by Betina Krahn
“Kiss me, Thera.” The sensual command of his tone sent a trill along her nerves. Orders usually flowed in the opposite direction . . . from her, not to her. She found the feeling of being compelled interesting and a little unsettling. After a moment, she reached up on her toes to wrap his neck with her arms and give him a full, sensuous kiss. “Ummm . . . very nice. Another please.”
This time, he drew her head toward him and met her lips and body with his. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her with such intensity that it left her breathless. The flow of passion between them resumed as if it had never been interrupted. In just a few kisses, her knees grew weak and her body pliant.
“Your clothes, Princess. Take them off for me. Now. Here.”
She felt a delicious tension rising in her. He ordered her to disrobe for him . . . to please him. The thought both shocked and titillated her. After a moment, with a bit of self-consciousness, she began to obey. Her surcoat, her sleeves and top laces went, and soon she was able to pull the long, loose-fitting tunic over her head. She paused, standing in her knee-length chemise . . . and he waved a hand to it.
“That as well. And slowly. I want to watch your body move.”
Ah, there was something powerful in this change of roles between them . . . something that made her hands tremble, her breasts harden, and her loins ache. And she made the odd discovery that to obey could be a very pleasurable thing as well. His voice came again, stroking her, invading her.
“Bring your clothes and spread them on the ground by my feet.”
She shivered and did as she was told, each movement exaggerated, as if in a dream. And when she had spread them and raised her eyes to him, she guessed what came next.
“Now lie down on them, Princess.”
Obediently, she sank onto her knees, then stretched out on the pale silken garments . . . expecting that he would join her. She lay half in moonlight, half in shadow, and when he didn’t move, she wondered if she should open her arms to him. Suddenly he stepped over her and seized two of the largest branches above him and began to shake them.
A shower of petals fell like snow all over her, shimmering in the moonlight. She cried out at the sight and feel of them . . . dusting her body and sliding down her sides . . . blanketing her with their feathery softness . . . as delicate as snowflakes but no strangers to warmth. They clung to her body and nestled in her hair, and still they came . . . a shower of tenderness . . . an exultation of love. And as the frantic motion of the branches stopped and the last petals floated down to caress her, he stepped into the moonlight, his eyes glowing like coals.
She watched him descend on her like a great snow cloud, dark and forbidding outside, but filled with the rarest and most delicate gifts inside.
“Soft to soft is drawn . . . nature’s softest satin for woman’s softest skin. You are my princess, my woman . . . and I’ll dress you always thus, in my mind.” He lowered his heated body to hers, crushing a thousand tiny petals between them. He ran his hands over her arms and shoulders and face, able to tell her skin from the blossoms only by its warmth.
The years of deprivation had finally ended for his starving heart, and now he kissed her hungrily, demanding the sustenance of her passions, craving a surfeit of her love.
“Open to me, Thera. Let me take you . . . more than just your body . . . your desires, your hopes, your dreams.”
She arched and moaned beneath him, her body suddenly feverish and seeking.
“Give me the riches of your heart as well as your passions. I want your trust, your faith . . .”
She tried to bring his lips back to hers, but he slid them to her throat, then to her breasts, and she groaned as his mouth found her.
“Give me the control you cling to like a savior . . . let it go . . . let me take you . . .”
She was on fire. His words were burning into her mind and heart . . . while her hips undulated beneath his and her woman’s heat rubbed against his swollen shaft, coaxing, imploring.
“I am your khamsin, Thera of Aric . . . the wind of your desires, the force of your destiny. Don’t be afraid. I will sweep you up and hold you in my heart forever. Surrender to me . . . let me take you . . .”
There was no more resistance in her. What he wanted, she wanted to give . . . all of her . . . even that most vital possession, her precious self-control.
A low, desperate cry rumbled up from her depths . . . half surrender, half entreaty. And when he drew back and joined their bodies, he felt her still and shiver, and heard the whisper echoing from her very soul.
