by Faye Avalon
She looked back at him, noting how his eyes had darkened with something she wasn’t quite sure of, but he seemed to be considering what she had told him.
“You were promised to the king. And yet I saw no mark upon your skin.”
Embarrassment burned fierce in her chest, remembering that she had allowed Caelan to push her dress so far up her thighs that it revealed the place where the king’s brand was permanently scored on women who became his property.
“I escaped before it could be put there. Indeed, it was the deciding factor in the urgency of my escape. The reason I was so ill-equipped to face the elements, and with woeful provisions and no time to plot my course by any means available.”
His nostrils flared. Even in the dim light she could see his expression darken, but then it was gone. He was a complex enigma of a man, with a seemingly constant edge to him that could so easily boil over into irritation and anger, yet just as easily tone down to an almost amiable edge. It would be wise to remember his moods and shifting countenance.
She shivered, but not from the climate. It was the simmering energy that came from Prince Caelan. The feeling that she had fallen from a volcanic fire pit straight into a maelstrom of heat and fury, with no hope of rescue.
“The fates are not always kind,” he said at length, and took a long breath in before exhaling as slowly. He seemed to be considering something, making a decision. But whatever it was it had his expression softening along with his manner.
Hope rose inside her. Did he believe her? Did he have some sympathy for her position?
As she mused on that, he reached out and caught her elbow. “Come, you are cold. The nights are not kind this time of year.”
Lahna’s tension ebbed a little against his show of concern, but she warned herself that he wasn’t a man to be taken at face value. His sudden thoughtfulness was likely just a ruse to make her lower her guard.
“We will take the shorter route back,” he said, still with his hand to her elbow. “You will enjoy the effects of the moonlight most fully from the ridge. It is perhaps the most beautiful view from the island.”
She wanted to shrug off his hold, but feared that they were at that moment indulging in some sort of game. She was never one for games, but recent life experience was teaching her that she had better learn the rules of this one fast.
“From what I have heard most of the island is beautiful, my lord.”
He looked down at her as they walked. “Perhaps you would enjoy a tour tomorrow?”
“A tour?” Surely a man intent on sending her back to Zomotia wouldn’t concern himself with showing her his island. Did that mean he really did believe her and would offer her the chance to stay?
“You mentioned that you do not enjoy being confined. Then allow me to ensure your comfort with a day spent enjoying the pleasures my island has to offer.”
Lahna didn’t know what to make of this turnabout. Caelan was obviously a man practiced in the art of seduction, of getting a woman to let down her defenses. Was he trying to woo her? For what purpose? She had the uneasy feeling that perhaps he hadn’t believed a word she had said about what brought her to Limani. Maybe he thought to try another tactic to discover what he believed were her true reasons. She knew of his type. She knew that all men had their own interests at heart. That all they wanted was to bed a woman. Well, she would keep her wits about her in that respect. Regardless of her hopes that he would let her stay, she knew it wasn’t possible.
She renewed her vows to take the very first opportunity to make her escape from this island and from him. If it meant playing along with whatever the prince was planning in order to ensure that escape, then she would do so. She might even discover new escape routes, new ways that might help her in her plight to be away from the island and this insufferable man.
“That would be very kind of you, my lord.” She offered him her sweetest smile. “A day away from my room and in the fresh air would be most welcome.”
****
Caelan knew he was being seduced. She might not be deliberately using her body, but she was adept at using her intellect. Lesser men might have believed her story, that she had chosen to escape rather than face being branded by the king. That she had chosen to brave the seas in order to flee a life of luxury and pampering. By the gods, he had known men, fearless warriors, who had screamed like babes when faced with the reality of tumultuous seas and ferocious currents. Fifty-foot waves could do that to a man, so did she really want him to believe she had chosen to undertake such a journey to avoid a life of incarcerated luxury?
If her story about being chosen for the king’s harem were true, she would bear the tyrant’s mark high on her thighs. She would have been given no chance to make her escape and been incarcerated in the king’s palace. The absence of such a mark only confirmed his instincts that she was here at the king’s bidding, as a willing participant in his treacherous games. She was a spy, a woman of cunning and logic, specially chosen by the king to do his dirty work. Likely members of the monarch’s fleet had brought her to within a stone’s throw of Limani, barely out of shot of his guards, before casting her adrift in a tattered boat knowing she would be rescued by his people. It was a chancy plan, for the reef could easily have claimed her for its own, but he was certain the king would not mourn the loss of one woman sent to do his will.
A fierce fire lit Caelan’s chest. The thought of Lahna being sucked to her death by the reef did not sit well with him, and he cursed the king for putting her in such a perilous position. Not that he should care one bit. Lahna was undoubtedly being paid a great deal for such an undertaking. What had she been promised for her treacherous skills, he wondered? Fine jewels? Gold coin? Exalted position amongst the women of the court?
None of it mattered. All that did was that he coerce her into agreeing to become his consort and keep her here, in order to protect and keep safe his island and its people.
