"Yes, love, yes," he purred as he watched her body writhe in rapture.
"Oh," she gasped as the sensations eased off, but stayed just below the surface, simmering. Her trembling arms slid weightlessly from his shoulders and tears filled her eyes, so intense were her emotions.
"Did you enjoy that, Lady?" he rasped as he nursed at her nipple, kneading her breast. "Would you like more?"
"Is there more, Kerian?" she panted, not believing anything could feel as good as that.
"Watch," he commanded as he flipped the long strands of his hair forward to cover her chest.
Brieana moaned as she felt the silken strands of hair sensuously trail over her body. Each cool caress was like a soft kiss, a kiss that trailed lightning in its wake.
Kerian's mouth trailed lower and lower down her body. She felt his hands at her thighs, separating her pliant flesh and making way for his wide shoulders.
"Kerian?" she began, a little uncertain.
"Feel me," he whispered against the tight skin of her stomach as his hands cupped and lifted her bottom for this new invasion.
First she felt his warm breath against the drenched skin of her woman's opening. She felt the startling contrast of the cool air he blew against her burning flesh that made her knees shake uncontrollably. Then she jumped, tense and waiting as he placed a small kiss there.
"I'm going to taste you now," he murmured as his tongue lashed out and quickly sampled her feminine honey.
"Mmm," he groaned, causing her to blush. "Sweet and tangy."
"Kerian," she began, determined to put an end to this delightfully wicked game and get on with the joining. Although she enjoyed this love play, she was curious about the act itself, and wanted to know how he felt inside of her.
But he held her fast as he slowly buried his face in her sex!
"Oh!" she wailed as his rough tongue lapped at her richness and his greedy lips tugged at her throbbing nubbin.
Kerian groaned in response as he thoroughly enjoyed the flavors and textures of his woman. This was a pleasure he never thought to experience, so he relished each wiggling twist of her hips as he immersed himself in her warm, wet offering.
Her hands pounded at his shoulders as he latched onto her vibrating clitoris and gently suckled. This was too much, the heat was too intense, the fire was too hot, the plateau was rising higher and higher.
Kerian reached one hand up and, grasping a handful of his hair, began to rub her nipples, adding extra stimulation to her shuddering body. Then her thighs clamped around his head and his control broke.
With a low shout, Kerian dragged himself up her body, closing his eyes as his hardness dragged against her softness. Pulling one of her hands between them, he molded and shaped himself to her palm. His whole body started as she clasped him in her soft moist hands.
Tentatively, she explored his flesh, marveling at his satiny feel. How could something so hard feel so soft? He felt like the softest of down in her hand. She ran one finger over the raised veins and throbbing skin of his male member and wondered if he would pulse inside her body as well. A drop of wetness pearled up on its tip and she ran a finger through it, delighted to know he became wet for her as well.
"Guide me home, Brieana," he panted, his eyes closed and his mind spinning. Her gentle explorations were sending him over the edge, breaking his control.
"Yes, please!"
But first her hand continued to explore his rigid staff, marveling at its soft texture that concealed an iron core. The heat he gave off was incredible.
At his broken groan, she finally parted her legs wide and led him to the drenched portal of her deepest self.
"Tell me if I hurt you." Again he rested on his elbows above her and tangled his large hands in her soft curls. "Promise me, Brieana," he ordered.
She nodded, breath held waiting for this life-altering experience to begin. She felt as if she was preparing to go into battle, her body flushed with apprehension and excitement. But the battle she now fought was between the blankets and it was sure to be explosive!
"Yes," she gasped, pulling at him, now a bit impatient with how slow he was moving. "I promise, Kerian! I promise!"
Giving in to both of their desires, Kerian pushed forward and sucked in a deep breath at the feel of her scalding heat. Her rich feminine juices bathed the head of his rod and he fought against the urge to pump unrestrainedly into her untried flesh.
Brieana's eyes widened as she felt the large round head of his sex slip inside her. This was a feeling she had never experienced and didn't quite know how to put into words. It was like becoming a part of him, like they were becoming one. The stretching was a bit alarming but was not so uncomfortable as to make her stop him. In fact, it only built up the waves of pleasure coursing through her body, enhancing them tenfold.
"Easy," he murmured, not knowing if he was speaking to her or to himself, and pushed himself in a little deeper.
She was a scalding vise! He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as her wet sheath slowly accepted his presence.
Impatient with this slow taking, she wrapped her legs around his waist and tightened her muscles, pulling him in faster. She felt he was going too slowly to bring her the pleasure she craved and sought to speed him up a bit.
"Brieana," he groaned as he reached around to try and loosen her grip.
"No, Kerian! Now!" she cried out, her breath coming in pants.
The swirling/falling feeling was returning to her body, but this time, much more powerfully. Much more intensely, just much more!
Kerian groaned his surrender and gripped her waist within his powerful grasp. With one smooth steady motion, he thrust himself into her portal, feeling her small membrane tear. Quickly arching his body lower, he pushed and probed until he reached the very core of her. Shuddering and cursing under his breath, he halted himself to give her time to adjust to his invasion.