“Yours . . . yours . . . I’m yours.”
And when they found release together, a breeze ruffled the trees overhead and the trees wept pearl-white petals, like tears of joy.
* * *
Lillith sat some distance away, on a boulder by the edge of the path, watching the place at the edge of the orchard where they had disappeared. She had seen their rumpled state and the way they walked hand in hand as they entered the trees, and now she heard Thera’s cry. She started and pushed halfway up, but Gasquar’s brawny hand captured hers from behind and restrained her.
“lt is a cry of pleasure, not pain, ma chatte,” he said, staring at the contrast of her fair skin and the thick, dark lashes that veiled her eyes from him. He had followed her out into the forest, then back to the orchard, where she kept her vigil as Thera’s countess. And as the night bloomed, the distant sounds and blurred glimpses of Saxxe’s and Thera’s pleasure had surrounded them in the moonlight, raising a thick tension between them.
He pulled her closer, staring into her dark eyes, making her feel his desire all around her. “You have never known such a cry, eh? You have never felt the lightning in your blood . . . never felt you were dying in a man’s arms.”
She raised her gaze with a flash of anger. She was beyond bearing even one more insult to her marriage or her passions . . . especially now that they were so tangibly aroused.
“You think not?” she said, jerking her wrist from him. But instead of retreating, she advanced on him around the boulder. “You are so sure I have never known passion. Well, I have known my share, Gasquar LeBruit.” She stalked toward him, her body taut, her eyes burning with long-suppressed fires.
“My good husband could not give me children, but he gave me much pleasure to make up for it.” She shoved his chest, catching him off guard and sending him reeling back a step. “He made me groan . . . he made me pant . . . he made me purr like a kitten.” She pushed him back another step and his eyes widened. “He made me writhe and shudder and howl like a vixen. We went three days once without leaving our bed . . . and when we finally did, every hound in Mercia was gathered outside our door.”
“Mon Dieu,” Gasquar breathed out. He had never seen her like this, hot, challenging, demanding. As she spoke he caught steamy glimpses of her doing exactly that . . . panting, groaning, purring . . . and his blood began to burn.
“But more important, he taught me that loving ought to be just that—loving. He taught me caring and consideration, and that quiet moments together can be as pleasurable as soaring cries of passion.” She gave him another shove, then another, and sent him back into the trees.
“You may have tasted pleasure in every province of every far-flung land on earth—you may know all about the sixteen love knots of the Hindu Kush, and the nine flowering ecstasies of the ancient Chaldeans, and the twelve steps of forbidden delight of the Temple of the Veiled Venus—” She pushed him one last time, and his back smacked against a tree trunk so that he was trapped. “But you know nothing at all of the depth and breadth of love, Gasquar LeBruit!”
That last searing blast vented the very core of her ire. Her chest was heaving and her body was trembling . . . with both anger and long-leashed desire. Gasquar had beguiled his way past her defenses to rouse her passions and heartfelt longings a way no man ever had. But for him, their encounters were a devilish game in which her passions were the prize. She wanted and needed more from him, but
even when he spoke of more, there was a wicked smile in his eyes that seemed to mock her most precious yearnings.
“What you say is true, ma chatte,” he said with a peculiar thickness in his voice. “I have not known that sweet joining of hearts and souls found in true love.” His dark eyes glistened in the shifting, dappled moonlight, and his face grew sober. “I have only known the great and terrible longing for it.” He swallowed hard, feeling his heart pounding and his arms twitching with tension the way they often did before battle. And he sensed that this was indeed a battle of sorts . . . perhaps his final stand in his quest for her heart.
“I have lain at the edge of battlefields, awaiting the dawn . . . and the fears that chased away my sleep . . . they were not of pain or even of dying. They were of ending life without having tasted its sweetest pleasures . . . a woman’s love, a bed of my own, and a son to rejoice in. And in the depths of those cold nights, I would pray upon the holy cross of my steel that I would not die in battle, so that I might yet find them.”
