“Do you now kiss me.”
Tedra closed her eyes as those words sent a thrill down her spine. “Is that to be part of the nightly ritual, too?”
“It is.”
“All right, you asked for it.”
She squirmed upward until she could reach his mouth, then plastered hers to it, but that was not what he’d had in mind. He stopped her so quickly she barely got a taste of him.
“This was to be a kiss for sleep, woman, not for joining,” he chided her.
“I never thought I’d contemplate rape,” Tedra growled, but she said it in Kystrani, didn’t care if that annoyed him or not, and turned around to give him her back. If he insisted she put her arms around him again, he’d have a war on his hands. He must have sensed that, for he didn’t insist. He didn’t say another word. But his big hand came to rest on her hip. He was still keeping her close.
Chapter Fifteen
Challen woke with the woman’s movement. He had lost count of the number of times she had disturbed his sleep with her sighs, mumblings, and turnings, but fortunately, each time his sleep had easily resumed. He doubted that she had gotten much herself, though. Such was to be expected of a captive or newly claimed woman, but not for the reason that bothered his little challenge loser. She had not lost sleep through anxiety, tears, or simple fear of a new warrior she must obey, but because her need was upon her. He had gone to sleep with the smell of her arousal strong in his nostrils.
Long did he debate whether to ease her need without joining. Such could be done easily. But did she not know this, he would prefer she remain in ignorance of it for now, so he did nothing. Also, she could only benefit by her need still being great when he did join with her. Better a slight discomfort through the night than true pain, were she not ready for him when the effects of thedhayajuice wore off.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the sun had begun its rising already. When he turned to find the woman was facing him again, he also discovered, instantly, that the last of thedhayajuice had, in fact, worn off even while he had thought about it. His loins filled with need, and as was expected when denied withdhayajuice, that need was now so powerful it was painful. It was also worse than it had ever been before, for he had the previous rising’s memories to goad him, clear and concise, memories of his touching the Kystrani, of her touching him, of every burning, passion-filled look she gave him from those fascinating aquamarine eyes.
He groaned, closing his eyes again, fighting down the need to draw the woman beneath him and end the pain immediately. He had bragged to her of a warrior’s control. Where was it now?
He concentrated on the pain rather than on his need, opening his mind to it so that it surrounded him. It was not intense enough to put him into the trance-induced state that would ignore all feeling, but it was enough to give him a measure of calm, to return some of the normal control a warrior possessed when not influenced bydhaya.The urgency was still there, but it was no longer the crazed wildness of a mindlessly driven beast.
Again he looked at the woman still in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Even with dark smudges beneath her eyes to attest to her unpleasant night, he found her incredibly beautiful. She was using his arm as a pillow, but both her hands were wrapped around it, too, as if she felt in sleep what he had also felt, a need to hold tight to what he had found, a fear it might be lost otherwise.
The fear was not unfounded on his part, not that he thought the woman would flee him. He had spoken true when he told her he trusted in her honor. There was not another woman he would have said that to, for Kan-is-Tran women could claim honor, but were known to overlook it when it suited them. He was certain this was not so with the Kystrani, for she was, in fact, a warrior woman. Her every action claimed this to be so, even the arrogance she professed to be as great as his.
No, the fear stemmed from another source, one not imminent, but there nonetheless. He had bound this woman to him for no more than a month, and a month was a very short time. It had seemed the ideal solution at the time, to use her unwise challenge against her, but now he was not so sure. True, he had sensed her strength of will, had known it would be set against him for as long as she resisted his claiming, and he suspected that resistance would be like nothing he had ever encountered before. Not even her attraction to him, which was clear in her bold, warriorlike manner of looking at him, would surmount that resistance. And yet he had decided from the moment he had gotten a closer look at her that she would be his. Had a protector appeared suddenly to prevent his claiming of her, he would have fought for her, such was his desire to have her bound to him. But he did not want her to fight him, so the challenge had indeed seemed ideally suited to his needs, except that it was a temporary solution.
If he could not make her want his claiming within the time the challenge loss had given him, then it was her right to seek protection elsewhere at the end of her service, and that did not please him at all. Already she was thinking of doing just that, if her questions were any indication. And already he had begun thinking of ways to get around it, even if he must trick her into challenging him again. To challenge her himself would unfortunately not have the same effect. She would see it for what it was, an attempt on his part to make her his claimed woman without limitations, which was what she so strongly objected to. It was the nonpermanence of the challenge loss that allowed her to accept it. Of this he was certain.
His gaze moved slowly over her face, noting things that the brilliance of her eyes and vitality and boldness of her expressions had kept him from noticing before. There was color on her cheeks that did not belong there, a very subtle rose tint that was barely discernible. Surrounding both of her eyes was a thin line of black that was not natural. He touched it at the corner of one eye without waking her, but nothing appeared on his finger. He had heard that the women of Mal-nik in the north sought to enhance their beauty with face-coloring, but with colors that did not fade or smear?
His little warrior was not of Mal-nik, but from wheredidshe come? This he would not think of, for what he suspected he did not want to be true. And right now his body was telling him that his control was slipping, soon to be gone entirely. Did he not wake her now, she was going to miss their joining, it would be over and done with so quickly. Coming offdhayajuice was the one time a warrior lost his arrogance and pride in the skills that never failed to satisfy his woman, for those skills were most times forgotten in the wildness of need. Such must not happen with this woman.
In moments Challen had removed hisbracs,then had to fight again not to bury himself immediately in the warm, sleeping body beside him. The scent she wore was still strong, filling his nostrils with floral sweetness. But it was the scent of arousal he wanted to smell now, and with that in mind, he made short work of removing her covering, bringing her half awake. His kiss completed the process, deep and compelling, demanding the desire she had known so frequently and with such swiftness on the previous rising.
When he leaned back to judge her reaction, her eyes were droopy but open, her lips smiling at him. “I thought you’d never get around to this,” she said with a sigh.
“You do not fear joining with me?”
“Do I look afraid?”
“Your words are brave,kerima,but I would expect no less from you. But even Kan-is-Tran women fear a warrior’s touch at first, no matter that they might want that warrior for their own. Such fear is normal and continues until the woman grows accustomed to her warrior. Such fear is even more prevalent in women captured or claimed.”
“Into which category I presumably fall? Let me take a wild guess, babe. Your women aren’t much bigger than I am, are they?”
“This is so.”
She laughed suddenly. “It must be hard, being a giant. Poor baby … now don’t take offense. It really is funny from my point of view. Have you had to be so careful with all your women?”
“Women are fragile and easily damaged,” he told her shortly, annoyed with her humor and her ability to completely distract him from his purpose.
“Some women maybe, but I’ve gone through a rough-and-tumble training. I’m not going to break if you feel like letting go.”
Unfortunately, she did not know what she was suggesting. “I fear I cannot be gentle with you whether I wish it or not. Too much do I remember of the previous rising.”
