At His Majesty's Pleasure Ch. 09

There wasn't any productive point to distracting him now, and Alais didn't even have to read the writing on the wall to see. Certain habits were difficult (almost impossible) to quash, some more than others, and apparently her hesitation to melt in his arms was one of these. A touch of pride still had something to do with it, and while she could now cheerfully admit that his attentions were not unpleasant, to give herself to him without even a parody of the fight felt ... unseemly and thoroughly beyond her fundamental capabilities.

The earnestness of that kiss managed to challenge this notion, but only just. It shouldn't have been like this - was a kiss not merely a physical act, that she should have been able to detach herself from if she tried hard enough? So what was it that sent that tingle up her spine? The principle? The spirit behind the act? The fact that his tongue had slipped right inside her mouth as though it belonged there? If she thought upon it deeply enough, she might have concluded that a mixture of contact and symbolism may have been the culprit... but she hadn't really thought about it at all. Her thoughts were utterly emptied. Dissolved.

She gasped for air as their lips parted, tilting her head a slight angle downwards to revert a bit of the intensity of him. Heat seemed to be blooming all around her, rendering her usual avenues for critical thinking languid and out of order.

He withdrew only after these long moments had crept past, his own expression affected - but not enough to stamp out his self-satisfaction. "How's that for proof?"

Still, she managed, recalcitrant as she was. "That's wasn't - that isn't objective evidence. Not proof," she breathed.

"Not proof?" he echoed, as a familiar smirk tugged at his lips. "Is that not proof?" he said, touching a finger to her flushed cheeks, and then tracing around her soft lips, still parted for air.

"And what of this?" He lowered the palm of his hand to her chest, letting it rest there, so that the rapid beats of her heart could be felt. "I think that's proof enough, don't you? Or do you need more...evidence?"

This was ample warning for another dose; he leaned down again before she could even think of a response. As he kissed her, his hands shifted, smoothing down and finding purchase, so that he might lift her. As her back met the stone wall - a motion only cushioned by the slow-moving waters - he loomed over her, his lips now drifting to her neck, where she had shown herself to be so vulnerable before.

Her heart seemed to have been replaced with the fluttering wings of a hummingbird, and her cheeks felt as though they were glowing with flush. Still, it would've made for poor sport if everything were what they were because he said so. He couldn't control the way a person felt the way he might control their deeds; no one could. Unfortunately, he was not far from the mark when he declared her ... enjoyment. Everything was just too comfortable, her body awash with the warmth of his contact and the thermal springs.

Her legs were wound about his waist, one on either side of him, as those were the only places they could go with him constraining her against the cavern wall. Alais took heady breaths in the sparse breaks where she actually had a moment to fill her lungs back up with life-giving air, and a slight shudder touched her frame when his lips reclaimed the beating pulse upon her neck. She lasted in a silence punctuated with faint gasps where he mouth tickled her, and then she tried to pull away again - it was too fast, too fast.

"No, wait - hang on... for a moment." Her presently liberated hands moved to tug his head away from her neck, which he allowed her to do only reluctantly. Soft palms held the sides of his jaw, the feel of his light bristle scratching at her skin, and she frowned.

"That evidence is completely circumstantial. It could mean anything, like - I don't know, nerves." As though it weren't completely incongruous to her current line of debate, she lay a sneaky, feather-light kiss upon his forehead. It was a distraction, a delaying tactic, but she couldn't help it. "You know?"

"Mm, perhaps," he said. He kissed her, almost passingly, on the nose, a light mischievous thing. "But you're fortunate. I'm something of an expert on this subject, since I find myself surrounded by nervous individuals all the time. It is funny, is it not, how that happens?"

He grinned, awful enough to find humor in the effect he produced in others. "And there's quite a difference between nerves and enjoyment. I think you're exhibiting both." He paused, his smile growing more awful. "But if it is definitive evidence that my lady is after..."

