Happily, I found myself in control of our lovemaking. I was enthralled by the rush of power over him, knowing that my movements would determine our pleasure. I cast aside all thoughts of virtue and appropriate behaviour as I braced my knees on the bed on either side of him and proceeded to grind myself down upon him. I found that I was able to move that tender spot against him as I wished, so I began concentrating on building that wonderful sensation.
Kurit’s eyes opened, and he looked up at me in amazed delight. He kept one hand on my moving hip, and with the other he fondled my freely swinging breasts, pinching my nipples lightly.
I went out of my mind in ecstasy and heard my far-away voice calling out to him wildly. Kurit’s deep climax caused him to squeeze my breast painfully, but I was in the throes of passion myself still, and the pain of it excited me all the more.
When finally I collapsed upon him, exhausted, my arms were shaking and my breast throbbed where he had squeezed it too hard. But I didn’t care, for it was the greatest pleasure I had ever known, and it had well been worth the minor discomfort afterwards.
I let myself fall to his side, keeping my head on his shoulder. He had his arm around me still and traced small, sensual circles on my back with his fingers.
Eventually we rose again and dressed ourselves. Kurit left the room to the hall as I went into the other bedchamber.
Leiset was there and looked at me knowingly.
“You’ve had a busy day thus far,” she said in a low tone, though she smiled as she spoke.
I tried not to blush, which of course made me turn an even darker shade of red. I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Whatever do you mean?”
Leiset sat down beside me on the edge of the bed. “Aenna, I know you’ve been married less than a day and you’re still excited, but you must learn to control your desires immediately.”
“Whatever for?” I asked, still blushing slightly but resentful at the thought of not being able to enjoy marital relations with my new husband. “Kurit doesn’t seem at all displeased.”
“No, not now, of course not,” she said. “At the moment, he’s delighted to have won himself a sensual wife. He enjoys your lust now, Aenna, but in time he will come to disrespect you for it.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t imagine that. He loves me.”
“Of course he loves you, but you are supposed to be a lady, after all. If you let him take you whenever he wishes, or worse, if you pounce upon him constantly yourself, in time he will begin to think that you are not a proper lady after all, and he may well resent you for that.”
Leiset rose from the bed. “Furthermore, if you don’t learn now to keep his desires under your control, he will take you at every chance he gets, and you’ll end up with twenty babies in your lifetime. Not only is that quite unseemly for a lady of high station, but it could easily result in your early death.”
I sighed. She was right about that last part. While I very much wished to have children, I certainly did not wish to spend my entire life having one after another until I finally dropped dead from the exhaustion of it. In my childhood at the Temple Academy, those who wished to convince us to join their ranks in service to the Gods often cited escape from a lifetime of bearing babies as a good reason for young women to become priestesses.
I sighed again and left the room, not wishing to hear further lectures on why I shouldn’t enjoy the new passions I’d discovered.
After lunch, Kurit and I went for a walk not far from the cottage. He brought his sword with him just in case any of the men who had passed by the broken coach were lingering about.
When we were far enough away that I knew we wouldn’t be heard, I bluntly asked, “Kurit, do you find me to be unladylike in my desire for you?”
Startled by the sudden question, he stopped in his tracks and said, “No! Of course not!”
I stood facing him and tried to explain to him why I had asked, but I felt silly and a little bit ashamed. Words failed me as a result, and I began to blush.
Kurit reached out a gentle hand to caress my cheek and asked, “Whatever makes you think that I would find you unladylike?” Then his eyes widened and he said, “Oh, Leiset gave you a lecture on propriety, didn’t she?” I nodded, and he pulled me into an embrace. “Aenna, my love, I’ve heard those same arguments of morality myself. Not from Leiset, of course, but Leiset is known for her disdain of men in general. Did she paint you a picture of how terribly vulgar it would be if you didn’t keep control over your desires?”
“Something of that sort,” I said.
