Gift of the Goddess

by Denise Rossetti

  Foolish tears swam in her eyes. Her heart warmed as though cupped in vast, loving hands. Divine Mother, Holy Lufra, thank You, thank You. I will thank You all the days of my life. The prayer stuttered to a halt. What more could she possibly say? For such love, such an abundance of riches, there were no words big enough to express her gratitude.

  She scrubbed the tears away and eeled out from between her lovers, heading for the mundane necessities of the ablutions chamber.

  By the time she returned, Trey had rolled into Brin’s side. He was half awake, under the sheet he had one hand on his own fine morning erection, the other on Brin’s. As always, her heart turned over at the sight of his arm and shoulder. Sasreela had done her best and her best was very good indeed, but Anje suspected Trey’s courage and cocky charm had endeared him to the Goddess more than he knew.

  She still didn’t understand how they hadn’t lost him. But every day, she got down on her knees and thanked Lufra. He’d been a terrible patient, but after a month of cursing and complaining, the blisters healed and the ugly scabs disappeared. Underneath was not scar tissue, but smooth, creamy flesh without blemish. Not even a freckle. Brin called it the gift of the Goddess. Anje called it a miracle.

  He still favored that side. She suspected he always would.

  Smiling, Anje put a finger to her lips. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Let him sleep.”

  Brin had come to bed in the wee small hours, after delivering Twink’s latest offspring. He lay stretched across the mattress like a fallen giant, taking more than his fair share of room. When Anje lifted the sheet to admire, the dragon tattooed on his loins smirked a toothy welcome. She sighed and licked her lips.

  Trey slid out from under the covering and tucked the edges carefully around the slumbering shaman. He lay back and held out his good arm. “Come here, then.”

  Anje swooped happily on his delectable cock, swallowing half of him in a single gulp. Trey arched his back and groaned softly. His fingers tangled in her hair. “Fancy a quickie, sweetheart?”

  “Mmm.” Anje released him with a last lingering lick and cocked a brow. “You want to risk it? You know how he hates missing out. He’ll be royally pissed.”

  “Too bad.” Trey rolled her over and drifted a hand between her legs. Obligingly, she opened, enjoying his clever fingers, but he stopped. “You do it this time,” he said. “I like to watch.” He shifted until he could pillow his head on her thigh, inches from her busy fingers.

  Ruthlessly, Anje pleasured herself to a small, sweet climax. Breathing as hard as she, Trey sighed. “Darling, you are truly perfect.” Taking her hand, he sucked the juices from her fingers with relish, then slid into her body, smooth as oiled silk. “With any luck, he’ll be mad enough to punish us.”

  Trey stroked in a leisurely fashion and she shivered with delight. “Punish you, you mean. Gods, you’re completely depraved.” Her eyelids drooped, thinking of that firm, fair ass reddening slowly under the stinging weight of Brin’s heavy palm while she tortured Trey’s cock with her mouth. She tried not to smile. “I’ll help.”

  Trey hardened inside her. “Promise?” His beautiful hazel eyes shone with love and lust, and deep in each pupil, a tiny green flame danced and spun.

  Tears prickled behind her eyes. She drew his head down and kissed him as sweetly as she knew how. “Holy Mother, how I love you.”

  Trey rested one elbow on the pillow and cradled her face between his palms. Anje wrapped her legs around his waist and he murmured with pleasure. “No more than I love you, dragon lady.” He shot a look at Brin, still fathoms deep, his massive chest rising and falling in a regular rhythm. “Him too, even though he’s a controlling idiot.”

  Anje giggled. “You weren’t complaining yesterday.”

  “Give me credit.” Trey swiveled his hips. His cocky grin flashed when she gasped and bit her lip, glancing at Brin. “I’m not that stupid, love. Not when I’m getting it both ways.”

  Abruptly, his expression grew intent and he began working her with long, gliding thrusts. Anje relaxed, enjoying his skill, loving the ride for its own sake. She wasn’t anywhere close, but it didn’t matter.

  A bead of sweat ran down the side of his strong, young neck, trickling under his torque. Reaching up, she licked it off, nuzzling the firm flesh. The locks braided in the circlet, black and red-gold, shone in the morning light filtering in through the blinds of woven rasa grass. Set in its clasp, Brin’s gift of a fire opal gleamed like goddess fire as Trey moved, the muscles bunching in his shoulders.

  He sucked in a breath and reared up deep inside her, coming without fuss. To her surprise, his orgasm triggered hers, infinitely sweet and slow.

  She smiled up dreamily and pressed a kiss to his good shoulder. “That was lovely.”

  “Gods, yes.” He gathered her into his body and snuggled her head into the curve of his neck. After a few minutes of contented silence, he said, “I’m visiting Chel today. Come with me? She likes you.”

  “I like her too. She’d make a fine Matriarch, the Lady Chelisand.” Trey’s caressing hand drifted across the underside of one breast, wandered to her nipple. Anje yelped.

  He froze. “Did we hurt you last night?”

  “No, no. I’m just sensitive. Don’t stop.

  Trey cupped her breast, weighing and assessing. Anje purred and arched.

  The silence stretched. Brin mumbled in his sleep. Trey’s fingers slowed and came to a standstill.

  “Trey?” He was far away, his gold-green eyes curiously blank. With that pouty underlip caught in his teeth, he had the look of a man doing calculations in his head.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.” He gave her an absent smile and a glance that raked her body up and down.

  He’d gone so pale, each freckle dusted across his cheekbones stood out separately. “Are you all right?” she asked, concerned.

  “Sure.” He grinned and pecked her cheek. “Back in a minute.” Grabbing Brin’s sarong, he knotted it hastily around his hips. A second later, he’d darted out the door. His voice floated back to her, asking for Sasreela.