He lowered his hand, brushing past her belly with his knuckles, and traversing to extend two fingers between her legs - slowly, but without any inhibition, watching her all the while. The pads of his fingertips slid seamlessly over her nether skin, so smooth it was now that it'd been stripped of all hairs.

"Much better," she heard him praise. She could even hear his smirk. "Don't you think so?"

"...I don't mind it," Alais murmured stiffly back. She hadn't meant to trade one attention for another, and had spoken from alarm rather than reason - and had not yet been pushed to the point where the throes of passion would have drowned it all out. Unfortunately, it was getting a bit too close for comfort. He had that annoying effect even as he teased - even when he was being horrible. Those poor nervous individuals, she could not help but lament in her wry way.

Her dainty palms seemed to have found the coarse texture of his stubble sufficiently interesting, so there they remained - even as his two fingers (re)discovered the soft flesh between her legs, causing her to instinctively flinch. This time, it was more as a reflex than for an underlying fear of invasion. That telltale wetness, though made less apparent by the surrounding water, would have still had that distinct, slippery, and very slightly more viscous feel to it.

Irrationally, his decision to explore that region even now had her fretting nervously in his hands. Were it possible, she might have jerked away from him in that (unintentionally tauntingly) skittish way. "I think Your Majesty is making fun of me," she said quietly, as though a whisper, her features very serious (though a little compromised - and in her thoughts, Alais bemoaned just how sensitive she was down there, so bare and silky to the touch).

In contrast to her seriousness - and giving her accusations credence - the King was smiling, seeming amused by her nervous fidgets and pleased by the proof he'd discovered. "Make fun of you?" he echoed lightly. Playfully, he touched his nose to hers, giving the diminutive thing something of a flick in the process. "Does that sound like me?"

The confirmation, of course, did not cause him to withdraw his fingers; they lingered there, tauntingly still, before becoming more intrusive, in his casual way. With the same (annoying) experience that had guided him the first time, he slowly began to toy with her, easing two fingers in and then out, feeling ridged flesh in that tight yet soft enclosure, and finding that sensitive nub above to tease with his thumb. It was all she could do not to let sound a pleasurable moan.

"I'd never do such a thing," he continued, in the same tone, as if nothing had changed to disrupt their conversation. He watched her all the while, a smile teased into his lips. "I take you very seriously."

Her hands shifted downwards, seeking purchase upon his shoulders as his fingers entered her. She tensed reflexively around him, and while she could feel herself tightening against the intrusion of even these digits (large and rough as they were), the feeling was still less... heightened than with the previous alternative. Where it did not lack was its precision, with each rub and press of her inner walls sending warm pulsations throughout her limbs.

"Stop," she gasped, instinctively - and not even she was certain if she really wanted him to.

"Oh? But I'm collecting such good..." His finger pressed deeper into her, causing her breath to hitch. "...Evidence."

Lost for words, her breaths grew shallow. The fruits of his effort were writ upon her wavering face like a book, and their faces were still very close. His heavy touches dissolved the remainder of her contesting thoughts. Alais pressed her palm, just below the water, against the face of the rock wall for purchase, in some innocuous attempt to ground herself against the slow burning contentment he so skillfully introduced to her nerves. A few times her eyes closed, when she did not think she could stand it.

But she did see when he withdrew his hand and shifted, and she could also too easily see the intent in his eyes to understand what was next. Suddenly seized with a flutter of panic, she instinctively sought to squirm away, aiming to slip from his reach and back to the sanctity of calmer waters.

By this juncture, however, the King could hardly be surprised anymore by her escape attempts. His hand tightened immediately around her waist, and the other easily pressed her back against the wall with the palm of his hand. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Just - it's a cave," she said, as if that was the only reason her heart was pounding so. "Couldn't we do this somewhere more civilized?" Her hands closed around his larger one, placed between her breasts and so casually pinning her to the wall. She tried to dislodge it (playfully, of course), which she knew to be a lost cause even before she started; his physical strength was so much greater than hers that he didn't even appear to expend effort in resisting her. "I'll just - go on and tell everyone we're ready to leave."

