And ardently possessed.
By the time he consented to draw back, to push her gown down, over the swell of her hips until it slid of its own accord, whispering down her legs to puddle on the floor, her ivory skin was flushed with desire, her nipples tightly peaked, her breasts swollen and firm.
Her lids were so heavy she could barely lift them enough to see as she slipped the buttons at his waist free, and took his rampant erection between her hands.
Then it was his turn to close his eyes, to bite back a moan. To feel her hands possessing until the desire that rose beneath his skin seemed too much for his body to hold.
She leaned in, nipped his earlobe. Gained his attention. “I want you inside me. Now.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. His hands tightened about her waist and he lifted her, set her down on her knees on the bed, straddling him.
She didn’t hesitate, but shifted closer. One small hand wrapped about his shaft, she guided the engorged head between her slick lips.
Then sank down.
Took him in.
The air left Deliah’s lungs in a slow exhalation as she sank steadily down and he filled her. Stretched her, completed her.
It felt better than good, even better than blissful, to have the rigid rod of his erection buried so deeply inside her. It felt right. Sublime.
When he nudged deeper, nudged her womb, she reversed direction. She rose upon him, gauging the distance. Just before she lost the fullness of him, she smoothly changed direction and sank down.
Slowly.
She knew the theory of what she, they, were doing, but she’d never before experienced this particular pleasure. Now she was so engaged, she wanted to feel all, learn all, know all there was.
All that might come of loving him like this.
Of using her body to pleasure his like this.
Of taking her pleasure in pleasuring him.
And it was more, much more, than she’d ever imagined. The ride was exhilarating, stupendous, marvelously freeing. She was in charge, and he ceded the reins to her, let her set the pace, let her take him as she would.
Watched her as she did.
Watched as she experimented, then found her rhythm.
Watched as she rode him hard, then harder.
Watched her as she crested, as she rode faster, more desperately, taking him ever deeper as they pushed relentlessly up the final peak.
He held her, his hands tight about her hips, her arms locked about his shoulders, through those last fraught moments when the friction of their joining became a fire that ravaged and consumed.
At the very last moment her eyes locked with his, then she gasped, let her lids fall as she leaned in, and pressed her lips to his. Felt his open.
She slid her tongue between, found his tongue. Stroked, caressed, as the flames erupted, and the world cindered about them.
Del held her, kissed her, felt her sheath clamp tight, all fire and wet heat, about him. Felt her burn between his hands with an incandescent glory.
With a power he couldn’t deny.
Then he felt her soar.
Felt the tug, the command, the need to join her flower and sear, and pull him on.
To her promise of paradise. To all he knew awaited him in her arms.
He wanted her, and she wanted him.
Surrender was his only option. He closed his eyes and did.
Later, much, much later, when they’d recovered enough to together remove his clothes and then crawl between her sheets, he lay on his back, one arm behind his head, staring up unseeing as he listened to their tumultuous heartbeats slow, feeling all residual tension fading into sated languor.
Gradually, his mind cleared.
Leaving, etched with crystal-clear clarity, all she’d revealed-everything the most vulnerable part of him had so desperately needed to know.
He hadn’t known the question he’d needed to ask, but she’d unstintingly given him the answer.
Glancing down at her, curled against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her hair fanned over his chest, he saw she was at peace, floating, but not yet asleep.
Beneath the sheet, he slapped her naked rump, not enough to hurt, enough to claim her attention. “Don’t, for the love of God, ever do what you did this afternoon again.”
“I won’t, as long as you don’t attempt to fight three cultists at once in front of me again.” She scowled up at him, then pouted as she rubbed her abused posterior. “It would have served you right if I hadn’t intervened and saved you. I should have left you to reap your just rewards.”
He was, he realized, still smiling inanely. He couldn’t seem to stop. He’d just reaped all the rewards he presently needed. Still, with a sense of inner wonder, he stated what he now realized was obvious. “You wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, sat still and let that happen.”
“No, you’re right.” She snuggled down against him again. “Sadly, I’m too patriotic for my own good.”
“So you saved me for the good of the country?”
“Of course.”
His smile only broadened, deepened; he felt as if the sun were shining on his soul. He might not appreciate how he felt when she tried to protect him at the expense of her own safety, but at least now he understood why she did.
Understood that she might not be able to refuse the call any more than he could when it came to her.
And, oddly, that felt right. Good. Elementally reassuring.
Fundamentally contradictory, but that seemed the norm for his feelings about her.
His thoughts circled, settled…as far as he could see through the haze of pleasure clouding his brain, there was really only one-or maybe two-questions remaining. How should he propose? And when?
He fell asleep before he could decide.
Ten
He’d seen the colonel take the scroll-holder from Mustaf in the inn yard. He hadn’t seen either Mustaf or Cobby take the scroll-holder back. And now he knew what to look for, once they’d all settled in the big house he’d been able to tell that neither Cobby nor Mustaf had been carrying the holder.
Just before the servants had had their dinner in the servants’ hall, when Cobby had been sitting with Sligo before the fire there, and Mustaf and Kumulay had been waiting at the big table, Sangay had slipped into first Mustaf’s, then Cobby’s rooms, and searched. Thoroughly. He was getting very good at searching. But the scroll- holder hadn’t been there.
Later still, after he’d come back from speaking with the evil sahib behind the stable, he’d surreptitiously followed Cobby and learned where the colonel’s room was.
Now, silent as a ghost, he slipped through the deep shad ows. The house was gloomy and dark, but it was almost as if he could hear it breathing-as if the house itself were alive. As if it might wake at any moment and see