With that thought firmly in his mind, he led Lahna along the rocky outcrop toward the ridge where he often came to partake of the sunset and would stay late into the night. He didn’t have an answer to the question that dogged him along the way. The one that asked why he had felt compelled to bring Lahna to this most treasured of his spots on the island. Maybe he was simply answering a primal urge to flaunt the beauty of his land to a stranger to its shores, or perhaps he wanted to know more about a woman who would free a frightened rabbit from a snare, or perhaps he had simply acted on the first idea that came to him when faced with those haunting pale green eyes and the continuing treachery they covered.
He would never entertain the prospect that he had acted so because he wanted to see how the pale strands of her hair would shimmer by the light of the moon, or how her delicate creamy flesh might take on an ethereal glow. It had nothing to do with wanting her beside him, to feel her soft skin beneath his fingers, the way she trembled beneath his hands as he tightened his grip when she stumbled.
All that was nothing to him. He simply had a job to do which meant coercing her into becoming his, and thus thwarting her attempts to infiltrate his future plans and relay them back to her king.
“Oh, you were right,” she said, coming to a halt at the top of a large rock. “It is quite breathtaking.”
Caelan looked out in the direction of her gaze, his heart warming at the sight of the iridescent moon flirting outrageously with the calm ocean upon which it cast its glow.
“It is said that the moon fell in love with the sea at this very spot,” he said, turning to watch her as he relayed the story he had been told as a small boy. “The sea didn’t respond to the flirtation of the moon, but the moon was not detracted from its determination to win the ocean’s heart. Every night it continues its conquest of the sea, turning its glow ever more determinedly onto the surface in the hopes of turning the sea’s heart from its indifference.”
She placed her hand above her breasts. “What a lovely story.” For a moment, his breath caught as her gaze held his. “Is i
t true, or are you making it up?”
“Is it true that the moon seeks the heart of the sea?”
“No.” Her smile did something uncomfortable to his chest. “That can’t be true, of course. What I mean is did you make the story up for my benefit?”
“Why would I do that?” But in that moment, staring down into her intoxicating eyes he wondered if he might make up just about anything to have her look at him like this. “The story is part of Limanish culture. We have been brought up on the legend.”
She looked back at the ocean and he mourned the warmth of her gaze upon him. “We have no such legends in Zomotia, at least none that I am aware of.”
She seemed so sad, and he wondered if she was considering her fate at the hands of the king if she was ever to return to her homeland with little or no useful information. Had she family there? Parents? Siblings?
It was none of his concern. “We have many such stories on the islands. Limani means land of the dreaming gods.”
She sighed. “How poetic. A beautiful meaning for a beautiful island.”
It pleased him greatly that she thought it such, then he shook off the thought and reminded himself he had a task to perform. Reaching out, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Gently, he eased her around to face him. “Beauty is found in many things.”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes and beneath his hands he felt her shiver. Before he could think, could reason, he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head until she had no option but to look up into his eyes.
In the green depths he saw a flicker of fear, but he also saw defiance, and something else. Desire. His body stirred and he felt himself harden. He let his gaze drop to her mouth, to the lush pink of her full lips. Lust ripped through him, clearing his mind of plans and schemes, until all that remained was a need to take her … have her … own her.
He drew her closer, his fingers dipping into her supple flesh until she shivered again. He knew ways to warm her, ways to warm them both, but lowering her to the ground and ripping her clothing to get to what he craved like a beast in heat was not the best plan if he was to convince her he was a man to whom she would wish to be bound.
He lowered his hands down her back, molded his palms around her soft curves and drew her against him. She gasped softly as he pressed his erection against the gentle roundness of her stomach. His cock jerked, his blood heated.
With some difficulty, he tempered the lust raging through him. He had never been a man to lose his head over a woman, and even in the deepest throes of passion he had always prided himself on keeping his wits about him. On keeping his sanity. He had seen too many men succumb to the dark arts that women possessed to snare a man. His friend Kassaro had been such a man, and he had never recovered.
“You must know that I want you,” he rasped through a throat tight with sexual hunger. He yanked her harder against him. “Say you’ll let me have you.”
She placed her small hands on his chest and kept her gaze there. “I told you that I set sail to earn my freedom,” she said softly, not meeting his eyes. “Do you not think that you place me in a similar position to that from which I have escaped?”
He allowed her a measly inch or two of space between them, but his hands remained tight around her bottom. “Here you have a choice,” he said, playing along with her protestations. “Something you were previously denied.”
“Then it is my choice to deny you, my lord. Please release me.”
He allowed himself the pleasure of retaining his hold for several moments while the night air whispered around them. Then he let her go, holding his hands up. But her denial, and his response, irritated him. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman refused him. He looked down at her, his gaze traveling the length of her lush body before coming to settle at her breasts.
“It seems you are not entirely displeased by my unwelcome advances.”
Her pretty brow furrowed, then she looked down to where he let his gaze linger. “I don’t understand.”
He waited until she looked back at him, then allowed himself a grin. “The tips of your breasts have hardened through the fabric of your gown. A sure sign that a woman is enjoying desire.”
“Is it?”
