His eyes flew open to find his fingers tightly gripping the horn. As if he held a talisman of singular evil, he set it quickly down on the shelf of his nightstand. It lay there like a threat of damnation.
Paldir have mercy, what was happening to him?
Chapter Five
“How are you feeling?” Viera asked Inella over a cup of herbal tisane the next afternoon.
Inella blushed and hid behind her cup, but not before Viera saw the hint of a smile. “Good as new. Better than new.”
“It wasn’t too scary?”
Inella’s smile spread. “It was scary. But then it wasn’t anymore. I can’t believe…even after four years of marriage, and the…the things I have done since, I had no idea how…” Her face went redder than ever, and she shook her head at herself. “When you assist him…?”
Viera nodded. “It’s the same.”
Inella’s eyes widened. “When he…when he heals a man?”
“Oh, yes. His talent does not discriminate.”
The other woman sipped thoughtfully, her brows drawn.
“What’s the matter, my dear?” Viera asked.
Inella shrugged, but her face betrayed her anxiety. “I just wonder, was it just that once? With him? I mean, will I still be able to…?”
Poor thing. She had only just discovered the joys of sexual release, and she had no idea whether she could experience them without Aru’s influence.
Viera reached over and squeezed her hand. “Of course you will. I’m sure of it.” She rose and refilled their cups, glancing out the kitchen window to where the two children played in the courtyard. They’d be leaving soon, all of them. Viera had found them an apartment this morning—not a house, mind you, but with plenty of room for four people. Mai and the children would begin moving in this afternoon, and as soon as Inella found decent employment, they would be gone for good, getting on with their lives.
“Inella, can I ask you something?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to hire someone for a night.” She turned to study the other woman. “For sex. I…am aware of how you have made your living since your husband disappeared. I thought maybe you might know someone.”
Inella reddened once more, but beneath her flush, Viera could detect a hint of green. “I…”
“Oh, my dear! I’m an idiot!” Viera cried, hurrying back to her chair and taking the woman’s hand in hers. “Please don’t be embarrassed. I’m the last person in the world who would judge you, Inella. Before I came to work for Aru, I earned my living as a prostitute. And I have no children to feed, no ailing mother to support, no excuse at all but easy money and the cheap, empty pleasures of the flesh. But I worked on my own, mostly. I have no friends in the business and I don’t know who else to ask.”
Inella took a deep breath. Her eyes darted toward the door as if to check for anyone who might listen. “What do you need?” she asked quietly.
Now it was Viera’s turn to be embarrassed. “Never mind. It’s a foolish idea.”
“No, please. Tell me. After all you’ve done for me, the least I can do is hear you out.”
Viera fought down the little burst of anticipation that coiled in her belly as she thought of her plan. It had materialized seemingly out of nowhere as she lay sated in her own bed after her encounter in Aru’s last night. She’d been right before. She could lure him with sex, but sex alone would not capture him. It would only make him grow to hate her. She understood the ruthless logic of his voyeurism—he could watch all he liked, and as long as he never touched her, his marriage vow would remain unbroken—and Viera had to admit, the no-contact rule was exciting in its way. But there was a limit to how long she’d be willing to endure such an arrangement. She needed physical closeness, fleshly intimacy. She needed to be touched. And deep down, she knew he needed it too. She had to make him see what he was missing, and the only way she could do that was to invite another person into their little circle of desire.
She opened her mouth to begin, then shut it again. How to word her request? “Master Aru and I…”
Inella smiled. “You’re lovers.”
“No!” Viera said, shaking her head. “Well, yes. But no, not exactly. I…would like us to be lovers. He needs some convincing.”
“Why?” Inella’s gaze seemed entirely perplexed. “I mean, look at you! What man would not want you?”
“It’s a long story,” Viera chuckled. A thousand years long, yet it could be summed up in two words. “He’s married.”
Inella’s smile shriveled. Viera could only imagine what Inella thought of her designs on a married man. “Go on.”
