Lusty Gingers And Rusty Drawbridges

It was that damnable red hair, Leif reflected as the cluster of workmen puzzled over the network of drawbridge gears thirty feet below. Twelve summers of peace in the kingdom made for lax routines and little necessity for the drawing it closed each night, only to be let down the following day.

"What's all this fuss about raising the drawbridge this morning?" He did his best not to flinch noticeably as the sound of his wife's voice caught him by surprise, aggravating his already frayed nerves. He'd missed her walking up behind him as he leaned over the parapet.

"Just being cautious," he assured her, attempting to sound off-hand.

"Well, you've been gone a fortnight and promised to take your son hunting today," Lady Mallory's voice dripped with disapproval. "He's been practicing with that bow all summer and first frost almost upon us." Even her pause had a grating quality. "In case it had slipped your attention."

"It hasn't," he muttered sheepishly. As hard as he'd ridden home from the Kingsmeet in the north, still he'd noted how bare the trees had gotten in the short time he'd been away. "I'll take him out this afternoon," he promised. "We won't be going far."

"But all is well?" His wife was no fool. "The kingdom is at peace, is it not?" He could hear the probing shift in her tone.

"Of course, of course," He waved dismissively, watching his men struggle unsuccessfully yet again at turning the large gear of the chain hoist. "Apply some more grease to the upper gear, damn you!" His anxiety got the better of him and he scanned the horizon to the North fretfully. "It's just those Northern lords are all so easily roused." He tried to shrug indifferently. "You never know what will set one of them to offense."

Which was true, even in gentler seasons, but most assuredly after deflowering their only daughter, just weeks ahead of a marriage intended to ensure toll-free access to the coast for her father's timber and barley trade. That sort of thing wasn't easily ignored amongst close allies, let alone rival lords, who were a guest in your castle.

Still, Leif felt his heart leap, and his loins stir, remembering the first sight of Desiree as he'd ridden into the keep on that first day of feasting. High aloft in a tower window, the late autumn sun had caught her hair, making it shine like a new struck penny; bright, clean and full of luster. Her forest green cloak and warm flush of her pale cheeks only accentuated the deep red bounty of her swollen lips and the sapphire twinkle of her playful eyes.

Resist as he might, Leif's gaze was drawn to her whenever she entered a room. Each day the gown she'd chosen was cinched tighter, accentuating the luscious curve of her hips and forcing another half inch of her creamy, swollen bosom over her bodice. There was no mistaking how her eyes held his own, though she'd only turned twenty and he was nearly twice her age. That smoldering intensity in every glance could hardly be mistaken.

Rounding the stairway to his chamber on that last night, there could be no doubt. With an impish grin, demurely lowering her eyes, she loosened the laces of her nightgown, letting it slip down over the ripe, soft curve of her milky breasts to the bare stone outside his door. The soft triangle between her plump thighs lit up with the same copper glow in the torchlight as the locks that fell recklessly around her bare shoulders.

That she'd knelt at his first urging and engulfed his rigid, twitching cock hungrily with her full, red lips, gave him false assurance that she since passed past maidenhood. If her gasp had been sharper than he'd expected as he'd entered her, he attributed to his manly girth being more than she'd experienced before. Her strong thighs, and locked ankles, had urged him desperately to completion and her grinding hips strove against him for every bit of his manhood.

Her tears almost went unnoticed among the slick perspiration covering them once they'd slid apart, spent, on the rug before the roaring fire, but were attributed to knowing that they'd be parted the next day. Only after the third time they'd reached shuddering satisfaction together did she confess that he'd exceeded every hope she'd had for her first time.

"MORE OIL!" He bellowed, unable to resist a furtive look to the North.