Her eyes were glinting, moisture building in them. “You’re not a monster, Aru. I’m not afraid of you.”
Almost without realizing, he hurled the bucket he still held across the room. It shattered against the wall, candle-stubs and wood staves flying. He saw the way she jumped, and felt a burning heat rise in his chest. He came at her, a bizarre thrill seizing him as she took an involuntary step back, then another. Her eyes locked onto his, round and fearful, and he kept advancing until her back met the closed door.
His lips pulled back from his teeth, but he knew his expression was nothing close to a smile. “So you’re not afraid of me,” he murmured, lifting his hand, feeling his cock harden further at her slight flinch. He’d never wanted her to fear him, wasn’t sure why his body was reacting this way to the sight of it. He stopped himself just short of touching her cheek, then turned and walked away before he took it too far, past the point where he could trust himself.
“You should have stayed away,” he said, his voice guttural with the effort of restraint.
“I understand why you’re afraid of this—of us.” She sounded so logical, so calm, but he could hear the tension below the surface, knew how close she was to breaking.
He scowled at her, noted her pallor, the swift rise and fall of her breasts under the hand she held to her throat. Cursing the stubborn erection he could not seem to will away, he forced himself to lift his eyes from those perfect mounds back to her face. “There is no ‘us’,” he said.
Her eyes shone with earnestness. “You think giving in to me, to desire, will make you weak, but it doesn’t have to. Letting yourself touch another person can make you stronger. We are stronger together, Aru. You know this. I know you do.”
He shut his mind to the possibility of hope she presented, terrified that it was false. Forced himself to sneer when all he wanted to do was weep, or rage, or bury himself between her thighs and lose himself in the tight, wet heat of her cunt. “So you’re here to spread your legs for me, is that it?” He laughed unpleasantly. “In that case, you should have brought Inella. Or one of your customers—that would be interesting to watch.”
Her mouth tightened into a thin line of displeasure, but she would not let herself be goaded to anger. “I’m not here to seduce you. I’m done with that. I don’t want to break your resistance or bend you to my will. I don’t want you to surrender, or succumb, or give in. I just want you to decide. Make a choice.”
He stared at her, his heart kicking against his ribs, his fists clenched at his sides. She drew herself up, lifting her chin. “It has nothing to do with weakness, Aru,” she said softly. “It’s about being strong enough to make a choice. Be alone, or be with me.”
The way she said it, it seemed so simple, but it couldn’t be that easy. Could it? Just choose to be with her? Choose to allow it for himself? If it was a choice and not a surrender, could it really make him stronger? He thought of her on the narrow bed in the infirmary, feeding him the power of her womb, but more than that, the strength of her hope, her compassion, her faith in him. But could he trust himself the way she trusted him? She might know what he was, but she would never really understand what it meant. No one could who was not Omahru-azhi.
He was walking dead. Could he risk even the chance that he might hurt her one day? He stared at her, stricken dumb, stuck in this moment of paralyzing doubt, unable to make any decision at all, neither the one she wanted nor the one she feared.
She looked at him for a long moment, waiting for an answer. When he didn’t give her one, she sighed and nodded, the light vanishing from her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I love you, Aru. Good bye.”
She turned and put her hand on the doorknob.
And Aru made a choice.
“Be alone, or be with me.”
He stared at her, his eyes hard and bright in a face devoid of softness, and said nothing.
Viera swallowed her tears. She would not weep in front of him. She had defied him by coming here, bared her heart to him, had all but gotten down on her knees and begged, but she would not let him see how his rejection hurt her. She met his glance, lifted her chin.
The moment stretched, her hope dying a little with each beat of her heart. Silently she cursed her own weakness. She’d flinched when he threw that bucket. Cowered against the door as if he were an attacker, cringing away from his touch. She’d been hit before—by her father, by her customers—and the reaction was reflex, nothing more, but she should have been able to control it with Aru. She had seen how his eyes changed when she recoiled, and knew that was her undoing.
