Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (39 page)

I work the paddle lightly over his entire body,
which writhes and strains with delight against the silken scarves
tying him tightly down. Once I’ve got every inch of Pemboke’s skin
stinging and burning, I set to work on his cock. I start by working
the foreskin slowly back and forth over the glans, working up some
tension there while simultaneously squeezing his cock at the base
to keep him from coming. Pembroke groans. “Yes, Louise. Oh, yes,
yes. Don’t stop, oh please.” He raises his hips up off the bed,
grinding up against my hand.

I keep right on working the foreskin until it is
slick with sweat and juices. I squeeze the base of his cock even
harder, sending Pembroke’s eyes rolling back into his head in a
mixture of pleasure and pain. Satisfied that I can hold off his
climax for as long as I want to now, I mount him, taking the full
length of his shaft into me all at once. I move up and down, around
and around in a slow, steady rhythm, controlling exactly how much
of his cock goes into me, how hard, how fast. Once I’ve found the
kind of penetration I want I keep moving steadily, starting to
touch myself. I part my lips wide to give Pembroke the best view of
my slick, shiny pussy, which has turned itself into a beautiful,
fragrant wet rose. He stares at me wide-eyed as I ride him hard and
bring myself to orgasm again and again.

“Louise, darling, you are truly a wonder to behold,”
Pembroke sighs.

Then he comes hard.

He comes so hard, in fact, that his seed spurts out
and down the walls of my vag once it’s deposited there, forming a
sticky pool in the soft, furred recess of skin at the base of his
groin, the same place where my cunt rests and grinds against him. I
come one last final time, spellbound as I watch my velvet mound
grow milky, frothy and wet with Pembroke’s dew.

My hips come to rest against Pembroke’s groin as the
last few spasms rock my vagina. Exhausted and spent, I collapse
against his chest and neck, breathing in his musky, manly
scent.

We lay entangled together for a long time, just
listening to each others’ breathing. After a long moment, Pembroke
speaks. “I daresay we make a good team, Lady Louisa of the
Crossroads.”

“Mmmm-hmmmm,” I say into his hair, which smells of
peppermint and woodsmoke. “You haven’t told me much about
yourself,” I say as I gingerly untie his wrists and ankles from the
bedposts. He responds by curling tightly into me like a cat.

“I’ve never been much good at telling stories, I’m
afraid,” he sighs, wistful. “And I’ve been trapped here in
Bellweather Castle for an eternity. Sometimes it’s hard for me to
remember who and what I truly am. Or rather, was.”

I run my finger up and down along his collarbone.
“Well, I know you were an English gentleman once. Still are, in
fact. But what else? And how did you end up trapped here? Were you
kidnapped from your own time, like I was?”

Pembroke stretches his stiff limbs, then leans up
against some pillows. “I’m afraid I’m a rather complicated man,
Louise. From a very complicated set of circumstances. Frankly, I
don’t even know where to begin.”

“Begin at the beginning.”

He laughs. “All right. I’m the younger son of the
Ninth Earl of Pembroke, lord of the most valuable estate in all of
Cornwall. My elder brother Robert was due to inherit the earldom
when my father passed, so he was raised up to be a gentleman. I, on
the other hand, was raised up to be a rake, and a soldier. But the
roles my parents carved out for the two of us didn’t fit our
personalities at all. Robert might have been the elder brother, but
he wasn’t earl material. He was never at all interested in learning
to run the estate or attend to the duties of an earl, including the
frequent business trips to London and quarterly visits with the
King. He wanted to do nothing but gamble, shoot, and chase
women.”

I giggled. “In other words,
he
was a
rake.”

“Precisely. I, on the other hand, wanted my father
to teach me to be an earl.
I
wanted to run the estate
profitably and help the local peasants who worked its lands—not
double-mortgage it to pay gambling debts and keep a half-dozen
mistresses in London, like my brother did. But the cursed law of
primogeniture in Britain—it cares not for personal preferences. No
matter how much my brother might be an irresponsible rake, and I a
decent gentleman worthy of noble rank, the law is the law, and it
favored my brother over me. As the younger son, I had no right to
inherit Elysia at all so long as Robert lived, even if my father
were to decree so in his will. Everything went to Robert, lock,
stock, and barrel. When Father died, I had to go off and fight in
the Napoleonic Wars for pittance pay in order to make my living,
while my brother squandered almost a thousand years’ worth of
wealth playing baccarat. And there wasn’t a damn bloody thing I
could do about it.”