"Ouch!" That hurt! But as soon as she vocalized her pain, the sharp sting began to ease. "Ohh!" she sighed, eyes wide as she felt his heart beating from within his male member.
"Kerian, I can feel you!" Her amazed look made him bend down and place a soft kiss on her slack mouth, lapping and moistening her dry lips.
"You feel so good," he purred, giving in and gently rocking his hips against her.
She closed her eyes and moaned as sensation built quickly again, stealing her breath and her reason. Kerian was a large, hard mass inside of her; a throbbing heated gift that touched her senses and promised greater passion to come. Never had she felt this full, this weak, yet powerful, and so complete!
Kerian rose above her, now easing himself almost completely out of her before slowly moving himself back in, soothing her with his gentle movements.
Her hands caressed his back as she began to learn the rhythm of this act. Slowly, but soon moving faster, she matched his rhythm and begged for more.
The hard ribbed feel of him sliding out and pumping back into her heat made her hunger grow! She became a desperate, clawing thing, tightening around his length to hold him within, and relaxing her gripping muscles to welcome him back home. It was too much, it was not enough, it was loving Kerian.
Kerian felt his nerves sparkle along his lower back. With each sliding pull of his body, he felt pressure building faster and tighter within his body. Streaks of sharp ecstasy flashed around his body, making his breathing harsh, his skin sheen with sweat, his heart pound in his chest. And his precious Brieana was with him every step of the way.
"It's happening again!" she cried out suddenly as the fire in her body made her legs stiffen and her toes point. A storm broke within her, tossing her body as her inner walls suddenly clamped down on his hardness.
"Kerian!" she screamed as her powerful climax tore through her body, leaving her limp and trembling in his arms.
Kerian felt the rhythmic gripping of her body and lost all threads of his tattered control. With one mighty thrust that shifted their bodies closer together, his seed exploded withi
n her, giving her his life's essence, offering her his soul.
"My love," he cried out as her body drained everything he had to offer, making his arms tremble and his chest heave.
Easing to her side, he pulled her quaking body into the comforting shelter of his. They held on to each other, shaking with the intensity of their release, providing comfort.
"I love you," she murmured against the damp skin of his chest.
"More than my life," he countered as he held her shivering body closer.
Chapter Eighteen
"I have never felt such a thing," Brieana purred as she stroked Kerian's damp hair back from his face.
Unable to put into words his feelings, Kerian grunted and pulled her closer to the warm shelter of his body.
Smiling at his reticence, Brieana ran her fingers over his back, then paused as she felt something other than the smooth firm flesh that covered the rest of his body.
"Kerian? What's this?" She knew she had breached some cut-off place within him, for he stiffened up and pulled away from her.
"It's nothing," he said as he pulled her hands from the raised scars on his back.
"Well, that's a big nothing," she said as she sat up and looked at her lover in the firelight he just moments ago pulled himself away from her to build. His concern for her health and comfort was another way he proved his love for her. But her love for him was making her anxious. Had he been hurt and she knew nothing of it? What was going on?
Rolling to his back, Kerian glared at her for a moment. Then he sighed. Brieana had a right to know.
"You should know the kind of man you have promised yourself to, Brieana. After this, if you want to leave me, I will understand."
"Does this have to do with your claim of having an empty heart, Kerian?" she asked then shivered.
Noting her discomfort, Kerian sat up and draped a blanket over her bare shoulders. Even with the fire burning, there was a chill in the air. Besides, the sight of her breasts, so rosy after their lovemaking, had started a stir of desire in his previously sated body, and he wanted to have a clear head when he spoke to her.
He looked to his wet leggings and turned away with a grimace. He reached for his saddlebags, then he heard her gasp. He had forgotten about his back, and now it was exposed to her in all of its lashed and scarred glory.
Brieana raised her hand to her mouth to hold in her cry of shock. Kerian's back was a mass of raised welts from shoulder to waist. There was barely an inch of skin that was not scarred. What monster would do such a thing?
"I guess there is no point in trying to hide it now, is there?" His voice matter-of-fact, the bags forgotten, he turned to face her again.
"Who?" she gasped out, tears filling her eyes. "Who did this to you?"
"Does it matter?" he sighed, hating the tears that filled her eyes. "Save your pity, Brieana. Don't waste your tears on the past."
"These are not tears of pity, you fool!" she called out, angered he would think that she would pity him. "These are tears of anger! Who did this to you, so that I may cut their hands from their bodies and give them the same treatment?"
Kerian blinked at her bloodthirsty response. Again he had underestimated his beautiful queen. She would never pity him; she would seek to find the person who had hurt him then exact her revenge.
"You can't do that, Brieana."
"And pray tell me why not?" she demanded, pulling the blanket tighter around her as if to keep her hatred inside until it was time to unleash it on the bastard who had harmed her man.
"Because he is dead, Brieana. He died a long time ago."
"And what did your conniving stepmother and father do to you? Did they exact punishment for this?"
"It was my father, Brieana."
"What?" Her horrified cry filled the air, as her eyes grew even wider at the thought. "Your father did this?"
Brieana did not have many memories/recollections of her parents, but she did remember that her mother was loving and kind, and that her father was her fierce defender. To have a father so abuse a child was unthinkable to her!
