This Fierce Splendor

by Iris Johansen

  “There’s nothing proper about you, my love.” He gathered her up in his arms, blanket and all. “As I’m about to prove.”

  “Dominic!” She clutched at his shoulders as he began to stride across the garden toward the palace. “Where are we going?”

  “The royal treasury. There’s something I want you to see.”

  “Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “Maybe. But I want you to see it tonight.” His eyes twinkled down at her. “Call it a whim.”

  Heat tingled through her as she remembered Dominic’s last “whim.” “Indeed?” Her voice sounded breathless even to her own ears. “You could have waited and let me put some clothes on. It appears all your whims involve having me naked as Eve.”

  “I thought it fitting.” Dominic was now crossing the moonlit throne room. “Eve should be right at home in the Garden of Eden. You know, I think I’d have liked the people of Kantalan. I went through several chambers before I found the treasury, and every room—no matter what appeared to be its primary purpose—had some object of artistry or learning in it.” His expression was thoughtful. “Even the treasury. You would have thought the idea of the acquisition of wealth would have been at odds with—” He stopped. “But you’ll see for yourself.”

  “You could let me down. You’re always carrying me around as if I were a child.”

  “The floors are dusty. I’ll put you down when we reach the treasury. I lit the torches on the walls and tried to clean up the floor a little. At least you won’t be ankle-deep in dust and cobwebs. Its just ahead.” He was mounting the two steep steps leading to the tall brass-studded double doors he had left thrown open when he had hurried back for Elspeth. Then he was within the chamber, setting Elspeth carefully on her feet. He noticed with satisfaction that both the torches on the wall and the wood fire he had lit in the huge copper brazier in the center of the room were still burning brightly, the flames casting leaping shadows on white marble walls and shimmering on several gold and silver chests in the room.

  Elspeth clutched the gray wool blanket together at her breast, her gaze wandering over statues in alabaster, silver, and gold, and over plates and vases bejeweled with precious and semiprecious stones. In one gold chest with the lid thrown open she caught a glimpse of long strands of lustrous black pearls, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds.

  She shook her head dazedly. “So much. I can’t believe it.”

  “Neither could I, but that wasn’t what I wanted to show you.” Dominic placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her so she was facing the south wall. He gestured to the intricate design carved on the white marble surface. “Look.”

  “The solar system,” she whispered. “Good Lord. It’s our solar system!” A huge round sun encircled by planets occupied the entire south wall and was executed with superb artistry on the white marble. The relative size and features of each planet were faithfully detailed even to the rings of Saturn. “What is it doing here? I would have thought this would have been in the temple.”

  “Perhaps the royal family was interested in astronomy.” Dominic nodded to the long alabaster bench before the copper, brazier. “Maybe the king liked to sit there among the treasures of the earth and look at the planets. It must have been very chastening for him to know that regardless of how rich he became, he could never fly from this planet to all the others.”

  “Da Vinci thought we could fly. I wonder …”

  “No,” Dominic said firmly. “I’m willing to accept the thought of you wandering off to find El Dorado or Atlantis as long as I can trail along beside you, but I at least insist you remain on earth.” He arched a brow. “Do you notice anything strange about that rendering of the solar system?”

  “Strange?” She frowned, her gaze returned to the wall. “No, everything seems to be in order. What—” She broke off and her gaze flew back to Dominic’s face. “There are ten planets circling the sun.”

  He nodded.

  “But there have only been eight planets discovered.”

  “Maybe they knew something we don’t,” he said softly. “Was there a telescope in the temple?”

  “Yes, quite a large one in the same room that contains the lodestone.” Her eyes were blazing with excitement. “Oh, Dominic, isn’t it exciting? There’s so much to see, so much to learn. Let’s go there now.” She stopped. Dominic was laughing softly and shaking his head. “No?”

  “Tomorrow. There are a few other things I want to show you here tonight.” His smile lingered. “Perhaps not as interesting to you, but I found them fascinating. They caused me to view the people of Kantalan in an entirely new light.”

