Page 55 of Propriety (le morte d’Guinevere #1)

Guinevere reached for his hand and guided it to her chest, over the steady thrum of her heartbeat. “With this,” she whispered. “With breath. With warmth. With the knowledge that we’re alive. That we chose each other.”

Lancelot swallowed hard, eyes locked on hers. “You undo me,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “Every time.”

She leaned in, brushing her lips to his, just once, soft as silk. “Then be undone.”

He kissed her again, deeper now, as if starving. As if he’d waited through fire and steel and silence just for the taste of her mouth. His hand cradled the back of her head, the other pressing against the small of her back as he pulled her into his lap.

Guinevere’s legs parted to straddle him, the cloak slipping from her shoulders. Without hesitation, she pulled the tunic up and over her head, bearing herself to him. He let out a shuddering breath — half groan, half prayer.

“Gwen,” His voice caught. “Guinevere. Are you sure?”

She pressed her forehead to his, noses brushing. “I’ve never been surer than when I’m by your side, Lancelot.”

His mouth found her neck, reverent kisses trailing down her throat as his hands roamed slowly, carefully. Her back, her ribs, the curve of her waist. Each touch was grounding, steadying, as if he was anchoring himself to the fact that she was here, whole, and his.

His lips trailed lower still, pressing greedy kisses to the swell of her breast. “You’re shaking again.” He whispered, his breath hot against her skin.

“I know,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he promised, and meant it with every inch of his soul.

“Lance.” she arched her back as his mouth trailed lower, lips brushing over her nipple. A grin twitched on his lips as he swirled his tongue over the hardened peak.

Her hands found his hair, tugging hard enough to drag a hiss from his mouth. “There she is.” The feel of his breath against her skin just about sent her over the edge.

“I need you,” she panted, scrabbling at the hem of his tunic. He helped her pull it over his head, her nails scraping down his chest. “Now, Lance.”

He didn’t make her ask again.

He shifted with a groan, guiding her down onto the bedroll, his mouth finding hers in kisses that stole the air from her lungs. She clung to him, fingers sliding across the hard planes of his back as he settled between her thighs.

He moved lower, his mouth now near her navel, pressing lingering kisses against her skin.

“No,” she whispered, tugging him back up. “I want you .” Her hands pushed his trousers down, a wicked grin on her face when she took his cock in her hands, pumping gently. “Not your mouth. Not your hands.”

“Fuck,” his teeth found her shoulder, desperate and sharp, as she toyed with him, dragging her hand along his shaft, pressing the head of him against her slick entrance.

“Please, Lancelot,” she whimpered, one leg hitching around his waist.

With a gentle rock of his hips, he sheathed himself inside of her. When he pressed into her, slow and unhurried, her breath caught sharply in her throat. Her hands gripped his shoulders, grounding herself.

“Gods… Lance-” It was too much and not enough. The stretch of him, the weight, the way he filled her, like she was built for this — for him. “Harder.” her nails dug into his skin as she rolled her hips.

He descended on her messily, their kiss a clash of teeth and tongue. It was sloppy, it was righteous. She moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed her down like a prayer.

Lancelot’s movements became erratic, his hips stuttering against her. “No one else gets to touch you. Never again,” He growled, his hand snaking down between them, thumb rubbing her clit. “Let me feel you, baby.” He added pressure to her core, causing her vision to go white hot.

She cried out, clinging to him as he pounded into her, chasing his own climax.

Her body shook, tears gathering in her eyes as he came with a roar, clutching her against him like she was his only life source.

He spilled inside her with a raw sound, buried to the hilt, cock twitching as if even his body prayed to stay inside hers.

She clung to him, sweat-slicked and gasping, legs still locked tight around his hips. Only their ragged breaths filled the tent, their bodies tangled beneath the cloak and blankets.

Guinevere’s skin still tingled, her body aching in all the best ways. Lancelot had moved little — just sprawled there beside her like a man who’d been struck down by something divine.

She turned her head on the pillow to look at him.

He was wrecked.

Chest rising slow, lips parted, lashes dark against his flushed cheeks. She could still feel the ghost of his mouth on her breast, the rasp of his voice saying her name like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

God, he was beautiful like this.

She stretched, slow and feline, then turned to drape herself half over him. He groaned.

“Careful,” he mumbled. “I’m not sure I survived that.”

“You took a sword to the leg hours ago, du Lac.” She teased, nuzzling her nose into the crook of his neck.

“Exactly, you cruel woman.” The lilt in his voice could melt even the iciest of her walls. “I am an injured man.”

“And yet you begged.”

He opened one eye, peeking out at her. “I did not.”

“‘Please,’” she mimicked, nipping his ear. “‘Please, Gwen, let me feel you.’”

“ That’s not my voice.” He said, mock-scandalized.

Guinevere dragged her fingers through the damp curls at the nape of his neck, gentle as the tide. “You’re shaking,” she murmured.

“So are you,” he whispered back, barely audible. His palm spread across her spine, grounding her. “You undid me.”

She smiled, eyes half-lidded, drunk on him. “That was the idea.”

His laugh was low, wrecked. “You’re cruel.”

“You love it.”

He turned his head, kissed her wrist where her pulse still fluttered. “I do. God, I do.”

They lay like that for a moment, their limbs tangled, the silence full of nothing but the rhythm of shared breath and the occasional dazed exhale.

Then…

Her hand drifted lower. Lazily. Deliberately. A teasing drag of her nails across his stomach.

He stilled. “Gwen.”

She kissed his shoulder sweetly. Innocent. Almost. “Mmm?”

“You’re-” His voice cracked as her fingers slid further, brushing his cock with featherlight touches. “You’re insatiable.”

