The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 34

MIDAS

She says his name.

Over and over again and he kisses the words from her mouth, drinking in the taste and softness of her lips.

He kisses her once, twice, three times....pulling her bottom lip between his teeth and teasing her with his tongue her until she is breathless with need and he is completely incapable of thinking properly. There is an incessant sound coming from some place far away but he does not wish to acknowledge it.

Not when he finally has her where he has wanted her since the minute he first laid eyes on her; naked beneath him, her fullness spilling out of his arms, hair like fire splayed across the stark white of his sheets. She presses against him and when he feels the hardness of her n*****s graze against his bare chest, he has to bite down on a groan.

Skin against skin, burning and sizzling, his appetite for her only increasing with each second.

A little sound of sinful pleasure escapes her lips and it is the most beautiful thing he has ever heard in his life.

His hands have a mind of their own, running eagerly down the sides of her body and back up again.

They want to touch everywhere...every inch of her all at once and he can't imagine what the gods were thinking when they gave him only two.

He cups the fullness of her b****t in one hand, thumb tracing slow, languid circles around the little, stiff brown peak of her left n****e and she gasps against his mouth. Gods above...

His mouth in return, hot and hungry dips to the hollow of her neck, where her scent is strongest, his body craving that intoxicating vitality that is her.

He can feel her hands tangle in his hair as he kisses her there, his teeth grazing against the creamy, satin vulnerability of the skin of her neck.

Her hands slide over his back, fingers digging in, leaving marks.

If she keeps touching him like that, he is not certain he can hold himself back for much longer.

The sound comes again, banging, loud and incessant, refusing to go away.

It is closer now, louder even but Midas will not listen.

Not now.

Gods above not now....

Her body flushes with need and desire and he pins her arms above her head, pressing her body into the bed with the large warmness of his and keeping her in place. Firm but not forceful.

Just enough so he can watch what his touch does to her.

Watch the way her sapphire blue eyes darken with decadent desire when his fingers slide between her legs....towards the warm wetness of her center.

If he is to be completely honest, the heavens could fall through his roof right now if they so pleased, but unless the gods were about to strike him dead, nothing in all the 7 realms could...

His eyes fly open and he lets out a string of angry curses that do not bear repeating and would have given his mother a heart attack were she still alive.

Sweat soaked sheets lay half rumpled and twisted around his limbs and he lies in bed for a few moments simply blinking up at the ceiling, his breath coming out in short, ragged bursts. Emotions flood his body in sudden unexpected waves, mixing and churning together until he can no longer tell which is which and what exactly it is that he is feeling. Anger? Confusion? Unadulterated s****l frustration?

What... in all the realms... was that?

A stupid question considering he knows it was a dream.

But it had been unlike any dream Midas has ever had.

This one had been different somehow, more...real.

He can still feel her, still taste her.

He groans again.

Definitely s****l frustration.

The knocking on the door that had dragged him out of his...dream, forcing him back to reality is still there, a consistent banging that threatens to tear his aching head apart.

It does nothing to help his sour mood and fantasies of chopping off the head of whoever is at his door, takes the edge off the dream for a second.

Throwing the covers off, the king groans for what feels like the thousandth time that morning and moves to get up.

But then he feels it, the way his pants have tightened around his crotch.

Oh for Hades' sake.

He sits back on his bed and attempts to calm down.

It would not do to greet whoever it was beating his door with a hard on the size of a steel rod.

Although maybe it might shock them into learning a very valuable lesson; that unless you wished to be greeted by the sight of an extremely turned on, extremely angry king, one does not go banging on doors so early in the morning. What if it's her?

It is a thought so sudden in its wildness that it shocks him and does nothing to help him or the other very eager and quite stiff part of his anatomy.

Especially because he replaces himself hoping it is true.

He breathes in and breathes out very slowly.

Breathes in and breathes out...in....out...in...

It does not work.

Not in the least bit.

The dream would not leave the fore front of his sub-consciousness.

It might as well have actually happened and the knowledge that it did not isn't just frustrating. It is pure, liquid t*****e.

He can still feel the luxuriant lushness of her lips against his, can still taste the sweet tanginess of her skin, can still hear the absolutely immoral way she had said his name.

