by Cate Rowan
Volleys of bliss rocked her, each expanding like a new-born star. His hands clasped her thighs and she curled her fingers into his hair, crying out.
He looked up at her, and the expression on his face was nothing short of naughty pride.
She half-choked on her pleasured laugh. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Sorry? For taking delight in this? I get pleasure giving this to you. You’re so…responsive.” The last word was a sensual growl, and he leaned forward so that the rumble vibrated her anew.
He glided his powerful fingers over her silk-covered toes. The night she’d dropped her glass on the floor, he’d done the same—but this time, she knew his touch wouldn’t stop below her ankles. He took the hem of her gown in his hands and lifted it up her body. The close-fitting chemise beneath was sewn from the finest linen, and she shivered, knowing he could see her more clearly now than any man had in years. Underneath the chemise were only her silk panties, and she realized with an indrawn breath that they were ones he’d given her himself. He folded her gown and laid it on the nightstand.
Newly exposed and thoroughly aroused, she kissed him, reveling in the tease of tongues and glide of lips. He moved to tuck her against him, but she pulled back to gaze at the tanned, smooth planes of his stomach, then loosened the drawstring at his waist. His churidar dropped away and pooled on the floor. He bent to unleash the golden clasps at his ankles, then kicked the garment to the side and stood before her, gloriously male. And stunningly, breathtakingly naked.
She slid her hands up his chest and stroked his nipples with her thumbs. He inhaled, pressing against her, then caught her wrists. “I like the way you think, my love. But I want to feel your skin against mine.”
He knelt again and skimmed her chemise upward, pausing to exhale tauntingly through her panties onto her core, then rose and tugged the garment over her head. It landed on the nightstand as well.
His eyes glinted and he drew her against him, hands splaying over her hips. “When you walked into my chambers today, I thought you’d once again rejected my presents—but now I find you in the most intimate of my gifts.” His lips nibbled and nipped her own, then he touched his forehead to hers. “You wear your plain Tegannese working garb for others’ eyes, as part of your Healer’s mask. You want them to see only your dedication and practicality, and that is what I saw, at first. But beneath the outer clothing is a deeper you: beautiful, sensual and passionate.” His fingers drew a lazy circle over her hips, then hooked under the side of her panties. “Right now, though, these only gild the lily. I’m feeling impatient. You wouldn’t mind,” he whispered, raising one roguish brow, “if I have a new pair of these made for you?”
She gave a slow, knowing smile.
He ripped the panties from her body.
Soft flesh brushed hard muscle at last. He lowered his mouth toward hers until their breath mingled, hot and fierce. His skin smelled of exotic spices and lust, a mixture that spun her thoughts into insensibility.
His lips trailed along her jaw, her sensitive neck, and down to her right nipple. His tongue glided over her, eliciting gasps. At the sounds of her pleasure, he took her into his mouth, sucking lightly, and let his teeth graze her upraised flesh.
Head rolling back, she gripped his shoulders and moaned. She felt him smile against her breast, then he shifted to treat her other nipple with the same warm care. My love, my love. She trailed her fingernails down his back in sensuous curves.
This is hardly fair, came a devilish thought. It’s high time for him to feel my mouth. She drew him to his feet, then pushed him back onto the bed between the wintergreen curtains of the canopy. The velvet swayed as he settled back on the mattress with a hungry sheen in his eyes.
“How bold you’ve become,” he growled. “Don’t ever stop.” A lock of raven hair curled down his forehead, making him look deliciously wicked.
“You recently reminded me of my own courage.” She climbed on the bed, capturing his legs between hers, and stalked toward his erection. He braced himself on his elbows in sensual anticipation.
Hovering over him, she teased his cock with the tip of her tongue. Breath hissed out of him and he splayed his fingers over the silken sheets. The taut ridges of his stomach rippled as her movements made him stir and quiver.
Ruthlessly, she plunged her mouth down his length, forcing a strangled moan from his throat. Like wet silk, he thought, before thoughts fled. He arched back, taut as a bowstring as she stroked him in rhythms that teased and tortured. She built the sensations until his knuckles whitened in their grip and he knew he couldn’t take much more of the heaven of her mouth. “Wait,” he gasped.
With a playful glance, she paused with her lips still enfolding him. When he’d uncurled his fingers from the sheets, he sat up. She released him and her mouth rose up to his, tasting, licking, melting.
He grasped her waist and rolled, pinning her beneath him. Kissing her deeply, he lowered his body, reveling in the feeling of his skin against hers, heat to heat and heart to heart.
When he poised his cock above her thighs, her beautiful gaze locked with his and something deep within him shifted and clicked home, as if he would always be whole when he held her in his arms.
Feeling her gaze on his very soul, he sheathed himself inside her. She arched up to meet him. He stroked slowly, savoring the sweet taste of her mouth, the scent of her naked skin, her moans.
Their rhythm quickened, amplified. She wrapped her legs around him, grazed his shoulder with her teeth, raked her lioness claws down his back, driving him ever deeper into her—into the woman he loved. Together they rocked on his bed, in Kuramos’s sanctuary, in the heart of their world.
