Gilt and Midnight Read online

  And then…nothing.

  Frustrated, she stroked harder, pulling on her nipples. Heat rushed through her veins and she sank to the rush-matted floor of the chamber. She pumped her hips upward against her now-grasping touch, and still the sense of something building inside her grew and grew without cease. Without release.

  She could not eat, nor sleep, for the fire consuming her took up so much of her attention. Yet instead of turning her ill, this fever only made her all the more beautiful. She saw it in her looking glass. Her hair was like shining silk. Her eyes, each as lovely as a jewel. Her mouth, ripe and plump and ready for kissing.

  In the past her father had hoarded his gold, but now he received an uncommon summons from the king to pay some taxes to which he’d never before been held. He wept as the messenger carried away bag after bag of clinking coins. Her mother sought the solace of the wine barrel. This was but one day after the dark fairy’s curse, and Mira knew she had to find her completion soon or everything she’d known her entire life would be lost.

  She made it known that she was now entertaining suitors, and as bad news travels fast, so did this. On the fifth day after the fairy’s curse, men had begun lining up outside the gate. Most of them, she assumed, had come for a chance to wet their pricks inside her, though a few of the more intelligent would have known that the man who managed to satisfy her would gain more than a willing cunny in which to spill his seed, but a vast portion of her father’s rapidly diminishing fortune, as well.

  Mira cared little for her father’s fortune. She cared more for his happiness, and her mother’s, for though they had not bred or borne her, she loved them as dearly as if they had. Truth be told, she loved the line of men waiting to fuck her, too, for the fairy had been right about desire being a gift.

  And still, no matter how many men entered Mira’s bedchamber and touched her, no matter how many urged her body to writhe and squirm beneath talented tongues and fingers and cocks, not one of them left her with anything other than emptiness when he’d gone.

  By the tenth day after the fairy’s decree, the line had dwindled as fast as her father’s fortune. The men who now waited at the gate were those a little needier, a little less affluent. Men to whom a pretty wife who’d lain with a hundred men and a bit of a fortune were better than a farm-roughened wife and no fortune at all. Mira took them as she’d done the ones in fine leather and velvet, and like their richer predecessors, none left her complete. One by one, the men left her chamber, grumbling that there could be no man who would finish her.

  “Daughter, don’t kill yourself to find the one,” Mira’s mother urged, voice slurred, dress askew. “A fortune can be re-won.”

  “Tell that to my father,” Mira said from her place in front of the mirror, where she searched her mismatched eyes for any sign of something different. Something new. “He’s the one killing himself, sitting in the counting room enumerating his coins and gnashing his teeth at each one he must relinquish.”

  She turned to her mother. “Both of you believe you can do nothing to change the dark fairy’s curse, but I know I can.”

  Again, she looked at her face. She’d become a woman, with a woman’s secret smile. She touched her bare breasts, the tight pink nipples. The floss between her thighs. The box that would bring her pleasure if only she could find the right key to unlock it.

  “And I want to,” she said.

  Winter eased into spring with little fanfare. Mira’s parents had done little to fight the fairy’s curse. It pained her to see her beloved mother and father give themselves so quickly to despair, and she was determined not to let them wither away. The line of men waiting to sample her beauty had dwindled to nothing, no more than one or two a sevenday.

  Until one day, as Mira sat in the warming garden where the flowers had just begun to show their heads, two men arrived. One as fair as sunshine, the other dark as shadows. They reached the gate at the same time, one from each direction. From her seat on the stone bench, Mira could see them both, but at first neither looked at her.

  “Gerard,” said the dark-haired man.

  “Alain,” greeted the fair-haired man.

  Mira got to her feet. Both had put their hands to their belts, one to pull a dagger and the other a short sword. Neither moved after that, each watching the other, until the dark-haired man gave a slight nod and stepped aside just enough to let the one called Gerard pass. Both of them came through the gate, and both stopped when they saw her.

  “Madame,” said Gerard with a half-bow. “We seek the lady Mira.”

