by C A Nicks
He understood and felt an odd pang of regret that he would not know this woman as he wanted to. When he returned home, she could not follow. He almost stepped away, then. Once they did this, he would be forever left wondering how much more there could have been between them. But who would step away from such clever little hands?
Tig looked as stricken as he felt. Already too far down the road to turn back but wondering anxiously where it would lead. “Are we foolish to do this?” she asked.
“Utterly. If I can’t kiss your lips, I will have to find other places. Tell me, where do you like to be kissed?”
“Here.” Tig angled her neck without breaking stride, her voice more breath than word. “Men don’t normally bother to ask.”
“On this occasion, I wish to give as well as take pleasure. Make me come,” he whispered against the fragrant skin of her neck. “It will slow me down.”
“Only if you say please.”
“You wish me to beg?” He slipped open one of her shirt buttons, swept back her hair, the better to access the sensitive skin where neck curved into shoulder. Tig squirmed under his seeking lips. He latched on and sucked, harder than was comfortable. Easing off when she protested and tried to push him away. He held her, easily, his good arm curved firmly about her waist.
“Don’t mark me. I’ll never be able to explain it.”
A pink circle glowed against Tig’s tanned skin. Fabian reined back the primitive urge to mark her where everyone would see. Sex usually involved politics of one kind or another, but they were here for comfort, not to stake personal claims, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Just a kiss then,” he conceded and slipped open another button, then another. Beneath the silky fabric of her undergarment, her breasts were loose, outlined by the thin cloth, the hardened peaks of her nipples clearly visible. The sight of them, her hand working its insistent magic on him, made it difficult to breathe. He sucked in a shaky breath and bent his head to wet the fabric with his tongue. Tig made a small, whimpering sound and yanked at the fastenings of his pants.
“Let me lock the door,” she whispered. “And then come upstairs with me.”
Reluctantly, he let her go, still feeling the imprint of her hand on him.
“I wish I had use of both arms. I would have swept you from your feet and carried you to bed.”
Tig smiled, slowly, seductively. “It would have been a first.” She threw the bolt and then crossed the room to the stairs. “Let’s do this before I come to my senses and realise what a fool I am.”
She waited for him, needing the reassurance only he could give. Halfway up the stairs, she leaned back, pressing herself against him, urging him without words to wrap her in his arms and touch her through the frustrating barrier of her clothes.
“I’m afraid I’m doing this just to spite Hal.”
“It’s a possibility.” Fabian kept up his relentless torture, dipping a hand between her legs, stroking, coaxing.
“Do you want me just because he does? Is that why you offered this?”
“You talk too much. Let me take you to bed.”
Tig sighed deeply. A sound of pleasure and resignation. “Come.”
In the bedroom, they faced each other, Tig suddenly a little shy as he threw off his shirt and flexed his powerful shoulders. He knew his worth, on the battlefield and in the bedroom. Still had his prowess, if not his immortality. Tig would get the best he could give.
“Undress for me.”
“If you will.”
“Of course,” he said, pulling slowly at the lacings fastening his pants. Tig picked up his rhythm, flowing with him in the slow reveal. She’d seen him, but he’d only seen promises of her. An unfamiliar pang squeezed his heart when he glanced up and saw her naked for the first time. Her expression held more than the usual woman’s anxieties about her body. Tig looked almost ashamed.
“I’m not much to look at. You must be used to better than this.”
He stepped from the pants, his erection full and ready. “You need a little more flesh on your bones, that is true. But you are nicely made and have an attraction that goes beyond the physical. I can see full-well why Hal is obsessed with you. I will praise your beauty, if you wish. It is part of the ritual.”
“No.” Tig’s skin bloomed with a rising blush. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I just don’t feel…”
He was across the room, stopping the words with a kiss that gave no concession to her split lip. Tig moaned and pulled him closer, remembering what he’d asked for in the kitchen. A jolt of pleasure hit him like a lightning strike. Blissful release, the taste of her blood on his mouth. Generosity, such as he had never known. A tumble of sensation that left him clinging to her as if she were his anchor in this new world.
