Chapter Thirty-Three #3
Dustin glanced at her. “Oh…..no, I am fine. But would you mind terribly if I retired? It might be a good idea if we both get some rest. After all, Chris said we would be leaving tonight and I never could sleep on a horse.”
Deborah nodded quickly. “An excellent suggestion, Dustin. You shall let me know when Chris returns, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Dustin nodded, accepting a quick kiss on the cheek from her sister-in-law before she quit the antechamber.
The room suddenly felt empty and Dustin felt as if she were in a fog.
A day that had started out normally had become the absolute worst and she was reeling with the rapid events.
She sank into the nearest chair, her mind working itself into muddled confusion.
So he was leaving, and she was returning to Lioncross.
When would she see him again? Dear Lord, would she see him again?
He would be fighting against John and his army of cutthroats, and she was utterly terrified that he would meet his end.
Dustin covered her face with a hand. Lord, if they could only retreat to Lioncross and forget about John and Richard and the whole bloody country.
She simply wanted to grow old with her husband and to hell with the rest of the world.
Living the rest of her life without him was her very worst nightmare, and with the wars that were rapidly approaching, she had to face the very real possibility.
One moment she was staring at the fire and the next, someone was shaking her awake. She startled, nearly falling out of the chair except for strong hands that held her steady.
“Careful, sweetheart,” Christopher bent down and scooped her into his arms. “I shouldn’t have awoken you, but the time to leave is coming upon us and….”
Instantly alert, Dustin threw her arms around her husband and peppered his face with kisses. “You are back,” she managed to say in between kisses. “I was so worried for you. Where have you been? What’s happened?”
He returned her kisses, capturing her lips with his own and slowing her urgency considerably. Only when he had suckled and kissed and licked her quiet did he speak.
“Are you all packed?” he asked against her neck. “My men are ready to take your things.”
She forced his head up. “Where have you been all this time? What happened to the earl?”
His soft expression hardened imperceptibly. “The earl is dead. And I have been with the justices for the past six hours listening to them debate.”
“And?” she bade him to continue.
“And the army does indeed ride tonight to destroy John,” he said. “You leave tonight as well and return to Lioncross.”
She forced him to look at her. “Are you taking me back to Lioncross yourself or are you riding north with the army?”
His eyes drank her in, memorizing every feature of her beautiful face and he felt despair of separation filling him. Never in his life had he faced this situation and he found it overwhelmingly distressing.
“I ride with my army, sweet love,” he said softly. “You and Deborah, along with Leeton and Sir Nicholas and 250 men-at-arms will be returning to Lioncross this night.”
In spite of the fact that Dustin had promised herself she would be brave, hot tears instantly filled her eyes. Before she could say anything, Christopher was kissing them away, lapping at her cheeks with his tongue and tasting her salt.
“No tears, Dustin,” his voice was raspy. “I want to remember you smiling, not crying with sorrow. Please be brave, for me.”
She tried terribly to stop her tears, responding to his kisses with kisses of her own. “How much time do we have?”
“An hour, mayhap less,” he said. “I’d like to be moving as quickly as possible.”
She squirmed from his arms, taking his hands and pulling him in the direction of the bedchamber. He had been thinking the exact same thought and without a word, followed her into the darkened room.
They were completely silent as they fervently removed each other’s garments, such great pain filling them that it was difficult to put into words.
All they could think of was each other, touching, holding, caressing, tasting.
Even as the clothes fell to the floor and Christopher lifted her onto the bed, the anguish of their impending separation filled Dustin so that the moment he lay his body atop her, she began to cry softly.
He heard her faint sobs and felt his eyes sting with tears of his own.
His mouth tasted of her fully, gorging himself on the sweetness of her flesh, trying to ignore the salt he tasted from her tears.
There was not an inch of skin that did not go unexplored by his worshipful mouth and not a limb nor a joint that did not go carefully caressed by his massive hands.
When he did enter her hot, slick body, it was with a gentle and passionate thrust.
Dustin wrapped herself around him, memorizing every stroke, every sensation, every marvelous feeling he created within her. She was so very, very terrified this would be the last time she ever felt him.
Passion overcame her tears for the moment and she turned into the wanton woman he loved so well.
Not content merely to make love with him atop her, she pushed him over onto his back so that he could watch her while she slid up and down on his great shaft.
Sobbing intermittently, she flipped her incredible mane over so that it covered him from his neck to his stomach and she watched, upside down, as she made love to him.
She heard him groan and he grabbed her by the hair, pulling her onto her back once again and driving his wet organ into her throbbing body.
It was too much for Dustin, she was so aroused that it was no time before she was pulsing with pleasure, her panting cries answered by his own grunt of satisfaction, and she heard her name in his throaty cry.
The musk of the love making mingled in the cool air as he gathered his wife against him, kissing her hair over and over again. The warmth of her passion quickly faded and Dustin once again felt herself being overcome with despair, dissolving into tears as he held her.
“Oh, Dustin,” she heard him murmur against her head. “Do not cry, my love. I won’t be able to leave you if you cry.”
“Good,” she sobbed. “I do not want you to go.”
He sighed, snuggling down into the feathered mattress and holding her tightly. “I have to. I do not want to, but I have to.”
Sniffling and choking, she looked up at him and he kissed the end of her tear-streaked nose. “You do want to. You must go and protect your beloved Richard’s properties. He matters most to you, Chris, he always has.”
He laid his head back on the pillow, studying her lovely, tear-stained and angry face. “ ’Tis true, our king has always been my priority,” he said softly. “But I truly cannot remember when, indeed, he began running a distant second to you.”