The Dragon's Match

XXV

XXV
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

"We should marry."

She looked at him askance, her eyes alight and luminous through her long lashes, as she bent her head over her task. In her fingers were tiny colourful blossoms attached to slithers of thin green stems that coiled in her lap. Her hair trailed down her back like a silken curtain, the ends flicking up and curling about her hips.

"Why?" A wry smile twisted one corner of her lips into her cheek and she lifted the flowers in her hands, twisting her waist towards him and placing the delicate chain atop his head, her eyes dancing with mischief.

He caught her wrists as she retreated, sliding his fingers down her sun-kissed skin until his hands spanned her waist, hoisting her into his lap. She straddled him, her knees planted in the soft grass to either side of them. The flowing material of the skirt she wore split on either side of her thighs and he rested his fingers on each, finding her warm and soft.

"Is that a hypothetical question?" he murmured as she draped her arms around his neck.

Lillian tilted her head to the side and regarded him with amusement, her brows arched delicately and a bemused smile widened her mouth. "I was under the impression that we would not broach this topic when it came to... us."

"I wish to broach it. I desire nothing more than to broach it." He leaned forward until their mouths grazed, nipping provocatively at her plump bottom lip so that she sucked in a breath. Above them, the sun poured warmth upon their skin, the sky clear and blue to match her eyes.

She reared away from him slightly, a sultry, bewitching smirk lighting her countenance and curling one side of her mouth to dimple a cheek. "Are you telling me you are ready to take on the House of Lords, my lord?"

A sound similar to a put-out growl erupted from his chest and his fingers swept up her hips. Turning his body, he rolled until she was pinned beneath him, her hair splayed like a gilded halo in the grass and wildflowers around them. "I am saying I am ready to take on you, Lillian Adams, and whatever that entails- I have been for a very long time."

Her expression softened immeasurably, her fingers splaying against the side of his face with a tenderness that rooted into the pits of his heart and sprouted new, lingering tendrils through the rest of him. "And you have not said anything."

"You were happy with our arrangement," he told her earnestly. "I did not want to impose on that."

"Stupid dragon."

"What did we say about insulting volatile and unpredictable beasts?" He found her wrists and pinned them above her head, not failing to note the excitement that flared her pupils at the domineering gesture.

Lillian bit her lip, wriggling against him in a manner that he knew was intentional. In a deliberately mocking, sing-song voice, she intoned, " 'Do not provoke a dragon if I do not wish to meet a dragon.'"

"Good girl." The low husk to his voice made her smile flatten and then she was arching up to him, her lips latching onto his with an urgency he replicated and more. When her tongue darted out to trace the seam of his mouth, he moaned, his grip slackening upon her wrists, and that was all it took for his domineering, impossibly obstinate duchess to lurch and switch their positions.

She straddled his waist, pulling back from his kiss to bestow him with an intrinsically mischievous grin, and he was surprised to find his wrists now pinned above his head. Her hair curtained them, streaming in long, graceful ribbons over her shoulders.