Then, and only, then, did he begin to spank her. To her surprise, the first few smacks weren't even as hard as the ones he'd delivered when she was harvesting bonestrength. More firm, affectionate pats than swats, they made her already heated blood flow faster. No pain, just warmth, and the wonderful male smell of Adimir's body blending with honey-sweet flowers, crushed young grass, and the musk of her own arousal. When she started arching her back, pushing back to invite the next swat, he began to stroke once again at her juicy sex.
The sunlight dazzled in front of her eyes, and her breath caught in her throat.
He was still caressing when he delivered the next swat to her upraised bottom. It was a little harder, a little more stingy—but with Adimir's hand circling her eager clit and stroking the slick, sensitized mouth of her sex, and her tender nipples brushing the soft new grass, the stinging transformed itself into yet another source of stimulation.
“More,” she gasped, amazing herself, and when he complied, “Oh, please, more!"
A flurry of lightly stinging blows set both her asscheeks and her pussy on her fire. All the colors of the spring glade seemed brighter, unnaturally vivid, and she could hear her blood rushing in her veins, and she was poised on the edge of coming, but Adimir was skillfully holding on that edge, making the delicious tension build more and more, but not letting her fall.
“Please,” she sobbed as the bright morning washed red with her desire. “Please.” She wasn't sure if she meant “Please fuck me,” or “Please spank me some more,” or “Please let me come,” or simply, “Please don't stop,” but it didn't really matter. His hand, his cock, whatever he wanted to give her—it was all fine.
“Please what? Are you ready for the sowing of the grain?"
It took a few seconds for her pleasure-shattered mind to translate the ritual phrase, and to translate her own primal reaction into the proper ritual response: “Lady Sun has risen, and is ready for her Lord."
The next thing she knew, she was on her hands and knees and Adimir was behind her, his cock teasing against her opening. “Praise Lady Sun and the Lord of the Grain,” he prayed, his voice shaky, “and all thanks for their blessings. May the earth be fruitful."
“Praise the Lady and the Lord.” The rest of the prayer was beyond her ability to talk at the moment, but that didn't really matter. The Lady and the Lord would hear the joy and thankfulness in her heart.
When he pushed the thick head inside her, opening her up, fitting her more perfectly than she'd ever imagined possible, her whole body became a prayer.
Sun and Earth. Male and female. Winter passing into spring, and then to summer's heat.
She lost awareness of everything but red waves of pleasure, and the joy of Adimir's beautiful cock moving inside her, the noises he was making, the way his ballocks rapped against her, the pressure of his hard body against her delightfully sensitive butt.
He leaned over her, his broad, strong body hot against her back, and whispered in her ear, “Come for me. Give the land your pleasure."
The waves already rippling through her grew stronger. She felt herself contracting around him, cried out his name.
Cried out again when the hot ecstasy didn't stop.
The glade disappeared.
She was with Adimir in an unfamiliar temple, vaster and more beautiful than any she'd seen, white marble glowing with inner radiance. Adimir was inside her, fucking her as he was now. Then the temple dissolved as if it had never been there and day swirled into night into day, spring into summer into fall into winter and back to spring, all as she came and came and came. A doorway opened in the spring sky—it didn't make sense that she could see overhead in the position she was in, but somehow she could—and inside the doorway she could see two shining figures. They were huge, and not proportioned exactly like humans, and they glowed so brightly she couldn't make out details, but she could see that they were making love.
“I claim this woman as my bride before Lady Sun and the Lord of Grain!” Adimir cried, and she wasn't sure which Adimir did it, the one in the glade or the one in this strange world they shared with the divine couple.
He began to buck faster against her, pushing even deeper inside her. She was sobbing now, tears of awe running down her face and tears of pleasure running down her thighs. His big hands gripped hard at her tender ass, and the slight pain combined with the way his cock was moving inside her pushed her to another wave of orgasm.
Even the divine couple vanished. Nothing but the inside of her eyelids and the stars she saw dancing there.
Adimir roared his pleasure, shot into her.
As they eased down into the grass, both limp and spent, only the cool touch of the grass letting them know they were in the ordinary world at all, she swore she heard him say, “Love you, little rabbit."
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Seven
Lady Sun was high overhead by the time they woke again, nestled together. The scent of sex and flowers was overwhelming. She nestled against Adimir's big body, feeling small and safe and limp with contentment.
Then she remembered what she had seen while they were making love.
She'd thought such stories to be just that—stories, tales told to keep people honoring the Equinox and Midsummer rites, as if honoring the land and the sheer pleasure of lying with whatever man or woman took your fancy wouldn't be enough.
The legends said that if you and your lover both saw such a vision during the Equinox rites, you were meant to be together, blessed by the gods with a long, happy marriage, fruitful in all senses of the world. But back home, everyone but oldsters and priests scoffed at the idea of such visions.
“Adimir,” she asked nervously, “did you see..."
“Yes,” he whispered reverently. “Oh yes."
Then Adimir took her in his arms and said, sounding also as nervous as she had, “In the vision, I claimed you before the god and goddess, as we Thelanese learned from our Kulchu cousins. But in the rest of the Empire, one asks. So I'm asking. Will you marry me, to be mine as I am yours, now and forever?” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded more shaky than she'd ever heard it. “If you'll have a half-Kulchu barbarian who loves you, that is."
