Page 88 of Blood of the Sands

Before I could react, she stepped forward and fell to her knees in my lap. Her thighs bracketed mine and the sudden warmth of her pressed against me initiated the same reaction as before, as if Alza and I were galloping at full tilt but also, I was sitting completely still for the first time in too long.

Extricating her hand from what had become a death grip on my part, she slowly reached up toward my mask. She gave me the same chance to pull back as I had when I reached for her hand. Like her, I let her continue.

Her fingers found the leather straps at the back of my head, fumbling a bit as she undid them. I didn’t move to help her, instead focusing on keeping my breath even as I voluntarily let somebody see my face for the first time since Lord Alasdar had given me the mask ten years ago. It was my most important piece of armor, and I was letting this wild, gorgeous thing in my lap peel it off with her gentle fingers.

It fell to the mat beside my saber with a gentle thud. This time, Keera traced her fingers along my hairline, toying with a curl that fell onto my forehead. Over the initial shock of human contact, I found myself wanting more than her fingers on me. I wanted to rub my face on her cheek and at the crook of her neck. Between her breasts.

As if she had heard my thoughts, Keera’s gaze snapped to mine from where she had been engrossed in the examination of my hair. Slowly, hesitantly, her gaze drifted down to my lips, tracing the same path with her fingers. Gently, but without hesitation, she pressed her thumb against my bottom lip, parting them slightly. As my increasingly ragged breath tickled her fingers, I found myself itching for the same thing she was clearly considering. Her touch had unlocked a torrent of want within me, and I exercised all my control to hold myself still as she made her decision.

Her lips collided with mine, and my blood surged when I found out she kissed just like she fought and rode a horse. There was nothing tentative in the way her mouth moved against mine. She was wild and hungry and utterly untamed. Both of us were clumsy and unpracticed, but the smell of sun-warmed skin and the comforting earthiness of the desert engulfed me.

Her fingers plunged into my hair, and a noise I would never admit to being capable of tore from my throat as her blunt nails raked my scalp. I took it as permission to touch in return, and a hand drifted to her face before tracing the tendon of her neck with my thumb. I found my other hand at her hip of its own accord.

A low growl of pleasure rumbled through me at the feeling of soft flesh over taught muscle, a far cry from the boniness of the woman I once captured. She had been beautiful even then, though I hadn’t been in a mind to see it, and it warmed me to know she was no longer at risk of starving to death.

Keera squirmed in my lap, causing a shudder to run through my whole body. The taste of her mouth overwhelmed me. I knew I could kiss Keera for hours without complaint, but the friction of her hips against mine made me hunger for more. I walked my fingers inwards from her hip to the front of the waistband of her pants, waiting for permission. She responded by rolling her hips against mine enthusiastically.

I slipped my fingers beneath the linen, inching downward until the leather of my gloves slipped against the slickness already gathering between her legs. I groaned, realizing what a travesty it was that I couldn’t feel this with my own flesh.

I withdrew my hand and pulled back from where her lips and tongue had begun an enthusiastic perusal of my jaw and ear. She made an angry noise of protest that made my pants tighten even further, but I shushed her in a tone I normally only reserved for Alza.

“I want to feel you,” I admitted, before pulling the fingers of my gloves off with my teeth. My eyes nearly rolled back into my head as I tasted her on the leather, my tongue seeking out the flavor of honey and musk.

I wasted no time getting my hand back to her core, anxious to feel her soft slickness against my bare skin. When I did, Keera ground against my fingers, seeking her own pleasure determinedly. I pulled back to look at her face. The rising flush against her golden skin as she panted, tendrils of dark hair clinging to her sweaty temples, sent a frisson of pleasure through me. She wore my hunger reflected on her face.

She threw her head back with a shuddering groan when I stroked a particular spot, and it suddenly became a goal of mine to make her react like that as often as possible. I repeated the motion relentlessly.

“Erix.” My name escaped her lips in a breathy shudder. It was a name I had distanced myself from as much as possible, but I would relish being reminded of it every day if it was in that voice.

“I want to see you lose control,” I murmured.

A husky laugh escaped Keera as she continued to ride my hand in my lap. “I haven’t been in control since the moment I met you.”

Neither have I.

Unable to help myself, I palmed my own hardness through my pants with my free hand, not willing to deny Keera her pleasure for even the moment it would take me to untie my belt.

I stroked myself in time to the high whimpers and cries from Keera. As much as she didn’t fill silence with meaningless chatter, she didn’t shy away from vocalizing her pleasure. As her volume increased, the sands began to dance around us, and I couldn’t say whether the magic was mine or hers. I was too overwhelmed with the red-hot pleasure that had taken root at the base of my spine and the way the sunlight shone off Keera’s sweat-soaked skin.

I felt the moment Keera came apart, in the shudder of power that ran through me as much as the rush of wetness dripping along my wrist. So fixated was I on the woman in my lap, I didn’t even recognize my own pleasure bearing down on me until a bolt of lightning ran up my spine, and I gasped my release against Keera’s neck, gulping down the earthy scent of her warm skin.

Sands, I was utterly lost.

Chapter Thirty

Keera

We both slept under the stars that night. With Erix’s help, I coaxed a fire from the dry scrub we found in the area with my magic. It shielded us from the chill that swept over the sands in the absence of the sun as we laid on our mats with it as a barrier between us.

Neither of us spoke of what had happened between us, but I didn’t get the sense that we were ignoring it either. It was simply that words would not suffice to say anything more than our actions already had. Out here in the wilderness, the lines between us blurred as if they had been traced in the sand only to be scoured away by the wind. When we returned to civilization, we would have to redraw them once more, but for now, we were more similar than we were enemies.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, and we set out immediately after practicing our morning forms together. We flowed in unison the same as before, yet differently, as if the magic that flowed between us had been heightened by our intimacy. I wondered at it out loud as we rode.

“You say that you can feel my magic across the whole desert when I lose control. Now that we’ve ridden together for a while, I can feel yours too. Why do you think that is?”

Erix shrugged. He wore his mask again as we rode, but he had left it off during our morning exercise. “I had never met anybody nearly as powerful as me before you. Only Lord Alasdar came close, although his power has a different nature. Perhaps being the two most magical people in the desert makes us more aware of each other.”

I hummed in thought for a moment, sensing something beneath the surface of his statement. “It’s more than that isn’t it though?”