“In Goge and Toleh,” he told her quietly, “they warn their children that if they do not cover themselves, the Farians will rape and eat them.”
She made no response, yet he felt her solemn gaze now upon his face.
He peeled away the last of the linen. This slash was deeper, the torn edges of the scab bleeding more. Bunching the linens, he held them against the wound and waited for the new blood to stop welling.
“It is a fool’s warning.” He met her eyes. “The Farians will rape and eat their children whether they are covered or not.”
“And the Parsatheans?”
“They would rape and eat us, too,” he said, and her lips twitched with amusement, but only until she seemed to remember that the Farians had done so, and that Maddek knew too many Parsatheans—and southerners—savaged by the Farians during his time upon the Lave. But he had not meant to turn the mood sour. It was her laughter he’d sought. “Our most celebrated legend is of Ran Bantik stealing a king’s daughter from a tower after seeing her beauty. So perhaps there is some truth in the reason for the coverings. But southerners are fools if they believe it would have made any difference.”
“It makes little sense,” she agreed softly. “If bare skin were the temptation, the raiders need never leave the Burning Plains.”
So Maddek had once thought, too. Yet now bare skin from wrist to elbow was changing that view. “That is why they sought treasure, instead.”
Treasure—or merely excitement and challenge, and seeking treasure brought those, too.
“Yet it was not only treasure they raided,” she countered. “And Ran Bantik was not the only one who stole a wife. Many other men and women have been taken in Parsathean raids.”
“So they were,” he agreed, and checked the wound beneath the bunched linens. Still bleeding, but barely.
“Which means something else must have tempted those raiders. Because Parsatheans do not rape or keep slaves—or so my mother told me.”
“She told you true.” Though persuasion was its own challenge and excitement. And this time when he reached beneath her silk sleeve to unfasten the linens at her shoulder, he heard no nervousness in her breath, and the color in her cheeks no longer seemed of embarrassment. “Perhaps the very coverings the southerners believed protected them is what tempted those raiders, instead.”
She arched a skeptical brow. “So instead of stealing silk robes and linen wrappings, they stole the person?”
Maddek would have liked to steal her clothing away, yet he suspected the arousal that flushed her skin now would retreat into nervousness again.
“No,” he told her, and his own need roughened his voice, yet his fingers were light as they skimmed over the silk covering her shoulder. Her bare skin shivered beneath his fingertips when he reached the side of her neck and traced a slow path to the hollow of her throat. “I imagine those raiders could make no sense of these coverings. They would wonder what purpose could they have, except to hide treasures beneath? So they would look for an answer.”
“That makes no sense, either. As soon as they looked, they must have known there was nothing beneath that is different from what Parsatheans have.”
“Then why conceal it?” His fingers slid downward and teased a circle around the tip of her right breast, where her stiffened nipple was pebbled beneath the fine silk. Her breath stopped, her widened gaze locked on his, her lips parted. “Perhaps this is a ruby.”
A laugh shook her again, then cut off on a gasp when he swept his thumb across that aroused peak.
“It feels as hard as a ruby,” Maddek told her gruffly. And he was steel.
“Ardyl wears covering,” she pointed out, each word emerging on a soft panting breath. “Does she also conceal rubies?”
“That band stops her tits from bouncing as she rides or runs.” With both hands now, Maddek cupped her small breasts through the silk. “You do not need such support, so you must be covering treasures.”
“You all wear belts and red linens. Do you also hide treasures beneath? Treasures other than a pearl.” Her blush returned fiercely yet she did not retreat, her voice bold and her eyes sparkling with challenge. “The women have reason to cover, then, but men do not.”
“That is not why female warriors cover. There is no need to conceal a pearl with clothing, for a woman’s body already conceals it.” In his mind swelled the memory of Yvenne, slick and hot beneath his touch, and the sweetness of her honey that he’d licked from her fingers. “I told you that foolish men could not find it.”
He could see by the stuttering of her breath that she recalled precisely when he’d said so, yet his bride would not be thwarted. “Then what reason do warriors cover? Why do male warriors conceal their pride?”
He concealed nothing. She had only to glance down to see the force of his need and the strength of his pride. Whereas he’d had to learn to read her very breath and the depth of her blushes.
“Our coverings are not to hide anything. Instead they serve a useful purpose,” Maddek said before adding wryly, “As you will discover if ever you ride without them.”
“You wear them even when you aren’t on a horse.”
“Because we are always prepared to ride.”
She appeared outraged by his answer—because she had no counter to it, he realized. Her face was flushed with arousal but also enjoyment, her soft tits a slight weight in his hands that rose and fell with every heaving breath.
His bride had taken pleasure in arguing with him. As had he. Though Maddek suspected that in this sparring match, he only prevailed because he’d kept her well distracted. No doubt had this conversation taken place at a campfire instead of with his hands teasing her, she’d have easily destroyed him.
But Maddek had not lived this long by allowing an opponent time to recover. “Then we shall see who is right,” he told her, and tugged back the left side of her robe, revealing her small breast and pointed nipple.
For the barest moment her shyness returned—then disappeared with another outraged gasp when Maddek declared, “I am victorious.”
“Victorious? You have just proved yourself wrong!”
“It is hard and reddened, and gleams as a polished gem does,” he observed. “So I have found a ruby.”
“It does not gleam!”
Only because he’d kept his need leashed. No more.
Gripping her narrow waist, he hefted her up until the tip of her breast was against his lips. She gave a startled cry, abruptly silenced with the back of her hand covering her open mouth. With widened eyes, she stared down at him.
Fierce hunger raged through his blood. Her scent filled him, the sharpness of her anise soap and the smoke of the fire she’d sat beside while tending to Toric. Holding that astonished gaze, he swirled his tongue around her hardened nipple before sucking the taut peak into the heat of his mouth.