The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (18 page)

“Those can be removed without cutting.” His voice was rough, his face alight with desire.

I widened my eyes. “But you could have had me by lifting my skirts and yet my dress was totally ruined. Fair’s fair.”

He laughed and wound his fingers in my hair. “Hurry, then.”

In full agreement, I sliced the trousers, peeling them off him and tossing the little blade aside. His thighs were long and leanly muscled. His manhood. Oh.

“Touch me, my queen.”

He groaned when I did, tipping his head back, stern face clenched in a look of near pain. I had meant to caress his throat and chest, explore the lines of his belly, but that upthrusting manhood had drawn my unthinking first attempt. To most rewarding results.

I wrapped my fingers tighter around him and stroked, watching the pleasure reverberate through his body. The hunter, tamed. He clamped his hand around my wrist, stopping me. He kissed me like a starving man, pulling me against him. The shock of flesh on flesh astounded me. It felt like coming home.

“My turn,” he growled, pulling my hand off him and setting it on his shoulder. I stroked the velvety skin there, absorbed in the musky smell and feel of him. Then convulsed when he plunged a hand between my legs.

The enormous pleasure shook me and I clung to him, winding his hair around my hand to anchor me. He caressed me, sliding through my slippery folds. I had never imagined a man’s touch could feel so much different than my own.

“So hot, so ready.” He groaned the words between kisses. “Can it be now? I fear I can’t wait.”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” In that moment, I wanted nothing more.

He laid me on my back on the white rug, bracing himself over me and settling between my spread thighs. His hair fell around us, a black curtain gilded by firelight. He fitted his manhood against my core, nudging me open. I moaned at the feeling.

He kissed me, slow and tender, and dropped his forehead against mine. “This may hurt.”

“I ride a lot of horses,” I whispered.

He smiled at that, then sobered. “This is the first way. With this, I make you mine, Andromeda, my queen.”

He thrust into me, a long clean stroke of the blade, and I cried out as if mortally wounded. But no wound ever spun such delirious pleasure. My body welcomed him in, wrapped around him, and shimmered with a golden glow.

I waited for the next, but he didn’t move.

I clutched his hip with my free hand, frantic for more.

“Are you all right?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes. Now, Moranu take you, move!”

He laughed, wild and delighted. Then drew back and plunged in again. I cried out my thankfulness, nails digging into his hip, urging him deeper, harder. His skin grew slick against mine, heightening the sensation each place we touched. I wrapped my legs around his waist as we flew higher, lightning sparking between us. The fire filled my blood, building to an impossible tension. I sank my teeth into his shoulder and he shouted out, convulsing against me. Still he drove on, increasing his pace until the blood burned red under my eyelids.

With a broken cry, I clung to him while the storm raged through me, washing the fire away with cooling rain, cleansing, releasing. Lowering me gently down again to the real world, where Rayfe lay draped over me, buried inside me, the taste of him in my mouth.

W
hatever I had expected—from Amelia’s letters, from the songs and stories—it hadn’t been this. It occurred to me that it would be different every time, each coming together a magical intertwinement. And this moment was so infused with Rayfe, this man buried between my thighs, that I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

He levered himself up and brushed the hair out of my face. Then he snagged the little knife I’d tossed aside and severed the ties binding our wrists together. I stretched my arm, relieved to have it free again. His lips twisted in that half smile.

“That goes”—he tossed the silk away—“this remains.” He stroked himself inside me and I arched my back at the deep pleasure.

“That will make it even more difficult to get around,” I gasped.

He chuckled, then withdrew from me, leaving me oddly empty. My whole life I’d spent not filled, yet now it felt wrong for him to go. As if I already craved him. He walked to the kitchen, his masculine backside a stirring sight. He moved sinuously, long muscles flexing, his body made of hard lines, so unlike mine, and disappeared around the corner.

I held my wrist up to the light to examine the wound from the priest’s knife.

The skin looked as always. I couldn’t possibly have the wrong arm—the red ridges and bumps from the tight bindings remained and my fingers prickled still with the returning movement. But there was no cut, no scab, only a fine white scar, as if ages healed.

“Believe me now?” Bringing back a cloth and a pan of warm water, Rayfe knelt beside me. His manhood lay long and heavy against his thigh, no longer upthrust. He’d cleaned himself of our fluids and now reached out with a damp cloth.

“I can do it myself.” I took the cloth from him and turned away slightly, conscious of his eyes on me, wiping hastily between my thighs and ignoring the slight burn. I scrubbed a bit at the pink-tinged stain on the white fur, too. “Sorry about this. White was probably a bad choice.”

“Your blood is precious to me. I’m happy to have that souvenir of this night.”

“So you can hang it on the castle walls as proof of my virgin status?”

He laughed and took the cooling cloth from me. “And you call us the barbaric people. Lay back.” I hesitated and he took another cloth, dipping it in the warm water and holding it up. “Please.” I did as he asked, feeling more vulnerable now. Though he’d seen me already, without the haze of desire I became acutely aware of my nakedness, especially as he stroked the cloth over my skin, examining every inch in the bright firelight.

