Chapter 21 #2
They continued in silence until they left through the Bourg Gate.
Aix always felt so vast without taking much time to walk at all.
Dorotèa wasn’t sure if she wanted their return to take more time, or less.
A single walk wasn’t going to cure Oste of whatever it was he was forced to see in that room, and boudiou, what a painful walk it was, but if more kilometers would have mended some part of him, she’d have gone on for however long it took.
“I was actually thinking of going for a ride,” Dorotèa forced out once their mas was in sight. “I can go find Vidault and have him keep an eye out, lest I tumble.”
“Please stick to your mare.” He frowned.
“Oh, I will, I will! I’m not nearly as brave as to try the others alone. I’ve decided to call her Pignon. I could… also wait until you return. We could ride together. Or spar. I actually have very good news to tell you on that front.”
Oste’s arm flexed and tightened underneath her hand. It sent a shock up Dorotèa’s fingers and the expanse of her arm. She pressed her lips together and looked up at him. He was the veritable picture of concentration, his focus dead ahead on their little barn.
“Is that so?” he asked without emotion.
Dorotèa swallowed. “Yes. Oste, I—I need to stop in the house. I ought to change if I expect to sit in a saddle.”
His voice came out in a low rumble. “Do you mind if we don’t?”
Her brow shot up. “Not really, no. Do you need something in the barn?”
“Veritably, I do.”
She’d have turned on her heel and tugged her arm away if any other man wore such shadows in his eyes and made utterances in the same tone as a growl.
Dorotèa realized, though, that her heart hadn’t quickened a beat.
Her body was at ease and told her she was safe before her mind could confirm it; Oste would never harm her.
She believed that more than anything. He’d sooner hurt himself.
The barn door was cracked open. Vidault was nowhere to be found.
Oste shuffled her inside as though it was a secret escapade, then shut the door behind him.
It rattled crudely and sent some dust cascading down from the beams above, old and worn where the stone walls, which had been there for an age, were not.
Straw crackled beneath their feet. The horses were out, and the little thatched building was only occupied by the scent of leather, humidity, and stillness.
They spun on each other at once, breaths ragged and unrestrained.
Lips did not meet, and their hands only grazed while their bodies teetered on the precipice, waiting like tightened coils.
Each breath was hot on the other’s neck, and their bodies hovered impossibly close, separated only by a fraction.
On each side, their eyes were wild as they regarded each other.
They were perfect mirrors; neither mustered a mote of comprehension.
They searched each other’s faces for an answer.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” said Oste, strangled. “What I want, I… All that makes sense is you.”
Dorotèa shivered. “Do you want to talk to me?”
He shook his head.
Her eyes drifted down to his lips. “Do you want me?”
Oste kissed her with so much force that she was propelled against the wall.
The thud of her back against the cool stone made two birds in the rafters chirp and take flight through a gap in a window.
A tremendous shake of her body in the throes of shocked adrenaline forced her to gasp for air as, malleable, she molded into the shape of his body.
The rough surface of the barn scraped her lower back when he kissed her again, and her hair, snagged, lost a decorative pin when she dug her hands into his waist and returned the gesture.
Dorotèa had never felt so much strength from him.
His grip and stalwart stance could have seen him mustered to the army’s ranks, even with his injuries.
It had never occurred to her until then, wrapped up in his power and control, that he could’ve snapped her neck or broken the rest of her if he wanted to whilst he had her ensnared as he did now.
The realization made her near-delirious.
He could hurt her, and hurt her badly, and it stroked her with unbridled passion that left her wondering what sort of demented creature she truly was.
Giddy, she fixated on every strand of vitality he showed her and used, instead, to take her body.
She smiled, open-mouthed and entranced, when he tugged back on the ties and clasps fastening her dress into place.
Dorotèa was completely drunk on the state of him.
She threw her body around to tempt him, to entice him, and every hard grab he made to jerk her in close again made her all the more delighted in his rough, ruthless kisses and bites.
Oste wasn’t going to let her win this bout, and she loved him for it.
She’d hardly ever felt so secure as she did then, possessed by this unyielding side of his love.
Dorotèa liked winning, but the feeling of letting another do the fighting for her was a release of tension that almost made her knees buckle from the heat of her arousal.
Oh, her usual way got tiring. So, so tiring.
“Will you protect me?” she gasped when he hauled her dress up and over her head. “I know you can. Oh, God, Oste…”
His hand tightened around her thigh from under her chemise. Hot currents raced up from it and to her womb, which pulsed in anticipation. He kissed her fiercely, and at some point during the onslaught she realized he’d removed his hose and exposed his hard shaft.
“I’ll let you,” Dorotèa shuddered. “I’m ready to let you.”
He spun her around and against the wall.
Dorotèa yelped in surprise; another tickle of delight made her open mouth twist into a grin when she felt his firmness behind her and the meeting of their skin, sticky from the heat.
Her palms drove into the rough stone when he hitched his body and harshly thrust his way inside of her.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, where, under his touch, she felt wholly and utterly his.
“Yes,” he rasped. “I want to.”
Oste grabbed beneath her buttocks and hoisted her up enough to continue his deed and take her.
His movements were as powerful as the rest of him had been since they began.
He drove in hard, and deep, and Dorotèa felt sore in little time at all.
Moans so unlike her characteristic lilt accompanied the deed.
She swayed in a daze as he took her right up against the wall, and found herself trying to catch a feel of him somewhere, anywhere, if only to ground herself from the brutal blooming of heat taking hold in her and causing her femininity to continue to pulse and throb with slick desire.
He’d pushed his way in without aid, but her body now smoothed the path for him.
As soon as Dorotèa managed to feel his manhood against her with her own wet fingers, she was undone.
The feel of the exposed stretch of his appendage just outside of her and the shape of his heated bollocks stroked a building pressure that his damnable perfection had left in her body.
Just when she felt she would either have to spin around and rake her hands down him or fall to the ground, he touched her some way, that, in her state, she couldn’t feel the precision of but didn’t need to.
A white blade had been plunged into her over and over again, and her vision was obscured by an explosion of silvery stars.
His seed, wet and warm, fed the swell between them when he let it go into her and made everything bright and good slide down, down, down.
She collapsed into the straw, her husband beside her.
At some point, her mind had cleared enough to crawl over to him and throw herself into his care again.
They recovered soon enough to meet again even in their mutual exhaustion.
It was a final domineering display; a brief, intoxicating round in the dust and bedding.
Oste took her again from above after he’d played with and pushed fingers into the other opening he’d started to toy with more and more.
Every shred of her ached by the time they were done, including her mouth, not only from their kisses, but the muscles she required to show her feverish glee.
They cradled each other not long after. Oste rested his head against her chest, and she had no mind to let him draw away. She embraced him there and stroked the side of his face with her weary, delicate hand.
“My strong husband,” she murmured. “My sweet, clever, and protective chéri. How I love you.”
Oste’s only reply was his labored breaths. He pressed his head harder into the soft expanse of her skin.
“You are safe.” Dorotèa kissed the top of his head. “So, so very safe.”
Safe with me, she thought, just as I am safe with you.