“You’re very handsome,” she said, a small smile playing about her mouth. “And...endowed.” He dragged part of a blanket across his thighs. “Eyes up here, Ildiko,” he said, crooking a finger and motioning to his face. He enjoyed the attention, but he wanted her focused on something other than his passion for her.
Her gaze followed the gesture. She gave an unapologetic shrug. “Who can blame me? You’re handsome all over. I like to look at you, and you sitting there naked on my bed is a distraction.”
Brishen recalled the first time he revealed his face to her in the royal gardens at Pricid and her response. “Had you crawled out from under my bed when I was a child, I would have bludgeoned you to death with my father’s mace.” How things had changed since their first meeting.
Ildiko set the brush on her dressing table and rose from the stool to stand in front of him. He grunted softly when she climbed into his lap and seated herself astride him. He braced his hands on her lower back to hold her in place, the weight of her body pressing into him the finest of sensations.
Her hands were cool on his skin as they journeyed across his shoulders, and up his neck before finally coming to rest on either side of his jaw. He lifted his chin at her silent coaxing. “You’ve the look of a man with a question as well as an erection,” she teased.
The sheer folds of her linen shift glided over his thighs to tease his cock, and her scent filled his nostrils. He breathed deep, nearly forgetting his own question. “And you’ve the look of a woman with a dilemma,” he replied. “What had you so put out at dinner? And so pensive on the journey home?”
Her features took on that same faraway expression she wore as they rode home from High Salure. Brishen bit back a pleasured sigh as her fingers slid into his hair to massage his scalp. His own hands didn’t remain idle. Her skin radiated warmth through her shift, and he traced the sleek lines of her legs and flanks before sliding down to cup her buttocks.
His claws, ripped out by his torturers three months earlier, were growing back. While Brishen missed the fighting edge long claws gave every Kai, he liked the fact he could caress his wife without worrying about accidentally slicing through her thin garment and laying a bloody scratch into her flesh.
His touch brought her back to him, and her strange, human eyes met his. “There are many differences between our peoples I hadn’t considered until now.”
Her comment caught him by surprise, and a knot of unease settled under his breastbone. As the human wife of a Kai and the only human living in a military garrison populated by Kai, she had numerous opportunities to observe and experience how their two races differed from each other.
The list was long and went far beyond the obvious physicalities. Ildiko had dealt with them all in her customary pragmatic way. Her strength lay not in battle prowess but in flexibility. Brishen suspected his wife lived by the philosophy of adapt and conquer. What discovery had she made among the guests of High Salure that troubled her during supper and on the return ride to Saggara?
“Fewer differences than some might assume,” he argued. “Where is this leading, wife?”
She twined a lock of his hair around one finger. “You may not realize it, but when the women gather, they don’t always discuss needlework or child-rearing.”
He snorted, still puzzled but also amused. “I’m Kai raised among Kai, Ildiko. If human women gathered in groups are anything like Kai women gathered in groups, then there are stories exchanged, comparisons made and bragging rights earned. Who tupped whom, who lasted longest, who hangs lower or stands prouder and who failed at any of those things on the list.”
Her eyes widened with each item he named. “Well...”
“Trust me; nothing you tell me about talk in the solar will surprise me. When I first visited High Salure to dine with Serovek, he told me the guests spent a full hour after I left gossiping between them as to whether or not my cock was barbed and if I had a tail tucked away in my trews.
She jerked in his embrace, and her mouth fell open. “Oh my gods.”
He grinned at her obvious shock. “Sometimes the differences actually there aren’t nearly as interesting as the ones imagined.”
Ildiko leaned back. Her gaze dropped once more to his strategically covered groin. Her grin mimicked his as his erection swelled even more to press against her linen-covered belly. “I don’t remember seeing a barb,” she said, tapping a finger against her chin. “Or feeling one for that matter.”
Brishen laughed. “I’d think something like a barb would be memorable for both of us.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at him and raised one hand with thumb and forefinger pinched together. “Maybe it’s just a tiny barb; too small to notice.”
He yanked her close to bury his face in her cleavage and growl into her shift. The perfumes of soap and the incense that burned in High Salure’s hall fanned the lustful fire smoldering inside him for the woman he fondly called his “pretty hag.”
