Claiming Ariadne (14 page)

Ariadne took a lamp and went upstairs to her airless cubicle to remove her jewelry and change her clothes. The flounced skirt with its many tiers she replaced with a plain linen one, and the turquoise bodice stained with her sweat she left on her bed in favor of a white blouse.

Downstairs, the serving woman gave her a conspiratorial smile. Most priestesses wouldn’t come home till morning, and even many older novices found ways around the tight restrictions on virginity. And within the week, any woman fearing conception would take to her bed with a dose of the medicine. Ariadne had warned her girls to behave.

“Is it the Sacred King, Mistress?” Samo asked shyly.

Such an impertinent question ought to have brought an instant reprimand, yet such was the festive air of the occasion that Ariadne humored her. “The High Priestess has only one lover.”

She went into the courtyard to sit and wait. Late birdsong competed with distant music and laughter. Would Taranos be late? Would he be detained by half a dozen lusty ladies and young men intoxicated by this night? When a High Priestess summoned anyone, man or woman, they came at once. Not this man. Taranos would come when he saw fit, not a moment before.

An unexpected touch made her jump—right into Taranos’s arms. His arms slid around her middle. “Have you been waiting long?”

She kissed him. “You’re in a better mood.”

“Chilled wine and a change of clothes will do that. Where do you want to go?”

“Not here.” Ariadne would have liked nothing better than to lead him up to the roof. “There’s really only one place.”

When he saw the altar and its guardian idol illuminated by her lamp, he sighed. “Somehow we always end up here, don’t we?”

Ariadne set the lamp near the altar before opening the shutters. “There will be some air, and we’re four flights—oh!” Taranos stood naked in the middle of the floor, his kilt pooling around his ankles. Half-erect, his gaze intent on her, still fully dressed. “Do you ever wait?” She heard the quaver in her voice.

“I usually loosen my loincloth, hitch up my tunic, and go straight to work.” In the heartbeat it took him to step out of his sandals, he was at her side, pulling her to him, kissing her soundly. But he didn’t, she noticed, hasten to undress her.

As his kisses dropped lower, down past her jaw to the little hollow where her collarbones met, to the swelling mounds of her breasts only just concealed by her open-front blouse, she saw why. Warm breath moistened the cleft in between; she shivered when his tongue followed the same path. And with agonizing slowness, the linen parted, her nipples stiffened in anticipation, yet he seemed set on making her wait.

When she tried to maneuver his head, he simply laughed, and the exhalation danced over her breasts.

Sliding his thumbs along the sides of the garment, he peeled it back so her breasts stood bare, inviting those thumbs to come back and rub over her nipples. Ariadne closed her eyes, reflecting on that afternoon’s aborted exploration. Never in ten lifetimes could her own fingers work the same magic.

Then Taranos grunted, breaking the spell. “Too bad neither of us thought to bring a blanket. Sucking your sweet nipples would be so much better if I didn’t have to contend with sore knees.”

Ariadne hissed. “You fool man, what was all that tough warrior talk about walking over hot plains and trudging up unforgiving mountains? Only to be undone by a bare floor!”

Completely unrepentant, he grinned up at her. “So I like a bit of comfort when I’m with a woman.”

Snorting, she shoved his head away and, taking the lamp, crossed over to a cubicle just to the left of the shrine. Empty ritual vessels and a long wooden chest filled the narrow space. “We keep the bedding here.”

Taranos padded across the floor to hold the lamp while she pulled out a woolen coverlet. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When you stopped teasing me.”

“Ah, but then it would have been too late.”

Ariadne dragged the coverlet and one pillow out onto the floor before the altar. “These are ritual things. We should ask the Great Mother for permission before using them.”

Taranos replaced the lamp before circling her waist with both arms. “Isn’t it enough that we’re the High Priestess and Sacred King?”

In her rush to find a suitable private place, she hadn’t thought.
Would
the Goddess be offended at having her shrine used for a mere assignation? Was it enough that her High Priestess liked and wanted the consort she brought here? “We should still ask.”

Taranos grunted assent. “But not like this.” He indicated her clothing. “Stand naked next to me and say the prayer, and then we’ll show Mother Rea what she’s missing tonight.”

Ariadne’s fingers froze over the knot holding her blouse closed. “Do your people always speak this lightly of her in the Achaean lands?”

“Our name for the Great Mother is Demeter.” His hands helped her with her garments, undoing the knot and sliding her blouse over and off her shoulders. “She’s the most powerful goddess among us, but it’s still the male gods who rule.”

Her skirt came next; his fingers deftly found the ties cinching it in. Pale green linen fell into a puddle around her feet. “The gods as we worship them are just like us. They fight and make love just like we do. They feel happiness and anger and jealousy just like we do.”

What absurd notions! “Except that the earth doesn’t shake when
you
get angry, Taranos,” Ariadne pointed out.

Grinning, he went one better. “And the crops don’t fail when
you
don’t enjoy being fucked.”

So sacrilegious, so utterly ridiculous, all she could do was sputter with laughter. “Oh, Taranos! You shouldn’t say that! But I wonder what the harvest will be like this year. I mean, with the way you touch me, I suspect the grapes will be huge and juicy on the vine, and the wheat twice as tall.”

“But I haven’t done much touching you since we arrived.” His mouth fastened on hers; the pressure of his lips and tongue urged her to yield every part of herself to the point where she nearly forgot how the conversation began in the first place.

