by Linda Kage
“Good. Then lie back down, my lady. I’ll show you just how much you can handle.” When she did, slowly, her eyes never leaving mine, I smiled slowly. “Now open for me.”
Her eyes widened, but when I set my palms on her knees and moved them apart, spreading her before me, she let me, watching me take in all the treasures I exposed.
Nodding, she gulped in an audible breath, even as she repeated, “I trust you.”
“You should. I’d die before ever hurting you.” Then I pressed my mouth back to the spot where I’d left off on the inside of her thigh.
This time, she let out a sigh of pleasure. As I worked my way up her leg, she didn’t stop me, but her muscles tensed. When I was inches from my goal, her fingers found my hair and latched on. I covered them with my own hand, reassuring her as best I could, and then…then I lapped at the tangy nectar that seeped from between her legs.
God, she was already wet for me, her flavor strong and intense. I moaned from the experience while she gasped and bowed up her hips sharply against my mouth. My tongue dove deeper between fleshy folds, flicking over the muscled nub I found inside.
“Oh, mother of all mercy,” she shrieked, clenching my hair tight, tugging even harder as her hips strained against my mouth.
Then I slowed things down, stroking the area completely with the flat of my tongue in long, languid strokes. She moaned low, undulating against me. My cock was so hard in my trousers, I squeezed my eyes closed to focus more on her. And just when she accustomed herself to my rhythm, I changed it up with a couple more short teasing tongue-flicks before sucking hard on her clit and thrusting a finger inside her.
“Oh my God!” she yelped. “Urban. Urban.” My name was fast and seeking, quick jabs of sound from her lips. She thrashed her head back and forth, chanting, “No. No. You can’t. What’re you—Oh… My… God…Yes.”
The orgasm was potent. It came like the sea that watched us, crashing violently against the walls of her womanhood, flooding her channel and invading her with a wet wash of power. It was a thing of beauty. And tasting all that against my tongue was an honor I’d never forget.
When she finished, like a tired tide drifting sleepily back out to sea, she sighed and went lax under me.
I took a moment to lap up the last of her juices before lifting my face and watching her set her arm over her eyes and begin to laugh.
“Oh my God,” she admitted in a somewhat bashful voice. “That was… That was…”
“You liked?” I asked smugly, certain she had. Untying the laces on my trousers, I watched her bite her lip and remove her arm from her eyes so she could meet my gaze. Before she could answer, though, her attention fell to where I was pulling myself from the opening of my pants.
I wrapped my hand around the base and pulled the skin in tight so the length of my cock could jut out proudly for her perusal. When she took too long studying me, I slowly began to stroke myself until a drop of precum beaded from the tip.
This must’ve found favor with her because she licked her lips hungrily and opened her legs for me, all of her own accord this time, before shifting her gaze up to my eyes.
I smiled and crawled over her until I was staring down into her face. Bracing myself with one hand in the grass by her cheek, I lined up my erection with her moist opening. Her lips parted and she breathed deeply, waiting for me to continue.
She was so goddamn beautiful it made my chest hurt.
“I think I understand now why I wanted you to keep your rational thought in my dream,” I said.
Her lashes fluttered as her gaze moved down my throat and chest before she looked up into my face again, her eyes dazed with spent lust. Then she shook her head slightly, not quite recovered from her orgasm, I think. “What?”
I twined our fingers together and pressed my forehead to hers. “I wanted you to accept me not only with your body, but with your mind. I wanted you to want this—want me—in every way. Just like I want you in every way.”
Her gaze held mine steady as she whispered, “I do.” Then she kissed me, her mouth opening and tongue coiling with mine. Breaking away with a gasp, she gripped my hair and rasped, “I do, Urban. I want you. In too many ways. Just please… Finish it.”
I pushed inside her, granting her wish.
She cried out, surging up to meet me. Silken wet heat enveloped me in the most intimate of hugs, and I groaned before slanting my mouth across hers and kissing her hungrily.