She giggled and gripped his shoulders as he continued to growl and snuffle his face into the curves of her breasts. He finally pulled away to stare into her smiling face. “If I possessed a barb, it wouldn’t be tiny or unnoticeable.” He leered at her. “But you’re welcome to take a closer look. Feel around just to make sure.”
Ildiko returned the leer. “I think I will, thank you very much.” She scrambled off his lap before he could protest and whipped away the concealing bit of bed linen. Hands on her hips, she scrutinized him as if his cock were a puzzle she was still trying to decipher. Her lips twitched. “No barb,” she finally declared. “Not even a tiny one, but still very impressive.”
He smirked and settled back on the bed, propped on his elbows to give her an even better view. “So you like what you see then?”
She bent to him, her hands pale against his gray skin as she caressed him from knees to thighs, her palm brushing teasingly over the head of his cock before gliding across his belly. Every muscle there clenched, and he inhaled a sharp breath.
“What I see,” she agreed and sank to her knees between his legs. “And touch.” Her hand wrapped around him, sliding up his shaft with a firm, practiced stroke. Brishen arched his back and groaned. “And taste.” He gasped and made to sit up when she ran her tongue along his length from base to tip. The shock of that intimate caress--the intensity of pleasure--sent bolts of sensation firing through every part of his body. Never had he felt the like. Not with an affectionate lover or paid companion.
“Ildiko,” he said between strangled breaths.
She paused to lift her head, and he swallowed back a frustrated moan. Her eyes shone lustrous in the semi-darkness, and the rose tint had returned to her face. Her lips were full, red and damp. “Do you trust me, Brishen?” she said in a soft voice.
She asked him such a question now? He scowled. “Of course I do. You feel the need to ask?”
Her fingers traced spirals around his navel before journeying up his torso to tease his nipple while her other hand encircled the base of his cock. “In this matter, I think I do,” she said.
“Lover of thorns,” he said between clenched teeth, the words guttural and deep as his hips lifted to thrust against her grip. “Yes, I trust you. Implicitly.”
“Good, because I want only to please you.” Once more she stroked him, this time her grip firmer, the caress faster.
His heartbeat hammered in his ears, and he wondered at his ability to remain coherent. “You do that every day.”
“Not like this, my silver-tongued lover,” she said and emphasized her point by sliding her tongue along the same path as her hand, ending at the tip, where she sucked the head of his cock gently into her mouth.
Pleasure, shock, and sheer, unmitigated terror exploded inside him. Brishen froze in place, even as his arm and leg muscles twitched and sweat trickled in rivulets down his chest and dripped from his temples. It was so hot in the room, so hot between Ildiko’s mouth with those lush, soft lips and the teeth hidden behind them.
She could bite him, make him bleed, maim him beyond repair if she wanted. He was more vulnerable in that moment than he’d ever been in his life. No Kai lover ever did this to him, nor would he allow it. Not with the teeth his people possessed. But Ildiko was human, without the pointed spikes that made even mouth kissing a dangerous thing to indulge in if one wasn’t careful. She was also his beloved wife, the keeper of his heart, the one person in whose presence he felt safest.
The terror subsided, leaving only the blissfulness of her caress. He relaxed his elbows and lay back fully on the bed. Ildiko’s hands silently coaxed his hips closer to the bed’s edge and he complied.
Her caresses grew bolder as she drew him ever deeper into her mouth. Her tongue seemed to wrap serpentine around his sensitive flesh, and he shivered at the faintest scrape of her back teeth on him. The contours of her mouth shaped around him as she sucked harder, moving slowly up and down his length. He uttered her name amidst a long groan and buried his hands in her hair to cup her head.
This was ecstasy beyond description, unlike anything he’d ever known, unequaled except when he buried his cock between Ildiko’s thighs, claiming her as his while offering himself to her.
His hips rose to match the rhythm she set, as did his moans of encouragement. “Ah gods, Ildiko. It’s...it’s.” He couldn’t finish the stuttered sentence, lost to his wife’s lovemaking that was quickly turning him into a mindless creation of blood, bone and sheer sensation. The tingling heat coursing under his skin and pooling in his lower belly and groin, rippled outward until it suffused his limbs, his torso and chest where his heart pounded beneath his ribs at treble pace. As if sensing the fire rising within him, Ildiko increased her pace, drawing ever harder on him, sucking him in deeper until he cried out a wordless plea. Whether to stop or continue, he couldn’t say. Both, neither. It didn’t matter. He clung to the threads of his shredded control to keep from thrusting harder into her mouth. Her hair slid through his fingers when he let her go to claw the sheets with his hands.
