by Megan Hart
Now he raked a hand through his hair and studied the sheaf of documents scattered across his desk. He tallied the numbers, and they all made sense. He worked them again, a list of shipments of fabrics and laces, and again the amounts matched in both columns.
"By the Arrow," he said. "I've done it."
"Of course you've done it." Mina looked up from the small square of her embroidery. It was a lady's task, and her delicate fingers had created a pretty picture of threaded flowers on the background of white linen. She'd been at it for hours, he realized, noting how close she seemed to finishing.
Which meant he'd been working for hours, as well.
"It's no great task. Minister of Fashion." Alaric looked again at the papers, expecting the figures to swim and blur as they so often had when he'd been in school. They stayed firm. The subjects even made sense, a peck of this, a barrel of that.
"The king held the title before his father died, did he not?"
"How did you know?" He put down his quill to smile at her. Mina gave him a small, secretive smile and a shrug. "My goodness, Alaric, you'd think I knew nothing of this place before I came here."
"Did you?" He tidied the stack and stretched, noting the ink stains on his fingers, and reached in the drawer for a box of sand to scrub them clean.
"It's my task to make myself aware of anything I might need to know before I attend a patron. Aside from the information provided to the Order, I have my own resources." He found it difficult to believe he'd known her but a week, so familiar had the curves of her face and sound of her voice become. She bent back to her embroidery, and he watched the steady, sure in-out thrust of her needle into the fabric. He looked to his work again. She'd done naught but encourage him gently in a tone that brooked no arguments to take up the task, but he had no doubt that somehow Mina was the reason he'd been able to get through it.
Alaric's mother had raised him to serve the lady in the room before himself, and it had ever been his nature to do so. If asked to list what Mina had required of him this past sevenday, he'd have been unable to put it into a format the way he'd added and subtracted the columns of goods and services his position required him to track. Every day she eased his service from him.
"Thank you," he said aloud.
She looked up, her needle clutched in slim fingers. "You're welcome." He liked that she didn't play coy with him. She knew her place and made it easy for him to know his. As he watched, she pricked her finger on the needle and let out a small gasp. He was on his feet before she even had time to tuck the finger into her mouth to suck away the crimson drop welling on the end. He took her hand and drew the wound to his own lips to kiss away the copper-tang taste of it. He'd moved without thinking beyond the moment, but as always when on his knees in front of her, his cock began to fill. He'd not forgotten her touch and how she'd stroked him that first night. He'd dreamed of it, in fact, waking with his cock rigid and aching for release. But Mina had not offered it, and Alaric hadn't asked permission for it. He'd contented himself with pleasuring her, spending hours licking her to climax, making love to her with every part of him but his cock. He'd never thought he'd rise to another woman's touch again, but all she had to do was look at him and he got hard.
Now he sucked gently on her fingertip and withdrew it. Mina's eyes gleamed. Her breath quickened. She murmured his name.
"Have you finished your work?" she asked next when he didn't release her hand.
"Yes."
She made a show of looking round the room. "And look how nice and tidy this room has become."
He laughed. "For my lady's pleasure."
Her gaze flared brighter at the words he spoke, and Alaric let go of her hand. He'd called her by the title he'd used for Larissa; it had slipped out before he could think. Had he overstepped?
"Go into the bedchamber," Mina said.
A cold fist clutched his throat for a moment. "I plead your mercy."
"Alaric. I said for you to go into the bedchamber. Take off your clothes, and wait for me. Now."
He might well have refused. She couldn't make him. But he got to his feet at once and nodded, his prick thickening in his trousers despite the flush of guilt heating its way up his throat to his cheeks. He didn't want to disobey her, even if she meant to punish him. In the bedchamber he stripped out of his trousers and hung them carefully, mindful of Mina's insistence on neatness.