“Vienne.” I couldn’t stop moving, burying myself over and over again in her heaven. “Are you…? Is this…?”
“Yes!” she gasped, accepting me deeper, holding me tighter, kissing me harder. “Yes!”
It was more than I could take. Hiding my face in the nook of her neck where the scent of her hair coated my face, like thick golden sunshine, I emptied into her, mashing my hips to hers and filling myself with a joy that transcended joy. She clenched around me, gasping through her own pleasure as her body contracted around mine. We came in shocking waves, rolling over and over again, tumbling into each other, merging in only the way lovers can.
Finishing with a groan, I collapsed on top of her, and burrowed myself into her waiting arms.
She held me like I was a lost soul that had just found his way home.
“My lady,” I rasped, petting her hair, unable to stop touching her. “My Vienne. How I’ve waited for this. For you.”
“And I you,” she murmured, stroking me slowly in much the same manner I was her.
I lifted my face, surprised for some reason.
She smiled softly, tears of joy matted in her eyelashes. “I’ve always wanted to feel…close to another. But I never thought it would happen.” Pressing her palm gently to my cheek, she gazed adoringly at me. “I never thought you would happen.”
More pleased than I had been moments ago while I was pulsing and jetting inside her, I grinned and crushed my smile to hers.
For that moment, we were one. One true loves. Until the cry of an infant interrupted us, and the dream began to fade into wakefulness, where I came awake with a curse of denial on my lips as I lay alone in my own bed, staring up at a cold, stone ceiling.
Chapter 26
Vienne
I woke, flushed and pulsing, my body nearly ready to explode from sexual release. The coiling, tingling pressure in my womb was so extreme I had a feeling all I’d need to do was press my fingers down between my legs, and a massive orgasm would just start rolling out of me. Even my breasts throbbed for release, when all they’d done recently was throb from pain, especially as full as they were now, ready to feed my baby.
The babe in question seemed equally ready for her milk, it seemed. She yowled insistently from her crib, demanding attention. Yet, I lay there one moment longer trying to settle the racing of my heart as an unquenchable ache vibrated through my extremities.
“I’m coming,” I finally croaked to Anniston before I rolled onto my stomach and groaned. “Just not in the way I’d like to be.” Feeling stiff and disjointed, I whimpered and crawled wearily to the edge of the mattress. When I found my feet, I swayed a moment, still mentally stuck in the dreamworld.
“God.” Pressing the palms of my hands into my eye sockets, I stumbled toward the sound of my baby and ran smack dab into the side of her crib. “Oomph.”
It was most definitely not the best way to wake. I reached in to pick up Anniston, only to get a handful of mucky brown substance when I slid them under her backside.
“Oh, yuck!” Lurching back, I gagged over the aroma of infant feces and made a mad dash to my water basin, where I rinsed off my hands and then bemoaned the fact that now I couldn’t splash any reviving clean water into my face to wake me up a bit more.
When I returned to the crib, I made sure to pick the baby up under her armpits. All her bedding had been smeared with the mess. I held my breath as I worked as quickly as possible to clean her. She screamed the entire time, her little face screwed up with red rage because she just wanted to be fed.
Once I had her rewrapped in something clean, I turned toward the bed where I planned to take her, but I jerked to a halt when I saw how wadded and wrinkled the covers were. I’d really thrashed and moved a lot in my sleep, which brought up in vivid detail exactly what I’d dreamed about.
And who.
Guilt immediately assaulted me. I spun away from the bed and all the delicious memories it wrought so I could carry Anniston to the rocking chair, but the memories just followed me. Fumbling, I sat in the chair and opened the top of my nightdress to get the baby to her milk, but as soon as she was appeased and busy suckling, my mind spun with nothing but the things Urban had done to me in that dream.
And the things I’d said to him.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t help but feel as if I’d been disloyal, which was crazy, because, one, it’d only been a dream, and, two, it wasn’t even the first sex dream I’d had about him. But still…today remained different.
