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.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh. “Ah, I see.” He pushed his manhood into me and I whimpered. “This part?”
“Yes.”
“And this area?”
“Ash!” I let go of the blanket and seized his hips, trying to pull him inside of me. “Yes, already! I told you I didn’t have the words.”
“I know. I’m sorry for teasing you. I only . . .”
He trailed off and I paid attention to his expression, wondering why his mood changed, a whiff of desolation creeping through. I lifted my hands and framed his face. Turnabout.
“Tell me.”
He sighed and leaned his forehead against mine. “I realize this is only for tonight, but . . . I have to know that you remember this is me. That you’re not . . . dreaming of a ghost.”
He’d known somehow, that I’d drifted, before. The expression on his pitted face seemed stark, the naked hope and fear of the wounded animal. His skin, all the uneven lines and scars, made me realize, more than anything, that this was him. And I knew what to do.
“Then take off your shirt. Get as naked as I am.” I told him. “Let me see and touch you.”
Sitting up, he looked at me, splayed before him, and hesitated. “I have scars. Lots of them.”
“I’ve seen—remember?”
“Touching is different. Most girls—other women, I mean—are repelled. It’s not pretty.”
“I’ve had pretty. Now I want you.”
He stilled at that, fingers flexing on his shirt, and for a moment I thought I’d blurted out the wrong thing again. But no—he laughed, soundlessly, and shrugged out of the shirt. Tossing it aside, he pulled off his boots, stood, and pushed the narrow black pants down his legs. His manhood stood out straight from his body and I found myself staring, aware I’d never seen Hugh this way either.
So much we hadn’t done with each other. But, though the thought made me sad, no ball of iron thorns followed it; my throat didn’t seize with grief. We’d thought we’d have all our lives and lost all those years in an instant. Over time, we would have come to know each other better. Maybe Hugh had treated me as he thought I wanted him to. Glorianna knew that I’d never said otherwise. I’d been delighted to be petted and cosseted. It wasn’t his fault that we hadn’t had the chance to grow up some. If I had learned nothing else, I knew that—time could be cut short.
“Show me one of the other ways,” I told Ash, standing up and boldly putting my hand on his . . . what? “And what do I call this?”
“Cock,” he answered. “There are as many names as stars in the sky, but that will do.”
Keep your head with your big sword, not the little one, young cock. The drill instructor had said that to the soldier in the yard and now I understood her subsequent apology.
Ash’s hands settled on my hips, under the fall of my hair, and he pushed his cock through the circle of my hand so the furry hairs of his chest tickled my nipples. That part of him, his cock, wasn’t rough or scarred, but felt smooth and velvety. Tender, even.
“You can do it harder than that.”
I liked harder. I tightened my grip and he gasped, the cock flexing in my hand. He pulled away from me and took my hands in his. Lying back on the blanket, he drew me over him, positioning me so I straddled him. Lifting his cock in one hand, he pointed it up and moved me by the hips so the tip was just inside me.
“I want to do it,” I said.
“Then do it,” he nearly growled.
Wrapping my fingers around it again, I savored the sweet texture of his skin there, so hot, with muscular hardness beneath.
“Can I put my mouth on you, as you did to me?” I was more wondering out loud, but he clapped his hands over his eyes, grinding the heels into the sockets, making a horrible groaning noise.
“You will be the death of me.”
“I just wondered.”
“No.” He dropped his hands to my hips and sank clawed fingers in. “Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you look like the goddess of sex sitting over me, your juices dripping down my cock, and I can’t hold off a moment more.” With a burst of speed and strength, he pulled my hips down and flexed his body, driving up and into me.
I rode him like a steed, plunging up and down, the excruciating pleasure arrowing through my pelvis and up through the top of my head.
Throwing back my head, I laughed, straight to the moon. I felt like the goddess of sex. Ash sat up, following the arch of my body and winding his hands in the length of my streaming hair, making me bend backward while his mouth plundered my breasts and that fierce cock drove up, pinioning me with such sharp thrusts that I convulsed.
Over and over, my whole body spasmed and I dug my nails into the wiry muscles of his shoulders, the ridges left by the lash like a puzzle to be reassembled. With a last cry, I collapsed, falling backward into the pull of his grip on my hair.
