Page 24

24

AMbrOSE

Ambrose barely felt the candles leave his hand as he offered them and their gentle healing magic to the worried woman. He wondered wildly for a moment if the mother could smell Bessa in his shop as he could, and he wanted to laugh just as wildly at the thought. Of course she couldn’t. Bessa smelled of the old gods, of the sultry heat of summer, of grain ripening under a hot sun. It was nothing mere mortals could detect. That scent, that commanding performance–it all belied the real woman beneath the queen. Ambrose found all he wanted to do was uncover the real woman. That scent, her musky scent… it consumed him like a sweet ache.

He felt his hands go slightly numb as he walked back into the workroom, wondering how he could manage not to sweep everything off the table and place her on top of it. Numb. Yes. He merely had to make his whole self go numb. She knew her role; a queen never forgot, even an accidental one. Perhaps accidental ones even more so.

Bessa looked up from where she was examining the candle they’d created. “Ambrose, I…”

“Yes?”

She pulled at her lip with her teeth and turned away. “How many more candles should I have for the coronation?”

He cleared his throat, coming around the side of the table and instantly regretting it. She was so close, her textured hair a wave of red down her shoulders, and he wanted to let its silkiness run through his calloused hands. To let strands get caught in their roughness, to pull on it, pull on her. He wanted to leave a mark so he’d know it was real, but he dared not. Not even a nibble, not a love mark just below her collarbone, easily hidden, not anything. He would not jeopardize her.

She wore a velvet gown the color of cream. Birds embroidered in silver threads flew across the bodice, and her sleeves were thick with seed pearls. She gleamed like the goddess Frostine, like midnight ice and moonlight.

“Chandler?” she asked, her voice quavering, and he got the distinct feeling that she’d said his title in order to steady herself. The thought she would need to do such a thing was heady, it was drunkenness, it was too much.

“A hundred more,” he said, each word an aching tooth being pulled from sore gums.

“That’s a great many. We will have to spend a lot of time together in close proximity.”

“Aye.” He knew he would have offered a thousand if it had meant more of her presence.

“Then we must make the most of it.”

Repeating his words from the first time they met, their meaning laced with as many layers as before, he asked, “Are you going to tell me what you want or do I need to beg?”

Slowly, her mouth curved up in a smile, and she replayed her part as well. “I thought it was obvious.”

That look undid the last of his resistance. Slowly, his hand stretched out to touch her, to truly feel her. His fingers, so used to the delicate work of magical candlework, where not one rimed petal or dot of dust from a unicorn’s horn could go astray, became suddenly clumsy and unsure as he began to untie the soft silk of her quilted corset. He had undone enough corsets to know the process, but a queen’s corset… Did it matter that she grew up common or did it make it somehow worse? He couldn’t tell, could only swallow thickly.

She reached back and took his hands, stilling them. “Ambrose.” She pulled him in front of her. “Look at me.”

He met her gaze steadily, although his thoughts were a storm. “Bessa. I’m sorry. I should have never—gods, forgive me. I don’t want to leave Frostvale, but I will if you ask. Immediately. I will pack my things, no, I will finish your candles and I will pack my things straight after?—”

“Ambrose.” His name was soft in the quiet of the candleshop. “Do not be afraid. I want to feel you next to me.”

His world telescoped to pure sensation. Gone was his shop, his duty, his secret. Gone was the commoner and the queen. It was the simple pleasure that everyone felt, the simple pleasures that lust made of them all. It was the great equalizer of men. Warm skin, a yearning to touch and be touched, a glimmer of acceptance. It was intimacy in its most pure form, distilled to its essence. He could only think about one thing: her body, warm and living, in front of him.

Still, he would have to be careful. She was the queen and she had suitors. He could put all of Frostvale at danger, but if she wanted this—wanted him? Couldn’t she, like any king of old, take what she wanted if he freely gave it? All of those suitors surely had mistresses. Why shouldn’t she? And couldn’t he be hers alone, entering the castle through some secret passageway the old kings had built for their mistresses?

And a small part of Ambrose felt a certain pride that his queen, so powerful, had chosen to take him for her own. And another part, the guilty part that refused to accept sweets, knew he was making excuses to take what he wanted. Her. As long as he did not enter her, perhaps it was fine.

And then he didn’t think at all. Bessa whimpered, her mouth burning against his skin in the shape of her lips. There was nothing practiced about their passion, only want and need.

Her soft noises were hesitant at first, and it made breathing difficult, nearly impossible. It made self-control doubly so, and Ambrose prided himself on his self-control. It had seen him through long bouts in cells, wrists shackled together, and now he could only imagine wanting to be shackled to this queen for eternity.

