Episode 98: The Sexy Queen (Greg)

He hadn’t been this turned on in years. Usually he was better at ignoring this side of himself, of being above base human instincts.

Right now, he wanted her.

The first time she’d touched him, her hand on his thigh, had been bad.

This time was distracting, even though – or because – her hand was only on his shoulder. There was nothing sensual about that. There kind of was, but it had to be read into and presumed. There were other possible interpretations.

She pulled her hand off. Even worse. He wanted her. Couldn’t hurt to try.

“Would you like to stand out in your current clothes,” she asked him, “or something a bit more fitting for the occasion?”

He couldn’t figure her voice out. It was like silk and sandpaper and a low flute, all at the same time. Like a cat’s tongue.

Mmm.

Hello, there, I love you.

He struggled to refocus his thoughts. This wasn’t like him, to get caught up in a woman. All his life, he’d only been with Molly, and there had been plenty of opportunities to be unfaithful. He just wasn’t into bullshit that complicated his life.

Simple, straightforward, hot.

She was hot. Not just attractive, but her body seemed like it was made out of fire. Hot, sexy, pregnant, curved fire. And her eyes, and her voice…

He hadn’t answered her yet. That was because his brain had turned to pudding.

“You don’t think I look dashing in these?” he asked her. He raised one eyebrow while he said it, because the jeans and the sweatshirt looked bulky and made it look like he had a spare tire.

Dashing. Who said dashing anymore? Dead movie stars.

Hello, gorgeous. I hope that every time you look at me you think of death and spare tires.

She laughed. Maybe she watched old movies? Or she was just laughing at his outfit, or taking dashing literally to mean running away, which he was guilty of attempting. He wasn’t sure how layered her sense of humor was.

“You’re dressed for cold,” she observed, “and this is a desert.”

He laughed. He wasn’t dressed for cold, he was dressed in clothes that would be unmemorable, in San Francisco at least, and would say Don’t bother me.

Blending in, here, would be impossible in these clothes.

“I’d appreciate something more appropriate,” he agreed.

She took his hand – she took his hand! – and moved them by magic to another place. A blue carpeted room with a long table and puffy important people chairs. Greg thought the back of them was probably higher than his head would be, sitting, which would make him look like a little kid.

A drunk Russian kid. With a light beard.

“This way is faster,” she explained.

Her touch zinged all the way up his arm. He was worse than a pubescent boy at a cheerleading competition.

“And no one has to see you with the strange man,” he teased.

He got it. He’d felt up her doctor kid and argued with her and been an asshole, and he looked like a drunk Russian kid.

“Everyone has already seen me with you,” she pointed out. She wore a slim, feline smile.

“One arrogant teenager is not everyone, last I checked, even if he thinks he is.” The kid was actually really nice, and Greg felt a little bad about the leg touch thing. Only a little, because the kid was pretty arrogant given that he was sixteen.

Then again, how many sixteen year old boys could do that kind of healing? Maybe he had the right to be arrogant. Greg had so much to learn about this world and its occupants, especially the one who stood beside him.

She laughed. She seemed to like the flirtatious arguing as much as he did. This was killing him. His dick was trapped between his leg and his jeans and it was agonizing. Hot and tight without any relief.

“I meant everyone who was outside near us,” she said, with another laugh. “You didn’t notice?” She must mean the people in the garden. He’d been kind of aware there were people there, just like he was kind of aware there were bees there.

He couldn’t think. If he was in danger right now, he wasn’t even sure he would notice. “I only have eyes for you, I’m afraid,” he admitted.

Her skin seemed to light up for a second, even though that was impossible. 

She opened a door, which led into an expansive room with a glass dome ceiling, an enormous bed, and an array of furniture along walls. Her bedroom. She’d brought him to her bedroom.

She passed him some clothing that was more coarse than anything he was used to and looked kind of medieval, if he had to estimate a time period.

Apparently boxers weren’t a thing here. Commando all the way. He wondered if that applied to women too.

“This should do,” she told him.

“Whose clothes did I steal?” he tried to joke. He didn’t even know if she was married, what the rules here were, anything.

“I had a spare set dropped off while we were working. Do you want to shower before?” she asked. She walked over to a dresser and began removing things she would need, presumably for this wedding for her son.

He nodded his head, and she pointed to a door on the far wall. “The bathroom is through there,” she told him.

“Thank you,” he said. He stood there for a minute, debating. He was pretty sure he was reading her right, but if he wasn’t he’d feel like a total ass.

He already felt like an ass anyway. Nothing to lose here except a fun time.

With a deep breath, he stripped his clothes right there in her bedroom. Either she’d go for it, or she’d have something memorable to laugh about later. Or he was about to get to discover how to break out of her prison, if she had one.

She looked at him the way he kept accidentally looking at her, with ravenous eyes that wanted to consume him from across the room. Her skin did that almost-glowing thing again.

“I’m waiting for someone,” she said in a gentle voice.

Well, he’d tried.

