I had never felt this extremity of desire with any of my ladies. Was that a good sign or a bad one?
I had no idea.
It didn’t help that I didn’t seem to be able to think clearly.
“How much longer?” he asked. When I met his gaze in mute question, he turned his face and brushed a kiss against my thumb, so near the corner of his mouth. “How long before I can have you?” he clarified, unnecessarily.
My heart thudded, working to move my thickened blood. “It will surprise no one if we make our farewells after this dance.”
He didn’t smile, but he looked pleased, in a grim, feral way. Pressing me closer to him, he murmured, “I’m going to eat you alive.”
The music swirled to a crescendo and we parted, stepping back, Con bowing again. When he straightened and tucked my arm through his again as we acknowledged the applause and congratulations, I said through my smile, “Promise or threat?”
He grinned, still with that grim edge to it. “Tell me afterward.”
“I will—if you’re conscious,” I retorted. We strolled off the dance floor. “By the way,” I added, “you have gold paint on your shirt now.”
He didn’t even glance down. “A badge of honor.”
“Your Highness!” Percy swept up to us. “You look historically gorgeous in that dress. I knew You would. You honor me by wearing it tonight.”
“Thank you, Lord Percy. It did indeed suit the occasion,” I replied. “And thank you for your service assisting Conrí in learning the dance.” I glanced up to find my husband watching me with opaque suspicion. “You worked miracles,” I added with a sweet smile.
“Easy to do with such excellent material.” Percy gave Con a flirtatious smile. “And it only took some reminding for our Conrí to recall the lessons of his youth. The excellence is all his own, I’m afraid. You didn’t tell me that you hailed from Oriel, Conrí, you sly dog. I grew up in Valencia just next door. We should trade old tales sometime.”
Con tensed, but nodded in his version of courtesy. “We should.”
Brenda came up as Percy excused himself, the Lady Sondra with her. They both wore gowns, but ones that had been designed to look like armor, also. “Your Highness. Conrí.” Brenda bowed, then slid me an interested look. “Such a fascinating day, and ball.”
“Yes,” I agreed, adding nothing more. There would be time for analysis—and strategic planning. “Are your rooms to your liking, Lady Sondra?”
Sondra glanced at me, tearing her gaze from some silent communion with Con. She seemed amused more than anything. “Very much so, Your Highness, thank you,” she replied in her raspy voice, so like Con’s. “You look lovely tonight, if I may say so. As a maid I heard tales of the extravagant fashions of the Flower Court. I’m delighted to find my imaginings fell short.” She looked me over and threw a wry smile at Con. “Your Highness must promise to leave our Conrí in one piece.”
Surprised to find myself equally amused, I smiled back at her. “And here I was informed that I’m to be the one consumed.”
She arched her brows and gave Con a considering look. “Is that so? Ambrose is a miracle worker.”
Con stared at her steadily, revealing and saying nothing, but she stopped teasing him. “Speaking of the devil,” Con said instead of addressing her witticism, “where is Ambrose?”
Sondra rolled her eyes. “Locked in his tower.”
“Ah.”
“Conrí!” A tall and imposing dark-skinned man stepped up and saluted Con. Then grinned, happy and relieved.
Con grinned back, pulled his arm from my hand, and embraced the man, with much pounding of each other’s backs. “Your Highness,” Con said, turning to me and drawing me forward. “Kara, my wife, Queen Euthalia of Calanthe. And this is General Kara. He remained with our ship.”
“Did he now?” I mused as the man bowed. Like Con, he tried very hard not to stare at my breasts. Where had these people been—a monastery for followers of Sawehl?
Kara straightened and gave Con a significant look, though I wasn’t sure what it was meant to communicate. “We have a great deal to discuss,” Kara said.
“Tomorrow,” Con agreed. “But tonight is a celebration. A special occasion.”
“It’s certainly a unique opportunity to indulge in the many pleasures offered by the Flower Court,” Kara said, inclining his head toward me.
“Yes,” Con said. “So stay and enjoy yourself.”
“Are you going somewhere?” Kara asked, and Sondra snickered.
