And as the person with the shortest ribbon, I was the one who got tied to the pole by everyone else’s ribbons, which made me the official May Queen. It wasn’t long before my fellow dancers pressed me up against the pole, using their extra length of ribbon to tie me there, as was custom.
As the first to run out of my ribbon, Fate had chosen me to be the May Queen. My friends circled closer, offering me congratulations with huge grins on their faces. Eventually, when they reached the ends of their ribbons, they pressed kisses on my cheek.
For a quick, stressful moment, I thought Doug would be the last man standing. But when he faced me with his ribbon, instead of bending to kiss me, he grimaced and walked away, leaving the person behind him in plain view to me. The last man holding a ribbon end was now the May King.
William stood soberly in front of me as people whooped and hollered their congratulations. When my gaze met his, I blushed to the roots of my hair as everyone around us clapped their hands in time to the music and chanted, “Kiss her! Kiss her!”
He smiled down at me, clearly pleased, and I, equally pleased, grinned back at him. Finally, after a few more seconds of goading, he bent his head just as I tilted my head back, more than ready to meet his mouth.
When at last he kissed me, it was delicious. The moment my lips parted, his tongue was there, tasting me, and I felt it flash like lightning through my body. His hands rested on my hips, and gently he tried to tug me toward him. Though, tied down as I was by the ribbons on the pole, I couldn’t go to him.
“Huzzah!” called our baron, Lord de Bricasse. “The Fates have now chosen our May Queen and King. All hail! Let us open these Beltane festivities with their coronation!”
I was released by Caitlyn, who hugged me while whispering in my ear that the group of ladies had rigged the dance to work out the way it had by ensuring that I started with the shortest ribbon, and William, the longest. I gave her a stern look, suddenly understanding their snickering and cheeky looks. But then my face melted into a grin, which she quickly returned. I thanked her, and in the next second, I had a crown of beautiful wildflowers placed on my head with ribbons streaming down the back.
I turned to watch as they crowned the May King, taking a moment to marvel that the crowd during the dance had hardly appeared to faze him. William’s crown was much more Spartan, made of laurel and ivy vines woven together in a masculine style.
At the crowd’s request—and much less required this time than before—we kissed again as they sang and cheered. I murmured against his mouth, “I have to get dressed for the feast and dancing.”
His hold only tightened and his mouth continued to move over mine, claiming it again and again, leaving me breathless.
“C’mon, Wil, you have to let me go.” I reluctantly pulled back from him.
“I’m the king. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” he responded, kissing me again, even as the crowd started to dissipate in preparation for the evening celebration.
Thrill surged through me and my eyes fluttered closed. I’d wondered if he still wanted me like I now knew I wanted him. I guess I had my answer.
Intense joy crackled within, hot as sunlight. The only thing that could make this more perfect was…“But I want to wear that gorgeous new dress you bought for me.”
He froze and slowly, ever so slowly, pulled away. “Even though I’ve pictured it clearly, I’d love to see you wearing it.”
“Thank you. You shouldn’t have done it.”
“But I did. And I’m the king, so I can do whatever I want.”
I laughed. “You’re really loving that new title, aren’t you?”
He smiled, lifting a hand to brush his thumb across my cheek. “It’s good to be the king.”
“Maybe tonight you’ll get to see me…not wearing the dress, too.”
His brows pinched and his eyes grew intense. “I don’t have to imagine that, because I’ve already seen it. I just have to remember it.”
And maybe look forward to it. If I was very, very lucky.
“Wil, there’s something I need to tell you—”
He kissed me again. We were now alone in the empty clearing, as everyone else had gone back to their tents or to circulate amongst the booths.
“Tell me in between kisses,” he said, his voice raspy with a harsh edge to it. That edge dragged across my senses, the scratch made by a lover during a passionate moment. I swallowed my thready heartbeat and suppressed the vertigo of someone about to step off a precipice into the unknown below.
“I want to stay, Wil. I want us to be together. I want to see where this takes us.” He froze, his eyes on my shoulder, his features revealing no reaction whatsoever.
Had he heard me? Oh no…maybe he’d changed his mind. “If—if that’s what you still want, of course....” I added, hating how my voice squeaked when I said it.
He let loose a gruff laugh. “You have to ask me that?”
I shrugged, self-conscious. “People change their minds…”
“I don’t,” he said, his voice as hard as the granite rocks in the hills around us. “But I need to be sure that you are certain.”
I nodded. “I am…I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.” Nonstop, obsessive thought at that.
Slowly, tenderly, he kissed me on the cheek. “And your job?”
“I plan on asking for it back.”
He kissed my chin. “And what about school?”
“I want to finish, once I’ve saved up the money.”
He kissed my nose. “And what about the Renaissance Faire?”
“I’ll tell them they need to find someone else to read—” I was cut off by his mouth landing on mine again, his strong hands pulling me to him. As our bodies pressed together, my breath hissed out of my chest. And when he finished the kiss, he pulled away, only to lay his forehead against mine. “You’ve made me very happy, Jenna. Very happy. But that’s not even a fraction of the way I want to make you feel.”
I smiled. “Wil, you already do…”
We hugged and then I excused myself, reminding him that I could hardly contain my excitement to wear the beautiful blue dress. He reluctantly let me go with still more kisses to punctuate our breathless sentences.
Caitlyn snatched up the hairbrush the minute I entered the tent. “There you are. You weren’t answering your text messages!”