by Dawn Madigan
“Look,” Rowan spoke softly to the servants, suddenly standing by her shoulder. “Our faith forbids us to, uh, be bathed.”
“At all?” A gaping maid wrinkled her nose in disapproval.
“No, no. I mean we can’t be bathed by strangers. The Goddess will punish us.”
“Oh,” the daring male considered it. “I’ve never heard of such. Her Highness’s orders were—”
“That we take a bath to prepare for the Imbolc feast, and that we will do,” Rowan cut him short. “Gladly, even. No orders and no faith get broken, and everybody walks away unpunished. You can leave someone to keep watch, if you wish.”
Within the muddled buzz rising from the group of debating attendants, Dara turned fully to Rowan.
“Thank you,” she mouthed silently.
“Sure, sweetheart.” He smiled down at her. “You can let go of the knife now,” he added softly, carefully covering her fist with one large hand. Her eyes lingered on Rowan’s face as he gently unclasped her fist and entwined his fingers with her own, replacing the cold, bony hilt with the feel of his warm hand.
“I can’t believe we’re both naked again,” she whispered. The tip of her tongue absently licked over her dry bottom lip.
“Almost naked,” he corrected, his hand still laced with hers. “You’re still wearing your harness. Turn around,” his voice urged her, dropping low, meant for her ears alone.
Dara slowly turned, almost too giddy to stay on her feet. Rowan’s arms wrapped about her, warm, hard-muscled, steadying. His body fitted itself against hers from behind. She felt his cock pressing against her ass and nudging the small of her back. His agile fingers trailed over the leather straps that circled her shoulders, lightly touching her skin. She trembled at this gentle butterfly touch, imagining how his hands would feel on her breasts right now. Harder. Squeezing. Her body still carried the memory of his touch on her flesh, had memorized it on that feverish night in the Portland warehouse.
Rowan’s fingers tampered with the buckle fastening Dara’s harness, then coaxed the leather straps down her shoulders. He let the whole rig slide heavily down her body to lie curled against her ankles. Her gaze followed the plummeting weapon. It was already blurred by the soft mist rising from the pool. Her eyes rose to see Rowan’s hands, resting lightly above the soft roundness of her hipbones.
Honey on white. Hard against soft.
“Now,” his rough whisper tickled her ear from behind, “now you’re naked.”
“I will stay with you,” the daring one called from within the disbanding batch of servants. “And make certain that Her Highness’s orders are properly fulfilled.” He strolled closer through the vaporous tongues of mist snaking from the pool. Clearing his throat, he assumed a dignified pose within a safe distance.
“Want to try the water, sweetheart?” Rowan’s lips breathed over Dara’s hair, traced the side of her face. He ignored their chaperon.
“Yes,” she murmured, barely hearing her own voice.
“Hmmm,” he hummed, a raspy male sound that shot hot flashes down her body. He gently withdrew from her, and her abandoned back suddenly felt cold without him there. A soft protesting moan broke her lips before she managed to catch it. Rowan laughed, sliding his arm around her waist. He led her down the wide marble stairs that vanished beneath the slow, swirling steam.
She shivered as the water bathed her ankles, hot and delicious just like she’d known it would be. Weariness loaded her muscles like lead as she waded deeper. She was content for once to be guided, to empty her mind from thought.
“Here,” Rowan said softly. “Place your hands here. Both of them.”
She did as he bade her, pressing her palms against the gilded rims’ surface. It felt startlingly chilly, a sharp contrast to the hot water lapping at her breasts. She heard the water softly slapping Rowan’s flesh as he moved behind her, felt the gentle waves undulating between them both.
He placed his hands over the small of her back beneath the water, thumbs edging her spine. His fingers kneaded their way up, pressing, smoothing, patiently unknotting taut muscles. He daubed her exposed shoulders with the hot water, molding and soothing sore flesh.
“By Danu, lass, you’re all knots,” he spoke softly, his fingers easily tracing her shoulder blades. “Just…relax,” his voice implored her.
She moaned and arched back as his hands rubbed deep into her skin, wanting more of his touch. He responded, moving even closer, shaping their bodies tightly together again. His hands slid up her rib cage and cupped her breasts.
