Her brow leveled, but she said nothing.
“Would he force you to marry me?”he asked,not sure what he hoped her answer would be.
“No.”She shook her head.“Not unless...”shehesitated.
“There’s a child.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“If you do bear my babe, we will be married,”Aleksi told her.“No child of mine will be born a bastard.”
CHAPTER 14
The Road Back
Sahar woke to the heat of Aleksi’s thickerection pressed against her back and his fingers combing throughthe thatch of hair between her legs.She groaned as he parted hercurls and ran a fingertip along the folds of her flesh, and sheopened her legs to him with a sigh.
They had slept together on a makeshiftbedroll combining Aleksi’s and hers after she’d kicked the Wolf’sand the Tall’s into the camp’s fire last night.The thought oflying on any of their bedding had made her belly retch and her skincrawl.
Now, her skin was on fire with mountingdesire as Aleksi stroked her lower lips.Dipping his fingertip intoher wetness, he drew slow, lazy circles around and around her fleshuntil she was moving with him, pressing her backside into his groinand her mound into his hand, gasping as he cupped her and began totap a finger inside her.Her undulations grew quicker and shorteras he slid two fingers deep inside her and pressed her flesh to hispalm.She slid her hand over his and clamped her legs tight, ridingtheir joined hands until the pressure inside her erupted inwaves.
Her body still rippling with sensation, shemoaned with spent pleasure as he pushed his hard, pulsing cockwhere his fingers had been, and she caressed him with her innermuscles, squeezing and releasing as he moved in and out of her,filling her with his pumping, throbbing heat one moment, anddragging his glorious cock back over her tender flesh the next,until they were both moving at a frenzied pace.
She placed her hand between their bodies, herfingers grasping his flesh and increasing the friction for both ofthem.Her inner muscles contracted and convulsed, and released intiny little shudders.Then Aleksi pulled his cock completely out ofher and pushed it between her fingers, spilling his seed onto herthighs.
Her first thought wasHe doesn’t want tohave a child with me.Not thank the gods he had enough sense tospill his seed on her, not in her, but instead, he doesn’t want meto be the mother of his strapping sons with golden hair andearth-brown eyes.
It could still be too little too late.Shecould already be pregnant.Her moon flow had always been as regularas the lunar phases, and was not yet late in coming, but she knewthat many things besides pregnancy could cause a woman’s flow toarrive late or even dry up completely, including near starvationand extreme stress.All of which she had dealt with since beingtaken captive half a fortnight ago.
She knew she should be grateful for himshowing restraint.She didn’t wish to be forced to marry him, oranyone else, any more than he apparently wished to be forced tomarry her, despite his proposal in what felt like a lifetime ago.She didn’t want to become a mother, not yet.She was alive, free ofthe cruel captors who had repeatedly beaten her and threatened herwith rape and death.She was safe in Aleksi’s embrace, the man shehad chosen to give her virginity to, about to be reunited with herloving family and resume her life.Why then did she want to sobwith bitter regret rather than sigh with relief?
Aleksi nuzzled the nape of her neck, his lipswarm and tender, and she pulled away from his solid heat and stoodon sticky, shaky legs and walked straight into the river, where shestopped waist deep in the freezing water and dropped, submergingher entire body.She held her breath, welcoming the numbing cold onher aching body parts, not the least of which was her heart, andthen pushed up with all her might, bursting out of the water with ascream of pure frustration.
He bolted upright and ran to the river’sedge, where he stopped short.“Sahar?”He spoke softly, calmly, asone would to a hissing cat with laid back ears and a twitchingtail.“Tell me, my tigress.”
“I can’t,” she said, her voice a rawwhisper.
“You can tell me anything.Surely you knowthat by now.”
She stared at him a long while and thenpressed her lips together and shook her head.
He stepped into the water and started walkingto her, one slow, steady step at a time.
“Are you worried you might be carrying mybabe?”
She laughed, short and harsh.“Of course Iam,” she said, slapping a handful of water at him.
He stopped as the icy droplets splashed hischest.“Because you don’t wish to bear my child and marry me?”
“Because I wish to bear a child when Ichoose, and to marry whom I choose.”
“Which is not now and not me.”
“Yes,” she cried.“No,” she keened.
“What is it you want from me?”Aleksi asked.“What?Sex?I can do that.I can have sex with you ten times a dayevery day from now until the day I ride away if that is what youwant.Patience?You want me to wait around, mooning over you likesome lovesick pup until you decide whether a bastard son of a kingis good enough for you?Or do you want another proposal ofmarriage, perhaps on bended knee this time?What?”
She narrowed her gaze on his, her anger ascold and sharp as the blade she had once threatened to geld himwith.“I want you to gofuckyourself.”
