Part 7: link


    Arthur climbs back into the bed, snuggling against her now, his head on her chest.
    “Shit,” he suddenly says, getting up again.
    “What?” she asks, sitting up as well, holding the sheet to her chest.
    “Have to pee,” he says, wandering to the bathroom.
    Guinevere chuckles and lays back down.
    Iggy comes bounding into the room, hopping up onto the bed, graceful despite his plumpness.
    “Hello, Baby,” Gwen says, sitting up again to rub his ears. He flops down against her legs and she strokes his back from ears to tail.
    “Ig: Off the bed. Ты know better,” Arthur says, walking back in.
    Gwen scowls at him and stops petting the cat, who doesn’t move. He looks at Gwen and meows, as if he is asking for her input.
    “Sorry, Iggy, King Arthur has spoken,” she says sweetly to him and he hops down. Gwen turns slightly, curling her legs beside her, to watch Iggy swat at a small stuffed cloth мышь he’s somehow found amongst the discarded clothes.
    After a minute, she realizes that Arthur hasn’t come back into the постель, кровати with her.
    She starts to turn towards him, but his voice stops her.
    “Don’t move.”
    She goes back to where she was. “Um…?”
    Out of the corner of her eye she sees him pull on a pair of athletic shorts, the kind one would wear for jogging или playing football. He steps to the постель, кровати and tugs the sheet this way and that, placing it just so, then reaches up and arranges her hair over her shoulder.
    “Am I a bowl of fruit?” she asks, sitting obediently still.
    “Something like that,” he says, stepping back to look again. He steps вперед and tugs the sheet just a fraction lower, exposing as much of her back as he can without going too low.
    “Okay. Stay not moving,” he says as he jogs out of the room, returning a moment later with a large pad of paper and a fistful of pencils.
    “My bum had better not be hanging out,” she threatens, trying to relax while staying still.
    “It’s not, I promise. It’s placed just right. I want to see the curve of your hip, but your modesty is intact.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You have a beautiful back, Guinevere,” he says. She can hear the scratch of his pencil against the paper as he works.
    “Do I? Not really a part of myself with which I am familiar, Ты know.”
    “Fancy grammar, you. You’ll be an editor in no time.”
    She snorts, impressed that he noticed.
    “My sister is coming into town Далее week,” he says after a few moments. “Shit,” he mutters, and she can hear him set the pencil down, followed shortly by the soft rubbing noise as he erases a few marks he doesn’t like.
    “Is that why she called? Where does she live?”
    “She runs the Glasgow office of Pendragon Financial. She comes into town periodically to Сообщить to Father.”
    “So Ты are on good terms with her, but not your dad,” she states.
    “Yep. Like I said, she can be quite a bitch, but deep down she’s okay.”
    “Wow, high praise,” Gwen says sarcastically.
    “Well, it’s the сука that makes her successful.”
    “Married?”
    He laughs.
    “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ then.”
    “She and Gwaine tend to meet up for a casual shag now and then, but beyond that she’s single.”
    “How lovely. I have an itch on my nose.”
    “You may scratch.”
    “Thank you.”
    “She wants to meet you. If… what did she say? If Ты can put up with me for that long.”
    Gwen laughs now. “I’d Любовь to meet her.”
    “You say that now,” he says cryptically.
    She hears Arthur stand and walk over. Can I Переместить yet? she wonders, but he simply adjusts the sheet again, moving it just slightly so her toes peek out from under the edge of the sheet.
    “Need some toes,” he says, going back to his chair.
    “Of course Ты do,” she laughs.
    “Almost done, hang in there, Sweet. You’re doing really well.”
    “Thank you. I think my leg is asleep.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Oh,” she remembers. “Speaking of siblings and travel…”
    “Hmm?”
    “I’m going to visit my brother in a couple weeks.”
    “Oh? For how long?”
    “Um, ten days.”
    “Oh.”
    He sounds disappointed. “Sorry.”
    “Don’t apologize. I’m allowed to be sad you’re going to be gone, but don’t be sorry for it. You’ll have a bloody great time, I’m sure.”
    “It’s been planned for months, actually.”
    “I can imagine. You’d better bring me a souvenir.”
    “I’ll see what I can find for you,” she says, smiling.
    “Stop smiling, your cheek is moving.”
    “Sorry,” she says again, still smiling. “Now I can’t stop!” she exclaims, giggles overtaking her.
