Broen Shield

Chapter 5

Blue hadn't seen Galen since the night she left home. She slipped out of her room just before midnight­­-- a time when every farmer in the world should be asleep-- crept down the long hallway barefoot, and past the room her younger sisters shared. Blue tiptoed her way across the floorboards lifting her knees up and stretching to avoid the creaky floorboards.

Clover got caught every time she tried to sneak out of the house, but Blue never did. Of course, Clover never lifted a hammer in her whole seventeen years, and Blue help her papa build the second-floor extension.

The boards Blue laid down did not squeak.

Papa had erected the stairs though, so she lowered herself hand under hand over the bannister and dropped to the first floor.

She grabbed her boots from under the stairs and took two steps past the hearth's orange glow.

"Going to meet that Hunter, again?"

Shit...

Blue turned slowly toward the kitchen. Daisy, her littlest sister at fourteen, sat at the table, embroidery hoop in her delicate fingers. "What are you doing up, Daize?"

"Trying to finish the cloche for your wedding." She snorted a watery laugh. "Guess I shouldn't bother, huh?"

"Seth is gonna marry Clover." Blue touched a work callused hand to her sister's hair. It was flaxen and fine as spider webs. All three girls were blonde with wide, blue eyes like their mother. The younger two were fortunate enough to inherit her delicacy of features and form as well. Her beautiful baby sisters.

"Oh, but he's promised to you." She clutched at her big sister's hand. Daisy wasn't as fair as Clover, the second prettiest girl in the village, but she was the sweetest girl for three leagues in any direction.

"Clover loves him, and he her." Blue patted Daisy's cheek

. And I want to be more than a farmer's wife.

"That's not fair!" Daisy shot to her feet-- Blue caught the chair before it clattered to the floor-- hands notched into her thin waist, indignant top of her head barely reaching her sister's chin.

She grabbed Daisy's shoulders. "Hey, promise me you won't tell papa. Not for three days, at least."

By then, Seth will have done right by Clover and I'll be in the capital.

Daisy nodded, tears already spiking her lashes.

"I sold my cow to the tinker."

Please don't cry, please don't cry

, Blue thought.

"Your dowry cow?" She started crying in earnest. "You're not coming back..."

"Hush." Blue hugged her.

"You have to write me, Blue."

"Daize..."

Daisy pulled away, pretty cheeks red and blotchy. "Promise me."

"Daisy," Blue shushed her. "I will, I promise, but you can't read."

"I'll learn." She squared her shoulders, hurriedly pulled her embroidery hoop apart, and shoved the unfinished linen in her big sister's breast pocket. "Better go before papa gets up. Love you, Bluebelle."

"Love you always, Daisy Mae."

Crisis averted; Blue snagged her pack from the wood pile and-- after a moment's hesitation--her favorite axe before darting into the forest.

The Wizard's Woods, Grandma Moss always said, were so named for a wizard who lived there before the Last Great War. Blue'd never seen a wizard, nor a tower, nor any manner of magic in the densely packed pine forest. Black Hells, she'd never even seen a man with a grey beard in amongst the trees.

But she did see, this midnight hour, the welcome yellow glow of Galen's campfire winking in the inky darkness.

As she stepped into the little clearing, the huntsman greeted her with a "'ello, luv."

You don't mean it, not really

, Blue thought. He never hid that he had other girls in other villages. Galen was only honest lust and genuine affection.

She didn't love him either. But she enjoyed his gap-toothed smile and broad body and wide cock. The quiet confidence of his patient hands eased the loneliness that gulfed inside her.

She dropped her pack and axe; he rose to standing.

Blue met him halfway with a ravenous kiss. His full, black beard rough against her cheeks. Chest hard against hers. Lips soft and moist and tasting like pipe smoke and mead.

Her hands dove into his hair and his cupped her fine, wide arse. She wrapped her legs around his hips.

And they were falling backwards into his bedroll.

Their foreheads thunked together.

"Hello, Galen," she panted into his mouth. "See you've missed me."

He raised strong fingers to the knot forming between his eyebrows. "Yer gon ta kill me one o' these days, lass."

"But you'll die happy." She peppered kisses across his throat.

"Still be dead though." He tried to look cross. Mouth turning down at the corners. Brown eyes narrowing.

"Worth it." She closed teeth around his earlobe and tugged.