He wanted to laugh at her feigned innocence, and part of him was perverse enough to want to believe that he truly kept her off balance. “It is. In the same way that a man’s cock gives away his desire.”
Her eyes flicked down to his groin, then as quickly returned to meet his gaze. Even in the dark of the evening he could see her blush. Such an actress.
“This is inappropriate.”
“Why? We share an attraction. It is natural enough to act on it by enjoying each other.” Unable to resist the way she swallowed, or the way she folded her arms over her breasts, he stepped closer, backing her against the wall. “Why don’t you allow me to show you the pleasures such a mutual attraction can elicit? We can start simply” —he slid his hand into her hair— “and I promise I will stop should you require it.”
She swallowed again, her delicate neck moving beneath his fingers as he stroked her soft skin. “I… I don’t know…”
While she hesitated, he leaned down, letting his mouth rest a breath from hers. “Let me show you, Lahna.”
Her gaze fell to his mouth and he took it as her agreement. Her lips were soft, warm, her taste exquisite. He let his mouth brush hers, his tongue teasing along the seam of her lips. She kept them firmly closed, and right then making her open to him became the center of his existence. He teased, coaxed, but still those lips stayed closed.
The witch.
Sliding his arms around her waist, he drew her against him once more. He leaned in, using his erection to coax her legs apart in the same way his tongue manipulated her lips. She gave a moan, shifted her hips a little. He wasn’t sure if she meant to stop him or encourage him, but since she hadn’t pulled away he decided to err on the side of encouragement.
“Open your mouth,” he said softly. “Allow me to taste you.”
She shook her head, her mouth brushing his as she did so.
Since she looked confused, fearful, he drew his head back. Surely no woman was that great an actress. “What is it?”
“I… I feel strange.” She placed her hands on her cheeks and shook her head again. “I’m hot and yet cold at the same time. And when you touch my mouth with yours it feels…”
He wanted to grin, but her seeming innocence touched something deep inside him. Was it possible that while she was well schooled in the ways of deceiving a man, of eliciting information, she was less schooled in the ways of the body?
Gently, he removed her hands from her cheeks and wrapped them in his. “What you feel is normal. It is all a part of that mutual attraction we share, and it can lead to unimaginable pleasure.”
“It can?”
He nodded and brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “When I kiss you again, open your mouth. The pleasure will be even greater, I promise you this.”
She licked her lips, making his cock jerk painfully. “It feels wrong to do this.”
“It is not wrong. Let me show you how right it can be.”
Without waiting for her response, he lowered his mouth again, pleased when her lips parted almost immediately. He took full advantage and touched the tip of his tongue to hers, taking his time to explore her mouth, reveling in the sweetness of her taste.
So lost in her was he that when her tongue pushed into his mouth the surprise of it had him drawing away with a groan.
A stricken look fired in her eyes. “Did I do that wrong?”
Since he was burning from the taste of her, the sheer pleasure of sampling her delicious mouth, all he could do was blink.
She shook her head. “I am so foolish.”
“No.” He slid his arms around her again. “You did that exactly right.”
Her eyelashes dropped against the creamy flesh of her cheeks, then she looked up at him with the
skill of a temptress. He had a moment to think himself a fool. That he had fallen for the words, for the scheming, but he would take this through to its full conclusion. He was burning for her, and if she was not averse to playing with him then he would take full advantage. If, while here to do the king’s bidding, she had been tasked to use her no doubt considerable charms to make him believe she was an innocent in the ways of lovemaking, he was perfectly happy to go along with it.
All is not as it will seem…
His father’s warning rang through his brain, but Caelan pushed it aside. Taking a woman in lovemaking did not strip away a man’s ability to reason. He wanted Lahna, in full knowledge that she was not who she would have him believe her to be. She was a scheming temptress … and by all the gods he would sample her delights while keeping his feet firmly planted against the rich soil of his land.
Decision made, he yanked her against him, ignoring her gasp. “Let us continue with the lesson.”
“Lesson?”
“You have mastered the art of kissing,” he said. “And with such ease and speed. It is time to move on to the next step.”
“What … what is the next step?”
He slid his hand over the thin fabric of her gown, and covered her breast. She jumped, but her peak hardened against his palm and her breast felt full and heavy in his hand. “This is the next step,” he said, hardly recognizing the gravel tone of his voice. “I sample your breasts.”
She gasped when he slid the gown off her shoulders and revealed her breasts to his gaze, but made no move to stop him. Clever witch. “I use my hands,” he said, manipulating the soft flesh until his cock throbbed. “I use my mouth.” He bent, sucking gently on the hard nipple. “I use my tongue.” He laved the now rigid peaks, pleased when her hips began to move and she grasped his shoulders.
Her breathing came in short gasps, her body tense against his. He was drowning in her, all his senses alight with desire and need. He could never remember experiencing such an overwhelming saturation of his being. The only time he felt this alive was the moment before he entered battle. That second when he drew his sword, sucked in what might be his final breath, and prepared to either live or die. His heart pounded now as it did then. His blood raged through his veins.