    “Guinevere!”
    She twitches the corners of her lips down, puckering them and forcing her face back to a neutral expression. “I thought Ты сказал(-а) Ты were almost done.”
    “I am.”
    “What about your photographic memory?”
    “It’s easier this way. And I’m working on your face, so shut up.”
    She snorts again, but keeps still and quiet. I can’t feel my right leg. My arm is getting stiff. I have to pee and I feel all sticky between my legs. Gah! My toe is cramping up! Ow ow ow ow!
    “Okay, I’m done. Ты can move.”
    Gwen groans and flops backward, splaying her limbs like a corpse. She lifts her foot up, rubbing, pushing her toes back.
    “Problem?”
    “Toe cramp.”
    “Here,” he sits on the постель, кровати and takes her foot into his lap and carefully works it, stretching it back to life. She closes her eyes and smiles, remembering Freya’s Комментарий at breakfast about never wanting for a foot massage.
    She feels him start to lift her foot to his lips. “Arthur,” she says.
    “Hmm?” he asks, dotting kisses along her arch.
    “I need to use the loo.”
    “Oh,” he says, Поцелуи her big toe before returning her foot to her.
    Gwen looks around a moment and reaches down, grabbing a t-shirt from the floor beside the bed. She lifts it to her nose for a sniff, and, finding it passable, throws it on over her head and heads for the bathroom.
    A few минуты later, she returns. Arthur watches her walk in wearing his Clash t-shirt and smiles at her. “So, did Ты look through my medicine cabinet?”
    “You’re almost out of toothpaste,” she says, grinning. “Let me see it.”
    “For a price,” he challenges, lounging back in his chair.
    “No pockets in this dress,” she says, patting herself down.
    Arthur laughs and she climbs into his lap, taking his face in her hands and touching her lips to his softly, moist and luxurious. He lounges, letting her do the work, letting her lips taste his, opening them only when bidden to do so by her.
    She slides her tongue вперед and he allows her in, allowing her to deepen the Kiss while his hands find their way around her, one creeping below the рубашка to grasp her hip.
    “Hold on, I want to see the picture first,” she says, pulling back.
    “Very well,” he sighs, as if it is a great hardship. Gwen laughs at him and scampers off his lap and returns to the bed. He hands her the sketchpad and she forgets to breathe.
    She is seated on the bed, the sheet gathered around her, swept around almost like a toga. It is perfectly placed yet it looks like it just fell that way, as if she just sat up. The curve of my hip – he was correct to include it, the line of my spine, the angle of my shoulder, my arm bent, holding the sheet, my hair cascading just so. It’s brilliant. But… is that me? Is that really me?
    “Say something,” he says quietly.
    He’s worried I don’t like it?
    “Is this how Ты see me?” she asks gently, just as quietly. “I mean, it’s beautiful. It’s… phenomenal. But…”
    “Guinevere, I keep telling Ты how beautiful Ты are. Don’t Ты know it?”
    She looks up at him, reluctantly pulling her eyes away from the drawing. She can see the intensity in his gaze, the огонь of his feelings for her mixed with the flow of his creativity, his inspiration.
    “No, Ты don’t, do you?” He reaches over and strokes her cheek with his thumb. “This,” he indicates the drawing in her lap, “and that canvas out there,” he points out the bedroom door, “is how everyone sees you, Sweet. Not just me.”
    “I think Ты may be a bit partial, Arthur,” she says, smiling weakly.
    “Ah, but Ты forget,” he says, standing and taking the sketchpad from her, setting it carefully aside, “my mates and I have been watching Ты walk past us, on the other side of the street, for a месяц now.”
    Gwen laughs at his remark, but allows him to continue.
    “Gwaine nearly dropped his teeth first time Ты walked past.” He sits down beside her on the bed.
    “Oh really?”
    “Yes, I had to assert myself as the alpha male of the pack или he would have crossed the улица, уличный and chatted Ты up immediately.”
    Gwen laughs loudly at this. “Alpha make of the pack? What are you, a wolf?”
    “What do you think?” he asks suggestively, waggling his eyebrows at her.
    “So now there are two things about which I’m curious.”
    “Okay.”
    “How, exactly, did Ты ‘assert yourself as the alpha male’ over Gwaine?”
    “I grabbed him by the shoulder and сказал(-а) in his ear, as menacingly as I could, ‘I saw her first.’ ’Cause I did, Ты know.”
