Veris pushed his knee between Brody’s, separating his legs and giving him better access.
Brody’s breath hitched. It was a tiny sound, but rewarding to hear. Veris slid his hand between his thighs and stroked the stretch of flesh between balls and anus and was rewarded again with Brody’s gasp.
This was almost too easy. Brody was tense and ready to break as Veris had been.
Veris weighed Brody’s balls in his hand. They were heavy with promise. He slid his hand higher and closed his fingers around Brody’s wide cock. It was silky hard and throbbed in his hand, the veins pulsing with the life-force that sustained them.
He glided his hand up the shaft and claimed the head.
Brody’s hips jerked. The arm holding Veris against Brody’s chest fell away.
As Veris began to repeat the gentle stroking, he watched Brody’s face and absorbed that exquisite moment when lust took the soul, the heart and the mind. Brody’s eyes closed. His face emptied of all expression except that of a man caught in the best chase of all. A small furrow appeared between his brows.
It would go quickly, this time. It had to. Without the bedroom privileges of privacy, oils and time to learn each other’s paces and pleasures, Veris accepted that. It was also one of the joys of first occasions.
But for right now he could take from this moment a petty sense of mastery as he controlled Brody’s body and played with it. Simple pleasure, bereft of pain and fear, freely given.
Sweet joy.
Brody came with a hoarse cry, his back arching as his hips lifted off the sand. He pumped ferociously in Veris’ hand, his cum pooling on his stomach.
He lay panting, recovering. He put his arm over his eyes. “You haven’t done that to me in…too long.”
Veris shook his head. “Future talk.”
Brody sat up on his elbows. “Sorry.” He looked down at his stomach. “How on earth am I supposed to clean up without water or cloth?”
Veris shrugged. “You’ve never heard of a sand bath?”
Brody shook his head.
Veris stood up. “It isn’t water, but it is nearly as efficient.”
There was sand all around them, so they didn’t have to move away from where they were. They were already stripped. So Veris demonstrated the process of a sand bath, using handfuls of the fine white sand to scour away dirt and sweat.
He spent more time watching Brody “wash” his body than completing the bath himself. Then, when he rubbed the sand over his flesh, he found it too sensitive to handle the rasping of the sand. He had been aroused once more.
But Brody was drawing on his clothes.
Caution flooded him. Veris crossed his arms. “You’re going back?”
Brody jerked his head toward the moon, sitting low in the sky. “It’s late. Taylor will be worried. And if Alexander is right about where the oasis is, tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I need to make some arrangements before everyone wakes.”
Veris pummeled aside his impatience and tried to encompass the idea that a woman’s concerns should be taken into consideration. Clearly, the future was a far different world from now. It explained in part why Taylor was so outspoken and forward.
Brody paused, his hauberk in his hands. “Come back with me,” he suggested.
Veris frowned. What did that mean?
“To my fire,” Brody added.
Veris found himself suddenly breathing hard.
Such a simple statement. Such a complicated step to take. It would be declaring to everyone in the camp their relationship. By the time they returned to Jerusalem, word would spread.
Davina would find ways to make Veris’ life miserable, if not end it altogether for such a transgression. For such a betrayal.
“And what about your woman?” Veris breathed, trying to make it sound as derisive as possible.
“Taylor would welcome you with open arms. You know that.”
He could still feel the touch of her fingertips on his hands. Her breath in his ear. Her lips on his neck.
Soft sweetness.
Open arms.
Veris shuddered. “I’d die,” he said truthfully. Davina would see to that.
Something in Brody’s eyes withered and faded to nothing. Veris watched it happen, dismayed. He wanted to reach out, to try to amend the error he had just made, but knew it was too late. Besides, it was better that Brody misunderstand.
Brody buckled on his sword silently. He squared his shoulders. His gaze wouldn’t meet Veris’. “I must return.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Brody said bitterly. His gaze lifted to Veris’ eyes. The pain there was unmistakable and Veris recoiled. “You’ve not understood more than a handful of everything else I’ve told you, but now you understand this?” He pushed his hand through his hair. “You know, you used to be the absolute best liar in the world, Veris. You could bullshit with the greatest. Straight faced, you could tell the most outrageous stories in the world. You could have sold sand to Fatimids and convinced them they were getting the bargain of the century. But you never, ever lied to yourself.” Brody’s mouth curled down. “Until now.”
He walked back down the dune without looking back.
But Veris was too busy trying to deal with the pain in his gut and his chest to care.
Chapter Ten
They reached the oasis just as the sun was at its zenith, which at this latitude meant it was directly overhead. It was frighteningly hot and dry and Taylor had never been so glad to see a pool of water in her life. But it wasn’t just the heat that made the oasis a retreat for her.
About half the size of a baseball diamond, the pool was shaded by palms and surrounded by grasses. Unlike many oases, this one sprang from a shallower source of water in rocks close to the surface, gushing and bubbling just at the surface in a continual renewal of the supply.
The overflow ran off in a narrow curving stream, channeled by rocks, for a league before drying out in the baking heat of the desert and being reabsorbed into the sand.
