Unguilded (32 page)

“The man who gave me this dress will be very angry,” she said.

“The man who gave you this dress will never again give you clothing so difficult to get you out of,” Reo replied. His hands pushed her dress down past her shoulders until her bare breasts pressed against his chest. Reo gently cupped each breast before he tugged at his shirt.

More buttons popped off, and Kara giggled. Then she felt the warm silkiness of his bare skin against her own, and she forgot to breathe.

They were both naked by the time he carried her into the bedroom. Reo laid her gently on the bed and knelt beside her. Soft kisses burned a path from her foot, past her knee, and up along one hip. His lips drifted across her hip, and she trembled when he breathed in the heat between her legs. His mouth found her belly button and then the hollow between her ribs. First one nipple, then the other was gently sucked into his mouth, and Kara whimpered with need. Finally his lips met hers. When his tongue snaked into her mouth, she sucked on it, hard. She felt his knee nudge her legs apart, and Reo steadied himself on his arms. She wrapped her arms around him, and he plunged into her. There was a brief, sharp pain, and then her need took over, and she rocked her hips up to meet his downward thrusts. Her breath ragged, she dropped her head to his shoulder as their pace increased. Pleasure washed over her as she arched towards him. Dimly she heard Reo laugh before his body stiffened, and he plunged into her once more, hard. Kara clung to him, taking him in as deep as she could before they both stilled and then relaxed.

Reo rolled off her, one arm slung over her heaving chest. Shyly, she closed her eyes and nestled her head into his shoulder. Her body felt languid and boneless and totally alive, and she didn’t want to move, ever. She felt cool air on her chest when Reo lifted his arm to twitch her hair away from her face.

“Definitely more than expected,” Reo said against her hair.

He pulled her close until she lay along his side, their skin damp where they touched. Her head lay on his shoulder, one hand tucked under her chin, resting on his chest. She flattened her hand and rubbed it across smooth skin sprinkled with a few coarse hairs. She felt the muscles of his arm flex as he tightened his grip on her shoulder.

Was this feeling—this languid sense of bliss—was this what Harb had been chasing with the clammers? Kara could better appreciate his motives, although she could never forgive him for putting them all at risk.

Reo’s heart beat steadily beneath her hand. Had she put herself at risk? Reo needed her help, she knew that. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her until she’d given him her year. But would sharing his bed make it worse or better? She didn’t know, maybe could never know. What had happened between them hadn’t been planned, hadn’t been thought out in advance, it had simply happened. Reo was an attractive man, and in the eyes of the guilds, she was a grown woman. Long past time for her to be wed, let alone bedded. And she was grateful that her first time had been of her choosing—not everyone was so fortunate. She wouldn’t have been if she’d let Mage Guild decide her fate.

Kara stretched. Her body was sore and stiff in some unusual places, but she wasn’t tired, not really. She smiled and rubbed her palm across Reo’s nipple.

“What are you doing?” he asked sleepily.

“Nothing,” she replied. She smiled again and let her hand wander down his chest to the flat muscles of his stomach. Her choice. Her hand dipped lower, and Reo grabbed her wrist.

“That doesn’t feel like nothing,” he growled.

Kara tilted her head and met his eyes. He smiled, and she grinned at him.

“How about this?” she asked. She tugged her hand loose from his grasp and trailed it down past his hips. His eyes darkened when she grasped him, and she felt a sense of satisfaction at the immediate effect she had on him. Reo Medina, a man who had assassinated countless people, trembled and gasped when she touched him here and here and here.

“My turn to do nothing to you,” Reo said gruffly. His hand slipped between her thighs, and it was her turn to tremble and gasp.

KARA STRETCHED UNDER
the linen bed covering. She was sore, but pleasantly so. Reo was gone. She ran a hand across the bed beside her. It was cool, so he must have left a while ago. She rolled over onto her side and stared at where he’d lain last night.

More than expected, he’d said to her. She could say the same about him. An Assassin trained to kill since childhood, yet those same hands that killed had been gentle and teasing and had given her tremendous pleasure. She stretched again. She should get up. Judging by the light that was filtering in around the curtain, it was well past noon. Maybe, she grinned, if she stayed in bed Reo would come and check on her, and she could entice him to join her. No. He would have things to do, he always did. Chal was the one who’d come to find her. She didn’t yet have the words to explain this to Chal. Not yet, not when it was so fresh and new.

A few minutes later, dressed in a soft white shirt and dark blue skirt, Kara eased the bedroom door open. She spied the book Chal wanted her to read, and she stepped over to the dresser to pick it up. Another history of Seyoya. It took her forever to read the language since Seyoyan used a very different alphabet. She shook her head and returned to the door.

“I told you to go slow, Reo.”

It was Chal’s voice, and he sounded angry. Kara edged closer to the partially open door.

“I should have bedded her before last night,” Reo said. “I told you I didn’t want to be out in public with her until I had.”

She clutched the book to her chest. What did he mean? Last night was planned? And Chal had known?

“Then you should have waited for that as well,” Chal said.

“I don’t have time,” Reo replied. “I need her out. She needs to be invited to parties and dinners so I can go with her. You know that. I’ve already lost two months to all of this training.”

“Her safety depends on this training,” Chal said. “What if she’s not ready? For you or the invitations?”

“She seemed ready last night,” Reo said.

Kara sucked in her breath. He sounded so smug! What had made her want him in her bed in the first place? Had he planned to seduce her? She’d been so sure it had been her choice. She’d choose differently from now on, no matter what Reo Medina wanted.

“Be careful, Reo,” Chal said. “She’s not like the women you’re used to.”

“What, because she’s chaste and demure?” Reo said. “You know she’s not demure, and, Chal, I wasn’t her first.”