    “So Ты called dibs on me?” she asks, eyebrows rising.
    “Um, yeah…”
    “And he honored that?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, my God, Ты are such children!” she exclaims, laughing again, falling back on the bed.
    He dives over her, trapping her beneath him, his arms on either side of her head. “And what was the секунда thing?” He leans down and kisses her.
    “What held Ты back?”
    “Huh?”
    “From talking to me. I had to get assaulted for Ты to come talk to me,” she says, but she is smiling.
    “How would Ты have reacted, honestly? Ты know, some Болталка guy on the улица, уличный just coming up and talking to a bird he fancies? Especially when Ты look like Ты and I look like me. I was waiting for an opportunity to not seem creepy.”
    “Should I send thank-you cards to Helios and Cenred?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, her fingers tracing the tattoo on his shoulder.
    “No. I don’t think they can read, anyway.”
    She laughs and he kisses her again, pushing his hips вперед against her, the thin material of the shorts he’s wearing disguising nothing.
    He stops and looks at her. “How old are you?”
    Gwen chuckles, amused, and answers, “Twenty-three.” She kisses him back and asks, “You?”
    “Twenty-four,” he Ответы quickly, eager to return his lips to hers for more. But then he stops again. “What’s your last name?”
    She laughs now. “Degrance. And I know yours already.” She slides her leg along his, skimming the sole of her foot along his теленок as she pulls his face back down to hers.
    He kisses her, his tongue plunging into her mouth, sliding against hers as his hand slides up under the t-shirt she has on, shoving at it impatiently.
    “Dear God, woman, how do Ты do this to me?” he asks huskily between Поцелуи her and pulling her рубашка off.
    “Me?” she gasps, “I was a good girl before Ты showed up.” She pulls his shorts off and flings them with a devilish grin.
    “Agree to disagree,” he mutters, nibbling her ear, his hands busy at her breasts. “You from Лондон originally?”
    “No,” she says as he sucks greedily but carefully at the skin of her neck, trying not to leave any еще marks. “We moved here when I was twelve. I was born in… Devon.”
    “Where did you—”
    “Stop talking, Arthur,” she says, taking his manhood in her hand, sliding her palm along its length, squeezing gently.
    “Okay,” he says, which makes her laugh again. His fingers travel lower to find her moist and ready for him again as his lips find a nipple, his tongue coaxing it to life.
    He drops his hips to rub his shaft against her, and she helps, guiding him with her hand, using the head to stroke her sensitive folds.
    He groans at the sensation, and she smiles smugly until his teeth taunt her stiffened and sensitive nipple again, and she cries out softly.
    Arthur pulls away from her and she gives him a puzzled look until he grabs her and flips her over onto her stomach, running his hands along the soft skin of her back, chasing with his lips, trailing kisses up and down, even biting her bum lightly, causing her to yelp in surprise.
    She feels him kneel between her legs and lift her hips. “Oh!” she exclaims, gathering the подушка in her arms to support her head as he pushes gently forward, entering her slowly from behind.
    Gwen hears him moan as she arches her back, angling her hips to give him better access, and he moves back and slides forward, farther in this time, his hands gripping her hips. He finds his rhythm, rocking her body вперед with each thrust, his hips slapping against her buttocks.
    She clutches the pillow, gasping with pleasure. Arthur glides one hand up her back and grabs her hair in his hand, wrapping it carefully around and pulling gently, just hard enough.
    “Oh,” she breathes, and he tugs again, a little less gently, but still not hurting her. “Arthur,” she cries out, her voice muffled by the подушка she now has her face pressed into, pulling against his hand in her hair.
    He slides his other hand around and touches her, flicking her swollen bundle of nerves as he thrusts, releasing her hair. I can only do so many things at once, he realizes and decides to abandon her hair to concentrate on еще important places.
    Gwen moans as he strokes her, his thrusts becoming еще powerful, еще urgent. Her knees ache and her spine is beginning to protest, but she hardly notices due to the flurry of sensation overtaking her, building and building until she feels full and overflows, screaming out his name into the pillow, biting it.
    Arthur moves his hand away to grasp her hips once again, moving furiously now, growling as he finishes, pushing deep within her and stilling as he releases into her warmth.
    “Guinevere…” he groans, and gently tumbles them over, so they are on their sides. He spoons up behind her, gathering her to him, still nestled within her.