  “What things?”

  “Step this way, milady.” He took her elbow and propelled her across the room, around the blazing fire in the copper brazier, to the open golden chest against the far wall. “Let’s see if we can find something a little more elegant than that blanket for you to wear. If I remember, I saw something in here that will do nicely.” He rummaged in the chest, tossing strands of pearls and rubies carelessly aside. “Here it is.” He pulled out a garment that glittered gold in the firelight. “I think it’s a cloak of some sort. It’s not as heavy as it looks, and it’s lined with silk.” He shook out the folds. “It’s a wonder the silk didn’t rot. Perhaps being closed up in the chest protected it.” He looked up when she didn’t say anything. “Don’t you like it?”

  She touched the cloak with gentle, tentative fingers. The garment was a shimmering mesh of woven gold bordered in emeralds and pearls. “It’s magnificent,” she whispered. “It looks like something that should be worn by an empress.”

  “Then it may be good enough for you.” He reached out and unclasped her fingers from the blanket. “Try it on.” The wool blanket fell to the floor and something hot and intent flared in his eyes as they ran over her glowing nudity garbed only in the necklace. “And do hurry before I realize what an idiot I am to have you put on clothes.”

  She smiled shakily. “You once told me a man’s chief pleasure was in removing barriers.” She could feel her nipples tautening, her breasts swelling as his gaze touched them. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “No.” He stepped closer and threw the golden cloak around her shoulders. The silk lining was a cool, sensuous shock against her warm flesh. He fastened the round emerald and pearl brooch at her throat with trembling hands. “It just becomes more difficult to wait when you know what’s beyond the barrier.”

  “You don’t have to wait.” The words were spoken in a tone a level above a whisper. “It’s more difficult for me to wait now too.”

  His fingers tightened spasmodically on the brooch before he forced himself to release the jewel and take a step back. “Sometimes it’s better to wait.” The pulse beating wildly in his temple and the flush darkening his long jaws belied the words. “It makes the pleasure sharper. I’d wager that the people of Kantalan knew the value of anticipation.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He was searching in the chest again. “I’ll tell you—or rather show you—later.” He found the four objects he was looking for and drew them out. “Wear these.”

  “Bracelets?”

  He nodded as he clasped a broad band of emeralds and pearls around her left wrist. “To match your necklace.” He clasped an identical bracelet on her right wrist. He knelt before her, pushing the cloak aside. “And these are to match the bracelets.” He fastened a jeweled band around first her left ankle and then her right. He sat back on his heels and looked at her pale bare feet flowing into delicate slender ankles and sweetly curved calves. The hard shimmering jewels shown in barbaric splendor against her soft flesh and a sudden wrench of sheer lust tore through him.

  “I think you should wear those all the time.” His palm cupped her left calf and squeezed gently. He heard the soft hiss of the intake of her breath, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the delicate shapeliness of her limbs. His fingers moved up to rub the soft skin behind her knee. “Will you do that wh
en we’re alone like this?” He leaned forward and nibbled gently at the soft fullness of her thigh. “Will you let me put them on you then?” He parted her thighs gently. “You look so pretty. They match your eyes.”

  “You’re not looking at my eyes.”

  “No.” He blew gently on the secret heart of her womanhood. “But maybe I will later. Will you?”

  She shivered and swayed toward him. “Yes … anything you want. Dominic, I—” She gasped as his warm tongue flicked out with expert precision.

  He sat back on his heels again, his fingers gently massaging the flesh behind her knees. His gaze lifted slowly to her face. His skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones and his light eyes were burning as he searched her expression. “Now you’re ready to learn something new about Kantalan.” He rose lithely to his feet and took her hand. “Come with me.” He led her toward the far corner of the room. “Astronomy wasn’t the only interest the royal household had. Evidently Kantalan was a society composed of very sensual people.” He stopped before a collection of statues on a long, low marble table against the wall. “Look at them,” he said softly. “Have you ever seen anything like this in your temples in India?”

