Abruptly, Veris pushed back with a roar of protest. Brody had let his grip on Veris’ throat relax and the bigger man reared back, pushing himself off the wall. It took upper body strength that few men, even few vampires, possessed, especially deep in the grip of direct and erotic arousal.
Veris moved with a speed Brody barely was able to follow. He spun, his arm slamming across Brody’s chest. Brody was dragged around in almost a complete semi-circle. His back slapped up again the wood.
Brody remembered to breathe again.
The speed at which their positions had been reversed… He’d always known Veris had been strong, but Veris had never used that strength against him in anger. Brody could feel the trembling deep inside him.
Veris’ eyes were inches from his. Hard. Unforgiving.
“I decide,” Veris said flatly. “Not you.”
“You’ve always had that choice,” Brody said truthfully.
The hardness, the anger in his eyes shifted. Puzzlement crept in. He leaned even closer. His face tucked into the nape of Brody’s neck. Brody heard him take a delicate sniff.
Veris lifted his head to look Brody in the eye. “You’ve fed tonight.” His voice was strained.
Veris always loved taking Brody when he was freshly fed, hot with new blood and vital with humanness. This younger Veris didn’t know that was what he was responding to now, but he was feeling the pull of it, anyway.
Brody tried to breathe around the restricting iron band of Veris’ arm against his chest. “I’ve fed tonight,” he confirmed, his voice low.
Veris’ canines descended. He growled deep in the back of his throat. The predator was rising.
Brody did the only thing he knew that was guaranteed to keep the predator at bay. He kissed him.
Brody could only move his head. Veris was the stronger one, even despite Brody having fed so recently. So he pressed his lips against Veris’ and it was like every other kiss they had ever shared. Brody felt like he had come home. He leaned into it, driving his tongue deeper, pouring his soul and heart into the man.
It felt right that Veris’ hand would grasp his hair and hold him steady. The barely-heard groan at the back of his throat made Brody’s body tighten and thrum even harder.
So when Veris gripped his wrist and sliced the knife through his hand, pinning it to the wall, Brody was shocked speechless. He stared at Veris as the man backed away, barely even feeling the petty pain of the knife.
“You and she are trying to bewitch me,” Veris accused.
Brody felt an insane urge to laugh. He shook his head. “You, a vampire, are concerned about witchcraft?”
“You pursue me,” Veris insisted.
Brody shrugged, even though it made his pinned hand hurt like crazy. He could feel blood running down his arm. “Of course. Are you so arrogant, you must only ever be the one to hunt?”
Something darkened and shifted behind Veris’ eyes. It alarmed Brody.
“I’ve lost my taste for this game, Norwich. Stay away, do you hear me?”
Brody desperately sought for words to claw this moment back, to reverse it. None would come.
“Do you hear me?” Veris demanded. He was moving away, leaving. The shadows of the night were swallowing him.
Reluctantly, Brody nodded.
Veris was gone.
* * * * *
Taylor heard the thud of a horse being ridden hard. At this time of night, it could only be Brody returning. She almost threw herself off the bed and raced out of the tent, into the moonlight and firelight, to see the horse halt with a spray of white sand. Brody saw her and focused on her. His face was grim and hard with some emotion she could barely process for the news pressing against her own heart.
He jumped off the horse and came straight to her, for which she would be forever grateful. No leisurely time with his men, orders, lingering jovial moments in this man’s world.
Taylor threw her arms around him the moment Brody was within reach and despite Brody being an absolute rock, he still staggered back a pace. His arms came around her, steadying them both.
“I lost the bet,” she told him. “I lost! God, Brody, I’m so stupid! How could I have thought I could play this and win? Just because I’m from the future. Now everything’s completely fucked up and Selkirk—”
“Stop, Taylor, stop,” he said, his hand in her hair. “You did beautifully. Veris came straight to me. I’m the one that fucked up.”
Taylor lifted her head from his chest. “What?” she said, puzzled and afraid.