“A thousand years ago, during the genocide, Aru and his wife and the other Darjhian survivors fled Serpere. When the immediate danger was passed, six thousand were ordered by their god to return, to hold the western border of the Dragon’s Head. They held a lottery to decide who was to go. Aru was chosen. His wife wasn’t.”
“She didn’t join him.”
Viera shook her head, trying to keep her scorn from her face and knowing she failed miserably. “Why would she? She lived in paradise, with all she could want. And he was just her husband. Why would she give up the Deathless Land to live here in hell with him? He’s been alone ever since. Eight hundred years in an empty bed—can you imagine what that must be like? Yet he endured. Persevered, because he always assumed he’d be able to return to her one day. Then, during the war, he fell from his god’s grace.” She forced a laugh to conceal just how close she was to tears. “It wasn’t even his fault—that’s the worst thing. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t punished for it. His immortality was forfeit. Nearly all the Darjhi have returned now to the Deathless Land, but not Aru. He’s not deathless anymore. He’s stuck here, forever. And still, she does not come to be with him.”
“What a bitch,” Inella murmured, scowling into her cup.
Viera sighed, her anger abandoning her until all that was left was a bleak grief. “And yet he holds to his marriage vows. Even knowing she has likely taken another husband. He says he’s no longer the man she married, and so he can’t hold her to her pledge. He’s not so generous with himself.”
Inella set her cup down. “But that’s awful!”
“Yes it is.”
Inella took a long sip of her tea, toying with the end of her thick, blonde braid. “So why do you need to hire someone?”
Viera leaned forward, checking the door to ensure Aru was not standing there. He was supposed to be out on a call, but he could move in utter silence when he wished. The last thing she needed was for him to come home early and catch her plotting. “For the last two nights,” she whispered, “Aru and I have…” Have what? Masturbated in front of one another? As technically accurate as that description might be, it lacked a certain nuance of emotion. With a frown, she began again. “Night before last, he came into my room. He watched while I…” She could feel her face fill with heat, but the other woman’s eyes remained free of moral outrage. “We did everything a man and a woman can do without actually touching each other.”
She searched Inella’s face for some sign of revulsion or disdain, but there was none to be seen. “Last night, I came to his room. I brought a toy, an ivory member, and I…used it on myself while he watched. I could feel how much he wanted me, but still, he would not touch me. He’s still loyal to his wife.” She shook her head at the sheer stubbornness of the man. “I can’t win him that way. Not with my own hands. He’ll always be able to resist. But then I thought, maybe if I had someone else there to touch me? Maybe if the hands on my body were not my own, maybe if he could see my hands on someone else’s body, maybe then he wouldn’t be able to remain so aloof. And maybe if I showed him what he’s missing in withholding himself—not just the sex, but the holding and cuddling and sleeping in someone’s arms—maybe he would want it enough to finally set his wife aside.”
Inella sighed and shook her head. “I wish I could help you, but I don’t know any men in…the business.”
>
“I don’t want to hire a man.” At Inella’s frown, she explained, trying to ignore the flush she could feel creeping up her cheeks. “There’s a line between envy and jealousy. I want him to covet what he can’t have, not fly into a possessive rage. He’d see a man as a rival and god knows what he’d do. What I need is a woman who would be willing to…to make love with me. In front of him. A woman who would be able to find pleasure in it, and in lying asleep in my arms. I want him to see the closeness that can happen between two people when they are permitted to touch one another, but not in a way that might make him feel I’ve betrayed him.”
“I’ll do it,” Inella said softly.
Viera stared, feeling her face get even hotter. “Oh, I couldn’t ask you, my dear! I would never forgive myself if I pushed you to do such a thing out of gratitude or some sense of obligation. Aru charges no fee, and I cannot in good conscience ask you to… No, Inella. I only brought it up because I thought you might be able to suggest someone.”
Inella’s chin lifted. “I just did.”
