Chapter 11 #2
“Well that explains it then,” he said with a
chuckle. “I’m famished.”
He went to his saddle bags and pulled out the
tub of soap and a clean undertunic. “Here,” he said, handing her
both. “The stream is past that copse of trees. I’ll gather some
greens upriver while you bathe.” He grinned at her raised brows.
“I’d feel safer keeping you in my sights. But don’t worry, I
promise not to look.” He wiggled his brows. “Much.”
Aleksi kept his back to her as she stripped
and stepped into the stream, laughing at her curses as she waded
deeper into the cold water heading to a small pool along the
opposite shore.
She set the tub of soap on a rock, and he
turned to forage for greens. When he turned back, he didn’t see her
and panicked.
“Sahar?”
She broke the surface, whirled around, and
covered her breasts and with her hands. “You promised you wouldn’t
look,” she accused.
“I promised not to look much.”
Sahar lengthened her spine and narrowed her
eyes. “What do you consider much?”
“Uh.”
“Well?”
Aleksi shrugged and grinned and ran a hand
through his hair. “Truly, you are a woman no man would ever get his
fill of looking at.” She didn’t rail at him, or drop down into the
water. She stood where she was and dropped her hands to her sides
with a hard, hungry look on her face. She was beautiful and
desirable, even bruised and bedraggled.
She watched, seemingly transfixed, as he
pulled his tunic up and over his head, then his breeches landed
beside his tunic, and she licked her lips and surveyed his body.
Her gaze stayed on his cock rising between his legs.
She let her breath out and swallowed
hard.
“Sahar?”
He stared as she raised her gaze and in her
glittering eyes he could see everything she was feeling, most of it
echoed his uncertainty, desire, and wonder. He stepped into the
water and was standing in front of her before she had taken another
breath.
He stood far enough from her that his cock
waved between them without touching her. She closed the chasm
between them with half a step, and he pressed into her belly,
branding her as his throbbing need became almost more than he could
bear. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer so
they were skin to skin from breasts to knees. She let out a long
breath with a low moan as she melted into him.
“My tigress.” Aleksi’s voice rumbled low in
her ear and thrummed down her spine. His hands went into her hair
and his lips were on her mouth, hard, hungry, and demanding, taking
all that she was eager to give. As he took, he gave, his mouth
trailing hot, wet kisses down her neck and across her shoulder
while his hands explored the length of her back and the swell of
her hips. He kissed her on the mouth again, long, hard, and deep as
he cupped her buttocks with both hands, and then he lowered his
mouth to her breast, flicking his tongue out and licking her
nipple.
Sahar gasped, and the world around them burst
into a cacophony of sound.
Aleksi’s heart started racing for a different
reason and he pushed her into the water and dropped down next to
her as a flock of crows flew squawking from a tree, circling and
cawing. They hugged the rocks forming the pool and watched
silently, surveying the shoreline for any sign of what had
disturbed the birds. A stag with a full head of antlers emerged
from the tree line to drink from the stream.
Sahar’s teeth started chattering so loudly he
turned around and glared. Aleksi palmed a mouthful of water and
spat it out. Gods. He could’ve gotten them killed.
“Curse me for an addlepated, weak-willed
fool,” he swore as he stood, his cock swinging at half-mast above
her face. He grabbed the soap and lathered his head, his arm pits
and his groin before dunking it in the water and handing the soap
to her. “Here,” he grumbled. “Wash up quick. We need to be on the
move.”
Shortly after coming to his senses, Aleksi
stared down at the brush covering the Jackal’s body and the boot
prints around it. He walked behind the tree and looked down at his
own, larger boot prints, which he hadn’t had time to sweep over
when he rescued Sahar.
“You can bet that Yago and Taweel know it was
me who killed the Jackal and took you,” he said to Sahar’s
back.
She nodded. She’d said nothing since the
stream. Though her angry, accusing expression had spoken
plenty.
They had come close, too close, to giving in
to their desires and putting themselves in a dangerous and
precarious position. Aleksi knew full well the fault was his. All
he’d needed to do was look away as she had risen from the water,
her sleekly muscled body, firm, high breasts and gently swelling
hips glistening wet and naked, but he hadn’t. He should’ve turned
around and walked away from her as she stood there, shy and bold,
but he hadn’t. He’d walked straight to her, drawn by the look in
her eyes and the need in his loins. He could still feel the wet
warmth of her skin against his, the taut roundness of her backside
in his hands, the heat of her kiss. He could still hear her low
moan of pleasure as he held her close, her little gasp of surprise
as he had flicked his tongue over her pebbled nipple.