Everything she’d said after that had been pointless. Her offer of a choice was nothing more than an illusion, because he would never choose to be with a woman who feared him.
She sighed. Nodded. “All right. I love you, Aru. Good bye.”
She turned and opened the door.
His palm slapped down on it, just beside her head, and slammed it shut again.
Her heart pounded, her pulse throbbing in her throat, threatening to cut off her breath. Damn, but he could move silently! She stood very still, her face to the door, not knowing what to do, what he expected, what he wanted from her. If she was honest, not really knowing if she should be afraid. His breath fanning her hair was the only part of him that touched her, yet his presence behind her was like a weight, pushing her forward until her front pressed against the wood planks of the door.
Warmth blossomed inside her, filling her whole body. Part of her couldn’t believe this was really happening, that he had really chosen her. Her stomach fluttered as if a flock of birds had set up house inside it.
His free hand came to rest on the small of her back, then began a slow, deliberate, searing journey up her spine to her nape. A second later, it slid around to encircle her throat. She lifted her chin, her heart hammering, unable to prevent the thrill of mingled unease and desire that snaked through her belly at the veiled threat in his touch. His fingers tightened a little so her pulse thumped against them, and she shivered on a wave of dizziness, but didn’t move, didn’t let herself react. To her own amazement, her sex was tingling, the tissues swelling and gathering moisture.
His hand slid back, his breath quickening against her nape as he ran his fingers down through the length of her hair. “Turn around,” he said, his voice low and thick beside her ear.
She turned until her back was pressed flat against the door, looked into his face. He wasn’t a large man, no more than an inch taller than her and slight in build, but standing so close with his one hand on the door beside her head, he seemed to loom until he was all she saw. His eyes glittered like colored glass as he stared back at her, his fingers toying with a single lock of her hair.
His own hair was damp, its gold turned to rich amber, a hank of it hanging down across his forehead. She reached up to smooth it back, but he caught her wrist and lifted it over her head, pinning it to the door.
“The other one,” he said in a voice like steel gliding on velvet.
She could read nothing in his expression except the expectation of obedience. Face hot, heart pounding, she gave him her other hand and he gathered her wrists together above her head, held them tight against the planks. His eyes fastened on her breasts where they pushed up from her low bodice. With one finger of his free hand, he traced the edge of her décolletage, dipping into her cleavage and pulling the fabric down until her nipples peeked over the top.
His eyes flicked briefly to hers. “Shall I touch them?” he asked, his voice a dry croak.
Her breath was coming so fast she was afraid she might hyperventilate. “Yes…”
He brushed a thumb across her peaked nipple and she couldn’t help but arch into the caress. She tugged against his grasp, trying to free her confined hands, but he held them fast. “Please…” she breathed, “…let me touch you.”
“Soon,” he said, dipping his head and dragging his tongue across the upper curves of her breasts. She shivered as the heat of his tongue was
replaced by the chill kiss of the air on her saliva-dampened skin. His free hand slid down her bodice, across the quivering muscles of her stomach and between her legs. Through the wool of her dress, he fondled her, seeking out the hill of her clit, rolling it between two of his fingers.
“God!” Viera hissed, pushing her hips forward and opening her legs as pleasure snaked from her cunt all along her limbs. His teeth nipped at the tip of her breast and she squealed, then his tongue followed, soothing the sting. A second later he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth, his tongue swirling around the tortured peak. A frisson of pleasure streaked from her breast down through her belly to her pussy, where his fingers still tugged and toyed with her clit. Soon the fabric of her linen underskirt, wedged between his fingers and her swollen cunt, was soaked through. Her clit was a hard, aching knot, straining against the undulating motion of his hand.
“Aru, Aru,” she panted, “don’t tease me… I need you inside me. Please…”
He lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes flashing like jewels in his face. “I could hurt you.”
She nodded, drowning in need, his words hardly registering. “I know.”
