The Winter Queen (RH/Why Choose, MM, MF, MFM, FF) ✅

Chapter Two

Warwick

She was a tiny slip of a thing. More doll-like than human. Skin like milk. Hair like fire. With big, innocent blue eyes.

The men had been right to speculate about her constitution. She was clearly not bred to withstand the cold lands.

Our people were large and thick, full of muscle and fat to keep them warm.

She looked as though a slight winter's breeze might snap all her bones to pieces.

Beautiful, yes, but fragile.

When I saw how close to freezing to death she had been, I had lost any of the small amount of hope I had felt at the idea of a queen in the kingdom, of possible heirs.

If she could not stand spring, how was she expected to make it through winter? Even in the castle with fires in every room, with thick draperies on the windows, and warm blankets on the bed, she was going to struggle to keep her temperature up.

A visit with a seamstress would do her some good, surely. Someone to make her thicker gowns and underthings, muffs, hats, a cloak meant to stave off the chill.

Of course, that would require her to last through the night. And with the wind kicking up, whipping through every crack in the walls of the inn, I was not sure that was likely.

It was why I had moved in behind her, to lend her some of my warmth. It was the only way when the fire was not enough.

Though, clearly, that was not enough warmth for her. For in her sleep, she rolled over restlessly, pressing her face into my side. Then, not too long after, climbing up on top of me, straddling me, nuzzling her chilly face into my warm neck.

I am not proud of the way my body reacted to her.

My queen.

The woman I had sworn an oath to protect.

But there was no talking sense to your cock when it was close to something as tempting as she.

Especially when I yanked the blanket over her back to seal in the heat, and she snuggled in while letting out a little mewling sound.

It was the kind of sound that could easily be stoked into a whimper, then a moan, if I let my hands drift to her ass, if I pulled her spread legs upward so my cock rested against her cleft, if I dragged her up and down me, letting the friction build a different sort of fire that could burn through her.

"Fuck," I hissed, slamming my forehead into the side of her cheap, poorly insulated carriage.

My cock was throbbing at just the idea of her crying out as she came.

Thoughts like that could have me hanged if they ever got out.

I needed to get a hold of myself.

It was going to be a long journey still to get back to the castle. I needed to hold it together.

When I got back into the inn, the lady had disappeared, but not before folding up the blankets neatly on a chair cushion.

She had likely went in search of the privy which was blessedly right outside the rear door of the inn.

The other men were rustling around, getting tea and gruel ready to fill our bellies before the long day out in the cool weather.

"Make the lady a large portion," I demanded. "A full belly will go a long ways to keeping her warm. We will be packing these quilts as well," I said, motioning toward them. "Leave some coins for the innkeepers. We need to deliver a live bride to the king," I added, wanting to make sure my interest in her well-being was about her place in our kingdom, not her as a person, as a woman that I clearly wanted to bed.