“Inella—”
“Viera, please. I am grateful for all you’ve done for me, but this isn’t about gratitude. I want to do this. I want to know if I can feel…like I felt yesterday. I had a regular customer last year, an old man who often paid me and another woman to perform for him. I learned to pretend to enjoy what we did. Now I want to see if I can just enjoy it, and forget about the pretending. I feel close to you. And to Aru. I feel safe here in a way I haven’t since Ned went away. Please, let me do this. Not just for you. For me too.”
Viera stared into Inella’s deep, green eyes and saw nothing but earnestness. The woman had borne two children, lost her man, her home, endured the kind of life that makes a woman lean and hard around the edges, but there was still a softness to her. A blush of unrelenting youth that no amount of hardship would banish. Viera’s eyes fell to the other woman’s lips, pink and tender like the velvety petals of a rose. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss them.
“All right,” she said on a swelling rush of anticipation. As Inella’s cheeks reddened, Viera drew in an unsteady breath, feeling her nether parts come awake. Part of her wanted to start right now, but Inella was only a few hours risen from her sickbed. “Tomorrow night.”
“Tonight,” Inella said.
Viera opened her mouth to argue, took one look at the determination on Inella’s face, and bit her tongue. “Tonight then.”
Aru looked up and couldn’t believe his eyes. She stood just inside his door, her body sheathed in a thin silk robe, her hair hanging loose to her waist, her lips parted on deep, swift breaths. For a moment, he couldn’t drag his gaze away. To his shame, he felt his cock stir and begin to fill with blood.
“Inella,” he whispered, sitting up against his pillows. “What are you doing here?”
And then Viera was standing behind her, her hands coming up to settle lightly on Inella’s shoulders, her face hovering close at the side of the other woman’s neck. As he watched, transfixed, she brushed her lips across Inella’s cheek and slid her hands in a slow caress down her arms.
“I asked her to come.”
He shook his head with the frantic denial of a horrified child, even as his member throbbed in his lap. God in Antuine, she would kill him with pleasure. And if she stopped, he might just kill himself.
He opened his mouth to speak, to plead, to scream for her to be gone, but then her hands closed on the fine silk of Inella’s robe slid it from the woman’s shoulders, and as her beautiful, mortal body was bared to his eyes, the power of speech utterly abandoned him. His heart began to slam against the cage of his chest, an aroused beast that wanted to be let loose. His cock was already salivating like an animal at its first whiff of game.
“Light a candle, Aru. I want to see her too.”
With shaking fingers he found flint and struck it, hardly capable of keeping his eyes on his task. Viera’s arms encircled Inella, her hands sliding up the softness of her belly to cup her small breasts. In the candle’s sudden flare, her fingers plucked at the pointed nipples and Aru’s breath wheezed to a stop in his chest. Inella’s eyes fluttered closed, her head falling back on Viera’s shoulder as those pale hands toyed with her breasts, tugging and twirling, until the nipples stood straight out, hard and straining. Inella’s body was no longer perfect—bearing two children had left her skin less than taut and her abdomen was covered with a fine tracery of stretch marks, showing silver where the candlelight struck them. Aru didn’t care. Standing here in his room with Viera’s hands skimming lightly over her, she was beautiful. Soft, half-formed moans issued from her throat, and she reached behind her, holding to Viera’s waist as if her arousal left her too weak to stand. And she was aroused—even in the dark, Aru could see it all. Her skin was flushed a deep rose, her pores were wide open, pouring out sweat and pheromones, her blood thrummed through her veins.
His hand was on his cock, gripping hard. His eyes were on Viera’s pale hands as they danced across Inella’s paler flesh, down her belly to the apex of her thighs. Her fingers brushed against dark blonde curls, teasing him with their hesitancy. Would she really do it? Would she really slide her fingers into that beckoning valley? He remembered a winter night a few short months past, a brief and brilliant vision of two women on a bed, and his cock wept.
Viera’s lips worked at the nape of Inella’s neck, her tongue playing, her teeth nipping and grazing that delicate skin. And as he watched, his hand beginning its own torturous dance up and down his cock, her fingers dipped down through that blonde thatch and into the other woman’s furrow.
