“I drank, but not enough to soften my steel,” he murmured. “Yet you are steel when I expected you to be soft and sleeping. Do you fear what I would ask of you?”
Pleasing him? She had no fear of that. “No.”
He seemed to study her, though she could not imagine what he could see in the dark. “When you took the half-moon milk, you held yourself in the same way. What pains you?”
Her cheeks flared hot. “Nothing pains me.”
“Speak truth,” was his sharp reply.
“I do not lie,” she hissed between her teeth. “It is not pain. I saw Kelir and Ardyl with the barmaid and I was . . . inflamed.”
Silence followed that confession. Her face grew hotter.
“I should have turned my eyes away,” she admitted.
The silence deepened. Against her back, Maddek’s body felt more rigid than it had ever been. Was he angry? He had not liked hearing that her mother had watched the alliance army from their tower. Perhaps knowing that Yvenne had watched his warriors seemed an unforgivable breach of privacy.
“It is not pain,” she repeated, trying to bring her argument back around to the beginning, before he could say she failed in her duty to his Dragon again. “I know not how to ease my need. But it will fade.”
Or so she prayed.
Finally he spoke and she could not judge his mood, for although his amusement was unmistakable, each word seemed rougher than before, as if his throat had been scoured with gravel. “How can this not be known? If I were locked in a tower with nothing else to do, my hand would be upon my cock as often as upon my sword.”
Yvenne smiled, but the pressure between her legs seemed too demanding and her chest too full to allow a laugh. She barely managed to say, “And if I had neither cock nor sword?”
“A woman only requires a hand.” The humor left his voice, leaving only grit. “I will show you how a Parsathean warrior tends to herself.”
Her eyes squeezed shut as everything inside her curled tighter. By Hanan’s blessed seed, how could a promise of release so abruptly worsen the need?
“Please,” she whispered breathlessly. “Show me quickly.”
His head lowered, his reply harsh against her ear. “Quickly is not how a woman’s cunt should be touched.”
Yet the hard urgency of his hands belied his words. No time did he waste before gripping the back of her cloak and dragging the coarse material up over the swell of her bottom, baring her skin to the heated air within the chamber.
Her face afire again, Yvenne’s gaze darted to the curtains. If the others were awake, they did not look it—no heads were lifted, no eyes were open.
But even if they were, from that direction little of her could be seen. Maddek drew the cloak so high it bunched behind her waist, yet in front the heavy fabric still covered Yvenne to her knees. Only her shins and feet were visible—and only barely. Her legs were but a shadow, the jeweled hilt of the dagger strapped to her calf a mere glint in the darkness.
Then all worry about what lay in front of her fled when Maddek shifted closer. So much taller was he that although their shoulders were aligned, their hips were not. Her bare bottom nestled into his steely abdomen, and his skin seemed so very hot against hers—though not as hot as the hard length prodding the back of her thigh, or the callused fingers that swiftly journeyed over the curve of her ass to delve between her clenched thighs from behind.
Maddek’s chest rumbled against her back on a thick groan. “You are drenched in your need.”
She was well aware. Her hands were still locked together between her legs, her palms and fingers and inner thighs swimming in her arousal. She trembled as his blunt fingertips glided over the seams of her fingers as if seeking entrance to the sensitive flesh below.
But he did not force her fingers apart. Instead he cupped her hands in the palm of his and murmured, “Do we do this slowly, after all?”
She could not bear that. Shaking her head, Yvenne pulled her elbows back—so very slightly, so that her fingers still covered the apex of her mound. His fingers followed, stopping when she did.
A quiet chuckle sounded behind her. “You hide your sweetest treasure from me?”
It was not treasure, but a burning and aching knot. On a strained whisper, she told him, “That part of me hurts to touch.”
“There is pain?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
How could she not be certain? But her irritated reply was lost on a gasp as strong teeth pinched her earlobe. Her entire body stiffened, the knot between her legs throbbing as if that flesh had been pinched, instead.
“Was that pain?” His voice was gravel again, abrasive not just against her ear but scratching lightly over the span of her skin, prickling every nerve.
And that soft bite hadn’t hurt. Though the sensation had been acute, with a sharpened edge, it was nothing like the pain Yvenne had known so intimately through so much of her life.
“It was not,” she whispered.
“This will be the same.” His fingers moved gently against hers. “So much pleasure that you can hardly bear if it continues. So much that you can hardly bear if it ends.”
She could hardly bear it now. Still she trembled in an agony of indecision. “You intend to touch me there?”
“Do you fear I will hurt you?”
Yes. And no.
Neither answer was completely truthful. So she had no answer to give.
For a long moment he was quiet, his broad chest rising and falling against her back, his thick fingers gently stroking through the wetness between her legs, as if accustoming her to his touch.
Finally he spoke again. “It matters not. Every Parsathean raider knows how to find a woman’s pearl, even when it is kept under guard.”
She could not mistake the amusement deepening the quiet rumble of his voice—as if he meant to put her at ease in this way.
Perhaps he would be successful, for she could not think of pain when she was thinking of how absurd such a name was. “A pearl?”
“All Parsatheans know that a woman’s clitoris is a hidden treasure.” As softly as his voice was rough, his slick fingertips glided back through her saturated folds. “To claim it, first a raider must voyage across this burning ocean.”
Still so absurd. Yet she could not laugh, not while pressing her lips together against the moan that threatened to escape with every slow caress through her delicate flesh.
Strong fingers teased her entrance. “Sometimes,” he said against her ear, his voice harsher now, his breathing deeper, “a foolish warrior becomes lost exploring the wonders of this cavern. But any Parsathean who vanishes into these depths without resuming his search for the pearl will never claim his prize.”