Duality (45 page)

Her heart was so full her eyes stung. She pulled him into another kiss, fingers tangling in his hair. His hands slid down her back. She felt their warmth through the beaded material of her dress. She wasn’t sure when warmth became heat, when desire became need. But it wasn’t enough. She trembled against him, her body burning beneath his hands, his heart pounding beneath her hands.

His fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons at the back of her neck. A sudden sharp image of tearing material and tiny pearl buttons bouncing all over the petal-strewn floor flashed behind her eyes even as he muttered a soft, incoherent curse. She jumped back and stared at him, blinking. “L-Loren?”

Loren’s smile was tight. “Caught that, did you?”

She nodded.

“Who invented this torture device?”

Her lips twitched. “I’m fine.”

“Not for you, woman—me.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Don’t you dare rip this lovely dress. Someday our daughter might want to wear it.”

His eyes heated. “Daughter, eh? Wife, if I do not get you out of this dress there shall not
be
a daughter.” He turned her around. Sweeping her hair aside, he kissed the nape of her neck.

Dara shivered. Each button that gave way parted to another kiss. Slowly he rained a trail of fire down her spine, with feather-light caresses and butterfly kisses over her skin. Her entire body tingled. “Loren,” she gasped.

Soft, so soft
. He kissed his way back up, pushed the dress down off her shoulders until it pooled in a heap at their feet. His hands burned as they glided across her belly, up to cup her breasts. “So beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.
Wife…mine
, echoed in her mind.

She reached around to caress the back of his neck; goose bumps rose at her touch. Her movement lifted her breasts into his hands. The tingle sharpened as his fingers teased her sensitive nipples to aching points, and she shifted back against him. “Loren, please.” Shyness was the last thing on her mind; her fingers itched to touch him. She spun in his arms. “No fair.” She fumbled with his belt until it dropped to the floor and she was able to slide her hands beneath the velvety white tunic. Hot skin and hard muscle burned under her palms. He went rigid at her touch. “You’re a bit overdressed, husband.”

He groaned. His lips devoured hers in a bruising kiss as his hands caught hers. “Stop. Dara, you must cease.” It was half-order, half-plea.

“Why? I like touching you. You like it too.” She struggled to free her hands. “I feel you burn.”

His eyes blazed, and he swallowed hard. “If you continue, this shall be over afore we begin. I want you too badly,
elingrena
. You have some catching up to do. Trust me.”

Her cheeks flamed at the memory those simple words invoked. “I do.” She snuggled closer, and his arms came around her. “I want my turn.”

“Later. Bold wench.” His lips crushed hers again.

Dara opened her mouth, her tongue tangling with his. Blood pounded through her veins like liquid fire. Her body flamed as his hands caressed her skin, slid down to pull her against him. Her legs trembled until she wasn’t sure they’d keep her upright.

As if he caught that, Loren swept her up into his arms and carried her over to lay her on the bed. Dara caught a sense of satisfaction—
his wife, in his bed
—as Loren followed her down. Then her thoughts scattered as his hands and lips resumed their magic. His mouth closed over her nipple and suckled. A surprising dart hit her in her lower abdomen, and with a startled cry she arched into his mouth.

Loren’s hand slid up her lace-covered leg, squeezed her knee, then up to the pale skin above her garter. He suckled harder, teasing the very tip of her nipple with his tongue. Her legs shifted as she clutched his head closer. Her body wound tighter, muscles clenched and trembling. Her blood boiled, heat poured off her as her body strained toward…paradise. His fingers brushed the damp curls, stroking wet, swelling flesh until he touched that spot of sharp fire which made her arch right off the bed. Her head thrashed, tension coiling as he quickened his pace. Her breath caught for one heart-stopping moment afore the world exploded.

