She’d be lying to herself to say she’d never suffered any qualms, but surely her body wouldn’t betray her in such a way? Tease them both, only to discover their bodies were not compatible? She felt a warm wetness bathe her sex at the thought and dismissed her qualms, certain quite suddenly that they could find a way to please each other regardless. Hesitantly, she reached toward him, cupping his cock beneath his loincloth. He grunted as if she’d struck him, sucking his breath in sharply. “Shouldn’t it be my decision?” she murmured, dismissing the doubts that assailed her as she felt the breadth and length of him experimentally, ignoring the frantic lurch of her heart.
He caught her shoulders, seemed to debate with himself briefly, and then bore her down onto the stone floor of the great hall. Tempest gasped at the coolness against her bare back, seeping through the thin garments, but as she felt his welcome weight settle against her, the discomfort fled. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she lifted her lips for his kiss.
A sort of madness seemed to seize him, almost frightening in its intensity. He thrust the narrow strips of fabric of her top to each side of her breasts with shaking hands and covered one trembling peak with a hungry mouth, suckling, scraping her distended nipple with his teeth. Tempest gasped, then groaned as pleasure shot through her with almost painful force. She tensed as he moved his attention to her other nipple, hot moisture flooding her sex as he fastened his mouth over it and sucked greedily.
She clutched him tightly, digging her fingers into his shoulders, then stroking the muscles of his back, gasping for breath, dizzy with the perfume of lust. When he released her nipple at last, he sucked the rounded top of her breast, and then her throat, licked a hot path up her neck and bit gently on her ear lobe. Seemingly determined to devour her, he lifted his head almost at once and covered her mouth with his own, thrusting his tongue inside, raking it possessively along her own, sucking, then thrusting. With each thrust of his tongue inside her mouth, she felt the thrust of his hips, the hardness of his cock against her thigh, the restless stroke of his hand on her body, thrusting her garments impatiently aside.
She moved restlessly against him, her pebble hard nipples brushing against his chest. The motion, the hardness of his flesh against her softness, sent echoes of the pleasure his mouth had created through her. As if he’d sensed her need, he broke the kiss and moved downward once more, kissing each breast in turn before he moved lower still, nipping her trembling belly with his teeth. Tempest clutched at him, stroking any part of his flesh that she could reach.
She gasped when he buried his face in the apex of her thighs, jerking upward, clutching his shoulders. He ignored the frantic tug, prying her thighs apart, licking her cleft, biting her gently, sucking. Tempest felt as if her heart would explode. Her breathing became so labored it was more like little gasping cries. She felt the tension building in her body toward explosion, knew she was approaching her peak.
Frustration filled her. She didn’t want her first time with a man to be like this. She didn’t want a clitoral climax. She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “No!”
He lifted his head, his eyes wild with desire. “I want to taste you,” he said harshly.
“I need you inside of me,” she gasped a little desperately.
His face hardened. He closed his eyes, but in the next moment he was moving over her. She felt him fumbling to release his engorged member, felt the heat of it along her inner thigh as it seemed to search for her opening of its own accord. He cupped her sex with his hand, parted her moist flesh with his fingers and delved inside of her. Tempest arched against his hand, gasping. He groaned. Pushing her thighs wider, he settled between them, holding his weight on one arm as he nudged her with the rounded head of his cock
Tempest clutched him a little frantically, wriggling to align her body with his, eager to feel him filling her, desperate now to feel him becoming a part of her.
Kiran caught his breath on a groan as he felt her flesh part reluctantly and the head of his cock enter her. He panted, fighting the urge to thrust full length inside of her, trying to allow her time to adjust to the intrusion. She moaned, moving against him. He couldn’t tell if it was with impatience or pain, but blinding, mind numbing pleasure lanced through him. Her heat engulfed him, her slick passage beckoned and, unable to resist, he pushed .... And made no headway, his thrust merely pushing her along the floor. Gritting his teeth, he caught her around the hips with one arm, holding her as he pushed again and slid slowly deeper. Her fingernails dug into his flesh like talons. The minute pain distracted him, clearing some of the haze from his mind, and he paused, realizing dimly that he’d met the barrier of her virginity. Pushing himself up, he looked down at her.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him trustingly, her eyes glazed with passion and wonder, but uncertainty, as well.
His heart felt as if it would beat through his chest wall as he struggled for control, gritting his teeth to fight the nearly mindless urge to thrust so deeply inside of her he could lose himself in her. “I’m hurting you,” he said through gritted teeth.
He was and the pain had diminished the pleasure, but it hadn’t diminished Tempest’s need to feel him deeply inside of her, to cradle his hardened flesh next to her womb and feel his seed spill into her. Lifting her legs, she entwined them with his, arching her hips wordlessly and pushing up against him.
A shudder went through him. Sweat broke from his pores. She could hear him grinding his teeth as if it was he who was in agony, he whose flesh tore. Unable to contain it, she whimpered as she felt the burning, but caught her breath and pushed again.
With something like a growl, he matched her thrust and sank so deeply inside of her she thought for a moment that he would rip her in two. Panting, she held herself still, willing the pain away. Slowly, it subsided and she began to relax, felt her body adjusting to him.