“But it’s complicated,” she added, as her eyes appraised him again. “I do have tonight, though.” 

Tonight. All night, it sounded like, except for the hours the wedding would consume.

“We’re all waiting for someone,” he countered. “I find it’s better not to focus on the details.”

Like how until yesterday he’d been waiting to die so he could see Molly in some version of heaven he didn’t actually believe in.

He walked into the bathroom. Either she’d follow, or they had less time than he thought. Or she just wanted him clean first. He was coated in blood, so he wouldn’t blame her for that.

She followed. She’d undressed on the way and her coconut skin, with the curve of her belly that held her baby, her breathtaking blue eyes focused on him as she stepped closer to him in the bathroom.

He had a second of panic – what if she was married? Her husband could come in and kill him. She was probably married, why wouldn’t she be? She was pregnant. In his experience, most pregnant women were involved with someone. 

Then she stepped into the shower and held her arm towards him, inviting, and his dick took over.

Water began to rain down on them – not from the showerhead, but from the air above them. It was pleasantly warm – not hot like a shower, but like a summer rain. He stared up at the ceiling for a minute, distracted, but it was definitely something she was doing. There were no holes to indicate that there was a tank of water over them, or anything spraying them from nearby.

He took her in, whatever she was besides stunning and enigmatic and captivating. “You have an impressive set of skills,” he told her. 

The smug smile she gave him was utterly perfect.

He cupped her shoulder in the palm of his hand before he trailed his fingers down her arm, his gaze on her face. A second later, she ran her hand down his front. Her hand was hot. He clasped it in his hand and met her eyes.

She closed the distance between them, as best she could. Her massive watermelon baby belly forced their bodies apart in the best areas, but there was something so alluring about the shape of that curve, the way her body complimented it.

She lifted his chin, so that his eyes moved from her body to her face, and kissed him.

Ahhh. He’d needed this. 

He ran his hands all over her body, getting a sense of every curve. He watched her eyes to see which touches she responded to, and did them more. This night would be memorable for her, he wanted to be sure of that. If she was waiting for someone, who knew how long she’d been alone. Not more than a few months, but still.

He’d gone a year without intimacy and look at how he reacted now, like a pheromone-crazed moron.

When his hands reached her belly, he pulled away from the kiss. “When are you due?” he asked her.

“About ten weeks,” she said. She didn’t seem that interested in that line of questioning.

He slid his hand down the center of her belly and between her legs. She was so warm, so ready for him. “It’s sexy,” he breathed against her ear. He moved his fingers against her. “Do you need a massage later?” he asked. He knew pregnant women got all sorts of pain. “Do your feet hurt?”

Why was he thinking about this now?

He was terrified, that was why. He’d never been with anyone but Molly, and now he’d assholed himself into a magic shower with an overheated pregnant woman he didn’t even want to try to get out of his mind.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said and then he did something with his fingers that made her moan and press her lips against his. He moaned into her mouth. A year of solitude had caught up to him in the most demanding way.

Her skin glowed. He thought it looked like his skin glowed too, but he didn’t care. He kissed her body, drinking in the taste that was only her while that water she rained ran down his hair and onto him.

Maybe it was just his body talking, but she was so much more than she seemed to be in the barn. He wanted her – all of her, not just her body, but that look in her eyes when she was amused with herself. Who she was, where she came from, who she waited for and why…everything.

Fuck the shower. He picked her up and carried her to that enormous bed in her room.

It had some kind of mattress that worked like a trampoline almost, so that when he pushed against her the bed pushed her back. He kissed her and sank into her with a shared gasp, and he watched in shock as they lit up the room together, glowing with the magic of this place.

As soon as she settled against the bed – way too soon for his taste, because he could have kept going all night – he started her massage. He knew they had limited time before her son’s wedding and he wanted her to be relaxed, as pain-free as possible so she could enjoy the wedding. He worked his hands all over her torso, kneading the knots out of each muscle before he moved to her feet.

When he was done, he flopped onto the mattress beside her. He loved this bed, partly because of its tendency to rebound and partly because of the woman who lay on it with him.

She pulled herself closer to him, resting her head on his chest, and letting her fingers trail through the loose curly hairs. “Thank you,” she whispered against him.

He laughed, because she was thanking him. “The pleasure was all mine,” he insisted, arm around her. “And I’m not just saying that.”

She writhed a little in his arms until she fully faced him. “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” she teased, pointing out that he wasn’t the only one who’d enjoyed himself.

He laughed and caressed her shoulder. He hadn’t expected this, but he wasn’t complaining and he definitely wasn’t about to give it up.

“Have you looked in a mirror yet?” she asked

He wondered what he’d see if she did. Maybe being here had changed him somehow, or maybe he still had blood smeared all of his face from being brutally mauled by a dragon. “I was distracted in the bathroom,” he murmured. Looking in the mirror meant getting up and leaving her side, which he wasn’t in any rush to do. “Should I?”

She kissed him. “You should.”

