Oria's Gambit (24 page)

That was the truth. “I can’t believe I’m
going to tell you this.”

“I can believe it. If nothing else, you at
least trust me to take care of you.”

Also true, rational or not. How it had
happened that she trusted a Destrye warrior with her emotional
well-being more than her mother or brother… Her world continued to
alter, not content with upending, but also insisting on twisting
sideways and in all sorts of unpredictable directions. Why not this
aspect, too?

She took a steadying breath, reaching for
hwil
. “When I was young, I saw these illustrations in the
history books.”

“Yes?” he prompted when she faltered. “What
of?”

“Of Destrye taking women captive, tied up
with rope, and—ugh—I felt things then, which is horrible of me.”
She waited for his reproof, seething with humiliated shame, an echo
of the priestess’s scorn when she caught Oria rapt over those
books, taking them away and advising her that meditation would do
far more to build
hwil
.

“I thought as much.” He said instead, full of
male satisfaction.

“But I don’t want that,” she hastened to make
sure he understood. “I don’t know why it affected me. I don’t want
it to happen, I’m only saying that’s the only time before that I
felt any … urges.”

“Before what?”

“Recently,” she said, hoping to stop things
there. No such luck, of course.

“Before meeting me?”

“Maybe,” she muttered, but he only grew more
pleased with himself.

“You get under my skin, too. For a long time
I thought it was magic, that you’d somehow bewitched me.”

She sat up a little straighter, indignant. “I
would never!”

“Don’t spit, kitten. I know that now. More
important, I understand something of those desires you speak of and
can give you a taste of them.”

“If you try to rape me, I will use everything
in me to kill you,” she warned him, chill dread mixing with the
heat of longing.

Absurdly, he laughed. “I have no doubt you
could and would, my sorceress wife, with those weapons you wield so
well. I promise you—no rape. No pain or fear. Only a glimpse to
open that window, to allow you to feel what made those
illustrations so compelling.”

“I still don’t understand how you can
possibly do this without touching my skin,” she muttered,
rebellious and intrigued.

“I’m an inventive man when I want
something.”

G
aining the top of the
tower, he carried Oria straight to her bedroom. Their bedroom, he
supposed. Far from feeling tired from the climb, his body surged
with fevered excitement. Oria would be his at last. A wedding night
to remember, if somewhat delayed. He set her on her feet where she
remained, watching him light candles in the glass lanterns,
suspicion in every line of her body.

“Lonen…” she started as he gently turned her
by the shoulders, facing her away from him.

“I’m only removing your mask and taking down
your hair,” he soothed her.

She laughed, a little ragged. “I should have
known that would be first.”

“Indeed you should have,” he agreed, working
more quickly this time, having tied the knots himself. “Whenever
we’re alone, this will be first. Can we agree to that?”

“I suppose that’s not too much to ask.” She
handed him the mask to set beside the bed, trading him for one of
the cool cloths that Juli left for her in the covered jar. Oria
used it to mop her face—and to keep it shielded, he suspected, as
he took down her braids and brushed out the rippling copper mass of
her hair.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered.

“Aren’t you listening?”

“I’m trying not to do that as much.”

“I don’t mind,” he told her, discovering to
his surprise that he really didn’t. “In fact, I’m finding I like
having you in my head.” He drew his hands through her hair,
savoring the silky heft of it. “A way of being close to you, since
I can’t yet be inside your body.”

She relaxed fractionally. “Then you
won’t…”

“Won’t hurt you. I know what the limits are.
Trust me.”

Letting out a breath, she set the face cloth
aside. “I do.”

“Enough to take off your robes?”

She hesitated fractionally, then nodded,
first untying his mantle and giving it back to him. Bemused, he
tossed it aside, watching her. It would be so much easier if he
could first kiss her, seduce her with gentle caresses. But she
wasn’t a woman to be cozened regardless. She had her own style of
boldness, once she set herself on a course of action.

She blushed, eyes hooded, but unfastened the
robes without faltering further, shedding the layers of them, until
she stood only in that thin white chemise, in a pool of crimson
silk. Still not looking at him, she pulled at the ties, then
dropped the undergarment as well, standing naked before him.

Arill had blessed him with such a glorious
woman. If She also gave him the challenge of being unable to touch
his wife’s skin, then he accepted that as the price.

Slim as a sapling, skin luminous in the
candlelight with her radiant cape of metallic hair surrounding her,
Oria took his breath away. Her breasts were tipped with small
nipples, a rose as delicate as Sgatha’s light, and the hair at her
mons glinted a copper so smooth and straight he ached to taste her
with his tongue.

Someday, they would find a way.

She studied his reaction, probably reading
his emotions, so he let her feel it—the astounding desire and awe
of her exotic beauty. Receiving the message, she smiled. Tentative,
even shy at first, then blooming with all her radiance.

“I am relieved to be pleasing to you,” she
said quietly, surprising him.

“How could you have doubted it?”

Her shimmy of a shrug made her breasts bounce
enticingly. Clearly Arill planned to test his restraint and
self-control severely. He’d asked Her for a penance to cleanse his
spirit of the taint of his deeds and She had delivered. Hopefully
he’d emerge from it a better person, if somewhat crazed.

“I’ve never been naked for a man,” Oria was
saying, so he dragged his fascinated gaze up to her face. “And I
know I am not at all like Nat—your Destrye women.”

Because she’d seen Natly in his mind. Arill
only knew what all she’d seen of Natly there.

“Nor am I like your Báran men,” he returned,
then caught himself, struck. She’d said he intimidated her with his
size, and he was darker, hairier than any Báran he’d seen. “Do I
revolt you?”

She gave him a curious smile. “Those
illustrations, remember?”

