The Grove(149)

Grinning, he touched the droplet to her flesh. The temperature of the liquid was the first sensation, a tingling coolness that was more akin to chewing a sprig of mint than sucking on a chip of ice. She felt the hard, smooth-rounded end sliding over and around her nubbin, felt the tingling liquid soaking into her skin. Felt every nerve prickling to life with icy heat. Dimly, she heard him murmuring once more for her to stay right there, but she couldn’t have moved anyway.

It was rather like descriptions she had heard of poison-leaf, the oils of which caused an itchy rash which scratching only made worse. Panting, she clung to the moss, knees carefully splayed apart, convinced that if she touched her throbbing flesh or even just pressed her thighs together, the passion rising in her would burn and burn and burn until she had rubbed herself raw in frenetic need.

The sweet, loving bastard returned, knelt once more between her thighs . . . and this time slid the droplet-tipped rod up into her. She convulsed with pleasure, nails digging deep into the thick greenery. That only made it worse, for her hips snapped, wanting more sensation, more thrusting and filling and pleasure from the too-slender, too-hard glass shaft. Aradin had to press down on her belly to hold her still while he worked the rod in and out a few times. Worse, he turned it, coating her in pleasure internally.

“B-Bastard! Bastard, bollocks, b-buhhh!” She couldn’t think of any other b-words to call him or to curse with; her body was melting, turned into liquefied fire by that second drop. She was a burning sap-pool of flesh and need.

Withdrawing the rod, Aradin rose and carried it back to the jar, muttering a strong cleaning spell twice to be sure it was safe. He didn’t want to just toss it aside and risk the brittle glass breaking, not when his intent was to make love to her thoroughly. Once it was tucked back into the jar, he returned to find her legs fluttering open and shut, her hips twitching and rolling. Crouching, he crawled over her—and found her legs snapping up and around him, ensnaring him as fast as that thettis-vine.

With a hard twist, Saleria rolled him onto his back. Settling over him, she growled and nipped at his chest, his collarbone, his chin, until her loins were snuggly settled against his. She rocked against him, nestling his re-hardening shaft among her potion-doused folds. The sound of his breath catching pleased her, but it wasn’t enough. Reaching between them, she grasped his shaft and teased the head into her opening . . . then sat up, sinking down onto him.

That scratched the sap-itch. She hummed softly in pleasure, in brief satisfaction, then rocked up and dropped again. And again, and again and again, until she had to toss her hair to get it to stop clinging to her sweating face, until he had to cup and guide her hips for fear of losing his place. Back behind her ears in that spot where she heard the voices of Kata and Jinga, where she heard Teral’s, she could hear the Guide groaning in pleasure. She heard Aradin’s, too, with her outer ears, and grinned.

“Thought you could . . . mmm . . . infuse me with pure lust . . . without consequences?” she panted, struggling to think.

Aradin grinned and pulled her down, pinning her on him. “I was planning on it! But first . . . oh, Goddess . . . I was going to . . . to . . .”

It was hard to think. Saleria leaned over him, palms braced on his chest. “You were going to . . . ?”

He looked straight into her eyes. “Lick you.”

His tongue darted across his lips. Saleria shuddered, undone by the blunt promise in his words, in his gaze. Flinging her head back, she rode him through the waves of her bliss, rode him through his, and let the aftershocks carry both of them onward, around and around.

Overhead, every vine and branch and bark-covered root in the Bower burst into bloom, the translucent blossoms so thick, their petals could have blocked out the rising light of the sun, if they hadn’t glowed like fragments of stained glass.


* * *


They slept as hard as they had made love. The first to wake, Saleria breathed deep, stretched languidly, and rolled onto her back. Opening her eyes, she found the Bower dome still covered in blossoms, blotting out half the sunlight and not really giving her a clue as to the time of day, other than somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of late morning, midday, or early afternoon.

A moment later, a blonde head swayed into view. Startled, Saleria stilled and blinked. Her first impulse was to cover herself, to demand who the intruder was and how they got past the wards. Her second thought came on the heels of realization. The who was Kata, and She was quite capable of getting past a mere mortal’s shields.

Kata smiled down at her, an impish sort of look one might expect to see more on the paintings and sculptures meant to represent Jinga, not Her. (Good afternoon, My dear.)