At last, when their rhythm hastened into a fever of slick heat and sweat, Varene tightened her hands around him, threw her head back and cried out her release. The sound of her joy pushed him into his own oblivion, with the cadence of his surging cock calling mine…mine…she is mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Kuramos braced himself on his elbow so he could watch the drowsing Varene, who was lovingly spooned in his arms and ethereal in her slumber. She had indeed bewitched him—simply by being herself. And he, the Great Sultan of Kad, had become her willing slave of love. He would gladly be that for the rest of their lives.
He’d already had nearly two centuries of marriages for alliances—business transactions between families, with each understanding the expectations of the bond. That he’d grown to care deeply for each of his wives, and they for him, was a bonus for which he was thankful, but had never expected.
Varene was different. Love was different. Incomparable. It felt as if the shackles he wore had loosened and burst away, even as his heart had enlarged to cradle her inside it.
As he looked down upon her ringless hand, curled trustingly in his, he knew that she, too, had changed. She had acknowledged and released her haunted past and accepted at last the incredible bounty Kismet had bestowed upon them.
A bounty she deserved. Varene gave ceaselessly to others—gave her care, her talent and her deep and endless kindness to his children, his wives, to everyone she met, regardless of rank or privilege, or even merit. Her healing knew no bounds. She’d even offered her own would-be killers a chance at redemption. She was a better person than he could ever be.
But she didn’t give enough to herself. She’d allowed her passionate soul to be fettered by her responsibilities, her duty and devotion.
They were alike in many ways, he and his Tegannese lioness.
And that made him determined to help her live. He wanted to see her experience her sensual nature and life’s delights as often as possible, in his bed and out of it. She would have precious jewels, the finest clothes, gifts to please and befit this goddess among women.
Yet beneath it all, he knew that none of it, none of those things, mattered to her. He was what mattered to her—Kuramos, the man. That alone was the greatest gift any woman could offer him.
Varene deserved no less
than everything he had to give. Especially after that gutterslime Tharkin had so cruelly abused her love and hopes. And yet…
Gazing down at her, Kuramos propped his cheek on his knuckles. He was still—and would be, for as long Naaz granted essence to his body—the Great Sultan, leader and protector of the Kaddites. Could he, in good conscience, make a sultana of a woman they considered their enemy? Would they accept a foreign infidel at his side?
It galled him to have to consider the political responsibilities of such a deeply personal matter. Of being in love—the first real love he’d ever known.
But the throne of Kad, the destiny of his bloodline, required no less.
Varene would make a wonderful sultana—astute and valorous. Would his people realize that? Could he convince them? She was an Unbeliever, true, though perhaps over time, their faiths might not seem so divergent. And surely Naaz would accept the woman that Kismet, her own divine son, had brought to Kuramos.
The jasmine in Varene’s hair scented his nostrils. He felt the deep and even rhythm of her slumbering breaths beneath his hand, and thought about having her here for the rest of their lives. Having their children climb into this very bed, giggling. Watching his large family, already so dear to him, grow and receive new joy. And perhaps, though it may take years and travails, leading his realm to a new understanding of magic, and of tolerance.
With Varene by his side, anything was possible.
He would have to make his people realize that, too.
It wouldn’t be easy. But what of value ever was?
Varene sighed and her flaxen lashes parted. As if sensing his gaze, she rolled her head up and a smile curved her cheeks. “You enjoyed watching me nap?”
He nuzzled her ear, purring deep. “How could I not, after remembering what tired you out?”
Her laughter tugged a grin to his lips. This was the right time, surely… Unexpected nerves made his heart give a double thump.
He reached for her hand and held it up so they could both see. “After all those years, we removed that ring of horrors from your finger.”
Slowly, he traced the bare spot on her littlest finger, then moved his touch to the one beside it—the marriage finger. “Would you do me the honor of wearing my ring of love?”
Her body grew rigid beneath his arm.
He cleared his throat. I am the sultan. I fear nothing under Naaz’s sun. “Marry me, Varene.”
Two heartbeats later, she drew away and turned to face him, her expression too mixed to decipher. “Marry you?”
A queerness in her voice unsettled him. He relinquished her hand and smoothed back a lock of her golden hair. “I love you, Varene. Be my wife.”
Her lips parted as confusion reigned in her eyes. “What about Sulya? And Rajvi, and Zahlia—”
He tilted his head. “What of them? They’re my wives, of course, and they each wed the sultan of Kad. But last night…I realized I love you. Deeply. Irrevocably. It was Kismet. The god has pushed us together for a reason.”
As he trailed his fingers down her arm, she drew her head back and spoke. “Do you still love your wives?”
He frowned, blinking. “I respect them. Honor them. And yes, I love them. Though our bonds began as political alliances, my wives have been with me for years, joined their destinies with mine and bore my children; how could I not? But,” he said, squeezing her hand, “though I have grown to love them, I am in love with you. Only you—now, ever, and always.” He raised her fingertips to his lips. “Please. Marry me.”
Varene’s hand tightened over his and she watched him, stunned.
The man she loved had just asked her to be his wife. One of his wives.