I used to worry about how I’d face Urban after those dreams. Today, I worried how I would face Soren.
Anniston fell asleep at the nipple, which was fine with me. I appreciated a moment to myself. So when a maid entered when I was putting her back into her bed, I asked the girl if she could stay with the sleeping babe in order to let me escape for a bit of fresh air.
Only a hot cup of tea and the view from the East Salon could help me deal with this. So, once I was dressed for the day, I hurried out the door, thinking I’d probably only have an hour or so before Anniston woke again.
I was moving so fast I almost didn’t notice the sound I heard as I passed Soren’s suite. But that unmistakable grunting chant he made when he was getting close to release would probably haunt my nightmares forever, so when it filtered out from under his door, I jarred to a halt, gaping.
Bed springs squeaked above the grunting, then a feminine giggle floated out.
“Oh my God!” I gasped before slapping my hand over my mouth to hopefully muffle my shock.
My husband was having sex…with another woman.
At first, I felt relief; this would keep him from visiting me for a while longer, I hoped.
Then I felt more relief. Okay, pretty much all I felt was relief, but at least I didn’t feel so bad about having the sex dream I’d just had about another man.
Except, ugh, I still felt bad about that. I wanted to be better than Soren, the loyal type of spouse. But I’d felt no loyalty to him at all when Urban had slipped his tongue between my legs and shown me pleasures I didn’t even know existed.
Damn. Not even learning my husband was an unfaithful louse could dampen my guilt. I hurried around a corner, needing that tea and view from the wall of clear rock now more than ever.
But, alas, it wasn’t to be.
“Vienne…psst. Vienne,” a voice hissed, making me jump out of my skin. I whirled around to find Nicolette cracking the door to her room open and waving me forward. “I need your help.”
I nearly threw up my hands and sighed. I was trying to have my own crisis here, and I needed to be in my safety zone, drinking from my calming brew before I could deal with anyone else’s problems. But from the distress I sensed oozing from Nicolette’s room, she couldn’t wait that long.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving toward her.
She shifted back, opening the door wider to let me in. “I think I messed up.”
I was about to step inside when I noticed something written on the side of her face, next to her left eye. Jarring to a halt, I blinked and then gaped when I realized it was the tattoo of a heart within a circle.
“Oh…my God,” I uttered, my jaw falling slack. “What have you done?”
“I know, I know.” She winced and shook her hands. “At the time, it seemed like a good idea. I still love it, and I can’t wait to find my one true love with it, but then I woke up this morning and realized, holy shit, Caulder’s going to see it, isn’t he? And he’s going to be pissed.”
I nodded, unable to speak as I stared. She had a love mark on her face. Just like Urban.
She bit her lip and pressed her hand to the tattoo. “Do you think he’s going to kill me?”
Literally, no. But metaphorically… I nodded again, still no words.
“Oh God, Vienne. I thought at least you’d have something reassuring to say.”
But, “Have you lost your damn mind?” was about all I could think to blurt.
She cringed. “I just wanted one so badly.”
I sighed and pressed my hand to my own brow, not sure how to help her through this.
“When?” I asked. “When did you do this?” But the answer had already come to me. “Last night? When you didn’t join us for dinner? They said you were sick and couldn’t come down. But you...what? How did you even get this done?”
“I snuck out, of course.”
When I opened my mouth to blow a fuse, she lifted a hand, pausing me. “Not, literally. I took a guard and went out through the front gate, all very legitimate and appropriate-like. I just…” She cringed. “Didn’t mention to my escort that the king might not approve of my little outing.”
“But—”
“Oh, there was a High Cliff priestess staying in Mandalay,” Nicolette assured me, answering the question I hadn’t even asked yet. “I met her at Brentley and Allera’s wedding.”
When I opened my mouth to ask more, Nicolette kept talking at super speed.
