Guardian of Honor (28 page)

No one had held her with tenderness and affection since she'd been
Summoned, and the press of events had kept her from that realization. She had put
her physical needs in storage, just as she had as a child.

But this man reminded her of all the wonderful activities men and
women could do together—and being held ranked very high on that list, maybe
even higher than sex. Kissing should definitely be a priority too.

As she let him take more of her weight, he seemed to get the same
idea.

"Well now, do I have a willing woman?"

The lilt and rich texture of his voice more than pleased her.

For a moment caution lit her brain. She rubbed her eyes. The
cobweb seemed to have affected her mind and her senses. It was taking a while
to recover. So she stared at him without seeing much, noted the worn flying
leathers of a Chevalier, and a couple of patches of rank. That was good enough
testimony for her.

He stood her in front of him, and tipped up her face, his still
shadowed by the hat. "You look a little peaked, darlin'. You sure you know
what you're doing?" He adjusted the cloak around her, smoothing it down,
making no attempt to hide that he lingered on the curve of her breast and hip.

She liked that simple honesty. Little sparks of interest signaling
real attraction flickered inside her. With proper blowing, those sparks could
ignite into hot flame.

Absently, she dropped her baton into the cloak's deep inner pocket.

"Ah know what ah'm doin'." She decided to be honest too.
No thinking about every word before it passed her lips, trying to regulate her
speech into proper Lladranan. She didn't care that she sounded drunk. He wasn't
laughing at her.

She looked up and his face was shadowed by the broad brim of a
hideous hat made of something she didn't want to think about. In the twilight,
she couldn't see his features, but his jaw was strong and his mouth soft. He
didn't smile. No, he wasn't laughing at her.

"Do you work here at the inn? I haven't seen you here before.
'Course, I haven't been here for a couple of months."

"No, Ah'm travlin'," Alexa said.

"Ah." Now he smiled. He sifted his fingers through her
hair. "Very fine. Very silky. Almost unusually so. You arouse my...curiosity."

That wasn't the only thing, and she knew it. She felt his
erection. It built a low fire in her, feeling a man's passion for her. No man
in Lladrana had touched her with desire, had expressed any interest in her
sexually.

She put her arms around his waist and leaned against him. A very
big
erection. For her, a very big turn on. "Mmm," she said, almost
humming. The Lladranans and their preoccupation with sound had rubbed off on
her. She wanted him to rub against her for a good long time. All night. And she
was willing to rub against him too.

"A willing woman," she purred.

He enveloped her. He was larger than she and he brought his cloak
around them both and bent his head over hers, moving his cheek against her
hair. He sniffed as if inhaling her scent and enjoying it.

His body was hard and strong and masculine, something she hadn't
experienced for too long.
His
scent was slightly wild, musky, foresty,
spinning her into a little erotic fantasy equally wild.

"It's been a rough spring. A night of comfort and passion and
grace would be very welcome for me," he said softly.

His hands stroked down her back to her hips. When they came up to
her shoulders, he massaged her tense muscles there.

Comfort and passion and grace. What an odd combination of words to
describe lovemaking, but the words and the way he said them melted something
inside her. The simple sentence gave her images of rolling and laughing and
being completely unselfconscious as they slaked their desire. There was a
gentleness about this man too.

"Works for me," she said.

"I'm bunking in the stable loft. It's warm and dark and, most
especially, private."

"Oh yeah," she said in English. "Ayes, ayes,"
she said in Lladranan.

This time his hands went beyond the small of her back to slide
over her bottom. He let his hands roam over her, then squeezed, lifted and
angled her into his body, where his hard arousal met her sensitive flesh. She
moved her own palms to his shoulders and found they were as tense as her own.
His apparent nonchalance wasn't completely true. She dug in and he grunted.
When she returned his massage, he let out a little groan.

He could give. So could she.

She could receive. She was sure he could accept that with grace
too.

His breath came more quickly near her ear. "You are so
small." He set his fingers on her waist, felt her butt again, squeezed.
"This will be a delightful madness." His voice had roughened, grown
husky.

"Ayes," Alexa said, for once very sure of her accent.

He smiled, a flash of white, even teeth. His face shifted, and she
snatched for a memory. Then his soft mouth came down on hers and her mind spun
away and she let the sensation rule.

His kiss was soft, testing, first pressing against her lips, then
withdrawing. He swept his tongue across her mouth and she surrendered to him,
to his tenderness, to his desire, to her own needs so suddenly unlocked.

She opened her mouth wide and accepted his probing tongue, caught
it and sucked it and drew the taste of him into her to savor.

He groaned softly. "Let's take this inside. I want to feel
you. More."

She wanted to feel him too, over her, under her,
in
her.
Covering her with his body, blocking all thought and all responsibilities and
all considerations of tomorrow. Her hands shaped his shoulders, slid to the back
of his nape to play with his hair. Then she speared her fingers into his thick
mane. Textures. His hair was full of textures, some strands thinner and silkier
than others.

He stilled. "Do you still want me?"

"What—?" What was he talking about? Of course she wanted
him. She stroked his face. His mouth had set into a flat line.

"Is your need so great that any man will do, even a
black-and-white?"

"Huh?" She framed his face with her hands; smooth skin
with the slight roughness around the jaw of incipient beard. "Yu arhhh
bee-yu-tee-ful."

"I'm a black-and-white," he said.

She sniffed in disdain, "Shtupid." She tugged his hair.
"Feels great. More kisses... Ah haven't had kisses that sing to me for a
long time."