He captured her cry with a soul-shattering kiss, absorbing her tremors with his own straining body. His hands stroked her legs, her back, kneading locked muscles, soothing what moments ago he’d aroused. His kiss gentled, and a languid contentment stole over her. Lady, what he did to her. Dara dragged her eyelids open with an effort. Loren half-smiled down at her, his eyes nearly black as she took a couple of deep breaths. The musky scent of sweat and arousal hung in the air. He brushed the hair from her eyes, his touch at once possessive and tender.

“Hello, husband.” She stroked his face with her fingertips. He captured her hand in his to place a burning kiss in her palm. She trembled, so sensitive to his every touch.

“Greetings, wife.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb, his eyes darkening still further when her tongue stole out for a leisurely caress. “Passionate minx,” he murmured. “Thirsty?”

She nodded. “Aye.” She watched him pour golden wine into two crystal goblets on the bedside table and hand her one. She drained her glass and handed it back, settling back against the pillows. “Remember what you said the last time I was here?”

Loren eyed her over his own goblet. “That I do, wife.”

“I’m thinking you got it half right.” Dara rose up on her knees afore him, took his half-finished cup of wine and set it on the table. “My turn.” She tugged his tunic up. He raised his arms and shrugged out of it, and Dara flung it, forgotten, to the floor as his hands reached out to caress her breasts. She pulled him close for a kiss, running her hands over his body and feeling his skin heat beneath her fingers.

Loren’s lips blazed a trail of fire down her throat to her breast. Dara dug her nails into his shoulders at the hot suction, and she gasped as she felt the pricking of her own skin. An achy, restless feeling built. Loren rained kisses down across her belly, and for a moment Dara felt her own silky skin pillowed under her own cheek. It was eerie, but at the same time arousing, to feel how she affected him. Loren took a deep breath, and the hot scent of arousal shot straight into her brain. His entire body went rigid; so did hers.

Swamped with dual sensation and emotion, Dara sank into a world of pure sensuality. She gasped as the silky strands of his long hair brushed the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. When his tongue caressed her swollen folds, her mind shut down and she sank into a haze of pure need. She’d no idea such pleasure existed, and was helpless to stop herself from rubbing against his mouth, driven to relieve the coiling tension.

Loren gently inserted one finger, then another. She was so tight, he didn’t want to hurt her, but if he didn’t have her soon he’d explode. Dara felt the strain of his holding back for her sake, weeks of unfulfilled desire and fantasy-dreams, the burning need to be sheathed within the wet heat of her body, to make her his for all time. She needed that more than she needed her next breath. Her hands hurried him when he would have slowed down, and his eyes were a little wild as he removed the rest of his clothing. She curled her body around his, gasping at the sensation of skin sliding against skin.

Curious, she reached down with one hand to caress the part of him she’d wondered about. He pulsed in her hand, velvet stretched taut over wood. Loren shuddered at her touch. “Mercy, wife,” he gasped. “If you do not stop—”

“Not your wife yet,” she interrupted. “Only you can make me so. Please. I burn, for you.” She gasped as he eased into her, shifting at the unfamiliar fullness.

Loren stopped as he encountered her resistance, eased almost out, then back in again. Desperate, impatient, greedy, Dara wrapped her legs around him, pulling him fully into her body. Her neck arched and she bit back a choke at the stab of pain, quickly gone. His eyes widened as her tight sheath clasped him, and he froze. “Easy,
elingrena
,” he whispered, kissing her temple as he gave her a moment to adjust. “Ssh, relax. It shall be better in a minute.”

She shifted, and gasped at the twinge of pleasure-pain. She’d heard there was pain the first time a maid laid with a man, but the pain was less than she’d expected, and the pleasure more. “You’re inside me,” she whispered. She pulsed around him—she felt it, along with the stretched fullness within her own body. She’d explode trying to sort the whole him-her feelings out.

“Aye.” Loren shifted, easing almost out, then back in, giving her body time to adjust and relax around him. His lips captured hers in a deep kiss, his hands caressing her breasts, pinching her nipples. He groaned at her wet response, as she gasped and arched into his hands. His control snapped, and he thrust into her, again, and again.

