Tate whimpered into the carpet, already reaching back to rub her clit, shivering as she brushed against it with her fingers.It felt like it would burst if she touched it for real, but she couldn’tnottouch it, because if she didn’t come, she’d die, her heart would stop and she’d die, the first person ever to die from not having an orgasm.
Tate grazed her clit once more and then she couldn’t stop herself.Her hips were chasing her own touch, her hand couldn’t move fast enough, hard enough, and it was beyond degrading to be like this, her legs spread and all her holes available to this warrior’s gaze, bucking against her own hand like an animal because she’d been completely torn apart by lust.
But there was no other way, there was nothing else.There was only fucking and the memory of Adelais’s hand in her hair and the image of that hand over her mouth in the dark, and then she came, wet and hard, her stomach cinching and her back arching and her thighs slamming together around her hand as she rode it for everything she was worth.The pleasure burned through her even faster than the lust had, searing up from her pussy to her chest, neck, face, scorching down her thighs to her calves and toes.She felt tight everywhere, tight as a drum, and she was grunting and moaning against the carpet like someone possessed.
Never,ever, had she climaxed like this.Not with a lover, not with several lovers, and not on her own.And Adelais had hardly even touched her.What would happen if it was Adelais’s hand between her legs?Adelais’smouth?
Tate didn’t know if she’d survive it.She’d only barely survived this.
Once Tate had reached adulthood at Far Hope, she’d been initiated into its secret life, and she’d gradually learned how to serve as the sisters here served, how to officiate the ceremonies that were the true heart of Far Hope.And so in the name of delivering sacred pleasure to the abbey’s pilgrims, she knew much and had done much.Had thought she understood her own desire as thoroughly as a swordmaster knew their own sword.
But this was like drawing her sword to find it had turned into a glowing brand instead; this was her desire wrought into a shape she’d never before seen.And the force of it terrified her.
Tate rolled over onto her side, feeling as wrung out as a rag, her hand still between her legs and her sides heaving.
When she finally managed the strength to look at Adelais, the warrior was sitting with her legs spread, her flushed sex barely visible under the shadow of her tunic.She was licking her own fingers now, and Tate wondered if she’d brought herself to a second culmination watching Tate fuck herself.
The thought sent a shudder through her, followed by a fresh wave of heat.
“You are a surprising thing, little mouse,” Adelais said, nudging at Tate’s limp leg with her foot.She finished cleaning her hand and looked at Tate for a long minute.“What were you thinking about?When you came?”
That Tate could be embarrassed after what she’d just done was ludicrous, but she was.Her face burned and she rolled it into the carpet, too exhausted and sex-drunk to summon up her usual reserve, her mask of dispassion.
Adelais pounced.There was no other word for it—one moment she was on the stool, and the next she was over Tate, her body covering hers and her mouth near Tate’s ear.“Oh, you have my attention now, abbess.Tell me.Were you thinking of someone licking your cunt?Maybe several someones?Were you half hoping I’d drag you back to Normandy and lock you in my castle?”It sounded like she meant the last part as a jest, but Tate still pressed her face into the carpet even farther.The humiliation and still-simmering lust were mingling together now, impossible to decant separately.They felt almost exactly the same.
The Wolf had gone motionless on top of her, and then lifted herself up enough to roll Tate onto her back.“Dragged off and kept,” she said.“I wouldn’t have guessed.What else?”
Tate closed her eyes.It was unbearable that someone else was seeing this about her in the same moment she was learning it about herself.
“Forced, maybe?”the Wolf said softly, leaning close and biting Tate’s jaw.“Taken on the road or perhaps in your own bed.Pinned and used.Someone’s plaything to fuck rough and mean until they’re done with you.”
Tate couldn’t make herself confirm it, but then Adelais bit her jaw even harder.Tate found herself whispering, “Yes.Yes.”
Adelais sat up abruptly, wearing a grin that was half glee, half anticipation.All danger.
“Get dressed, my wicked nun.Go back to your sisters.I enjoyed tonight, and I enjoyed it far too much to consider clemency now.You should be here tomorrow night at dusk if you want another day of peace.”
Shame washed through Tate, but it knotted with something dark and urgent too, making her all tight and needy and miserable as she stood and found her clothes.
“I keep my word,” Tate said after she’d dressed.Adelais was back lounging at her stool, her linen braies on but her chausses still scattered on the floor.“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I keep my word too,” Adelais said, but it sounded more like a warning than a promise.“Good night, abbess.”
Five
THE WOLF
IF SHE DIDN’T FUCK AGAIN,Adelais was going to tear this entire valley down with her bare hands.After a few hours’ restless sleep, she gave up trying, rolled her blanket between her legs, and ground against it until she came, hoping that would take the edge off until she could have the abbess again.
Adelais couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so obsessed with a person, when all her thoughts had bent toward a single someone like smoke following the wind.Certainly not her husband.Handsome and charming though he was, Gérald had never piqued Adelais’s curiosity.She’d had a full sense of him from the moment they met at their betrothal negotiations, and never in the four years of their marriage did he reveal anything more than what she saw that first afternoon: a swaggering libertine who was better with his cock than with a sword, who fought like a rag doll and skirted responsibility like a teenage boy.
No.Not her husband.Not even Maud, the companion who shared her bed for a few years after Gérald’s death in battle.Maud, too, had been a fine lover, energetic and flexible, and intelligent enough not to be tiresome, but she was like every other person Adelais had met in her life.Tame, predictable.A leaf fluttering when the wind blew, with all their variegations and veins visible for anyone who had eyes to see.
But Tate…
Tate was no leaf, no easily deciphered puzzle or transparent piece of glass.Her cleverness in sneaking into the camp, her pluck in daring to ask for Adelais, was nothing Adelais would have expected from the small, reserved woman once she’d met her.In fact, nothing that Tate had done at any point last night was something Adelais could have predicted, could have extrapolated from whom the nun seemed to be.
For the first time in her life, Adelais couldn’t read someone, couldn’t predict their words and actions.For the first time, someone was a challenge.
