Minutes passed in silence. Finally, her eyes opened and stared into mine. Her right hand wrapped around my wrist like a vice. She smiled slowly. It was one of sadness.
"Now I will give you what you want." She pulled the blade from my throat and brought her left hand together with mine. My palm made contact with the pommel of her weapon and she pointed the blade up, so that the long edge touched the side of her neck, a small sliver of skin unprotected by armor.
"Finish what you started." She dropped her hand from mine and closed her eyes. The breeze turned into wind for a few seconds and it tossed her hair from my face, across my arm, and covered her blade like blood. Then it changed directions and blew her fiery mane back from her head to expose her perfect neck and the edge I now held against it.
I heard her heart beat in sync with mine. Her breath filled her chest and then she exhaled in calm, regular sighs. I inhaled the scent of her body and her hair from the few feet that separated us and it brought back the hundreds of memories of her wrapped around me. I could taste the bittersweet revenge on my tongue.
I pulled Iolarathe's sword away from her neck and cast it aside as if it was an angry viper intent on biting me. It made a sharp sound as it tumbled through the dirt and came to rest a dozen feet from us. Her eyes opened in surprise but she didn't resist when my fingers entwined themselves around her thick coppery hair and pulled her face down to mine.
I never would have believed that the feeling of her mouth on mine could have been as wondrous as it was in my memories, but it was. Her mouth tasted better than I imagined. Our bodies remembered each other instantly, as if no time had passed. She flicked her tongue against my teeth, across my lips, and deep into my mouth. I pulled down on her hair, forcing our kiss to end. She gasped as we parted and made a soft whine. The kind a starving animal would make if teased with food. It was an involuntary, primal sound that came from deep within her and excited me more than any other woman ever had. It was the sound of lust and surrender. The sound of desire that demanded fulfillment. My tongue traced the ridge of her perfect jawline, away from her mouth, and then my teeth softly grazed her neck. She tried to pull her face down to kiss me again, but could only gasp in frustration as I held her pinned by her hair.
My tongue, lips and teeth made her sigh, moan and purr in bliss. I had dreamed of doing this to her so many times, I did not even have to plan the next movement that would cause her pleasure. It was ingrained in my body, like the movements I practiced when training to kill. After a few minutes of torturing her neck, jaw, and earlobes with my mouth I let the tension out of my grip and allowed her head to move. She immediately attacked my lips with animal ferocity. Snarling, biting, kissing, and licking until I tasted blood and thought about pulling her head back again so I could access her throat.
"Ohh Kaiyer." She pulled back suddenly. Her eyes were wide and the silvery irises glowed like spinning mercury. "I always worried about hurting you." I saw my blood on her teeth and lips. She noticed her hands were still gloved and she hastily yanked them off before she ran her palms over my armor. My left hand was already bare but I unbuckled the right gauntlet. She then wove our fingers together and lay down on top of my chest plate, pushing my arms up over my head into the soft grass and kissing me softly. Her hair spread around and covered us like a red canopy that blocked out the rising sun. The kiss slowly grew in heat and intensity until our mouths and tongues battled again. I broke my right hand free of her hold and grabbed a fist full of her thick hair again, forcing our lips and mouths together and breathing into her mouth. She moaned in appreciation and the sound of her pleasure filled my lungs and echoed through my stomach.
"Move your hands down a few inches." She broke our kiss and panted the words out. My fingers crawled down from her head to the scaled gold metal that protected her upper back. I felt a series of buckles and I quickly unhinged them, pulling the leather straps through hoops until I released four of them. I could not feel any more.
She sat on top of my hips and raised her left arm, there were more buckles there keeping her armor locked onto her torso. I unbuckled her left arm, and then her right. She sprung to her feet and unfastened the matching gold belt that hung against her hips. The plate girdle came away with the armored skirt and I saw various knives, pouches, and throwing needles that had been concealed in the leather. With the belt off she shrugged her shoulders in a smooth motion and the layered armor that protected her upper body slid to the grass. She wore a thin violet tunic underneath her chest piece and it was damp with sweat. The fabric did little to hide the shape of her lithe torso, full breasts, and erect nipples. She bent to unbuckle her boots and then she halted.
