Spring ripens into true warmth.
The palace gardens burst open overnight (jasmine thick enough to taste, night-blooming cereus unfurling white and obscene under the moon). The court promenades in silks the color of new leaves. Everyone pretends the war is a distant dream.
Tonight the queen hosts a private garden supper for the inner council (only twenty guests, all trusted, all half-drunk on relief that winter is dead).
The tables are set beneath a lattice draped in wisteria. Lanterns sway in the breeze. Music drifts from hidden lutes.
She wears green silk so dark it looks black until the light hits it. The gown is cut low in back, high in front (modest enough for court, daring enough that every man present keeps stealing glances at the soft swell above her neckline).
I stand behind her chair as always.
At first glance, nothing is different.
At second glance, everything is.
She has not worn smallclothes tonight.
I discover this when she leans back under pretence of listening to Lord Varyn drone about grain tariffs and guides my hand beneath the table, under the fall of her skirts, between her thighs.
She is drenched.
Her cunt is hot, swollen, open. She has been like this for hours (since the moment she dressed and told me, with that wicked little smile, that tonight I would have to be very, very good).
I keep my face carved from stone while my fingers slide through her folds, circle her clit once, twice, then sink inside.
She never falters. Her voice is cool, amused, lethal as she corrects Varyn's figures.
Beneath the table, her hips rock in tiny, imperceptible circles, fucking herself on my fingers while twenty of the most powerful people in the kingdom hang on her every word.
When the sweet course is served (honey cakes and sugared violets), she comes silently, thighs clamping around my wrist, inner muscles fluttering so hard I feel it in my bones.
I withdraw slowly, bring my glistening fingers to my mouth, and lick them clean while pretending to taste the wine.
Her eyes meet mine over the rim of her goblet. They promise murder and absolution in the same breath.
The supper drags another hour.
When the guests finally rise to stroll the lantern-lit paths, she murmurs something about needing air and slips away down a side path lined with towering yew.
I follow thirty heartbeats later.
She is waiting behind the old marble fountain shaped like rearing stags (far enough from the party that the music is only a faint throb, close enough that a raised voice would carry).
The moment I step into the shadowed alcove she is on me (back to the moss-covered wall, skirts hauled up, mouth ravenous).
I lift her easily. Her legs lock around my waist. I free myself with one hand and drive into her in a single thrust.
The first fuck is fast, desperate, half-clothed (her gown rucked to her hips, my breeches barely past my thighs). The fountain masks the wet slap of bodies with its endless splash.
She bites my shoulder to stay quiet. I swallow her moan with my mouth.
We come almost together (her first, me half a breath later), pulsing deep inside her while distant laughter drifts through the leaves.
I lower her gently, but she is already turning, bracing her hands against the fountain's rim, bending forward.
"Again," she breathes. "Slow this time. I want to feel you for days."
Round two is languid and filthy.
I enter her from behind, one hand over her mouth in case the wind shifts, the other sliding inside the front of her gown to roll a nipple between my fingers.
We move like we have all the time in the world (long, dragging strokes that make her tremble and sigh). Jasmine brushes my cheek every time I lean forward to kiss the nape of her neck.
She comes twice more (soft, rolling waves that leave her limp and clinging to the marble stags).
I follow the second time, spilling lazily, endlessly, until it leaks down her thighs beneath the priceless silk.
When we are spent, she straightens, smooths her skirts, and turns to me with a smile that could start wars.
"Fix your face, darling," she murmurs, reaching up to straighten my collar. "We must return before they notice the queen is flushed and the prince is limping."
I steal one last kiss (slow, reverent).
"Next time," I whisper against her lips, "I take you in the rose arbor at noon. With the gardeners twenty feet away."
Her eyes flare dark and delighted.
"Next time," she counters, "I take you in the council chamber. During session. Under the table."
She walks away first, hips swaying beneath green silk, the scent of sex and crushed jasmine trailing behind her like a banner.
I wait the length of a hundred heartbeats, adjust myself, and follow.
Behind us, the fountain keeps splashing, washing stone stags that will never speak of what they witnessed.
Above us, the warm spring night stretches wide and forgiving.
And somewhere in the distance, the court laughs and drinks and dances (oblivious to the fact that their queen has just been claimed again, thoroughly, ruthlessly, beneath the same stars they toast).
Summer is coming.