The Consort, Chapter 26
Author's Note: In case anyone missed the post I made on TMF, I will now be posting chapters every other day. Need to slow down so I can make some changes and additions to the end of the story.
Also, several readers have expressed doubts about Cain and DG's happiness, or the chances of continuing thereof. I don't think I'm spoiling anything to say that I'm not holding some two thousand pound weight over their heads waiting to drop it. While there are still plot points to unfold and uncertainties to confront, the remainder of this story is going to be pretty damn...well, I guess "fluffy" is the only fitting word. As non-fluffy as the first twenty chapters were, the remainder will be. So don't open each new chapter with dread. Nothing horrible's going to happen.
Not in this story, anyway.
Ambrose brought him some papers from the Foreign Secretary just after lunch. He glanced up over Cain’s head, then cocked his own. “Oh, you didn’t hang your portrait in here like she wanted?”
Cain looked up over his shoulder at the portrait of one of his predecessors, the same one that had been hanging there for years. The portrait of himself had been on display in the public areas of the palace for the week after his return, but had since been moved to the portrait gallery. “Glitch, if you think I’m going to sit at this desk and conduct business under a giant portrait of myself, you’re crazy.”
“Yeah, I guess that might send the wrong message.” He took a seat in the chair before Cain’s desk. “The draft of the treaty agreement with Flornistan is in there.”
“Shouldn’t that be on the Queen’s desk?”
“I thought you’d want a copy.”
“Thanks.” Cain found the document and began skimming it. Shortly after his return, the Flornish Prime Minister had completely rolled over, agreeing to round up and turn over all fugitive Longcoats and to accept squads of Ozian soldiers into their country to help oversee the operation and ensure full compliance. The military prisons were filling up with Longcoats. Jeb and a much-recovered Danny Armagnac had left the day before to join the command post on the border.
Ambrose was watching his eyes move over the agreement. “They still haven’t found it.”
“Found what?”
“The facility where you were held.”
Cain put the treaty aside. “I didn’t expect them to.”
Ambrose raised an eyebrow, wondering if Cain thought he was fooling him. “There’s something about all this I just can’t put my finger on,” he said. “Something you’re not telling us.”
“I can only tell you what I’ve already said.”
“Huh. Which isn’t a denial, is it?”
“Let it go, Ambrose.”
Ambrose held his eyes. “If you were anyone else I’d get it out of you one way or another, you know.”
“Why am I safe from extraordinary measures, then?”
“Because I trust you, and I know that no one in this kingdom is more committed to the Queen’s security than you are.”
Before Cain could answer, the door to the office opened and DG came in, a folder full to bursting with papers tucked under her arm. She smiled when she saw them. “Two of my favorite men,” she said, coming over to Cain’s desk. She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned over to kiss him.
“So I’m only one of your favorite men?” Cain said, winking at Glitch. “Not sure how I should take that.”
“Don’t pout, you know you’re my most favorite man of all,” she said, kissing him again with a little more emphasis.
Ambrose smiled as they separated, Cain’s hand rubbing the small of her back. He’d never seen Cain so unguarded as when he was with DG. “How was your meeting?” he asked her, quietly.
“Boring,” she said, slipping free and sitting on the edge of Cain’s desk, keeping hold of one of his hands. “I don’t know why I have to be there to listen to them bicker about my schedule.”
“Especially when you usually throw it all out anyway.”
“Well, this is my point.” She glanced from his face to Glitch’s and back again. “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” Ambrose said. “Just the treaty.” He stood up, feeling like a third wheel. “And I’ll leave you two alone to talk about it. I’ll be in my office.” DG tossed him a quick wave and Cain nodded in his direction. He went to the door, turning back just as he opened it, in time to see Cain pull DG closer, his hands going to her hips. He smiled and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
DG barely heard Glitch leave. Cain was giving her that look again, the one that made her feel like a giggling schoolgirl, barely in control of her hormones.
The irony was, when she had been a giggling schoolgirl, swooning over singers and actors and heartthrobs, her taste had run towards sensitive, artsy types. The kind who wore black clothing and sometimes eyeliner and sang songs with tortured lyrics or portrayed misunderstood youths onscreen. Pretty boys with expensively torn jeans and well-established attitudes. Even as a young woman, through college and before the storm that had brought her here, she’d had a very definite type. Guys with paint-stained fingers, guys who rolled their own joints, guys who had self-conscious leather jackets, guys who listened to Pink Floyd and Radiohead and taught themselves to play bass.