He was asking her to be part of his life, but only one-seventh of it. To share him with other women; to be one of a crowd. She wouldn’t be his partner—she’d be a beggar for the crumbs of his attention.
They had no future together. How could he not see it?
A silent wail quivered in her rib cage. She shook her head. “I told you, it can’t work between us. You have to realize that.”
“Did you not hear what I’ve said?” He raised himself up on the pillows. “Damn it, don’t pull away from me again.”
“You’re married to six women already. I can’t relinquish what matrimony should be about—the love between two people. How could I be one of your many wives?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” His brows drew together. “It is the way of my culture. Six strong women have wed me and they have found a way to peacefully coexist. Can’t you? For us?”
She laid her hands flat on her thighs. “It’s not in me to coexist like that. I want you to myself. All to myself.”
“Listen to me,” he said softly, gazing into her eyes. “I love you. I am in love with you. With no one else, Varene. Only you. Nothing I have felt for my wives can begin to compare with what’s been forged between us in these short days. My palace, my bed, everything I have, everything I am will be yours. Just try to understand that for Kaddites—”
“I have tried. I understand things now so much better than I did before I came here. But your ways of marriage are not mine. Which is my point. To me, nuptials should be between two people, not eight.”
His head swung from side to side. “I don’t understand this. All my other wives have learned to share me with each other.”
“They’ve learned?” she snapped. “Kuramos, you cannot simply train me to be your wife.”
He drew up taller. “And I can’t change my past.” His jaw clenched and released. “Things that happened, agreements that were made long before you and I met. But you…you have a chance now to live. It may not seem as safe as going back to Teganne, but the rewards are infinitely greater.”
“Safe?”
“Sohad told me of your man in Teganne. The man death won.”
Her jaw firmed and she thrust her chin out. “Sohad divulged our conversations?”
“I ordered him to. I had to know all I could about you. To his credit, he refused—at first. But I’m still his sultan.”
With fury rising inside her, she crossed her arms over her breasts and wished she were dressed. Especially since Kuramos looked heedless of his utter nakedness. “Just what is it you think you know?”
“That you loved Findar for decades, or thought you did, but never told him. It was safer that way, yes? After what Tharkin had done. So you took the easy route, kept your feelings to yourself, didn’t grab this man by the tunic and tell him what he meant to you. Didn’t take the chance you could be together. But now, here I am. I’m alive, Varene. I’m here with you right now, and I am in love with you.” His eyes flashed.
The truth of his words shivered into her, then fanned her ire. She pushed off the bed and stood, forcing more distance between them. “So though you talk of my courage, in this matter you think I’m a coward. After I escaped Fallorm, made a new future for myself, and did it well? After I came here to aid your family and grapple with a deadly illness that could have killed me, too? In a realm so hostile, by the way, that I was condemned as a sorceress and nearly burned at the stake. And yet I stayed.” Righteous anger scorched her throat. “I risk my life for my patients, I battle death for them!”
“For them, yes!” he ground out. “But you refuse to stay for yourself. I’m promising you a lifetime of love, of pleasure, of passion. You’re courageous for your patients. What about for you?” In one easy move, he slid off the bed and closed in on her. “Before you came here, you were entombing your passion beneath your burdens. Here in Kad, you have found the sun and bloomed. Don’t deny it.” He took a deep breath, and spoke in a gentler voice. “Healer: let me heal you.”
Hot tears pricked her eyes. “What you ask of me, sharing myself in this way… In the end, it would leach my soul.” She bit her lip, hating herself for asking her next question. Hating herself for needing to know. “Since the riot, have you…been with any of your wives?”
His eyes shuttered. He raked a hand through his hair, the
hand bearing the ring of his sultanate, then gave her a long, considered stare. “On the ship, you made it very clear you wanted me to stay away from you—”
Her eyes sank closed. “Yes, I did. So we could avoid this very moment. Just tell me.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw as he eyed her. “Last night, Sulya came to me, bearing a book of ancient laws long overlooked. She…found one that allows a wife to demand that her husband make love to her.”
The implication spread through her like a stain of blood. “Mother Fate.” Air squeezed from her lungs and hot rage flooded up. “So you slept with her last night. The night you say you realized you love me.” His scowl and the flush creeping up his neck told her all. “You did! You made love with Sulya, though you claim to love me—”
“No! I did not.” His glower melted into misery. “All I could think of was you. I closed my eyes, and…I called her by your name, Varene. I humiliated my wife. Because in my mind, in my heart, there’s only one woman I want to be with. You.”
“But you would have done it,” she whispered. “You would have made love to her, if not for that slip of the tongue. And no matter what you say you want, you’re still married. And now you must make love to her.” Her hands fisted.
He jerked away, fingers stabbing the air in frustration. “She dug through Dabir’s library to find something that would help her. She wants another child, and demanded I honor her.”
“Honor her? Yet you’d so quickly dishonor me!”
He swung back, brows drawing down over fierce eyes. “Marrying me would dishonor you? Take care with your insults.”
“How could I not see it that way? One woman for one man. That’s how it’s supposed to be!”
“In your realm. Not in mine.”