“Not happening. I’m enjoying myself too much. What were you thinking?”
“Oh, it’s wrong and awful and embarrassing. I can’t say.”
He was quiet a moment. “Does it have to do with how much it aroused you to talk about surrendering to me?”
If she hadn’t been wearing her mask, she would have clapped her hands over her face. “Lonen…”
“You might as well tell me,” he said, with those teasing sparks, but also with soothing images of cuddling her and keeping her safe. “You know I won’t stop asking questions until I wear you down.”
That was the truth. “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.”
“I can believe it. If nothing else, you at least trust me to take care of you.”
Also true, rational or not. How it had happened that she trusted a Destrye warrior with her emotional well-being more than her mother or brother… Her world continued to alter, not content with upending, but also insisting on twisting sideways and in all sorts of unpredictable directions. Why not this aspect, too?
She took a steadying breath, reaching for hwil. “When I was young, I saw these illustrations in the history books.”
“Yes?” he prompted when she faltered. “What of?”
“Of Destrye taking women captive, tied up with rope, and—ugh—I felt things then, which is horrible of me.” She waited for his reproof, seething with humiliated shame, an echo of the priestess’s scorn when she caught Oria rapt over those books, taking them away and advising her that meditation would do far more to build hwil.
“I thought as much.” He said instead, full of male satisfaction.
“But I don’t want that,” she hastened to make sure he understood. “I don’t know why it affected me. I don’t want it to happen, I’m only saying that’s the only time before that I felt any … urges.”
“Before what?”
“Recently,” she said, hoping to stop things there. No such luck, of course.
“Before meeting me?”
“Maybe,” she muttered, but he only grew more pleased with himself.
“You get under my skin, too. For a long time I thought it was magic, that you’d somehow bewitched me.”
She sat up a little straighter, indignant. “I would never!”
“Don’t spit, kitten. I know that now. More important, I understand something of those desires you speak of and can give you a taste of them.”
“If you try to rape me, I will use everything in me to kill you,” she warned him, chill dread mixing with the heat of longing.
Absurdly, he laughed. “I have no doubt you could and would, my sorceress wife, with those weapons you wield so well. I promise you—no rape. No pain or fear. Only a glimpse to open that window, to allow you to feel what made those illustrations so compelling.”
“I still don’t understand how you can possibly do this without touching my skin,” she muttered, rebellious and intrigued.
“I’m an inventive man when I want something.”
~ 19 ~
Gaining the top of the tower, he carried Oria straight to her bedroom. Their bedroom, he supposed. Far from feeling tired from the climb, his body surged with fevered excitement. Oria would be his at last. A wedding night to remember, if somewhat delayed. He set her on her feet where she remained, watching him light candles in the glass lanterns, suspicion in every line of her body.
“Lonen…” she started as he gently turned her by the shoulders, facing her away from him.
“I’m only removing your mask and taking down your hair,” he soothed her.
She laughed, a little ragged. “I should have known that would be first.”
“Indeed you should have,” he agreed, working more quickly this time, having tied the knots himself. “Whenever we’re alone, this will be first. Can we agree to that?”
“I suppose that’s not too much to ask.” She handed him the mask to set beside the bed, trading him for one of the cool cloths that Juli left for her in the covered jar. Oria used it to mop her face—and to keep it shielded, he suspected, as he took down her braids and brushed out the rippling copper mass of her hair.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
“Aren’t you listening?”
“I’m trying not to do that as much.”
“I don’t mind,” he told her, discovering to his surprise that he really didn’t. “In fact, I’m finding I like having you in my head.” He drew his hands through her hair, savoring the silky heft of it. “A way of being close to you, since I can’t yet be inside your body.”
She relaxed fractionally. “Then you won’t…”
“Won’t hurt you. I know what the limits are. Trust me.”
Letting out a breath, she set the face cloth aside. “I do.”
“Enough to take off your robes?”