My heart goes out to him. His life sounds like the
plot of every Regency romance novel I’ve ever read, save for the
happy ending. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. But how did you end
up here in the Hall of Harlots?”

Pembroke sighs. “Well, I ended up here because I was
foolhardy enough to think that I could somehow get Elysia back
after my brother squandered it. You see, Lord Verdigris, in
addition to being an immortal time traveler, kidnapper of beautiful
women, and powerful knight, is a bit of a gambler himself. I
happened upon him in the year of Our Lord 1805, shortly after the
Battle of Ulm. I was acting as quartermaster to my small cavalry
unit in the field, trying to procure some riding boots from a local
shoemaker until we could ride back to British headquarters in
Brussels. The man I would later know as Lord Verdigris overheard me
haggling in English with a local German who spoke a bit of the
language—my own German is atrocious—and approached me.

“’You are an Englishman,’ Lord Verdigris said. Of
course I identified myself as such. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’
Lord Verdigris replied. And he was none too polite about it. Rather
crass, I’m afraid.”
I’m puzzled. “Why?”

Pembroke sighs heavily. “Well, the Battle of Ulm
didn’t go well for the British and our allies, the Austrians.
Napoleon defeated us rather handily, I’m afraid. Those of us who
weren’t slaughtered in the battle were left literally scavenging
the mud for the food and clothing we needed to survive. I suppose
the comment was Lord Verdigris’ idea of making humor out of the
situation.”

“I see,” I say, not really understanding. The
Napoleonic Wars were never my historical specialty in college.
Everything after the year 1600 or so is kind of a wash for me.

“At any rate, Lord Verdigris—though I knew him only
as Verd at this time—and I struck up a conversation. He asked me
how I, an obvious English gentleman, ended up scavenging for cheap
leather boots on a stinking battlefield. I explained to him about
my situation as the penniless second son of a now-failing noble
estate thanks to my elder brother’s shenanigans, and Lord Verdigris
made me a rather strange offer. He wagered that if I deserted what
remained of my ragtag cavalry unit and came away with him, that
he’d be able to devise a way for me to regain Elysia for the
Pembrokes once again, free and clear of all mortgages and debts
incurred by my freeloading brother. Not only that, I’d be able to
usurp my brother for the title of Ninth Earl of Pembroke, and
restore the good name of my family and title for all time.”

My eyebrows raise. “Let me guess. There was a
catch.”

Pembroke chuckles. “But of course. And what do you
think it was?”

I shrug. “I have no idea.”

“Lord Verdigris—Verd—challenged me to a saber duel.
I laughed the whole thing off at first, of course. The very idea
that a total stranger I met upon a bloodstained battlefield could
somehow restore the lost glory of the Pembrokes to me was a totally
preposterous idea. But then again, what did I have to lose? I was a
master soldier, having been trained as a youth in swordsmanship by
the greatest swordsmen of the day. And Verd hardly looked like a
master swordsman himself. He was shabbily dressed, in something
that resembled a dirty burlap sack, and his saber was battered and
rusty. So, to humor him, I agreed to his little wager. The
agreement was, if I defeated him, he would immediately secure me
safe travel back to Cornwall without penalty for my desertion, and
set about getting Elysia released from the bank lenders and my
brother’s rightful ownership somehow transferred over to
me—probably by Robert’s death, since that was the only way it could
happen under the laws of the time. But if by chance
he
defeated
me
, I agreed to become his personal
bondservant.

“In my arrogance, I didn’t think there was a chance
in Christendom that
he
would win the saber duel. I thought
for sure I would win, and even if I did, I doubted there was any
chance he would follow through on his outrageous promises anyway.
But I was bored and weary for some amusement after being so long a
solder, so I went on a lark and agreed to the whole folly.”

I can see where this is going. “Let me guess. You
lost the duel.”

Pembroke winces. “Yes, I did. And then some. Lord
Verdigris very nearly killed me.”