“Stop,” he commanded. I’m going to come in your mouth if you don’t stop.”
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.
Ildiko ignored him, as if the only voice she heard was the one inside his head that begged her to continue.
All of Saggara likely heard his bellow as his climax slammed into him. Ildiko’s fingers dug into his hips as he heaved on the bed and did his best not to injure her with his thrashing. The flex and pull of her mouth as she swallowed his seed sent another, lesser orgasm through him. Colors exploded behind his closed eyelid, and he inhaled a shallow draw of air into his starved lungs.
Brishen shivered under her hands as she slowly drew back and released him with a gentle kiss. A draft of cool air swirled across his softening cock. The bed creaked under her additional weight, and he opened his eye to discover her leaning over him, cheeks pink, an uncertain smile curving her mouth.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Hurt him? She’d tried to kill him, and he enjoyed every single, ecstatic moment of it. The smile faded at his prolonged silence. Brishen clasped her to him and rolled them both to their sides. Her breasts were soft against his chest, her legs entwined with his, a seductive clasp. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the curves of her cheekbones and finally her mouth.
She tasted a little of salt, and he deepened the kiss until she moaned into his mouth and wrapped her hands in his hair. When they broke apart to breathe, her smile had returned.
“You slew me,” he said. “But you didn’t hurt me.” A self-satisfied expression settled over her features. “Is this what you women talked about before dinner at High Salure?” The pink tingeing her cheeks gave her away.
She offered a tiny shrug. “Among other things. So count yourself lucky Serovek’s guests from that first dinner waited until you left to discuss what you’re hiding between your legs.” A small frown marred her forehead. “Those women were worse than the king’s interrogators. For a moment I feared they’d put thumbscrews to me if I didn’t answer their questions about our intimacies.”
“But they made you curious.”
Another shrug, followed by a sigh. “Aye, they did.” Ildiko traced the contours of shoulder and bicep with a fingertip, traveling lower to outline his collarbone and the hollow of his throat. I very much wanted to try. After all, you do something similar to me, and it’s glorious.
Her praise heated his blood a second time, and he grinned. She tapped him on the arm. “Don’t preen so much. Even though my teeth aren’t those of a Kai, I feared you would refuse.”
That gave him pause, and he pulled back to peer at her. Surely by now she knew he’d give her Night with its moon and stars if she asked for it. “Hardly,” he said. “If it’s in my power, I’ll give you whatever you wish.”
She mimicked his earlier actions, mapping his face with her fingers before kissing him. “Prince of night,” she whispered against his lips. “I do love you.”
“And I you, woman of day.”
They traded several kisses and caresses after that, each one more heated than the last. Brishen halted in pushing Ildiko’s shift up to her hips when she spoke.
“I’ll want to pleasure you this way again.”
“Thank the gods,” he said. “Saves me the trouble of groveling on my knees before you asking if you’d consider a second time.” They exchanged grins.
He resumed his task of baring her body to his gaze and hands. “I can never remember who is wife or daughter to whom among Serovek’s guests,” he said, admiring the curve of her hip, the way it dipped gently into her waist. “What are the names of these women?”
She stretched beneath his hand. “Why do you ask?”
He leaned down to drop a kiss on her shoulder. “So I may send them gifts and notes of undying gratitude for their gossiping and prying. Gods be thanked for chatter in the solar.”
~END~
About Grace
Grace Draven is a Louisiana native living in Texas with her husband, kids and a big, doofus dog. She has loved storytelling since forever and is a fan of the fictional bad boy. She is the winner of the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015 and a USA Today Bestselling author.
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Titles by Grace Draven
THE WRAITH KINGS
Radiance
Eidolon
The Ippos King (2017)
FROM THE MASTER OF CROWS WORLD
Master of Crows
The Brush of Black Wings
The Lightning God’s Wife
The Light Within
OTHER STORIES
Entreat Me
All the Stars Look Down
Beneath a Waning Moon
For Crown and Kingdom
Connect with me:
website: gracedraven.com
Facebook: facebook.com/grace.draven
Grace Draven, Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods
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