Her bodice undone, he went to his knees, kissing her knuckles as he knelt, prostrating himself to kiss her legs, acquiescing to his queen forever and always. His hands were still shaking, but no longer clumsy as he rolled up the bottom of her gown, damp with snowmelt, and kissed the warm skin of her thighs, inhaling the musky scent of her. He realized no one else in the world had ever had this honor or this pleasure and it drove him temporarily insane to imagine any of the suitors’ faces or fingers or anything else near her cunt.

What would become of Frostvale from this moment? Would this be the moment he looked back and knew he should have shown more restraint? He should have been strong enough, smart enough, brave enough to say no? To his queen? To his heart?

Then she sighed, sinking into his embrace, and he knew he was none of those things.

He put his hands on her knees and worked his way higher, nibbling the exposed flesh, tracing the contours of her freckles. She moaned as he got closer, and the sound nearly drew him mad with desire. She smelled stronger now, her arousal wetting his fingers just at her entrance. She always smelled impossible, like summer in a world of eternal winter, but now that smell mixed with her desire and made him lose his head a bit.

He could feel the heat pulsating, as he inched his way around her slit, teasing her. If this was all they ever got to share, he wanted it to last. So, instead of sucking and licking, he kissed his way up her hips. Her back curled with want, and she rubbed herself on his belly.

Slowly, he helped her slip entirely out of her dress, exposing her breasts. Her nakedness before him felt like a crime, like an exotic delicacy in a harsh world where delicacies shouldn’t exist. He hovered over her, taking in her curves, the soft pink of her nipples. They hardened under his gaze.

“Chandler?”

“Yes, your majesty?”

“As your queen, I command that you continue.”

He smiled at that and bent forward, his tongue working its way slowly over each nipple with the infinite care that he gave his candles. She groaned in pleasure again, her hands running through his thick hair. With each lick, he felt her grip tighten, and that simple gesture spurred him on, kissing and biting until finally she lifted his head and stared into his eyes.

“I want you inside me.”

Although his entire body ached for that release, he shook his head. “It is too risky. Wars have been fought for less.” Her face looked hurt, and he smiled, trailing a finger from her cheek, down her collarbone, to her slit where he slowly inserted one finger and then another at her gasp. “But I will not deny you my adoration,” he promised.

With that, he began to work his way back down with his lips next. He kissed the gentle curve of her belly, impossibly soft in a world so hard. “I adore this,” he said. He kissed her golden-red hairs, which smelled as fragrant as one of his flowers. “I adore this.”

When his tongue finally parted her lips and tasted her, she gasped louder than before. In that moment, he was positive that he was the first person to ever lay with her. His queen had chosen him for this moment, and he would not disappoint her.

Deeper and deeper he licked in rhythm to her hip thrusts and moans. Her legs spread, laying almost flat against the wooden floor, and her ankles locked behind his knees for support, as if she were holding onto a plank in the middle of rough seas.

He felt her breath grow fast and shallow. Their eyes met, and she whispered his name. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life as the O her mouth formed as she spoke it.

As his tongue worked, one hand reached up and encircled the point of her nipple. She grabbed his hand and pressed it into her flesh, the fullness of her breast filling his palm. He squeezed and kneaded.

She was close now. He could feel it, the heat building in her belly ready to explode, and the possibility of bringing her to the peak of pleasure made him want her more. He began at the bottom and licked long and sure in steady movements, his other hand massaging her pearl.

It only took a moment before she tensed, her mouth open and her eyes distant, lost in a world of pleasure. A world he had made for her. She screamed, loud enough for half the valley to hear, but he didn’t care. Let them wonder at the sounds of joy bouncing through the streets. The candles closest to them lit, and he stared in amazement as they cracked and sparked each time Bessa felt a new wave of release.

Finally, her back relaxed, and her arm fell to her side in happy exhaustion. A mysterious grin plastered her face. “So. That’s how bards write their songs.”

Her body still trembled softly as he curled up next to her, his belly against her back, his arm around her waist.

For the rest of the night, they took turns touching something new. Something they never considered important. “My earlobe?” she would giggle, the little laughs turning into gasps as Ambrose would pet her ear lobe before dipping his head and licking it, turning slowly to the shell of her ear, turning slowly to the line of her jaw, turning more quickly to her soft lips.

He feathered kisses over her cheeks and temples, delighted at waking in a lover’s arms. While he may have been with women over his travels, they were not like this. They were not affairs of the heart with a night stretched out before them and a shared history stretched out behind them.

Ambrose couldn’t help but marvel at the perfectness of a night spent in her arms, in his bed, yet only touching her skin. They didn’t even need a fire to keep warm, letting the coals die to red embers.

There was such simple joy in a complex moment. Before dawn broke, before reality intruded.