The King only laughed. "No, I don't think you will."

His hands moved, coming to grasp her thighs and spread them open; she gasped a little, again trying to slip away, but there was no fighting his grip.

"But - "

"I like you right where you are."

His hard length was, in a way, validation, but it was still so intense, stretching where she was most delicate and pulling a faint whimper from her throat - even if it did feel wonderfully, wonderfully full at the same time. The emotional trauma seemed very much diminished from the first instance, but the physicality was unchanged. She was still tense with unease, her head burrowing into the crook of his neck for the most ironic solace in the world.

A pleasurable exhale fell from his mouth. "How lovely and tight you are for me, Alais."

It made her cheeks redden yet again. "Don't - you shouldn't talk like that -"

She was cut off as he entered again, his hard length pressing deep into her and filling her up entirely. She felt so violated - and yet, how could violation feel so exquisitely pleasurable? Her fingers grappled his shoulder, sinking tightly.

"No?" He withdrew, only to impale again, and then again, his thrusts causing her to gasp with the force of his rigidity every time. "But you are lovely, Alais."

His motions were giving way to an entrancing friction, the pressure from the surrounding springs adding a strange new element - it was so very warm, the waters flushing her with almost as much heat as the one he was building in her core.

"And you are so very tight." There was no escaping his ravishment - he was too strong, his attentions too intoxicating. Writhe as she would, his hands lay claim over her body, imprisoning her for his taking. But she did pulse and gasp in his arms, her hips bucking and her back arched, reacting to all the passions lancing through her body.

"And you are all mine." One of his hands settled over her breast - conveniently exposed for him, what with how her back had arched. She would have protested, but she was now beyond the ability to form coherent words, and it only felt like one more trespass among the many pummeling her. So too did the way his mouth grazed over her neck, savoring the sensitive skin there with tongue and teeth.

While there was no stopping the quivering ,the pain was now fast swept aside by the tidal waves of something more...powerful, something more heady - it was this feeling that was so enthralling that it might have been what she truly feared. Indeed, describing this pain as being just the same as those previously felt would have been an injustice. This was a pain coupled with an indolently advancing euphoria, a razor blade edge to the already growing intensity. Altogether, she almost did not think she could bear it and had all but surrendered control of her own ability to breathe. While ostensibly (at least, she was trying) less squeamish with her responsiveness than the one night, she was still quiet for a paramour, her elicited cries subdued and softly sweet in nature.

The King was not as rough as he could be, but neither did he slow with her whimpers. Soon he was picking up in tempo and fervor, as heady lust overtook him. The water frothed with his movements, the steamy mists intermingled with their hot breaths. He had enough willpower to slow, just shy of the final catharsis, but this cycle lasted only one more time before he gave in.

With an exultant sigh, he pumped deep into her, and a few moments later, she felt that culminating sensation of warmth washing over her like a tidal wave. Involuntary spasms and trembles burned through her body, and she gripped him tightly until it slowly ebbed away.

She took the next moments to catch her breath, her palm bracing daintily upon his chest as she eased back against the stone wall. Reality began to settle back, and she was beginning to find that she could think again. Without the mind terrors, those self-imposed, psychological horrors of being despoiled against her will, this... this was not bad (to say the least), if still overwhelmingly intense. It was one thing to think herself mentally prepared; it was something else to actually begin to understand his outlook in this. The compulsory stripping in a cave, unfortunately, would still take some getting used to.

The waters about them, fraught with so many ripples from their exertions, finally began to still.

The King's breaths still came heavily, though that was not enough to keep the cocky look from his face. "So. Was that proof enough?"

Alais fixed him a mildly petulant look. "I'm about... sixty... fifty-seven percent convinced," came her begrudging reply. All in good sport.

"But this was still impractical," she added. Because well, it was. They were going have to leave, after all, and part of her lacked any desire whatsoever to move an inch from the comfortable waters. To be fair, it wasn't exactly the wall that was annoyingly comfortable.