Brody’s expression was wretched. “Veris came to me,” he repeated. He took a breath and opened his mouth to speak more words, but none came. He shook his head. “I can’t even say it.” He closed his eyes.
Dismay hit her in a hard, cold rush. “Oh, Brody. No.” She stopped herself from saying more by wrapping her arms around him again and just holding on. She could feel his trembling and his arms tightened in response.
She kissed his neck, the only part of him she could reach, tucked so tightly against him. She licked it.
He shuddered.
So Taylor did it again, lengthening the stroke of her lick and making her tongue linger.
Brody’s hand slid up into her hair and lifted her head, bringing her lips to his. He may have meant his kiss to be gentle, but it swiftly grew hot, hard and overwhelmingly demanding. His tongue thrust deep into her mouth, stealing air, space and bits of her soul. Taylor gave them all up gladly.
Brody pushed aside her tunic robe and gathered up the hem of her chemise so that he could slide his hand beneath and cup her ass cheek. Taylor pressed back into his hand and ran her own hand down the front of his tunic. She wasn’t surprised to find him stiff and ready.
He lifted her with the hand under her ass and she quickly wound her legs around his waist.
“Hungry?” she murmured.
“I just fed.”
So he would be ravenous, she interpreted. If Veris had roused him in any way, he would be twice as starved.
He pushed the light tent flap aside and carried her inside, not just to his side, but through to her side of the tent. He lowered her to the ground and stripped off his clothes. Her heart raced as she watched his body emerge. His cock was hard, rising from his thighs like a rigid pole. The rest of him gleamed in the moonlight filtering in through the tent sides.
He removed her belt and tunic, leaving her in her chemise.
“Turn around and put your hands on the panels,” he told her. His voice was thick with lust.
Her heart jumped. There were so many possibilities if she did this… Obediently, she turned and rested her hands on the panels. Brody spread her ankles as wide as the chemise permitted, then swore and hoisted it higher up her thighs and spread her legs wider. She could feel the fine trembling in his hands. He was in a fever of need, but controlling it. Directing it.
She felt Brody pressing up behind her. His cock brushing up against her back. His breath caught a little at the contact. “I had him like this,” he said.
“Veris?” Her body tightened at the idea. “Did you reach around…”
“Like this.” His hand curled around her hip, slid down her thigh and dipped under her chemise. She found her breath stopping as Brody’s fingers curled over her thigh, caressing the inner flesh there. They slid up again, to brush against her clit. She moaned, her hips bucking at the contact.
Brody pushed his fingers farther along her cleft, sliding them into the creamy slick entrance of her vagina. He gathered moisture and brought it back to her clit.
Taylor tried to grip the panel with her fingernails, as her excitement level rose. Brody had placed her in such a way that nearly all her weight was pressing on her hands. She was at his mercy.
Brody pushed her chemise up higher, rucking it up under her arms to free her breasts. He tugged at the nipples, making her groan.
Then his hands lifted away from her altogether. Taylor could feel and hear her heartbeat in her temples and chest and head.
Her clit throbbed in time.
“Brody?” she called.
His fingers slid through her cleft, from clit to anus, making her gasp in surprise and pure sensuous delight. She felt the cool touch of slick oil and her excitement spiraled higher.
His fingers toyed with her anus, spreading the oil and slipping inside, making her squirm.
“Hurry,” she begged.
“Why should I?” he wanted to know.
But his cock brushed between her thighs, heavy and hot, then pushed inside her, in slow hard inches, filling her, while Brody held her hips and ass steady, his thumbs stroking her flesh in delicate sweeps as he eased his way into her. When he was buried balls deep, he paused.
“Fuck me,” she begged. “As hard as you can.”
“Stroke yourself,” he said. “Come with me.” He began to thrust in the slow, hard thrusts she liked.
Taylor circled her clit with her fingers, absorbing moisture from her pussy and caressing Brody’s testicles as she did so. He gasped at the contact and she smiled as she began to massage her clit in hard little strokes to match Brody’s thrusts.
