My Warden (COMPLETED)

Lyrium

9:30 The Bannorn

Dangling just beyond her fingertips nestled a bundle of apples greener than the leaves of the tree. Lanny stretched further, lifting one leg up from her boost to reach. She just grazed the smooth skin, knocking against the trio but not sending any cascading to the ground.

"Careful there," her stepping stool said. Alistair's hands curled around her knees keeping her upright inside the branched of the tree. She stood upon those broad shoulders, normally in armor, but for the warm day he'd thrown it all aside. Curling her bare toes into his naked skin, she struggled to keep her balance.

"I can get them," Lanny said. She didn't look down at his warm eyes, afraid she'd forget what she was doing if she caught a glimpse of him half naked and straining from holding her.

"Are you sure, Lanny?" he asked. "You're starting to wobble." The manly ground below her trembled to back up his statement.

"Damn it, Ali," she shouted, but a giggle broke her stern facade. "I am going to get these apples." Grabbing onto a branch for leverage, she reached higher trying to lengthen her spine and will her arms longer. Too bad there wasn't a spell for that.

"I dunno, it could fall apart at any minute. I'm worried you'll lose your balance," he called. Even as he bobbed and weaved below trying to throw her off, his hands adjusted around her legs to keep her steady. One of them rose up to grab onto her lower thigh.

Her fingers brushed under the apple, jiggling it again, when Lanny leaned too much of her body forward. Uh-oh! She tried to grab onto the branches and twigs she'd burst through to reach the fruit, but there was nothing to stop her on the way down. Nothing but the warden who opened up his arms and caught her against his naked chest. His one hand wrapped under her butt, while the other dug tight into her spine. When the shock of the fall wore off she turned in those straining arms to look into his face. Exertion wore it red, but the man had a smile stretching his cheeks wider than seemed possible.

"You," Lanny tried to rise up, but she couldn't get a grip against him, "did that on purpose."

"Me? Let you drop just so I could have a gorgeous woman in my arms? No, I would never ever do anything of the sort to..."

She jammed an apple into his mouth to stop his jabbering. With both hands full of her, his only option was to bite down. Alistair's entire face puckered and he shuddered, the bitten apple scattering to the ground.

"Maker's breath, that's tart," he gasped, lapping his tongue against the air to try and wash it away.

"That's what you get for dropping me," she sulked.

"Where'd that apple even come from?"

Lanny shrugged, her shoulder digging into his pec, then she reached into the top of her bodice and unearthed another small apple snagged on her way up into the tree. Watching him with a raised eyebrow, she took a tender bite of the tart thing and smiled. Alistair laughed at the ingenuity, his mirth overpowering him so, he had to reposition his arms rocking her as if she was on a ship.

"Andraste's tears," he tried to reach the hand around her back forward to grab at her bodice. "What else do you have in there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lanny shot back crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at him.

"More than you can possibly imagine." He smiled such an intoxicating grin his sabotaging her fruit harvest was completely forgotten. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Lanny rose up to kiss him, tasting the same apple's tartness upon his lips. "I spent most of my younger years, and not such younger years wondering just what existed within the depths of a woman's, uh, you know."