The Tears of the Rose

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Seeming as if he couldn’t help himself, the ground growing soft and warm beneath me, the scent of wood smoke and grapes in the air, the White Monk edged closer. Picking up a long tendril of my hair, he rolled it through his fingers.

  “You didn’t wound me,” he said, sand soft. “You’re right—it was all true. Of course you were angry at the insinuation that I would be your lover. It’s an absurd thought.”

  How did a person change? Maybe by doing things they wouldn’t normally do.

  “No, it’s not,” I told him. “That’s the thing. It’s not absurd at all.”

  My breath held tight in my chest. Happiness doesn’t grow thick on the ground. This might be my chance. If not now, when? We weren’t even in the Twelve Kingdoms, so it seemed that none of those rules applied. And I wanted this. Wanted to know how it felt to be with at least one other man. One who saw me as something more than a fragile prize to be protected. I’d been trying to seduce him, I realized, luring him in.

  And he said beauty didn’t count as a talent.

  He wound the lock of my hair around his finger, studying it as if it held all the answers. “You would take a criminal—a demon part-blood—to your bed?”

  “We’re not in a bed,” I answered lightly. My breasts felt tight and hot, my nipples pushing against the silk. I wanted him to touch me. Hard. I wanted to feel something again, some of that passion he thought I possessed.

  He laughed under his breath without humor. “That’s not really the point, is it? You and I both know I’m not fit to touch even this much of you.”

  “You touched me before, far more than this.”

  “That was different.”

  “You healed me—and slept for a day and a night to pay the price for it. I owe you.”

  “You were my ticket here. I think you realize now how I tricked you.”

  “And yet you’re willing to leave, to see me to safety.”

  “I might be a low-life criminal, but I’m not one to abandon my duty,” he growled. My skin warmed, heat pooling between my legs. I liked him this way, a little impatient and rough.

  I stretched my arms up over my head, letting my back arch, aware of how the movement drew his gaze, the air and ground thick with his wanting. With our intertwined desire. “I didn’t thank you, for healing me. What kind of boon can a poor princess offer a man like you for her rescue from dire straits?”

  He stilled, my hair wound so many times around his finger that I felt it pulling against my scalp. At last it was sinking in.

  “You can’t mean it,” he said, in a rough whisper.

  “It’s not as if you can get me pregnant.” This felt wild. Totally unlike me. Not the pretty princess. I wanted this. “Tonight, can’t I just be Ami? And you can be just . . .”

  I waited for him to fill in the space.

  “Ash.” The name fit neatly into the quiet spot.

  “Ash,” I repeated, tucking his name away like the gift it was. “Ash, I want you.”

  He groaned a little, lifting his eyes to my face. I waited while he lifted a hand and held it near my cheek. It hovered there, shaking a little. “I was wrong,” he gritted out. “You wield your beauty like the finest blade. So sharp you cut me to ribbons before I knew it.” Still without touching my skin, he drew his hand down my center, floating barely out of reach. I held still, praying for him to touch me.

  “You are so damn beautiful, Ami, looking at you is like staring into the sun. I’m afraid I’ll come away burned and blinded.”

  “Then close your eyes,” I urged him. “Don’t look. But, Ash, please. I want you.”

  He did close his eyes, shuddering, the musk from our desire wrapping around us like down-filled quilts. Then, in a quicksilver movement, he straddled me, pinning my wrists over my head, craggy face close to mine.

  “Last chance to back out.” He said it like a demand. My blood heated to boiling. This would happen.

  “I don’t want to back out.”

  His grip tightened on me. “It won’t be gentle. I’m no nobleman to courteously and reverently make love. If you don’t say no, I’m going to fuck you, Ami. Do you understand what I mean?”

  I shuddered, trembling with a lust so fierce I thought it might tear me apart if he didn’t do as he promised.

  “I understand.” I lifted my hips, brushing his hard member with my belly.

  He lowered his head, lips a breath from mine, my wrists still held in his implacable grip. I wanted to thrash against it but didn’t want to frighten him away.

