I want you.”
No matter who he was or who she was, he always wanted her. Because he did.
“You have me,” she moaned. “You have me.”
“You can’t resist me. Can’t resist my touch. Can’t resist my cock.”
“No.” The word was strangled. “I can’t.”
“And now you’re going to get your fucking.”
“Please, sir.”
“What did you say? You should beg for this cock.”
“Please. Please. I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”
“Right now all I want is for you to lie there and take what you deserve.”
She moaned again.
Henry took his finger from her to undo his fall. His cock was full and straining, and it sprang forth as soon as he had managed the buttons, but he still took it in his hand and stroked it and rubbed it against her satin-skinned arse.
“You feel that, enchantress? That’s what’s going to fuck you.”
“Yes. Oh, yes. Please.”
He put his arm around her hips and found her clitoris from the front. He rubbed it, and her own juices coated his finger now.
“I want this lamp shiny and polished and glistening with oil. I want it aflame. I want it on the verge of combustion.”
“Yes. It is. It is!”
He put his cock at her entrance and thrust into her. Oh, God, it was so good to be inside of her. He bent over her, intent on taking her to her completion with his finger as he thrust.
“You like that.” Thrust. “Wench.” Thrust. “Enchantress.” Thrust.
“Ungh. Yes, yes, yes.”
“And your cunt is,” thrust, “my cunt to take.”
“Ahhhh!”
Not the grunt of a scythe-witch but Susannah’s cry of ecstasy. Her peak was upon her. As always, in that moment, pretense fell away.
“Oh, I . . . Henry . . . love you.”
Her walls clasped him, and her hands skittered over the desk, knocking papers aside, narrowly missing the encrier and the inkwell.
He took his finger away from her slit and held her hips with both hands as he pulled her onto him and thrust harder, faster.
His Susannah liked a bit of roughness, and he was frenzied now, pounding at her brutally, totally consumed by the thought of spending inside her, spilling his seed in her own warm wetness.
He was all devouring need, his ballocks tightening, his spine tingling. He was almost there. He thrust a final time and managed, “I love you, Susannah,” before his back straightened and he released into her.
He stood above her, panting. He might grow old—in fact, he hoped he did—but being with Susannah would never grow old.
“Henry?”
“Yes, love?
“This desk is not valuable, is it?”
“Why?”
“I scratched it.” She ran her fingers over the surface of the desk and the four gouges she had placed with her nails.
The desk was the same age as the house. It had been made for Queen Elizabeth under the commission of Sir Walter Raleigh and willed to Henry’s ancestor upon the queen’s death.
“It’s not at all valuable,” he said.
“Good,” she said, sounding relieved. She came off her toes, and he slid out of her.
She stood, put her hand to her lower back.
“Is your back all right?” His hand covered hers.
“Yes.” She sighed. “I was just worried about the desk.” She turned to face him and put her arms around his neck. “I’m glad I didn’t ruin something precious.”
She was the precious thing. And she hadn’t ruined the desk. She couldn’t ruin it.
Henry would not have the scratches filled in or varnished over. He wanted them there, four parallel lines showing ancient raw oak, reminding him of the time his precious enchantress took his wand as he rubbed her lamp.
Years from now, many years from now—many, many, many years from now, Henry thought—Charles would sit at this desk and wonder how the scratches had come to be.
“I was thinking of turning the old thing into firewood anyway,” he said.
“Oh, Henry! No. I love this desk. Don’t you dare.”
“I won’t. I have no need for kindling when I have you.” He stroked her hair, and his voice went hoarse. “Because, my love, you set me on fire.”
He kissed her then. And it was not the tender kiss—soft, like a whisper—they often shared after coitus. It was a kiss of devotion, of passion, of unmitigated joy. It was a roar of all-consuming and eternal love.
“Oh,” she said, looking shaken afterwards. “Oh.”
“Are you sure you don’t know the end of the story?” He would never stop asking her.
“Henry.” She pulled his head down and caressed his nose with hers, slowly, the tips rubbing. “Of course, I know it.”
He inhaled her sweet breath. “What is it, love?”
She leaned away from him, and he was treated to her luminous smile and a mischievous wink.
“And they lived happily-ever-after, of course.”
Thank you for reading Earl on Fire!