How perfect that she’d shared that with him.
It made many things easier, and he hoped to deliver on that
long-held fantasy. “On that note, hold out your wrists, crossed in
front of you.” He picked up one of her many silk scarves and drew
close enough to scent her heating skin.

She eyed him uncertainly, but those eyes also
showed her arousal, her dark pupils wide. “We’re really doing
this?”

“It ups the tension, speaks to your
fantasy—and mine, I might add—and has the bonus of keeping you
still so I won’t accidentally touch your skin with mine.”

She took a deep breath and held out her
crossed wrists, gaze on his face. Not the dying doe, life bleeding
away at his hands, but an ardent woman trusting him to deliver on
his promises. The absolution he’d looked for. Wrapping the silk in
and around her wrists, tying the knots just so to keep her delicate
bones from crushing together, he vowed to never destroy that look
in her eyes.

A fine trembling ran through her as Lonen bound her
wrists.
Hwil
danced far beyond her grasp as those shameful
adolescent desires assaulted her, jumbling with the new ones that
centered entirely on Lonen. Naked before her Destrye warrior,
vulnerable and at his mercy. He stood close enough that she could
turn her hands and run them over his chest, open his shirt and
tangle her fingers in the hair beneath. His eyes—a gray so dark
they looked almost black in the golden light—flicked up to study
her face, the gentle concern a contrast to the raging storm of
violent desire beneath. He affected her profoundly on multiple
levels, his physical presence amplifying the vivid fantasy images
rolling through his mind, of her gasping beneath him, crying out
his name, their skin sliding together so slickly she almost felt
it.

“If I could,” he murmured, voice rasping over
her nerves as he walked her backwards, holding only the ends of the
silk, “I would be kissing you now. I’d start with light ones, like
butterfly wings on your lips, lulling you in until you felt safe
enough to open your mouth. Yes, just like that. Your lips wet and
plump and pink from meeting mine.”

The backs of her thighs hit the edge of the
bed, but he kept her from instinctively sitting. Instead he raised
her hands above her head, looping her scarf over the rods that held
the gauzy bed curtains. Hot blood rioted through her, unruly,
exultant, needy. “Lonen…” she whispered.

“You’re okay. Just feel. I’ve got you. By now
you’d have opened your mouth to me. My tongue would be inside you,
tangling with yours.” He left her standing there, arms relaxed, but
tethered to the bed. Picking up another scarf from her basket of
them, he pressed it to his lips. They looked fuller, more enticing
than she’d ever noticed, framed by his glossy black beard. Lifting
the scarf to her mouth, he caressed her lower lip with the silk
where he’d kissed it, slightly damp from his, tasting of him. “Is
this okay?”

So far, yes. Tentatively, she tasted it with
the tip of her tongue, finding some of him there. He groaned, eyes
hot. “Kitten tongue. I’d pull that into my mouth, maybe nipping at
it until you squirmed, begging me for more.”

She did squirm, as if his words evoked it,
tugging against the silk that only tightened, making her flesh
bloom with desire around it. “More. Please give me more.”

“Oria,” he grated, his hands fisting in the
silk. “You might be the death of me.”

“Pleasure me, Destrye,” she demanded. “Prove
your worth to a sorceress of Bára.”

He breathed a laugh. “Sweet captive bride,
you will writhe for me and, before we’re done, you’ll scream my
name in pleasure.”

She wanted to already, convulsing when he
drew the silk across her taut nipples. They’d never been so
sensitive, her breasts swelling like molten glass, full of breath
and fire. Lonen dragged the silk over and around the skin of them,
teasing her, while her breath grew ragged.

“These are my lips on you,” he told her,
picturing it so she would, “licking all this delicious flesh.” He
stepped back and flicked the ends of the silk against her, drawing
incoherent cries in response. “I might use my teeth, too. Do you
like that?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” She nearly sobbed the words,
unable to take and keep a decent breath. “Whatever you want,
warrior.”

“Because you belong to me.” He loomed large
before her, fierce and feral.

Only one answer. “Yes.”

“These are my hands on you.” Tying the scarf
around her rib cage, he knotted above and between her breasts,
crossing it up and over her shoulders, then bringing the ends
around and beneath, tying them off to the center knot. He took his
time, teasing her nipples with the free ends. Picking up her
container of mask ribbons, he tied them to the scarves,
meticulously making sure not to brush her skin with his, tightening
them around her breasts with nearly painful pressure. “I have big
hands,” he told her as he worked. “Barbarian hands, rough from
fighting and manual labor. They scrape your soft white Báran skin
and you love it.”

“I love it,” she agreed, longing for that
very thing. “Touch me, Lonen.”

“I am. I’m squeezing your breasts. Do you
feel that? Taking my fill of you, as is my right.”

He tightened the ribbons and she cried out,
writhing against the bonds.

“Hold still,” he ordered in a harsh voice.
“Don’t make me bind you further. All your pleading won’t save
you.”

Understanding, she did her best to hold
still, transfixed as he made a loop with a thin strip of ribbon,
then slipped it over the tight peak of her nipple. His eyes caught
hers. “Your teeth chewing your lip—that’s me, devouring your mouth,
your nipples.” Slowly, he tightened the little noose and she gasped
at the intensity of it. He smiled, a cruel, ruthless enjoyment of
her predicament. “See? Many uses for those ribbons you squander so
freely, Princess.”

He did the same to her other nipple, all the
while describing what he’d be doing to her, until he’d reduced her
panting and begging. “Please, Lonen,” she chanted.

“You want me between your legs?” he asked,
leaning close so his breath caressed her cheek. “Touching you
there, making you pump those pretty hips until you can’t hold
back.”