Thank the gods for skittish crows and a
thirsty stag. Aleksi had been thinking with his cock, not his
brain, and had endangered them.
He glanced at her as she bent and picked up
the cut rope that had tied her to the tree, and he vowed he would
not be so careless again. Even as he swore to remain her chaste
bodyguard, his cock was responding to the memory of her body
pressed against his.
Concentrate on finding the Wolf, you fool,
before he finds you.
“I am going to walk a circle outside the
camp,” he said to himself as much as to her. “Make sure they didn’t
double back on us.”
The only tracks he found were of four horses
heading south and west. Yago and Taweel must have decided that
Aleksi and Sahar were heading back to her father. He smiled grimly.
Even after all that they’d put her through, they still did not know
her at all.
“You should ride Z,” he said, holding the
stallion’s reins out to her. “I will walk the next league. Keep an
eye out for any change in the tracks.”
She took Z’s reins and put her booted foot in
Aleksi’s cupped hands, letting him boost her up onto the saddle. He
gave her ankle a gentle squeeze, and she kicked his hand away.
“Come on then,” he said, starting off at an
easy lope. “We have leagues of ground to cover.”
They’d walked the half a league between their
camp and Yago’s this morning. He wasn’t looking forward to riding
pressed against her. Eventually though, they’d have to ride
together. Until then, it felt good to stretch his legs and work his
muscles while concentrating on following the tracks. It helped to
keep his mind from wandering back to the two of them skin to skin
in the stream. They’d covered another two leagues by noon and
Aleksi was arguing with himself. He was beginning to tire, but was
loath to tempt his self-control by riding double with her. He felt
something crunch under his boot. He stopped and lifted it and saw
that there were hundreds of chestnuts lying where they had fallen
from a copse of trees, ripe and ready for picking.
“Chestnuts,” he said, waving her over. “We
can pack the saddle bags full of them.”
She jumped down and packed one saddle bag
with the nuts while he packed the other. He boosted her up onto the
saddle and then swung up behind her, gritting his teeth as she
shifted her backside into him. He took Z’s reins and urged the
stallion on. They might well go hungry for want of each other, but
at least they wouldn’t starve for food.
As they rode, the sun travelled in the sky,
and Sahar fell asleep to Z’s steady gate. Her head pillowed on
Aleksi’s shoulder. When she stirred, he muttered in her ear,
“Welcome back.”
She craned her neck and peered out from under
heavy lids into a dusky sky. “Did I sleep the afternoon through?”
she asked, yawning.
“You did.”
He shifted a little, sitting up
straighter.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“About five leagues south of where we started
this morning,” he answered, bringing a flush of heat to her cheeks
and to his groin. Where they had started that morning was naked
together in a stream, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, lips to
breast.
“Where, ah, where are Yago and Taweel?”
“A league ahead of us by their tracks, which
still show two horses with riders and two without,” he told her.
“My guess is they’ll camp on the mountain’s peak tonight and start
down the southern slope tomorrow.”
“When do we go after Lasair?”
“When they’ve relaxed their guard and least
expect it.”
“What if they never do?”
He didn’t answer.
“The longer we wait,” she argued, “the closer
they’ll be to the Ox’s kingdom, and the longer and more dangerous
our journey home.”
“True enough,” he agreed. “But the Ox’s
kingdom is still a good eight to ten days’ ride. We have time.”
Which was a blessing and a curse. Time alone
with Sahar in the wilds, riding with her, sleeping with her,
without a repeat of what had happened in the stream this morning
was going to nearly undo him.
They made camp late, and kept it cold. Much
like their conversation, cold, impassive, and impersonal, although
at least Sahar was talking to Aleksi again. She was also as jumpy
as a cat on hot coals. Not that he blamed her. He was feeling shaky
himself.
Get over it, you ass. She’s not for you. Get
Lasair back. Get the princess home. Get yourself home with a purse
full of coin and a string of broodmares for Zolotoy to cover. If
you’re lucky, someday you may look at another woman and not see a
pair of blazing green eyes staring back at you.
He rubbed his stubbled chin and took a slow
survey of the mountain sloping above them, as much to glean any
information about where Yago and Taweel might be as to concentrate
on anything but the tigress pacing around the camp.