“Shhh,” she said. “Gentle, remember? Let me find some protection.”
Desperation made the release all the sweeter. Made him clumsy as he pushed Tig towards the bed. They fell together, he beneath her because he owed her that privilege. And because his trembling arms and legs wouldn’t hold him. Tig settled astride his stomach, knees spread wide. She dipped gracefully and swept his chest with the tips of her hair, ran a tongue over his nipples. Reached behind to stroke him.
Each touch, each movement, increased his need until he was almost begging her to take him inside. He hardly noticed her rolling on the protection that would stop him getting her with child. When she rose up and sank down on him, he growled out his relief and arched into her welcoming warmth. He wanted to come again, hard and fast, but Tig rode him like a courtesan skilled in keeping a man on the edge until he was in danger of exploding. Each time he reached his peak, she slowed her rhythm, almost as if she didn’t want it to end. Or perhaps she had believed his hype about lasting an hour? He was so aroused, he didn’t think another minute would be possible.
“Tig,” he said, part plea, part question. She gave a soft cry when he touched her intimately and met her gentle undulations with deeper thrusts of his own. His mortal flesh was too weak to hold back the wave threatening to engulf them both.
“Fabian.” Tig let go of her control, his name on her lips, and he followed her, helpless to do otherwise.
His hips stopped moving as the last spasms died down. For a long moment they simply breathed and rode out the last pleasurable aftershocks.
“Are you all right, Fabian?” Tig’s voice filtered through the sensual fog surrounding him, bringing him back to her room, her world.
“Yes.” He heaved in a breath and remembered. “More than all right. But you?”
Tig flopped down beside him. He felt the glow of heat from her skin. She flung an arm behind her head and let out a long breath.
“It was good. Very good.”
“No, I gave a poor performance.”
Tig patted his thigh. “You were wonderful. Please don’t think otherwise.”
She sounded so pathetically grateful, he covered her hand with his own, stroking the work-roughened skin with his thumb. So different from the milk-and-honey complexions of his pampered wives.
“We will do this again, without the barrier of this sheath. Then I will show you what I am capable of.”
“I can’t risk a pregnancy, Fabian. Not now.”
“I’ve never had to worry about such things.”
“Then you have children?”
“Many, over the years.” He stared at a dirty patch on the ceiling and tried to remember their names, their faces. “An immortal cannot get too attached.”
Tig rolled onto her side, hair falling over her breasts, trailing over his chest. She leaned on an elbow and gazed down at him. “You mean you have to watch them grow old and die?”
“Essentially, yes. What use is an heir, to someone who will never die?”
“How were you immortal and not them?”
Fabian twisted and indicated the white bands on his arm. “The bracelets of An Mur. My father was the greatest warrior ever to take human form. He killed the demon, Hadri
, Scourge of the Night, and took from it the bracelets of An Mur. The bracelets of immortality. He gifted them to the most loved of his sons. My mother was his favourite wife.”
“He didn’t want them for himself?”
“He was past the age of the ritual. I was one of two chosen for the honour.”
“Generous dad. How old are you?”
“Two thousand and eighty of our years. I do not know how that translates into yours.”
Her slow appraising glance swept the length of him. He felt himself stirring to life, his body desperate to make up for lost time.
“Looking good for such an old man.”
“You don’t believe me? You think I’m spinning tales?”
“Forgive me.” Tig held up a placating palm. “I’m having a bit of a struggle with the concept. You can’t blame me for that.” She shook her head. “Would you believe it’s not actually the strangest thing I’ve heard from a man? I would have pegged you at thirty, thirty-five. What? Do you just get to a certain age, then stop growing?”
“The ageing process slows and then stops altogether. That is the gift of the bracelets. Without them, I am just like you.”