She hesitated fractionally, then nodded, first untying his mantle and giving it back to him. Bemused, he tossed it aside, watching her. It would be so much easier if he could first kiss her, seduce her with gentle caresses. But she wasn’t a woman to be cozened regardless. She had her own style of boldness, once she set herself on a course of action.
She blushed, eyes hooded, but unfastened the robes without faltering further, shedding the layers of them, until she stood only in that thin white chemise, in a pool of crimson silk. Still not looking at him, she pulled at the ties, then dropped the undergarment as well, standing naked before him.
Arill had blessed him with such a glorious woman. If She also gave him the challenge of being unable to touch his wife’s skin, then he accepted that as the price.
Slim as a sapling, skin luminous in the candlelight with her radiant cape of metallic hair surrounding her, Oria took his breath away. Her breasts were tipped with small nipples, a rose as delicate as Sgatha’s light, and the hair at her mons glinted a copper so smooth and straight he ached to taste her with his tongue.
Someday, they would find a way.
She studied his reaction, probably reading his emotions, so he let her feel it—the astounding desire and awe of her exotic beauty. Receiving the message, she smiled. Tentative, even shy at first, then blooming with all her radiance.
“I am relieved to be pleasing to you,” she said quietly, surprising him.
“How could you have doubted it?”
Her shimmy of a shrug made her breasts bounce enticingly. Clearly Arill planned to test his restraint and self-control severely. He’d asked Her for a penance to cleanse his spirit of the taint of his deeds and She had delivered. Hopefully he’d emerge from it a better person, if somewhat crazed.
“I’ve never been naked for a man,” Oria was saying, so he dragged his fascinated gaze up to her face. “And I know I am not at all like Nat—your Destrye women.”
Because she’d seen Natly in his mind. Arill only knew what all she’d seen of Natly there.
“Nor am I like your Báran men,” he returned, then caught himself, struck. She’d said he intimidated her with his size, and he was darker, hairier than any Báran he’d seen. “Do I revolt you?”
She gave him a curious smile. “Those illustrations, remember?”
How perfect that she’d shared that with him. It made many things easier, and he hoped to deliver on that long-held fantasy. “On that note, hold out your wrists, crossed in front of you.” He picked up one of her many silk scarves and drew close enough to scent her heating skin.
She eyed him uncertainly, but those eyes also showed her arousal, her dark pupils wide. “We’re really doing this?”
“It ups the tension, speaks to your fantasy—and mine, I might add—and has the bonus of keeping you still so I won’t accidentally touch your skin with mine.”
She took a deep breath and held out her crossed wrists, gaze on his face. Not the dying doe, life bleeding away at his hands, but an ardent woman trusting him to deliver on his promises. The absolution he’d looked for. Wrapping the silk in and around her wrists, tying the knots just so to keep her del
icate bones from crushing together, he vowed to never destroy that look in her eyes.
A fine trembling ran through her as Lonen bound her wrists. Hwil danced far beyond her grasp as those shameful adolescent desires assaulted her, jumbling with the new ones that centered entirely on Lonen. Naked before her Destrye warrior, vulnerable and at his mercy. He stood close enough that she could turn her hands and run them over his chest, open his shirt and tangle her fingers in the hair beneath. His eyes—a gray so dark they looked almost black in the golden light—flicked up to study her face, the gentle concern a contrast to the raging storm of violent desire beneath. He affected her profoundly on multiple levels, his physical presence amplifying the vivid fantasy images rolling through his mind, of her gasping beneath him, crying out his name, their skin sliding together so slickly she almost felt it.
“If I could,” he murmured, voice rasping over her nerves as he walked her backwards, holding only the ends of the silk, “I would be kissing you now. I’d start with light ones, like butterfly wings on your lips, lulling you in until you felt safe enough to open your mouth. Yes, just like that. Your lips wet and plump and pink from meeting mine.”
The backs of her thighs hit the edge of the bed, but he kept her from instinctively sitting. Instead he raised her hands above her head, looping her scarf over the rods that held the gauzy bed curtains. Hot blood rioted through her, unruly, exultant, needy. “Lonen…” she whispered.
