Chapter 14 #2
threatening rain, he would’ve gladly slept in his own bedroll on
the opposite side of the camp.
He finished his meager, tasteless supper and
stepped behind the lean-to and relieved himself. The trees’ canopy
still held off the rain for now, and as long as the rain didn’t
become a deluge, their little lean-to should keep them dry. He
checked on the horses one more time, delaying his return to the
close confines of the lean-to and whatever creature resided there
at the moment: the cool, aloof she-cat, or the hissing, spitting
tigress.
Sahar’s quicksilver moods usually intrigued
and excited him, but tonight he wanted the quiet comfort of a good
sleep. With a resigned shrug he stooped and peeked inside. She was
already under the covers, her tunic and breeches tucked under her
head like a pillow, her big, round, luminous cat eyes watching him,
her luscious lips curled up in an inviting smile.
No.
He shook his head. If she thought he was
going to forget how angry he was and make love to her, she had
another thing coming. He sat by her feet and pulled off his boots,
and then his breeches, ignoring her throaty purr. Then he doffed
his leather outer tunic and his linen undertunic and folded them,
and then set them down as a pillow.
He slid in behind her, skin to warm skin, and
bit off a groan. Instead of reaching over and tucking her closer,
he scooted back until there was nothing but air between them. He
laid his head down, willfully keeping his nose from the warm, sweet
spot at her nape, though he could not keep from inhaling the
womanly scent of her.
No.
He flopped over to his other side so his back
was to her, still not touching her. If she didn’t want to bear his
babe, then he would make certain she wouldn’t, and the only way to
do that was to abstain from sex, no matter how much he craved her.
Oh, he did. So much so that his hands twitched to reach out and
touch her smooth skin, to roam the taut muscles of her legs and the
swells of her breasts and hips. He bit off another groan, his
cursed cock hard with the memory of nestling in her warm, wet
folds.
No.
He clamped his jaw tight and gritted his
teeth and fisted his hands. He thought of her fisted hands as she
stood in the river claiming she didn’t want to marry him or to bear
his child, and he jerked the covers up over his shoulders. It
wasn’t the first or only time since he’d known her that she’d said
she did not wish to wed, and not only him but any man. Then why had
her refusal this morning hit him like a punch to the gut?
From the moment he had seen her sitting at
the royal table he’d known she wasn’t for him. A princess and a
bastard, even a king’s bastard, could have no future together. It
wasn’t either of their faults, it was the way of the world. Aleksi
had told himself from the start that it didn’t matter. After the
races he would leave with his winnings and never see her again.
He didn’t want to care, but he did. She was
like no other woman he had ever been with. Not only beautiful and
intelligent, but tactile and sensual, and as sure of her body as
her mind. As fiery and adventurous in bed as out. Unlike the other
women he’d known, he would never forget a single thing about her.
Not her spicy, exotic gardenia mixed with earthy, musky womanly
scent, or the feel of her skin against his, the pulse of her life’s
blood coursing through her veins, her heart beating in time to
his.
All he had to do was close his eyes to see
the flashing green brilliance of hers, or lick his lips to taste
her salty sweetness. Then there was her voice, as deep and smooth
as smoked honey. A voice that would tease and haunt his straining
ears for the rest of his natural life, and likely beyond. He had
come to care for her more than he had ever cared for any woman, and
that had been his mistake. The more you cared about someone, the
more it hurt when they were taken away. This he knew from hard
experience.
No.
He huffed and tucked the covers tighter
around his shoulders. Better to start getting used to keeping his
distance again. By tomorrow night they would likely be with her
father’s guard and their time together would be over, unless she
was already pregnant. Then Aleksi would have himself one trapped,
angry wife. The last thing he wanted was to be saddled with a caged
tigress who did not want his cub.
No.
Better they stop their reckless foolishness
now.
Sahar stirred under the covers and closed the
distance between them. Her soft, round breasts pressed into his
back and her pelvis cupped his backside. She tucked the long, lean,
length of her legs under his and wrapped her arm around him, her
hand resting on his belly, her fingers playing in his fur, slowly
working their way lower, lower, until…
“Yes.”
