CHAPTER XXI #2
Keane’s smirk becomes a grin as he leads the two of us onto one of the large cobblestone bridges.
He keeps his eyes on me as we pass under the green banners with the black sash, then looks out to the bridge beyond as he assesses the travelers once more.
I remain quiet at his side as he considers my request, watching his gaze light up in a challenge.
“Are you sure you want to hear them, Alexis?”
I roll my eyes with a smile, “yes, Keane. I’m very sure.”
“Trouble,” he chuckles, shaking his head in pure enjoyment.
“The first time I wanted you fully was the first night you stepped into my court. The sight of you blew my breath away. You wore that same green dress from a few nights ago, displaying your flawless neck and letting the color plunge in a dare down your chest. It was the first time I got to see what you kept hidden under your riding clothes, and I found myself for the second night in a row completely unable to take my eyes off you…”
“But that dress on your body wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye.
.. it was the way you walked towards me in nervous confidence, wary of the new court and yet radiating assurance with every step.
The pull to reach out to you was strong.
I wanted to see more of that hidden confidence and more of your hidden body.
I wanted to touch you, to learn all of the things that made you so carefully confident.
You owned that dress, Alexis, and I could not take my eyes off of any part of you that night.
The sight of you walking towards me matched nothing I was accustomed to by the ladies of my court.
It surprised me. Made me to want to get to know you more. ..”
“And you entered alone, though Golem followed quietly behind with his own support. I remember noticing that your whole presence became so alive as you took in everything around you. You walked through my court with curiousness, quickly getting over any nerves as you continued to let that confidence build. You took in all that Gaumond had to offer and greeted my home with a hint of fire behind your eyes…”
“And when bowed your head, not in greeting to me but in a small challenge, as if blaming me for your tardiness…. I knew I didn’t just want to get to know you, I needed to get to know you.”
My heart pounds at his words, body flushing in undeniable heat. I grip Millie’s reins hard as Keane watches me from the side with another small smirk.
“The second time I wanted you fully was on your next night in court. You entered with your crew this time, the four of you laughing and looking so at ease with yourselves. I remember in that moment wanting to be the reason why you laughed, wanting to be the cause of that smile on your pretty red lips. You entered so naturally at their sides, Discerni and humans, that I was aching for you to realize how right it was. I wanted to take you, to force you to see what came so naturally to me and my Court of Warriors, but you wore that gold dress that hugged the full of your body, alluding to the fact that you were indeed from Knowledge and not of my own Court….”
“The color flashed at me as a dim reminder, so much so that I had to look away. But in my turn of gaze I began to notice that everyone seated behind your group had gone silent, their eyes lingering too long on the backs of you as you approached my table.”
“And when you bowed to me again that night, still in challenge…”
“Ancients, Alexis,” Keane shakes his head quietly to himself, “every fucking time you lower your head to me.”
The heat between my thighs tugs hard, making me shift in my walk and grip Millie’s reins even tighter.
“When I finally saw what my court was looking at, what their eyes graced before mine. When I saw your bare skin and the full of your back exposed so openly with the fabric dipping so low and near to your ass…”
“Alexis… I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I wanted to bend you over my table and fuck you right then. I wanted to let my hands rake down your back in possession in front of the full of my court, so that they would never consider looking at you in that way again.”
I gasp at his words, willing the heat of my body to cool down.
“You and that dress challenged me, challenged us all,” Keane continues in his walk, staring ahead with a deep smile, “too demure in the front, too Knowledge. But the back of you screamed Warrior, and I knew then that you were rising up to our fire.”
Keane’s words speak so close to my heart, mirroring my own emotions and intentions for the night. How is it that he could see and understand that much about me so early? How was he able to recognize the fire and be so sure in his reading of me?
“But my urge to have you didn’t stop there.
When I saw the earrings you wore that night, when I noticed their likeness to the Shadow Oak, my Shadow Oak, an oak in which you were unaware of in its origins…
something called to me. Something deep. I forgot myself in that moment when I touched you.
I didn’t have the words to properly understand what I felt, but I knew that my full being was consumed by something, as if I was looking back at my claim already resting on you. ”
Ancients.
That was an intense moment. I remember it so clearly. Keane was so open when he touched me in front of his court. He was consumed.
As was I, from the moment I met him.
Keane grins to himself again, “the third, obviously, was when I followed you that night under the Shadow Oak. I knew in my gut where you were going to end up that night, saw the way my words held onto you at the barrels and your internal battle. But when I located and saw you with Millie, dressed and packed for the next day’s travel… ”
Keane shakes his head as I watch his brown eyes sparkle in astonishment, “to know that you wanted to spend the entire night under my Shadow Oak, a place not many have found or ventured to…”
Keane suddenly looks back at me with his intense brown gaze, catching and holding my eyes as my heart skips a beat.
The sun shines down over his tanned skin while his brown hair shimmers under the rays, the strands waving slightly over his head with the breeze.
I take a deep breath and marvel at the man in front of me, watching his glowing features in open appreciation.
“When you spoke of the Oak that night, your words cut into me like a missing piece of deliverance I didn’t know I needed. I heard so much of my own thoughts speaking back to me, but they came from your lips, lips that I knew I had to have on mine.”
“I wanted you bad, Alexis,” Keane stops in his walk on the bridge to look at me fully, “I have never wanted anything so much in my life. I wanted you to renounce Knowledge on the spot, to leave my father’s Court and join me in Gaumond.
I wanted to hold you there, show you everything my Court and I had to offer, even if you weren’t ready for it… ”
“And I knew you weren’t ready for it, Alexis.
I saw your battle, saw your heart and mind as they clashed against each other and knew it’d take more time.
But I also found myself happy knowing that it would come, that you would win that battle, and I was willing to wait.
I have been willing to wait for someone like you for a while now. ”
My heart jumps for Keane as I take a small step towards him, wanting to reach out and pull him into me.
I desperately want to claim his lips and put his hands on my body, every part of me needing to show him that my heart and mind are no longer clashing.
I want to kiss him senseless under this brightened sun and show him that there’s no battle taking place within in me.
I have the words. I am ready now. And beyond anything, I need to show him.
Keane gives a brief shake of his head as he reads my face, his eyes looking down at my outstretched hand before he smiles softly. I sigh and take a step away from him, following behind when he gently leads the two of us back down the bridge.
“The fourth moment was when I watched you find the clearing before the mills in Fumagalli,” he continues, “you were proud of your discovery and yet still confused because you didn’t think they’d actually exist. I was in awe of you in that moment, in awe that you would let your curious nature hold so steadfast and unrelenting until you found your answer… ”
“And when I felt your body react to mine more fully that day, when I felt you move against me as you told me that you could feel my summoning within you…. you were curious as to the magic but ready to embrace it, embrace me, and I could tell that you wanted to feel it more.”
“I was ready to take you in those woods, Alexis,” he looks back at me with a hard gaze, “to truly show you all the ways I could make you feel me.”
My body flushes as I stare back at his lips, remembering how close I was to letting him have me.
“But I also knew that you deserved more, and I wanted to give you more. I wanted to give you the best of me because it was what the being of you deserved. So I made that promise to both of us that I would find you again under the Shadow Oak, that I would touch you in a way that justifies the full being of who you are...”
It’s taking everything in me right now not to reach out to Keane again, not to grab his hand and race down the remainder of the bridge so that we can have our way with eachother on the ground unseen.
The tug between my legs is too strong, and my breaths leaving my body are quite literally coming out as ragged pants.
I have to avert my gaze from him to keep any semblance of control.