  Puzzled, Anje sank back and yawned. Mother, she was tired! Her bones felt like wax. She curled into the expanse of Brin’s warm back and dozed off.

  Some time later, she became aware of a weight depressing the mattress and a different voice, a woman’s. “Lady Anje, may I speak with you?”

  “Wake up, sweetheart.” Trey sat at her hip, smoothing the hair out of her eyes. “Sasreela’s here to see you.”

  Anje opened her eyes in time to see him lean over and pinch Brin’s nostrils shut with his fingers. “Get up, you big lug. This is important.”

  Brin shot upright with a grunt and seized Trey’s wrist in a bone-crushing grip. He met the other man’s smiling eyes and instantly changed the grip to a pull, tugging him down onto his chest. Then he noticed the elderly healer, gazing studiously into the middle distance.

  He released Trey. Coloring like a boy, he pushed the hair off his face. Anje was enchanted.

  “Good morning, Sasreela,” he said finally. “What are you doing here? Trey’s fine.” He cocked a brow at the other man. “I make sure he does his exercises.” Grabbing his trews, he turned his back and jerked them on.

  Anje and Trey watched with interest, but the old woman shot him a look calculated to remind a grown man of boyhood indiscretions. “Trey asked me.”

  “It’s nothing.” Trey shrugged. “I’d like Sasreela to look at Anje.”

  “I’m fine,” she protested.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

  She couldn’t help the blush. “I have two of you to keep up with.”

  Sasreela took her wrist, her fingers cool and dry. She closed her eyes, concentrating on her healer’s art, while Anje watched the two men exchange a glance she couldn’t interpret. A little hurt at being so comprehensively left out, she turned to the old woman. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  Sasreela’s lips w
ere trembling, her face ashen. Anje’s guts roiled.

  The old woman asked, “When did you last have your moon-flux, my Lady?”

  “What?”

  Brin reached out and clamped a hand on Trey’s shoulder. Then they froze, still as graven images at a temple door.

  “I forget… I’ve been so busy… Some time ago…” The words trailed off. “Mother! It was before…before I met…”

  “Sasreela, are you sure?” Brin was so pale, Anje was certain only the hand on Trey’s shoulder kept him upright.

  Tears streamed down Sasreela’s weathered cheeks. “Yes, dear,” she said simply. Blotting her face with a fold of her garment, she tottered from the room, leaving a profound silence in her wake.

  Brin took a shaky step and fell to his knees beside the bed. He threw his arms around Anje’s waist and hugged the life out of her, burying his face in her lap. As she stroked his hair, he began to shudder under her hands, like a spooked vran, and she realized he was crying, harsh, wrenching sobs that were muffled by her body.

  “Love, love. Don’t.” She rocked him as though he was a child, looking helplessly at Trey. But at the expression on his face, she could do nothing but hold out her arms and gather him in as well.

  Trey hiccupped, caught between laughter and tears. “Ah, Anje, love. It was a lucky day we found you.”

  Outside the window, voices shouted and exclaimed as the news spread. A woman shrieked with joy and a man laughed, full-throated. Hoofbeats drummed out of the stable and off down the dusty track to the next ranch.

  Anje patted and soothed, while tears of joy dripped off her chin.

  The full impact didn’t hit her ‘til after the emotional storm had passed. Mother save her, she was a scout, what did she know of babies? But then, she’d known nothing of love and she’d muddled through. With the help of the Goddess.

  And Lufra knew about children. Wasn’t she Mother of all the world?

  Still… She drew a breath and need hit her. “I have to pee.”

  Brin swung her up in his arms. “What you need is a pee and a bath—”

  “In that order,” put in Trey, irrepressible as ever.

  “Shut up, you,” growled Brin, “or I won’t let you anywhere above her ankles.”

  “Bully.” Trey dropped the sarong and sauntered ahead of them to the ablution room, putting plenty of swish into that biteable ass.

  As they settled into the steaming water, Anje remembered that first time, Brin holding her as he was now, rock solid, watching Trey fuck her, whispering wicked things in her ear, knowing he was next. She trembled with anticipation. Holy Mother, she hoped they weren’t going to go all careful on her! Any child of hers would be tough. And any child of…of…

  Her thought stumbled. Trey was kneeling, the water lapping lovingly at the heavy sac of his testicles, a sponge in his hands. “Lufra’s tits!” he said. “Do you realize—”

  “We don’t know whose it is,” Brin finished.

  A deep joy suffused her, warmer and softer even than the perfumed water. “What does it matter?” She laid her palms over her still flat belly. “We’ll love her anyway. I don’t care if she’s got red hair or black. She’ll be ours.”

  Their brows drew down in identical frowns. “He!” they growled in unison.

  Anje giggled.

  Then she flung her arms open wide.

  About the Author

  When Denise Rossetti was very young, she had an aunt who would tell her the most wonderful fairy stories—all completely original. Denise grew up, as little girls do, but the love of stories has never left her. It was only when she dared herself to write down the secret sagas in her head, that life become really interesting!

  Denise remains an incurable romantic. She loves happy endings, heart-stopping adventure and the eventual triumph of good over evil. All hail the guys in the white hats, she says. Unless the ones wearing black are more...um...intriguing?

  She lives in a comfortable, messy old house in the Australian suburbs with her darling husband of more-years-than-she-cares-to-remember. And yes, she knows how lucky she is. She has one of everything that matters—one husband, one son, one daughter, one dog, one cat and, thank heavens, one cleaning lady. Denise is small and noisy and dreadfully uncoordinated and tends to wave her hands around a lot, which can be unfortunate if the tale she's telling happens to have explosions in it!

  Denise welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

  Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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