Con glared at her, but set a hand at the small of my back, as he had during the dance. “You are off duty, but I have one more to perform. Shall we, Your Highness?”
I answered in the same lofty tone. “Indeed, Conrí.”
* * *
It took a bit more than that to extract ourselves from all the well-wishers and climb the stairs, pausing once more to wave good night. Ibolya moved to attend me, Nahua and Orvyki starting up the stairs also, but I waved them all away.
“I won’t need you until morning,” I told Ibolya. “Have you seen Tertulyn?”
She shook her head. “No, Your Highness. Shall I find her for You?”
“No. You all enjoy the parties tonight. You did well today. Especially you, Ibolya. You have My gratitude.”
Beaming with surprised pleasure, she curtsied. Con and I walked on, guards saluting as we passed, guests who were going from one party to another pausing to offer congratulations. I allowed it now, though I kept the exchanges brief, if only in deference to Con’s palpably simmering impatience. As we climbed to my rooms, the halls grew quieter—and the tension between us thicker.
“Your people seemed amused at the prospect of you bedding Me,” I said into the dense silence between us.
He coughed, a bit of a choking sound in it, then glanced at me, absently rubbing at the gold paint on his shirt with his free hand. “Are you—” It came out gravelly, and he cleared his throat. “Are you asking for my sexual history?”
“Why, is it a long and fascinating one?” I’d meant to be flirtatious and coy, but it was the wrong thing to say.
His eyes went flat, and he stared down the hall like a man going to an execution rather than his marriage bed. “No.”
Ah. As I’d begun to suspect. “Well, we hardly need to get into involved acrobatics or the more exotic sensual arts,” I said. “It’s a simple act, with a few basic steps, after all is said and done. We can dispense with the marital obligation quite quickly.”
“And you’ll show me these steps?”
“Well, I have lived in the Flower Court all My life. I’d say that, while I’m not personally experienced with a man, I know a fair amount about a woman’s body and I understand the overall mechanics well enough.”
He flicked a glance at me, made a sound under his breath.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You can be so … cold,” he said. “Does nothing matter to you?”
A surprisingly painful sting from an unexpected quarter, so I fell back on my usual lines. “One thing,” I replied. “Ca—”
“—lanthe,” he finished with me, sounding grim.
I’d misstepped again. I should start thinking of Con as like one of his vurgsten charges—liable to explode with the least spark. Though I knew myself to be cold, so it shouldn’t bother me that he knew it, too. I’d spent years developing that protective ice, and I didn’t know how to melt it now. But I did know how to pretend.
We turned into the long hall leading to my rooms, the guards flanking the doors at attention. I moved in closer to Con, letting him feel the outer curve of my breast against his arm, where the cloak didn’t cover it. “Truth be told,” I purred, my words only for him, “I was rather enticed by your promise to eat Me alive.” Truth there. And the heat would perhaps overcome all the rest of this awkwardness of bedding a stranger.
He tensed, that muscle ticking in his jaw. “Yes?”
“Oh yes.” I smiled at the guards as they opened the double doors. “G
ood night, gentlemen,” I said. “Make sure My husband and I aren’t disturbed tonight.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” They bowed and closed the doors behind us.
My ladies had come back in my absence, Ejarat bless them in their earnestness. They’d decorated my chambers, too, with garlands of orchids tied with black satin ribbon, and they’d lit candles shielded by hurricane lamps, scattering them about the room. Sweet of them, to think of romance for me.
Though foolish, as they all knew full well how little this forced marriage had to do with any of the gentler emotions. Surprised to find myself terribly nervous, I turned to face Con, who stood just inside the doors, looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Ejarat take me, neither did I.
30
The candlelight gleamed on Lia’s full breasts and taut nipples. I’d been hard so long that I ached, the tight pants that charming little Ibolya had talked me into wearing—no, sweetly threatened me into by evoking my promise to her mistress—so constricting they’d been torture.
Lia sauntered up to me, hips swaying under the revealing golden mesh. Her skin beneath my hands had been so hot that I’d been hard-pressed not to reach for more. Now that we were alone …
Sawehl take me—facing a charging army required less courage.