His hands slid up to her breasts and cupped them, squeezing her nipples between his fingers. The little pinching sensation sent sparks of pleasure rushing through her and made her nipples even harder and more sensitive.
“You’re so hot around me,” Brody breathed. “So tight.” He gripped the top of the divider with both hands, using it for leverage to drive himself even deeper inside her.
Taylor moaned as his cock pushed into her. Her climax hovered. “Harder,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed. One hand dropped down to cover hers between her thighs. His fingers joined hers against her clit. He thrust into her again, another powerful deep stroke and at the same time, he made her massage her clit in quick hard swipes.
Her climax slammed through her. She gasped. “Brody!” Then she realized that Brody’s control was already disintegrating. His thrusts were speeding up. He was slamming into her. He was coming.
Taylor felt everything clamp around Brody’s cock, milking it, as her pleasure soared in sparkling waves through her.
Brody cried out as he came with a final thrust that buried him deeply inside her and grew still.
She could feel his heart racing, though. It matched her own.
Brody carefully eased the crumpled chemise from her body, supporting her, then lifted her from his own. He carried her to the bed and laid her on it.
Then he surprised her by lying next to her.
Taylor turned to him and held him. “You’re frightening me.”
Brody caressed her face. “I don’t want to.”
“Then you’d better tell me all of it. Quickly.”
* * * * *
Desert dwellers, used to picking out life from across the arid plains, would have seen the shadow that was Veris and moved on. He was motionless as he laid watching Norwich’s tent. He was far enough away that no mortal eye could see him, but he could see what was happening in the tent with perfect clarity.
He had watched everything, from the moment Norwich arrived back at the camp and his wife had greeted him so passionately, to the last tender moment Norwich had laid her to rest in the bed and then shocked Veris by lying beside her and taking her in his arms.
What had happened in between had been full of revelation…and release, too. Veris glanced down at his damp tunic. The release had been involuntary and caught him by surprise. He had never considered himself a voyeur. Not the sort who found pleasure in the act, anyway.
So Norwich enjoyed erotic pleasure with his wife that most men practiced together. What of it? Veris frowned, trying to dismiss the rush of pleasure the idea gave him.
But in a tiny corner of his mind, it sat there. A kernel of truth that wouldn’t go away. He faced it squarely because it bothered him.
He liked the idea because it had possibilities. He’d watched Norwich take his wife nearly the same way he’d tried to take him and that had been the source of Veris’ pleasure. Watching what might have been. Watching her pleasure. Being taken clearly wasn’t the humiliation he’d thought it would be. She had loved it.
Veris paused in his thoughts and examined the word. Love. The troubadour’s word.
That was the emotion that was most fitting for the way these two treated each other. They loved each other.
Veris studied the tent again. They were still talking. She was caressing him. Reassuring him? How a mere human could seek to reassure a male and a vampire Veris had yet to understand. Yet she was clearly the superior in the conversation at that moment and Norwich was accepting her reassurances.
She was making him feel better. Veris could see the change right before his eyes.
How interesting.
Veris got to his feet and dusted off the dry white sand of the desert and headed back for Selkirk’s camp. He had his own problems to unravel and now this intriguing puzzle to solve.
* * * * *
By the time Brody had finished relating how Veris had backed away from him and disappeared into the night, Taylor could understand why his heart rate was high.
She peered at his hand in the low light, looking for damage, but there was none. It had healed clean as usual.
“I’m sorry, Taylor,” Brody said softly. “I tried. You had such utter faith in my hold over him that I started to believe it myself. I think we were wrong. We never held Veris at all. He just chose to stay of his own accord.” He sighed. “I’m still not sure what went wrong.”
Taylor sighed, too. “I think I can shed some light on that. There’s a woman in Veris’ life and I don’t think she’s making him very happy.”
“A woman?” Brody sounded winded. “Do you know who?”