Alaric had long known he was different than his friends. When his friends cringed at the stern demeanor of their teachers, he'd squirmed in his seat and fantasized about being naughty solely to risk punishment. It was not the pain that twitched his prick, but the idea of pleasing someone and being held accountable for providing that pleasure. Later, when the three of them had taken to the sorts of escapades only young men with privilege and money can afford, they'd gone to the whore. With coin in hand and unused to anything but being given what they wanted, they must have amused her, but she took them anyway.
She'd ordered them to strip and when they stood in front of her, pricks at attention, she'd spanked them all until their buttocks turned red. Cillian and Edward had suffered beneath her touch . . . but for Alaric it had been as though the heavens had sent a bolt of lightning just for him. Even when his friends had moved on to other whores, other pursuits, he'd spent many joyous hours under the tutelage of that first mistress. It had gone bad for his friends, one who'd forgone that which aroused him and the other fanning his desires to flames high enough to consume him. Only Alaric had walked the same path, never regretting or trying too hard to lose himself in it. Until Larissa, he thought now. From outside the door he heard Minas soft tread and he tensed, waiting for her to come in. She didn't. He heard her tug the bell cord. He heard the door open and a maid's voice, but not what was being said.
Alaric had long loved Edward, even though Cillian had always outranked him in Edward's affections. When they'd fallen out, with Cillian gone mad and Edward locked deep within the self-made prison of his guilt, it had been Alaric to whom he'd turned. And Alaric, fool he was, had allowed himself to imagine . . . well, it hardly mattered now. There had been Larissa to ease the sting. And later, there had been oblivion. And now, Mina.
He heard again the sound of the maid and Minas low murmur. The sound of the outer door closing. And at last, the swish of her gown in the doorway.
"Get on the bed. On your hands and knees, facing the wall." He dared not look at her, for fear his cock might spill from the vast and overwhelming surge of excitement flooding him. It had been days, nay, weeks since he'd had release, so long he couldn't recall the last time. He did as she said, aware as always when he submitted of how ridiculous he might look in his submission. Aware as well any who might think so didn't matter.
The rustle of cloth alerted him that she might be undressing, but even so when her bare belly pressed to his buttocks, Alaric couldn't hold back a moan. When Mina tugged free the ribbon holding his hair and it fell around his face, another low sound slipped from his lips. His cock could have drilled through brick.
"I adore the sounds you make," Mina murmured, getting into place behind him on her knees. Her belly pressed his ass again. Her hands settled onto his hips. "Tell me, sweet, are you afraid?"
"I'm afraid of many things," he admitted, holding himself still even when he longed to thrust his cock into even the bare relief the air would bring.
Her low, slow chuckle trickled over his skin and sent another surge of arousal through him. "I do adore your honesty."
"I'm afraid you won't be able to ... do ... for me. What you're meant to do." The words scratched at his throat but came out anyway.
"Hush," she said, not a mother chastising a wayward child, but a lover easing an inconsequential fear.
"It's been a week."
Her hands clutched his hips harder, and her belly pressed harder, and his cock got harder. He let his forehead press into the bedclothes, his elbows bent. Again, he thought of how ridiculous he must appear, ass in the air and a woman standin
g over him. But he didn't care. All that mattered was the feeling of her body against his and the sound of her voice.
"I appreciate your trust in me, but I assure you, Alaric, sometimes it does take longer. We're talking about reaching absolute solace, sweet, not a few minutes of ecstasy. It doesn't matter if you think you don't deserve it, or if you believe anything you've said or done could make me not try my best to serve you."
A small, strangled gasp escaped him. "You're not the one who serves."
"If you think," she said as she grasped his cock, "that the only way to serve is on one's knees, you know nothing about service."
He cried out as she stroked a dry hand along his erection. She hushed him again and palmed the head of his cock until his hips bucked. She stroked him again and withdrew, and he looked over his shoulder.