She grinned against his skin. “I like you soft,” she murmured, closing her hand around him. “But I enjoy ruining you more.”

He groaned. “I’m already ruined.”

“Then what’s one more time?”

She kissed him once more, slow, filthy, all tongue and teeth, before pulling back just far enough to straddle his hips again. Her thighs braced on either side of him, a wicked glint in her eyes as she looked down.

Lancelot was already half-hard again beneath her, twitching in anticipation where he rested against her slick folds. She rolled her hips once — slow and taunting — coating him in her arousal without letting him in.

His hands gripped her thighs hard. “Gwen.”

“What?” she asked sweetly, tilting her head. “You said you were ruined. I thought I’d finish the job.”

He groaned, his head tipping back against the pillow. “Please.”

She leaned forward, bracing herself on his chest. “ There’s the voice I love,” she purred, dragging the head of him through her wetness. “ So good for me. So obedient.”

He arched up, trying to thrust into her, but she pinned his hips down with her weight. “Ah, ah,” she scolded. “My turn.”

“Gods, yes,” he gritted out. “Take what you need. Please-”

She sank down on him in one slow, deliberate motion, gasping as he filled her. His eyes flew open, wild and dark, watching her with something close to worship.

Guinevere rolled her hips once, slow and sinuous, and his hands flew to her waist, not to control, but to hold on.

“That’s it,” she breathed, rocking again, harder this time.

He nodded, unable to speak.

She rode him like a queen claiming her throne — steady, commanding, devastating. Her nails raked down his chest as she leaned forward, their lips brushing with every ragged breath. Each time she dropped her hips, she swallowed the way he choked her name like it was a prayer.

“Gwen,” he gasped. “I’m… I can’t-”

She ground her hips down, her clit catching just right against him. Guinevere grinned down at him, breath hitching as she dragged him even deeper inside. She could feel him trembling beneath her — every muscle taut, every breath a gasp.

She’d never had it like this.

She’d never been in control . Even with Lancelot, she let him lead — it was safe. But this…? This was a new freedom in itself. This was a miracle. A baptism.

This was living .

“Please,” he choked out, voice breaking like he’d forgotten how to hold himself together.

“Please what , Lancelot?” Her voice was a dark purr, almost cruel in its softness.

He swallowed hard, sweat slick on his chest, his hands clutching at her thighs like they were the only thing tethering him to this plane. “Please let me finish.” It was a whisper. A confession. A prayer.

Guinevere leaned forward, licking a long, slow path up the side of his throat, her hips never ceasing their merciless rhythm.

He let out a strangled sound, somewhere between a sob and a moan, his cock throbbing inside her, barely holding on. His voice was ragged now, desperate. “Gwen, I’m begging you — please, please, let me…”

She slammed down onto him, grinding hard, her own climax building tight in her stomach.

“Guinevere… please — I need you, need to feel you come around me, gods, please… let me come with you…”

She reached between them, rubbed tight circles against her clit, and locked eyes with him as she fell apart with a cry. Her body clenched around him, shaking with release.

That was all it took.

Lancelot shouted , hips jerking up wildly as he spilled inside her, clinging to her like she was the only solid thing in a crumbling world. He was gasping her name like a litany, as if saying it over and over might save him.

She collapsed onto his chest, both of them wrecked, their bodies sticky and tangled and trembling.

He was still whispering it — Guinevere, Guinevere, Guinevere — like she’d become his entire religion.

She smiled against his throat, smug and breathless.

He was still gasping like he couldn’t catch his breath, one hand sliding weakly down her back as if even now he didn’t want to stop touching her.

Guinevere nuzzled into the crook of his neck. “You begged so sweetly,” she purred. “You know that, don’t you?”

Lancelot groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “You’re not going to let me live that down, are you?”

She propped herself up just enough to meet his eyes, hips still lazily rocking, keeping him inside her — just to watch his face twitch from overstimulation. “Not a chance. You should’ve heard yourself.” Her voice dropped into a breathy moan. “‘Please, Gwen, please, I need to come, let me come-’”

His hand shot up to cover her mouth, but she just nipped at his palm.

She slid off him with a satisfied sigh, but not before squeezing him one last time, smirking as he whimpered through clenched teeth. He immediately flopped an arm over his face like a man in mourning.

“Oh gods,” he muttered into his bicep.

Guinevere collapsed beside him in the cramped tent, her thigh pressed tight to his, breath still ragged. The low canvas ceiling loomed above their tangled bodies, and their limbs had nowhere to go. She laughed, breathless and dizzy, her forehead bumping his shoulder.

They were a mess.

She exhaled, dragging the thin blanket over his hips. It barely covered them both. “Don’t move.”

“I couldn’t if I tried.”

Guinevere reached behind her, fumbling one-handed in the satchel by the tent wall. She found a cloth and a half-filled waterskin.

She shifted over him, both of them groaning from the lack of space, and began wiping them down as best she could. Awkward angles. Careful touches. She winced as she cleaned herself, then him, and he hissed softly as the cloth grazed overstimulated skin.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“No you’re not.”

She smirked. “I warned you.”

Once satisfied they would not wake up glued together, she tossed the cloth aside and collapsed back into his chest, dragging the blanket around their shoulders as best she could.

The air was cool, damp with night. Lancelot curled around her instinctively, shielding her with his body, one arm under her neck, the other around her waist.

Her nose was tucked beneath his jaw. “We’re going to have to move at dawn.”

“I know,” he whispered, already drowsy. “Just… give me this. A moment. With you.”

Her fingers traced lazy patterns against his chest. “Since you begged so sweetly.”

He groaned. “I walked into that.”