Secrets Vol 1

by Hamre-Gaines-Landon-LeGendre

  He flicked his thumb over the nipple, and it grew hard, standing erect for him. A charge of pure pleasure shot through her, from the point of contact to her core. The restlessness started in her belly and below. Soon it would be a throbbing, and she would have to use her all the air she could fit into her lungs to beg him to take her. For now, his fingers trailed along her ribs to the flare of her hip.

  "And your thighs." He stroked the outside of her leg. "So soft, so warm. So vulnerable I'm tempted to nibble on them."

  His hand moved to the inside of her leg and slid up and down slowly. Up and down. Until the throbbing started and built.

  "I think I will nibble on you here," he murmured, his voice growing dark and husky. "I'll start here." He touched a spot just inside her knee-"And move along here." His fingers slid up her thigh. "Until I get here.

  He touched her at her most sensitive spot, where her legs came together, and her hips began to move. He rubbed her, and the plea-'

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  ssure grew into a hot flame, its center at her core.

  "Ah, yes. I like this part of you best. Your sex, so hot and sweet. So little, it's bound to grip me tightly. I swear I could come just thinking of it"

  "Take me," she whispered.

  "In a moment. First—while I still have some control—I'll do what— tI promised." He lowered himself to the mattress and slid his arms under her hips, lifting them and pulling them toward his mouth, Den-dra, he meant to do it, he meant to kiss her there. He pressed his lips to her inner thigh. Then he stroked her with his tongue and nipped at her with his teeth. Heavenly and gentle. Incendiary and irresistible. If he did that at the juncture of her thighs, at the center of her femininity, she'd splinter into so many fragments she'd never put herself back together. She'd die with the joy. ,

  But she didn't.

  He buried his nose into the curling hairs of her sex and breathed hotly on her. She gasped, and her hips rose, but she didn't die. He gripped her tightly, even though she moaned and tossed about. But she didn't die. When his lips closed over the throbbing nub and sucked, she was very much alive. She cried his name and dug her fingers into his hair, holding his face against her.

  "Thiele! Oh, Thiele. I'm going to...it's on me. I can't stop it."

  He rose above her, taking away the pressure. The caresses that had her ready to burst. She whimpered in disappointment and moved her hips again. Searching, searching for something to ease the ache.

  "Not yet, little one. I can take you still higher."

  "Now, please. Now."

  "Undress me."

  She took a shuddering breath and tried to slow her heart. The fire still raged in her loins, but she did as he asked, tugging the tails of his shirt out of his breeches, pulling the shalisse over his head, and tossing it to the floor. She reached to the buttons of his breeches and fumbled with them. Just under the ruckskin, his sex strained to be free. As she twisted first one button and then another, he moved his hardness against her hands. She curled her fingers over the thick

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  ridge of flesh, and he took a sharp inward breath.

  "Hurry, little one. I want to feel your fingers around me."

  The fury of his passion helped her bank her own need—to keep her own lust at the simmer, demanding and hot. Ready to run free the moment he could join her. She worked at the buttons more calmly now, savoring his every moan, his every movement. Finally, she had the ruckskin open, and she could reach inside and take his sex into her hands. It was heavy and swollen into an impossible hardness, smooth and hot. She curled her fingers around the shaft and stroked its length.

  He gritted his teeth in an expression of desire that approached pain. "Ah, Kareth...I never...ah, Kareth...stop now. You have to stop."

  She dropped her hands to her sides and looked up at him, waiting. She didn't have to wait long. He stripped out of the breeches, nearly ripping them at the seams in his haste. Then he parted her legs and positioned himself between them.

  She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. He moved his hips, and the tip of his sex touched her own. She jerked up to rub herself against him, and in an instant she was lost again. The fire, the hunger, the need came over her again, stealing her breath. The universe centered at the point where his hardness pressed against her throbbing. She dug her fingertips into his back and held on as he moved against her. She couldn't hold out much longer. She was going to shatter, any moment now. Just one more movement. Just one.

  She shifted, only a few inches, but enough to bring him to the entrance of her core. She took the tip of him inside her, and a shout tore from her chest. He thrust—deep, so deep inside her. She did die then, after only one thrust. She shuddered and convulsed. She grasped at him, over and over. Pulling at his manhood, milking him with her spasms.

  He held absolutely still as she floated back onto the coverlet, her hands still clutching his back. He bent his lips to her ear. "Was it good, little one?"

  She took a few gasping breaths. "Yes," she finally managed.

  "I nearly came, too. Feeling you around me like that was almost more than I could bear."

  She opened her eyes and found him smiling down at her. Not with

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  mockery but tenderly. "Truly?" she whispered.

  "Truly." He kissed her gently. "We'll just wait now until you're ready again."

  She moved her hips and felt him inside her—still so big and hard. "Now," she said.

  "Now?"

  She lifted her hips, sliding herself over the length of him. "Now."

  "Mercy, woman." He let out a strangled laugh and moved inside her. "I won't last."

  "Now," she said for a third time.