They had been warned ahead of time by Alexander to dismount and walk to the pool and bring back buckets to water the horses first. In this way they would avoid a stampede that would muddy the pool and make it useless for days.
Shortly after the noon hour, they had set up camp next to the oasis. Brody had declared they would rest there until the next day, while the barrels were filled and food found, before returning to Jerusalem.
It had been one of the few things he had said that day.
He had returned to the fire sometime during the night for she had found him there, his body curled around hers, when she woke at first light. But when she turned in his arms and begged him for details, a shadow touched his face. “Not now,” he said quietly. “I will tell you, I promise, but not now.”
“Did you make love?” she asked. “You can tell me that much at least.”
He hesitated. “Yes,” he said at last. But the single word was so heavy and flat, her heart fell.
She stroked his cheek. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispered, hoping she was right.
Brody rested his head against her shoulder and held her tightly. Surprised, she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and let him cling to her. If he had been human, Taylor wouldn’t have been surprised if he had wept against her. He was trembling.
After a while, Brody let her go enough to bring his mouth closer to her ear. “He’s not the same Veris. He is, but he’s not. I love him, but at the same time I miss him badly. I want him back and I’m scared hollow I’m going to fuck this up and lose him forever.” His hand touched her shoulder. “I know that’s selfish. I know you’re dying inside each day he’s gone, too. But this is all falling on me, because this other Veris won’t look at you even though he wants you.”
“I’d be terrified if I were you, too,” she said gently.
He laughed against her neck. “No, you wouldn’t. You’ve got courage for blood. You’d have defied Veris somehow last night. You would h
ave made it work. I don’t know how you do it, but you always manage it somehow.”
Taylor shook her head. “I stood there and watched him bare his fangs against your neck. Do you know how much I longed for a sword in my hands? To have the sort of power you two do? I was helpless.”
“You stopped him anyway. It was you, Taylor. He told me so.”
She rolled away from him so that she could see his face. His black-eyed gaze was steady. He wasn’t lying.
“Then maybe there’s hope for Veris yet,” she suggested.
Brody drew in a sharp, quick breath. He sat up as if he’d suddenly been shot full of energy.
Taylor rose up as well and he kissed her. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d forgotten that. You’re right. There’s hope.”
Taylor clutched at her stomach as it rolled rebelliously. There was no time to hide it or even ride it out like yesterday. It was coming whether she wanted it to or not.
With a moan she scrambled for the cold fire pit, the chainmail jingling, and vomited into the ashes, hard and long, until her stomach was completely empty. Even before she was done, she felt hands pulling her hair back and a damp cloth on her forehead.
She fell back on her butt tiredly, gray dots floating across her vision and her throat burning.
Alexander wiped her face with the cloth, his expression concerned. Brody supported her back.
“Alexander knows eastern medicine,” Brody murmured. “He’s good.”
Alexander’s gaze flickered to Brody and back to her. “Are you with child, my lady?”
“No,” Brody said.
Taylor stayed silent.
Alexander’s expression didn’t change. “The food you western people eat does not carry well in these parts. It’s likely you ate something yesterday that had already begun to decompose.”
“I’m sure that’s all it was,” Taylor said. Her voice was strained. “I’ll be more careful about what I eat. Thank you, Alexander.”
He got to his feet and nodded. “Please let me know if I can be of further service.”
Brody had accepted the bad food explanation as the only possible one, which added to Taylor’s guilt. By the time she had eaten food that had passed Brody’s finely tuned inspection and climbed onto Goliath’s back, she was in a foul mood of her own.
It didn’t help that the tension between Brody and Veris was hard enough to bounce off. Alexander seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, rousing only to give the necessary directions to the oasis.
It was a relief to slide off Goliath and move away from the three of them when they reached the water. Taylor headed for the nearest patch of shade, laid down and went to sleep.
She woke to find her head pillowed by her folded-up blanket, her hands free of her gauntlets and her feet free of her shoes. Her belts had been loosened and her sword and knife were standing point first in the sand next to her.
There was a cup of water, too, along with fresh dates—probably from the trees around the oasis—plus more food that would have been checked over by Brody.
She lifted her head. Brody’s gear sat in a pile a yard away.
The shade had lengthened over her. It was close to sunset. She had slept the afternoon away. Clearly, her body had needed the restorative. But in the meantime, what had Brody and Veris done to each other?
Carefully, she sat up. Her stomach tilted, but that was all the protest it gave. So she ate the food and drank the water, consuming all of it mechanically despite a distinct lack of appetite and an urgent need to go in search of Brody.
While she ate, she gazed around the bowl of the oasis. There had been considerable progress during the afternoon. The three wagons of barrels were almost completely filled. The teams of soldiers were working on the last one now, sealing each barrel with hot wax to prevent leakage. Most of the men were stripped to the waist. Both Brody and Veris were overseeing the operations, each looking after their own wagons.
Alexander sat on the other side of the oasis, under shade. Observing, as usual.
Taylor tightened her belts and added the sword and knife. She made her way around the edge of the oasis, dodging the horses, until she reached the point where the run off created a happy-sounding tinkling stream that had carved a channel out of the desert and wound its way around bedrock for a league or more. She started to follow it.
