Chapter Twelve
“Are you well?”
Jocasta poked one eye open.
She was in a bed that was not her own, and there was a large, warm body curled around hers, a husky voice that whispered in her ear.
“I am.”
“Sore?”
She took inventory of her parts. Breasts? Tender and tingly.
Muscles? Sleepy.
Thighs? Aching.
Insides? Hot, coiled, and bothered, missing something.
“No.”
“I had heard women would be sore after the first encounter.”
Jocast blushed and rolled over. Girion was naked and lying on his side, a nervous, sweet expression on his face—completely misaligned with the warrior body hovering over her. That was the body of a destroyer, with the eyes of a protector. “I think it will be, soon.”
“Soon?”
“After there’s more,” Jocasta explained, lightly running one fingertip over his manhood.
“Oh. Shall we bathe and breakfast?”
“Mhm.”
“Excellent.” Girion rose and scooped her up, only to hiss in surprise when she wriggled away and grabbed her robe. “What is it?”
“I’ll be back!”
Jocasta raced across the hall to her own room and used the privy facilities there, cleaning herself quickly before rejoining her husband—and stopping to get the wedding gift she had for him.
Girion looked relieved when she came back, standing sheepishly with a blanket pulled over his middle. “I had meant bathe together. The tub is big enough, and the warmth will ease your muscles.”
“I had a wedding gift for you.”
“But you are gift enough!” Girion protested and took the small box she offered.
“This is a little extra then.”
Jocasta watched Girion open the talisman, examine it, and then put it tenderly against his heart, curled in his fist. “Amos. That was your brother?”
“The younger of the two. The first magical item I made. I meant for it to keep him safe. He wasn’t wearing it when— Well, I want you to have it. So that you will always be safe.”
Girion nodded and swallowed hard. “Should we breakfast first?” he asked in a raspy voice.
Jocasta smiled. Her husband had a soft center, and very few would ever see it.
It was another present that he gave only to a cherished few.
“You have awakened other appetites in me that food won’t cure.
I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, and it was true.
She was fairly certain Girion’s size would be painful at first, but she wanted him more than anything.
“If my queen would show me those appetites, I would do my utmost to satisfy them.”
“Show?”
He nodded. “I’m not good with words. But I would be a good pupil for such a forgiving teacher.”
Jocasta slid her arms up and around Girion’s chest, laughing softly when he picked her up so she could wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him. “I’m not sure how to show you. Perhaps we could find a combination of words and demonstration?”
“After bathing?”
“Or during.”
Girion let out a shuddering sigh. “If I did not trust you, I would be in great trouble.”
WARM AND WET. HER BODY was lithe and full, with round curves to pillow himself on and squeeze.
Jocasta let him explore—fully. Girion had the idea that he must be doing something right, or she would have stopped him.
Yet, he still kept asking, voice a little more confident each time, “I’m not causing you pain? Nothing is sore?”
Each time she’d stretch and moan, and take her own turn exploring. Her shorter body bounced in the water, breasts teasing his chest, hands cupping his buttocks, and fists gently stroking him until he moaned and let her own him completely.
“Do women kiss men here? I have heard they do. Is it something you’d think wrong?” Jocasta whispered, stroking him, her thumb lightly circling his crown.
“I would kiss any and every bit of you. Would you think it wrong if a man did it to a woman?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if men do those things.”
Girion arched one eyebrow. “Let’s see.”
JOCASTA STOPPED KISSING the tip of him, resisting the urge to put him in her mouth and see if her jaw would open wide enough to comfortably slide him in and out. Kissing, she had asked about. Devouring, she had not.
Now, Girion grunted and hoisted her up as if she weighed nothing. She let out a soft shriek as Girion raised her in the air and straddled her legs around his neck, only to sigh and say, “Not like this.”
The next second, she found herself splayed on the hot stones surrounding the tub, her calves in the water, and Girion lapping her folds, chasing every drop of water clinging to her.
“My God! Oh! Oh, Girion!” Her voice was shaking so she hardly recognized it, especially when he nuzzled her hard bead.
He parted her folds and ignored her faint protest, diving back in to lap her hungrily.
“Is this the appetite you spoke of?” he asked between long, hard licks.