  “Many have sought her,” Mira said. “What makes the two of you any different than the hundreds of others?”

  Alain stood an inch or so shorter than Gerard but still towered tall over Mira. He held out his hand for hers, and she took it at once. “I’ve heard she’s been gifted by the dark fairy.”

  “Everyone knows that.” Mira tugged away her hand, still tingling from his touch.

  “Ah,” said Alain with a half-bow nearly identical to the one Gerard had already bestowed. “But not everyone else has received the same gift.”

  Mira looked at them, from one to the other. “And you have?”

  “Lady,” answered Gerard. “We both have.”

  Most of the other men had arrived intent on seducing her at once. Some had been kind, a few considerate, but none of them had wasted their time with conversation. Alain and Gerard, however, followed Mira into the large dining hall where they set about laying a fire in the long-neglected hearth.

  “Wine, lady?” Gerard’s question seemed more command than request, and Mira found herself scurrying to the sideboard in search of a bottle.

  Alain watched her, his gaze like sapphires. “Where are your servants, lady?”

  “Gone,” Mira said as she poured three glasses of almost sour wine. “My father can’t afford to pay them any longer, and they fear the dark fairy’s taint. My good mother has taken to her bed. And my father has gone mad.”

  She expected the blunt statement to take the men aback, but neither looked surprised. She offered glasses, one to Alain and one to Gerard, and both took them. Gerard drank his at once with a grimace, but Alain waited for Mira to sip before he drank.

  Gerard gave a low grunt and put his cup on the long wooden dining table that had hosted so many guests over the years. “Come here.”

  Mira did at once, though she stopped far enough away from him that he would have to reach to grab her, if that was his intent. Gerard didn’t reach for her. He studied her.

  “You are beautiful,” he said. “The fairy didn’t give you that.”

  Mira shook her head. “No, sir, I don’t believe so.”

  She looked at him. His pale hair fell to his shoulders, loose. He had the sharp features of a hawk and the body of a warrior beneath his simple, solid clothes. She shivered, thinking of his muscular arms around her, of his thick legs pushing hers apart. He would not be gentle, she saw this already, and her pulse beat faster between her legs.

  “Would you have me?” he asked her, his voice low and rough.

  Mira’s mouth parted, and she looked toward Alain, who had not yet put down his glass. “What of your companion, sir?”

  Gerard laughed. “What of him?”

  “You both arrived at the same time. You both want the same thing. How am I to know which of you can provide me with what you need if I don’t sample you both?”

  From another woman these words would have made her a doxy, but Mira had long ceased caring. The dark fairy had gifted her with desire, and it built and built inside her every day without cease. Her mother was trying to sleep away her life and her father had gone insane because of it. She would fuck a thousand men if it meant she’d find the one to complete her.

  Gerard gave Alain a challenging look. “Would that you had traveled a mile faster, brother of my heart. You might have been the one to fill this lady’s bucket.”

  Alain put a hand over his heart and bowed his head to Gerard. “Would that y
ou had traveled but a mile slower, oh my brother. For then, indeed, I might have been the first to reach her.”

  Mira looked at them. They had history, of that there was no question. “You are brothers?”

  Without looking away from Alain, Gerard said, “wWe have different parents.”

  Without looking away from Gerard, Alain replied, “We have fought at each other’s side and won. We’ve shared much, Gerard and I.”

  They both looked at her, but it was Gerard this time who held out his hand. “Lady, take me to your room, and I will give you what the dark fairy promised would save you and your family.”

  Mira, having no reason to decline, took his hand and led him to the stairs. Halfway up, she looked back. Alain stared after them, but only she saw him press his lips to the tips of his fingers.

  Gerard wasted no time with pretty words. He took Mira in his arms the moment the bedchamber door closed behind them. His breath smelled of wine, a heady aroma more tantalizing that the taste of it had been. His mouth took hers without preamble, nudging open her lips to allow his tongue slide inside. Mira gasped into his kiss, and his arms tightened around her.

  “She truly did gift you with desire,” Gerard murmured, tracing the line of her jaw with his mouth. Into her ear, he whispered, “You create it and feel it, both. Do you not?”