  “Say it one more time,” he commanded. “Three is the magic number.”

  “Ash,” I breathed. “I want you.”

  His mouth clamped on mine, as if he devoured the words from my lips along with the breath that spoke them. The kiss crashed through me, breaking me apart, making me wild. Now I did writhe against him, opening my mouth and letting him plunder it as my fantasies had promised he’d do.

  Giving myself over, I cried and whimpered, urging him on by rubbing my body against him wherever I could. He pulled away from the kiss and I followed him, trying to chase the fiery feeling of his mouth. Nipping me on the lower lip, he told me to behave, then sat up, knees still straddling my hips.

  “Don’t move.” He released my wrists and I curled my fingers into fists to obey. Moving slowly—tortuously so—he trailed a finger down my throat and down over the silk, between my breasts. “From the first moment I saw you, I dreamed of this moment. They warned me that your beauty is like a drug. That once a man beholds you, he won’t think straight again. But I thought I’d be immune. No such luck.”

  “Is that why you hate me?” I whispered, my nipples so hard, so desperate for him to touch, that my head spun with it, as if I’d drunk too much wine.

  He was shaking his head. “I don’t hate you, Ami.” Winding his fingers in the silk of my shirt, he pulled the fabric tight. “I hated how much I wanted this.”

  His face contorted with a passion that rocked me to my core, he tore open the shirt. Involuntarily I cried out, my back bowing as the silk pulled me up, the moonlight revealing my naked breasts.

  With an incoherent groan, he cupped them in his big hands, the calluses rough on my tender skin. He handled me with rough strength, as I’d somehow known he would, the pleasure nearly painful, except that it transported me so. Unable to stay still, I clutched his shoulders, my fingers curling into the light shirt he’d worn under the leathers. He didn’t object, just slid his hands under my back to lift my breasts to his mouth. With hot swipes of his tongue and nipping bites, he covered every inch, as if starving for the taste of my skin.

  I reveled in it. My breasts had grown so taut, so sensitive and full to bursting lately, that this teasing torment only served to ease that tension. When his avid mouth fastened on my nipple and sucked hard, the lightning bolt bifurcated, shooting to my groin and mind at once, pouring out of my mouth in a scream of ecstasy.

  His hands dug into the muscles of my back, holding me while I thrashed in his arms, his lips and teeth clamped on my breast. The intense wave left me and he resumed licking and kissing, transferring attentions between my breasts, while my head draped down and the world turned upside down.

  “I need you naked,” he muttered, standing and drawing me to my feet. I stood on the velvet, lust-filled grass, swaying and bemused, while he stripped the silks from my body. The moon, nearly full, rose high and platinum bright. With greater care, Ash unwound the bandages from my thighs, then tossed those on top of the pile of my discarded, shredded clothing.

  Kneeling before me, he sat on his heels, eyes a dark gleam in the night, staring at me like a predator stalking a deer. Even with Hugh, I’d never stood fully naked this way. Self-conscious, I shrugged the cape of my long hair around me, the silky ends tickling my bottom and upper thighs.

  “No.” His tone crawled harsh over my skin, making the fine hairs stand on end. “I may have only this one chance. You gave yourself to me and I want it all. Gather your hair and hold it
on top of your head so I can see you.”

  A fine trembling took me, my skin both hot and chilled. Winding my hair into a loose bundle, I raised it the way he wanted, needing both hands to hold all of it. His breath shuddered in and out, in satisfaction and a kind of physical torment. He stood and walked around me, trailing a hand down my spine and then drifting over one globe of my bottom. I waited in a state of mindless anticipation, my skin singing to his least caress, the hot, aching flesh between my legs craving more, more, more.

  He dropped down in front of me again, knees wide, still fully dressed. Grasping my ankles, he moved my feet a little apart. Then he slid one hand up my calf, over the inside of my knee and up to my inner thigh. My breath came in little pants and I watched, riveted by the sight.

  Caressing the newly healed skin there, he flicked a sly glance up at me, teeth showing in a rare open grin that nevertheless looked more feral than joyful, he drew his finger higher, stopping only where my thighs met.