“N-no. I didn’t know of this one, but now I love it. Please... Please!” She didn’t know what she was begging for.
“Please what? Anything, beloved.”
“I want more of you. I want all of you, but I don’t want it to hurt.” Did that make her a coward? Girion wouldn’t want to hurt her.
Girion nodded and pulled her back into the water, lifting her so that she was in his lap when he sat on the long stone benches in the deep well of a tub. Jocasta suspected it was meant for his shifted form as well.
“No pain, my love,” Girion kissed her neck and cupped one breast while his cock rubbed her mound, sliding between her open legs. His hand went down, stroking where he had just licked and sucked her to a partial peak.
His fingers went in, one at first, and she flexed and moaned, fuller than she had been, but not uncomfortably so. “Is that what my little queen would crave? To be filled?”
Slow, teasing, testing penetration that made her squirm.
“I crave to be held inside of you. And to spend inside of you. To fill you. To see my Jocasta taking every bit of me—well, every bit that’s comfortable.
” His fingers left, stroked her outsides, and plunged back in, two fingers smoothly inside of her, a stretch making her hips buck and bounce on his thighs. “What a tight little tunnel you have.”
“And how big you are,” she countered, her hand wrapping around his tip and stroking hard and fast.
“You’ll ruin the bath if you do that,” he moaned, biting down softly on her shoulder.
“We have more hot water.”
“We have all of the heat—because of you.”
GIRION GROANED AS THE fourth day dawned. For three days, the world stood still and emptied, leaving him and Jocasta on an island of togetherness. Their sensual play and pleasure brought them closer to full coupling, and their long hours together let them talk without interruption—for once.
“No,” Jocasta echoed his groan and tossed her leg over top of his, holding him in place. “I’m not ready.”
“We will come back to this bed tonight, and we’ll spend the day side by side,” he soothed.
He rolled on top of her and felt her welcoming caress pulling him tight against her.
His cock lined up with her womanhood, and they rutted as one, not penetrating, but using the friction to build their pleasure.
The more slippery she became, the more reckless their fevered dance, knowing any moment could push him against her and inside.
“Now?” she whispered. Encouraged.
“Not now. Not when you have to go down and look presentable and sit still. There’s a place I will take you to once I know the hot springs are flowing fully.
A place where we won’t be disturbed. Where we can take all the time—unnn!
” His sudden grunt came just before her long, shivering groan.
“Our timing gets better each time,” he whispered, kissing her.
“Not bad for two virgins like us.”
“I don’t think that title is properly bestowed at this point,” Girion chuckled, pushing three fingers inside of her wet, relaxed slit.
Instantly, Jocasta brought her fingers down to rub at her bead while he used his fingers like he ached to use his cock, pounding inside of her until her walls leapt and spasmed.
“Perhaps not!” Jocasta gasped as he pushed her to a second peak, hard and fast.
“Come. We meet with our court at noon, and the advisors after that. You wanted to tackle the matter of rates being raised without proper notice and without reasonable percentages?”
Jocasta stretched and licked her lips, standing slowly and arching her back so that he could see the white pattern he had left across her belly and curls. “How can you think about mortgages at a time like this?” she pouted, cupping one breast.
He had to close his eyes and look away. “You’re making it very hard.”
When he opened his eyes, Jocasta was kneeling in front of him, taking his semi-erect cock in her hand and guiding it to her lips. “I can make it harder.”
It was going to be a law. Wedding respite needed to be a week. At minimum.
LORD ARENDALE’S JUNIOR minister, Sir Benevent, was young, efficient, and eager to do something useful for his new queen.
When Jocasta asked him about the mortgage rates and rents being hiked at will, he flew into a flurry and returned with books half his size to slam in front of her, showing all the fiscal laws for the kingdom.
“You see, Your Majesty, there are set rates for when mortgages and rents can be raised, with yearly intervals being the minimum. And if a mortgage has been set by the bank, the monthly payment cannot be altered, but the bank could change its additional fees. Even so, they are not allowed to go above five percent of the monthly payment agreed upon.”
Jocasta looked at the huge tomes. “Where are these kept?”
“There are several copies, I am sure, but these would be kept in the palace library, the Ministry of Commerce buildings in Tundra Springs, and other major cities like Port Hebron... Why?”