He paused and the silence came alive with tension between them.
“You could help me find them, Lillith Montaigne. And if you will not, then I am lost.” He steeled his nerve and raised a brawny hand to tap against his breast. “For there is no room left in my heart for another.”
Lillith felt as if everything in her was melting and sliding to her knees. Every word he spoke had gone straight to her heart. He wanted her . . . truly wanted her. She looked at that big, callused hand poised above his chest and suddenly wanted to fill it and the heart beneath it with all the passion and joy and love she possessed. Tears sprang into her eyes even as she broke into a radiant smile.
“Look no further, LeBruit,” she said, lifting his hand from his chest and placing it upon hers. “All you seek, and more, is here.”
He blinked . . . started as the meaning of her words struck . . . then lifted his head and gave a triumphant shout of laughter. “Lillith—coeur de mon coeur—” His arms swooped around her and he crushed her to him, as if he could absorb her into him with the sheer force of his embrace.
His wild explosion of joy echoed through her own heart and sent her blood racing through her veins. And after so long a wait, after so much wasted heat, she was not content to let another precious moment pass without tasting the passion promised between them. She lifted her mouth to his and felt a warm, spiraling rise of excitement. Loving, this would indeed be loving.
They sank to their knees in the sweet spring grass beneath the trees, shedding garments in a flurry of hands and kisses and murmurs of delight and discovery. He was thick and hard and sinewy, as she knew he must be . . . but he was also ticklish in places and deliciously slow in his lovemaking. She was curvy and delectably voluptuous, exactly as he had hoped . . . but she was also surprising strong and unexpectedly adventuresome.
They loved long and well, varying the rhythms of their joining, each searching out the special sensations that most pleased the other. And when the time had come, he sent her tumbling over the brink of release first . . . into deep, engulfing pleasure. And it was only when he had fully savored her response that he took his own release.
Afterward, as they lay together in the fragrant night breeze, she ran a finger down the bridge of his nose with a sleepy smile. “I only want to know one thing, Gasquar, and I will never ask again.” He nodded indulgently. “How many women did you really vanquish in the caliph’s harem?” He laughed.
“I will tell you, ma chatte, but only after you tell me . . . I have heard of the Hindu Kush, and have sampled the Veiled Venus on occasion . . . but what in holy Heaven are these ‘nine flowering ecstasies of the ancient Chaldeans’”?
She laughed from deep in her throat and snuggled against him. “I doubt mere words can do the old Chaldeans justice. But if you’re very, very good . . . after our seventh night, I’ll show you.”
* * *
In the quiet darkness, Thera lay in the shelter of Saxxe’s body, weeping softly, her senses stripped bare by the storm of their impassioned loving. She had lost all control.... As the turmoil in her blood quieted and a feeling of peace spread through her, she understood that she had not lost it at all . . . she had given it to Saxxe. She had surrendered irrevocably to his loving, his sensual power. Her khamsin, he had whispered, and it was true. He was her destiny. Now as she lay in the hard circle of his arms, she felt the rightness of it seeping through her.
He let her cry for a while, then, as her trembling stopped, he stroked her face and finally lifted it so he could look at her. “It wasn’t so bad as you thought, eh? The Seventh Pleasure.”
“W-what seventh pleasure?” she asked, taking a shuddering breath.
“The Sixth Pleasure is control. The seventh is surrender.” The intensity of his gaze arrested her as she shivered and sat up, searching his odd expression. Her heart beat faster and her mind began to race as he fixed her with his devastating eyes. “You experienced control in our loving . . . an easy and enjoyable thing for you. But there is also a time and a place for surrendering control to another. And tonight you tasted how sweet, how freeing, surrender can be. Do you understand now?”
She jerked away with her eyes widening, but he pulled her back to him. “Nay—please—” She was too open, too vulnerable.