    She sighs, her breathing still slowing, and he buries his face in her hair.
    They lay together, his arm wrapped around her waist. She traces the lines and sinews of his arm with her fingertips, down to his broad hand, noticing for the first time that he has very nice hands with long, tapered fingers and clean fingernails. Her fingers continue their exploration, touching his talented fingers, caressing the callous on the side of his middle finger, surely from hours of gripping pencils and paintbrushes.
    “Lilacs,” he says suddenly.
    “Hmm?” she pauses her exploration of his arm and hand and turns her head.
    “You smell like lilacs. Especially your hair.”
    “Very good,” she says, “not many men can identify that scent.”
    “One of my favorites,” he admits. “One of the better memories I have from Главная is of the large сирень bushes we had outside. My mother planted them.”
    “So they remind Ты of her,” she says, sad for him.
    “I remember in May when they would bloom and the wind would blow…”
    “The scent would get carried on the breeze,” she finishes, knowing what he was going to say.
    “And it was like she was saying hello; watching over me,” he says into the safety of her hair. Why am I telling her all this?
    She smiles and squeezes his hand.
    “I’ve never told anyone that before. I don’t know why I told you, actually.”
    “Thank you.”
    “For what?”
    “For telling me something you’ve never told anyone.” She snuggles back against him and her motion releases him from her finally.
    “Oh!” he exclaims, jumping slightly at the sensation while she giggles.
    “So tell me something now. Something you’ve never told anyone.”
    She thinks a moment, unsure if there’s anything she can share. Oh. There’s that. “My parents divorced because my mother was unfaithful.”
    “You’ve never told anyone that?”
    “My father doesn’t know. He thinks she was just unhappy. He doesn’t know that she was seeing someone else. It’s not easy being married to a policeman, so she went with that excuse. Elyan doesn’t know, either.”
    “Does she know Ты know?”
    “No.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Sixteen. El was fourteen.”
    “Rough. To know something like that and have to hold it inside.”
    She nods, and sighs. “They’re not even together any more. Mum and Jean-Baptiste.”
    “Ooo la la, so that’s why she lives in France, oui?”
    “Oui,” she chuckles. “She moved there for him and he dumped her two weeks later.”
    “Charming.”
    “Oui.”
    “So how is it Ты know?”
    “I found a card in her car. We were going shopping, and she forgot her wallet. She ran into the house to get it, and I opened the перчатка, перчатки box, looking for some gum. There was a card. A розовый envelope with some hearts in the corner, and the name Jean-Baptiste written on it in my mother’s hand.”
    “Oof.”
    “I closed the перчатка, перчатки box and tried to pretend I didn’t see anything. Shopping was no fun at all. The Далее week they sat El and me down after a very stilted ужин to tell us they were getting a divorce. Luckily we were old enough to have noticed that there was stress in the marriage, so I didn’t have to bother to act surprised.”
    Arthur squeezes her again, and she turns around in his arms. He traces her cheek with his finger. “I’m sorry Ты had to deal with that. And thank Ты for telling me.”
    She leans up and kisses him tenderly, lovingly, and they each suddenly understand the safety of the other. I can tell her anything, he realizes, and his сердце feels as though it is expanding to allow her in.
    He doesn’t judge. He knows how to listen, she thinks, and she starts to feel a little еще complete.

    “Are Ты hungry?” Arthur asks, Поцелуи her awake.
    “Why did Ты let me fall asleep?”
    “Well, I didn’t want to be the only one sleeping,” he says, grinning at her.
    She laughs and cuddles against him. “I like waking up in your arms.”
    “I like waking up with Ты in my arms.” I really, really do. “So?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Food?”
    “Yes.”
    “Pizza? I can order us some pizza.”
    “At this point I could eat the cardboard box in which it comes,” she says, sitting up and stretching. “What time is it?”
    “Around seven.”
    “Bloody hell, no wonder I’m starving!”
    Arthur leans over and kisses her again before standing and pulling his shorts on again. He hears her laughter behind him and turns. “What?”
    “Your hair. It’s all… wonky.”
    He reaches up and feels that his Mohawk has folded and divided itself, sticking up in places and flattened out in others. He chuckles and shrugs. “Yeah, that’ll happen,” he says offhandedly as he goes out in Поиск of a пицца menu while Gwen stands and goes in Поиск of her clothing.

Part 9: link