Tig gave a small laugh, wincing as she stretched her cut lip. “Then I can see why you’re so angry.”
“I’m angry because I humiliated myself. In over two thousand years, I have never failed to pleasure a woman.”
Tig sat up, arms hugging her bent knees. “You’re regretting this already?”
Fabian traced the line of her spine with his smallest finger. Her shiver went right through him. “See how we respond to each other? It is not always so.”
“Tell me about it. Answer my question.”
“Yes. I am regretting this, but only because I want to do it again. I wish to know you. To hear you moan beneath me. But I think with you that would take more time than we have.”
“It was just sex, Fabian. Don’t over-think it.”
“Yes. You are right. Merely sexual gratification. It means nothing.” He watched her leave the bed. Find her clothes. So many women had walked in and out of his life over the ages. Some with tears, others without looking back. He’d learned early on to show them his indifferent face. To let his wives know he bestowed the privilege only for reasons of state and diplomacy. Love and attachment brought only heartbreak.
Tig touched his hand briefly, understanding more than she let on. She left the room without looking back, leaving Fabian wondering whether he’d satisfied her, or she’d merely been polite. Why did it matter? She’d more than taken care of him. What more did he need?
He did not know why he cared. Only that he did.
Chapter 5
“Damn!” Tig opened the chicken house. The birds filed out, crooning and searching for the scattered grain. “Big mistake,” she told the hen pecking at her boot. “What was I thinking?” Far from satisfied, the encounter had left her skin prickling and her mind in turmoil. Fabian, lying naked and glowing on her bed, was not an easy man to walk away from.
How would she look him in the eye after writhing above him with such abandon? Could she have appeared more desperate?
The dogs followed her across the yard, whining for attention. Cafino grunted irritably when she finally arrived to turn him out into the meadow. She fed him the carrot she’d stuffed into her jacket pocket. “Sorry old boy. I know I’m late. Been dallying, I’m afraid. Spending the morning with a hot man who fell out of the sky.”
Cafino remained unimpressed, more intent with the carrot than her dilemma. He crunched noisily. It wasn’t exactly shame. More a feeling she’d opened a door that should have remained firmly closed. Fabian was leaving at the first opportunity and possibly rushing headlong to a gory death in a futile leadership challenge. She didn’t want to care beyond getting him away from the farm. What he did next, was his business.
Fabian was in the workshop when she entered, studying the pattern on one of her hand-painted wall-plates.
“It’s a story-plate,” she said, feeling a blush rising at the sight of him. A commanding presence in such a confined space. She reached for her apron and tied it about her waist. “Songs, sagas and myths. It’s traditional to have sets of them on the wall. That’s the saga of Cathin Al Ra. One of our ancient kings.”
“You’re very talented.” Fabian replaced the plate and picked up a bowl, staring into it as if it held the key to his future. His broken arm he held bent to his chest, the hand slipped between the shirt buttons.
“My mother, she was the talented one. I’m a pale shadow compared to her. Would you like me to fashion you a sling for that arm?”
“Your mother is also dead?”
“She took ill last year. Died early winter.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Me too. Fabian, you really should stay indoors. If you’re found, the consequences for both of us will be dire.”
“How do you do this?” The question held more than a hint of despair. “Lose people you love, and yet dismiss them in a word.”
“All right. Stay and help me here. But keep away from the window. We remember the dearly departed, but we remember to live too. Does that answer your question?”
“In a way. I lost my true-brother, one of the only people I’ve ever been close to. I do not know how to grieve for him.”
Tig whistled to the dogs. Ordered them to guard the door. “They’ll warn us if anyone comes. Did he suffer the same fate as you?”
“Yes, which means I may never see him again.”
“Remember him with pride. It’s all you can do.”
Fabian frowned. “Yes, I can do that for him. I suppose things will be awkward between us now that we have been intimate?”