He pulled back to look at me, his hands still on my shoulders. “Aenna, I want so much for you to be happy. I am delighted that you have been happy in our bed, and I want that to continue. Having said that, our frequency at the moment really is due to the fact that we were only just wed, and I know I’m still overexcited with everything still being so new.” He winked and smiled roguishly, making me giggle. “If Leiset thinks that I have the stamina to make love with you all night and all day long, day in and day out for the rest of our lives, well, I’m flattered, but my love, I must admit that I shall likely drop dead if I try!”
Despite an effort to remain civil, I burst into laughter.
He continued, “Aenna, do you have the slightest idea how empty my mind is after we have made love? By the Temple itself, if I were to pounce upon you every time I had the whim, I’d not have enough mental capacity left to remember my name, let alone run a kingdom!”
I laughed so hard that tears rolled down my cheeks. He kept on with the silliness, making jokes about having swarms of children biting at his knees and becoming a wretchedly lustful old man. Finally I was laughing so much that I could scarcely breathe, so I croaked out between laughs for him to stop before I fainted away.
I sat on the ground, up against a tree, and closed my eyes so I could not see his roguish grin. Finally, the gales of laughter subsided, leaving me tired and with sore muscles but happy nonetheless.
Kurit sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. I leaned my tired head against his shoulder. “I am glad I decided to speak to you on this,” I said.
“Do you mean to tell me that you considered not speaking to me on it?”
“Well, yes. I was a little nervous to air the issue,” I admitted.
“Aenna, love,” he said, kissing the top of my head, “you must never think that you cannot talk to me about anything. I know I tease you awfully and make you blush, but I am capable of behaving myself when you require that of me. Honestly, had you not started laughing at my first comments, I would not have spoken in jest thereafter. I would have been serious, if you had been upset.”
“But, Kurit,” I teased, “you take such delight in making me blush.”
“Because you’re so pretty when you turn pink and hide your face. You’re like a little girl then, and I find it very endearing,” he said, kissing my head again. “And I admit that it makes me feel powerful. Aenna, you command such power over me, though you probably aren’t even aware of it. I tease you because it’s the only way I can take some control back!”
I sat up and turned to look at him. “Kurit, it’s one thing that I might delight in a bit of power in our love play, but I don’t really wish to have control over you otherwise.”
“Whether you wish it or not, you do. You’re just the type of person who commands attention, Aenna. There’s just something about you that makes people listen to you and abide by your words. Maybe it’s because you’re intelligent. But then, I’ve known intelligent people who lack any power whatsoever. No, there’s something else about you. I don’t know what it is,” he said seriously. Then he smiled again and said, “But don’t fret on that. It’s a good thing. And it is probably one of the many reasons I desire you so.”
He leaned to me and kissed me passionately. When the kiss was over, he declared, “Never think that I would condemn you for your passions. I share them. If others find it scandalous that we enjoy making love
so very much, then let them think what they will. I care not. You have made me a very, very happy man. You are every man’s dream and my reality. I would never disrespect you. I love you, my little klysh.”
“Klysh?”
Kurit smiled roguishly again. “You don’t know what that is? It’s an old Kyran legend. Klyshes were feminine creatures that lurked in forests to entice men off the path. They’d kill the men with erotic pleasures and then devour their souls.”
“Well, I certainly have no desire to kill you, Kurit,” I said teasingly.
“I don’t imagine that you do,” he said. He kissed me deeply and then said, “But you certainly have devoured my soul!”
I feigned indignation until he laughingly apologized and kissed me again. Then my new husband leapt to his feet, helped me up to my own, and we continued our happy walk.
* * *
We made love again when we went to bed. It was a very warm summer’s night, and we lay naked afterwards without so much as a sheet covering us. Kurit kept staring at my hip and tracing idle circles there with his fingertips. When I would speak to him, he would look at me, answer, and then go back to staring at my hip.
Finally I asked, “What is it? Is there a mark there?”
His reverie broken, he looked at me in confusion for a moment. “Hmm? Oh, no. It’s perfect.”
