TheKingsViper (13 page)

The little cut on her breast throbbed.

The feeling that this was it, that she was standing on the
edge of a precipice and that the only way forward was to jump, was so
overwhelming that she nearly lost her balance.

* * * * *

Severin stalked out onto the wooden balcony and leaned
against the rail, glancing down at the other tavern-goers in the courtyard
below. Smells of beer and warm food rose on the smoke from the fires. People
were becoming louder as they relaxed. Severin, almost for the first time,
envied them.

“Ale, sir?” The speaker was a young woman with a wooden tray
of tankards balanced on one hand. Severin turned to survey her properly and she
grinned saucily at him, swinging her hips. She had a low-cut blouse and a bodice
beneath that pushed her breasts up to pillowy mounds.

He nodded, and she passed him a pitch-lined tankard of small
ale.

“You’re in the room there, aren’t you? First drink’s on the
house. You wanting anything else, sir?”

“You can launder and mend these and get them back dry by
tomorrow morning.” He lifted the bundle of clothes that Eloise had passed out.

“That’ll cost you thrupence.”

“Two.” He counted out two of the bronze oblongs that
Mendeans used for small change. “Two more in the morning, if they come back
good and clean and dry.”

That seemed perfectly acceptable. “That all, sir?” She swung
her hips slightly and gave him a loaded look. “Care to join us downstairs?”

She was only moderately pretty, he thought, but sufficient
beer would take care of that. He knew the type; she was unlikely to be a
straightforward whore but she’d be very willing as long as he was generous with
money and drink. He was suddenly horribly tempted. It would draw the poison of
his frustration for one night. It would leave him able to think straight for a
change instead of obsessing over something he couldn’t have.

God, but it would be glorious to have use of a woman for a
change. With her face to the wall he wouldn’t have to look at that greasy
complexion or those gappy teeth. He could just pull her skirts up and stuff
himself between those ass cheeks, so much broader than Eloise’s. Wasn’t it what
he needed, even if it wasn’t what he really wanted?

Then revulsion stirred in him at the thought of the
negotiations he’d have to make, the faked companionability, the stale
beer-and-sweat smell of her that he was already aware of.

He shook his head, miming his regret. “My wife’s waiting for
me.”

“Oh well then.” She turned away with a flick of her hip and
a smirk over her shoulder, disappearing down the stairs.

I did it for practical reasons
, he told himself.
We
cannot afford to waste money on tavern floozies. I was just being careful.

The argument did not convince even himself, he had to
acknowledge with a sick lurch of his heart.

He waited on the balcony, his drink almost untasted, until
the moon’s tip showed over the rooftop, then knocked on the chamber door.

“I’m done.”

She hadn’t locked the door. Foolish, Severin thought to
himself. What if he’d wandered away and another man had tried the latch? He
slipped back into the room. Small oil-lamps had been lit and set at the head of
the bed. Eloise was by the fire, wrapped in a sheet to dry. It covered all of
her but her bare arms and shoulders and the graceful dip of her neck, as she
knelt to let the fire’s warmth dry her long hair.

Oh God
, he thought, dizzy with the pleasure of that
sight.

“There’s hot water left if you want to wash. I didn’t use it
all.”

“Oh? Are you saying I smell bad?” He put the tankard down
and hung his jerkin over a stool. He felt so much happier in here with the
woman he could not swive, than outside with one he could, that he was almost
jocular.

“Like a whole pen of cattle,” she answered cheerfully.

“And where will you wait while I bathe?”

“I won’t look. I promise.” Her fingers stroked through her
locks, picking out the tangles.

“Can I trust you though?” he asked with a smile.

She widened her eyes, pretending outrage. “Do you think I
went to the trouble to wash, only to sleep next to something that stinks of
cow?”

“Your delicate sensibilities are my first priority, wife.”
The moment the word was out of his mouth he regretted it, but Eloise laughed.

“Then see you’re clean enough for me, husband.”