Dara whimpered into his mouth, awash with sensation. She shook with every twinge of pleasure. He was too big, it was almost too much. The sensations built so, she panicked when the precipice opened up beneath her. “Loren?”

“I have you, wife,” he reassured her. “Trust me.”

She would ever associate those words with Loren’s lovemaking. The pleasure crashed over her, over him. Dara cried out, and he shuddered in her arms. It went on and on until the world faded, and refocused on Loren’s flushed, sweaty face. The scent of their passion filled her nostrils, and she shifted as he eased from her body. She flinched at the unfamiliar twinge.

“Are you all right?” Loren rolled onto his side and pulled her into his arms.

His concern mixed with male satisfaction.
My wife, in truth now
. She smiled. “I’m fine. You’re mine now too.” She enjoyed seeing the surprise on his face.

“The tales are true, then.”

“Apparently so.” Dara burrowed closer. “It was incredible. I had no idea.”

“You know, I have dreamed of this.” He rolled to his back and pulled her across him.

That position brought to mind the memory of their first kiss. “Dreamed of what?”

“Us, like this. Naked. Covered with naught but this hair.”

She trembled at the hoarseness in his voice. “Was it everything you imagined?”

Loren shook his head as he slid his fingers through her hair. “Nay. More. It was so much more. You are just so very beautiful. I did not hurt you too much?”

Dara purred and leaned into his touch. “Trust what you felt.” She pulled him in for a slow, thorough kiss. “I love you, husband,” she whispered against his lips.

“I love you too, wife. Forever.”

“Forever.” That last word took on a whole new wealth of meaning now.

Chapter Eighteen

Dara peeked out from behind the green velvet curtains. On the front dais, for the first time in two hundred years, stood both swan thrones. Her—former peasant, former mortal—sitting on a queen’s throne and wearing a crown made her dizzy. Mayhaps she should have eaten something earlier.

Over her pale silk gown, the same ivy-embossed silvery green of Cymry Hall as Loren’s robes, the blood torque glowed.
“Today your life beginsss.”

The formal hall was packed with five hundred noble delegates from all over the realm. She spotted Pahn with the dwarf contingent in a place of honor in the left front row. With Loren as king, Dara planned to ensure continuing good relations with the dwarf nation. They and the elves had let misunderstandings and pride divide them for far too long.

Hengist, Moira, Trystan and the clan leaders of Wolf, Badger, and Bear sat in the second row behind the dwarves. Agata gripped her totemic staff, at ease with all the royalty and nobility around her. Dara thought of the totemic staff they had graced her with—from the ground up, bear, badger, wolf and eagle, for Hengist, topped with the ultimate guardian, dragon. She stared at her father and stepmother. It saddened her to think of how they used to be versus what they had now. After all they’d both suffered, to have such an enduring unease betwixt them…

Loren came up behind her and warm reassurance enveloped her with his arms. “She shall come around. Give it time.”

Time. The one thing she now had plenty of. But at what cost? Cedric’s time was nearly done. How could Loren, Lorelei and Pari stand to look at her, without always remembering what she had taken from them?

“Stop it right there. What he passed on to you was a gift, freely given. Granna loves you, never doubt that.”

Dara was touched that on the day he’d dreaded his whole life, he reassured her. His stomach was in knots, the hands on her shoulders ice-cold. “That’s one thing I can fix for you.” She poured heat from her own hands into his.

He stiffened, then sighed and relaxed. “Thank you, wife.” His eyes twinkled at her. “At least I shall never have to worry about cold feet in bed.”

“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes at him, then went back to her spying. She spotted the ministry and the adept mage circle in the second and third rows on the right. Lord Elio caught her peeking and winked at her, his face impassive. He alone of all the elves was garbed as a warrior, in black leather with silver piping.

Trystan was similarly dressed, in charcoal grey leather with bronze accents and Moira’s unique wolf-eagle amulet. He wore two of Ealga’s shed primary feathers in his war braids. Scout feathers. She eyed the new torque around his neck. So he’d made war chieftain after their victory. It was more than deserved.