  He obeyed, pulling himself almost out of her and then surging forward to fill her. He did it again, growling as he did. Again and again, stretching her. The passion flared in her belly. The same inexorable climb to bliss.

  He thrust deeply now, savagely, out of control. She joined him in his hunger, reality slipping away until she was left with nothing but him—his breath in her hair, his back under her palms, his manhood inside her. She reached the precipice again and flew over, taking him with her. He shuddered in her arms, cried out in his release, and collapsed on top of her.

  She stroked his hair, raising the perfume of saar to her nostrils, and sighed.

  After a moment, he rolled onto his side and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her to him—her back to his front—and cradling her head in the crook of his elbow. "Ah, Kareth," he murmured into her ear. "You are a sorceress. I haven't felt like that since I was a lad whose breeches filled with lust at the mere thought of a woman."

  Not any woman, though—Kareth knew that. Only his lady Eria. She of the copper hair, the sapphire eyes, and the alabaster skin.

  'No," he said, as though contradicting her very thoughts. "I've never felt like that. Even with Eria."

  Then why did you continue to sneak into her bedroom after she was married?" Dendra, forgive her for asking that question, loaded with envy as it was. Already she was slipping from her faith. Lovemaking was one thing—the hideous emotion jealousy another.

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  Still, she lay holding her breath for his answer,

  "I didn't sneak into her bedroom."

  "But you said yesterday that Lord Rabal stabbed you as you were climbing out of her bedroom window."

  "He stabbed me not because I was in her room, but because I was escaping from it."

  "I don't understand."

  He pulled her closer and kissed her shoulder. "I was still welcome in my lady's bed. I was even expected to keep her occupied while Rabal toured the countryside inspecting his holdings and finding his own amusements. What I wasn't allowed to do was drug Eria and run away."

  "You did that?" she asked. "Even though you'd been happy with her?"

  "Content, not happy. Until she married that stupid oaf. The two of them deserved each other, so
I decided to leave them alone together." He smoothed a hand up her ribs and cupped her breast. "And I ended up here."

  His fingers played over her bosom, making nonsensical patterns on her skin. Now on one breast, now on the other, now in the valley between. What would have set her on fire only moments before now comforted—so quiet, so tender, so intimate. She sighed again and snuggled back against him.

  "How did you end up here?" he asked.

  "I came of my own choice," she answered, lying. The order had given her a choice between the desert, a mountaintop, and the forest. But the decision to use solitude to search out her heart and soul had not been a voluntary one. Jahn had been allowed to seek his own solution to what had happened between them, and he had chosen to stay with the people who loved him. No—adored him, worshipped him. All that had been left for her was to leave.

  "Who was he?" Thiele asked, reading her mind again. How did he do that?

  "Who?"

  He nuzzled her ear. "The man. You've been with a man before."

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  "A priestess of Dendra isn't required to be a virgin."

  "Who was he?" he repeated.

  "My teacher," she admitted. "We became involved."

  "And for that you had to be banished to the wilderness?"

  "I wasn't banished."

  "That's what this looks like."

  She stroked the back of his hand in silence for a moment. In the hearth a log split, sending out a hiss and shooting sparks up into the chimney. "I was very privileged to study with Jahn. He took only the best, most promising students. I took advantage of our closeness. I tempted him."

  "You tempt me," he said, hugging her ribs. "Where's the sin in that?"

  "It's not supposed to be that way between teacher and student." She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memories. Being with Jahn in his study—rapture on his face, twining her arms around his neck, their lips meeting. Then their bodies falling back together onto the thick carpets in front of the fire. "It's supposed to be a spiritual bond, the most important one of the student's life."

  "And who do you suppose is responsible for keeping the bond spiritual? The student or the teacher?"

  "You don't understand," she whispered.

  "Then explain it to me."

  "Jahn didn't normally take women as students. I had to beg him even to consider me. I felt that I could learn more from him than the others, and I so wanted to serve."

  "You served him well enough, I'm sure."

  She rolled over to face Thiele. "He wasn't like that. He was a great teacher. If I hadn't given in to my urges, if I hadn't pressed him so hard to love me, I could have found enlightenment through his teaching."

  Thiele stroked his thumb over her cheek. "He used you."

  "No."

  "Believe me, I know. I've been used my entire life. At least with churls and their masters, the using is done honestly."

  "Jahn loved me," she said, not looking Thiele in the eye but star-

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  ing at his chest. "He told me so."

  Thiele slipped a finger under her chin and raised her face to his. "Then why didn't he marry you?"

  "He had a wife," she whispered. "And children."

  "The bastard," he cursed softly.

  "You don't understand."

  "I understand this. He took your innocence, didn't he?"

  "I gave it freely."

  "He didn't push you away when he realized what was happening between you, did he? Send you to another teacher?"

  She lowered her gaze again.

  "I thought not," he muttered. "I'll wager he wasn't even much of a lover. Was he?"

  She looked back up at him. "How could you know that?" she gasped.

  "Oh, Kareth." He kissed her gently. "Men who don't care about women don't learn how to pleasure them."

