“Right! Comparatively speaking, they are big I’ll have you to know!”
“Mmmm? Comparative?”
“To the rest of me.”
He released her breasts and stroked both hands down her belly, measuring her hips with his hands and then her waist. Knowing what he was up to, she caught his fingers and tried to push them away. He rotated his hands and captured hers, lifting her arms above her head and twirling her around to face him. “You are right,” he said when he’d pressed her back against the wall of the shower. “Most definitely.”
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” she asked, feeling a sinking sensation as she thought about the portrait of the woman in the other room. People, in general, had a preference for certain ‘types’, she knew--she did. Everybody she knew did. It didn’t matter how many relationships they had, they were always drawn to the same things. For most people that was particular age groups, or body types, skin and hair coloring--and definitely particular personality types and no one caught their interest for long if they didn’t match any of those preferences.
It would’ve been depressing if she’d discovered she was a lot like his wife, but somehow it was worse to realize she was nothing like the woman that had meant so much to him.
Because she knew that meant she had a very limited ‘shelf’ life. People liked ‘novelties’, but those things were only briefly entertaining. Mostly, they liked the comfort of familiarity--and they always went back to it. Always.
Maybe he was intrigued that she was small, and maybe not. She couldn’t even count on that considering she knew his taste ran to tall, slender, and classically beautiful.
Very likely he was just interested because she wasn’t Mrs. Higgenbottom and she was handy.
And she didn’t care. Everything about him made her hungry.
Releasing her wrists, he caught her waist and lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and looped her arms around his shoulders as he pressed closer to suck at her throat. “Mmm,” he murmured lazily. “I will admit it makes navigation somewhat tricky--there are definite setbacks--but I believe I am enjoying the challenge.”
“You are?” she asked hopefully.
“I are.”
She chuckled. “What are the setbacks?”
“Navigation,” he murmured, laughter threading his voice. “There was a moment of panic when you disappeared beneath me and I thought I might not find the … uh … hole.”
She gurgled with laughter. “I didn’t notice you having any trouble.”
“That, sweeting, is because my soldier has an unerring eye and a penchant for exploring damp little caves. I had forgotten he had a nose for these things and did not need my help to find his way.”
Chapter Eleven
There was a large tray filled with covered dishes waiting on the cabinet beside the bed when they emerged from the bathroom. Raina was mildly embarrassed, wondering if Higgenbottom had heard her ‘yodeling’ in the shower.
If the woman was as familiar with Simon as he claimed, though, it probably wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before.
Which still didn’t make her a lot more comfortable.
Oh the woman would probably relish having her prejudice confirmed! She’d already all but called her a whore.
Not that Raina cared what she thought--what any of them thought!
Alright, she did, a little. She cared more than a little about what Audric might think about it, but she wasn’t going to allow that to cut up her peace or ruin her enjoyment. Her ‘god’ had deigned to bestow his favors upon her and she meant to enjoy it to the fullest as long as she could.
He was gorgeous. He kept her far too occupied that first night to give her much of a chance for her own explorations, but as they lazed away the following day, she had the opportunity to examine him thoroughly with both her eyes and her hands … and her mouth. He was hard and muscular all over. Even his legs, though somewhat leaner, were well developed.
She was almost surprised. Even though she’d seen that Audric was very well built, it still came as a surprise that Simon was so well built and so pleasingly proportioned. Very tall men rarely seemed to be in her judgment. They tended to have a ‘stretched out’ look--arms and legs that were too long for the body, or a body that seemed too long for the arms and legs, usually the latter.
Not that she was terribly familiar with tall men. She had dated a couple that were nearly six feet tall, but both of them had been long and lanky, not muscular. Mostly, her comfort range was men who, like her, fell into the under average height range.
They had luncheon in bed. Still naked and oddly comfortable with it, Raina sat cross legged with her back against the headboard of the bed. Simon sprawled on his side, cross ways the foot of the bed, his long black hair loose and flowing about his shoulders like some pagan king. The tray lay between them. Trying not to be too obvious about her interest, Raina nibbled at her food and allowed her gaze to wander over him.
Simon didn’t bother trying not to be obvious as he studied her assets. “Tell me about your family,” he said finally, with the air of someone demanding to be entertained.
Raina met his gaze briefly. “That wouldn’t take long,” she said wryly, reluctant to dwell on her sordid little life. She supposed she would’ve been anyway, but Simon’s opinion of her mattered--a lot. She doubted it was any secret to him that she was a nobody. Her granny had always staunchly maintained that they were a good middle class family, but the unhappy truth was that everyone else considered them white trash because they were dirt poor. “Why do want to know?”
He studied her a long moment, frowning as he looked down at the tray, but she didn’t think it was because he was trying to decide what he wanted off of it. He was accustomed to getting what he wanted. He didn’t like it when anyone balked at any request he made. “Why do you not want to tell me?”
Raina shrugged. “It’s just that there isn’t anything to tell.”
He fixed her with an intent look. “You told Audric.”