“The Tala care little for such things.” He drew my arms up over my head, laving the undersides. “Truly I’m relieved that your first time caused so little pain. I’d heard stories otherwise.”

“Oh, yes, believe me, I had, too.”

“Your sisters?”

“Amelia, yes. Not Ursula.” I started giggling at the memory. “But you should have seen this letter Amelia wrote to us after her wedding night. Oh! The pain. Oh! The glory. And Hugh! The kindest, gentlest, most noble man ever, but Oh! The rivers of blood!”

Rayfe’s amused eyes crinkled at the corners. “Amelia is a pretty girl, but a bit dramatic, it seems.”

“Yes.” I felt a stab of guilt at agreeing. “Though she’s not false. I believe she truly feels every bit of what she expresses.”

He trailed the cloth over my belly, intent on his task. “You know I was most careful with her, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer immediately, and his eyes flicked up to meet my gaze, all laughter gone.

“Yes,” I told him. “I have to believe that. All the guilt is mine.”

“No. I will share in your burden. I forced you into making a choice.”

“Why did you?” I whispered. “Won’t you tell me now?”

He raised an eyebrow, trailing the cloth over my breasts and tweaking my nipples so they crinkled and popped up. My breath caught at the bright sparking that lit the heat in my belly once more.
This is the first way
, he’d said. Clearly he proposed to do more. “Why, to have you at my mercy, exactly like this.”

His dark head bent over me and he dropped light kisses on my nipples, then took them one by one into his mouth and suckled them. I burrowed my fingers into his silky hair, not sure if I wanted to pull him closer or push him away. The sensation of his mouth on my breasts undid me. I unraveled, all thoughts melting away, my woman’s core heating in a flash.

With a pleased sound, he left my breasts and trailed his mouth down my belly, which fluttered and trembled under his soft kisses. He was between my legs again, raising my knees and running long fingers over my hips and down to the tender skin at the juncture of my thighs and body.

He dipped those clever fingers into my weeping woman’s core, and I cried out. He watched me, dark-blue eyes burning with renewed hunger. Kneeling between my splayed thighs, black hair spilling around him, he looked like the wolf now, and I realized he could see my most intimate folds in the bright firelight. His manhood, at full life again, pointed to the truth of it.

And yet, I was helpless to close my thighs to him. I wanted him to keep touching me that way, especially when he slid a finger inside my slick passage, slowly, seeking. I writhed under his hands and didn’t care.

“Not too sore?” This wasn’t the polite inquiry. His voice was a growl, and I felt a surge of gladness that I was not the only one feeling consumed by need.

“No,” I gasped. “Please.” I waited, expecting him to plunge into me again.

“Turn over.”

I didn’t understand.

“Turn over, sweet. Onto your hands and knees, then.” He urged me into the position he described, arranging my hair over my shoulder so one side of my neck was exposed, and running his hands along my flanks. He covered me from behind, pressing against my upraised bottom and reaching beneath to gather my hanging breasts in his hands like so much ripe fruit.

I moaned, then pitched against him when he slid a hand down my belly and into my hot sex. He positioned his manhood against my woman’s mouth. My body strained, vibrating with anticipation and need.

“This is the second way,” he growled in my ear. Then his teeth sank into the ribbon of muscle at my neck and he plunged into me, spearing me with unspeakable pleasure from two directions that somehow met in the center and shattered me.

This way was for the animal nature, then. He pounded into me, feral, ferocious, and I screamed out my pleasure, unable to get enough of his hands on my breasts, in my sex, his manhood spearing me and filling me to the core.

I bucked under him, a wild mare, and he responded in kind, wrapping a fist in my streaming hair and arching my head back, fastening his mouth on mine in a kiss that poured through me like the melted rocks in the volcano.

This time I came apart first, while he sucked the cries from my lips. Then he seized my hips in both hands and held me still while he plunged in and out of me, finishing with a hoarse shout that echoed in my mind like a wolf’s howl.

He collapsed onto his side, taking me with him as he slipped out of me, my hips snugged up against his, arms wrapped around my breasts and belly, his breath hot on the back of my neck.

I blinked blearily at the fire, near emptied out. Sweat soaked and limp muscled, I might as well have been at sword practice for hours, the way I felt.

Finally I found words. “How many ways are there?”

Rayfe chuckled, sounding as spent as I felt, pressing a warm kiss to the nape of my neck, lingering there. I shivered and my breasts tightened. How could my body possibly want more?

“I’m not sure anyone has put a number to them,” he murmured. “You’ll have to keep count. But the two are all that are needed, by our customs.”

I turned over his hand, the one that had been bound to mine. Only a fine white scar on his tanned skin also. Up and down his forearms, though, were other scars, little starbursts and divots, as if something had taken bites out of him. “Your customs are remarkable.”

“You have no idea.” He started to lever himself up.

“No, let me.” I gathered up the used cloths and carried the bowl of now cool water to the little kitchen area. A kettle of warm water stood over a low flame. I poured the dirty water out and refreshed it, then took the opportunity to clean myself in private.