He bit his lip. Getting naked in the same room as Eloise was
a bad idea, even if she had sworn not to look. A very great part of him found
it all too attractive—which was precisely why it was such a bad idea. He knew
he shouldn’t. Yet the boundaries of propriety between them were so eroded
now—by nights together, by fierce embraces, by exhaustion and cold and
danger—that it was hard to see where the line was to be drawn any more. “Fair
enough then,” he answered.

He stripped to his waist and poured water into the basin to
wash himself. The soap wasn’t of the quality they were used to in Court, but it
worked well enough to strip off the gray scum of dirt from flesh and hair. He
didn’t hurry. His shadow cast by the firelight danced on the wall. He managed
an awkward scrubbing between his shoulder blades with the washcloth and wished
there was someone to do his back for him.

He cast a wary glance round at Eloise.

She was still bent forward over the fire, running her
fingers through her damp hair to clear the tats. The tresses were steaming a
little. She was absolutely silent, her face averted from him.

Of course she would keep her word.

Carefully, he stripped off his boots and trousers, wrinkled
his nose at the smell of his socks and kicked them away. He placed the bucket
on the floor and stepped into it to wash his lower body. The water wasn’t much
more than lukewarm, but the sensation of cleanliness was luxurious. He scrubbed
his legs and soaped his genitals, sliding slippery hands through his pubic
hair. His cock was turgid with the thrill of illicit exposure, with the
proximity of Eloise. Ignoring it as best he could, he bent to scour his feet
one at a time. When he was thoroughly clean he stepped out of the bucket and
reached for the linen towel.

He was busy buffing his wet hair dry when he felt the soft
touch on the small of his back.

Fingertips.

A hot flash of shock ran across every inch of his skin, like
the strike of lightning, and his spine arched. The fingertips shifted with his
movement, an infinitesimal caress, and he felt the blood surge to his groin in
response. He turned, and as he turned he forced himself to take a step back.
Eloise clasped her hands to her throat. He met her eyes, and read in them shame
and fear—and need.

So,
said the small cold part of his mind that stayed
that way even when he was cutting a man’s throat,
you were not imagining
things. And how are you going to get out of this one, Severin?

“My lady,” he croaked. He hadn’t called her that since the
shipwreck.

She had her lower lip trapped in her teeth. She took a
wobbly step toward him. He opened his mouth to tell her
No
, and at that
moment she dropped the arm holding the sheet about her, and let the fabric slip
to the floor. And then she was naked, and he had no words anymore.

The body he’d come to know by night and through clothing and
by partial glimpses was every bit as sweet and slender as he’d sculpted it in
his mind, but so very much paler, and scattered with flat brown moles like dark
stars on a cream sky. Each mark invited the touch of a fingertip, the reverence
of a kiss. Her pubic fluff was the color of sand, a shade lighter than her
hair. She looked frighteningly vulnerable. His cock surged, filling with the
blood that was draining from his head so fast he could hear the roar in his
ears.

All that had been so complicated was, suddenly, very very
simple.

Her eyes flicked to that heave of his flesh, widening.
Scared but determined, he thought. That was how she’d been since the beginning.
His heart was slamming against his breastbone. He hadn’t been this excited by a
woman in years. And still he couldn’t speak, and could not move.

She closed on him and laid the fingertips of one hand over
his hip. She didn’t seem to know where to look; not at his face, not at his
rising shaft. She focused somewhere about his chest, even as her fingers
trailed blindly to the hot column of his flesh, their coolness soothing, their
hesitant touch inflaming.

No!
He shaped the word in his head even as he reached
out and pulled her against him.

”This is high treason,” he said raggedly. Then he kissed
her.

* * * * *

She hadn’t meant to look. Ah yes, she had, if she was honest
with herself. She had meant to sneak a glance, to catch a glimpse of his
nakedness and so feed her burning curiosity—but not to stand silently while he
was turned away from her, not to glide over the floorboards, not to reach out
and touch him.