“Oh…Rowan…” Dara gasped, jerking her hands from the gilded platform.
“No…leave your hands exactly where they are.” He started kissing slowly down her neck.
She drew a quick, shuddering breath, flattening her palms once more against the hard, gleaming surface. Rowan’s words conjured a steamy image in her mind, of the mating couple they’d watched back in Commar. Rowan gently hefted Dara’s breasts, massaging the supple, ripe globes. Harder. Squeezing. Just like she wanted him to. His thumbs pressed her tightening nipples, testing her, rolling them between the roughened pads of his fingers.
“Mmmm…Goddess…” She squirmed and panted, not daring to remove her hands from the pool’s edge. Her nipples peaked against his palms, blushed and tingling.
He kept his left hand on one plump breast, pampering her hungry flesh with gentle strokes. His right slid tightly against her skin, resting low on her tummy. Dara trembled, her hands squeezing into wet fists against the platform.
“Have you decided yet?” he inquired softly, his hand hot and still above the wet triangle of curls.
“W-what?” she stammered, dazed.
“Back in the Luran, when we were swimming, you said that next time you decide.”
“Yes…” The word squeezed out, trembling. “Yes.”
“Yes what, sweetheart?” his voice demanded. He wasn’t about to let her off so easy this time.
“Yes. I want…I want this. I want you.” She was drawing shallow, quick breaths, her heart pounding.
“Spread your legs for me,” he whispered hoarsely against her cheek.
Dara’s breath hitched and she sank her teeth into her lower lip. Tentatively, she parted her thighs against the water’s resistance.
“More,” Rowan coaxed. “More.”
She spread wider. Before she managed another breath, his hand stroked over her and slipped between her thighs. Quick fingers parted her nether lips, centering on her clit. He brushed over the small nub with the rough pad of his finger, slowly rubbing the sleek button, pressing it in a slow tormenting circle.
“Aaahh…no…wait!” She gave a soft yell, her hips jerking sharply towards his touch. Her hands stayed tight against the pool’s gilded edge.
“Want me to stop?” He leaned his head above her shoulder, inhaling the familiar fresh scent of her hair, her skin’s intoxicating aroma. The tang of her arousal mixed into it all like a hot flavor. His kiss traced the soft outline of her lower jaw, just above the pulse beating wildly in her neck. His hand kept moving between her thighs, immersed in the water, sinuously circling her engorged clit. She moved in his tight embrace, making small sounds, the same ones she’d made when he’d kissed her back in the Luran.
“Mmm…Rowan…” She moaned low in her throat, her short nails etching crescents into her palms. Rowan’s hand abandoned her left breast, and was now gently spreading the cheeks of her ass. He eased a finger into her tight pussy from behind.
“Rowan!”
He slipped another finger inside her with ease. Crouching slightly and hooking his buried fingers, he pressed circles into her hot, puffy flesh. His bowed body enveloped hers, the tiniest of trembles conveyed straight from her flesh to his.
“Let go, sweetheart,” he whispered against a cloud of dark, soaking locks. “I have you. Let go…”
His fingers moved inside her, tuned to her moans, the soft quakes traversing her flesh, the smallest sway of her hips. His other
hand kept circling her clit, unrelenting, deliberately slow. He found that spot within her tight pussy that made her jerk and shiver the most, moan the loudest. His hooked fingers kept kneading that exact spot, sweetly torturing her.
“Aaaaahhh…Goddess. I can’t…” She sobbed and moaned, writhing in his firm hold, her hands fisted. “Can’t t-take it…”
He used his other hand, the one massaging her clit, to finally drive her over the edge. Dara bucked her hips, screaming, her cunt blossoming with violent ripples, sucking and squeezing Rowan’s fingers inside her. He kept holding her, his fingers captured inside, riding her climax.
“Aye, Dara. Like this, let go,” he mumbled softly, kissing her hot cheek, embracing her slim, shuddering form, both his hands nestled within her thighs’ searing embrace. Slowly the trembling faded, her breathing eased.
“I want you,” he said gruffly. “Now.” Random, faint waves still squeezed her sodden flesh around his fingers. His cock was throbbing with a painful erection, tight against her back.