Looking back, they all seemed like such phony assholes.
Cain couldn’t be more different from the kinds of guys she’d always been attracted to. He was…well, he was such a man. Not a guy. A man, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Back in her world, if someone were described like that, it’d usually mean he was macho. Cain wasn’t that, either. He was effortlessly masculine, intimidating without meaning to be, kind-hearted but restrained and…dignified. He was dignified in a way that the men back in her former home seemed to have forgotten how to be.
She’d put some thought into this recently, and she’d come to the conclusion that the most important difference between Cain and every other man she’d ever known was that Cain was sincere. Nothing about him was fake, nothing was an act designed to make him come off a certain way. The guys back home, most of them had affected their personas hoping it’d help them get laid, or hoping it’d give them cred, or whatever else they wanted. Such artifice wouldn’t enter Cain’s mind. He was who he was, period. Someone who knew things like how to build a house, ride a horse, and bring home food from the land. Someone you’d trust to lead your armies, protect your children, and find you when you were lost. Someone who guarded his heart carefully, not giving it away to just anyone, and the fact that he’d placed it in her hands was not only an honor, but a responsibility she took seriously.
Still. If some of her girlfriends back home could see her so swoony over a tall, broad-shouldered cowboy type like Cain they’d laugh themselves into hernias. Until they met him, that is. Then, they’d understand.
She let him pull her closer, his hands sliding to her hips. “I haven’t seen you since breakfast,” she said.
“That’s only five hours ago.”
“Way too long,” she said, settling herself on his lap and tilting her head in for a slow, deep kiss that went on and on. Cain had one arm across her lap, his hand stroking the outside of her thigh, and the other one behind her back, that hand resting on her side, his fingertips just brushing the outside of her breast.
DG pulled back from him as she felt them approaching the point of no return. The flush in her chest, the sound and speed of his breathing, the warmth in her groin and the grip of his hands on her all told her it was getting too intense. He arched one eyebrow. “We better cool it,” she said.
“I suppose,” he said. “Or…”
“Or what?” Her lips curled in a smirk.
“That door does have a lock.”
DG’s smirk turned into a grin. She waved her hand and they both heard the lock click shut.
After that, it was fast. DG felt completely debauched, and it was far from unpleasant. As soon as the door was locked, they fell back into the kiss she’d interrupted, Cain’s hands much bolder on her body, tangling in her hair and possessively kneading her breasts. He somehow stood up from his chair with her in his arms, sliding her onto his desktop which was, thankfully, mostly free of clutter. She sat up and yanked him to stand between her legs, never leaving off his mouth while her hands were busy on his shirt buttons and then his pants. Cain shoved her skirt up to her hips and pulled her to the edge of the desk. He grabbed at her panties and soon they were on the floor. “Yeah, right here,” DG groaned into his mouth.
He shuddered a little. “Oh, is that what you want?”
She was beyond clever comebacks. “Yes,” she breathed, finally getting his pants undone. She was naked from the waist down and should have felt exposed, but she was too far gone. “Don’t tease me.” She pulled herself up by his open shirtfront, seizing his earlobe in her teeth. “I want you,” she hissed, feeling a thrill of feminine power at how he responded to her, how she affected him. He groaned at her words and gripped her tight around the back with one arm, his other braced on the desktop, and DG gasped as he entered her roughly. He held her up against him while her head fell back, exposing her neck for him to attack with his lips and tongue, their hips rocking against each other, the desk squeaking in protest.
She cried out as her orgasm burst over her, ridiculously quick. She supposed the situation contributed to the arousal; going at each other in their office, for crying out loud. But he always gets me off, she thought. Either that’s the norm for OZ men or I’m a lucky girl. She hung onto her husband’s shoulders as he quickened his pace and finished with a choked cry, sagging against her with his face buried in her neck, a quiet whisper of her name. She stroked the back of his head and kissed the side of his face over and over, cradling him close with her arms and legs. He pulled back and kissed her mouth, tender and gentle. “Damn,” he muttered, smirking.
