Mariner's Luck
Page 17
“Shh, trust me for a moment,” Liall said, and straddled Scarlet’s body with his knees. “All you have to do is order me to stop.”
Scarlet nearly pulled away when Liall put the silken scrap over his eyes, on the verge of panic. He did trust Liall, or at least, he did in this. If he hesitated when they were alone, it was not lack of trust, but the fact that Liall himself could be almost overwhelming. I do trust him, he thought. I do.
Liall tied the silk around Scarlet’s eyes before gently tucking his black hair back to suckle on the spot beneath his ear. It was amazing what sensations Liall could produce on parts of him that he had not expected to be sensitive. Without sight, it felt even more intense, and Scarlet jumped when cool fingers skimmed over his bare shoulder.
“Relax. You know I would not hurt you,” Liall murmured. His voice was warm and lulling. “You know this.”
Scarlet took a deep breath and nodded. “I know it.” It was strange, not seeing, only feeling. He was conscious of the caress of fur, of the warmth of Liall’s breath on the curve of his neck, the heat of skin against skin. He turned his head blindly, seeking Liall’s mouth, and was rewarded with a luxurious kiss, Liall’s tongue teasing his own.
Scarlet reached to embrace him. Liall took his hand and held it. “No. Not unless you can tell me yourself what you want. What do you want me to do?”
Scarlet opened his mouth to complain, but Liall kissed him again until the words had flown away. Liall then fitted his hands around Scarlet’s waist and shifted Scarlet up higher on the pillows.
Scarlet was disoriented with the blindfold, but Liall guided him, his touch gentle, and Scarlet sank back against softness. He tried to reach for Liall again, and Liall took his wrist and kissed the inside of it, touching a wet tongue to the pulse there. Scarlet squirmed, and Liall stretched Scarlet’s arm out, up over his head, and looped something soft around his wrist, binding it.
Suddenly alarmed, Scarlet tried to sit up, but Liall kissed his mouth gently before forcibly pushing his shoulders back to the cushions.
“Now, this is how it is,” Liall’s deep voice rumbled into his ear, passionate and thick. “You must not free yourself. If you cannot bear it, then you must tell me and I will free you. I will do nothing that you do not command me to do.” His mouth was very close to Scarlet’s ear. “You think you are not in control. You are very wrong about that. I have been bound to you since we met.”
Scarlet took in one shaking breath, and then another while Liall stroked his hair, thinking it over. Finally, he nodded.
“Yes? Good. Very good. I will bind your other hand now.”
Oh, Deva, why did that frighten him so?
Liall stretched out Scarlet’s other arm the same way, and he felt soft fabric—velvet?—looped around his wrist. When Liall drew back, Scarlet tested the bonds briefly, tugging against them, before he forced himself to stop.
“You are so beautiful,” Liall whispered, and stretched out beside him. Scarlet’s arousal had flagged, but Liall kissed him long and slowly until he was arching against the other man, wanting more.
“I want your hands on me,” Scarlet gasped. “I want to feel your weight over me.” Liall’s lips moved to his throat. He suckled at the hollow and plied his teeth to lines of Scarlet’s jaw and throat until Scarlet longed to break free and wrap his body around Liall.
Liall’s tongue lapped against his collarbone, and Liall shifted to straddle him, just below his hips. Scarlet groaned and had to bite his lip to stop from speaking, for Liall’s weight across his thighs was too low to give him any relief.
Liall tasted him, licking down his chest. When Liall’s teeth tugged gently on a nipple, Scarlet cried out and tried to push up against him, but Liall would not permit it.
“Please...” Scarlet moaned, hating the sound of his pleading voice, but not being able to stop.
“Please what?” Liall asked reprovingly, and his weight lifted.
Scarlet bit his lip, but his skin now felt cold where Liall had been. He felt Liall rise from the bed. Straining to listen, he heard only the clink of metal on metal and tensed. Scarlet jumped when Liall drew near, unheard, and touched him.
“Ah, love,” Liall said and stroked his hair. He was standing beside the bed. “If you cannot trust me, you must command me to free you.”
Scarlet thought long and hard. In the interim, Liall sighed deeply and began to fumble with the knots at Scarlet’s wrist.