“Perfect?”
Kurit smiled at me lovingly and said, “You wouldn’t understand. You’ll think me a beast.”
“I already do,” I teased, tickling his tummy gently.
Kurit returned the tickle and then continued touching my hip.
“Tell me,” I said softly.
He glanced up at my eyes again, then back to my hip. “This curve,” he said, tracing his fingers from the top of my hip, down over it, and then around to my backside. “This curve drives me to madness for you.”
I looked at him strangely, not understanding what he meant.
Looking at my questioning eyes, he chuckled and said, “See? I told you that you wouldn’t understand.”
“How can a curve drive you to madness?”
He put his warm palm on my hip and squeezed softly. “Well, that’s the part wherein you shall undoubtedly tell me I’m a beast.” He chuckled again. “In these last weeks, I would see you walking in the palace, and this curve, when you walk …” He sighed happily and closed his eyes for a moment. “When you walk, this curve moves. It’s hard to explain. It’s like a wave, not on the water, but an alluring, womanly wave instead.
“I would watch as you walked. Sometimes you would pass me in a corridor, but more often I would watch you from above the Great Hall. I would watch as you walked away from me, and I’d just watch your hips moving under your dress, and …” He sighed again. Then he looked at me with a rogue’s eye and moaned, “Oh, Aenna, the thoughts in my head when I watched you walk …”
I smiled at him and teased, “Were they lustful thoughts?”
“Lustful? That greatly understates it. Aenna, it was all I could do to not chase after you, grab you, carry you to the closest bedchamber, and take you with a wild passion.”
Kurit moved closer, pressing himself against me. He was aroused, as was I. I arched my back so that my breasts would be pushed against his chest. He kissed me, moving his mouth seductively, pushing his tongue between my lips.
Then he kissed my cheek and whispered, “Do you think me a beast?”
“Yes. And I like it,” I whispered back.
Kurit folded his arms around me as we kissed again. Then he rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him.
“Do what you did earlier. I enjoyed the way you moved your perfect hips,” he said with a light growl to his voice.
Happily, I complied with his wish, moving on him again with slow circles. This time he kept hold of my hips and used them as leverage to pull himself up into me. I was too tired to reach the same height of ecstasy I had before, so instead I endeavoured to drive him wild. I grinned, feeling quite powerful and proud, when I saw him clench his teeth and grunt in his climax.
He fell asleep very quickly afterwards, and I let the sound of his breathing lull me as well.
* * *
We set off one morning together with a blanket and picnic basket. I wore a simple dress that would not be ruined by sitting on the ground, and Kurit wore equally sturdy clothes.
We walked down to the lake, where Kurit spread the blanket out by the shore. He laid himself back upon it, staring lazily at the small clouds overhead, his arms folded behind his head. I joined him after tucking the picnic basket under the shade of a tree. I lay perpendicular to him, my head resting on his stomach. He kept his right arm under his head, but moved his left hand to hold mine. We stayed like that for a long time, talking idly, noticing shapes in the clouds.
Soon I grew bold enough to ask a question that I had considered for some time. “Kurit, were you ever intimate with another woman?”
“Aenna, don’t ask that!”
“I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just curious. And you said the other day that I should be free to speak to you on anything.”
He sighed, my head riding along with it. “I’m not going to talk about that. You’ll get jealous and upset, and I can’t bear to see you that way.”
“Do I have anything to be jealous about?”
He grumbled. “See? Already you’re jealous, and no, you shouldn’t be. You’re the dearest thing in my life. I’ve told you many times that your beauty is unparalleled in my eyes. Let us talk of something else.”
“What if I promise to not be upset?” I pressed on.
“Aenna,” he groaned.
“Honestly, I want to know, and I won’t be jealous unless you tell me you were with Sashken.”
He pretended to scream and gag in horror and disgust, and we laughed. “How could you even suggest it? I think I shall be ill. Ugh. What a thought! I should rightly tickle you until you scream for that,” he said, poking at my side threateningly.
