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Siora didn’t doubt him. Hate drove Gharek even harder than love and almost as hard as fear did, and he’d hated Dalvila. He would have consumed every bone, entrail, and last strand of hair that was the Spider of Empire.
The distraction of those ponderings centered her thoughts, and while the guilt still ate at her, and tears still streaked her cheeks, she could now speak around a very tight throat and not sob out the words in an incoherent jumble. “If Estred’s at Zaredis’s camp when we return, I’d like to talk to her. Apologize then for leaving without saying goodbye.”
“She might not want to talk to you.”
The knowledge stung, but she’d expected it. “That’s all right. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either if I were her.”
Gharek rolled to his side to face her. She matched his actions until they lay pressed together, hip to hip, breast to chest. He raised a hand and smeared one of her tears with his thumb, bringing it to his mouth to taste her sorrow. Questions danced in his eyes, along with that puzzlement she was growing used to seeing when he looked at her. “Why do you so love a child who isn’t yours?”
An easy answer, one Siora was happy to give. She touched her fingertips to his cheek as his hand came to rest on her hip before sliding along its contours to the dip in her waist, taking the hem of her shift with it. “Because she deserves it. As does her father.” There, she’d said aloud what her heart had always believed. Gharek could make of it what he wished. His breath, a light caress against her fingers, stuttered for a moment. “Estred has persevered. She’s good-natured and funny, with all the quirks and annoying traits of any child her age. She embraces who she is even when others won’t. There’s strength of character in her that most of us don’t possess, even those of us much older than her. She’s an admirable child. She will be an amazing woman, and some of that is thanks to her father’s love.”
“You have stars in your eyes,” he said in a voice that stroked her as seductively as the hand continuing its exploration of her body’s profile—hip, waist, shoulder, and neck, with a steady foray across her collarbone and down one breast. Her nipple drew tight in anticipation of his touch. Siora gasped when he cupped her there and arched her back.
“And you have shadows in yours,” she replied when the sizzling sensations racing through her body allowed her to speak. She began her own exploration of him, mapping every line andridge of his face, pausing at his mouth to feel his lips move under her fingertips when he spoke.
“You can’t fix me or save me, not even with a good swiving. I know nothing of nobility.”
“But everything of devotion,” she replied. Her heart ached at the hopelessness in his voice. “I don’t intend to fix you. That’s a burden too heavy for another to bear. Your love for Estred should inspire you to be a better man, not a worse one. In the end, only you can save you.”
This wasn’t about rescue or redemption but something far simpler, truer, and honest. It was desire without justification, affection without explanation, maybe even love if she wanted to step onto that thin ledge and risk a terrible fall.
More confusion, this time mixed with doubt and the fire of a rising passion. His hand slipped from her breast to ride her lower back before cupping her buttock. “Then why?”
“Why not?” she asked in a voice that shook. Her own hand slid down his neck to the hollow of his throat, then over the slope of one shoulder. His skin was smooth and hot, stroked by the night breeze so that his nipples pebbled just as hers did.
“I don’t think I will ever comprehend you, Siora of the dead.”
She smiled, arching fully into him and sliding her arms around his neck to bring his head down for a kiss. “You don’t have to, Gharek of Cabast, to find comfort in my arms.”
She buried her hands in his hair and moaned into his mouth when he parted her lips and swept his tongue inside, learning the shape and taste of her as she learned him. He rolled until he rested partially on top of her, heavy and hard, his hips thrusting gentlyagainst hers in a silent coaxing for her to spread her thighs and invite him to settle in the valley there.
Siora abandoned carding his hair through her fingers to grasp her shift and yank it higher so that her legs were free, and her knees splayed wide to accommodate him. His cock nudged against her, erect and made slippery by her own desire as he sought entrance to her body. She kissed him even harder, her tongue battling his, a truce declared only long enough to breathe or allow her to suckle his lower lip while he nibbled at her upper one.
His hips rocked against her, a teasing half thrust that made her gasp and then made her squirm when he forsook her mouth to nuzzle her breast and torture her nipple with his tongue. By the time he finished there and moved to her other breast, she was reduced to mewling noises as she bucked in his embrace and dug her fingers into his buttocks to urge him closer and bring him inside her. She clawed at him when he suddenly pulled away only to lift her into a half-sitting position and tug her shift off her body. It landed on the floor atop the blanket Gharek had abandoned.
“Thank the gods,” she said when he laid her down and settled his weight once more on her, bending one of her knees and positioning her other leg until it hung off the platform. The position opened her to him even more, and he grinned at her enthusiastic gratitude.
“Did you miss me?” he teased, rubbing the length of his cock against her so that each back and forth motion stroked her body’s most sensitive pleasure point. The motion set fire to every nerve under her skin and curled her toes.
Siora’s arms flexed hard on his back as she met eachprovocative movement with one of her own, angling so that every thrust forward forced the tip of his cock into her despite his half-hearted resistance and wish to prolong his teasing.
“I crave you,” she said. He was heavy, his presence overwhelming and wondrous.
He smiled. “For once your honesty doesn’t cut deep.” He made love to her mouth in a leisurely fashion, exploring the shape of her lips, the taste of her tongue, the ridges of her teeth.
Siora clamped her knees against his hips, tensed her thighs and forced him down even as she surged upward. The motion drove him deep into her. Gharek broke the kiss to gasp, his eyes glittering in the shadows. Siora echoed the sound and dug her fingers into his arms, savoring the feel of him within her, her passage stretching to accommodate his girth, her inner muscles squeezing around him so that he groaned her name.
“Wait,” he implored. His muscular arms quivered under her palms.
“Why?” Siora raised one hand to caress his cheek. “This is right. This is good. As I always knew it would be.”
It was true. Unexplainable maybe but so very true, and she’d never been one to turn away from a truth, even when it frightened or confused her.
He surrendered on another groan, sliding his hands under her backside to lift her. His cock pulsed even deeper inside her, that pulse mimicked by the delicate skin at his temple where her fingertips rested.
It wasn’t the swiving he’d referred to earlier, though Siora would have been happy with that as well. This was more—lovemakingfierce and passionate, of equal sharing. A breathless glimpse into the sleeping heart of a man who’d once known what it was to love a woman but had forgotten.
When Siora cried out at the force of her climax, it was an incoherent sound bordering on a dry sob. Gharek’s name was a whisper on her lips and a cry in her mind.