So he pulled himself away from her until he sat upright, and then crossed the room toward the bathroom. He wasn’t used to being naked around anyone he barely knew, let alone crossing a whole room naked, in front of her.

He almost laughed, because he hadn’t cared about that before they’d had sex. The self-consciousness hadn’t even been overruled; it hadn’t existed.

He grinned at her and strutted across the rest of the room like a pecking chicken. He was in the bathroom before he heard whether or not she laughed, so he decided she did.

In front of the mirror, he stopped. He didn’t need to see himself acting like a naked chicken, he had a pretty good idea what that would look like (bad). 

Then he stopped even more, because he was young again. He looked just like he had around when he’d graduated high school, the summer he and Molly got married. He was young again, somehow.

He looked down at his body, and sure enough it was as young as it looked in the mirror. He was fit before today, but he still had some of the natural changes that came with aging. This body was muscular and lean and…young.

He stepped back into the bedroom. She’d propped her head up on her hand and lay on her side like a sexy cat. 

“Sleeping with you makes people younger?” he asked.

She definitely shouldn’t have been the one thanking him. It was even more absurd now.

She laughed. “I did that outside. The forever is a long time comment. Our life expectancy is over eight thousand years.”

Outside. So he’d been trying to figure out how to get her in bed and she’d been helping him have a longer life.

“What are you?” he marveled.

She sat up, languid. “A fairy. Queen of the Dells.”

In Greg’s book, fairies were little tiny people with wings and squeaky voices because they were so small. She’d made him young. She had a dragon and glowing skin and she was a fairy. A smug smile crept onto his face; he’d just slept with a fairy. Not a generic fairy, but a fairy queen.

He would have been more smug, but there was something genuine and vulnerable about her. What he wanted to do was get to know everything about her. Never leave this room, either.

He reached for her hand and let gravity and friction hold it in place against his palm. “I know,” he started. He breathed in. This was fast. He didn’t think he’d regret it, but it was still fast. “You’re waiting for someone,” he said. “But until he comes I can be here as much as you want.”

“I may abuse that,” she warned. She slid her hand down his chest and belly and took him in the warm furls of her fingers. “But,” she said, pulling away, “I really do have to be on time. I’m performing the ceremony. And I am fond of my son. Jay will be there too.”

Jay.

He was going to meet his son who had been missing for six years. 

Good thing he’d gotten laid first. He’d focus better that way.

“You weren’t kidding,” he accused. He wondered if he’d like Jay, if Jay would like him. It didn’t matter. Jay was seventeen, he’d been on his own for years. He didn’t need a dad in the way that Philip would.

“I was not, on any of those counts,” she said, serious.

He wanted her again. It was intense. 

“I’ll try not to rob you for a few days,” he joked. He reached to the dresser top, where she’d set her clothes, and passed them to her.

“Thank you,” she said with a grin. She set them aside and got up from the bed, passing him his clothes. “I’m actually dressing up this evening. My children seem to marry young. I have a dress made for each child’s future wedding on their sixteenth birthday. Fortunately, in this case; he only decided to marry her a few hours ago.”

That wasn’t much warning. Greg frowned, wondered how long they’d been dating before the marriage decision. How it worked, having a pre-made dress and being halfway through a pregnancy.

“Young and fast,” he commented. He wanted to support her even more now, because that level of speed-planning wasn’t easy. Some people made a ton of money doing that kind of thing. “What do you need me to do to get ready for this?”

“I have no idea where they get it from,” she joked, about the young and fast comment. He laughed. Whirlwind might have been a more accurate comment about their little encounter. She slinked into a dress made of some kind of shimmery blue stretch fabric that looked like late evening water, just as the sun went down. The dress fanned out from her hips and dropped to the floor, where it darkened to navy blue before printed licks of orange flame rose up from the hem.

It was a gorgeous dress. It suited her, and the stretchy fabric accommodated her pregnancy belly just fine.

He wanted to have sex with her again, while she was wearing it. Later, probably, if he remembered long enough to not just strip her in the heat of the moment.

“I don’t need anything – you helped decorate,” she reminded him. “I would like to walk through and ensure everything is completed. And the man that brought you here needs to be informed that his son is getting married. Would you enjoy that honor?”

That asshole, Mister Stay-Here-Or-The-Dragons-Will-Eat-You, was her ex?

“I would be happy to tell him,” Greg assured her. He tried to keep any kind of telling expression from his face. God, he wanted to rub that man’s nose in it a little. 

He put on the rest of the strange outfit – she had to help him figure out how to make the tunic balloon out in a masculine way and lace the drawstring of his pants.

He looked at her eyes when he was dressed, generally pissed at Mister Divorce for hurting her, for dumping him in a barn full of ferocious man-eating dragons. “If Mister Waited-for isn’t around in a few weeks,” he offered, “and you need that kid to be an heir…” he trailed off.

Was he really going to casually propose to a queen he’d just met a couple of hours ago?

Yes, yes he was. He already had.

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