  Elspeth’s eyes widened as her cheeks grew warm. The statues were incredibly beautiful in both material and execution and more erotic than anything she had ever seen anywhere. Each foot-high statue portrayed a man and a woman in a different position in the act of love, some she had never dreamed possible. In every statue the woman was depicted in fragile mother-of-pearl and the man in a rich ebony wood; the materials were so smooth and polished they begged to be touched. The tactile artistry added to the subject matter brought a surge of arousal rippling through Elspeth. “Never. They’re shocking.”

  He was standing behind her, his breath warm against her ear. “And are you shocked, love?”

  “No.” Her tongue moistened her lower lip, her gaze fixed in fascination on the statue directly in front of her. Did men and women actually do that? “I suppose I should be, but I think I’m more curious than shocked.”

  “My God, I’m lucky. Every man should be so fortunate as to have a curious woman in his bed.” His teeth bit gently on the lobe of her ear. “Let’s see what we can do to satisfy that curiosity, Elspeth.”

  “Have you made love in all these ways?”

  “Most of them. The Kantalanians must have been pretty agile to have managed some of those positions.” His tongue plunged into her ear. She shivered and melted back against him. “That one you’re looking at now can be rather amusing.”

  “Amusing? I never felt amused when you …” Her words trailed off as the magnitude of his arousal became evident even through the garments that separated them.

  “And I have never felt amused when loving you,” he said hoarsely. “Never with you, Elspeth. Loving you is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

  “Then all cats aren’t the same in the dark?”

  “No.” His hands closed on her shoulders. “God, no, love.”

  “Then it was very wicked of you to tell me such a falsehood. It … it worried me.”

  “I’ll try to make amends.” His hands splayed out and slid over her shoulders to cup her breasts through the gleaming gold of the cloak. “Will it help to know that I haven’t wanted to touch any other woman since you invaded Rina’s with those damn firecrackers.” He stroked gently up and down, the silk lining of the cloak rubbing teasingly against her nipples.

  “Yes.” Her gaze was fixed in fascination on the lifelike eroticism of the statues. The male was on his knees, his shoulders hunched and strained. What beautiful shoulders he possessed, Elspeth thought. They were corded with supple muscle, and the taut bulging line of his brawny thighs reminded her of Dominic’s in the last instant before he plunged forward and … Her chest was so tight she was having difficulty forcing air into her lungs. She swallowed and tried to remember what she had been saying. “But I think I’d be very fierce if you ever visited one of those hetaeras again.”

  His hands slipped beneath the cloak, plucking at the crests of her nipples. She made a low sound deep in her throat. “I find I’m only interested in one hetaera these days.” He pinched her with just enough pressure to send a tingle of heat through her. “Elspeth MacGregor Delaney.” His left hand slid down her body to the soft swell of her belly, and his palm began to rub, pet, and then, with sudden impatience, pressed her hard against him. “Touch them.”

  “What?” She couldn’t think; her bones seemed to have no substance because of the heat of him against her.

  “The statues. The texture is very pleasing to the touch. Rub your hand over one of them.”

  She reached out a hesitant finger and brushed it against the rippling musculature of the shoulder of the male figure on the statue before her. The wood was warm, it felt almost as alive as it looked.

  Dominic’s hand suddenly closed over her own on the statue. “More,” he whispered. “He likes it. Close your eyes and feel the tension of him and think about what he’s doing to her.”

  She closed her eyes and arched her head back against his shoulder. Her lips parted and her breathing was shallow as she allowed Dominic to move her palm slowly over the figure. Here palm was tingling and the aching emptiness between her thighs was increasing with each passing second. Why could she still see the statue even though her eyes were closed? But now the ebony wood figure was no longer small but life-sized and alive. Moving. Sleek and hot. Dark rippling muscle and driving thighs.

  “Do you feel it?”

  She moistened her lips and nodded dreamily.

  Dominic’s hand on her breast cupped and squeezed gently. “Do you want it?”

  She nodded again.