  “Is your skin sensitive here?” he asked in that gravelly whisper.

  I nodded, biting back a moan at his feathery strokes.

  “Maybe I should check. Spread your legs more, so I can see.”

  My face hot and nipples aching ferociously, I eased my thighs apart a bit more. He followed the gap with only the one finger, leaning in close, his breath hot on my skin.

  “More,” he demanded.

  Biting my lip against the terrible tension, I gave him what he wanted, the night air cool on the hot tissues of my sex. With excruciating slowness, he dragged the tip of his finger over the round of my thigh, skidding on the slick moisture that had wicked down.

  “What’s this?” Adding more fingers, he dabbled in the wetness. “Are you so hot for me, then? Already primed and ready for fucking, Ami?”

  Wildly embarrassed, I tried to close my thighs and pull away, dropping my hair.

  The hand between my legs clamped onto my slick thigh, preventing me, and his other hand held me from behind, a vise on my bottom. Rocking on my feet, I grabbed his shoulders to steady myself, to find him staring up at me, harsh face fierce in the moonlight.

  “No, you don’t. There’s no escaping me.” He flattened the hand between my thighs, using my own moisture to glide it back and forth, inching it up so the edge of his knuckle just brushed my slick nether lips. I moaned at the aching pleasure. “That’s it, my treasure, never be ashamed. This is a gift. No one else will see. I’ll protect you and pleasure you and it will be our secret. You can be anyone with me.”

  20

  The murmuring words flooded through me, opening doors I hadn’t known were closed. Or maybe I had known—and knowing it led me here. His hard hand pushed higher and I opened for him again, longing for more than the brushing, teasing tickles on my lips. I wanted—no, needed—more.

  “Harder,” I whispered, and he laughed that soundless, dry laugh.

  “It will be, Princess. Don’t you worry.” But his fingertips barely parted the lips of my womanhood, taunting me. I pushed down into his hand and he drew the touch away, tsking at me. “So impatient. All right, then. Lie back on the blanket.”

  With relief I did, holding up my arms to receive him. At last.

  He stood over me, looking and thinking. Or just looking. Then he kneeled down and straddled me on all fours, his loose shirttail brushing my belly, hands on either side of my head. With a sweetness he hadn’t shown before, he kissed me, slow and gentle, laving the sensitive insides of my lips with his tongue. I held on to his shirt, then tried to push it open, to feel his skin beneath. With an iron grip, he clamped my wrist and drew my hand away.

  “No.”

  “I want to touch you,” I protested.

  “Not a subject for debate. Stretch your arms over your head and keep them there or I’ll tie them that way.”

  Breathless, I obeyed, my blood hot, staring up at the sky, dense with stars except for the bright hole made by the moon. He crawled down my body, dropping kisses and little bites here and there, humming when I leapt to the caress. Reaching my feet, he took my ankles in his hands again.

  “Do you remember what I said to you in the stable?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “I’ve thought of doing nothing else since then.” He pushed my ankles apart, opening me to his gaze. I squirmed, vividly aware that he saw everything of me. More than even I had. He placed my feet on his shoulders, the muscles there firm against my arches. My breath nearly sobbed out of me.

  He feathered his fingers down my inner thighs and then cupped my bottom, lifting me to his mouth as he’d done with my breasts.

  Tension racked me, making me shudder. “I’m afraid,” I whimpered, though that wasn’t the right word.

  “Never be afraid of me.” The breath carrying his words fluttered over my exposed and sensitive flesh, and I clutched the grass above my head for some kind of anchor. He waited for me to calm myself. “Tell me you want this.”

  I nodded, only it was more of a thrashing of my head from side to side. My world was coming apart.

  “Not enough, Ami.” His bruising grip dug into my bottom, and he sounded angry. I knew, though, by the ravenous energy prickling up from the ground, that it was something else. “Tell me yes or I stop.”

  I was a glass vessel, overfull and ready to shatter. There was only one answer to give.

  “Yes.”

