She nodded and bucked her hips up toward him. He pressed himself slowly into her. “Susanna, you’re so wet for me,” he hissed with pleasure.
He thrust deep inside of her, hard. She screamed, and he froze, but then she lifted her body and pressed her lips upon his and he realized that she was screaming with pleasure. With a curl of his lips, he pressed her shoulders against the pallet and began to buck his hips in earnest, fucking her body with long, hard thrusts, filling her deeply with his own flesh. “I love you, Susanna,” he panted, and he meant it. Nothing could feel more like heaven than this moment. It felt so good he nearly wanted to scream himself!
“My goddess,” he said, combing his fingers through her hair as he pounded into her with desperation. She was groaning, loudly.
He wanted to be there forever, but the pressure inside of his cock was building to levels he could barely contain. He was gritting his teeth, trying to hold on to this moment, but as her muscles began to flex with her climax, he emptied himself into her with a roar.
She cried out with him, her sheath gripping him over and over until he felt like he had no more essence left. She had emptied all the energy from him.
Panting, he laid down beside her and pulled her close to him so that he could stroke her hair and look into those captivating eyes of hers. For the longest time they didn’t say anything at all and instead just lay together.
“Princess, I want you to marry me. Say you’d choose to, even if I wasn’t forcing you?” he asked her, although he couldn’t help but grin at her, since the sultry curve of her lips was contagious.
She kissed him. “I’m only Susanna, remember?” she chided against his lips. “I suppose you’ll do,” she teased. “But only because you’re so good in bed.”
The pig squealed outside and Gerhard lifted his head, glared in the direction of the back of the wagon, and then dropped his head wearily. “You know he probably just ate our breakfast,” he grumbled. He added as she giggled, “I should make him into breakfast…” He nibbled her lip.
“Do we plan on leaving this bed this morning anyway?” she asked him, fluttering her long eyelashes at him seductively.
He grinned. “Absolutely not.”
Epilogue
“I knew it,” Rennio groaned as he sat on a bench outside an inn on the path to Tyrol, holding a half-drunk mug of ale in his beefy hand. It was supposed to be their rendezvous point, and was toward the end of their journey after nearly three weeks on the road. “You kept the damn pig.”
“How was the emperor?” replied Gerhard as he carefully placed the piglet on the ground. It ran right up to Rennio and rooted around his boot.
“In an extremely good mood,” Rennio replied, looking down at the piglet as if he didn’t appreciate its cuteness and then looking up at Gerhard judgmentally before taking a swig of ale.
“…and?” Gerhard couldn’t believe that was all, but Rennio did like building up suspense.
“Lord Eberhard was caught. I don’t know if you realized that, since you were busy sinfully fornicating off in some distant keep somewhere,” Rennio replied, flicking a crumb off his table.
Susanna, standing next to Gerhard, squeaked with surprise. She quickly settled, her lips pulling down at the sides into a frown. “I can’t imagine that boding well,” she grumbled.
Gerhard, who was also shocked by the news, asked, “Why not? We didn’t want him to get away.”
“He’s a liar and a cheat who can spin a good tale, though. Nobody’s better at saving his own skin,” she replied, shaking her head back and forth.
“Yes, and he did. I found him along the way to Vienna. He told a very interesting story. Something about the princess being to blame and that he was forced to send the knights pillaging neighboring lands, and so forth. I was quite entertained. By the time we made it to Vienna, however, he told a different tale. He admitted to everything—keeping power over Susanna’s army, threatening her with death if she challenged him, ruling the kingdom as a tyrant… Gerhard, my friend, you would have been astounded by how truthful he was. It was a godly sight.”
It was hard to be certain who was more surprised by this, Gerhard orSusanna. They both just stood there for a moment in open-mouthed astonishment.
“How is that possible?” Susanna demanded. “Why would he ever tell the truth? He’d be killed for it!”
“I can be very persuasive, my lady,” Rennio replied innocently, and then sent Gerhard a look full of meaning.
He knew Rennio quite well, and though he had a lack of manners and any sort of patience, virtue, or sobriety, he did have a passion for justice. Enough of a passion that he would take it at the edge of a blade, or worse. He didn’t want to say anything in front of Susanna, for the idea of torture, even of one of her enemies, would probably make her go pale.
Susanna plopped down in the seat across from Rennio, looking stunned by this news. “He told the truth…” she said under her breath. She was apparently having trouble believing this.
“Yes, and I’m given to believe that you would’ve been allowed to live as well, which might please you, had you not lost your life during that terrible tragedy in the river. It pains me to think of it, but at least memories of you live on in our hearts…”
Gerhard laughed out loud at this, though Susanna looked somewhat less amused. “In our hearts indeed,” he said with a grin.
“So tell me, friend,” Rennio began, eyeing Gerhard with amusement, “does your love for this woman extend beyond the grave? Will you still see fit to marry her despite her untimely demise?”
Gerhard walked over and sat next to Susanna so that he could pull her up into his lap. “Yes, I mean to marry this goddess,” he answered Rennio even while looking into Susanna’s eyes and putting his hand on her cheek.
