Page 3 of The Stalker

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She sat up and climbed into his lap, both of them working to open his jeans and bring his cock out. He steadied himself with one hand, the other on her waist, and she sank down slow, slow, relishing the stretch, the moment when she was full and her lungs and heart stopped working, like her body had to take a second to acknowledge that he was inside her, where he belonged.

“Oh,” he said, a wounded gasp against her cheek. He kissed her there, sucked a little love bite along her jaw. “Darling.”

“I know.” She threaded her fingers into the weave of his braids, wrecking them, her elbows braced on his shoulders for leverage. She lifted up a fraction, just a little, and sank down again. Not wanting to pull off too far, wanting to be joined completely.

Their bare stomachs were pressed together, her aching nipples crushed against his chest. Skin was so important, the heat and scent and vital life in it.

He nuzzled at her ear and murmured a wordless question, a little inquiring animal huff.

She answered in kind, the sound pressed to his temple.

He gathered her close and laid her down on the sweatshirt, pulling her legs even tighter around his hips. Kissed her mouth, wet and hungry, and withdrew almost all the way, slid back in on a strong, sure thrust that lifted her back off the forest floor.

He fucked her with the sureness of long habit, but it was always sweet, always slick, and wicked, and perfect, as essential as breathing. She clamped down on his shoulder with her teeth, gripped his ass with both hands, growled at him.

He growled back, his thrusts frenetic, his breath hot against her throat. Just like animals, clawing and straining and whimpering, leaving dark crescents in one another’s flesh.

She bit down hard when she came, the copper tang of blood seeping through his shirt. He returned the favor, his shout muffled against the side of her throat.

He soothed the mark with his tongue, after, as they came down from the peak. Their hearts thundering together, his cock softening inside her. They could go again, if they wanted, but not here, in the woods. For now it was just nice to bask a little, breathe in the sex and sweat smell of each other. Be content in the knowledge of each other, their bond.

Finally, groaning a little, he slid off and stretched out beside her, hand making idle patterns across the flat of her stomach.

She turned her head to smile at him and found him smiling back, his expression soft and a little spacey. She loved him like this, after sex, when he looked most vulnerable.

“Happy birthday, baby,” Annabel said, reaching to trace his smile with a fingertip.

Fulk bit playfully at the end of her finger. “How does it feel to be married to an old man?”

“Same as it always has.” Her heart throbbed, warm and heavy and wonderful. “Amazing.”

~*~

Fulk le Strange, the first Baron Strange of Blackmere, lived in a converted attic space at the top of a sprawling Victorian house in Nowheresville, Georgia with his baroness, Annabel. The storm had rolled in on their walk back from Walgreens and lightning strobed beyond the high dormer windows. The lights flickered, a branch dancing on a power line somewhere. If they lost power, they wouldn’t need to light the candles scattered along the plate rail at the top of the wainscoting – they could see just fine in the dark without them. But it was a lovely aesthetic.

Speaking of candles…

Anna pressed three into the center of the chocolate birthday cake she’d baked earlier, grinning ear-to-ear as she struck a match and lit them.

“Darling, I neither want nor need a birthday cake,” Fulk protested. “It’s bloody ridiculous.”

“Birthdays are not ridiculous,” she said, giving him a stern but loving look. God, he loved the sound of her voice, still, after all this time. He loved her little pixie face, soft in the glow of the candles, the dark spill of hair down her back. The glimmer of his mother’s diamonds in her ears. “Especially not landmark birthdays.”

“But, darling…”

“Hush and blow out your candles.” She slid the cake plate across the table toward him.

The candles were blue, number-shaped. A seven, a five, and a zero.

She said, “Happy seven-hundred-and-fifty, handsome.”

He smiled, despite himself, and blew them out in a single breath.

~*~

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