She absentmindedly ghosted her ring finger along the scar upon his face. It was thick and knotted under her delicate touch, marking him from temple to jawline, and it was this (though not only this) that contributed to the vaguely dangerous cast of his features. There were other marks upon his person, but this was certainly the most prominent for its size and position. It crinkled a little as he smiled, mischievously. "That's unfortunate. But I have faith that I'll be able to convince that remaining forty-three percent. Something to work on, for the rest of the time we're here."

He wasn't able to summon even a humorously-inclined look of reluctance, at that. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, a gesture that would have seemed affectionate were it not for it being the King who did it.

There was a pause, as he looked over her. "I enjoy your theatrics, Alais," he said, letting his knuckles ghost her cheek. He looked amused. "I just hope you don't think to actually convince me. You will be sorely disappointed."

She answered with a benign smile. "I'm not trying to convince you."

As much as he might lord his ownership over her, he clearly lacked any substantial knowledge of just who she was. That was fine. They had known one another for less than a month, and it suited her purposes to be, essentially, little more than the stranger whom he impulsively elected to wed. He did not know her; he would never know her well enough to understand the things she did, the logic coursing behind them, even if he knew not to trust her. Obviously, it had never been within her (nor any sane person's) expectations that he could be convinced of her love for him by the end of today. Her purpose was far more intricate than this - and versatile.

Therefore, there could not be a single breach in her veneer. For the purpose of the day, for now, Alais did truly adore her husband, this most handsome and powerful king, regardless of whether he believed it. Belief over the short term did not matter. A lack of belief could either be worn down, or eventually erode into something less comfortable.

His smile was enigmatic in turn; it was unclear if he took her words at face value. "I do appreciate your change of heart," he said, lightly. "It'll be for the better."

When they left, it was to cooler air and that sense of heaviness that comes with the loss of buoyancy. The King insisted, playfully, on toweling her down ("Are these towels sufficient for your need? They did live up to your grand expectations?"), before they dressed and set back for the cavern entrance.

It was just past dusk by the time they returned to the lodge, and the fresh air had already done wonders to her springs-induced lethargy. It was still somewhat grating, having to step out of that cave to the escort of those who would have rationally deduced what exactly occurred between their king and queen, in spite of the way their skillful and well-practiced unassuming veneers appeared to deny it. Her desire for privacy was apparently not something that could be helped, even in all this glorified play-pretend. Thus, the beginning of the trek involved a touch of abashed silence from her part, but that was nothing that more "the boar, unbearably bored, bore boringly unto the bear" rhymes could not help.

From that point on, she innocently brushed her hand against his whenever it seemed like a suitable opportunity. Slipped small and fleeting passes at him whenever their eyes caught - and occasionally making silly faces when no one else was looking. In stark contrast to all previous nights, Alais seemed a bride in perfect bliss; therefore, the way she continued to brew her own tea (good for digesting, she would explain if so asked, and something she was very particular about) before the dinner like clockwork. She had missed it yesterday due to ostentatious illness, and it was only natural for the odd quirk to persist from this point on.

Several of the maids were still detectable in their confusion, though none seemed excessively bothered by it. Was this not better for them?

"The cook must have worked tirelessly," she observed upon laying eyes on the suckling boar, painted with sauce and spice and a vibrant arrangement of peppers laid about it. It did look considerably more palatable now than during its death throes - and in such little time too. "Will he be having some as well?" She turned her gaze to her husband almost hopefully.

Gracious, virtuous, and kind were three more obvious things she'd decided she must be, and she knew how to play them oh so well.

The King was capable of being indulgent too. She didn't know how long it would last, but as of now he seemed inclined to spoil her, and to be fair to him, did a fine job of it. "How thoughtful of you. If my lady wishes it, it shall be done," he replied to her request, and instead of merely sending a plate down to the kitchens, went so far as to invite the good cook (who was understandably nervous at first upon arrival) to sit at their table and dine with them together.