“You’re okay. Just feel. I’ve got you. By now you’d have opened your mouth to me. My tongue would be inside you, tangling with yours.” He left her standing there, arms relaxed, but tethered to the bed. Picking up another scarf from her basket of them, he pressed it to his lips. They looked fuller, more enticing than she’d ever noticed, framed by his glossy black beard. Lifting the scarf to her mouth, he caressed her lower lip with the silk where he’d kissed it, slightly damp from his, tasting of him. “Is this okay?”
So far, yes. Tentatively, she tasted it with the tip of her tongue, finding some of him there. He groaned, eyes hot. “Kitten tongue. I’d pull that into my mouth, maybe nipping at it until you squirmed, begging me for more.”
She did squirm, as if his words evoked it, tugging against the silk that only tightened, making her flesh bloom with desire around it. “More. Please give me more.”
“Oria,” he grated, his hands fisting in the silk. “You might be the death of me.”
“Pleasure me, Destrye,” she demanded. “Prove your worth to a sorceress of Bára.”
He breathed a laugh. “Sweet captive bride, you will writhe for me and, before we’re done, you’ll scream my name in pleasure.”
She wanted to already, convulsing when he drew the silk across her taut nipples. They’d never been so sensitive, her breasts swelling like molten glass, full of breath and fire. Lonen dragged the silk over and around the skin of them, teasing her, while her breath grew ragged.
“These are my lips on you,” he told her, picturing it so she would, “licking all this delicious flesh.” He stepped back and flicked the ends of the silk against her, drawing incoherent cries in response. “I might use my teeth, too. Do you like that?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” She nearly sobbed the words, unable to take and keep a decent breath. “Whatever you want, warrior.”
“Because you belong to me.” He loomed large before her, fierce and feral.
Only one answer. “Yes.”
“These are my hands on you.” Tying the scarf around her rib cage, he knotted above and between her breasts, crossing it up and over her shoulders, then bringing the ends around and beneath, tying them off to the center knot. He took his time, teasing her nipples with the free ends. Picking up her container of mask ribbons, he tied them to the scarves, meticulously making sure not to brush her skin with his, tightening them around her breasts with nearly painful pressure. “I have big hands,” he told her as he worked. “Barbarian hands, rough from fighting and manual labor. They scrape your soft white Báran skin and you love it.”
“I love it,” she agreed, longing for that very thing. “Touch me, Lonen.”
“I am. I’m squeezing your breasts. Do you feel that? Taking my fill of you, as is my right.”
He tightened the ribbons and she cried out, writhing against the bonds.
“Hold still,” he ordered in a harsh voice. “Don’t make me bind you further. All your pleading won’t save you.”
Understanding, she did her best to hold still, transfixed as he made a loop with a thin strip of ribbon, then slipped it over the tight peak of her nipple. His eyes caught hers. “Your teeth chewing your lip—that’s me, devouring your mouth, your nipples.” Slowly, he tightened the little noose and she gasped at the intensity of it. He smiled, a cruel, ruthless enjoyment of her predicament. “See? Many uses for those ribbons you squander so freely, Princess.”
He did the same to her other nipple, all the while describing what he’d be doing to her, until he’d reduced her panting and begging. “Please, Lonen,” she chanted.
“You want me between your legs?” he asked, leaning close so his breath caressed her cheek. “Touching you there, making you pump those pretty hips until you can’t hold back.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She ached there as never before. “Touch me please.”
He dropped to his knees, eye level with her sex and she watched him, rapt, abruptly aware that he’d never undressed. “Take off your shirt,” she told him.
With a half-smile, he complied. “As you command, Princess.” He picked up another scarf, threading it between her ankles and holding the ends in each hand, one in front of her and one behind. Working as slowly as before, he wisped the silk up the inside of her thighs, tantalizing her into edging her feet apart. When he reached the apex of her thighs, he dragged the scarf between her slick nether lips, sliding against her so she whimpered at the intensity of it.
“This is my hand, parting your folds,” he whispered. “There, yes?”