  “Yes.” Mira shivered as his large hands roamed her body and cupped her buttocks through the simple linen dress she wore. Without maidservants to wash her clothes and help her dress, she’d gone without a shift or girdle beneath, and it was almost as if she wore nothing at all. “Yes, sir, I feel it.”

  “You want me to touch you, as the other men have touched you?”

  Mira sighed as his hands squeezed and one began tugging up her dress, inch by inch. “Oh, yes.”

  “Tell me, lady,” Gerard said and bit into her soft flesh with a fierceness that urged a cry from Mira’s throat. “Tell me how they fucked you.”

  She told him of men with hard, hot cocks who had used her mouth, her cunt, the tunnel of her breasts, the sweet back passage of her ass. How they had made her feel like she was meant to burst, how she had exploded with pleasure over and over, only to be left aching for more at once. Aching and empty.

  Incomplete.

  “And why should you be different,” she half-sobbed as his roaming hands found her slick crevice and parted her folds to allow one of his thick fingers to slide inside.

  “Because I have to be.” Gerard, one hand still moving inside her, used the other to tear her gown from throat to hips.

  Mira’s breasts thrust forward as she arched her back. She rode Gerard’s hand harder and harder as he thrust another finger inside her. His mouth found her sweetly aching nipples. When he suckled one, she cried out. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. She rocked her hips, seeking release.

  But Gerard would not give it to her. “The others made you come, but none of them finished you.” He growled the words and withdrew his hand so swiftly from her body Mira stumbled. “Stand there, still. Don’t move.”

  She did, though, taking a step on trembling legs toward him.

  “I said,” murmured Gerard in a voice gone low and dangerous, “do not move.”

  This time, Mira stayed still.

  Gerard removed his belt, laid aside his scabbard, pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it unceremoniously to the floor. His body beneath was indeed that of a warrior, scarred and hard, with tight bronzed nipples and golden fleece around them and in a line disappearing into the waist of his breeches.

  Watching her, he eased down his breeches and kicked them aside to stand before her naked. His cock, surrounded by its fluff of amber curls, rose straight and proud. Mira’s pearl beat with the pounding of her heart and her passage tightened in a brief spasm. She moaned, but stayed still as he had ordered.

  “The others. Did any bind you? Beat you?”

  “No!” Shock sent heat souring into her cheeks.

  Gerard stroked his cock even more fully erect. “Turn around and put your hands on the post.”

  His gaze flickered to the foot of her bed. Some of the men had taken her on the floor, or across the table. None had told her to hold onto the bedpost. Mira hesitated, but at the flare of heat in Gerard’s eyes, she did.

  She waited, trembling. Her hair had fallen from its coils and lay across her breasts. Gerard threaded his fingers through it, twisting the gilt and midnight together. His hand covered her breast.

  “Move your legs apart.”

  She did, her muscles tense with waiting. Gerard slid his other hand between her legs from behind. His thick fingers probed her slick folds, finding the bead of her clit and rolling it. Mira pushed her hips forward, wanting more pressure, but Gerard withdrew almost at once.

  When she stilled, he slid his hand between her legs again. His fingers dipped into her wetness and caressed her heat. His cock probed the softness of her buttocks from behind, and Mira pushed herself back against him. Again, Gerard withdrew.

  “Please.” Mira moaned the single word.

  “Please, what?”

  “Please, touch me.”

  “Is that what you asked them?” Gerard bit lightly at her shoulder, and Mira jerked away from him with a gasp.

  “I didn’t have to!” Her chin lifting, she pushed at him. It was like pushing at rock, but he stepped back. Her chest heaved with each breath, and the surprising sting of tears burned her eyes. “They all just did it! All of them just did it!”

  “Perhaps, then, that’s your problem.” Gerard made no move toward her. His cock rose proud and strong in front of him. It begged for Mira’s touch, the heat of her mouth, but she didn’t move toward him.

  “You want me to beg? Is that it?”