"Shouldn't you be taking these off?" she asked with her mischievous smile. She pointed a long finger to the high leather boots and I reached for them.
The boots unbuckled from the side so I just had to peel them off her long legs. By the time I had removed them, she had released her armored greaves. As soon as the armor fell to the ground she pounced on me again. Her nails lightly scratched my scalp while she lay on top of my chest plate and kissed me. My fingers roamed over her almost naked body, rubbing her back, thighs, and calves while we moaned in each other's mouths.
I needed to feel her skin against mine. I broke our kiss and reached my shoulder plates. Each one had a small set of screws that I spun a few times to release. Iolarathe watched me do the first one and then her deft fingers quickly undid the other pauldron.
"I was wondering how you took this ugly thing off," she said. Her voice was husky and made my mouth water.
"There are twenty-four more screws." I'd never wanted to be out of this armor quicker. I needed to kiss her again and feel her body against mine. Everything else was forgotten.
"Fuck." She spotted another group of fasteners on the side of my arm plates and worked on those. Then she stopped her fingers and sniffed. "Are you bleeding? It smells fresh."
"Yes." I nodded. "The screws often tear through the leather."
"Why?" she questioned in anger. I smiled back at her.
"The armor doesn't shift around me if it is tight. I can move better in it and deliver more powerful attacks." I was halfway done with my side but Iolarathe had stopped taking them out and was trying to make eye contact with me.
"Doesn't it hurt?"
"The pain helps me focus. All my generals wear armor like this." I looked into her eyes and tried to read the expression there. It was a cross between worry and disbelief. "It will feel better once you remove the rest."
"Of course." She searched the armor. I moved my hand up to her neck and massaged the skin there. She moaned and gave me a sidelong glance of unfulfilled desire.
What was I doing here? I had made a commitment to Shlara. I wanted to kill Iolarathe. I needed my mind back in the present so I might focus on finding Nadea. My stomach flopped and my head started to hurt again.
"I need you." She stopped pulling out the screws and took a deep breath; maybe she sensed my questions, sensed I was elsewhere. The movement of her lungs made her chest swell and her nipples pushed up against the thin, damp fabric. Her body shook and trembled slightly, but it wasn't from the cold.
The concerns fled from my mind as I drew her face back to me to kiss her again. Her nails scratched against the metal of my chest plate. The sound they produced reminded her of our task and she attacked the rest of my armor with lust. After half a minute that seemed to last an hour the final screw was unfastened. Then I broke the pieces from my torso, arms, and legs. The seams of the demonic plates were carefully concealed in the skull etching, and I had to show her where to hold and pull so they could twist free.
Instead of a purple silk undergarment, I wore the brown leather armor that all my troops wore. Except mine was no longer brown. The screws and fall had caused me to bleed all over the leather and it was now a dark shade of red. The blood didn't bother Iolarathe though. As soon as she tossed the last of the skull metal aside she pushed me to the ground and straddled my hips
again so she could grind herself against my erection.
"You smell so good Kaiyer," she growled and leaned down to kiss me again. It was a brief one, her tongue flicked across my lips again as my face tried to return the motion before she moved away.
"My blood?" my hands reached up and gripped the lower part of her back above her perfectly shaped hips. She gasped when my fingers dug into her muscles and drew her down against me. Then we both moaned when she lay on top of me and attempted to burrow into my chest.
"All of you. But your blood smells amazing as well," she whispered into my ear and licked the lobe with long movements of her tongue. I could only stand it for a few dozen seconds before I kissed her again. Then my hands roamed over her body until I finally found the bottom hem of her silk shirt. I tugged it up and then she moved her lips away from mine, licking my face before sitting upright to let me pull the garment off of her torso.