“Her name is Davina. I met her tonight. She’s vampire.”
Brody sat up. “Davina,” he said flatly, staring at her. “Oh, my fucking Christ.” He pressed his fingertips to his forehead. “She’s here?”
“She’s Selkirk’s wife.” Taylor sat up, too, puzzled. “You know her?”
“I know who she is. I mean, I know she’s Selkirk’s. I know she’s vampire. I even know she and Veris were together. But that was over. It was supposed to be over.” Brody scrubbed at his hair. “She didn’t come on the crusades the first time.”
“Why not?”
“Veris killed her, in France, the week before the pope called for volunteers.” He blew out his cheeks. “He found his freedom from her shackles that way.”
Taylor took a moment to absorb that. Veris had killed the woman, the vampire, who had been running her hands and tongue all over him tonight. Deliberately? In cold blood? “But why is she still alive now, then?” Taylor asked.
“Something has changed in the past. Farther back than right now,” Brody said. “Something in Veris’ timeline, I’m guessing.”
Taylor kept her mouth shut. She knew what that change was. Not the specifics, but the when, at least. She had been there.
“It could be something very small and it has rippled down the timeline enough to reach the point where he didn’t have the…whatever,” Brody mused. “The courage to kill Davina when he did in the original past. Now he’s got her like a slave collar and arm bands, destroying his soul a day at a time.” He sighed. “She’s pure poison, Taylor. There’s no softness about the creature, for all she looks like heaven in a bliaut—when she wears one. She had her hooks so deeply buried in Veris he was bound to her. She was destroying his free will and he knew it. For someone like Veris, it was the equivalent of death. Her death, or his, was his only way out.”
“But now he’s submitting to her?”
“He’s not submitting…yet. But he’s learned he doesn’t like control being taken from him and that’s why he backed away from me tonight.” Brody sighed again, heavily. “Now I see it. If I’d known about Davina… Well, it’s too late now.”
He picked up Taylor’s hand with the one that had been pinned to the wall by Veris’ knife. “To
morrow I must leave in search of water. A three day quest that will take me as far from Veris as he wants. At least it won’t be a useless search. I found a man tonight, Alexander, a Fatimid Christian, who knows of an oasis about a day and a half from here that he thinks the Muslims missed. It will have water we can bring back. At least no one will die of thirst because of me.”
“Let me come with you.”
“It will be hard travelling. Hard even for a modern girl.”
“I would rather be with you than alone.” She threaded her fingers through his. “You’re not the only one who feels like a fool tonight.”
“What did you do?”
She shook her head. “I tried to arrange a surprise for you. It backfired horribly.”
“A surprise?” He kissed her hand, his lips nibbling along her wrist.
Taylor knew that disinterested tone of his. Brody would have it out of her whether she wanted to tell him or not. She gathered her courage and told him about her visit to Selkirk’s camp, how she had baited Veris, even how she had bargained with Selkirk for Veris’ services and the last desperate wager, using a contemporary version of rock-paper-scissors and how Selkirk had won two out of three draws.
“He laughed at me,” Taylor told Brody. “He enjoyed winning the bet and he laughed as he had me shown out. He was still chuckling as that woman passed me outside the tent with a superior smile. She walked into the tent and snapped the flap shut in my face.”
“That sounds like Davina, from everything that Veris ever told me about her,” Brody said. He kissed her fingers. “Your visit wasn’t a total disaster. You sent Veris straight to me. You reached past his defenses. We know now that he is vulnerable to you, just as we suspected.”
“But he rejected you.” Taylor wanted to weep. “And we won’t be back until the siege engines are almost completed. Even then, what if we get hauled back to our own time before we get back? I’ll be gone, your younger self will be left here with no memory of what we’ve been doing and wondering what on earth he’s doing in the middle of the desert looking for water, or whatever—”
Brody touched her lips. “Shush,” he said. “Shhhh…”
Kiss Across Swords (Kiss Across Time Series) Page 13