The Beastkeeper's Bride

25: The Particulars of His Duchess's Skillset

25: The Particulars of His Duchess's Skillset

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The dagger landed its mark with a solid thunk, the blade embedded deeply into the trunk of the tree where the target had been tacked to.

The target being a crude, hastily sketched caricature of Ty- the imp Millie had met but two days prior.

Blayne raised his brows and turned to consider her. She beamed with her enthusiasm and pride, her eyes glowing with the successful results of her endeavours, and then she held out her hand towards him.

See, I told you! Hand it over.

Though he was not averse to the conditions of her little game, Blayne couldn't help but tease her for a moment. It was snowing- very lightly- and a thin layer blanketed the ground in the clearing they were standing in, while the Llaelleanoid paced in the shadows of the peripheral trees, a continual presence of protection as it watched Millie intently from wherever its location. "You insist I must endure the weather?" he protested, shucking out of the shirt he was wearing and handing it to her.

Her expression was exceedingly dry as she held the garment to her chest. Snowflakes dusted her hair, tied back by a ribbon in the style he found so appealing before, and shoulders of her warm coat.

You and I both know you can endure it.

"Ah, but can you?"

Her eyes sparked with the challenge and though little did she know it, she was endearing herself to him more and more. It took him aback how the suddenness and conditions of their marriage resulted in him developing true and profound feelings for his wife. His body stirred at the thought, at the sight of her sprinkled with snow- a beacon of illumination for his heart on a grey, cold day.

She had woken him some hours earlier, her face pressed against his on the pillow they shared, the sound of her coaxing words loud and insistent in the slumberous recesses of his mind: I am bored, husband. Wake up. It hadn't taken him long to divert her notions of boredom by pinning her questing fingers above her head and rolling her onto her back, but after Millie had needed other fulfilment in the form of food and activity.

It became apparent that his wife did not take to idleness in the hours of her day, so they had gathered a few of his daggers and what was supposed to be an innocent exercise in target practise quickly turned into a more licentious one.

Millie rested her hands on her hips and jerked her chin towards the array of daggers laid out on a cured leather mat before them. Take your shot, Leowyn, she ordered in a stern voice that the mirth on her countenance belied.

And because he couldn't help himself, and because he didn't want to, he swept his arms about her waist and pulled her against him. Her lips parted with surprise at the impetuous nature of his embrace as her hands came to rest on the bare muscles of his chest. Blayne brought his forehead to rest against hers, bracketing them both in a warm shroud as his unbound hair swept forward. "Though you have more layers than I, I shall find great pleasure in removing each one," he murmured.

You will find that they far exceed yours. She grinned, her fingers moving over every ridge and valley of his chest as they edged towards his abdomen. My coat, then my-

"You assume I wish to begin by demanding your coat?" His smirk was unabashedly cocky even as her fingers drove him mad with distraction. "My dear, sweet wife- the coat is the last thing I want to remove from you. I will strip you bare until you are completely and wholly naked under here." For emphasis, he slid a hand over her hip, against her thigh until he found the hem of the aforementioned garment, slipping up and under it to palm the soft, yielding flesh of her backside as he brought her against the rigidity of his arousal.