Now his mouth quirked. He set a muscular arm behind her body and
lifted to bend her back, curving her lower body hard and intimately against
him. She whimpered at the contact, the fierce anticipation that sizzled in her
blood. Her back was bowed and he took her mouth, rougher now, parting her lips,
thrusting with his tongue, letting her feel the edge of his teeth.

Heat filled her. She grabbed his hair with both hands.

He laughed into her mouth. Laughed! She was ablaze with desire and
he was playing games.

Her feet didn't touch the ground as he whirled her into his arms.
Great move. He had a lot of great moves, with hands and tongue and body. She
supposed she should be concerned, but nothing mattered except slaking this
great need for sex, for intimacy.

"I
will
assure you that all those old legends about
black-and-whites are true." He chuckled and hurried sure-footedly across
the cobblestones. "We are phenomenal lovers. Women just have to get past
the fear of taking a lover with wild magic."

She didn't doubt it.

The stables were too dark to see a thing, and smelled of the sweet
musk of volarans. Another different scent for her. He flung her into the air
and she shrieked until she sensed the strong lift of magic that whisked her
down onto a soft cushion. He was there in an instant. More magic. She spared a
brief thought for how magic could change sex, then forgot everything as he came
down on her.

The sheer pleasure of his weight, of someone close, of a
man
close,
made her gasp. She felt too good to protest.

His legs spread hers until his arousal settled where she needed it
most. Just the pressure of him drove her higher. She reached up, found his head
and brought his mouth back down to hers.

She
needed.
She needed him more in that moment than she
needed anything else Lladrana had given her. His warmth. His simple desire for
her as a woman. His honesty.

Sliding her fingers through his hair as she sucked on his full
lower lip, she reveled in the textures. Using the tips of her fingers, she
traced his bone structure. Elegant. Yes, he was beautiful. She wished she could
see the golden tone of his skin, the brown-black of his eyes.

Then he rocked his hips and nothing mattered except the climb to
bliss.

His hands released the clasp of her cloak, undid the tie at the
top of her dress, then slid under the breast-strip and covered her breasts.

She shuddered in delight as he palmed her. Flesh touching flesh,
finally. But it wasn't enough.

Her fingers were fast and agile as she rid him of his cloak. She
pushed at him and he rolled and she was on top of him and yanking his shirt
from him and throwing it aside and sliding her hands all over his firm chest
and—

Feeling a lot of scars.

A small cry of distress escaped her. His larger hands covered
hers, brought them back to his chest, to his nipples. She rubbed. He bucked and
groaned.

But she touched his face again, the smoothness of it, even as her
other hand traced old wounds.

"I've been lucky," he said, his voice raspy. "But I
believe we are both thinking too much. Time for action. Time only for feeling.
I need to be in you or I'll die."

He set her aside and, with an oath, stripped off his pants. She
scrambled to find him. Touched the hard muscle of his arm.

His fingers hooked in the neckline of her dress and ripped it from
her. Then he lifted her and brought her down on him.

They both whimpered in passion.

Only mindless heat. Only the rough climb. Only hard thrusts.

Just as she was at the edge, she saw two huge, beautiful crystals.
The crystals resonated, drew close, touched.

Exploded.

Alexa climaxed. Behind her eyelids, little shards like rainbows
drifted and sparkled.

She went limp and fell on him. Above the pounding blood in her
ears, the fast thud of his heart, she heard him give a long, low moan.

They lay together in a damp tangle.

"Merde," he said, more prayer than curse.

For a moment her heart clutched. This was now
the after.
How
would he treat the after? How would she? With grace? She hoped with all her
heart that it would be so, and wanted to curse herself at the return of reason.

He rolled a little and she lay loosely beside him. He tucked her
close to his body, her head pillowed on a strong shoulder.

"I'm Bastien Vauxveau."

Shock zipped through her to her toes. He wasn't a nameless,
uncomplicated lover. This could mean trouble.

He laughed harshly. "You go stiff. I suppose you've heard of
my esteemed father, the Lord Knight Marshall of Castle." He snorted.

Obviously she had to say something, but she didn't know if her
tongue still worked after such incredible sex. She sure wasn't thinking in
Lladranan. Her mouth worked a couple of times before she could form the words.
"Yes, and of your brother Luthan, and of you."

Bastien shifted a little. "I hope I lived up to my
reputation," he purred.

Alexa cleared her throat. "I think you've lived
down
to
it."

With that, he sent a questing hand down her body, touching her
nipples, sliding over her stomach to the delta between her legs.

"I
can
go down."

"Not neshesh—necessary," she croaked, completely aware
by the tingling of every nerve in her body where his hand was, how easy it
would be for him to sweep her up the road of passion again.

"And who do I have the pleasure of pleasuring?" He
continued to put a purr in his tones. What was
with
the men of this
country, anyway, that they could wring emotions from her with just their
voices?

His left arm jiggled her a little, as if prompting.

"Alexa," she mumbled against his arm, and tensed,
wondering if he would withdraw now.

"Very nice." No purr. He sounded distracted. His fingers
went lower on her body, between her thighs, and began to work ancient, natural
magic.

She reached out and found him, ready to go again. Bastien
Vauxveau. Incredible sex. And that crystal thing. Wow.
Fantastic. Over the top. How could it be more than one night? So she'd better
make the most of it.

This time it was faster, more intense, as if they'd both memorized
exactly what the other liked best.