I gasp. “Really?”

Pembroke nods. “The man is hands-down the best
swordsman I’ve ever encountered. Which isn’t surprising, since I’m
told he’s had literally hundreds of years’ worth of practice.”

“So you know he’s immortal, then.”

“Yes, I do. And I’ve come to know a great deal more
about Lord Verdigris over the years I’ve been indentured to him.
Like the fact he has a considerable weakness for dominant women in
the bedchamber.” Pembroke pauses, chuckles. “As do I.”

I bat him playfully on the shoulder. “So I’ve
noticed.”

Pembroke sits up, folds his arms across his
barrel-like chest. “Lady Louisa of the Crossroads, I have a
proposition for you.”

“Go ahead.”

“What say you and I join forces in a plot to free
ourselves from Lord Verdigris’ grasp? I believe if we combine my
intimate understanding of Verd’s habits and the Private Guard’s
assets with your considerable talents in the bedchamber, we just
might be able to bust our way out of Bellweather Castle.”

His plan certainly sounds intriguing. There’s only
one problem. “But what would we do once we got outside the castle
walls? Lord Verdigris owns all the land for miles around. We’d just
get captured and brought back. It’s not as if we can travel back to
our own times.”

Pembroke raises his index finger. “Ah, but that’s
not necessarily so. You see, in my many years of servitude to Lord
Verdigris, I’ve also had the benefit of doing some time traveling
with him.”

My eyes fly wide. “Are you kidding me?”

“Of course not, Louise. How do you think I got from
a Napoleonic battlefield all the way back to the twelfth
century?”

I shrug. “I just figured Verd kidnapped you, like he
did me. I got teleported here through some kind of magic men’s
room. I have no idea how it happened, just that it did.”

“Actually, Louise, you understand more than you
think you do. You understand that Verdigris teleports through time
using magic portals. Which is exactly what he does. And teleporting
through magic portals doesn’t require any special magic skills
other than knowing exactly where the portals naturally occur, and
how to turn them on and off.”

Now I’m lost. “But how do you do that?”

“It all has to do with sensing cosmic vibrations,”
Pembroke explains. “I’ve accompanied Lord Verdigris as his personal
servant and guard on a number of his time-traveling expeditions up
and down the epochs of history, and I’ve observed the motions he
goes through whenever he activates a portal very closely. He’s even
volunteered some information on the subject to me a few times. And
yet I haven’t quite mastered the secret of detecting the vibrations
necessary to activate a time portal myself. But you, Louise, with
your heightened sensual skills—I’d bet the barley fields at Elysia
that
you
could detect them easily.”

I’m dumbfounded. “
Me?
B-but I don’t know a
thing about magic, or time travel, or cosmic vibrations, or cosmic
anything!”

“Ah, Lady Louisa, but you do. You know instinctively
how to tap into the most sensitive channels of a man’s body and
make them explode with pleasure beyond description. That’s a kind
of cosmic vibration in and of itself. All you have to do is learn
to tap into these magic portals the same way you do the male
anatomy. Then you can return to New Jersey, I can return to Elysia,
and we’ll live happily ever after.”

I pout. “But if you go back to your farm in England
and I go back to New Jersey, I’ll never see you again.”

Pembroke’s face falls. “I suppose you’re right. And
I would miss you terribly.”

“You would?”

Pembroke takes both my hands in his. “I’ve known a
great many women in my life, Louise. And you are the only one who
was won me over completely, body and soul. If I didn’t know how
much you adore your beloved New Jersey, I’d travel back in time,
have my good-for-nothing brother killed somehow so I could inherit
the estate before he has a chance to destroy it—then I’d marry you
and have you dwell with me in the nineteenth century at Elysia as
my Countess of Pembroke for all eternity.”

I’m almost moved to tears. “Really? You would? Wow.
Wow!”

I don’t know what else to say, so I kiss him. With
tongue. Lots and lots of tongue.

He kisses back. And we don’t come up for air until
both our tongues have done the tango, the cha-cha, the waltz, and
the meringue. When our lips finally part, my whole body is buzzing
with arousal again.

“Well, Louise? What do you think of my little
proposition?”