What an idiot I was, admitting to my lack of experience. What a naive fool she must take me for.
But I caught a glimmer of uncertainty in Lia’s clear eyes, a hint of vulnerability I hadn’t expected. It helped that she let me see it. Perhaps not so cold after all.
She smiled, coming close enough that her intoxicating scent obliterated my senses. She smelled of flowers, of course. A river of them. And something else beneath, something essentially green, like the fresh scent of a broken leaf in springtime. Moving slowly, she laid her hands on my chest, her touch warm through the silk, her nails a light scratch. Watching my face, she slid one hand down, closing it over my rigid cock. I jerked at the touch, nearly spilling after the long teasing. I grabbed her by the wrists, pulling her hands away.
“No?” she asked.
I didn’t know what to say. Mostly I wanted to kiss her, to seize her and see the tantalizing bits she’d teased me with all evening.
“It might help to take the edge off,” she suggested, not unkindly.
I knew what she meant. I might’ve declined the services any number of women and men had offered during our campaign, but they’d been explicit in what I missed by returning to my solitary tent. My cock leapt of its own accord, giving its own answer, but I didn’t know if a true gentleman would accept such an offer from his queen.
“I want to touch you,” I grated out. Honest, though maybe desperate sounding. Not that I’d fool her anyway. I’d gone beyond desperate with the long-ignored needs. Somehow Lia—cold, calculating, imperious, and infuriating Lia—had lit the fuse to the explosives I’d carried dormant inside me.
“Then touch me, Con.” She slipped her wrists out of my hands and held her arms up in a graceful movement, like a dancer. Then paused. “Or does the body paint bother you?”
“The crown bothers me,” I admitted.
She laughed, putting her hands to it. “I wear it so much I forget about it.” Plucking deftly at pins that had held it in place, she lifted the crown off her head and set it aside, shaking out her hair. “Your turn.”
Happy to be rid of the thing, I tossed my crown next to hers. She reached up, combing her fingers through my hair that spilled down, arranging it over my shoulders. “I like your hair,” she murmured. “I like it like this.”
I risked touching hers, as I’d longed to do all evening, sliding my fingers down one long lock. “I like yours,” I replied. “Is this your natural color?”
She smiled a little and shook her head, reaching for the chain holding my cloak on. “This has to be hot.” It gave, then fell, sliding down. Her fingers trailed down, too, wandering over my shoulders, smoothing the silk over it, as if testing the texture. She reached the belt holding the sword and my bagiroca. “Perhaps it’s safe to go unarmed now?”
“With you in the room? Doubtful.” My wry remark made her laugh, and she undid the buckle, lifting the bagiroca with a surprised lift of her brows.
“What’s in this—rocks?” she teased.
“Yes, rocks.” I undid the thong and showed her. “Some from the mines. Others from places I conquered.”
She considered me. “And then you swing it to smite your enemies.”
“It’s a good weapon. Simple. I like my rock hammer, too. The sword is for show.”
“Though you can use it.”
“Well enough to get the job done.”
She cocked her head, an odd smile on her lips. “You’re an interesting man, Conrí.”
“Is that good?”
“I think so. I hate being bored.”
I laughed a little, though it came out choked. “I’ll try not to bore you.”
Reaching up, she began undoing the ties on my shirt, working her way down and spreading open the silk. I shrugged out of the sleeves and tossed it aside. She smoothed her hands over my chest and shoulders, exploring. Her touch roused me further, impossible as I thought that could be, my cock straining against my pants. When she met my eyes, hers were lustrous and gray as smoke in the candlelight. “Touch me, Con. I want that, too.”
I put my hands on her smooth shoulders, her skin even softer than the Calanthe silks, smoother than anything I’d ever touched. Her eyes drifted closed and she trembled. “My hands are rough,” I said, realizing how they must feel to her.
“Yes,” she agreed, pink tongue darting out to lick her lips. “I like it. More. Touch me more.”
