“So hot and wet your cunt is.” Barely he moved within her, drawing another gasp as the pressure within her sheath deepened. With a groan, he stilled again. “Such a fierce grip. Only by Hanan’s mercy I do not spend again.”
“Wait for me,” she panted.
“Always I will. We are as one now, Yvenne.” A callused palm swept down her right thigh and urged her leg over his back. “So let us ride into battle together.”
No urgent battle it was, for he only kissed her. Sweetly, then with breathless heat, stroking between her lips with ravenous licks. Only when she began to move restlessly beneath him did Maddek begin their ride, with a long and slow rocking of his hips.
His full length he pumped into her cunt, and it was lovely to feel him within her, so lovely, but the sweetest pleasure came from his kiss, from his skin beneath her fingertips, from his groans each time he slid deep. Yet the stroking of his cock seemed to pull all those other pleasures into the slick lining of her sheath, dragging in more sensation each time. The flex of muscle beneath her searching fingers became the flex of her cuntflesh around his shaft. His heavy weight above her and his warmth and his nearness heightened the heat and pressure within. The burn of linen against her back and give of the bed, the creaking of the boat, the crash of the waves all seemed to rock with the rhythm of Maddek sliding back and forth inside her.
Then suddenly his pistoning length was not just pulling in pleasure from outside her cunt, but drawing it from her own inner walls, ecstasy doubling with each slow thrust. All she could feel was that incredible fullness, her tightening sheath, and his hot open kiss that moved from her mouth to her throat when she arched helplessly beneath him, lifting her hips and riding his cock.
She cried out his name, seeking the release hovering just beyond her reach. Frantically she clawed at his shoulders.
“Fly, my bride,” he urged, his mouth hot on her throat. “Fly with me.”
“I am. But I need—” More. Her own strangled sob as he fucked suddenly hard and deep choked her plea into silence. Almost enough, it was almost, almost, almost enough. “Please.”
His fingers wedged between them, roughly stroking her clit. “Fly, Yvenne.” Hoarsely he commanded her with a long, hard thrust. “Fly!”
And she did, soaring, clinging to Maddek as he groaned and pushed through the clenching inner muscles of her sheath. As she came down, he sat back and hauled her backside onto his lap, pumping into her harder, deeper.
“Again,” he demanded through gritted teeth.
She could not. But it was as if every hard thrust captured the ecstasy that her release had flung free and shoved it deep into her sheath again. His thumb stroked her clit and his cock pounded within her, a harder ride than before, her hands twisting in the linens for anchor and her breasts bouncing with every rough beat. This time the exquisite shudders started deep, where his thick shaft worked into her in that luscious, brutal rhythm, a fluttering of internal muscles before she was launched upward again. With a grunt, Maddek bent over her, still stroking deep until his breath caught hard in her ear. Then his teeth locked on her shoulder and his tortured groan followed her up, up, as his cock pulsed and spilled hot seed.
Together Yvenne crashed with him, winded as if she had been tossed from the sky. Maddek’s chest heaved, his dark skin slick with sweat, his softening cock still within her. When he moved, as if to lift his weight off her, she held him tighter.
“I like the feel of you inside me.”
A kiss he pressed to her neck. “As do I.”
He rolled her instead to their sides, with her thigh draped over his hip. She pillowed her head on his arm.
So quiet they were now. She knew not what lay behind his eyes as he looked down at her. But a better view he had.
Or so she hoped.
In bed with him at the inn, she’d discovered that trust was a difficult and exhilarating part of herself to give. An agonizing part of herself, when that trust was betrayed.
Yet he had held out his hand. She would try to meet him halfway.
“It was the stairs,” she whispered.
No response did he make but she felt his gaze sharpen on her face. She couldn’t look up, couldn’t meet his eyes. Already hers burned, her throat a painful lump, and never would she make it through this telling if she saw . . . any response. Sympathy, pity, blame. Nothing could ease this pain.
“Always, my mother was patient. For years she planned our escape. Mostly we lacked opportunity, for the door to our tower was bolted from outside. But just as the guards one time did not tie her properly when my father visited her bed, she knew one time that door would not be bolted—or we might have help.”
“From whom?” he asked quietly.
“The handmaids. After all, a queen does not empty her own chamber pot or carry water for her own bath. So we had maids that were never allowed to leave the citadel, and my father had threatened their families if ever they spoke of us—or spoke to us. They only came once per day, and always they were watched by the Rugusian guards while inside the tower chamber. But these were not merely days of watching, but years of days, and the guards were not always careful. A note could be slipped into a maid’s pocket, or left where she would find it. And in that way, one day a maid bumped a linen basket against the door latch and it was not locked properly.”
“So you escaped.”
Emotion like a vise on her heart, Yvenne nodded. Twice she had to swallow before speaking again. “My mother made me exercise so that I would be as strong as I could be, and every day we practiced running with me carrying her as best I could. I knew our exact route. Across the landing, down one hundred spiraling steps, along the north corridor and into the servants’ quarters, and from there the service stairs. And she told me what stairs were, described them to me. They would take us down, she said. So I ran at them as fast as I could . . . and it was as if the world dropped out from beneath my feet. We fell and—” Her breath hitched raggedly, again and again. “We fell. More than a hundred steps. Because I didn’t understand that I must run on them differently than I would a floor. “
Long fingers slid into her hair, bringing her face to his chest, allowing her to hide. “You had never seen stairs before?”
She shook her head. Dully she said, “Her neck was broken, her body twisted. She had wrapped herself around me and took the worst of the fall. I only bumped my ankle—and have no memory of reaching the bottom. Only of lying on the stone landing, and seeing her lying there beside me. Knowing she was dead. Knowing that she would still want me to escape. Knowing that I had to get up again. But my father and brothers had been alerted by the commotion. And they made certain I would not get up then, and would never run again.”
“Bazir was among them?”
“He stomped the hardest upon my knee. He loved our mother . . . in his way.”