Scarlet made a sound of dissent, jerking his bound hands away, and Liall stilled. He heard Liall’s measured breath close to him. “What is it you wish?”
Scarlet let out a shuddering sigh. “I want you to kiss me. I want to feel your body on mine, your mouth on me.”
Immediately, Liall’s weight sank down on the bed beside him.
“Yes,” Scarlet murmured. Liall’s hand learned Scarlet’s face, mapping it as if Liall were the one deprived of sight. Liall rested his cheek against Scarlet’s chest, and Scarlet felt the warm touch of a tongue on his nipple.
“You taste so good,” Liall murmured, licking, and then switched his mouth to the other one. “I could devour you, so sweet is your skin.” His fingers pinched and rolled the neglected nipple as he sucked and lapped at Scarlet’s chest, until Scarlet was writhing on the bed and straining against his bonds. Liall stopped abruptly and his hands drifted down Scarlet’s torso. Scarlet shivered at the ticklish touches to his belly as Liall bowed his head to scatter light kisses around the navel. Scarlet gasped and jerked when he felt Liall’s fingers curling around his hard length, and then Liall planted a kiss on the crown.
His voice was broken. “Please...”
Liall did not chide him again for begging, but lazily curled his tongue around the head of Scarlet’s member and sucked lightly.
Scarlet thought he might faint. He made a strangled sound of pleasure, dizzy with sensation.
“You want this?”
“Yes.”
Scarlet had seen slaves offered for sale in Morturii perform such acts, and it had seemed an ugly sight to him then. But oh, he never imagined it was a thing of such pleasure! How could he have known? Liall’s tongue was fire. It was ice and flame and slick, soft, delicious suction empowered with the ability to lure every nerve in his body straight to his groin.
He could happily die like this.
Scarlet’s body was drawn tight as a bowstring, his legs parted wide as he strove to push deeper into the incredible heat of Liall’s mouth, but after a short time—too short! Oh Deva, don’t stop, don’t ever stop that!—Liall pulled away.
Scarlet groaned in mournful protest and Liall raised up to silence the sound, his hot tongue thrusting deep. Scarlet suckled on it, and Liall drew back a little. Scarlet could feel Liall’s smile in the curve of his lips as they kissed. Liall’s leather necklace, with its two cheap Byzan coins, brushed against Scarlet’s throat, and it reminded him so much of all they had been through together that he moaned again and nipped at Liall’s lip.
“Please... more.”
“Not so quickly,” Liall whispered, taking another kiss. “I want to make this last.”
Liall got up and Scarlet heard him extinguish a few of the blue lamps, then the warm, naked length of Liall’s body covered him. Scarlet pushed up with his hips, seeking to bury himself in skin, and Liall made a rumbling noise deep in his throat that sent a curl of fire down Scarlet’s spine.
Liall’s hands roamed. His mouth and tongue rooted out every pleasurable spot on Scarlet’s body—some he had not even imagined could be pleasurable!—and Scarlet knew no more coherent thoughts. Liall learned his lover’s shape so thoroughly that Scarlet thought he might be committing it to memory.
“T’aishka, what shall I do now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how, or what....” Scarlet panted. His head thrashed from side to side.
“Do you want me to go further?”
“Please. I want you to do whatever you want. I just want you. I want you, please...”
Scarlet could see Liall at last: his expression of careful urgency, and how gently Liall sought to breach that entrance. Scarlet tried not to cry out as Liall continued in his delicate and deliberate conquest, but it was too much, and eventually Scarlet was shuddering and moaning steadily. Liall would freeze at each keen and gasp, but only for a moment as he coaxed Scarlet’s body to gladly submit, feeding the fire in Scarlet’s bones until the younger man was panting and arching up to him, pliant and hot. Then, like a prince taking a rival country, Liall would advance again, pushing closer to his goal.
One final stride, and Scarlet’s last sharp, shocked cry was muffled against Liall’s amber throat as their hips met and Liall let out a tortured groan, moving sinuously inside him.
He’s not a wolf, he’s a snake, a serpent. Scarlet’s mind babbled on as Liall’s body coiled and uncoiled fluid as a leopard, piercing impossibly deep.