  Dendra, yes, that made sense. The pain she had felt the first time with Jahn. How quickly he had finished each time after that. It hadn't been anything like what she'd shared this night with Thiele.

  "And so you were sent away where you couldn't do any harm to his reputation or his marriage," he continued. "And so he won't take any more female students. At least not until some young, earnest innocent begs him to. Then he'll do it—oh so reluctantly. He'll have his pleasure with her, and she'll end up here or somewhere worse."

  She rolled over, presenting him with her back. She couldn't contradict him, so she turned away from him. But he wouldn't let her get far. His arm snaked around her again, tugging her across the coverlet until she snuggled against him whether she wanted to or not.

  "It's not your fault, little one," he murmured into her ear. "The men in charge—the Rabals and the Jahns—they get what they want, and there's precious little you and I can do about it."

  "That sounds so hard."

  "It's true. All we can do is protect ourselves as best as we can." His fingers moved again to her breast, and her breath caught as he

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  toyed with the nipple. "And comfort each other."

  His hand dipped lower, over her ribs to her belly, pulling her firmly against him, against the hardness that pressed into her backside. Dendra, he was ready again, and she caught fire inside—wanting him instantly. He lifted her leg up and over him and entered her from behind. Then his fingers parted the petals of her sex and dipped between them to stroke her. She gasped and rocked against him and forgot all about the universe outside.

  ******************

  Cammite had two properties that made it of value. First, it took on the hues of other elements, combining them with its own particular luminescence to produce an astonishing range of colors. Second, despite cammite's porosity, or perhaps because of it, its alloys were possessed of a hardness such that only special cutters studded with ground-up gems could scratch the surface. Perfect material for gaudy jewelry and for churl's collars.

  Kareth had no special cutter and so had only her faith to remove Thiele's collar. Unfortunately, she didn't have his cooperation, and the afternoon had turned into a battle of wills. One that was rapidly getting out of her control.

  She glanced at him now where he stood by the window, tapping his foot against the floor boards. "Come sit back down," she said. "We'll try again."

  He looked over at her, and an eyebrow shot up. "That same gibberish? I'd rather not, thank you."

  "They're prayers," she corrected.

  "Gibberish," he muttered.

  "Gibberish or prayers, they won't do you any good standing over there," she snapped.

  He huffed and stood where he was for a moment. Then he crossed the room and sat back on the bed.

  She took his hands and curled her fingers around his, interweaving them over his collar. "Now, concentrate," she ordered for at least

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  the fifth time.

  He glared up at her, his eyes gone bright emerald with impatience. "This won't work."

  "Thiele..."

  "You don't want this to work."

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "If you get the collar off me, I can escape over the border. And you don't want me to leave."

  She took a deep breath and stared at him. Dendra forgive her, as much as she wanted to give him his freedom, she couldn't deny that she didn't want him to leave. In the past few days that he had spent with her, she'd had more touching from him, more tenderness, than she'd had in the whole rest of her life. She might have mistaken what went on between them for true love, if she hadn't known that such was his profession, what he'd been trained to do.

  "I'm doing my best," she answered, still holding tightly on to his fingers. "You might try to help me."

  "Help with what?" he grumbled. "I'm no magician."

  "Neither am I."

  "You said you knew magic,” he said.

  "I said I knew something of it. I can't recite some charm to remove your collar. I need your faith, too."

  He pushed her from him
and rose. Hands clenched in fists by his side, he strode away again—this time to the hearth—and then turned back to glower at her. "I have no faith."

  "But you must have faith."

  "In your Dendra?"

  "Not mine. The goddess belongs, to everyone."

  He snorted at that. "And so I thought, too, when I was a babe. Dendra would make everything right. If only I had faith in her. And where did my faith get me? Whoredom."

  "You're not a whore," she answered.

  "What would you call it?" he demanded. He rested his arm against the mantle and stared into the fire. "And the irony of it all, the merciless, crushing cruelty is that I made out better than the others. The ones

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  who worked the fields until their backs were permanently stooped. The ones in the mines, coughing out blood with their last breaths."

  "Dendra has nothing to do with that."

  He glared back at her. "Dendra has nothing to do with anything. She's a figment of your imagination."

  "No."

  "And a tool the masters use to keep their chattel under their control."

  "You must believe in something greater than yourself," she said. "You have to, or you're not fully alive."

  "I believe in magic," he answered. "I've seen that with my own eyes. I've seen Rabal's magician bend cammite rods with his bare hands, turn water into blood."

  "Mere tricks," she countered. "Magic without faith is a perversion of Dendra and the power she's given to all of us."

  He snorted again and turned away from her, back to the hearth. "She hasn't given me any power."

  "But she has. If only you'll look inside yourself to find it."

  He stood, staring into the fire, his fist clenching and unclenching over the mantel. "Get this collar off me," he said finally. "Please, Kareth."

  "I can't. Not by myself."

  He left the fireplace to come to stand beside her. He towered over her, enveloping her in his scent, his warmth. "I'll do whatever you want," he murmured into her ear. "I know how to satisfy you. In these days together I've learned how to make your body sing."

  "Thiele, don't."