60
NOW: INTENTIONS
When I regained a semblance of composure, I removed my hands from my bosom and put them on the wall, attempting to steady myself. I opened my mouth to say something, perhaps to be glib, to mask the very intimate noises I had just made.
Before I could break the spell of our quiet, passionate breathing, before I could ruin it, he placed a chaste kiss on my cheekbone. Then he, somehow avoiding touching my skin, brought his right hand up from where he had pleasured me and his left from the wall, pulled up the ties of my shift over my exposed breasts, and redid them. He then repeated the same action with my dress. Then he replaced his hands on the wall and whispered, “Your man in the woods last night, can he make you cry out like that?”
And that broke the spell. I blinked in the dark, coming back to my senses, and the fear I had felt when I realized I would be walking home alone returned. “Do you—Can you walk me back?” I rasped out.
“That was my intention,” he said, his body leaning into mine,still hard and eager even if his voice had that poise. “I have other intentions as well. Would you like to hear them?”
I was torn. I wanted to, desperately. Half of me thrilled at the idea of this fine man, younger than me, finding me so irresistible he was about to take me in an alleyway when hundreds of people were in the buildings on either side, not to mention the dozens in the street. But the other half of me could not forget that three of the most powerful men on this enterprise were plotting my death. “Does it not worry you that we’ll be caught?”
“I meant to take you somewhere more private, but if torture does not arouse you—and I still think it does, despite what you claim—does the idea of being caught? Because, then I’m happy to keep pleasing you right here.”
“I don’t think so,” I offered weakly.
He ran his lips lightly over my hair, as if he was considering kissing it. “I cannot decide what to do with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean perhaps Iresentyou. I mean I thought, as a devout follower of Brother Air, that I had mastered my flesh and my pride.”
“I don’t understand.”
Reed put his nose into the crown of my head and inhaled.
I found myself thanking the gods I had rubbed honeysuckle into my hair.
“There is a higher study of the air god that claims what ails the heart and the mind is the wanting of things and the need tobe a thing. I have taught myself not to want and not to care what others think of me. I thought I was immune to being swayed by my lust or my self-importance. But now? Now I can’t stop fucking my own hand when I have the chance. And I find myself too proud to give in to you all the way. And I don’t think I will.”
“But you just said you had other intentions. And you said—” I cut myself off and made my lungs take in air and release it with intent. I was still panting, hound like. I glanced up to see his handsnext to mine on the stone bricks. “You told me you would pull up my skirts and give me your prick if I so wished.”
“I lied,” he muttered against my head with a smile. “I’m not letting you have any more of my pride than you already do.”
“Then what are your intentions?”
“Pleasuring you. Over and over. Again and again. You can choose whether you want my hands or my mouth?—”
“No swiving in the alleys, please!” came a shout.
We both startled, looking up to see a big man with a disgruntled expression making his way towards us from the street.
“I should have heard him coming, you godsdamn distraction,” Reed murmured. He turned us to face the man so that he still stood just behind me. “No swiving here, sir. We were about to carry on, take this back to our bed.”
“Look, I don’t want to be a bother,” said the man, coming to stand a horse length away from us. “But I can tell your prick is hard as flint behind her, friend.”
Reed chuckled. “It is. We’ll be on our way, I promise.”
I shivered, his breath caressing my ear.
“I know this is the heart of whiskey country, but, my gods, man, how soused are you?” the Griston man asked. “You’re having a woman in the street.”
“I myself am quite drunk, I admit,” Reed replied. “It’s good spirits you all make. You should be very proud.”
“They say you are all church folks too,” the man grumbled, walking away.
I turned to face Reed without thinking. In the dark, with only the flicker of torchlight from the street, I could not see his expression. “I’m not opposed to pleasure. For tonight, can you walk me back to the camp?”