“Have to admit to a bit of embarrassment,” she said opening the lid of the clay-bin. She slapped a sticky lump onto the table. “There. I know you’ve only got one hand, but it gets rid of the frustration like nothing else.”
“You wish me to make something?”
She couldn’t help laughing at his incredulous tone. And at his refreshing candour. “If you want to, but kneading it will be enough.” She stooped for another lump of clay. “Bash it around. Get rid of as much air as possible. Makes the skin of your hands smooth like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I did notice your hands were rough with work.” Fabian poked the clay experimentally. “A woman like you should have hands like the breasts of a dove.”
“In my next life, maybe.” Tig smiled at the thought and rolled the clay into a ball, falling into a well-practiced rhythm as she prepared it for shaping into a drinking vessel, or a dish. “Fabian, I’m good with what happened earlier. We’re two healthy people who enjoyed a bit of morning delight. You’re not still having performance anxiety, are you?”
“There is too much to worry about in this world. Life here is uncertain. I do not like uncertainty.”
“No one does. Here, do it like this.” Tig covered his large hand with both of hers and pushed at the clay, rotating it at the same time. Hip to thigh, she worked the clay with him, remembering the feel of his skin flush with hers. Without realising, she found herself leaning into the comfort of his warmth and strength. Oh to have a man such as this watching her back, warming her bed.
Could a man like this ever reform and learn to live a simple life. Hearth and home, wife and child. The power beneath her hands was only a fraction of what he kept inside.
Fabian stilled, almost in response to her silent question. His hand lay under hers, a smattering of dark hair on the back, long squared-off fingers. Neatly clipped nails, she noticed. Not ragged and broken, like hers. Every time he exhaled, she tingled and relived the delicious slide of his finger down her spine.
“What is the weapon you keep in the attic?”
“You mean the rifle?” She moved back to her own clay and resumed her kneading. “Sniping got out of hand so the local magistrates declared them illegal. We were supposed to hand them in, but everyone knew they would be sold on to
the war-bands. Most folks just hid them. Why do you ask?”
“What does it do?”
Tig glanced sideways at him, frowning at the question. “You’ve lived two thousand years and never seen a gun?”
“We had no need of them. Magic was my most powerful weapon. I commanded the most powerful mages in the kingdom. Until someone betrayed me.”
“You’ll have to tell me that story sometime. Fabian, don’t get ideas about the gun. They’re tolerated as long as we don’t go walking around brandishing them.”
Fabian’s fingers closed about her arm, leaving a dirty smear on her sleeve. A man like him would have a command-voice. One that invited no arguments. He used it now.
“Does it have the ability to kill from a distance?”
“Yes.”
“You will teach me to use it.”
“I will not. Let go of me, Fabian. You fire that thing in public, you might as well shoot me in the head with it first.”
He let her go, mumbling an apology. The door slammed behind him, rattling the few pots left on the shelves.
Tig recovered her breath. Thank god she followed protocol and kept the bullets in a separate hiding place. Anxiously, she watched him cross the yard, the dogs at his heels, ducking away from the window when he turned back to glare at the workshop. The gun needed hiding, and fast or they’d have a turf-war of epic proportions on their hands. She should go and do it now.
Finish the piece, first. A warrior like Fabian would plan his moves. Act only when certain of victory.
She sucked at her aching lip. Damned fool just wanted to recover his pride as he had in the bedroom. The whole region would run red with blood because Fabian needed to prove he had bigger balls than the next man.
As long as he didn’t drag her into it, what did she care?
She took the clay to the wheel and started the treadle. When she’d built the momentum, she slapped the clay into the centre and cupped her hands around the spinning ball. Fabian was the stuff of legends, to be sure. People would sing his saga for years to come.
With her thumbs, she pressed a dip into the clay and pulled it flat. When she’d fashioned the plate, she cut it free with a cheese-wire and placed it on the drying rack.