“If the half-Kulchu barbarian wants a physician who loves him, the answer is yes!"
She rolled him over onto his back, her on top of him, and kissed him breathless.
This time she rode him, and this time their lovemaking didn't yield any divine visions, just near-divine pleasure.
* * * *
The next day, they arrived in Arlind, the capital of Thelana satrapy, with Miryea's hand firmly in Adimir's. Arlind was more a large village than a city. Perhaps for that reason, it seemed that everyone in town turned out to check out the caravan. As the caravan arrived, the freed slaves at the beginning, the bound prisoners bringing up the rear, several young urchins took one look, whooped with glee, and headed off at a run.
At her side, Adimir groaned, “So much for being stealthy."
He looked as close to pale and nervous as a man of his physical type could.
Miryea was still trying to figure that out when the cheering began.
It started in the distance, spread toward the town square, reached it the same time the retinue did: a group centering on a tall older man dressed in the formal robes of a high-ranking Imperial official—white wool robes in an old-fashioned, unfitted style, with white fur cuffs, and an under-robe of heavy red silk—and a beautifully dressed dark woman, almost as tall as he was.
They stopped in the center of the square. “Greetings, citizens of Arlind,” the official said formally, in a clear voice that cut through the cheering. “Good news has come to our ears—slaves set free and a welcome homecoming—and we wish to make our pleasure known."
Adimir looked around, eyes rolling like a panicked horse. For a second, Miryea was convinced he would run away. Then he took her hand and led her forward, toward the noble couple.
Miryea's heart began to pound so hard she thought her ribs might break.
She started to bow deeply from the waist, the proper greeting when introduced to someone of much higher rank, but Adimir elbowed her until she stood. “I have come home—for a time, at least. And I have brought a bride with me. Father, Mother, this is Miryea, and we will be married at Midsummer. She was on her way to apprentice to a physician in Poldar. Do you know a good doctor here who might train her?"
Shocked, she looked up at the two nobles.
The woman was dark and, even with white hair and crows’ feet around her brown eyes, exotically lovely. The old man was fair and almost bald, but had Adimir's height and his strong features.
And he had a very official-looking pendant on. Gold, with a heraldic design in enamel. She'd seen something similar only once, when a newly appointed satrap had visited Yareth, and, thanks to her grandmother's connections, they'd had seats close enough to his brief public appearance for her to catch some of the details of his regalia.
“Well,” she said, too stunned to think clearly, “I can see where you get your good looks."
Then her brain began to whir again. “Adimir ... you're the son of the satrap of Thelana? Why did you tell everyone you were half Kulchu?"
The woman answered for him. “Because he is, daughter-in-law. I am from Kulchu—and, long ago, an escaped slave."
“And so you...” Miryea turned to Adimir.
“...was in Kulchu using my appearance, and my knowledge of the language, to learn the routes by which captives from the Empire were being smuggled into slavery. The problem's getting worse as the Emperor turns his attention to expanding eastward instead of guarding the Kulchu border. And I joined your caravan because I knew a band of brigands was moving captives through the forest toward the border and might decide to collect a few more before they left."
Then he raised his voice, addressing the crowd. “I accomplished my end. We have with us four-and-twenty freed captives, and several slavers from both sides of the border who will be tried for their crimes against the people of the Empire.” As if on cue, the caravan-master and his guards shoved forward the bound brigands.
As wild cheering erupted again in the square, Adimir turned to her. “Many of us, on both sides of the border, are working to see that no more of our people end up taken captive. But I never expected to be taken captive myself—by you. So how about it, little rabbit? Could you love a satrap's son?"
She smiled. “I loved the barbarian. But perhaps I'll fight less with the satrap's son."
“Oh, you'll still fight,” his mother chimed in. “Married couples always do. And if you let him—or if you like it, which some of us do—he'll still try to resolve it by spanking you. That's the Thelanese way. But remember, we do take turns here."
“What?” A smile—a naughty one, she knew—was spreading across her face at the images that came into her head. Adimir did have a lovely, sculpted bottom, and the notion of him presenting it for her to whack a few times was not entirely without appeal. But surely that couldn't be what her mother-in-law meant?
The old woman grinned. “I think you understand me, dear. We call it ‘threshing the grain.’ From harvest festival until spring equinox, you get to spank—him. Something about reprimanding the Lord of Grain for being lazy during the colder months—but really, it's just that turnabout is fair play. And if you do it right, fun."
“I could definitely get to like it here.” Miryea winked, first at her mother-in-law, then at Adimir.
“Mother!” Adimir protested. He didn't sound exactly upset—more flustered. And who knew someone so dark could blush so deeply?
He looked, in short, about the way she felt when he talked about spanking her, embarrassed, yet aroused.
“So it goes both ways, Adimir? Both the Lord and the Lady have their day?"
He did his best to retain a calm expression, but it didn't work. “Don't get too excited, little rabbit. It's not until autumn, and meanwhile I plan to..."
“Good,” she interrupted. “I'll like that a lot. But I'll be looking forward to my turn.” And before he could protest further, Miryea stopped his mouth with a kiss.
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
About the Author
A published poet, Teresa also writes erotica, romance, and fantasy. She writes with Dayle A. Dermatis as Sophie Mouette.
Visit Teresa online at teresanoelleroberts.blogspot.com.
* * *
Visit www.phaze.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Lady Sun Has Risn Page 5