Iolarathe's body looked as amazing as it had in my dreams. Her pink nipples stood erect from perfectly round breasts. Her skin glowed as fresh snow and felt as smooth as the finest polished marble. I moved my palms back down to the sides of her hips and rubbed my thumbs slowly up the well-defined abdominal muscles of her stomach. My cracked, tan, blood-caked hands seemed completely undeserving of touching such a fine canvas.
Iolarathe whispered my name and the sound made me look up from her stomach to her face. She had one of her long fingers in her mouth and her teeth sank into the skin around the nail. Her eyes closed halfway and I could only see a sliver of their silver color through her thick coppery lashes. My hands worked up to the top of her abs, traced across her rib cage, and carefully grasped her breasts. They were the perfect combination of softness and firmness. My fingers squeezed them as roughly as I knew she enjoyed.
"Ohhhhhhh!" she moaned from her stomach in a deep, guttural, exclamation of lust. Her hands rubbed against my chest and scratched the skin beneath the thin leather. I continued my assault on her breasts, rubbing them deeply and pinching her small, hard nipples. Her body seemed to melt into my grip as she gave herself up to the pleasure my fingers delivered.
Her hips started to rock up and down against me. Her grinding forced my breath to hiss out of my mouth in surprise and pain. My body ached to be inside of her and the teasing movements of her hips against mine only exasperated me.
I sat up more and moved my hands away from her breasts, down her back, and cupped her firm butt. My mouth made contact with the base of her neck, her collarbone, and the valley between her breasts while I tried to cross my legs so I could sit more comfortably with her on top of me. She gasped with joy and dug her nails into my scalp. I felt her calves wrap around my hips and the change in her position let me get my knees where they would support her on my lap. This reduced the amount she could push herself against my penis but allowed me freer access to her body.
My hands roamed up and down her bare back while my fingertips lightly traced her spine and the smooth muscles there. Our lips met again in a wondrous kiss that returned me to the stables where we once spent countless hours pleasuring each other. After the kiss ended I pulled on her lower back. This forced her upper torso to arch and gave my mouth access to her nipples.
She gasped my name while I hungrily kissed, licked, sucked, and bit on the pink nubs of flesh. I used one arm to support her body as it leaned away from me and then brought my other hand to give attention to the nipple that I was not pleasuring with my mouth. She moaned in ecstasy and her hips trembled every time I ran my teeth lightly over her nipple.
"Shirt," she gasped out as her fingers tugged at the front of my thick leather shirt. I released her breasts and leaned away from her. Her hands grabbed the leather and yanked it over my head. Then her arms circled my neck, mine wrapped around her lower back, and we pulled each other into a tight embrace. Our voices became one sigh of pleasure as the skin on our upper bodies made contact.
"I love you," the words trickled out of my mouth without my consent, but as soon as my voice gave them life I knew them to be true. There had been no one else but Iolarathe. She never left my thoughts. As we clung to each other on the floor of the forest I felt a serene peace fill my mind. Perhaps it was the touch of her skin, or her hair, the scent of her body. Perhaps it was the relief of admitting and accepting this truth I had been fighting so hard to suppress.
"I know. I saw it in your eyes yesterday. You looked at me the same way you did all those years ago," she muttered into my chest and then sighed in contentment when my arms pulled her closer to me.
"You knew I wouldn't take your offer. How could I?" My fingers traced down the smooth skin of her back. Her hair wrapped around my hands and arms. How many times had I wanted to run my hands through the red mane? More than I could count.
"I need you inside of me. I'll give you all the answers you want after you make love to me again." Her breath was hot and moist in my ear. We were kissing each other fiercely again, with our exhales turning into gasps of pleasure and whines of desire. I shifted my weight forward on my legs and lowered her down onto the bed in my room.
She was suddenly gone. My arms circled a pillow and I lay face down on the plush blankets that covered my bed.
"Fuck!" I yelled as I slammed my fist into the headboard of the bed frame. It was crafted of thick oak but my knuckles smashed through it, snapping the top half off in a jagged piece and crushing it against the stone of the wall.
There was a light knock on the door and it opened softly.
