Part 6 (2/2)
”Will you give me a night?” she asked him.
”Deirdre. My love. I would give you a lifetime.”
”I want no pledges that can't be kept, no words but truth. Only give me what can be, and it will be enough,” she replied somberly.
”My lady.” He felt, somehow, that the step toward her was the most momentous of his life. And when he took her hands, that he was taking the world. ”It is the truth. Why or how I don't know. But never have I spoken cleaner truth.”
She believed he meant it, in this time. In this place. ”Kylar, lifetimes are for those who are free.”
So she would be, he promised himself. Whatever had to be done. But now wasn't for plans and battles. ”If you won't accept that pledge, let me pledge this. That I have loved no other as I love you tonight.”
”I can give that vow back to you. I thought it would be for duty.” She lifted her hands to his face, traced the shape of it with her fingers. ”And I thought the first time, it would be with fear.” She laughed a little. ”My heart jumps. Can you feel it?”
He laid a hand on her breast, felt the s.h.i.+ver. Felt the leap. ”I won't hurt you.”
”Oh, no.” She laid a hand on his heart in turn. They had brushed once before, she thought. Heart to heart. Nothing had been the same for her since. Nothing would be the same for her ever again. ”You won't hurt me. Warm me, Kylar, as a man warms his woman.”
He drew her into his arms. Gently, gently. Laid his lips on hers.
Tenderly. There once more, she thought. There. That miracle of mouth against mouth. Sighing out his name, she let herself melt into the kiss.
”The first time you kissed me, I thought you were foolish.”
His lips curved on hers. ”Did you?”
”Half frozen and bleeding, and you would waste your last breath flirting with a woman. Such is a man.”
”Not a waste,” he corrected. ”But I can do better now.” With a flourish that pleased them both, he swept her into his arms. ”Come to bed, my lady.”
As she had once longed to do, she toyed with his silky black hair. ”You must teach me what to do.”
His muscles tightened, nerves and thrills, at the thought of her innocence. Tonight she would give him what she had given no other. In the candle glow he saw her face, saw that she gave him this treasure without fear, without shame.
No, he would not hurt her, but would do all in his power to bring her joy.
He laid her on the bed, rubbed his cheek against hers. ”It will be my pleasure to instruct you.”
”I've seen the goats mate.”
His burst of laughter was m.u.f.fled in her hair. ”This, I can promise, will be somewhat different than the mating of goats. So pay attention,” he said, grinning now as he lifted his head, ”while I give you your first lesson.”
He was a patient teacher, and surely, she thought as her skin began to s.h.i.+ver and sing under his hands, a skilled one. His mouth drank from hers, deep, then deeper until it was how she imagined it might be to slide bonelessly into a warm river.
Surrounded, floating, then submerged.
His hands roamed over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then cupped them as if he could hold her heartbeat in his palms. The sensation of those strong, hard hands on her flesh s.h.i.+mmered straight down to her belly. His mouth skimmed the side of her throat, nibbling.
”How lovely.” She murmured it, arching a little to invite more. ”How clever for b.r.e.a.s.t.s to give pleasure as well as milk.”
”Indeed.” His thumbs brushed over her nipples, and made her gasp. ”I've often thought the same.”
”Oh... but what do I...” Her words, her thoughts trailed off into a rainbow when that nibbling mouth found her breast She made a sound in her throat, half cry, half moan. It thrilled him, that sound of shocked pleasure, the sudden shudder of her body, the quick jolt of her heart under his lips. As she arched again, her fingers combed through his hair, gripped there and pressed him closer. The sweet taste of her filled him like warmed wine.
He rose over her to tug his doublet aside, but before he could satisfy himself with that glorious slide of his flesh to her flesh, she lifted her hands, ran them experimentally over his chest.
”Wait.” She needed to catch her breath. It was all running through her so quickly that it nearly blurred. She wanted everything, but clearly, so that she might remember each stroke, each taste, each moment.
”I touched you when you were hurt. But this is different. I looked at your body, but didn't see it as I do now.” Carefully she traced her finger along the scar running up his side. ”Does this trouble you?”
He felt the line of heat, took her hand quickly. ”No.” Even now, he thought, she would try to heal. ”There will be no pain tonight, for either of us.”
He lowered to her, took her mouth again. There was a hint of urgency now, a taste of need. So much to feel, she mused dreamily. So much to know. And with the warmth of him coursing through her, she enfolded him. There was a freedom here, she discovered, in being about to touch him, stroke, explore, with no purpose other than pleasure. The hard muscles, the pucker in his smooth skin that was a scar of battle.
The strength of him excited her, challenged her own so that her hands, her mouth, her movements under him became more demanding.
This was fire, she realized. The first true licks of flame that brought nothing but delight and a bright, blinding need for more.
”I'm not fragile.” Indeed she felt alive with power, nearly frantic with a kind of raging hunger. ”Show me more. Show me all.”
No matter how his blood swam, he would be careful with her. But he could show her more. His hands roamed down her body, over her thighs.
As if she knew what they both needed, she opened to him. Her breath came short, s.h.i.+vering out with quick little moans. Her nails bit into his back as she began to writhe under him.
He lifted his head and watched her fly over that first peak of pleasure.
Heat, such heat. She had never known such fire outside of healing magic. And this, somehow, this went deeper, spread wider. Her body was like a single wild flame. She cried out, the wanton sound of her own voice another shock to her system. Beyond control, beyond reason, she gripped his hips and called out his name.
When he plunged into her, the glory of it was like a shaft of lightning, bright and brilliant. There was a storm of those glorious and violent shocks as he thrust inside her. She locked herself around him, her face pressed against his neck and repeated his name as that miraculous heat consumed her.
”Sweetheart.” When he could speak again, he did so lazily, with his head nuzzled between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”You are the most clever of students.”
She felt golden, beautiful, and for the first time in her memory, more woman than queen. For one night, she told herself, one miraculous night, she would be a woman.
”I'm sure I could do better, my lord, with a few more lessons.”
She was flushed, all but glowing, and her hair was a tangle of honeyed ropes over the white linen. ”I believe you're right.” He grinned and nibbled his way up her throat, lingered over her lips, then s.h.i.+fted so that she lay curled beside him.
”I'm so warm,” she told him. ”I never knew what it was like to be so warm. Tell me, Kylar, what's it like to have the sun on your face, full and bright?”
”It can burn.”
”Truly?”
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