  Gerard shrugged and moved to the chair in front of the fire, where he sat without regard to his nakedness. Or hers. This, more than anything, moved Mira to anger.

  “Please,” she said through gritted jaws. “Please touch me, sir. Please fuck me.”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you come here?” She demanded, crossing to him. Fury made her want to strike him, but Mira didn’t dare.

  Gerard looked her up and down, caressing her so thoroughly with his gaze it weakened her legs and tightened her nipples further. “To make you complete. Isn’t that what the dark fairy said you needed?”

  “What did she say you needed?” The words came out broken, edged with glass, on the verge of cruel.

  Quick as the sunshine from which his hair had been woven, Gerard grabbed her wrist. He pulled her forward and put her across his lap like a recalcitrant child. His big hand came down across her buttocks, the smack not hard enough to bruise, though Mira cried out at the sting. Heat spread across her flesh and her hips pushed forward, pushing her cunt against Gerard’s thigh.

  “She told me I needed to complete someone.” His other hand pressed her tight against him so she couldn’t move.

  “By beating me?” Mira cried, voice hoarse, even as her hips rocked.

  “This is not a beating,” said Gerard. “This is an appreciation.”

  Heat covered her buttocks and spread to meet the fire already burning between her thighs. As Gerard’s hand caressed her skin, Mira sagged against him. Her legs parted, inviting him to fill her with his fingers again, but he didn’t, not even when she wriggled and strove to get free of his grip.

  Beneath her, his cock pressed. His breathing had grown harsher, his grip tighter as she struggled. Yet he did nothing but rest his hand upon the heat his spank had left on her skin.

  “I am making you appreciate my touch,” Gerard said in a low voice. “Feel the heat of my hand. Focus on that, not my cock. Not your cunt. Focus on the sound of our breathing. On the brush of your hair against your face.”

  Mira closed her eyes with a grimace. Her hips rocked again on Gerard’s thigh, but without much result. None of the others had done this. All had taken her, some rougher, some with gentler hands, but all had done it.

&nb
sp; Gerard held her until her struggles ceased. Every line of Mira’s body had gone hot, as though he’d drawn a stick from the fire along her skin. She moaned into her fist as his hand shifted, the fingertips brushing the underside of her buttocks. He moved them lower, to tease her bottom lips. He felt how wet she was for him, how his touch had already teased her so close.

  “Please, Gerard,” she whispered. “Please touch me.”

  When at last he did, once more filling her with a phallus created from his fingers, Mira’s cry of relief rang around the room. His thumb rubbed at her pearl while his fingers moved inside her, and the ache that had built inside her, up and up, reached its peak and crashed.

  Mira’s climax washed over her, no, thundered over her, and she jerked with it. She cried out his name, once. Twice. When the throbbing between her legs eased and she caught her breath, Gerard released her from his lap. Mira stood, her hand on his shoulder to keep herself from falling.

  She drew in air scented like Gerard and sighed it out again. She wanted to weep. Her body had succumbed to his ministrations, she had reached her pleasure…and still…

  “I am empty,” she said in a dull voice. She turned from him. She waited for the door to open and close behind him, for her body to cease its trembling. For her breath to fill again with air that smelled of smoke and stale bed linens.

  “Lady,” said Gerard. “Did you think it would take but once?”

  Alain listened for the sound of the lady’s cries as Gerard took her to orgasm. He knew too well the taste and touch of the man upstairs, and his cock rose in his trousers at the knowledge of what he would be doing to the woman. Once, they had shared everything, even women.

  It had been a woman who drove them apart.

  The dark fairy, who had no name any mortal knew, had stalked Alain through the forest and seduced him not once, but twice. She had used his cock for her personal joy, writhing on him and milking him of his seed even as he fought to remember where he was. Who he was. The dark fairy had cared little for Alain’s mind. All she wanted was his penis and mouth. His hands. She’d have continued sucking him dry had Gerard not come looking for him. She’d seduced Gerard, as well, and Alain could still recall the sound of their cries as she’d taunted Gerard into fucking her harder and harder.