Ardor's Leveche (24 page)

“If it would please you, Milady, we can synchronize our Transitions so they occur at the same time.” He smoothed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “I will not lie to you. It will hurt but I will be there to comfort you, to care for you.”

“That would please me,” she whispered. She put her hand on his and took his thumb into her mouth, sucking on it and running her tongue over its tip. Her gaze had fused with his as her fingers caressed the back of his hand.

“Have you no shame, woman?” he asked, his groin tightening beneath her ministrations.

She withdrew his thumb. “None whatsoever, warrior,” she answered and slid his hand to her breast, molding his palm over the lush globe. “Aren’t you overdressed?”

He laughed as he lightly squeezed her breast then ran his fingers over her nipple before releasing her. “I suppose I am,” he replied. He made slow work of undoing his buttons, flicking the two sides of the shirt aside to reveal his chiseled chest.

Ardor reached over to undo the button on his right wrist as that hand braced his head. She took care of the button on the left cuff then arched an inquisitive brow. “Your britches?” she queried.

“Oh, yes,” he drawled and used his thumb to pop the closure open. Before he could work free the other buttons, his lady pushed him to his back.

“Allow me,” she offered in a husky voice.

Gabriel lay with his hands to either side of his head and looked down at the glossy texture of his wife’s dark hair while her fingers made an exquisitely slow operation of undoing his britches. Her warm breath on his bare abdomen was a velvet torture that turned his rod as hard as stone. When she tugged aside the two sections of leather at his waist, his stony protrusion sprang forth with a mind of its own.

“My, my, my, my,
my
,” Ardor said, looking up at him. “What have we here, Milord?”

“Taste it and see,” he said brazenly, holding her look.

“Is it sweet?” she asked, tugging the britches over his hips.

He lifted his rump from the bed. “Nay, wench. There’s no sweetness to that treat.”

She peeled the britches down his legs. “Is it tart?”

“Nay, but it was certainly made for one,” he said with a leer.

“Is it bitter?” she asked as she tugged the britches from his feet.

“It can be but only when deprived of what it wants.”

Tossing aside the sleek leather uniform pants, she moved over her lover, nudged his thighs apart and then perched on her knees.

“I see it is a bit creamy,” she said, circling the fingers of her left hand around the base of his jutting weapon. She gripped him firmly as she watched the tip oozing.

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“Oh, it is cream-filled, wench. I’ll warrant you that,” he said, his voice deep and husky.

Ardor cupped the fingers of her right hand together then slid them slowly over the head of his penis, fitting him like a warm, living cap. Very gently she swiveled her fingers along that swollen bulb, working the pre-cum over and around it.

The Reaper’s breathing was becoming shallower and the veins in his neck were pulsing so hard he could feel them.

Stretching out, Ardor positioned herself between her lover’s legs, bracing her forearms on his rigid thighs. Still holding his cock captive in her hands, she blew her breath across the rosy slit of the head.

Gabriel jumped and ground his hips into the fur, writhing beneath her firm touch.

He reached up to grab hold of the horizontal bar beneath the ornate scroll on the brass headboard and gripped it as though his life depended upon it. He began to pant as she worked the head of his penis.

“So velvety soft,” she said, blowing once more on the sensitive little slit.

“Wench, please!” he begged and was barely able to stop himself from whimpering as her lips slid slowly and hotly over his shaft.

She laved him with her tongue—drawing more moisture—while she held him tightly in the grip of her hand. His heels were digging into the mattress, his knees flexed, thighs quivering as she suckled him.

The Reaper was lost in the sweet heat of her moist mouth. She was plying his fevered flesh as though he was a delicacy. Her lips were drawing upon him, swiveling over him in one direction as the fingers of her left hand began gently twisting his shaft in another, running firmly up and down at the same time. The pressure was exquisite and it set his blood to boiling, his heart to pumping so hard he thought he might die from the pleasure she was giving him. He could hear the pounding in his ears and increased his grip on the bedrail.

A devilish light lit Ardor’s eyes and she slid her right hand under his taut ass, her middle finger scraping across the tight little pucker of his anus. She nearly laughed when he yelped at the delicate touch and arched his hips higher off the bed. Without missing a beat, she slipped her finger inside him—going in until it could thrust no higher.