She frowned, irritated that he’d overheard. “Because Audric can’t understand half of what I say to him. And it wouldn’t bother him anyway.”
“But it would me?”
Raina released a heavy sigh, wishing abruptly that she hadn’t made an issue of it. She reached for a handful of grapes. “My father split--no clue of where he is. My mother’s dead … and my granny. My little brother’s in prison for armed robbery and my little sister died of a drug overdose about three years ago. At least, that’s the story the cops told. Her friends,” she made the air quote with her fingers, “said her pimp gave her some bad shit because he was pissed off with her,” she finished, relishing having made it sound as sordid as possible, though there actually wasn’t any way to ‘clean it up’ without telling outright lies--like she had told Audric. She hadn’t actually wanted to talk about her fucked up family, though. She didn’t like to think about the possibility that things might have turned out differently for her brother and sister if she hadn’t run off.
He said nothing for several moments. “I am sorry.”
Raina shrugged. “That’s life. It sucks and then you die,” she said flippantly.
“You were sixteen when you left your home?” he prompted after a moment.
“Mmm,” Raina said noncommittally, trying to ease the defensive tension from her shoulders. “Almost. The first few years were pretty rough, but it’s practically been smooth sailing since.” She popped the last grape into her mouth. “I think that’s the only time in my life my size was actually an asset … mostly, anyway, though, come to think of it I suppose it might have had something to do with me being so stunted. I mean, granny wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t as short as me. I can’t really remember mama, though. Maybe I got it from her--my height, I mean.”
He lifted one dark brow questioningly.
She smiled wryly. “I could get into places nobody else could. It helped when I needed to hide. And I got very good at climbing. It’s been
a real pain in the ass since then, though. I’m too short for just about everything I really want to do--because, I suppose, I’m contrary and want to do everything I can’t.”
“Such as?”
She waved her hand airily. “Oh, the list goes on and on. You’d wouldn’t believe the jobs that have minimum height requirements--safety issues mostly. I went all the way through the course on truck driving, got my CDL and everything, and then nobody wanted to hire me.” She shrugged. “I could’ve gotten something local, I guess, but I wanted the long hauls … more money, plus you get to see the country. I had my heart set on it, too. I’d already tried for stewardess with the airlines and that was a bust.”
“You like to travel?”
“How would I know? I never have gotten much further than the damned city limits of this town. I’d just like to see something else before I turn up my toes.”
He sat up abruptly and slid the tray off the bed, settling it on the floor. When he settled again, he caught her ankles and dragged her toward him. She studied him curiously as he arranged her legs to suit him, shoving her knees up and splaying her thighs.
She promptly clamped her knees together when he released them.
He sent her a look. Pushing her legs apart again, he wedged his shoulders between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” she demanded with a mixture of amusement and discomfort as he settled to stroking the thatch of hair on her pussy as if he was grooming it.
“Looking.”
“I see that.”
“Then why did you ask?” he asked, his lips twitching as he flicked a look at her face.
Raina felt her face redden. Flopping back on the bed, she dragged a pillow over her face.
He chuckled. “What are you doing?”
“Not watching you look. Why do you want to look, anyway?”
“Because I do,” he murmured, lightly stroking the inner petals of her nether lips.
Raina’s belly tightened, her heart and lungs constricting in her chest. She had to fight the urge to try to clamp her legs together again.
She felt the bed move as he shifted and lifted the pillow to see if he’d finished his survey just in time to watch as he lowered his mouth to her. She swallowed convulsively, unable to drag her gaze from the sight. As his mouth closed over her, however, and searing heat went through her, her eyes slid closed of their own accord. She sucked in a difficult breath, her mind, every nerve in her body focused on the point of contact and the feel of his tongue. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that he was watching her face as he sucked the little nub of flesh at the juncture of her thighs.
A fresh wave of heat went through her. Her head felt too heavy for her neck and she allowed it to fall back, her eyes closed tightly as the heat built inside of her in fiery waves. She moaned, gasped, panted for breath as the delightful sensations grew more and more intense. Abruptly, though, she needed--wanted to do more than just lay passively while he pleasured her.
Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she shifted to reach his cock, grasping it with her hand. He paused, lifting his head to watch as she struggled closer and finally took the head into her mouth, sucking on it. He pulled her closer still and finally rolled onto his back, carrying her with him.
She’d never felt anything like, never done anything even close. It increased her own pleasure tremendously to take him into her mouth and pleasure him as he sucked and teased her clit with his mouth and tongue. She moaned around his cock as her body climbed toward climax, pulling and sucking on his cock more and more frantically which, in turn, seemed to make him finesse her more hungrily until they were both shaking, rocking restlessly against one another.
And then, abruptly, she reached crisis, hovered for several heart stopping moments and then groaned and bucked as she came. He shuddered, his arms tightening around her almost painfully as he tensed, groaning against her cleft before he spilled his hot seed into her mouth in hard spasms that rocked both of them.
She was too weak to move when the shudders finally ceased.