He followed me, barely allowing a breath of distance between our slick skins. My knees bent under me, my spine still arched by his merciless grip, I became the horse he rode, pounding into me with all the ferocity I’d fantasized about. My body screamed with it.
I did, too. Lost in a world of such extremity that I knew nothing but his flesh in mine.
With a final shout of what sounded like victory, he slammed home, grinding hard and pushing my straining hips wide. I split apart, sundered by him.
Lost to the night.
But morning found me anyway.
Rosy fingers of Glorianna’s dawn rippled over the sky, turning it and the lake the perfect pink her priests strove to re-create. I sat up to see better, wincing at the intense ache between my thighs. I’d been wrapped up in the blanket, as securely as if it were a bandage and all my skin abraded.
Ash sat nearby, fully dressed, long arms wrapped around his knees.
And brooding.
“Good morning.” I worked a hand free to tuck my hair behind my ears. It was curling madly, tangled, and no doubt standing out around my head like a bonfire leaping out of control. Out of habit, I looked around for my brush, wherever I’d tossed it last night.
“Looking for this?” Ash’s voice sounded more full of rocks than usual. Maybe broken glass mixed in. Pain and regret salted the soil. I sighed for that and held out my hand.
“Yes, thank you.”
He shook his head, more at some thought than at me, but didn’t hand it to me. Instead he came to sit behind me and gently worked the snarled mess from under the blanket. I froze, uncertain if he intended what I thought. Tentatively, he drew the brush through it. Far too gently.
“You can do it harder than that,” I teased him and was rewarded by his sharp intake of breath at the reminder of how I’d worked him with my hand. My body warmed at the memory.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He sounded funny. Smelled guilty.
“You’ve groomed horses, right?” I kept my voice light. “Imagine this is a tail.”
“I never did enjoy getting mule kicked,” he observed wryly, which was better. More, he dug in a bit harder. Still not quite enough.
I held my hand over my shoulder for the brush. “Here, let me.”
“No,” he snapped, and I flinched a little at the frustration in his tone. He drew in and blew out a long and deliberate breath. “I want to do this for you. To make things up to you.”
“Even my hair has been mussed once or twice,” I told him, mild and even. “I survived.”
He tugged harder and I braced myself, being careful not to show any twinge.
“Not that.” The brush snagged, then got wrapped up. He cursed, but his tugging got him nowhere. I turned, working my other arm free of the blanket, and took over. In a few moments, the brush came free and I set to teasing out the rest of the tangles. He watched me, bemused. “How do you do that so easily?”
“Lots and lots of practice. See, you have to start at the ends, this way.”
“Last night you brushed from the top down.
“It wasn’t all knotted up then.” I smiled, because he still looked unhappy. “And I didn’t know you were watching that closely.”
“I’m always watching you, Ami.” His gaze wandered over me, unwillingly, I thought. “It’s as if I can’t look away.”
“Should I apologize for that?” I hadn’t forgotten how he’d said that he hated wanting me. Like a poison.
His gaze flicked to mine, haunted. “No. I should apologize to you. Once you’ve . . . tidied yourself—you can bathe in the lake—I’ll heal you. I can do that much at least.”
“I don’t need healing.” I paused in the brushing, surprised. “My thighs are fine.”
“Not that!” In an excess of impatience, he yanked the blanket down, baring my bosom. “Look at yourself. Look at what I did to you.”
Shocked and rather overwhelmed, I took in the sight of my breasts, blooming with bruises, scraped here and there. On the high, round curve of one, a set of teeth marks showed dark red amid a flowering patch of yellow.
“You look as if a wild animal has been at you.” The bitter roil of disgust poured out of him and into the ground, sour with self-loathing. “You should see the rest.”
“Okay.” I tossed the brush aside and stood, dropping the blanket entirely. He cursed under his breath, but—true to his words—seemed unable to look away. My hips ached and the fiery burn on my thighs turned out to be some sort of rash. I fingered it, finding it was composed of hundreds of tiny scrapes.
“From my beard stubble.” The words grumble out of him. “Go bathe so I can heal the damage I did.”
“I don’t want healing. But I will bathe.” Snagging the brush again, I strode naked down to the lake, savoring the feel of my bruised body as I moved. You look as if a wild animal has been at you. That’s how it felt, too.
I loved it. The new me.
But I let him stew anyway. I hadn’t changed that much.