“Oh, god!” Gabriel exclaimed. “Wench, I—”

He came like a gusher in her mouth, hot cum pulsing thickly. Lifting his head from the bed in shock that he had befouled her in such a way, he was astonished to see her eyes on him, those pretty green orbs smiling with wickedness as she calmly swallowed his love juice. His eyes wide, he watched her lave his swollen head until every drop of slickness was removed.

“W-where did you learn such a thing, wench?” he asked weakly.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

She shrugged, taking his limp member between her palms and gently massaging him with a soft, sawing motion. “It seemed a natural thing, Reaper,” she said.

“Turnabout is fair play, wouldn’t you say?”

He was vividly reminded of the evening he had orally pleasured her and his cheeks burned. “What other man have you…?”

“No other man has known my lips on his shaft, Reaper,” she said, holding his stare.

“And no other man ever will.”

Though he felt as though every bone in his body—especially the one she held so loosely between her silken palms—had no strength in them, he managed to lower his arms and wrap his hands around her upper arms. He dragged her up and over him and brutally slanted his mouth over hers.

Ardor felt the force of his kiss to the tips of her toes. Such heat, such lust, such delicious sweetness filled her until she felt her womb contract with need. She writhed against him, her hands sliding under his hips until she was pressing her fingers into his rump. Needing him, she flipped them over until he was above her, his cock lying along her thigh.

Gabriel pulled his mouth from hers and looked down at her hot eyes. He could taste himself, and his senses were burning with passion. The moment she ran her tongue over her lips, he felt the limpness in his cock lessen a bit. He knew it would be a while before he could thrust himself into her sweet moistness but pleasuring her as she had pleasured him was but a slippery slide away down her damp body.

He trailed his fingers down her arms to her elbows then across to the rise of her luscious globes. With the base of his palms cupping her breasts, his thumbs and index fingers squeezing liquid fire through her nipples, he trailed kisses down her neck, her chest, past her belly button—where he paused to flick a wet tongue—to the crisp triangle of dark auburn curls that beckoned.

Ardor reveled in the weight of his forearms on her waist, his elbows pressing into her abdomen as his lips found and claimed her clitoris. As he had, she reached up to take hold of the brass headboard—lifting her breasts upward so her sensitive nipples were made even more so. She spread her thighs for him and arched her hips up to the fierce hunger that drove his wicked tongue into the very core of her. The fur beneath her ass was heavenly and the heat from his mouth was driving her insane. She ground her sex against him—riding his hot tongue—so that when she climaxed, her moistness flooded his mouth.

Limp and exhausted she collapsed on the bed only to hear the satisfied smacking of his lips as he completed the meal he had made of her cunt.

“So sweet,” he said, lapping his tongue at her wetness.

Her limbs were quivering when he pulled himself up to lay beside her, taking her into his arms, his chin braced against the top of her head.

“Well?” he asked, smoothing his hand down her naked back.

“Well, what?” she mumbled, sleep rapidly overtaking her exhausted body.

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“What was he, wench? If not tart or sweet or bitter?”

“Delicious, you evil man,” she said and fell asleep against his shoulder.

137

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

The Plaines of Geschäft ranged in a vast semicircle along a cold desert north of the capitol city of Führen on Aduaidh Prime. There was no vegetation amidst the bright rose sands of the barren land for it never warmed enough for plants to grow. Star dunes lined the plain—indicating the fierce winds that created them had blown from many directions across the sand seas. As devoid of water as it was plant life, no animal made its habitat in the shifting, desolate land—the only break in the bleak vastness were large boulder-size meteorites scattered about the landscape.

Bowen’s runabout had already landed by the time the sleek new Fiach vessel soared in from the west. The shiny black craft hovered forty feet above the sinuous sand ridges as its heat-seeking array scanned Bowen’s ship from nose to exhaust.

“Go on and land, you sniveling Storian greaser,” Bowen snarled as he looked up through the sweep of his windshield. “I’m alone.”

