Chapter 6 #2
her absence. Her smell, her kisses, her lithe body pressed against
his. Whenever he considered going down into the city to find the
kind of female companionship that would help sate his hunger, the
idea tasted as sour to him as Kiska’s day-old goat milk.
Maybe he would settle for getting sodding
drunk.
“What is the matter with you?” he said as he
stopped at the gate to Zolotoy’s stall. The stallion was pressed
close to the wall farthest from the door to Aleksi’s antechamber,
pawing at the ground and snorting at the closed door. A mound of
straw in a back corner rustled and moved and Kiska poked her head
out, ears twitching and meowing at Aleksi. “Why are you out here,
Kiska?” he whispered as the kitten burrowed back under the
straw.
Slowly opening the gate, Aleksi pulled his
waist blade and crept up to the door. He flung it open, blade
poised to strike, and stood dumbfounded at the unmistakable figure
of a woman sprawled out on his cot.
“Who are you?” Aleksi demanded. “And what are
you doing in my bed?”
The woman rose up onto one elbow and ran a
seductive hand over the rounded swell of her hip.
“I am Roxanna.”
She swung her legs over the side of the cot
and stood in one sensuous movement, her gown of sheer worm weave
shimmering in the candlelight and clinging to her every curve. She
was dark haired, dark eyed, and voluptuous. Her smile was knowing
and inviting, her bee-stung lips stained a deep red.
She did not say what she was doing there. She
did not need to.
“How did you come to be here?” Aleksi asked.
“I did not send for you.”
“A friend of yours did.”
“Is this friend how you got past the
guards?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this friend of mine?” he said,
stepping the rest of the way into the small antechamber. He stood
no more than two feet from her, and could smell the heavy, cloying
scent of her perfume.
Roxanna smiled seductively. “I do not know
his name, or the name of his servant who sought me out and brought
me here.”
Whoever it was, they had enough wealth to
have a manservant and to pay for an expensive harlot. Roxanna was
no tavern wench or street walker. She was clean and well fleshed
and had all of her teeth.
“Why would a friend buy your services for
me?”
She reached out and lightly raked a long,
sharpened nail down his forearm. “I was told it was to honor you
for your victory in the last race. I am yours for the night.”
Aleksi stepped to the foot of the cot, out of
her reach. She was a good-looking woman, though easily over thirty
years of age, and her sly eyes, seductive smile, and undulating
body all told him she was experienced in the ways of carnal
pleasure.
“The thing of it is, Roxanna,” he told her,
“I have never paid for sex before, and I do not wish to now.”
She smiled again, swaying her body from head
to toe as she cornered him. “I can easily believe that,” she said.
“I would gladly pleasure you for free, but I am already paid for,
and not by you. So, you see,” she purred, rubbing her generous
chest against his, “you still will have never paid for sex.”
The tactile memory of Sahar’s smaller, firmer
breasts pressed against his chest, their nipples pebbling as they
kissed, came unbidden to him. He clenched his hands, remembering
the feel of her taut backside, her sleekly muscled back, and
groaned in frustration. Seeming to sense that she was losing his
interest, Roxanna pressed closer, moving her pelvis against his
surprisingly disinclined cock.
Pushing her away, Aleksi laughed, as much at
himself as at the confused expression on the harlot’s face. “Do not
ask me to explain,” he said as he took her by the arm and began to
lead her from the cramped little room.
“It is a woman then,” she said, grabbing her
cloak from the cot. “A woman you wish to be faithful to?”
Aleksi stopped and let her fasten the
cloak.
“Is it not?” Roxanna asked again.
“No,” Aleksi said. How could a man be
faithful to a woman who was not his? Who swore she would never be
his, even if her kiss spoke of a heat and passion between them that
neither could deny.
“A man then?”
Aleksi laughed. “No, it’s definitely not a
man.”
It was a tigress who had sunk her claws into
him, a green-eyed tigress who had glared at him for merely flirting
with Ursula. It would not do to have her find him here with
Roxanna, though why he should care, he could not say, only that he
did.
Taking Roxanna by the hand, he led her from
his room and peered over the stall gate. There was nobody about,
but that could change in a moment. Opening the gate, he ushered
Roxanna out of the stall and caught her amused half smile as she
leaned indolently against the wall. He grinned back and latched the
gate. He was acting like some lovesick fool, worried that a woman
who had refused him would catch him with another. What if she did?
She had no claim on him, and had refused his offer of marriage.
He eyed Roxanna, and saw the invitation in
her dark, kohled eyes. He reached out and pulled a curled strand of
her hair from behind her ear. But her hair was slick with oil and
smelled of the same cloying perfume as her body. He itched to run
his fingers through thick, wavy tresses that smelled of clean soap
and sweet gardenia. Leaning back against the wall, he dropped the
curl with an apologetic shrug, and heard voices approaching.
“I am sorry for this,” Roxanna said. Dropping
to her knees, she yanked his breeches down and shoved her face into
his crotch.
“What the—?” Aleksi grabbed her by the
hair.
“You rutting bastard!”
Slowly, inexorably, he turned to see Sahar
standing no more than ten paces from him. “It is not what you
think,” Aleksi said, letting go of Roxanna’s hair. “I swear to
you.” Sahar’s pointed glare took in the harlot’s sheer gown and
painted face as Roxanna stood, and then blazed at Aleksi as he
quickly pulled his breeches up. Then, not only did Yago the Worm
and Taweel the Tall come around the corner, but his cursed
half-sister, Anastasia, strolled up between them, followed by Munir
and Brawn.
“Oh my,” Anastasia trilled. “Is that a woman
of ill repute?”
“I would say so,” Yago affirmed with a smug
leer at Roxanna. Then his leer dropped to Aleksi’s groin, where it
lingered despite the fact that his breeches were up.
“I am shocked.” Anastasia tsked and grabbed
Yago’s arm as if in need of support, “Shocked, I must say, though
not surprised that you would consort with a harlot, Aleksandr.”
“Funny,” Aleksi said. “You do not look
shocked or surprised.” He jerked his head at Yago and Taweel. “Nor
do either of you.” He glanced at Roxanna, who quickly looked away
from Yago. “At least now I know who sent her to me.” He looked to
Sahar, whose blazing eyes had gone white hot. “And why.” He stepped
forward and reached a hand out to her.
“Do not touch me,” she growled and slapped
his hand away. “You do not get to touch me ever again.”
“You do not mean that,” he cajoled, though by
the green ice in her glare and the hard set of her jaw, she meant
exactly that. After the way she had responded in his arms, to his
kisses, after he had refused the willing and able Roxanna’s
services to keep some mad semblance of faithfulness to her, Sahar
would not even listen to what he had to say. “Why am I even trying
to explain myself to you?” he said. “You have no claim over me, we
are not betrothed, we are not even courting. We are nothing to each
other.”
We are nothing to each other.
Sahar could still feel the sting of
Aleksandr’s words as she stormed to the palace. How could he say
that to her after he had defended her and she him against others’
accusations, after proposing marriage to her, after kissing her?
Had their kisses truly meant nothing to him, when she still dreamt