“Well, General. That was so inappropriate,” she said, her tone teasing. “I mean, really. The Queen and her Consort having at each other on his desk?”
“Oh yes. Very inappropriate.” He kissed her again, chuckling now. He smoothed her mussed hair back from her face, an expression on his that she never tired of seeing there.
The rest of Cain’s afternoon went as uneventfully as could be expected, even considering the inherent distraction of trying to work on the very surface where he’d just screwed his wife.
Every so often a little voice would pipe up from somewhere in the back of his head. What did you think you were doing? Going at her like a horny teenager right here in your office, not to mention all the other places you’ve let yourself be overcome with her around here. Some of them a lot less private than this room.
Yeah. Pretty great, isn’t it?
No, it is not ‘pretty great,’ it’s embarrassing and it’s disgusting and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. A man of your years and respectability, a man of your position, should not be caught out with his pants around his ankles, putting the blocks to his wife in some broom closet.
Guess we’ll just have to not get caught then, huh?
You’re missing the point. At least that relationship you had with her before had some dignity.
Maybe, but it didn’t have any passion.
You’re too old to worry about such things.
No, I’m not. In fact, I feel younger than I did when I was twenty-five. I’ve been handed a second chance and I’m not going to mess things up by listening to you, so bugger off. It took me a long time to admit it, but I love her and I’m going to make damn sure she knows it.
DG had several visitors in for consultation over the course of the afternoon. He didn’t sit in on any of them, having more than enough to do himself. An endless stream of reports from the southern posts, military intelligence, debriefings of the surrendered Longcoats and requisitions from the commanders kept him plenty busy. He had to stop himself from smirking at the thought of how all those diplomats and military leaders might react if they knew that a few scant hours before, their Queen had been having sex with her Consort in the very room in which they sat. Once he caught DG’s eye and saw that she was thinking exactly the same thing.
During a momentary lull he found himself watching her, sitting in one of the wing chairs near the windows, talking to the governor of Win-Kia. Her back was straight, her head held high, her ankles crossed, she looked like the Queen. She spoke with authority, her hand motions were emphatic, her expression let the governor know she was in complete control.
Cain allowed himself a moment of nostalgia. Sometimes he missed the DG he’d first met. The rowdy girl in the leather jacket who’d rushed headlong into everything, limbs flailing, feeling her way through the adventure she’d been plunked down into and trusting her new friends to catch her if she tripped up. The Princess she’d then become, making one protocol mistake after another, coming to him red-faced after another embarrassing incident brought about by her too-quick tongue and her inadequate knowledge of court procedures. How she’d fought it at first. The wardrobe expectations. The endless politeness. The formality, the etiquette, all the eager faces wanting a glimpse of her and Az.
That girl had evolved, and become the Queen, the self-assured woman he was married to. She’d changed the throne as much as it had changed her, though. It wasn’t like it used to be when her mother had been Queen. This was her time, and somehow he’d ended up at her side to see it.
And his DG was still there. When she’d crow over beating him at Six-A-Row, throwing her arms in the air and laughing, she was there. When she put on her flannel pants and t-shirt to read before bed, she was there. He was one of the few who saw her as she’d once been, and as she still was inside. Still, he wished he could find a way to tell her how proud he was of her, and of how she’d handled everything. He’d thought of telling her, but every time he tried to work out how, it came out sounding all…paternal. Considering their relationship, that was a species of creepy that he didn’t need.
The governor was leaving, and Cain was feeling like he needed a break. He got up as DG was going back to her desk. “I’m going to go stretch my legs. Want to join me?”
She sighed. “I’d love to, but I’ve got the Chief Comptroller in ten minutes. See you at dinner?”
He nodded. “Do we have any kind of evening thing we have to do?”
DG glanced at her calendar. “Nope. We’re free.”
Cain gathered his resolve. “Good. I, uh…need to talk to you.”
She blinked, her smile fading. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Nothing to worry about. There’s just something I need to tell you.”
“All right,” she said, still sounding confused.
Cain leaned over and kissed her, then drew back. She was smiling up at him now, her face open and trusting. How is she going to look after I tell her the truth? All of it, for the first time? He kissed her again, lingering longer this time, her hand going to his cheek. She drew away after a few moments. “You’d better go,” she said, her voice low, her hand slipping over his thigh. “Unless we want the Comptroller to get a show.”