Kara shrunk in on herself. He was her first, he was wrong about that, but she’d never tell him, not now, not when he was so arrogant about bedding her, about planning it and then actually doing it.

“I think you’re wrong,” Chal said quietly.

“I was there,” Reo said. “I know what I’m talking about.”

“Maybe,” Chal replied. He sighed. “Ah well, what’s done is done. Have you given any thought to how to proceed?”

“I thought I should move here from my own rooms,” Reo said. “Now that Kara and I . . .”

“Now that Kara and I are what?” Kara asked as she entered the room. “Bedmates? Lovers? What exactly did you plan, and how long ago was it?”

“Kara!” Reo jumped to his feet.

He made a motion to kiss her, but she stepped around him and settled herself on a chair opposite the sofa he’d been sitting on. The sofa they’d been on when it had all started last night.

“You’re angry,” Reo said.

A smile hovered around his mouth, and Kara’s anger deepened.

Did he think this was amusing? “I’m angry,” she acknowledged. “No woman likes to learn she’s been seduced according to a weeks-old plan. Answer one question, and then we’ll never have to discuss this again.” She smoothed her skirt, relieved to see that her hand was calm. She looked up at him and concentrated on keeping any emotion out of her voice and face. “Why?”

He met her gaze for a moment before he answered. Meeting his eyes and covering up her hurt and disillusionment was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

“We have to be believable,” Reo said eventually. “As lovers. A woman carries herself differently around a man she’s bedded.”

“And people notice?” Kara asked.

“
I notice
,” Reo said. “I have to assume others will too. It’s for our safety.”

“Oh, it’s to keep me safe, keep us both safe,” Kara said. “Why didn’t you discuss this with me? Did you think I wouldn’t be interested in being safer?”

“I didn’t think . . .”

“No you didn’t think, did you? Instead you made a decision and took away my choice.”

“You did choose,” Reo said defiantly. “Last night.”

“An uninformed choice isn’t really a choice at all.” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “So now I will choose. Don’t bother moving from your rooms, I won’t be sharing my bed with you again. I trust people will still be able to tell I’ve bedded you by the way I carry myself when I’m around you?”

Reo nodded. His jaw clenched, and she knew he was furious. Well so was she!

“Please leave,” she said to Reo. “You too, Chal. Don’t think I’m not angry at you as well. By not telling me what to expect, you played your own part in this.”

Reo’s anger was palpable as he walked past her. Chal simply regarded her with sad eyes and shrugged.

“And, Reo?” Kara said. “I’ll do one assignment with you, to help introduce you, and that’s it.”

Reo turned to her, his body so tightly controlled that Kara wondered if she’d gone too far. Too late—she wasn’t backing down now.

“We had a bargain,” Reo said. “I expect you to keep your end of it.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t trust you.”

“We had a bargain,” Reo repeated.

“Fine,” Kara said. “Perhaps I’ll simply step aside when I see a spell heading your way.”

He paled, and she smiled sweetly.

“One assignment. Your choice and your timetable, but after that I
will
leave.”

Reo glared at her, his fists clenching and unclenching as she stood as straight and steady as she could. It was Chal who broke their stalemate. He slipped a hand under Reo’s elbow and gently ushered him to the door. The door closed after them, and she was alone in her rooms.

Kara rubbed at her face, wiping away a few stray tears. She would not cry—she would
not
let Reo Medina affect her so much. She’d been foolish and naïve, and he’d taken advantage of that, but she wouldn’t allow him to do that to her again. One assignment, she’d told him, and then she would return to Santos’ cabin,
her
cabin, and try to make a life. And when she looked out the cabin window at Warrior Guild Island, she would
not
think about Reo Medina.

CHAL VISITED
THE
next day, his face serious as he set some books on her sitting room table.

“You made him very angry,” Chal said softly. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

“He made me angry too,” Kara replied. Idly she picked up one of the books and flipped a few pages. It was another history of Seyoyan navigation, complete with star charts and maps of islands. She set it down with a sigh. “Why does everyone think I can’t make my own choices?”

“Would you have bedded him if he’d explained it?”

“Probably,” Kara said. “If he’d explained why and asked nicely.” Her face flushed when she remembered how he had asked her to choose and she had chosen him. But she hadn’t known it was to help them both be safe, she’d thought it was because . . . because why? Had she thought Reo Medina was in love with her? No, but she’d thought he’d respected her, enjoyed her company,
liked
her. And all along it was simply something he had to do to prepare them for their tasks. No different than making sure she learned Seyoyan navigation.

“It would be nice to be treated as an adult,” she said. “To be allowed to make my own informed choices.”

“Not so different from what Reo wants for himself,” Chal said.

“What do you mean?” Kara asked. “He’s making all the decisions.”

“No, he too is constrained by his guild and the expectations they have for him.” Chal shook his head. “Unfortunately, in his resolve to free himself, Reo has robbed you of your own freedom.”

KARA DIDN’T SEE
Reo for more than two weeks, although Chal continued to tutor her. Eventually he declared her Seyoyan respectable enough for a foreigner. The language still felt odd rolling off her tongue, and she had a long way to go before she could read it fluently, but she wasn’t concerned about that. Few Tregellans could read their own language half as well as she could read Seyoyan.

“Maybe I should go and live in Seyoya,” Kara mused in Seyoyan. “Do you think I could make a living for myself?”

“Yes.” Chal lounged on the sofa, a book on guild history in his hands. Kara had started to teach him all she knew about the guilds, Mage Guild in particular, and he’d spent hours reading and asking her questions, always in Seyoyan. “Every trader needs to learn Tregellan, and many would pay for your knowledge of the political history.”