“Ahhh!” Inella hissed, pushing her hips forward to increase the contact. Aru could see Viera’s fingers moving, exploring, delving deep, then retreating. When they emerged, they were shiny with the other woman’s slickness.
“I brought her here for you, Aru,” Viera said softly, slanting a wicked glance at him through her lashes. “So you tell me. What shall I do to her?” Her fingers dipped low once more, stroking slow and lazy as if they had all the time in the universe while Inella made tiny mewls of delight.
What shall I do to her? Gods, suddenly Aru could not stop thinking of things Viera could do to that beautiful woman. The real question for Aru was—What shall I do to her first?
He slid from the bed, the night air gliding cool fingers across his hot skin. Viera sent him a smile that had all his remaining blood rushing from his head to his nether parts. When she emerged from behind Inella, he saw that she was naked, too, but for a near-transparent white camisole. He could clearly see the dark shadows of her nipples through the filmy fabric, and the triangle of auburn curls that peeked from beneath its hem as she moved. Her hair was pulled away from her face and coiled and pinned at her nape, exposing the smooth, white column of her neck.
Her motions graceful and seductive, she came around to face Inella and tunneled her hands through long hair the color of corn silk. Pulling the other woman close, she kissed her, her mouth slanting and tugging at Inella’s, her tongue teasing the woman’s lips apart. Soon Inella’s tongue was playing and chasing Viera’s and her hands were roaming across Viera’s gossamer-clad flesh. Aru’s hand stilled on his cock. He was nearing his release already, but he didn’t want this to end yet. He didn’t want it to ever end.
“Bring her to the bed.” He was amazed at how steady he sounded, when inside he was vibrating like a string drawn to its very limit, ready to snap in two.
Viera reluctantly broke the kiss and slid her hand into Inella’s. With a smile, she led the other woman to the bed. Aru’s eyes raked Inella from her flushed and sweat-damp face to her swollen breasts with their pebbled nipples, to her ribcage rising and falling with burgeoning excitement. When she noticed his attention, she turned toward him, pulling her shoulders back so that her breasts thrust out like an offering. Viera covered them with her palms, squeezing gently, then bent and took one hard nipple in her mouth. He couldn’t drag his gaze from the sight of her lips and t
ongue tugging and suckling at that peaked pink tip. Until he realized just where her hand was going. As it descended Inella’s torso and slid between her thighs to probe and play, his nostrils caught their first scent of the woman’s musk, clean and earthy and rich. His mouth began to water.
“Make her lie down,” he said evenly, feeling a trickle of fluid drip down onto his fingers as his cock twitched and welled in his hand.
Gently, slowly, Viera nudged Inella onto the bed. The blonde woman stretched out on her back, her breasts plumped and pointing at the ceiling, her legs bent but demurely closed. Viera climbed up beside her, her hand skimming up from her delicate ankles over her knees to the curve of her hip, the hollow of her waist, the swell of her breast. Then they were kissing again, tongues coiling in a carnal dance as old as life.
“Open her legs, Viera,” he said, his hand beginning once more to stroke up and down the length of his shaft. “I want to see her.”
Their lips still joined, Viera slid her hand down between Inella’s thighs. Unhurriedly, she pushed them apart. Aru moved to stand near their feet. His eyes fastened on the apex of Inella’s legs, the damp curls there, the brief glimpses of her slit that became visible to him as she wriggled on the bed.
“Kiss her, Viera,” Aru croaked.
She chuckled, a low, throaty sound of pleasure. “I am kissing her.”
He swallowed, tore his eyes from Inella’s cunt and dragged them up to Viera’s face. “Between her legs, Viera. Kiss her between her legs.”
At his words, Inella gave a muffled cry. Shock? Dismay? Truth be told, Aru didn’t much care. His entire awareness right now was bent on the thought of Viera’s pouting, pink mouth on Inella’s pouting, pink cunt. On her tongue lapping the wet length of Inella’s furrow, on her lips suckling the swollen flesh of Inella’s clitoris.
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