11
HE FELL ASLEEP right away, Gathren noted, but then she supposed he would have, considering all that blood loss and the fainting and everything else. Of course, he’d also drunk two pots of tea on his own, but that didn’t seem to have kept him awake.
She lay awake for a while, looking at him there and remembering her awful fantasies about him in the palace, the way she had wondered about the way his cock looked and then she had felt it pressed into her from behind, and now they were in the same bed and she could reach over and touch him… touch it.
But she would not do that, of course.
Not only because she did not have any interest in actually fucking the elf, but because it would be a violation to touch him in his sleep.
She was certain he wouldn’t mind, that he would be very pleased if he woke in the middle of it, but she also knew that one had a right to say if one’s genitals were handled by anyone else.
She was not going to do that.
She was not going to think about that.
But she did. She thought about nothing but his stupid cock and if it was really as big as it had seemed when it was pressed into her until she fell asleep.
When she woke, he was still sleeping.
She rolled over on her side to face him.
He was lying on his back. He had an erection, and it was obvious, tenting his trousers.
He was not wearing a shirt. His shirt had still been wet when they’d gone to sleep, so he had not put it back on.
He was half naked, lying there with his prick sticking straight up, and she could not look away from him.
She lay there and breathed, and the longer she looked at his hard cock, the more her body seemed to feel heavy and tingly. There was a tautness between her thighs, in her breasts as well.
She kept telling herself to get up out of the bed and stop looking at him.
But then, at some point, she looked up at his face, and his eyes were open.
She felt heat rushing to her face and neck. He knew then. He had awoken and caught her ogling him while he slept. She rolled onto her back, letting out a noisy breath.
He let out an answering breath.
She did not know what to do or say.
Finally, he said, “Apologies. It does that in the morning sometimes, you know. It’s not about, um… apologies.”
She did know that, of course, that men had morning erections. “It’s fine,” she said. “As you say, you cannot control that.” A pause. “I’m sorry for, erm, staring.”
A chuckle from him. “Oh, that I don’t mind.”
She met his gaze with her own. “It’s only because it was sticking out like that, not because I find it… enticing.”
He drew in a breath, his lips parting. “Enticing? No, you wouldn’t find it… that.”
“No,” she said. “I would not.”
He looked down at himself between his thighs and she looked at it, too, and she could swear the man’s cock was growing.
Get out of the bed, she urged herself. Definitely don’t touch it.
Oh, drag her to Nilhaem, where had that thought even come from? She didn’t want to touch him there. She didn’t think she did, anyway. She was sort of curious, she supposed, but this erection wasn’t even about her. It wasn’t proof he desired her or something.
Her hand darted across the bed, and she did it. She traced one finger over it, from the root to the tip.
He let out a rasp of a breath, looking at her in surprise.
She got out of the bed, all in a rush. “I’m so sorry. I do not know what I was thinking, and I don’t know why I did that. I should never have touched you without permission, not there, and I have no notion—”
He was out of the bed and behind her, pressing his body into hers from behind, and her voice just died in her throat.
He cupped one of her unbound breasts through her tunic.
She let out a sigh.
He pressed his lips into her jaw. She remembered they’d kissed before, once, and never again, and she turned and their lips met again, brief, sweet, bursting, and she opened her mouth to touch her tongue to his, and that felt good.
She broke the kiss. “We can’t.”
He let go of her. “Sorry.”
“It’s my fault, I started—”
“So sorry,” he said. “Very, very sorry. I should not have taken liberties and I lost my head, and you’re very lovely with your hair falling out of your braid, and do you ever take it down, and—don’t answer that.” He sat down on the bed.
She looked at him. Then, she looked away.
She had a wild and ridiculous thought, one of regret, that she had stopped them at all.
She thought that she could probably get them right back there, easily enough, likely without saying any words at all.
She could just reach down, take one of his hands, pull him up from the bed and press herself into him, and she imagined that Iahir would begin kissing her again. It would be easy.
But she did not want that.
Because…
Oh, because of everything. Because he was on the opposite side of a conflict than she was, because he was on the side of the enemy.