Pushing at his chest, swatting him when he continued to claim kisses, she reminded him. “Now face the altar, and keep your hands to yourself while I ask the Great Mother’s permission.”

Lifting her palms in supplication, Ariadne tried to take on the persona of the High Priestess. Yet with Taranos’s naked thigh brushing up against hers, tempting her to abandon duty for carnal pleasure, she felt as self-conscious as she had as a girl stepping into her predecessor’s place for the first time. “Great Mother Goddess, forgive this intrusion into your sanctuary at this late hour. I am your High Priestess. The man beside me is my Sacred King. As you have brought us together in love before, tonight we wish to lie together here in love again. If this offends you, please give us a sign.”

Ariadne closed her eyes, listened, and heard nothing. “Thank you, Great Goddess.” And from that point on, the High Priestess was no more. She was a woman again, and the man beside her wasted no time in claiming her.

Through the coverlet, she felt the floor firm against her back. In a few months, as the child grew and her waist thickened, this would be impossible. Even going up and down the stairs would strain her back and swollen ankles. Taranos certainly wouldn’t want her then!

His tongue painted ever-decreasing circles around her right nipple. Ariadne combed her fingers through his short hair, tried to tug his head closer, but he refused to be held. Even when she protested, he moved lower, brushing both hand and lips over her navel. “I believe you’re starting to show.”

Pemo told her the same thing that morning when cinching her girdle. No more entrusting that task to clumsy novices. “Soon I’ll be as fat as a heifer.”

Perhaps he liked cows, for he covered her belly with kisses. “This is the first time I’ve lain with a woman who was carrying my child.”

“No, it isn’t.” Ariadne felt her patience draining along with her desire. “You had me at Plowistos, remember?”

Taranos, to her consternation, continued to wax thoughtful. “That isn’t what I meant. I left Pylia before I knew she was carrying Kerkios.”

Oh, bother! The last thing Ariadne meant to do was listen to him reminisce about another woman while lying with her. “Is this all you intend to do for me tonight?”

“You want me to hurry up and stick it in, do you?” A large hand rubbed between her thighs, then withdrew before she could even begin to enjoy it. “You’re not ready for me to fuck you. I want you dripping wet and screaming my name.”

She swatted his shoulder. “You’re certainly not doing much to make that happen.”

Taranos kissed her again. Once more, that hand got busy between her legs, parting her folds, splitting her juicy wetness for the finger he pushed inside. Not enough! It wasn’t long enough or thick enough to satisfy her craving, and she growled her frustration into their kisses. How could he hold back like this when he knew perfectly well she was ready for him? Men hated to wait for their pleasure. That thing between their legs had no patience at all.

She maneuvered her hips, thrusting, attempting to take his digit deeper inside. Taranos just laughed, then added to her torment by withdrawing completely. “You—”

Her half-snarled protest died as he wrapped both arms around her middle and flipped over so their positions were reversed. Now she sprawled atop him, his erect cock nudging her thigh.

“I told you I had one great big bull’s horn. Tonight you get to ride it.”

Sit on his cock and take her pleasure from above? No one had ever so much as suggested she take control; the thought was as shockingly, deliciously foreign as the man lying under her. “Well, I…”

Taranos caressed her hip. “Never done it this way before? Most women seem to like it. Just take my cock in your hand and straddle my hips to guide it in.”

When she touched him, his shaft filled her hand. It was hardly the first time she’d ever held a man there. Previous consorts had shoved her hands down to their groins as soon as they could and wanted her to stroke them and squeeze them. Until now, she did it without looking, awkwardly gripping those strange cocks with their coarse hair, trying her best to give them pleasure yet never quite succeeding.

Now she paused to reflect how heavy Taranos was in her hand, how the blood pulsed along his length, warming his flesh, making it rigid. Up and down she moved, exploring how his foreskin moved with each stroke. She contemplated his tightly folded slit and the bulbous head when the foreskin drew back, and wondered, ever so slightly, how he tasted. Other women did this. Nature compelled them to kiss, to lick, to take their men in their mouths. Would he like it if she...?

A low moan brought an end to her reverie. Oh, yes, he liked what she was doing. Desire heated his gaze, and his hand on her hip exerted more pressure and urged her on. “That’s it,” he murmured huskily. “Climb on top of me and put it inside you.”

She obediently straddled him, raised up on her knees so she could guide his prick inside her. Slowly his head breached her opening. As she sank down, she took more in, until his full length was sheathed inside her. Both his hands clutched her hips, and before she could ask what to do next, his first thrust took her by surprise.

How different it felt from this position! Ariadne forgot her question as instinct took over. She came up, then down, her rhythm clashing with his. Again, she tried, and this time got it right—she came down just as he pushed up, only now she wanted it faster.

“Touch yourself,” he grunted. “Play with your nipples. Play with your cunt so I can feel you come.”

An invitation to do the very thing she had wanted that afternoon. Now her fingers dipped between her thighs, to the place where his wet, rigid cock drove in and out, stretching her wide open. And there, above her spread folds, her engorged little button shivered at her touch. It was so sensitive she flinched with pain and something else that encouraged her to explore. Her fingers, slick with her own wetness, rolled over the nub, rubbed at it. She tried to remember just how he’d done it, how she liked it—oh, yes! That was it!