He began moving then, jerkily at first, then with more surety. Pleasure sparked to life once more, twinges of the pleasure she’d felt before, but something else, as well, the sense of being a part of him, a deep satisfaction that was purely emotional that she had claimed him even as he claimed her. The joy fed her tactile senses, sent a rush of delight through her. She felt a gush of warm moisture fill her body cavity, easing his way, felt the muscles of her vagina contract around him. He thrust harder, grinding against her clit in an effort to burrow deeper inside of her. A jolt of pleasure went through her with each grinding thrust, each harder than the one before, each building the tension inside of her.
He went still suddenly, gasping, his cock jerking. The realization that he’d climaxed brought her to explosive fulfillment, as well, as he began thrusting once more, short, hard thrusts that pumped his hot seed inside of her. She clutched him tightly, groaning as it swept over her in blinding waves of gratification.
She felt completely drained of energy as it subsided at last. Apparently, Kiran was drained, as well, for he lay heavily atop her now, making it difficult to breathe. She held him tightly anyway, unwilling to let go of the experience so soon.
Like annoying insects, her doubts from before began darting at her the very moment her desire gave way to reality once more, though. They would not be ignored, buzzing closer until she could hear the tiny complaints in her head. The doubts, or her growing awareness of her surroundings, quickly made it impossible to ignore the discomfort of struggling for breath while she was pinned between a stone floor and the body of a behemoth. Tempest pushed at his shoulders. He merely grunted, but after a moment, he pushed himself up with a great effort and moved off of her.
“Mer-cay!” he exclaimed as he rolled onto his back. “This floor is cold!”
“Hard too,” Tempest muttered. “Next time, let’s find a soft place to … uh … fuck.”
Kiran glanced at her sharply, frowning. “This is not a good word.”
It was like being scolded for her slang by her parents, but Tempest forced a chuckle. “Yes, it’s naughty. What did you do? Get the Earthlings
to teach you all the ‘bad’ words first?” She thought about it a moment. “Guess that’s what I’d do. That way you at least know if somebody’s said something nasty to you.”
Kiran sat up slowly, studying her, thoroughly confused by her behavior, feeling the beginnings of doubt and anger flicker through him. “I did not pleasure you?”
Tempest was never afterwards certain why she did it, except that he seemed to disapprove of her now that she’d had sex with him, but it challenged the immature side of her to do her worst. She crawled over to him and straddled his lap. “Oh yes!” She shoved her hand down between them, cupping his sex. “This is a very nice serpent you’ve got here. He can crawl in my hole any time.”
Kiran frowned, studying her face uneasily. There was a brittleness to the way she spoke that hinted at hurt, that he felt like an accusation. It confused him until he realized he’d given her no sweet words to reassure her, no indication that what he felt was more than lust. “We should not have done this. We are not paired. I’ve shamed us both with my lack of control.”
It needed only that. Tempest knew there was no reason to feel shame for expressing her sexuality … at least her own people didn’t feel that way. To her surprise and anger, however, his disapproval was enough by itself to make her feel ashamed of her behavior. She rolled her eyes. “Oh boy. How did I know this was coming?”
Standing abruptly, she moved away from him, discarded her garments and climbed into the pool beneath the fountain. “I’m sticky,” she added plaintively when she saw he was watching her still with a mixture of uneasiness and dawning anger.
“We should talk.”
“Let’s don’t and just say we did, huh? I’d really rather not,” Tempest said tightly, holding onto her anger to keep from yielding to urge to cry.
Chapter Thirteen
“Why do you not wish to talk?” Kiran demanded angrily.
Tempest gave him a look. “In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve hardly said three words to me. Why do you suddenly want to talk?”
He flushed at the jab. “I need to know why you are angry with me.”
Tempest studied him for several moments and finally sighed. “I don’t think I am angry with you … not really. I think I’m mad at myself … but I don’t want to talk about that either.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly as she sloughed as much water from her skin as she could and stepped from the fountain pool. “I mean, about the prophesy?”
Kiran didn’t speak for several moments, his gaze riveted to her gleaming, wet body, wrestling with the desire to take her to the floor once more and join with her again. He could not shake the feeling that he had erred grievously, that he had somehow driven her away when he’d claimed her, though that made no sense to him at all. As mad with lust as he’d been, he knew that she had never known a man before and that he’d given her pleasure, despite the pain inevitable in such a joining. “There was no true prophesy,” he said slowly.
Tempest, who was trying to figure out how to put the garments on once more, glanced at him. “Not mystical, maybe, but …it was something that needed to be done.”
“You believe that?”
Tempest stared at him for a long moment. “I know that whatever it is, it’s vitally important to Niah,” she said positively. “I don’t understand exactly how it got tangled up in religion over the years—it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that whoever left this message thought it was important enough to imprint that in your genetic code.” She pointed toward the symbol on his thigh.
Diverted finally from his preoccupation with personal matters, Kiran frowned, trying to shift his mind from her puzzling, unnerving attitude about their joining to the task that had brought them together to begin with. “This part I do not understand.”