Dara sucked in a shaky breath.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Rowan let out a slow breath against her neck, as if he’d expected her to refuse. Gently, he rescued his two fingers from her tight embrace. She let out a lingering moan as he pulled out of her, water licking at her pussy lips again. Turning her head to the side, she saw him bring his wet fingers to his mouth, sucking them slowly. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. His damp hands shifted to her arms, slowly teasing their length.
He felt so good against her—
Yet she couldn’t stop trembling. Her hands remained fisted on the golden ledge. Her breath kept coming in quick gasps, her heart struggling wildly against her rib cage. Maybe it was because she had waited for so long. Had refused to let anyone in, until she couldn’t remember how a man should feel inside her. But, Goddess, she wanted Rowan inside her. Wanted him so damn bad that her pussy was hurting for him. So damn bad, that it was hard to breathe—
“Rowan,” she gasped. “Please…”
His hands slipped down her wet back, seizing her hips beneath the water. He pulled her back slightly, his sure grip tuning her position to his own. Dara leaned forward against the platform, dizzy with excitement. Rowan’s hard thighs pressed against the soft back of her own.
She couldn’t take the wait much longer.
“Make love to me, Mackey.”
Rowan breathed out a soft, hoarse chuckle. “I am.”
He shifted behind her, crouching slightly. She felt his hands on her ass, parting her cheeks. His cock pushing between the soft globes. His cock head, nudging her pussy…
She gasped aloud as he penetrated her, his broad cock probing her wet heat, pushing against the initial resistance of her inner muscles. Unwillingly, she tensed.
“Sweetheart, you’re too tight,” he murmured. “Relax. You’re trembling…”
Dara dragged in a shuddering breath. Forced her lungs to fill slowly, pressing her palms flat against the gilded surface of the pool. Rowan’s fiery hands stroked slow circles over her hipbones, climbed tightly up her rib cage, cradled the underside of her breasts. Holding her against him, he drove his cock deeper inside her.
“Oh!”
He stilled, his cock half-buried in her cunt. “Did I hurt you?”
“Rowan,” she moaned, squirming, straining to press herself down on him. “It feels… You feel incredible. Don’t stop.”
With a growl he thrust all the way inside her, driving his cock to the hilt. Dara cried out, her back arching. Rowan’s hands squeezed and kneaded her breasts, pulling her hard against his muscled chest. Her fingers were yanked away from the platform and entwined with Rowan’s. Before she managed another gasp he pulled back from her cunt completely and thrust hard again, impaling her on his massive erection.
Dara was sharply filled. Stretched. Her shocked pussy reacted with swift contractions, rippling with a soft orgasm around Rowan’s wedged cock.
His breath hissed in, and he held still.
“That was bloody quick,” he teased softly. His hands slipped down her stomach, his fingers still linked with hers. Pressing his hands—her hands—over her mons, he steered them both, inch-by-inch, deeper into the water.
Dara closed her eyes with a moan, leaning back against Rowan’s slick, hot chest. His rock-hard cock was inside her to the hilt, his large body wrapped around her. He gently rescued one hand from her grasp, sliding it up her stomach, splaying his fingers right beneath her breasts. His hand was so large, it almost spanned her rib cage. He bowed his head to kiss her shoulder, dug his face into her neck. She trembled sweetly as his hot mouth licked and sucked on her flesh, as his teeth grazed her skin.
He started to move within her, his hips rocking behind her with slow, soft thrusts.
“Rowan,” she groaned.
Her inner flesh was already swollen and sensitized with Rowan’s earlier handiwork, and his cock kept stroking and kneading her teased walls. She squirmed in his embrace, suddenly afraid she that couldn’t handle so much pleasure.
“I can’t—”
“Shhh… Aye, you can.” He pinned her against his body, one large hand atop her mons, the other edging the underside of her breasts. There was no escape from his hold. His breath washed over her neck, hot, ragged. He kept pumping into her—soft, slow, steady. Mumbling her name. Coaxing. Kissing her neck, her hair, the side of her face. His hand on her mons shifted and pressed deeper between her thighs, his long, sensitive fingers touching her clit. Stroking. Circling. Kneading…
“Ahhh…Rowan…” Dara groaned, panted, pleaded.