The word tore its way out of his throat and
reverberated down to his cock as she rubbed the flat of her fingers
down the length of him, from root to tip to root, and then cupped
his stones and rolled them along her palm, her touch firm yet
gentle. She ran her fingertips up and down his erection, sending
ripples of pleasure out to every point of his body from his toes to
his knees, to his nipples to his ears, and what was left of his
mind between them. She circled the tender head of his cock with the
pad of her thumb, spreading the small drop of fluid that had
escaped, and he rolled over and flipped her onto her back, kneeling
over her and pinning her arms above her head.
“What do you want? Tell me.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
He laughed, short and harsh. “It’ll by my
pleasure.” Before she could respond, he covered her mouth with his
bruising kiss.
He held her hands to the ground as he kissed
and nipped his way from her mouth to her neck to her breasts,
licking and sucking each nipple until she was squirming beneath
him. He lowered her hands to her sides, but did not let go his hold
of her wrists as he tasted his way down her belly, nuzzling his
nose in her thick, curly thatch. He touched the tip of his tongue
to her hardened bud, and her sigh turned into a low moan. Aleksi
swirled his tongue around her fleshy lips, and then he licked her
and suckled her, and drank in the sweet, hot wetness of her as she
bucked her hips and clenched her hands. He kept his tight grip on
her wrists and his tongue’s assault on her flesh until she was
writhing at the edge. Then he pulled back.
“What do you want, my tigress?”
“I want you, inside me.”
He let go of her wrists, cupped her buttocks,
and lifted her hips high. With one thrust he buried his cock stones
deep into her, groaning at the hot, welcoming grip. Then he pulled
back and thrust deep again and again, and again, pounding into her
with the growing storm inside and outside their little lean-to,
taking her as she took all of him, laying his claim to her here in
this wilderness, a claim that would count for nothing back in the
civilized world.
Right here, right now, she was his, the storm
between them building in strength and intensity, carrying them both
to the precipice. He gave one last, deep, pulsating thrust, sending
her careening over the edge, and when he was sure she had landed
back on soft earth, he pulled out and spilled his seed on the damp,
barren ground.
Sahar glanced up at the noon sun, a dim
yellow orb in the misty gray sky, and shifted on her saddle, trying
to find a comfortable position. Between the last ten days of hard
riding, the beatings she had taken, and the sex play she and Aleksi
had been engaging in, there didn’t seem to be a spot on her
backside that wasn’t sore or tender. Though she could’ve done
without the kidnapping and the beatings, she’d learned much in
these past days and nights.
She’d learned she truly was as good as any
man on a horse, and she was tough, physically and mentally. A
fighter and a survivor. She’d learned to trust a man other than her
father with her life, and had saved Aleski’s, as he had saved
hers.
She’d learned that there were as many
different ways to have sex with that same man as there were
feelings between them. There was new, exciting,
figuring-each-other-out sex, and there was comfortable,
I-know-what-you-like sex. There was hurried, raw, purely physical
sex, and slow, reverent, body-worshipping, soul-searching sex.
There was talking dirty sex and murmuring sweet nothings sex. There
was the sex they had had last night: hard, rough, angry sex.
Fucking. And the sex they had had shortly after, soft, gentle,
make-up sex. Then there was the sex they had this morning, the sex
that brought stinging tears to her eyes thinking about it.
Unhurried, tender, and soulful, full of soft murmurings and
bittersweet goodbyes.
It’d likely been the last sex they would ever
have with each other, unless she was pregnant and they were forced
to marry, in which case she foresaw a lot more angry sex.
Not that a lifetime of sex with Aleksi, angry
or otherwise, would be a bad thing. Sahar wasn’t so na?ve as to
think that good sex between a husband and wife was a given. She
wasn’t ignorant of the fact that sex with him had been
exceptionally good. She’d grown up listening to the women in the
palace talk about their husbands and lovers. She knew it was not
every man, or woman, who was as considerate of their partner’s
needs as he was. He’d always made sure she was as satisfied as he.
He was neither a stripling lad nor a gnarled old greybeard, but a
big, strong, virile man, who knew and enjoyed her body as well as
his own. He had helped her discover the power of her body and her
passion, and she had reveled in that power, had felt his equal,
even though he had been the more experienced partner.
In truth, sharing a marriage bed with him
would be no hardship, and the thought that any other woman could
have that privilege was like a sharp, penetrating wound to Sahar’s
chest. She tried to imagine the man she would eventually fall in
love with and marry, but her gaze only returned to the man riding
beside her. To his straight spine, the solid line of his jaw, and