He glances down at the still very present evidence of his arousal.

"Well if you keep that up you're going to be trying to 'calm down' for a really long time."

Oh look who finally decided to show up. Days of silence and this is what brings you out?

"Because I know if I do not intervene you are going to be sitting there staring at your crotch the rest of the day."

Midas makes a bad face.

I really do not want to be having this conversation with a five thousand year old dragon.

"Five thousand, six hundred and thirty seven. And I am in your head dragon king, if any one should be repulsed and appalled it is I."

He is about to say something snide in response but another voice, this one from behind his door, interrupts him.

"Your majesty if you do not open this door or bid me entry, I am going to assume you were attacked in the dead of night and are even now lying in a pool of your own blood."

"You will be lying in a pool of your own blood soon Leo if you do not cease that incessant knocking."

The chief Ryder pushes open the doors of the chambers where the king had chosen to sleep and bows low.

"It is way past six morning bells your grace. The steward is beside himself with worry."

"Pray tell chief Ryder, what use is it being King if I cannot even wake up when I damn well please."

"You may wake up whenever you please your grace, as long as you do not blame me for not waking you earlier besides, we both know the concept of rest is foreign to you." Midas groans and Leo grins. "Dare I even ask how your night went?"

"No."

"Very well. I still however do not understand why you chose to sleep here in the west tower instead of the royal chambers."

Midas frowns, getting up to stalks angrily to his drawers.

"Like you said Leo, it was a choice. It is my castle and I can sleep in whatever room I so desire, yours included. Besides, I am unused to...having someone else in my bed." "Liar."

Be quiet Er'gan.

Leo pretends to understand, nodding his head gently. "So this choice of yours then, it has nothing to do with a certain red haired queen?"

He stops and turns to glare at his closest and only friend. "I am already awake Leo. Remind me why you're still here again?"

Leo stands up straight and says nothing but Midas can see the laughter in his eyes.

He bows and heads towards the door. "I shall inform the steward that you are in fact not bleeding all over the fur rug of your room and have the maids bring up hot water for your bath." "Never mind the heat, have them bring it up cold."

The chief Ryder raises the brow with the scar so far up his forehead it almost touches his hair line and Midas growls.

"One more word from you Leo and I shall have you drawn and quartered."

The man leaves without another word but Midas can still hear him laughing as he walks down the hall.

His closeness with Leo surprises him most times.

One because it had happened without his even knowing it and two because he is in fact over a hundred years older than the chief Ryder.

Dragonkin, although mortals, age very slowly and though appearance wise, he and his chief Ryder looked to be around the same age, there were many years between them.

Leo's father had served Midas' father and his father before him and when the king had died, he had served Midas as well.

Leo, his son had been born scarcely 25 years ago.

A little boy with grey watchful eyes and a quiet curious intelligence.

He would not speak until spoken to but he was forever getting underfoot and following his father and in turn Midas everywhere they went.

Even then, though Midas would never admit it, he had been fond of him.

Entertaining his never ending questions and his persistent presence even if sometimes it irritated the king to no end.

And when Midas had saved his life in the incident that had taken the former chief Ryder's life and gave Leo the scar above his right eye, the bond between them had grown; welded stronger by the similar loss they now shared. Two dragonkin orphans left to fend for themselves.

Leo of course had chosen to follow in the footsteps of his father, and when his dragon had awakened on his 18th birthday, he had joined the Ryders guild with no hesitation.

He had been good, eerily so for one so young and he rose quickly and steadily through the ranks.

And when he wasn't training or on missions, he was by the king's side.

Until Midas without even knowing it found himself beginning to relay on him. It was as close to trusting another being he had ever and would most likely ever get.

Appointing him as Chief Ryder hadn't been a decision Midas even needed to actively make.

No one else would have sufficed.

The maids knock on the door and he bids them entry.

He opens his window as before he goes behind the screen and the cold bath, aided by the sharp bite of the mountain's morning air helps.

But he should not have bothered because by the time he is putting on his shirt, his mind wanders back to her, like it has been doing for the past two days since he introduced her to the castle and it is like the cold bath never even happened. It was going to be a very long day.