Mina held up a small bottle, which she uncorked and tipped over her palm. Thick, fragrant oil oozed out. She painted her nipples with it while he watched, then slipped a finger through the curls between her legs. Her eyes became sleepy lidded. He had grown as familiar with her body as her face and voice. Her high breasts, the size to fit into his hands. Her pink nipples. The slope of her belly and thatch of dark pubic curls. She displayed herself more proudly for him now than she had ever before, but when he made to get off his hands and knees, she shook her head.
"No."
Alaric put his forehead into the cradle of his palms and closed his eyes. Mina's hand, coated now with oil, slid 'round to stroke him. Mindful of her professed adoration for his noises, he moaned without holding back.
"Lovely," she breathed. "Beautiful."
He was a man, and though he knew of many who'd found his countenance pleasing, he'd never have said he was beautiful. Yet Mina speaking it made it so, without anything ridiculous about it. He breathed and caught her scent. The scent of the oil on her hands. Her hand moved up and down his shaft. Her other caressed his buttocks. One slim finger ran down the seam there and he tensed at the delicate probe of her fingertip against his anus. His breath gusted out of him on a sigh.
Mina's fingertip pressed against him in counterpoint to every stroke. No woman had ever touched him there. Even Larissa, with all her fondness for watching her playmates suck and fuck each other, had never herself explored his body in this manner. Mina's touch wasn't timid, not rough, and the sweet pressure in time with every stroke had him on fire in moments.
She paused and withdrew, and Alaric shuddered with wanting. She murmured an endearment. He heard the dull sound of the bottle uncorking, smelled a fresh burst of the oil's distinctive odor, and he tensed in anticipation.
Mina drew it out, that sweet, slow twist of time before she touched him again. This time, she grasped him harder, and instead of applying only pressure to the tight ring of muscles, she entered him. He thought for sure he'd cry out, there seemed no other way for the force of his reaction to be expressed, but all that slipped from his lips was a sigh.
"I will never do anything to cause you harm, Alaric. You must tell me if there is anything I do you cannot stand. I am not much interested in pain for its own sake, but there is much some call pleasure and others cannot abide." Her finger slid deeper inside him to stroke a hidden place that sent lightning shocks of desire exploding inside him. "You must tell me if anything I require is too much."
He'd never been fucked this way; never fucked another that way either though amongst the group of young lords Cillian had ever kept 'round him this sort of play was common enough. He'd taken his pleasure with men more than once, but this . . . this was something so different and unexpected he could only bite the sheet beneath him and thrust forward into her hand.
Alaric closed his eyes and gave up to her touch. Mina used both her hands in tandem, and the bed dipped as she moved behind him. With every thrust, he felt the press of her belly against his buttocks as she moved inside and around him. She'd taken the man's place in the bed, but nothing she did made him feel less masculine. He'd never felt more a man than at this moment, giving up everything because she asked it of him. Alaric was fair certain he'd spill into her grip as quickly as a boy with his first woman, but Mina knew how to stretch out his pleasure, to keep him on the edge of desire for so long he lost track of all time. The world narrowed to her murmuring voice and her touch. His body became her instrument and she played him with infinite skill. She made him senseless with desire. Words fell from his mouth, one not matching the next. Compliments, then curses, and finally, pleas for release. Each time he felt he could hold back no longer, she changed her stroke to keep him from it.
"Please," he panted, finally, hoarsely, gasping in a breath. It took only two strokes after that for her to finish him. He spurted violently into her hand as his body convulsed. Behind his closed eyes bright sparks flashed and universes were created. He lost his breath and found it. He collapsed onto his belly on the bed, spent. Some moments later her touch on his shoulder turned him onto his back. Mina, smiling, had brought a cloth and basin of warm water. She cleaned him thoroughly and set the cloth and basin aside, then stretched out beside him, naked.
He thought he should speak but had used his words too freely before. Now only silence left his lips. Mina hushed him once more as though she knew he meant to speak, and Alaric stopped trying for a while.
