Page 91 of Paladin's Faith

“I…" he began, and Marguerite put her fingers across his lips to stop whatever incredibly paladinly thing he was about to say next.

“If you shut up,” she said, moving to straddle him, “and don’t argue with me, we can get warm and incidentally have really incredible sex. Or you can keep wallowing in self-loathing and we can freeze to death. Your choice.”

His eyes were a thin ring of ice around dark wells. He swallowed hard, and said, slightly higher-pitched than normal, “Am I allowed to wallow in self-loathing afterward?”

That was either a joke or an unexpected amount of self-awareness. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you,” she said.

She was already out of her clothes, and fortunately he’d removed his chainmail already. She got his pants untied and lifted herself up on her knees long enough for him to wrench them off.

There was no question of readiness. He was already rock hard beneath her. Probably had been since the minute she kissed him. He hissed as her hand closed around his cock—well, no wonder, her fingers were probably like ice. His certainly were as he slid them across her breasts. She could have etched glass with her nipples even if he hadn’t been touching her.

He lowered his head to cover one with his mouth. “Ah!” she said, feeling her breath go out in a gasp. “Sensible. Warming.”

He made a small, amused noise and switched to the other one. Marguerite inhaled sharply and realized that she was in danger of losing control of the situation. And I have no plans to give that up just yet.

She lifted herself up on her knees again, worked him into place, and sank down his length with a purely hedonistic groan. There. Now, let’s see if I can make his eyes roll back in his head…

She found the angle that pleased her the most and rode him ruthlessly while his fingers sank into her hips and he gasped her name. She wasn’t sure if his eyes rolled back or not, because he had them tightly closed, head thrown back.

“Marguerite,” he said hoarsely, “I can’t…I’m going to…”

She smacked a hand down in the center of his chest and growled, “Don’t you dare, paladin.” His eyes snapped open in surprise and he stared up at her. “Not until I’m—ahh!—

done with you.…ahhh…”

A great threat, and she didn’t even last to the end of the sentence. She was too keyed up and her body was too desperate for release. And hell, she’d wanted the gorgeous holy bastard for far too long. Everything clenched suddenly, impossibly tight, and she fell forward against him, shuddering.

He must have felt it—not surprising, people back in Archenhold probably felt that—and taken it as permission because he bucked his hips hard against her, lifting her up and driving her back down, and then, with hilariously desperate courtesy, he said, “Excuse me—” and lifted her up, turning to spend himself away from her body. Polite of him. Probably not necessary, but polite anyway.

Then he curled up around her, no longer cold but deliciously warm. He had the presence of mind to grab his cloak and pull it over them both. It was still damp and steaming gently from the fire, but it held the heat in, and Marguerite fell asleep with her fingers still stroking the roughness along his jaw.

Shane wrapped himself around her, trying to keep the cold out with his own body, and knew that he had made a terrible, glorious mistake.

About five minutes as the crow flies, and about two hours as the crow walked, in a similar shelter partway down the mountain, two people sat as far apart as it was physically possible to sit. The fire box had not been so well stocked and the fire had lasted less than twenty minutes before guttering down to embers.

Finally, one of them cleared his throat and said, “It would probably be warmer if we—”

“I’d rather freeze to death.”

“Fair enough.”

Shane woke with his arms full of Marguerite, which was a marvelous way to wake up. He savored the moment as long as possible, until his lower back informed him that he was on a stone floor and if he didn’t move right this minute, there would be dire repercussions.

He tried to shift unobtrusively, but Marguerite woke immediately. She blinked up at him, down at her state of undress, then said, “Huh!” in a tone that managed to be both surprised and smug.

“Sorry,” said Shane reflexively.

She shook her head. “I’m not. Although I can think of better surfaces to do that on.” She disentangled herself, while Shane tried to rub his lower back in as manly and attractive a fashion as possible.

It was past daybreak and the fire was cold. The sky was clear overhead, and Shane dared to hope that they wouldn’t get rained on again. A bird called somewhere on the hillside, answered by another one, which seemed to offend it. They called back and forth, increasingly outraged, for several moments, while Shane dug through their supplies and produced a slightly squashed loaf of bread and a small, battered apple.

Marguerite felt the hem of her shirt, sniffed it and grimaced. “Well,” she said, “it’s dry, at least. Even if it smells like burnt sheep dung.”

“Mine will, too,” Shane offered. “So at least we won’t offend each other.”

She nodded and stretched to pull the shirt off the clothesline. It did fascinating things to her body. Shane’s eyes traced her body downward, and paused at an unexpected row of lines across her hip. “Are those stretchmarks?”

He immediately wanted to sink into the floor of the shelter at his own tactlessness. “Not that they’re—I’m not saying they’re bad—I just noticed—”

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