"O'Baarni?" It was the same guard who had come in earlier. She choked out my name with undisguised terror. I glared at her before I swung myself off of the bed and stalked toward her.
"I told you to leave me alone." My voice was a gravel growl. Her eyes widened in panic and she retreated into the hall, slamming the door shut before I got to her. I punched my fist into the piece of oak. It was braced by thin strips of steel and looked like it would withstand plenty of abuse. My blow still cracked it in the center and buckled the steel hinges that held it against the thick door frame.
"Get Isslata!" the guard demanded of her partner. I heard booted feet dash down the hall to my left.
Yes. Get Isslata. I would take my sexual frustrations out on her. I leaned my face and arms against the cracked wood and a shudder passed through my body. Maybe a cold bath would make me feel better? Perhaps it would wash away the thoughts of Iolarathe. I needed to do something to end the madness of my memories.
"Come back to me, love." Her fingers caressed my shoulders, tickling the skin there with her sharp nails. I turned and her hands slid around my neck until her arms embraced me. "Where did you go?" she said with a soft smile. Her clothes were now removed and I looked down her sleek body to where the thin strip of coppery hair did little to hide her entrance.
"This isn't real. I am dreaming." My arms wrapped her waist and I let her pull me toward the bed. My clothes were gone as well and my erection dragged exquisitely across the smooth skin on the lower part of her toned belly.
"I am dreaming too then. I've always been dreaming of you." She lay back down on the grass and her hair pooled like shiny metallic blood. Her legs spread deliciously and my eyes drank in the vision of her beautiful body laid before me like a feast waiting to be devoured. I knelt before her and licked across her stomach. The movement caused her back to arch up and a husky moan escaped her mouth.
I worked my way down her stomach slowly, taking time to enjoy the sweetness of her skin and the moans of pleasure that she gave me. After half a minute I made it to her entrance and used the flat middle part of my tongue to lick the pink petals of her flower. The lips to her tunnel were already wet and ready for me. Her arousal tasted like I remembered and I couldn't keep myself from probing into her depths to drink more of her.
Her hands gripped around my head and held me against her entrance while her hips bucked with the sensations my tongue whipped through her body. It seemed that I had just begun licking her, but her legs squeezed against my shoulders in the pat
tern I remembered from the stables. I pushed my tongue deeper into her and then flicked it up against the tender nub of flesh at the top of her wet lips. I knew she loved it when I did that and it only took a few movements of my mouth against the small pink marble before she reached a climax.
Iolarathe's orgasm claimed her like a storm tossed a ship at sea. Her body twisted and thrashed underneath me. She screamed my name. She tried to push me off of her but while once she possessed the strength to tear my head off easily, I was now much stronger than her and wouldn't be moved. She tasted so good that I never wanted to drink another wine and I would not let her stop me from pleasuring her at the apex of her orgasm.
Eventually her waves grew smaller and she exhaled in relief. I took one last lick with the back of my tongue, passing it over the outside of her folds and ending at the top of her entrance. She gasped and trembled a little with my last lick and I looked up so that I could see her face. Her eyes were closed but her mouth hung open slightly so that her ragged breaths could leave her body quicker. The movement of her chest made her breasts move up and down hypnotically and I wanted to taste them again.
"So good," she whispered and moaned when my mouth made contact with her breast. Her hands scratched down my bare back lightly and then moved to the front of my shoulders. She pushed me away and I stared down at her with a questioning look.
"Inside of me." She bit her lip after she said it and reached down with her right hand to touch my erection. I gasped when her fingers danced around the shaft and gripped the base. I moved my knees closer to her and then leaned down so that our mouths met.
"Iolarathe," I whispered her name before our lips touched. She moaned into my mouth and the sound of her desire filled my mind. Her hand led me to her opening and set the tip of my penis against her entrance before she shifted herself downward in an attempt to force me inside of her. She only succeeded in getting the head a little wet so I rolled my hips forward and pushed an inch or so into her before her tightness prevented me from going in more.
The Destroyer Book 2 Page 45