  And his mouth was on me. Hot. Hungry. Full of teeth and lips, tongue penetrating me. My hips bucked wildly and he held me tight, growling in his throat as he devoured me. The sky broke into kaleidoscoping colors, whirling and flashing in the backs of my eyes. My heart pounded, rattling against my ribs, and I cried out, a long wailing song of something beyond pleasure. Mind shattering, I broke apart, suspended in space, tethered to the world only by his hands and mouth.

  I didn’t think I’d fainted, but I became aware of him licking me, not ferocious as before, but with a gentleness that roused me, desire prickling up from my toes. My knees were draped over his shoulders, my hips pressed to the blanket as he pressed me down. He took the kernel of keenest pleasure between his teeth, flicking with his tongue, then sucking hard.

  Moaning a protest, I pushed against his head. He ignored me. The tension mounted more, making me shift restlessly. I wound my fingers in his curly hair, pulling. No longer sure which way I wanted to move him.

  “Hands,” he growled, “or I will tie them. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Chastened, I dropped my hands to my sides, clawing my fingers into the blanket. “Ash . . .” My throat scratched, swallowing his name. I cleared it and tried again, trying to keep the thought as his mouth worked me, driving me to that mindless plain. “Ash—I don’t think I can do any more.”

  He laughed, dry and breathless, and pressed a sloppy kiss on my inner thigh. “Oh, yes, you can. I’m not done with you, yet. Not by a long stretch.”

  Pushing my knees apart, he stared down at me, then slid a long, coarse finger inside, curling it up, so I convulsed, gasping. “Oh, yes,” he said, all smug male, “you have plenty left.” He added another finger, pumping them in and out of me, gaze on my face as the deeper pleasure took over. His thumb pressed down on the upper kernel and I thrashed at the double-layered sensation.

  I whimpered again, this time when he withdrew his hand, and he patted my flank. “Shh . . . only for a moment.” His clothing rustled; then he settled himself between my thighs, his manhood pressing against my opening. Bracing myself, I waited for him to thrust in. But he stopped there, just barely inside me, arms straight, holding himself above me. Unbidden, I remembered Hugh, how he’d done this, his skin warm against mine. With a pang of guilt, I missed him.

  “Look at me,” Ash urged.

  I opened my eyes, his face close above mine. He kissed me. Withdrew.

  “Is this how you did it before?” he asked.

  I nodded, uncertain what he meant. This wasn’t going how I’d expected. He still waited. “Isn’t there pretty much just one way to
do it?” I whispered, utterly self-conscious to be discussing it. How horribly naïve was I? I turned my face to the side, waiting for his laughter.

  Instead, he took my earlobe in his teeth and stroked the hard ridge of manhood against me, gliding easily against my slickness—and I moaned at the dual sensations, losing my embarrassment immediately.

  “I mean,” he murmured into my ear, “face to face this way.”

  “Oh!” The heat burned in my face. “Yes. Like this—Glorianna’s way.”

  Now he did laugh, a huff of breath across my cheek. “I have to know what you were thinking.”

  “Oh, no. I was only confused a little.”

  He settled his hips deeper, pressing barely into me and stopping, sweeping a long line of kisses down my throat. I lifted my hips, beseeching. But no.

  “I must know, Ami. You had such an odd look on your face. What did you think I meant?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I urged him. “Just do it.”

  “Like this?” He pressed into me and I caught my breath, waiting for the stroke inside me, but he pulled out again.

  “Oh, please!” I cried out before I knew it.

  “Then tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You trust me with this, but not your thoughts?”

  “I don’t have the words.”

  “Try,” he coaxed, sounding ever so amused. The playfulness, so unlike his usual demeanor, curlicued through his thick passion, shimmering streams of bubbles in wine.

  “After. Afterwards I’ll tell you.”

  “Now. Or you’ll try to squirm out of it.” He lowered his weight, pinning me down as if to illustrate. “Tell me, sweet Ami.”

  I closed my eyes, glad of the shadows that should hide my red face. “I thought that there was another way than the man putting his . . . part inside of my . . . area.”