"He held no love for me, Brieana. I was a necessary heir."
"But…but…why?" She still didn't understand. She moved closer to Kerian and took his hand in hers. He smiled down at the sight of her lending him strength and comfort.
"Because he felt I was evil, Brieana. He sought to rid me of the evil by routine floggings."
"But why?" Brieana was horrified! How could a person think his or her own flesh was evil?
"How many others do you see speaking with dracks?"
That gave her a pause.
"No one else spoke with the dracks, Brieana, until you showed up."
"But that is no cause to suspect evil!" she insisted.
"Maybe, but my mother died in childbirth and I believe my father blamed me. For as long as I can remember, he was cold and aloof towards me. The only comfort I had was from the strange whispers in the night, urging me to fly away to freedom."
"Voices, Kerian?" she asked, becoming enthralled by his tale. "What voices?"
"It was Gren. She had heard my lonely ramblings and thinking that I was a fellow drack held captive, urged me to fly away to the mountains. So one day, I did."
"How old were you?" she asked, snuggling closer to his warmth.
"I was maybe six or seven cycles old."
"And no one noticed you were gone?" She was incredulous! For a child to sneak away and no one noticed he was gone smacked of neglect.
"My father never cared, Brieana. And because of that, my nurses were lax in their attentions."
"But you were a child!" she insisted.
"Yes, Brieana. A child who climbed from his bed in the middle of the night and climbed the Dark Mountains."
Remembering the killer rabbits and other dangers they had passed on the way to the drackoon's lair, Brieana shuddered.
"But it was not as bad as you imagine. The drackoons roamed the land freely then. With them out hunting at night, there were few dangers that I faced. Besides, any drackoon coming upon me would have thought I was a youthling lost in the dark. I could hear their thoughts and they could hear mine. But it was Gren I had listened for. It was her voice that comforted me when the days had become especially hard. When I stumbled upon her, I don't know who was more surprised, her or me. I had always entertained the fantasy that she was my mother, not dead, but run away from my father, and that she was calling me to her."
"Gren, startled?" Brieana chuckled. It was hard for her to picture the sage drackoon anything but composed and confident.
"Yes, she was startled," he smiled, "but no more than I. After she called me and I answered, she decided I was her non-son. For nearly a month, I lived with her and Dalis, learning the ways of the drack."
"The ways of the drack," Brieana giggled. She could picture a small, wild-haired Kerian growling and racing around with the large drackoons in their lair.
"I often did more harm than good, but because Gren took me under her wing, so to speak, Dalis decided I would make a fine drack. It was he who first began training me in strategy. I remember him telling me to anticipate what my opponent was thinking, to fight fiercely, but to use my head. In those days, the drackoons lived much closer to Mirage than they do now. So when my father finally discovered I was missing and sent out a search party, Dalis's scouts told him what was happening. I didn't want to return to the cold castle with my father, Brieana, but Gren told me a wise man would learn all he could before he made his way alone in the world. I returned to my father, and even he was surprised to find me well and hearty after almost a month in the wilds. When he asked me what had happened, I told him I was with my True-mother and that she told me to return."
"I can imagine his reaction," Brieana mused.
"I don't think you can," Kerian laughed. "He told every one of his soldiers I was going to be the best Warlord Mirage had ever seen. He was proud I lasted for that long in the wild, and sought to make me his best warrior."
> "Typical man," she grinned up at him. "And I bet he took the credit for raising you."
"That he did." Kerian looked to the heavens as if searching for an answer, but shook his head and returned to his story.
"I was put through the most rigorous training he could create. Every morning there were exercises in strength and skill, and every evening that I could, I sneaked off to the mountains to be with Gren and Dalis."
"Poor baby," she soothed, rubbing his chest.
"It wasn't that bad." He grinned down at her, pulling her closer to him and wrapping the blanket closer around her. "At least until my father found out I was still sneaking off."
"Then you were no longer his perfect warrior," she guessed.
"He found me sitting on a boulder looking over Mirage and speaking with one of Gren's sons. Then he went a little mad, because he could see I was speaking to the drack in my mind."
Kerian shuddered a little at the memory of that night, but that was all the emotion he showed.
"I remember him racing towards me, sword drawn and daring this hell beast to harm me. I remember jumping in front of my father and telling Pacal to run. When I stopped my father from murdering that drack and told him he was my friend, he went a little mad. He dragged me home and locked me in my room. He forbade me to even mention Gren or any of the drackoons again. He said I was unnatural and unfit to be seen. The only time I was let out was for weapons training and that was with a heavily armed guard. But I still managed to elude him." Kerian laughed at that one.
"I was quite the little sneak, scaling the walls of Mirage at night, hiding in the shadows, blending in. Those were the things Dalis had taught me, and I used his lessons well. But always my father would find me and drag me back. Soon everyone knew I communicated with the drackoon. Hell, if one passed close to the castle, everyone else ran for cover, but I stood outside and had a long conversation and sent word of my health to Gren. My father hated that. Even he was afraid to venture forth when the drackoons were out."
They shared a chuckle over that one, and Brieana reached up to drop a kiss on his chin.
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