“Listen to me, Thera. Hear me out. You take it all on yourself . . . your people’s lives, their welfare, and their destiny. But no one, not kings, not emperors, not even sages, can control their own fate . . . not even the Lord himself could control his destiny. You cannot face everything, do everything, manage everything for your people anymore.” He touched her face. “And you don’t have to. I’m here with you now . . . and I always will be.”
That quiet assurance settled like oil over the troubled waters of her heart, allowing his other words to penetrate her emotions. For the first time in her life, she truly felt that she was not alone. She had Saxxe. He was her mate, her counterpart, in a way no one else could ever be.
She closed her eyes and felt again the sweet exhilaration of those last shattering moments of their loving. She had given herself up to him, ripped free of all moorings and constraints, and spread her soul on the powerful winds of his love. And when the storm of loving was past, he gently set her down in the very same place, in her kingdom, in her woman self, in her lover’s arms. And she had felt whole and at peace in a way she had never known.
Surrender. The deepest dread of her princess heart, the fear of losing control, suddenly vanished like a vapor. She felt as if a huge burden she hadn’t realized she carried had been lifted from her heart.
She turned to Saxxe, smiling through new tears. “I suppose it isn’t fatal, after all . . . giving up control.”
“Nay . . . not fatal.” He grinned and his whole countenance radiated joy as he celebrated with a kiss. She had learned!
“I might not be very good at it . . . don’t expect too much at first,” she whispered when she dragged her mouth from his.
“Quite the contrary, my little cat,” he said with lusty approval. “From what I witnessed not long ago, you show considerable promise.” He laughed. “And I am more than willing to help you practice.”
* * *
The citizens of Mercia were stirring from their beds that morning when Saxxe and Thera strolled through the city, headed for the palace, hand in hand. Saxxe was shirtless again and Thera’s hair was down, and her gown was grass stained and littered with bits of old leaves. They looked tousled and sated and shamelessly in love.
Not long after they passed, Lillith and Gasquar appeared. Where the people had peeked discreetly through their shutters and allowed Thera and Saxxe some privacy as they walked by, they swarmed around Lillith and Gasquar, demanding to know if Lillith had counted yet another night. She lifted her chin and pressed on through the throng, refusing to satisfy their curiosity. But Gasquar’s lusty grin and waggling brows hinted at the answer.
The people of Mercia didn’t have to wait for word from the palace
this time; they had seen for themselves the way of things. Saxxe Rouen was now six-sevenths king.
All over the city, men began to plan what events they would enter in the sporting contests, women dragged their embroidered finery from trunks, and victualers and merchants alike braced for the demand for banquet fare and new garments, in anticipation of a splendid celebration.
The commotion reached the palace as first one elder, then another, arrived in the council chamber, breathless and wide-eyed with the news. When they were all assembled, they sent for the countess and demanded an official report. Lillith managed a little smile as she raised six fingers.
Cedric sprang up, beaming, and clasped hands joyfully with everyone around him, Hubert and old Fenwick locked arms and did a little dance of joy, and Elder Audra had to be revived with whiffs of strong vinegar.
Chapter Twenty
The day was clear and warm, the mood of the city festive, and the urgent heat in his blood had been spent in the night just past . . . but something was not right with Saxxe. Something gnawed at the edges of his awareness as he went about the city surveying it from a military standpoint. It wasn’t until he stood before one of the large stone granaries at midday, staring at Castor and the stout wooden door he guarded, that he realized what it was. He scowled and turned to Gasquar.
“There is something about our visitor that is oddly familiar. And yet, I cannot put him in a time or place.”
“I have been thinking the same thing, mon ami,” Gasquar said, nodding. “Perhaps we should question him again, eh? Without others to object.”
When they dragged their prisoner onto his knees in the dim light, he squinted and growled and tried to wrestle away. “Who are you? What are you doing in Mercia?” Gasquar demanded as they applied a bit of pressure to his bound arms. The prisoner’s long night in the pitch-black prison and the threat of forceful persuasion apparently made him review his loyalties.