“I could break you, Viera. With the fingers of one hand.”
He was trying to warn her, to frighten her, but his words seemed to be having rather the opposite effect. Moisture flooded her pussy, beginning to drip down her inner thighs. She shoved her hips forward to bring his fingers back against her clit. “I know.”
“You’re sure?”
That he could even now give her this last chance to change her mind, that he could have finally allowed himself to touch her and still be willing to stop if she wished…what was left of her reservations vanished, evaporated like dew under the morning sun. She felt her heart expand until she thought it might burst from her chest.
“We’ve both waited long enough, Aru. Kiss me.”
But he didn’t kiss her. Releasing her wrists, he dropped to his knees like a penitent in front of her, pressing his forehead against her mound. His hands slid down her legs to her ankles and began gathering up her hem. With torturous care, he pushed her skirts up her stocking-clad legs to her waist until her pussy was revealed. She lowered her hands, still tingling from his tight grip, to tunnel through his hair. It was so soft it seemed almost to have no substance, like warm water flowing through her fingers. The softest thing she had ever felt in her life.
With gentle pressure, she pulled him to her, tilting her hips in offering. His breath fanned her damp curls as he slid his thumbs into her slit and parted her. His lips closed over her wet sex and she let her eyes drift shut as a bolt of pleasure shot through her.
Her scent filled his nostrils, heady and intoxicating, as he lifted her skirts high to expose her woman’s triangle. He couldn’t keep his hands from shaking, his cock so thick and hard he thought he could come from a single touch. Her hands were in his hair, stroking and playing, their movements subtly urging him forward. His stomach clenching on a wave of need, he leaned in and tasted her.
For a moment he was overwhelmed. When he had taken Inella, when he had possessed her body and worn it like raiment, the membrane of her consciousness had stood between him and everything he saw and felt, all sensation muffled as if by a veil. Now there was nothing between him and this perfect woman, his woman, nothing interfering with the flood of emotion and urgency that hammered through him.
The taste of her burst upon his tongue. Her wet was like honey, like liquid light.
Her breath hissed in, her hands tightening in his hair, pulling painfully. Somehow, his body interpreted the pain as something else entirely, a surge of fluid welling from the tip of his cock. In answer to her unspoken request, he slid his tongue deep into her slit, let it probe the inner lips that guarded her opening, then dragged it back up to prod her swollen clit. Her hips began to undulate, her gasps thrilling him, urging him on. He sucked the fleshy pearl into his mouth, nibbled at it, pressed it between his tongue and the backs of his teeth. One hand still holding her skirts, he hooked the other under her knee and pulled her leg over his shoulder, opening her woman’s flesh even wider to his lips and tongue. Over and over he lashed at her clit with his tongue, then slipped his hand through the wetness coating her inner thighs and pushed two fingers high inside her heat.
Her mewls turned to screams and she was coming, her cunt grasping at his thrusting fingers, her nectar pouring onto his hand.
It was too much. More than he could stand. Pushing to his feet, he finally claimed her mouth in a kiss, letting everything he felt for her be spoken in the frantic motion of lips and tongue. She kissed him back, her tongue chasing his, her arms sliding around him to tug his shirt from his waistband. Her hands roamed beneath the hem and up his back, stroking delicately with the tips of her fingers, then raking with her nails until tiny shudders of pleasure shook him. His cock throbbing, he reached down and tore his trouser buttons free, then gathered her skirts up again. Pinning her to the door with his hips, he grabbed her legs and wrapped them around his waist, then thrust into her.
Her cunt enclosed him, so tight and hot it took his breath from his lungs. His lips still locked to hers, he grabbed handfuls of her hair and shifted his hips, pulling out of her grasping tunnel, then slamming his cock home again. Nothing could have prepared him for the sensation of her flesh surrounding him, tight and hot and wet, nothing in his life, before his exile or since. The air was filled with sounds, moans and gasps, coarse and guttural. Animal. In chagrin, he realized the noises were coming from his own mouth as he shoved into her again and again.