She had no words, only moans of encouragement as slipped against her, making her move her hips with it, just as he’d promised. “That’s it my hot little princess,” he crooned, “take your pleasure from me. My hand stroking you. You feel so good. Here’s my mouth on you.”
He imagined it, inhaling her scent, and she groaned at the sight of his dark curls between her thighs as the silk worked her. The tension built and she struggled against the mounting pressure. “I want,” she panted. “I need.”
“Take it then,” he rasped. “Let go. Let go of all of it.”
“No.” She closed her thighs around the silk. “I want all of it. Take me, all the way.”
“It’s easier to give you pleasure this way and—”
“I don’t care. The first time, I want this with you. Make me yours, Destrye.”
He rose to his feet, expression intent, ardor swirling about her as if he ran his hands over her flesh indeed. “Shall I plow between your pretty virgin thighs? Take your innocence and make you mine forever more?”
“Yes!” she urged him, all concept of dignity, of reserve in hwil vanished. She’d become a wild thing. “Take me. I’m yours to ravish.”
He lifted a hand to hover near her cheek, but checked himself from touching her. “So beautiful, my powerful sorceress. So helpless before me.” His hand dove into her hair, winding it around his fist and tugging remorselessly so her head tipped back exposing her throat. “Spread your legs for me,” he growled.
With a sob, she complied, the opening rocking her apart, with all of her so vulnerable to him. Something touched her thigh, cool and smooth, making her tense. What was it? He tugged her hair and slid it between her nether lips, making her moan, making her forget.
“This is my cock.” His voice came harsh and uneven. He pressed it against her aching flesh and pictured crawling between her spread thighs and pushing back her knees, positioning himself at her entrance. “I’m going to take you, my lovely Oria.”
“Yes. Lonen. Yes.”
He nud
ged it into her, spreading her slowly, working it back and forth, so she adjusted to the invasion. “This is me, fucking you.” In the fantasy he turned her over, holding her hair like the reins of a horse, making her arch her neck even as he pulled her hair in reality, pushing the thing in and out of her. “Keep those pretty thighs spread wide,” he cautioned, “or I’ll tie them apart. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Or his hand could brush her skin there, even as carefully as he moved. It felt so good, the filling and stretching, her body quickening, picking up where it had been. She moaned. “I don’t care. I want you in me for real. Fuck me for real, Lonen. I don’t care if it hurts.”
He breathed a wild and ragged laugh. “You would tempt the purest of men to such depravity. Sweet as it will be to sheath myself in you, that day has not yet come. But you’re mine just the same. Tell me so.”
“I’m yours.” She felt it, too, in the syncing of their bodies, the fantasies he fed her and she drank in, pumping back to him with her cries of need and the undulations of her naked body. “With me.” The words cracked, so she repeated the demand. “Take yourself in hand and be with me.”
With a muttered oath, he released her hair, reaching to undo his leather pants. Avidly she watched him grasp his cock, fisting it as he pumped a like phallus in her. She caught his gaze, the gray catching silver sparks, and poured some of her sgath into him, just a taste, enough to feed his fires. He snarled and pumped harder, a spur of the phallus in her grinding a sensitive spot.
Eyes locked on his, she let go of all reserve. He grunted as he came and—just as he’d promised—she screamed his name when her world split apart.
~ 20 ~
Lonen fell to his knees with the power of the climax, Oria shuddering with the aftershocks of her own orgasm, gleaming like a goddess of fire, her body slick with sweat and sex. His goddess. His queen.
Carefully he slid his dagger hilt from her sweet sex, beyond glad that the wide guard had shielded his hand from her intimate tissues. He’d forgotten himself there at the end, in his excitement, slamming it into her. No blood on her thighs, though, so he’d been right on judging the size. Smaller than his own girth, so easier for her than if he’d penetrated her for the first time. Perhaps by the time they found a way for her to tolerate contact with him, she’d be accustomed enough that he wouldn’t hurt her. A good thing, as he’d promised.
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