The sun is merciless today.
It pours down in molten gold, turning the palace gardens into a haze of perfume and color. Roses the size of a man's fist spill over every arch and trellis, blood-red and heavy with heat. The gardeners move slowly, half-drowsy, watering cans glinting.
She sent word at the eleventh bell:
Arbor. Now.
I find her already there.
She sits on the low marble bench at the heart of the rose maze, dressed for court in pale gold silk that clings to every curve. A wide-brimmed straw hat shades her face, but the neckline of her gown is scandalously low for daylight; the tops of her breasts gleam with a faint sheen of sweat. A single white rose is tucked behind one ear.
Two gardeners prune the far hedge, twenty-five feet away. They have their backs to us.
She does not look up when I step beneath the arch of crimson blooms.
"Close the lattice," she says quietly.
I pull the woven screen of willow across the entrance. It is meant to keep birds out. It also hides everything from the knees up.
Then I kneel in front of her.
She spreads her legs beneath the froth of silk skirts. No smallclothes (again). Her cunt is already flushed and glistening in the dappled light.
"Quickly," she whispers, though her eyes are laughing. "Before they turn."
I free myself with shaking hands and drive into her in one slick thrust.
She bites her lower lip to silence the moan, but it still leaks out (low, hungry, unmistakable).
The bench is the perfect height. I grip the marble on either side of her hips and set a hard, steady rhythm. Roses brush my shoulders with every stroke, scattering petals across her breasts and into her lap.
The gardeners' shears snip-snip-snip, steady as a heartbeat.
She leans back on her hands, arching her spine so her breasts threaten to spill from the gown entirely. Sweat beads between them and slides down into shadow.
I watch it disappear and feel my control fray.
"Touch me," she breathes.
I slide one hand beneath her skirts and find her clit (swollen, slippery). Three tight circles and her thighs clamp around my hips, her cunt fluttering hard around my cock.
She comes silently, eyes locked on mine, mouth open in a soundless cry that is more beautiful than any scream.
The gardeners keep pruning.
I am not finished.
I pull out, spin her around, bend her forward over the bench. Her hands brace on the warm marble seat; her skirts pool at her waist like liquid sunlight. Petals cling to the damp skin of her back.
I enter her again from behind, deeper now, one hand fisted gently in her hair to keep her quiet.
The second fuck is slower, filthier. Every thrust drags a muffled whimper from her throat. Rose scent is so thick I taste it on my tongue.
One of the gardeners laughs at something the other said. Their voices are close (dangerously close).
She pushes back against me, greedy, reckless.
I cover her mouth with my free hand and pound into her until her knees buckle. She comes again, harder, soaking my cock and the marble beneath us.
I follow with a groan I barely smother against her shoulder, pulsing deep inside her while the sun burns down and the roses watch in scarlet silence.
When it is over, I stay buried, both of us trembling.
She turns her head just enough to whisper against my palm.
"Stay inside me. Just a moment longer."
I do.
The gardeners move on to the next hedge, never once looking back.
Slowly, carefully, I pull out. A trickle of us slides down her thigh, bright against the gold silk.
She straightens, smooths her skirts, adjusts the rose in her hair. The picture of serene majesty.
Only the flush on her cheeks and the faint tremor in her fingers betray what just happened.
She lifts my hand (still glistening with her) and licks it clean, one finger at a time, eyes never leaving mine.
Then she smiles, sweet and poisonous.
"Walk me back to the palace, darling," she says aloud, voice perfectly modulated. "The heat is suddenly unbearable."
I offer my arm like the dutiful son I am supposed to be.
We step out from the arbor into blinding sunlight.
The gardeners bow low as their queen passes, murmuring compliments on the roses.
She thanks them graciously, the hand resting on my arm still faintly sticky.
Behind us, the bench gleams wet in the shade, petals scattered like evidence.
By tonight every gardener in the palace will whisper that the white rose behind Her Majesty's ear was red when she arrived.
None of them will ever guess why.
And tomorrow, when the court gathers for the midsummer petition, she will sit on the dais in cloth-of-gold and feel me leaking out of her with every breath.
Just as she planned.