Grabbing her ass, his fingers digging into her buttocks, he stepped away from the door, turned and lowered himself to his knees. Easing her down, he tore his mouth from hers and reared above her. She lay spread out in front of him like a gift, her hair forming a silken carpet between her shoulders and the rough oak of the floor. Her skin was flushed and glowing with a sheen of sweat, her eyes dark and adoring on his face. Her nipples, furled tight, jutted above the lowered edge of her bodice and she brought her hands up to tug them, twirling them between her fingers. He dragged his gaze from that carnal display to look down at the place where they were joined. His cock was like a glistening pillar of pale stone, stretching the engorged, pink flesh of her cunt. Her clit stood tall, begging to be touched, and he reached down to tweak it, reveling in the squeal of delight she gave. Her back arched, pushing her sex harder onto his cock, and he thrust forward to meet it.
Gripping her hips, he fucked her slowly, watching as he pulled all the way out, watching as he inched back inside, glorying in the sight and feel of her taking him all the way in. He could feel his crisis building already, his balls snugging up in readiness, the muscles low in his abdomen coiling tighter and tighter. With one thumb he pressed down hard on the button of her clit, rubbing it without gentleness. She moaned, her inner muscles beginning to quiver.
“God, ahhh, god, Aru, Aru, Aru…”
The sound of his name on her lips sent him careening over the edge.
“Paldir help me…” Aru hissed, feeling his cock swell inside her shuddering cunt. The pressure in him built until he thought he would explode, and then he did, his vision going black as his orgasm crashed over him like a breaker. A long, low cry tore from his throat as his seed jetted in hot spurts against her womb, her spasming muscles milking him for every drop.
When he could see again, it was to find her smiling up at him, her lips red and swollen from his kisses, her breasts heaving as she fought to catch her breath. Tears poured from the corners of her eyes to soak the hair at her temples.
I love you, Aru. That was what she had said, before, and her eyes said it again now. I love you, Aru.
He opened his mouth, but could find no words. Her face blurred, the light around him splintering as his own eyes filled with tears. She reached out her hand, and he caught it, lifted her toward him, gathered her against his chest. Buried his face in her hair and held her and vowed never to let her go.
Cradling her tight against him, he rose, his hands supporting her under her bottom. He could hardly believe what he had just done, taking her on the floor of his front hall. Their first time together ought to have been amid beautiful surroundings, a featherbed dressed in the finest linens under the glow of a hundred candles. And yet, he could not have imagined anything more thrilling than shoving her up against the front door of his house and burying his cock to the hilt between her legs.
Ah, Aru, she had said to him that first night in her room, for such an old man, you don’t know much at all. He was beginning to realize just how true that was. In a fog of wonderment, he carried her up the stairs to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, settling her astride his lap.
She drew back from him, looking into his eyes, her tears dried up. Her fingers tunneled through his hair as if she couldn’t get enough of the feel of it.
“Why?” he asked, brushing her tousled hair back from her face. Needing to know. “I was cruel and bitter and selfish, and you deserved none of it. Why did you come back?”
“Because I love you,” she said, her fingers trailing along his brow, smoothing away his frown.
“Why do you love me?”
She shrugged and smiled with one corner of her mouth. “Because I cannot help myself. Why do you love me?”
He turned his gaze inward, but all he saw there was a light that blinded him with joy. He felt like laughing and crying all at once. “Because I cannot help myself,” he said.
She laughed and kissed him, leaning forward until he gave in to her urging and lay back on the bed. Her hair hung around his face like a curtain, closing them off from the rest of the world as she kissed him, her tongue darting into his mouth. She tasted of sunlight and honey and cinnamon, of woman, of earth, of life. He plunged his hands into her thick, dark curls, his tongue into the warm recesses of her mouth, and despite all his resolve could not help but succumb to her.
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