Tempest bit her lip. There was no way to completely explain such a concept to someone who didn’t even have the most rudimentary idea of genetics. She thought about what he’d said about her hair, however, and grasped a strand between her fingers. “You said you’d never seen hair this color? It’s carried inside a person’s body, the genetic code that makes a person have this color of hair … or your color. It’s the reason children look like their parents or their grandparents. That mark on your leg isn’t something that would be carried, like skin tones, hair or eye color, the shape of your mouth or nose. It’s foreign. It would’ve had to have been put there, in one of your ancestors. And if someone thought it was important enough to do that, then it’s got to be very important.”
Kiran’s brows rose. “What of yours?”
Tempest shrugged. “OK, so that part is really weird. That part I don’t actually understand. Maybe it was a mathematical probability somebody figured out. Maybe your ancestors could actually see the future and knew what would happen. I don’t know except that I found the machine that they must have used in the old days … before whatever it was that happened. Parts of this building were obviously open to pretty much everyone. But there were other areas that we couldn’t enter without the code. The doors wouldn’t open. Who knows what those rooms were used for before—government most likely.
“That’s part of the prophesy, though, so it’s something we need to open a door. The part that worries me is that neither one of us understand the written language--I guess they hadn’t considered that possibility—but, even if we find our way to whatever place we were supposed to go to, I don’t know if we’ll be able to figure out what we’re supposed to do once we get in.”
Kiran thought about it for several moments. “We must return to the Keepers of the Memory. If there is anyone who would be able to tell us, it would be the Keepers.”
Tempest frowned. “Was that supposed to be part of the prophesy?” Kiran shook his head and she bit her lip thoughtfully. “We’re not going to have time to go back and still make it to the right place at the right time, are we?--Because I don’t think there would have been any mention of a planetary alignment if it hadn’t been significant.”
“We will ask the Mordune for their aid.” As little as Kiran liked the thought, particularly given their leader’s interest in her, he realized Tempest was right. If he accepted that Tempest had been fated for him, then he must also accept, however confusing it was, that everything that had happened was a part of the design, meant to happen. Just because the prophesy wasn’t unfolding as he’d envisioned it didn’t mean it wasn’t the prophesy or that it would not come to pass exactly as had been foretold if he completed his journey as he’d been destined to.
Tempest looked at him in surprise, but she didn’t argue, knowing he was right. Unless they could get an aquestan, there was no way they’d be able to learn what they could from the Keepers and still reach the sacred valley before the alignment.
* * * *
Tempest was glad she had something to focus on that took precedence over her personal concerns. She should have been relishing the memory of her sexual encounter with Kiran. He had been her first. It had been wonderful—though the first was generally not expected to be—but she knew it was because she had grown emotionally attached to Kiran.
The problem was, she was afraid she had misunderstood everything in her inexperience. She had gotten so caught up in the way he made her feel that she’d simply ‘assumed’ he was feeling the same things. Afterwards, when she’d been clear headed enough to think, it hadn’t taken long to realize that Kiran hadn’t said anything to indicate that it was more than lust—not that she would’ve objected to a purely lustful encounter under other circumstances—but the culmination had intensified her emotional attachment to him.
It would’ve been far wiser to have kept her distance.
It was too late to worry about that now. It was done. And she had no idea how to handle it.
She knew she was being cowardly. She should have just talked to Kiran about it, but she couldn’t bring herself to allow the possibility of having her pride further trampled. It would’ve been wond
erful, of course, if he’d professed undying love or something like that, but nothing he’d said seemed to indicate the conversation might be going in that direction.
She was furious with herself. Why was it that it was never enough to know something was bad for you? Why was it that people always had to try it, just in case they were wrong? Kiran was a wonderful person. She couldn’t blame him. He’d made it clear she was in his way. He hadn’t tried to seduce her. He’d done his best to ignore his urges.
Knowing all of that, she’d worked hard to focus on the possibility of a future with people of her own kind, whom she understood and knew would understand her. She really had tried to ignore her growing attachment to him, and her urges to entice him. If she just hadn’t pushed it by giving in to the urge to get close to him physically, everything would’ve turned out all right. He wouldn’t have given in. She wouldn’t have experienced that oh-so-fleeting moment of triumph when she’d felt like she’d claimed him … and she wouldn’t be feeling sorry for herself now, wounded, lost.
She glanced up to discover that Ta-li was watching her. He was the leader of the group of men who’d captured her and Kiran, and it was he who’d volunteered to take her and Kiran wherever she needed to go.
It wasn’t too difficult to see he lusted for her. She knew without a doubt what that expression meant now. She wasn’t going to flatter herself that it was anything else. He’d been kind and helpful, but she couldn’t think of any logical reason why it might be more than that. She hadn’t even been able to speak to him—not directly, anyway. He didn’t know her language, and she certainly didn’t know his.
Not that it mattered.
She was still emotionally attached to Kiran and, in any case, she thought she’d learned her lesson. As she’d known, it would be far better to focus on her own kind … always assuming there were enough of them left that she had that option.
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