He rolled her onto the mattress after a moment and she flopped onto her back spread eagle, gasping for breath. He seemed equally spent.
Finally, he levered himself upward and stared at her for several moments. “Come here, wench. You are much too far away.”
She chuckled. “Too weak.”
He crawled over her, headed in the direction of the headboard and then grabbed her, dragging her limp form next to his and aligning their bodies … or rather arranging her body to suit him, she thought wryly.
“Comfy now?” she muttered against his chest.
“Aye.”
* * * *
As the veil of sleep parted and consciousness surfaced, so, too, did a sense of supreme well-being. A feeling of anticipation followed on the heels of it, a surge of energy waiting to be expended, and Simon lazily searched his mind for a few moments for the reason he felt the need to get up and go about his business. No particular task came readily to mind, but he was certain there was something that needed to be done else he wouldn’t have felt compelled to get up at once and get to it.
Sucking in a deep breath as his senses followed the awakening of his mind and rose to alertness, Simon savored the scent of the woman pressed against him, the firmness of the buttocks nestled against his belly, and the softness of the breast resting in his palm. A flicker of sexual interest followed in the wake of those perceptions. Briefly, he examined the temptation, but he realized he was so thoroughly sated his appetite was mild, nothing he couldn’t ignore.
The question was, did he want to ignore it?
Opening his eyes, he tightened his hand around the breast resting in his palm, squeezing it experimentally to test his interest. She made a faint noise of complaint in her sleep, shifting away from him. Mildly annoyed by her disinterest in his overture, despite the fact that he hadn’t been certain of his own interest, he pushed himself up on one elbow to look down at her.
Dark, bruised crescents had formed beneath her eyes. He studied her sleeping face for a long moment, felt … something stir inside of him and finally lifted the arm he had draped over her and rolled away from her. She was obviously exhausted, he decided, staring up at the ceiling as he allowed his mind to fill with the impressions of the hours he had spent expending himself on her--the sounds, the sights, the scents, the sensations that had raced through him.
Sexual interest stirred again, but the troubling sense that there was something he needed to do, something that needed his attention, eclipsed it. Whatever it was eluded him, but the restless energy that filled him made it impossible to seek sleep again and he rolled from the bed and went to shower and shave, deciding that whatever it was was bound to come to him when he was more alert.
It didn’t, but he dressed and left the room in search of something to do to work off the excessive energy. He met up with Tedra on his way to the basement to work out, nodded a morning greeting and kept going. Seeing her heading toward the kitchen, however, put him in mind of Raina, still sleeping in his bed and he stopped, considering it.
The time he’d spent with her had been surprisingly satisfying, but the point was he did feel completely satisfied. She’d been right, and he’d been right. Giving in to temptation had been the way to go. He could not recall when the last time was that he had felt so thoroughly and completely satisfied.
Swiveling on his heels, he turned to look at Tedra, whom he discovered had stopped and turned to look at him questioningly, her hand poised on the doorknob. “You should go and tell Raina to give you a hand about the place. I am done with her. She might as well make herself useful.”
An hour and half later, when he’d worn off the brunt of his excess energy and broken a sweat, it dawned on him what had brought about the sense of something ‘undone’ that needed to be done. He had nothing to do--here--nothing of any importance whatsoever. Every day was like the day before because, in essence, he was a prisoner. There was a very great deal of things to
do in Schalome, however, things shelved for a more appropriate time, things ignored because he had not had the heart to face them or been able to summon the will to care whether they were ever done or not.
Vengeance and justice--they were his to wield, his to seek, his duty to perform, and no one else’s.
Belated, he thought with self-disgust. His sense of ‘urgency’ was seriously, criminally belated. Like a mindless beast searching for a quiet place to die, he had crawled into a hole and buried himself deeply, telling himself he only needed time to grieve, time to heal, time to grow strong again and then he would find his lost manhood, his courage, his conviction, and he would be a force to be reckoned with.
Those thoughts sustained him until he caught a glimpse of Raina as he headed back to his suite. At once a mixture of conflicting emotions swamped him; guilt, desire, a sense loss and disappointment when he tried to dismiss the first two with the reflection that he had no reason to feel either. They’d desired one another. It was simple lust, and he had been careful to give as much pleasure as he’d taken, but it was time to move on and focus on his duty.
Her scent and his memories lingered in his suite, though, taunting him with the urge to reverse his decision, undermining his certainty that he’d slaked his desire for her and when he’d bathed and changed the restlessness and uncomfortable sense of loss drove him from the house.
* * * *
And on the fourth day, they rested, Raina thought wryly when she woke to discover she was alone in the bed, trying not to feel deserted even though she knew she had been.
Mrs. Higgenbottom, who’d awakened her, stood in the doorway. “You will need to clean the parlor when you have broken your fast,” she said crisply, as if she wasn’t standing in Simon’s bedroom door with Raina sprawled naked in his bed.
Raina heaved a heavy sigh. “Yes, ma’am,” she responded, trying to feel philosophical about it.
She’d expected nothing less. She’d just hoped it would last a little longer.
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