Except when he had said that maybe neither of them were on any side at all anymore, she’d had to admit that might be true.
But even so, he was the sort of man that he was, an elven nobility, a playboy, an arrogant, dismissive sort of man.
What did he want with her and why? Why would he wish to kiss her?
Well, she had known this from the beginning, of course. He found her sexually interesting. He wanted her, but she was a conquest, an interesting experience, a novelty. He was just like every other man who had taken her to bed, in the end.
She drew in a breath and let it out, and she did not desire to have him kiss her again, not anymore.
But he, damn him, kept bringing it up.
He apologized about it three more times, saying that maybe when he’d been stabbed in the shoulder, he’d gotten a fever and it had addled him and made him lose control of himself once.
Another time, he said that he hadn’t been fully awake, and if he had, then he would have kept himself in check.
And the third time, he pointed out that she had touched him.
They were horseback by this point, having left the inn behind miles ago. They would not be traveling together for much further, because soon, he would need to take the east road to go to Cirlahir, and she would travel on north to Notharlien.
The morning air was balmy, and they were traveling down a road that bisected two flat fields of grain, waving in the morning breeze. There were some farms in the south, some bits of countryside. It was not all towns and cities on top of each other.
“I do not know why we are still speaking of this,” she said. “I have told you there is no need for apologies. In fact, this last thing you have said did not even sound like an apology. I think you are simply angling to find some excuse to talk about your cock.”
He let out something like a snort. “You’re still so angry with me, warrioress, however, so I must apologize.”
“Indeed, I was not angry until you insisted on bringing the topic up over and over again.”
“But that seems to me to be an indicator that you are, in fact, still angry about it.”
She sighed heavily. “No, it is not. I simply want to put the entire business behind us.”
“Because you’re embarrassed?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am. You seem to be embarrassed, too.”
“I’m embarrassed because I lost control of myself. Did you lose control of yourself, warrioress?” Now, there was a gentle tendril of teasing to his tone.
Had she? She did not know. She did not know what it was about this man.
Could she deny that he was beautiful? That his features and his golden hair and his elegant fingers and his amused voice were all—well, what did his amused voice have to do with the other things, actually?
She held onto the reins and turned to look at him, furrowing her brow. The horse slowed a bit.
He slowed his own horse, which was a new mount he’d gotten at the inn. She was still on the horse she’d brought from the capital. “Why did you do it, that’s what I don’t understand,” he said, his voice very deep. “Do you find me enticing, warrioress?”
She only shook her head at him. She must, mustn’t she? She must be enticed by this man, but that was foolish, because he had no real regard for her. “Doesn’t matter if I do, my lord. I would have to be utterly stupid to allow you any liberties.”
“Well,” he said, “if you find me enticing too, it’s not as if I’d be the only person getting something out of it.”
She snorted. “Oh, what would I get out of it?”
“Well…” He shrugged as if this was obvious. “Pleasure.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And perhaps that’s not enough for me.”
He turned away, seemingly thinking this over. He turned back. “So, what else would you want? Perhaps I can escort you home in addition to that.”
She urged her horse faster, moving away from him.
He caught up to her. “Now, you’re definitely angry.”
“I cannot believe you are trying to negotiate your way between my thighs,” she said.
“You cannot?” he said. “Why not?”
“Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t act as if I want it as badly as you and then start offering to pay me for my services.”
“That wasn’t payment. I didn’t offer you coin.” He thought about it. “Do you want coin?”
“I am not one of your whores,” she said, and went even faster.
He caught up to her again. “You’re the one who said the pleasure wouldn’t be enough for you.”
“Obviously, what I meant was that I want something beyond that from a man who I allow into my bed,” she said, nostrils flaring.
“What?” he said, sounding thoroughly confused.
Could he truly be so very dense? She shot him a look of pure vitriol. “Oh, Haem smite you, my lord, I have been the plaything, the curious oddity, for too many men. I wish for something more than that. I wish a man to want me and to… to…”
“What?” He pressed her.
She felt embarrassed. “To love me, I suppose,” she said, feeling miserable about it.
He was quiet.