There was more lubricant, cool and soothing, before she felt pressure once again. Although, this time it was her man filling her.
She heard him sigh as he eased inside her and the sensation of him was incredible. Then, to make matters that much more delicious, she felt his hand reach around to the front of her pelvis to stroke across the hard kernel at her apex.
Sara whimpered as he stroked in more and more deeply while his finger rolled her clit around and around.
She felt like she would pee or scream or just die as it all became far too much so quickly. Then, without warning, with none of the familiar signs of build up before release, Sara was convulsing in orgasm with great, heaving gasps.
Her hips pumped in electric bursts beyond her control, then she felt and heard Braze as he growled with his own imminent release.
His member grew harder, like an iron spike impaling her, then his own breathing took on the same cadence as Sara’s while an orgasm had its way with him.
He pounded in hard, pumping like an enormous piston, then shuddered a last time before sagging down against Sara’s back.
They stayed like that for a moment, until Sara laughed and said, “You’re too heavy. I’m going to break in half if you don’t move...sir.”
Again, that low, grumbling sound that slipped into more human tones with honest humor in it.
He drew back from her and Sara slumped down to the mattress while Braze left her for a moment.
Then, he was back at her side and gently running a moist washcloth over her body. Sara sighed, contented.
No...the word is “sated.”
And that is exactly what she felt. Sara was satisfied beyond anything she could have ever dreamed.
She looked down at the arms once more wrapped around her and this time she was sure of it. The tattoos had somehow faded while, at the same time, Braze had become more tender as he touched her. Gentler, as he had made love to her.
Almost simultaneously, they sighed then laughed quietly at themselves.
“You should try to talk to him,” Sara murmured to the man holding her.
This time, Braze sighed alone.
“I don’t know him anymore, Sara. I was only six years old when...when we were separated.”
“You mean when you were both told the other one was dead,” she replied, wondering to herself how any father could have done such a thing to his own sons.
“It doesn’t matter, Braze. He’s your brother, after all.” Sara tried not to sound too overbearing, but the two men had barely spoken a word between them since leaving the château.
“Half brother,” Braze said, “And, I will speak with him. In time. But for now, allow me to bask in the calm I feel at the moment.”
He nuzzled into her hair and kissed the nape of her neck, then said, “I don’t understand how or why, but since Clement’s arrival, I have known my first real peace in over five years.
“You must understand...I would go to that restaurant in search of silence, and then later, I went there because of you. But, now, I find it here, of all places, and to say that it is greatly desirable is saying too little.”
Braze had gone back to speaking in his strange, riddling way. As always, Sara had the feeling that he was speaking of two things at once, and the meaning on the surface was not the important one.
The mere idea of it, going to a crowded, noisy restaurant in search of calm, was preposterous when he had at his disposal an entire skyscraper with any number of empty offices behind armored glass windows and sound proofed walls. What he was saying made no sense, and not for the first time, Sara felt that this was a man living in a rarefied environment that lesser mortals simply could not understand. Not anymore than they understand the lives of fish living so deeply under the sea that the immense pressures would crush any normal living creature.
Will I ever understand this man?
Sara knew, though, that it did not matter. Understanding him, or not, she had given herself over to him in every sense of the word.
“Go to him in my place, Sara. Show him what it is that I see in you.”
Braze kissed her shoulder then moved to her jawline.
“Let him tell you how he came to find me...and why. Above all, why. And, I shall take some time for myself and sleep a dreamless sleep where voices do not come to speak in the words of the dead.”
Cryptic as ever, Braze released her and Sara got to her feet and started gathering up her clothes.
“Fine. I’ll go have a chat with Clement, but you had better come out and join in once you’ve had your quiet time.”
She turned to look at him, waiting for yet another puzzling remark from the enigmatic man. Instead, his eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell with the rhythm of a man well and truly at peace.
Sara smiled, looking down at him as she dressed, then tiptoed from the room.
He was turned in his seat, looking through the small window of the private jet, apparently lost in thought as he contemplated the same cottony clouds that had made Sara smile earlier.
His hair was longer than it should have been and was drawn back into a haphazard pony tail that barely tamed his wild appearance. One leg stretched out straight while the other was bent at the knee and Sara imagined it was because he still wore the short sword he had brandished in the dungeons of the château.
“Can I join you?” she asked, standing next to the seat that faced his.
The grey eyed man did not speak, only barely nodding his head while still watching the outside world fly by.
Sara sat. She interlaced her fingers and did her best to refrain from tapping her foot.
She did not want to admit it, but being seated next to yet another Abraxis made her nervous.
Sara cleared her throat, about to say the first thing that came to mind when he stirred.
“Does he know you’re being followed?” Steel grey eyes shifted to lock onto Sara’s own and suddenly it was just like that of Braze. Intense, penetrating, except that where the wolf threatened to burn in focused heat, these grey eyes menaced to freeze Sara where she was. Cold, like ice so deeply buried it had turned argent and blue.
“I’m sorry...what?” she replied.
Without wavering, his eyes held her.
“Don’t play dumb. There are vampires keeping an eye on every move you make. No point in trying to deny it.”
Vampires?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sara said, trying her best to convince herself that the Journeyman was just a nightmare and that no contract had ever been signed.
The man Braze had named as his brother continued to stare at her without speaking for several moments, then let his breath out as he turned to regard the clouds outside once more.
Sara breathed her own sigh of relief.
“Ok, so maybe you don’t know. Fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that those monsters are tracking you. For all I know, they followed you to France, too. Like me.”
“You mean you weren’t looking for your brother all this time?” she asked.
“My brother?” he chuckled, “How was I supposed to be looking for him when I thought he was dead? No. Someone I’ve been able to trust until now put me on your trail and the pickings have been good.
“I follow you. I wait. And, sure enough, once night falls the vamps come creeping out of the woodwork.”
He tapped the leather scabbard running down his outstretched leg.
“Which means I get to take the monsters out, one after another. Which is the point of all this.
“The point of all what?” Sara asked, “I’m sorry but I don't think I understand.”
He replied without looking at her, “My mission is the point.”
She heard it then. There was something about the way he said it...my mission.
Sara recalled the moment when she had first seen him. She had taken him for a homeless man, dressed as raggedly as he was. But more than anything, what had stayed with her was the look in his eyes. A look of manic zeal that she had seen before in other people, the kind of people with a message to spread. What they thought of as the good news of faith and how others would burn in hell unless they took up the call.
“So, what is it. Some sort of religious deal?” she asked.
Then, inspiration struck as the pieces of his puzzle fell into place and she continued, “Are you some kind of a priest?”
He shook his head, a smile burgeoning upon his lips.
“What a strange idea, but no. I learned early on that I wasn’t cut out for that life. That was a universe that damn near swallowed me whole, but for a great man who saved me from it and from myself.”
Ok, Sara thought, yet another strange man speaking in riddles.
“I see that it is a family thing,” Sara said, “You Abraxis men talking in puzzles, while saying more than one thing at once when you think people aren’t paying attention.”
If there had been the glimmer of amusement in his eyes the moment before, that glow was snuffed out when Sara spoke.
His voice was cold as he replied, “I am no Abraxis. The day my father abandoned me, he took his name with him, and I became Clement Duchamps. My own mother couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge me. Apparently, it was too painful for her, but at least she lent me her name.
“She did that much.”
His voice trailed away as memories stirred behind his eyes. Sara felt that she had gone too far except that safe ground with the impossible man before her was equally impossible to find.
He cleared his throat as he shrugged his shoulders. Sara could not help but think he looked like a man with the weight of the world upon them as he did it.