“Don’t you dare!” I wiggled myself so that I was angled away from him. “I’m just curious. I’m not asking because I feel threatened. You’ve done a splendid job in convincing me against that.”
“Good. Very good, in fact. It bothered me when you kept telling me how unworthy you were.”
“I still feel unworthy at times.”
“That’s understandable. I feel unworthy at times myself. I look at my father, and he’s everything a King ought to be. And I am not like him at all, in attitude or behaviour. I have tried to be, but I simply am not. But I force myself to consider that I’m not a stupid man, nor am I foolhardy, even though I may act silly at times, and I’ve been educated and watched and learned, so I must conclude that I’ll be able to handle the role. I can’t bear to imagine myself failing. It’s too frightening.”
“You won’t fail, Kurit. But you’re changing the subject.”
“Intentionally so.”
“I want you to tell me if you were with other women before me.”
“Why? Why do you need to hear such things?”
“I’m insatiably curious. Wouldn’t you want to know in my place?”
He thought about that quietly for a moment and then replied, “I can’t decide. It never occurred to me, because I knew you to be a maiden.”
“Kurit, by your reluctance I can tell that you were with others. Tell me how many there were.”
He sighed again, giving up any hope of stopping my questions. “Two. Only two.”
“Who were they?”
“Aenna, really …”
“I want to know who charmed your heart.”
“Nobody but you.”
“That’s sweet, Kurit, but they must have meant something to you.”
“If I tell you, you’ll become angry with me and tell me what a terrible cad I am.”
“I promise to do no such thing.”
He grumbled and said, “Well, the first one doesn’t really count, because I don’t remember much of it. I was just
a boy. On the day to celebrate the start of my fifteenth year, Jarik and Cael got me quite drunk. Very drunk. Very, very, absolutely smashed drunk,” he emphasized.
“I couldn’t even stand. They took me somewhere, it wasn’t an inn, it was somebody’s home, I think. They dumped me in some room and left me there, and soon I realized there was a woman there, perhaps fifteen years my senior. She kissed me, and I was aroused by her but was unable to … ah, well, function, as it were, being so drunk. She took off her clothes, and all I remember was she had enormous breasts that she kept pushing in my face. She fondled me obscenely but I was too out of my head to stop her, and eventually she was able to arouse me enough to, well, take me herself.
“I don’t even remember it other than her sitting on me and being almost suffocated in her bosom. I think I liked that. I must have, but I honestly don’t recall what I thought or felt. I don’t remember how or when we finished. The next thing I recalled was waking up in my bed with a ferocious headache, and my tongue felt like cloth. I don’t even know who she was.”
“Didn’t you ask?”
“I wanted to, but I was too embarrassed. Cael would have teased me—he really is an awful scoundrel, you know. Kind, but a scoundrel through and through. And I was too ashamed to admit to Jarik that I didn’t know who she was.”
“I’m surprised he participated in such a thing,” I said.
“Hah, well, there’s a great deal about his past that would shock you.”
“You’re trying to change the subject. Tell me about the second one, then.”
“Do I have to?”
“No, but I’d like you to.”
“Fine. But when I’m done you’ll think I’m just awful. I didn’t even mean for it to happen. And ironically, it was Sashken’s doing that led to it, but don’t you even breathe the words to ask if it was her!” he groaned, poking my ribs in jest. “She wanted me then already, though I don’t know if Mother had chosen her at that point. I was uninterested in her. I didn’t hate her as I do now, for she wasn’t as cold or nasty. She was just an unattractive little stick of a thing and didn’t seem very bright. But she pursued me, bringing me little gifts, writing me little notes and slipping them under my door, all that sort of thing. I didn’t want to be cruel to her, and when I asked Jarik’s advice he only teased. So I thought perhaps if she thought I was in love with someone else, then she’d give up on me.
Sorrows of Adoration Page 21