"Is this absolute solace?" he asked at last when sense returned. Mina laughed into his ear. "If sexual release was all it took to provide it, do you not think I'd have provided it and been gone already?"
He tried to rouse himself to sit but, boneless and sated, could only pull her closer to press a kiss to her temple. "How can you be so certain? Maybe I'm such a simpleton that's all it takes."
"The next time you refer to yourself as a simpleton, Alaric, I will punish you, and I assure you it will not be in a manner you'll enjoy."
He had no doubts she would. "But. . . how do you know, really? When it happens?"
"Absolute solace is not some magical, mystical event," Mina told him. "There's no sudden spark or divination that determines it. The fact you're asking me if you've achieved it means you haven't, that's all. When it happens, you'll know. And I'll know."
"Have you ever been wrong?"
"No."
"Not once?"
He wouldn't have blamed her had his questions put a frown on her lips, but Mina only stroked his hair back from his face. "No, Alaric."
"Have you ever . . . failed?" He'd failed at much in life and wouldn't judge her for it.
"Not often. But yes. Of course. There are some who sought my services for the wrong reasons. They'd lied to themselves, so it was impossible for them not to lie to me. And I'm neither mystical nor magical myself. Nor perfect."
"You are as close to perfection as any lady I've ever met," he said sincerely, and she touched his face again.
"Since I find false modesty offensive, I will not disagree except to say I will accept being practically perfect, if not ultimately."
His cock lay soft on his thigh and he touched it briefly. "Still, it had to be a start."
"Mmmm," Mina said, which he couldn't tell was concurrence or dissent.
"Thank you for it, at any rate."
She laughed again and kissed his shoulder. "Did you think I would keep on allowing you to bring me such pleasure without ever returning the favor?"
"You could have," he said, thinking of Larissa.
Mina's laugh became a sigh. "It was time."
Sleep tempted him but didn't overtake him at once. He managed to pull a blanket over them both to ward off the chill. With
Mina in his arms he thought he might sleep well for the first time in months.
"Tomorrow, you shall go to court and attend your king so that you might present him with the results of your efforts."
He sat, refusal on his tongue. At the sight of her expression, he stilled it. It had been overlong since he'd gone to court, since he'd performed the duties of his position, few as they might be.
"If for no other reason than to prove
the king's enemies wrong about his choices," she continued.
"Who speaks out against Cillian?" Alaric thought he must know already. Devain had ever been against the prince before he took his father's place, and though the man had been tossed into prison for his attempts to overthrow the succession, he'd had many supporters.
"And how do you . . . never mind."
He should know better than to ask how Mina knew anything,
"He shouldn't have given me the position of minister."
"Since there have been kings there have been men put into positions because of friendship and not value, Alaric."
A flash of irritation bent his mouth. "You agree? And yet you tell me not to call myself simpleton."
"Because you're not," Mina said. "And I didn't say I agreed with you. I'm saying you must attend court so that you might prove wrong those who speak against your friend. After what he's done for you, it's the least you can do."
Nothing she'd done so far had shamed him, but these words did. "Has he suffered because of me?"
"Suffered? Your friend seems fair immune to suffering such minor stings as snide remarks, but I daresay your persistent absence has hurt him. He's worried about you, as is Edward, whom you've also been ignoring. And him with a new son to coo over." She'd given him no new truths, but having her say them meant he couldn't easily continue to ignore them. "You're right."
"Of course I am."
He lay down again and she tucked herself up close beside him. The slowing pattern of his breath soon matched hers. Sleep was not so tempting this time.
He thought of the man with the jeweled case and for the first time in days the craving woke inside him. "If I attend court, I'll be expected to appear at evening entertainments, as well."
"And what a merry time we shall have," she murmured sleepily.
"There will be people there I don't wish to see."
Mina slung a leg over his and kissed his shoulder. "I'll be with you. Knowing it did ease some of his worry. What she said next took away the rest.