And yet somehow it had happened. She’d seen the warm flicker
of firelight upon his skin—the shadows made by muscles on a body that seemed
half-familiar to her and half wildly, wonderfully strange; the strong easy
shift of his frame as he moved—and it was as if she’d placed a ball upon a
sloping board, and watched it run inevitably downhill. Could the ball have
chosen to stay where it was, or to roll upward instead? Her fingers had moved
to the small of his back as if drawn there. His skin had been damp and firm and
almost incongruously smooth.

When he turned to face her she hadn’t the courage to look
boldly at his stiffening cock, but—without conscious instruction—her hand
reached out to it. The ability to think abandoned her entirely then. Suddenly
there was only need and sensation. Hot, hard, smooth flesh. Weight and
thickness and a quiver against her fingers as if it was a living creature that
she caressed. Hands clasping her waist and then, oh yes—his uncompromising kiss,
all hunger. His lips rougher and harder than her own. The taste of bitter hops
as his tongue slid over hers. The scrubby beard rasping her face, and his arms
pulling her tight up against him. Her heart banging so wildly under her ribs
that she thought she might faint. Her legs shaking beneath her, and a sense
that all the strength was draining out of her body.

Even the tilt of his body, leaning into hers, urged her
surrender. It was all she could do to lift her arms about his neck and hold on.

Then Severin plucked her from the floor and wrapped her bare
legs around his hips. His cock was wedged between them, more like an iron bar
than flesh. Carrying her over to the bed, he dropped her upon the sheets and
stooped, straddling her, kissing her lips again, slow and deep—and then, with a
groan, her throat and down to her breasts, touching her bloody scab tenderly
but then rubbing his face in those soft orbs, his open mouth half-worshipping
her, half-mauling her. When he caught and sucked at her nipples she felt jagged
flashes streak through her body, as if she was a sky in a lightning storm. She
could hear herself panting and whimpering.

“Ella!” he gasped, running his tongue up her breastbone as
his finger and thumb tugged at the point of her tit.

He would eat her alive, she thought. He would tear her into
pieces. Her hands pushed his head down and her arched spine pushed her breast
up to meet his hot mouth again. Questing blindly for something they’d never
known before, her hips lifted in invitation, and when he nudged one leg between
her thighs she opened to him eagerly.

A shift of his weight brought him down upon her, or almost
so, stretched out full length, half at her side and half on top, his erection
like a wooden pole jammed against her. Suddenly everything went much slower, as
Severin restrained his wild kisses and lifted his face over hers to search her
expression. His left hand slipped between her thighs and hooked round the curve
of her mons.

“Oh!” she cried sharply as he found the wet of her sex. And she
was really wet—as juicy and slippery and running with it as an olive press.
Part of her quailed, afraid he’d be appalled at her shameless desire—though
that didn’t stop her hips jerking, pressing her mound up into his hand. His
face was as fierce as a hawk’s stooping over its prey. His fingers slithered
through the hot folds of her flesh, exploring the shape and the readiness of
her, and the touch drove her half-mad with pleasure. When a single fingertip
delved into her tight maiden passage she pushed down upon it, trying to suck
him inside her.

“Want me?” he whispered, pressing her clit with his thumb.

“Yes!” She’d never wanted anything more.

His lips caught hers again, like he was eating her
confession. So enraptured was she by his kisses that she almost didn’t notice
the way his finger withdrew. But she could not miss the plowing of his hand,
edge on, up and down her wet furrow and against the nub of her clit. She cried
out into his mouth and in response he bit her lower lip gently, his hand
pressing and stirring.

“Oh please!” she cried, but he swallowed her words. Her
fingers dug into his hips, a mute warning—though she could not have said what
she was warning him about, only that it was soon, it was terrifying, it was
unstoppable—and it was here now, now, now. The world flipped upside down. Her
body felt like it was unfolding, like almond-blossom bursting into flower. She
began to cry out sharply, over and over again, and he smothered her cries with
his lips and pressed her into the bed, pinning her even as she jerked wildly up
against him.

It took an age for her to open her eyes when it was over, to
dare to meet his gaze. The sight was less than reassuring. Severin’s lips were
parted and two little lines showed between the sharp angles of his raised brows.

“What have I done wrong?” she asked, nervous again.