Enchantress (5 page)

"My knowing of the world is great.
Large much than my years."

He laughed. "And you will
gain even more
knowing
tonight, wench. For the coin I've paid, I will fuck you as
many times as I choose tonight and in many different
ways."

She said nothing, but watched him with
her tigress eyes. Yes, she was like a prowling, watching tigress
with her lean strength and powerful gaze.

"Touch yourself," he hissed. "I want
to see you come by your own hand."

Leaning back in the straw, arms
crossed behind his head, he waited and watched, half
smiling.

The woman slowly removed her garments,
each gesture elegant and graceful. Teasing. His cock twitched. He
crossed his ankles, stretching out to be comfortable.

"Work your cunny and let me see the
dew trickle down."

Now completely naked but for the bells
around her wrists and ankles, she stood over him and caressed her
pussy while he stared up at her, marveling at her beauty— her
smooth, dark skin and her long, sensual fingers sliding over, then
between, her sticky labia.

Her spine arched and she threw her
head back, all that shiny black hair swinging down, stroking her
rounded buttocks back and forth.

Nino watched the drops of moisture
form and coat her fingertips, saw her pussy blossom like a rose bud
in summer, witnessed her muscles tensing as the orgasm wrenched its
way through her. She was exquisite and a wonderful performer,
knowing how to tease, how to hide and then reveal.

"I should like to bring you home with
me. My brothers and our wives would enjoy you very much, I think."
Grabbing her hand, he drew her sticky fingers to his mouth and
licked them clean.

"
Wives
?" She sat beside him in the
straw.

"We share our women, even our brides.
It makes life simpler."

The woman frowned. "Not simple.
Tangled like too much snakes in basket."

"It is not. Sharing is good. It keeps
jealousy and possessiveness at bay." He pushed her down in the
straw and burrowed his face into her wet pink quim to lick up the
remnants of her masturbation. "Does it ache from the
fisting?"

She opened her legs wider for him.
"Yes. It is... pleasing ache."

"Good." He kissed those pouty lips. "I
do not know whether my brothers have ever fisted a wench. They will
probably never believe me when I describe it."

"How much brother you
have?"

"Six." He settled his mouth over her
and lapped leisurely at her naughty spring. She gasped and
twitched, but did not try to close her legs.

"And all share your womans?" she
asked, slightly breathless.

"Yes." Nino raised his head and let
his tongue play over her shaved mound. "So smooth," he muttered.
"How do you keep it so?" It looked so clean and unmarked, as if it
had never had hair, not a single sign of stubble.

"It is Egyptian recipe. My mother give
the secret on to me."

Her accent was charming. "Your mother
was a whore too?"

Her eyes sharpened and were suddenly
as black as her hair. The charm was gone. Nino felt a chill sweep
his body and brush against the back of his neck— like a door
opening somewhere to let in a draft. "I am not whore. I am dancer
and foreteller of destinies."

He was amused by this. Not a whore?
She certainly appeared to be exactly that, but if it made her feel
better to call it by another name he would not argue. "Foreteller
of destinies? How so?"

She flicked hair out of her eyes where
it had tumbled as she sat up so abruptly. "I read cards. That is
how I knew you harm me not. I saw it and I saw you...in the
cards."

Nino was intrigued. In fact, he'd
never before been so enthralled by a woman. She had just closed her
legs to him without his permission, but he would let it slide. This
time.

Chapter Four

She took her pack of cards from the
small leather sack she had hidden in the stables before entering
the tavern.

"You shuffle the pack," she said,
handing them to Nino.

The cub's eyes were warm and amused.
He sat cross-legged before her, shuffling her cards, eager to know
the fortune she would read for him.

How strange he was, she mused. Jesamyn
would not expect a d'Anzeray to take much interest in this skill of
hers. She had heard they were men of no religion, no particular
beliefs, and so she assumed he would think he made his own destiny,
that he was in control of his own future.

With a smile he passed the cards back
to her and waited keenly.

Of course, he was young. And full of
vitality. He would have no apprehension to make him hesitate.
Apparently his life had been a sunny one.

When she hatched her plan to find a
weak link and draw him in, she had not expected there to be much
conversation involved. She did not want to know much about him—
nothing more than she need know for her purposes. Yet he wanted to
talk. As if this was to be more than sex.

Should she tell him the truth of what
she saw in the cards, or should she lie and make light of his
fortune? Before she found him there she had, of course, consulted
the cards to reassure herself of the path ahead and of her certain
victory against his infamous family. If she read them again now, to
tell him the truth would be to warn him.

On the other hand, he may not take it
seriously. He seemed defiant and arrogant enough to disbelieve what
the cards foretold and thus move deliberately into her clutches.
The cub thought himself immune to danger. That was clearly read in
his face— without the aid of Tarot.

Jesamyn dealt nine cards, face down
between them, with eight circling one central significator. Then
she handed the pack to him again and advised him to lay two more
cards atop each of the eight in the circle. When he was done she
turned over the center card.

Yes. She smiled a little. It was just
as it had been before.

The Fool.

"This," she pointed to the card,
"you." Her heart was beating harder though, as if she had expected
that card to change. Not that they ever did.

He squared his shoulders, hands
resting on his thighs. "That is not correct. Deal them
again."

Jesamyn swallowed a chuckle and
resumed turning the other cards, one by one. There was an equal
showing of all four Minor Arcana— Cups, Wands, Pentacles and
Swords.