“She even had a permit to be there. She showed it to me at the wedding. She was showing it to everyone because she was freaked out about how negatively Donnelleans viewed magical people. But she was so nice, and she talked to me at the wedding banquet like I was a real person. An adult. When I told her how much I wanted a love mark, she offered to give me one. I was hesitant, of course, but she told me where’d she’d be staying and when she’d be leaving. I kept telling myself it was a bad idea, Caulder would never approve, but… Oh my God, she’s set to leave Donnelly tomorrow and this was my very last chance ever to get one. I had to go to her, Vienne. You understand, right? I just had to.”
I closed my eyes and nodded, actually proud of the girl for following her heart and doing what made her happy. But, God, now I had to help her out of this situation.
“Do you think we can conceal it somehow?” she asked hopefully. “With powder or…or…”
“Nicolette,” I said softly. “You need to tell your brother about it. Today.”
Her eyes went wide and her head shifted back and forth. “I don’t think I can.”
I took her hands. “It’s best to get it over with now,” I said. “Besides, if you were brave enough to get the mark in the first place, then you’re brave enough to tell the king about it.”
“I…I…” Even though her hands trembled within mine, she said, “Okay. But you’ll come with me, right?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “I’ll be right beside you the entire time, holding your hand.”
“Okay,” she whimpered. “Okay.”
And so, instead of getting to retire to the East Salon for a bit to drink my worries away, I escorted the king’s sister down to the Throne Room, where we asked the dignitary at the door if Caulder was available to receive an audience with us.
“He’s not yet arrived to the Throne Room to accept kingdom business, Lady Vienne,” I was told. “But I believe he’s in the Blue Chambers at the moment, if you two need a personal word with him.”
“Thank you.” I nodded and smiled my thanks before turning a trembling Nicolette away and leading her down another hall toward the sitting room called the Blue Chambers. But even as we neared it, we could hear Caulder shouting from within.
“Well, then message the goddamn ruler of Far Shore back and kindly inform them we’re already giving them a better price than anyone else for clear rock. Dammit! Did I not tell you I wanted no talk of business until I’m in the Throne Room? And where is my wife?”
At his sharp tone, Nicolette and I skidded to a stop, rearing back
ward away from the door. “You know,” Nicolette said uneasily, sending me a rueful cringe. “Maybe now isn’t the best time to bother him. I can just tell him tonight at dinner, when he’s less—”
“Nicolette! Vienne.” Caulder’s voice snapped, making us both jump in surprise since we weren’t expecting him to enter the corridor with us. But there he was, storming from the Blue Chambers, only to point when he saw us. “Have either of you seen Yasmin this morning? I’m…”
His words fell to a stop when he focused on his sister’s face. At first, he just stared, unresponsive, and Nicolette’s hand relaxed in mine. But then he shook his head, and his face went a bright angry red before he roared, “What the fuck have you done?”
“Oh, dear,” I murmured, while Nicolette shifted closer to me and whimpered.
“Caulder, please try to be reasonable,” I started. “This is Nicolette’s body, and her—”
“Into the Blue Chambers,” he growled. “Now.”
Nicolette and I hurried to comply as if we were both in trouble.
“Someone get that damned High Cliff prince in here this instant,” he told one of his pages.
“Wait. Why do you want Urban?” Nicolette asked, whirling to blink in alarm, just as the man assigned with the task of fetching Urban said, “I believe he’s already out training with the soldiers this morning, Your Majesty.”
Caulder shot his sister a dark look before turning it on the page. “I didn’t ask where he was; I said to go get him.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty.”
As the runner raced off to do the king’s bidding, Caulder ran his hands through his hair, cursed under his breath, and began to pace the room.
I thought this would be a grand moment to remain silent and let him cool his temper, but Nicolette popped forward, wringing her hands. “Why did you send for Urban? You must know he had nothing to do with this. It was my decision completely. He isn’t even aware I had it done yet. Please don’t blame him, Caulder. He—”
“For a man you claim to be completely innocent, you’re certainly defending him an awful lot.”