  Dominic gently pried her hand from the smooth warmth of the statue. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands cupped her shoulders and steadied her as he took a step back. “Not yet.”

  Her eyes flew open. “No?”

  She heard him moving behind her and and she started to turn to face him. “Why?”

  “Don’t turn around. Keep your eyes on your friend in the statue there.”

  “Why?” she asked again.

  “Anticipation. The oldest game in the world and probably more fun than any of those variations you’re looking at now.”

  He was right. She could feel the tension increasing with every breath as she waited. Why wouldn’t he let her turn around and face him? She wanted to reach out and touch him as she had touched the man in the statue.

  His hands were on her shoulders again, shifting the cloak to bare her body and form a shining cowl around her throat and then trail down her back in a golden train. He lifted her fair hair, threading it through his fingers before letting it float down in a wild tawny cloud around her. Then his hands were gone and she heard him moving away from her.

  “Dominic, where are you going?”

  “Not very far. Come and join me.”

  She whirled to face him in a brilliant swirl of gold and emerald and pearl.

  He was sitting across the room on the wool blanket he had spread over the marble bench before the copper brazier. The leaping firelight played on the bronzed slide of the muscles of his brawny shoulders. He was beautifully nude and male and as aroused as the man in the statue.

  He held out his hand to her, his light eyes soft and liquidly intent in the fireglow. “Come, love.”

  She walked slowly toward him. There was something wildly barbaric and exciting in coming to him like this. She could see the jewels glitter on her ankles with every step; she could feel the sensuous tug of the golden cloak as it brushed the floor behind her. She was beautiful to him; she could see it in his face. He wanted her. His gaze clung and moved down her body in an almost tactile caress. Anticipation.

  She stopped before him, feeling bold and breathlessly shy at the same time. “Now?”

  “If we wait any longer, I may die of frustration. You look—” He stopped, groping for words. Elspeth was pagan qu
een and sensual slave. Sorceress. Mistress. He slowly shook his head. There were really no words but one to describe her: Beloved.

  She put her hand in his but stopped as he would have drawn her into his arms. Her smile was suddenly mischievous as she unfastened the brooch at her throat and let the cloak fall to the floor. “Not yet.” She pushed him down on his back. “Anticipation, remember?”

  “Elspeth …” Dominic’s voice was hoarse. “I can’t—” He gasped as she suddenly straddled him, sheathing him with teasing slowness, allowing only the shallowest entry. He grasped her hips, trying to draw her down upon him, but she would not permit it. “Dammit, Elspeth, you’re killing me.”

  “I want you to love me in all those different ways.” She clenched around him, her gaze narrowed on his face. His lips were parted, his nostrils flaring, and he was beautiful in his need. “Will you do that for me, Dominic?”

  “Yes, anything,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just let me come up in you and—”

  “Like this?” She moved the slightest bit and he flexed yearningly within her. “Enough?”

  “No.” He groaned, his lips drawn away from his lips as if in pain. “More.”

  She clenched around him once again and he gasped, his fingers digging into the blanket beneath him.

  “But what about anticipation?”

  “Damn anticipation.”

  “That’s my view on the subject.” She smiled lovingly down at him. “We don’t need anticipation, Dominic. We don’t need anything but this.” Then she released him, took him, let him enter as he willed. This time it was she who gasped. “Dominic!”

  He wasn’t listening, he drove upward in mindless, frantic hunger and then began a heated rhythm more urgent than they had ever known. The rhythm increased, the tension grew. Elspeth’s head was whirling. Her fingers moved over Dominic’s shoulders in feverish pleasure. Textures. Warmer than the wood of the statue, bronze not ebony. Yet the two had some-how blended and become one in her mind.

  He plunged deeper and she moaned as the tension mounted. Fire flickering on white marble walls. Ten planets spinning around a burning sun. Jewels, pearls, overflowing a golden coffer. Dalkar. Merging. The flames burning in the temple. A silver filigree curtain holding back the indigo night. A promise … fulfilled. Dalkar-Dominic!