That broke through whatever paralysis had held me back. Without conscious choice, I seized her tantalizing breasts, filling my hands with their luscious beauty. She arched like a drawn bow, throwing her head back and digging her nails into my shoulders as she cried out.
“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, though I seemed unable to let go of her now that I was touching. I tried to back off, to be gentle.
She groaned, pushing into my hands. “No,” she gasped. “It’s good. So good.”
Needing no more encouragement, I rolled her nipples, fascinated by their hardness compared with the plump flesh of her breasts—and then rapt by the way she undulated, her face contorted in a combination of pleasure and pain.
“Is this right?” I swallowed my pride to ask.
“Just follow your instincts, warrior man,” she answered on a moan. “You’re doing just fine.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I stilled my hands, images of things I’d seen men do filling my mind.
“Con.” Lia had my face in her hands, holding me so I’d look into her eyes. Which were full of a compassion I hadn’t expected. Also a reflection of the same heat driving me. Far from cold. “You’re not hurting me. I’ll say so if you do. This is us, you and me. And it’s good.”
She wore those shoes with the spiky heels that made her taller, so she only had to lean up a bit to find my mouth. Kissing me, she slid her hands behind my neck, drawing me down and into the sweet, hot redolence of her scent and flavor. My hands, still on her gorgeous breasts, moved again, making her pant and squirm. She pushed into them. “Use your mouth,” she whispered.
I used my mouth on her throat first, trailing along the swanlike length of it, the powdery flavor of her makeup like another perfume. She made gasping, mewing sounds—nothing of the regal queen in them, only needy woman—that drew me on. Holding her by the waist as she bowed back over my hands, I found her nipple with my lips, kissing, then sucking.
She writhed, holding on to my shoulders with a fierce grip, nearly sobbing in pleasure. “Good. Yes. Good.” She chanted the words in between incoherent cries, as if she knew I needed to hear them.
“How do I get you out of this?” I growled, plucking at the intricate metal that encased her ribs.
She laughed throatily and turned in m
y hands, holding her hair aside. “There’s clasps, like on a necklace,” she said. “But if we can’t find them, you can cut it off me. Or just lift the skirt and leave it for my ladies to undo.”
“I can do it,” I said. After the extended tease, I was done with tantalizing glimpses. I wanted all of her skin, all of her naked. Finding the fastenings now that I could see them, I undid them easily. The bodice gave way, peeling off her and leaving its imprint behind. Following the slow slide of the threads, I eased the gown over the sweet curve of her hips, letting it fall down her thighs to pool at her feet.
Her skin gleamed in the candlelight, a pale glow. In an entranced state of wonder, I traced the lines of the small of her back, the flare of her hips, the sweet dimples at the top curves of her enticing buttocks. I pressed a kiss to the deepest curve of her back, centered at the narrowest point of her hips, delighting in the texture and shape of her.
In that gallery of art, there’d been countless paintings and sculptures of naked women, and I understood the impulse now to re-create that pure beauty. If I’d had the least bit of artistry in me, I would’ve wanted to paint and mold its likeness, too.
As it was, I could only celebrate the reality, the sensuous flesh of a woman. I kissed and tasted her skin, the urgent hunger demanding more and more. She moaned, writhing against my grip on her hips, her hair swinging around to veil the delicious view of her naked ass.
“Bend over,” I told her.
With a shudder, she complied, laying herself over the desk she’d been working at earlier. She still had on the tall shoes, so her ass rode high in the air, a clear signal. I hadn’t done this, but I’d seen it done—by animals, too—and figured if the base soldiers and hound dogs could find their way, I could, too. I pushed her hair aside, exposing her again. “Spread your legs.”
Oh yeah. Her sex opened, layers of it unfurling like one of her orchids, all shades of pink warmed by the golden candlelight.
I ripped at the laces on my trousers, tearing the unfamiliar clasps—and groaned at the sweet release of my turgid cock springing free. Holding it, I touched her exposed sex, surprised to find it slick. Surprisingly hot, too. She moaned and wiggled, panting heavily. Trying to be gentle, I prodded, seeking the entrance I knew had to be there.
The Orchid Throne Page 30