Seemingly satisfied the Riezellian had not broken Aduaidh law by secreting an accomplice aboard his vessel, the Storian runabout descended to the surface and cut its engines.

It was high summer on the Plaines of Geschäft but the temperature was twenty-five degrees. Factoring in the twenty-mile-per-hour wind sweeping over the sand, it felt more like five.

“He’s bundled up like a Chalean ice fisherman,” Ardor said as she unbuckled her safety harness. She looked down at the Riezell Guardian uniform Gabriel had fashioned for her and for the first time in her life hated what she was wearing.

The Reaper was watching Kurt Bowen stepping down from his vessel but he couldn’t make out the older man’s face for it was hidden behind a face covering framed in thick fur that was rippling violently in the strong wind.

“Are you sure that’s him?” she asked, standing up.

“The Burgon would have made damned sure it was him before he was ever allowed to land,” Gabriel replied. “Just as he made sure it was us as soon as we entered Aduaidh airspace.”

“I’m not all that cold, are you?” she wanted to know, for her husband had just finished opening the hatchway, which was letting in cold air from the dunes.

“You won’t be, but put on your coat and gloves anyway,” he said. “Reapers have a higher body temperature than humans or haven’t you noticed?”

She shrugged into the heavy coat, slipped on the gloves. “I thought it was just my proximity to you, lover boy.”

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He snorted at her answer. “You go out first but keep him well away from our ship. I don’t trust that mangy dog.”

Ardor stepped in front of him then turned to look at him, her eyebrows arched.

“You think he’d dare to bring a weapon? A bomb or the like?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him. Just walk off to one side, leaving me room.”

Not knowing what her mate had in mind, Ardor felt a tremor of unease wriggle down her spine. His eyes were deadly daggers and if looks really could kill, one stab of those lethal orbs on Bowen would pierce the man through and through.

“Ardor!” came Bowen’s shout.

“Go on,” the Reaper said. He smiled at her but there was no warmth in his gaze.

She knew Gabriel Leveche was in killer mode. He had more than ample reason to hate the man he was about to meet, for it had been Kurt Bowen who had pushed him into the flames of the fire pit on
an Éigipt
.
She reached out to him but he shook his head, stepping away from her.

“When this is over, wench,” he told her.

As much as she wanted to throw her arms around him, she denied herself. There was no need for words, for she understood well that he was aware of her love for him.

She turned away and walked to the open hatchway, wisps of her hair flying free in the hard wind from the tight braid that hung down her back. She tugged up the collar of her coat to protect her cheeks from the cutting cold.

“It’s freezing out here!” she heard Bowen yell. “Where is your winter gear?”

Ardor stepped down from the Fiach and started toward Bowen but at an angle away from her ship. She could not see his face and whatever he said next was caught by the wind, the words hurled into the void.

Bowen was hurrying toward her, staggering beneath the violent buffeting of the wind. Through the eye slits of his mask, she could see him blinking wildly, trying to rid his sight of the intrusive sting of sand. The wind was pressing against his heavy coat and his pants legs were ballooning out behind him as he trudged forward.

Her newfound Reaper abilities made it possible for her to smell Bowen as the wind suddenly shifted, surging him closer toward her. It was a sour smell she had not noticed before clinging to him and idly she wondered if her heightened senses were the cause or if Bowen’s evil now had a stench to it. They were twenty feet apart, yet she could smell the heat of his sweat in the cumbersome winter protective clothing. She could also hear him ordering to come to him.

“Stand where you are, wench,”
the Reaper whispered in her mind and Ardor stopped.

Bowen was lifting his hand, motioning her toward him, calling out to her as the wind shifted again, this time slamming into him from his left side, nearly toppling him.

He staggered, his arms cartwheeling and she heard him yelling for her. She saw him go down to one knee, his hand out to her but she shook her head.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

It was at the moment Bowen was regaining his feet that Gabriel Leveche stepped down from the Fiach. The Iodálach must have seen him from the corner of his eye for he glanced that way briefly before returning his attention to Ardor. Something had caught Bowen’s attention peripherally in that one brief look for his head jerked back around and he stumbled to a stop, his head turned toward the black-clad warrior whose booted feet were planted far apart on the sandy seas.