At one point the stream dropped about three feet onto bare flat rock, creating a tiny waterfall, before oozing over the rock and continuing on into the desert. Or a miniature shower, depending on a modern perspective.
Taylor stared at the water, her skin itching.
“Screw it,” she muttered and stripped quickly. She took the knife into the water with her, laying it on the flat rock, close by her hand. But she unbound her hair and let the water cascade through it before sitting up and rinsing off.
“The sword isn’t much use if it’s not by your side,” Brody told her.
She smothered her yelp of surprised. He stood next to the pile of her clothes.
“I have my knife,” she said, holding it up.
“Not much use against a sword,” he said. “If I were the enemy, I now have your sword, which you left here for me to pick up.”
She bit her lip. “Damn.”
Brody grinned. “Shall I bring it to you?” He bent down to pick up her sword belt and pulled the sword from it.
“For all the good the blade does me, why not?”
He tramped across the stream to stand in the inch deep water in front of her and hold out the blade. “Sometimes just the offer to fight is good enough.”
“Good enough for what?” She took the sword and lay it down on the flat rock just at the edge of the water flow, where it was dry.
“Good enough to test their resolve. To see if they really mean it.” Brody stared down at her, his hands on his hips.
“Mean to fight?”
He nodded. “If you pull your sword—if you make the offer to fight and their hearts are truly not in it, they’ll take off running, leaving you the victor.”
Taylor was having trouble drawing her attention away from the proximity of Brody’s thighs to her face. The knowledge that he was naked beneath the tunic, that his cock was accessible underneath a thin layer of cloth, was distracting her. She licked her lips.
Brody smiled. “You’re not thinking about fighting.”
“Damn it, no. It’s all your fault.”
“No, it’s your fault. You suggested I not wear what I’m not wearing.”
She could see his cock pushing at the tunic, lifting it.
Taylor pummeled her attention back to the subject. “What if they don’t turn tail and run?”
Brody dropped his hands to his belt buckle. “Ah. Well, now you’re screwed. Now you have to fight him. You probably shouldn’t have picked on him in the first place.”
“Great. So I can bluff, or fight if I’m called on it.”
“That’s right.” He dropped his sword next to hers. The knife clattered next.
“I can’t fight with a sword.”
“Better stay by my side then,” he said. “Stay very close.” He pulled the rest of his clothes off in less than a minute. They flowed off him like water off a duck’s back, with more grace that she’d ever manage. He tossed them all onto the sand a bare yard away.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said with a sigh as his body emerged.
“That’s my line, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “Men can be beautiful, too, and you are. You’re perfect.”
Brody picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re wet.” His hand cupped her ass, the fingers tickling her cleft. He kissed her, his tongue sliding gently inside.
“And you’re sandy…and hot, too.” Taylor touched his chest. “You’ve been out in the sun too long.”
Brody nodded. “I’m glad I fed when I did the other night, or I’d be very weak by now and feeding among this small group could be a problem.”
“Get wet. Tha
t’ll cool you off.”
Brody put her on her feet again and lay down under the tiny waterfall. He gasped as the water covered him. Taylor sat down and washed off the dust he had smeared on her and sat up and waited for him to finish his impromptu shower.
Brody came up from under the waterfall, laughing and shaking the water out of his hair.
“What?” she asked, smiling at his amusement.
“If you look at our location on a modern map, I think you’ll find we’re somewhere inside the borders of Jordan.”
“That’s what’s funny?”
He laughed again. “What’s funny is that it’s all your fault that I’ve started thinking about stuff like that. How maps change over time. Language. I’ve spent all these centuries resenting the hell out of time for being stuck with it. Now I’m finally starting to see how… I don’t know, how privileged I actually am to be able to see the changes first hand. Humans don’t get to see that. They don’t live long enough.” He sobered, his arms around his knees. “There’s a lot of things I love about you, Taylor, but for that one alone, I would give you immortality, if you asked me for it. It took me a thousand years and you, but I can see a way for it to be considered a gift, now.”
Taylor kissed him, trying to hide her tears. It helped that her cheeks were already wet. There was no answer she could give Brody that wouldn’t compromise her right now, or make her want to confess everything.
Then the kiss changed and grew erotic as their kisses so often did. It helped that they were both naked. Brody cupped her breasts and tugged on the nipples, making them hard. The little spurts of electric pleasure shot straight to her clit, making her gasp and her clit to bloom. Her pussy grew moist all over again.
She stroked Brody’s cock, curling her fingers around the massive shaft and felt his hips shift at her touch. She pressed her thumb against the seam on the underside and he jerked hard.
“Unfair,” he muttered.
“All’s fair.”
“That so?” He grabbed her hips and flipped her with his considerable strength, bringing her onto her hands and knees in the water. Taylor felt the touch of water on her wrists and calves, then Brody’s cock was pushing against her vagina. His hand curled over her shoulder. “All’s fair,” he growled and slid into her in a hard, smooth stroke that buried him to the hilt.
Kiss Across Swords (Kiss Across Time Series) Page 16