Liall rolled his hips and lifted Scarlet, pushing in at an angle that made sparks flare in Scarlet’s brain. Scarlet shouted as his body hurled onward, oblivious to who might hear, uncaring. He felt like he was dying, or living more completely than he had imagined possible.
The lamps had burned down to a blue fireflies, and Liall, his face dripping with sweat, looked down on Scarlet with wide, wondering eyes before a violent shudder seized his frame and wracked him dry, and he called out helplessly in strange, flowing words that sank liquid into the scented air.
9.
Forgive
Scarlet was cuddled up to Liall’s chest, belly to belly and naked as the moon, his hair smelling musky and sweet with Rshani soap. Gods, but I hate to get out of bed this morning, Liall thought.
He wanted to wake the young man with touch, to ply his lips to that ivory skin until Scarlet shuddered and woke and begged him for more. And last night...
Liall smiled and clasped the memory to him, happier than he thought possible. Beside him, Scarlet mumbled and his hips moved, brushing their bodies together, and Liall could feel Scarlet was hard in his sleep, silky erection brushing his thigh. His own greedy sex stirred in response. Oh, that will not do, not at all. If he did not move at once he would never get out of bed. Very gently, Liall disentangled himself from Scarlet’s arms and swung his long legs over the side of the high bed.
The Queen had said there would be an opportunity to speak directly to the Baron of Maekva that morning about Cestimir’s succession, and Liall could not afford to miss even one chance. Nadiushka insisted that Cestimir, not Vladei, must inherit the throne of Rshan, and Liall had been away from Rshan too long to trust his own judgment on the matter. His mother, on the other hand, had ruled the continent for sixty-three years in his absence. Surely she knew what was best?
Liall drew on a robe and padded into the antechamber, buried in thought. The meeting was only one of the dozen things he had pressing on him that morning. Another, more isolated issue was the tangle of Scarlet. The Rshani crew on the Ostre Sul had been bad enough, but at least their dislike of Scarlet had been simple. Hate can take many forms. There were those in the palace who would detest Scarlet and wish to harm him because Liall was his lover, or because he was a foreigner and not noble-born, or simply because he was beautiful. There were subtler motivations, too. If Scarlet were harmed, Liall would perhaps be distracted from his purpose, or less dedicated to it in his effort to protect his love. If Scarlet were killed, that, too, would be a warning to Liall. So many dangers to keep watch for.
I should not have allowed him to come, Liall berated himself for the thousandth time. If something terrible happens, I will be to blame.
But oh... last night! Once more, Liall let the memory take him: how Scarlet had been hard and silky against Liall’s tongue, the taste of seed flooding his mouth, how the younger man’s body had yielded at last, after much careful coaxing, and allowed Liall to penetrate him. The joy of that moment was almost enough to make Liall turn around, march back into the bedroom, and wake him to start over again.
Shall I stop?
Liall had said those words to Scarlet gently, the words sticking in his throat, praying that he would not have to. He wanted Scarlet so much, he nearly shot the first moment he attempted to press inside, which would have spoiled everything. And then Scarlet had sucked on Liall’s tongue and spread his legs, so eager and hot and loving and gods, he was rising just thinking about it.
They had been lovers in many ways since they first met, and Liall’s heart had been lost to Scarlet since the moment he saw the proud red-coat. No, amend that: since Scarlet spoke, and Liall heard something in the young, willful voice that begged an answer of him. Scarlet’s fiery spirit stirred a dormant soul that Liall had put to sleep decades ago. Just being near Scarlet made it painfully obvious to Liall that he was incomplete, and finally his own iron will rose up, demanding that he wake and reclaim his life.
Now Liall was like a drunkard, besotted by the feel of Scarlet, forever touching and kissing and holding, barely able to keep his hands to himself. He hoped Scarlet did not tire of it and begin to think him overly lecherous, for Scarlet’s opinion of him seemed to be a fey thing at times, apt to change quickly, and it mattered very much to Liall that Scarlet thought well of him. There was not a person in all of Nemerl whose estimation meant more, in Liall’s eyes.
Liall’s clothes were laid out in the dressing room next to the bath. Thoughtful Nenos had seen to it. He dressed swiftly and slipped into the formal salon nearer the dining room. It was quiet, only the crackle of the fire and the soft hiss of snow on the window behind the heavy, closed draperies.