I needed a moment, to gather myself again. In such a short space of time I’d transformed from, if not who I’d always been, then much closer to that person than this naked, sweat-soaked woman by the fire who let a man cover her like a stallion mounts a mare. Some part of me whispered that I should regret it. I couldn’t imagine noble Hugh taking the lovely Amelia in such an . . . earthy way.

And yet, I didn’t feel bad at all. My body still sang with Rayfe’s touch.

I wanted more.

This time, though, would be mine. I would make the third way. Probably not at all what Dafne had in mind when she suggested I’d need to make my own plan, but it was a start.

Rayfe lay on his side, head propped on one arm, long legs stretched out, watching me walk up to him with languorous eyes. He held out a hand to me and I let him draw me down next to him. I set the bowl down and bent over him, to give him the kiss he urged me toward. I liked this angle, kissing him from above. He stroked my hair back from my cheek.

“Thank you for this.”

“The water? You fetched it last time.” I started to reach for the cloths, but he stopped me, sliding his warm hand behind my neck and drawing me in for another lingering kiss.

“The way we came together—what I put you through. Not every woman would have come to me so sweetly.” He traced my cheekbone. “In truth, I didn’t dare hope we’d find this kind of passion together. Especially when I courted you so badly.”

“Lie back.” He obeyed, stretching himself before me like the banquet on the table. I wondered at it myself as I washed him, learning the golden lines and shadows of his lean form in the firelight. How much of what I’d done had been driven by this desire for him? Perhaps Uorsin had the right of it and I’d been a lightskirt traitor in my heart all along. Daughter of my mother, longing for her other blood, fatally attracted and compelled by it.

“I’m sorry I said anything,” Rayfe murmured. “Now I’ve made you sad.”

I shook my head, my hair slithering over my shoulders, tickling my skin. “Just thoughtful.”

“You can speak to me of your thoughts.”

He had his head pillowed on his hands, showing his dark-furred armpits. A memory struck me and I reached for his left arm. He obliged, letting me look at his shoulder. A scar like a starburst marred the muscle, puckered in the center, with white lines radiating out. The real scar. The dagger buried in his chest hadn’t been true. Only a fragment of a nightmare. Or a vision.

“I dreamed you came to me, with my dagger still here”—I traced the deep scar—“and you asked me to pull it out.”

He simply regarded me with somber eyes, waiting. I couldn’t tell him about the other vision.

“Why did you let me stab you?”

His teeth flashed in a smile. “Believe me, Andromeda, I would have stopped you had I realized what a fierce wildcat I had cornered. My first mistake was underestimating you. I shall not do so again.”

“Were there other mistakes?”

Lingering pain crossed his face. “I perhaps overestimated you, as well.”

“How so?” I felt a pang at that, that I’d failed to rise to some sort of standard.

“No, no.” He wound his fingers in a lock of my hair that trailed over his chest and tugged me down to kiss him. Light and sweet. “Don’t look so stricken. I simply thought that once you understood, once you knew who you were, you would come to me.”

“I still don’t understand,” I whispered, searching his face.

“I know. You will. I promise. Tomorrow, we’ll ride out. Once we are near the border, we will both know more. After that I’ll begin to teach you what you should have always known. For now, perhaps we’d best sleep.”

“I haven’t finished cleaning you.”

He started to take the cloth from my hand. “I can finish—”

“No.” I held it out of his reach. “It’s my turn. Now, lay back.”

I liked taking him by surprise. He gave me that half smile, then popped a kiss on my nipple before stretching out again. I gasped at the little shock and laughed. So many sides to this man that I hadn’t expected.

Warming and wetting a new cloth, I set to my plan in earnest, stroking the hard planes of his body with the cloth, following with little nips, licks, and kisses, as he’d done to me. He stirred under me, slight tremors, the occasional hum and sighed breath. I responded to his pleasure, too, my core warming and melting yet again.

His manhood had been relaxed, heavy against his thigh, but now it stirred, lengthening, then darkening. By the time I picked it up to wipe it clean, it twitched in my hand, almost like a live thing. The skin, especially over the head, was surprisingly soft, velvety. An odd contrast in an otherwise hard man.

“Andromeda,” he growled, “you’re killing me.”

“Am I?” I answered, all innocence. “I’ll stop, then.” I laid his manhood down. With him on his back, it now pointed up his belly. I’d wondered if it would still stand straight up. Apparently I’d have to help with that.

He started to sit up.

“No. Lay back. It’s my turn to ride you.”

Bemused, he did as I said. “Then mount me already. I can’t take more of your teasing.”

“No?” I straddled him, bending over him on all fours and nipping at his wiry man’s nipples, delighted when he groaned. “I think you could.”

“I’ve created a monster.”

I tossed my hair over my shoulders and grinned at him. “You have no idea.”

I had to rise on my knees and hold his manhood up, to guide it to the right spot. He braced my thighs with his hands, avidly watching. He hadn’t said this wouldn’t work, so I persisted, though the angle seemed wrong.

Rayfe closed his eyes with a pained look. “Lean forward a little—ah, yes. Just there.”

Slowly, I seated myself on him until I rode him like a horse. The fullness stretched me more this way, with almost unbearable intensity. His fierce gaze locked with mine.

“Well, my queen? Take me, then.”