“Stop it. This is your punishment, so….”
He slithered off the bed, naked on his belly, and kitten-crawled across the floor for all the world like a soldier approaching an enemy encampment. Suddenly he turned over onto his back and swore loudly. “I have a splinter! Arses, Niko! A huge splinter! Look!”
“Baby.” I rolled out of my blanket and met him in the dark on the floor. “Where? Show me.” I made to reach up for the lamp, but he caught my hand and placed it upon him.
“Here. See? You will feel it. It is very hard.”
I kissed him, shaking him a little for being so wickedly untruthful. He sighed. “I’m sorry for volunteering us now—truthfully. I did not think it through. I do not want to not have you for weeks. What are we to do?”
“Do you think Major Parkinson meant what he said—that I am to lead this expedition?”
“Absolutely. I think he was very relieved to find that you were not—”
“Jaundiced and wrinkled and barely able to stand unaided? Perhaps, then, if I am to be the general, we will require some spying missions….”
He laughed and rolled me onto my back, then lay upon me on the bare boards. It was very uncomfortable but delightful at the same time. “You have become easier to seduce, Niko; did you know that?”
“Did I know that, what?”
“Huh?”
“I think you should start calling me sir—as I am to be your commanding officer.”
He only laughed again, lifted my thigh, and took me as we lay upon the floor. It did not take either of us long. Perhaps the sense of being so close to other people but still indulging in such sinful behavior heightened our pleasure. I spilled very quickly, and he followed soon after, filling me deeply, then lying warm and languid upon me. After a while he murmured, “He is wondering why we are on the floor this time and is taking notes about this new occurrence.”
“Stop it. It is not funny.” When we had lived in a palace, I had banned his damn wolf from the bedchamber for just this reason. Here in this tiny cabin, I was not heartless enough to make Faelan (to whom I owed a great debt—to whom I owed Aleksey’s life) sleep outside or in the barn. But I was always conscious of his presence and was never sure whether I didn’t actually believe Aleksey’s claims to commune with the bloody creature.
“Niko…?” I roused and realized I had drifted off to sleep still lying beneath Aleksey on the floor.
“What?”
“Did you notice their muskets?”
I had. The trappers had carried flintlocks. It was surprising, as I could not see much use in trappers carrying them—holes in pelts obviously lessened the value. Aleksey’s army had not fought at all with these weapons, as he had seen no purpose in them. It was debatable. I had seen one or two fired to some advantage but far more completely useless in being too slow to load, too heavy to maneuver, and actually very difficult to hit anything with.
“I prefer my bow.”
He grunted and put his head back down upon my chest. “I prefer your everything.”
I knew we should rise. I was thirty-eight, and lying naked upon the cold floor of a cabin all night would leave me in a bad way in the morning. But I did not want to separate from him. Cursing the whole situation, I pushed him off and told him to return to his own bed. We crawled apart, but despite being tired from my sleeplessness the night before and from the general emotional strain of the day, I had grown too used to the warm entanglement of Aleksey’s limbs at night to fall easily asleep without him.
I wish now that I had spent that sleepless night thinking more upon the oddness of some of our companions and not upon the delights of Aleksey’s body that I was missing. Things might have been very different for all of us if I had.
Chapter Four
IWOKEwith Aleksey sitting upon me, a gleeful expression on his face. “Guess what?”
It was still dark. I grunted and pushed him off, intending to go back to sleep. He climbed back on. “I have just left their camp. Guess what?”
“They are eating each other? Please tell me they are—”
“They have tents.”
I considered this, then sat up, glancing warily at the open door. “Tents?” This was unexpected but possibly very good news.
“Uh-huh. And, guess what, again—you won’t be able to, so I’ll tell you. There is one for me, and you must, of course, buddy with someone. Oh, I wonder who that could be, as every other tent already has at least two….”
I could not help a matching grin to his, and I flipped him until he was on his back and me lying over him. We were just about to start some amusing practice for being in our tent alone together when Faelan lumbered to his feet and growled. We were apart on either side of the cabin, and I was pulling on a shirt, when a figure darkened the door. “Hello?”