“Nenos?” Liall called softly. He opened the door between the kitchen and the partitioned dining area, and he saw the old man standing at a counter with his back turned, brewing a pot of che.
“Here, my prince.” Nenos’s shock of unruly white hair was like a pale nimbus surrounding his head. His skin was a darker brown than Liall’s, and he had many creases and merry laugh-lines framing his bright blue eyes. He had a hawkish nose and his jowls were lined with age, but his expression was gentle.
Liall smiled. “And good morning to you, ser.”
Nenos flapped a wrinkled hand at him. “None of that with me, my prince. I’m your servant, not your ser, and I always will be.” He turned with a round blue cup of steaming che cradled in his hands. “Here. Drink. You’ll need it.”
Liall thanked him and drank, enjoying the quiet. “I have much to do today,” he said at last. “I cannot be here shut away in a room, and so,” he gestured back toward the bedroom where Scarlet was still sleeping, “I must entrust you with a jewel of mine, old friend.”
“Oh, dear me. Is that so?” Nenos poured himself a cup. “And this jewel is a troublesome one?”
“Your aged eyes discern much,” Liall returned drolly. “Yes, stubborn and willful, with a tendency to wander.”
Nenos spared Liall a quick look as he sipped his che. “I shall lock the troublesome jewel in his chambers if I have to, though I do not think he will have much energy to cause mischief this morning. Not after last night.”
Liall was horrified to feel a blush creeping across his cheeks. Nenos had heard them. Of course. Half the Nauhinir probably heard them. Liall ducked his head. “If your sleep was disturbed, I...”
Nenos chuckled.
“It is all very well for you to tease. You have had a wife for ninety years.”
“Ninety-two.”
“Pardon me.”
They grinned at each other and drank their che.
“You know,” Nenos continued as he stacked the che utensils in the basin, to be carried away with the other dishes to the great kitchens below in the palace. “I have had much experience with willful
young men who don’t know how to stay put.” His old eyes met Liall’s for a moment, and there was a mist over his gaze. “I do not think I have said how good it is to see you again, Nazheradei.”
Liall bowed his head over his cup. “I did not mean to abandon so many. I had no choice. You know that.”
Nenos quickly looked away to hide any emotion. “Your che is getting cold,” he said gruffly. Liall took another sip. It was stronger than most Byzan blends. He had missed it, and Nenos.
Probably one of the few people he would ever miss from Rshan. “You never did find me that day,” Liall said suddenly, a hint of a teasing smile on his lips.
The old man huffed in amusement. “I would never have found you the next time either, if Nadei hadn’t...” Nenos trailed off, his face falling into lines of sorrow. “Forgive me, my prince. It was an accident. I did not mean to speak of him.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” The cup was clenched hard in Liall’s hands. Liall put it in the basin before he broke it, mindful of Nenos’s regretful expression. “Thank you for the che,” he murmured, before leaving the kitchen and pulling the door closed softly.
Liall could have walked through the Nauhinir and gotten to the Queen’s tier faster, but his nerves were raw. He did not feel like ignoring stares or pretending to ignore them in the palace corridors, and there would be many today. Exiting the palace through the enclosed north gardens, he turned east toward the stables, passing the Shining Tower, where the death knell tolled for fallen kings and one day would toll for his mother. From there, he planned to cut back through the greenhouse and thence the kitchen and into the stairs, where he was unlikely to cross paths with anyone this time of day. His assumption was that there had been no structural changes to the palace in the last sixty years, and in this, he was correct.
The stables smelled of dung, sweet hay, sawdust and healthy, well-tended animals. A few soldiers milled about, and there were guards and grooms as well, but they were busy at their own tasks. After the first disbelieving stares and whispers, they spared Liall little attention. Walking briskly through the vast, vaulted building, he spied in a line of tethered horses a blue-black stallion that was a hand higher than the rest. The mount was caparisoned in silver with a bridle made of strong blue silk, tough as leather. Liall stopped and ran his hand through the mount’s thick mane, marveling at the softness. The stallion whinnied and gave Liall a knowing look from his dark, wet eyes, and a bolt of recognition hit the prince.