Rowan kept her pressed against his body with a gentle, uncompromising hold as he fucked her. He drove into her with a swifter cadence, his thrusts growing longer, sharper. Water swirled and slapped at their sweaty skin, steam curling around their entwined bodies.
“Dara. Give me your mouth.”
She turned her face to Rowan’s, meeting his stormy green eyes. Hot. Intent. His mouth immediately came down on hers, bruising her lips with the force of his kiss.
His cock shoved inside her one more time, hard.
Dara’s scream of release was stifled by Rowan’s mouth. She fell apart, coming so hard that the surrounding world went dark. Her knees buckled. Through a cotton candy fog she felt Rowan’s steely arms bracing her, felt him shudder and buck against her as he came with a throaty groan. His seed filled her with hot, intense gushes.
“Dara.”
She opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath. Couldn’t speak. Trembling, she pressed her hands hard over Rowan’s.
“I’m not done with you, sweetheart.” Rowan spoke gruffly, nuzzling her cheek. “I’m taking you to our chambers. They have to give us some bleedin’ chambers, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I-I guess.”
Gently moving his hands back to her hips, he slipped out of her cunt.
Dara swiveled and her knees gave out beneath her. Rowan stooped quickly and caught her, scooping her up into his arms. He gave her a soft grin, the one she had come to know so well. Her arms looped around his neck. He squeezed her, brief and teasing, and waded through the water and steam, climbing up the marble staircase and out of the Celtic knot pool. His feet made growing puddles on the Infinity Hall’s colorful terrazzo.
“Oy, lad!” he growled at the servant. “Enjoying the show?”
“Uh…” The servant squirmed beneath Rowan’s gaze, his eyes moving again to Dara’s fallen dagger. His arms were loaded with their brocade mantles.
Rowan flashed him a toothy smile above Dara’s tangled mane. “We’d like to be shown to our chambers now. Our religion demands that we rest after bathing.”
In his arms Dara stirred and mumbled weakly, “Mind if we put these mantles on before hopping out into the hallway?”
Chapter Sixteen
Dara gasped as Rowan tumbled them into the enormous bed, tossing her against satin and silk. She sank into the plush mattress among mounds of soft pillows, embroidere
d, beaded and tasseled. He crawled above her, twisting out of his mantle. His naked skin burned against the brocade cloth still shielding her. Dara’s trembling fingers entwined in the upper laces cinching her robe.
“Goddess,” she groaned with impatience.
“Let me help you,” he said. He seized the robe’s edges and tore them apart, laces snapping, exposing her breasts to his smoldering gaze. “Sweet,” he whispered, leaning low.
She yelped as the wet heat of his mouth suddenly engulfed one jutting nipple, sucking her flesh with abandon, rolling the rosy bud hard against his tongue. He tasted her with a sudden soft bite, and her back arched sharply against the mattress. She wrung fistfuls of his flaming hair, breathing out a half-sob, pulling his head even tighter against her chest. His hand cradled the plump swell of the breast that his fervent mouth was sucking, licking and kissing.
“Rowan.”
Dara twisted and moaned, shoving pillows aside with elbows and feet, rumpling satin and silk. Rowan released her nipple with a loud pop. He gripped the still-laced lower fringes of her robe. She gave a soft scream as he ripped them open as well, baring all of her to his eyes.
“Should’ve done that straight away.” He flashed a small grin.
His hands closed easily around her slim ankles, lifting her legs, moving them apart. Her pussy lips looked swollen, glistening. She yelped as he dragged her closer across the bedsheets, maneuvering her legs around him. He chuckled and sank between her thighs, his eyes ablaze with green fire. Their skin, damp and hot from the pool, was finally touching, with no barriers in between.
“I’ve wanted to feel you like this from the first moment I saw you.” He bent his head, pressing his mouth against the curve of one shoulder. That same one he’d pulled an arrow from. His teeth grazed her flesh, swapping the older memory of penetrating pain with the new one of a pleasure bite. He licked over the reddened mark, soothing the small pain it had caused, and his hands gathered her thighs tighter around his waist.