"The three of cups suggests you are to
make an unwise choice. And here, the six of cups, shows a weakness
in body. Or else a nature too generous. Some will take advantage of
this youth, this... impulse."

He sniffed. "Nonsense."

Aha, just as she thought— he would
deny the truth. "Your brother, perhaps. Your father. They see you
as boy still and treat you so." She looked into his eyes although
they tried to avoid her gaze. "This chafes like sand under your
robes and in your shoes. You desire to show them—"

"Enough," he snapped. "Move on, woman.
What does the next card say?"

Smiling inwardly she turned another
card. The two of Pentacles. Her smile, even though it was tucked
away out of his sight, died as abruptly as a snuffed
flame.

Wait...that was wrong.

A great love
affair.
No. That card had not been there
before when she read his destiny.

Jesamyn's gaze narrowed on the card in
her hand as she thought quickly. "A troublesome woman enters your
life."

"Well, that's an easy one," he
scoffed. "Most wenches are troublesome, and there is always at
least one around."

She moved on to the next card. "The
ten of Swords..." She paused. Had she dealt the cards wrong? This
could not be. The ten of Swords was a powerful good luck card and
often meant a misfortune averted. It should have been the four of
Swords, as it was when she looked before — a warning to be wary of
friends who are not all that they seem, a danger card. Somehow,
overnight, he had gone from danger to good fortune. Something was
amiss.

She flipped another card. This time it
was from the Major Arcana.

The
Lovers
.

He looked at it and grinned. "I know
what that one means."

The illustration, of course, was
plain, even to a layman.

"The cards are difficult this night,"
she muttered. "Sometimes they like to lead me astray, or they have
hidden meaning. The moon is full tonight, and this influences the
cards. I— my head hurts and I am out of sorts with my monthly flux
soon upon me. This too can adversely affect the reading of a
destiny." All lies, but what would he know?

He laughed. "You seem disappointed to
find my fortune favorable."

Saying nothing, she quickly gathered
up her cards and slid them back inside the leather purse along with
her hard-earned coins.

"Why don't you read one for yourself?"
he demanded.

"I cannot," she muttered, sullen. "It
is not possible to read for oneself." Another lie. She simply never
wanted to know her own future. What was the point?

Suddenly he grabbed her hand and
pulled her down into the straw, rolling over to secure her body
beneath his. "Then I shall tell you your fortune,
wench."

"The name is Jesamyn," she reminded
him.

"Jesamyn." He let the sound slide off
his tongue like a sensuous snake and then his grin broadened
cockily. "I like the way it sounds. The same way you dance. To
twist and tie an honest man in knots."

"Honest man? Do show me where he is,
for it is surely a rarity. An oddity." She rolled her eyes, still
peeved at the cards being so mischievous. And at him for being more
handsome than she expected, not to mention better
humored.

He closed his eyes and ran a fingertip
over the lines of her palm. "I see that you have traveled a great
distance, fair one. But that you have another journey still to
come."

"How clever you are," she exclaimed
scornfully, trying not to laugh as he tickled her hand. Oh, why was
he talking to her. She did not care to befriend him.

Nino tightened his hold on her fingers
and drew them to his lips for a kiss. "You will soon have a journey
with me."

"To where?" She couldn't seem to catch
her breath, the sight of those changed cards and his altered
destiny had knocked the beat of her usually steady pulse,
scattering it just as she had longed to throw those cards
asunder.

"To ecstasy."

* * * *

Something had upset her. He saw that
in her face as she turned the last Tarot card. The Lovers. But even
if he had not looked at her expression, he would have known it from
the sudden improvement in her speech. Quite suddenly she went from
disjointed sentences to long, flowing, angry explanations for why
the cards might be wrong tonight. Not to mention a bitter tirade
against men in general.

She had deceived him. No doubt it was
all part of her performance.

Yet whatever she saw in those cards
had shocked her enough to make her forget that she was supposed to
have a poor command of the language.

To him it was no surprise to see that
card— The Lovers. This woman was an addictive treat, and they would
indeed be lovers all night long. Didn't she know that too? Or did
the card mean something more than that.

He did not believe in the mysticism of
the cards, but she did, obviously. It was not just a performer's
trick to her, but something with deeper, ominous
meaning.

She had trusted him completely
already, enough to let him use his entire hand in her cunt. And she
said it was because the cards had told her that he would not harm
her.

Evidently she was confident in what
the Tarot cards revealed and felt powerful with them on her side,
for this was a woman who entered taverns alone and used her sexual
appeal to enchant the men within. She did not appear at all afraid
of what might happen to her in those situations. He'd seen such
performers before, but they always traveled with large, strong men
to protect them from unwanted attention.

She had only her cards and what they
told her.

"Do you remember me, Jesamyn?" he
asked softly. Turned away from him and staring into the distance,
lantern light kissing her fine profile like a basting of melted
butter, she seemed deep in thought. Worried. She was no longer calm
as she had been before. He considered reaching for her hand again,
to pull her back to him, but a sudden cold chill scraped his cheek
like defensive fingernails. Or claws.

Where had that come from? There were
no doors open. Perhaps the cold wind had crept through a knothole
or a crack in the roof.

Slowly her head turned toward him.
"Remember you?"

"Your cards should have told you that
we met once before."