"Aye." Galen grinned and rolled her beneath him. He always touched her like she might break. No busted seams on her shirts. No bruises on her skin.

Just lingering kisses against her face. Her bare breast. On the pounding heart beneath her sternum. To her navel.

Galen pulled her trousers open and down with his gaze locked on her eyes. On the unbidden tears leaking from their corners. The rapid rise and fall of her chest between them. And then his thick fingers were between the soaked spread of her thighs. First, thumb just pressed against her clit. Then, one finger slipped inside.

Air full of the slick, wet sound of her cunt. A second. He curled them. Tight and full inside her. A third finger twisted a whine from her throat. Burn and stretch feeding, redoubling the need gnawing insider her. The heel of his hand ground into her clit and pulled an orgasm through her like an arrow aflame.

"Galen..." Blue whispered his name and wrapped her hand around his cock. Familiar, hard, and scalding hot.

His dark chuckle was lost inside her mouth as he kissed her. Parted her lips with his. Dragged his tongue across the roof of her mouth. His big body blocked the starry sky, arms braced either side of her shoulders. Hips working his cock inside her. Wide enough to catch and burn even as wet and stretched as she already was.

Blue's breath caught on the "Perfect" in her throat. Full and thick and safe. The carefully controlled roll of his body above hers, inside hers. They called it the little death, the working women of Broken Shield, but her body just sang Alive, Alive, Alive.

Galen was gentle, so gentle, but she felt him everywhere. Like desire had hollowed her body to make room for the broad roll of his cock. "Close," she choked. Almost sobbed into the hot edge of his jaw.

"I know, luv." He dropped to his elbows. Locked his hands to her shoulders.

She drew her knees up his thickly muscles ribs. Pushed back. Chasing the molten lead of desire. The sudden weight of him against her chest, against her cunt. Galen ground forward, deep as her body allowed and rocked hard. Trapping the throb of her clit between them.

Red stars burst behind her eyelids with her orgasm. Matched by the boiling flood of Galen's release a moment later.

He laughed against her sweaty temple. Peppered kisses across her forehead and nose until he found her mouth. Kiss chaste. As chaste as it could be with his cock thick and damp against her thigh. His spend still inside her. "Nearly murder'd me this time, lass."

His eyes were luminous in campfire light. Topaz curtained in dark lashes. Blue kissed him back. Chasing the taste of sweat and longing on his lips until chastity melted into the softest, sated want. It wasn't love, but it was close enough that tears again beaded on her lash line. Galen chased them away with his mouth.

The feathers of his beard tickled her collarbone. But her soft giggle cut off as he reached her breasts. Sucked one nipple into his mouth. Rolled his tongue against the the taut ache. Captured her other breast in a gentle palm. Rasping callouses drew the pulse from her clit in waves up her body.

Alive, too much, the spark of life in the hollow of her pelvis.

Blue wanted to close against it.

But her thighs were pressed too wide by his chest.

Galen looked up at her small, desperate whimper. His expression was too dark, too incandescent to be called a smile. "So beautiful." He licked down her sternum. "Too precious for my rough hands." Galen grazed teeth across the jumping muscles of her stomach. Lust's quiet glow flared to an inferno. The nerves of her body sparking where they touched. Galen's praise tinder to a smoldering fire.

"A fucking miracle, luv. You are a fucking miracle." He paused so that he breathed the words against the grasping hunger of her cunt. Galen urged her again, and again into that shuddering red world. With tongue.

With hands.

And finally, with his body beneath hers. Reverent. And dear.

There was no more meaningful conversation until first light blushed at the horizon.

"Ye just left?" Galen asked. Still naked in his bedroll, he'd turned onto his side, head propped on hand, to watch her dress. Sunlight loved her skin, burnishing heavy breasts and the deep curve of her waist rose gold.

"What should I have done?" Blue hitched trousers over her thighs. "Marry the lad who's put a babe in my sister?"

"So, the little twat gets rewarded for layin' down with the wrong sister." He sat up, blanket falling to his waist, and scrubbed at his face.

Laughing, Blue abandoned her tunic and crawled into his lap, knees on either side of his hips. She twined arms behind his neck. "And you're laying down with the right one?"

"Damn straight." His hands slid up her back and he pressed his face to her collarbone. "Ye'll be careful. Right, luv?"

Not if I can help it

, she thought and pressed him back. This time, when they slid their bodies together, it felt like a proper good bye.