Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan (4 page)

The walls surrounding this subterranean
chamber seem to ooze with blood red limestone stalactite. Fantastical twisted,
gnarled and chiseled cones extended from the immense high ceiling alongside
thick tree roots, both of which appeared to be arching their stone and fibrous
fingers toward the green glowing pool of water that stretched around this
hidden room, its waters lapping gently against a pebble-strewn beach. A shaft
of light speared downward from the dark canopy of rock to shed wavering beams
of light upon the undulating waters. To one side a waterfall poured its dark
waters into the vast pool.

“The Diabolusians call this a
cenote
,”
he explained to her as he leaned his spear against one craggy wall. He pointed
to the tree roots. “They pierce the ceiling in search of water.”

She saw his pallet laid out beside the
gently rippling water. “What a glorious place in which to live,” she whispered.

“I like the serenity of it and it is as
close to the water as I can get.”

She glanced up at him. The low light in the
chamber played seductively across his face, swirling shadows over the handsome
plains and passing now and again through his topaz irises.

“Reapers cannot go into running water, can
they?” she asked, remembering something she had read in the report on the men
who had been created at Riezell-Nine.

“Actually they can,” he said softly, “but
I’ve yet to attempt it.” A slight smile tugged at his lips. “That was just one
of many lies the scientists fed us on R-9.” He let go of her hand. “Why don’t
you test the waters in the pool, little Amazeen?” He hunkered down at her feet.
“Give me your foot.”

It was almost as though she had no will, no
mind of her own. She lifted her foot and watched as he pulled off her boot, her
sock. Obediently she lifted her other leg. The soles of her feet tingled as
they touched the damp stones. She gazed down at him as he knelt there looking
up at her and felt her heart thudding almost painfully in her chest.

“The water is cool,” he said in a husky
voice. “It comes from a deep subterranean well.”

She found herself unbuttoning her uniform
tunic, peeling it from her shoulders. Pushing her trousers down her hips,
stepping out of them. Without thought, without a single moment of shyness or
restraint, she unhooked her bra and let it fall away. She slid her panties off
and stood there revealed to him in all her unadorned defenselessness.

Ailyn was on his knees before her and
reached up to push his hands from the sides of her thighs and around her neatly
turned rump to cup those firm cheeks. He pulled her toward him and when his
mouth touched her core, Shanee let her head fall back, closing her eyes to the
perfect pleasure his lips wrought.

The sweep of his tongue, the thrust of it,
the absolute heaven of his warm breath fanning over the wiry curls at the
juncture of her thighs, the slick, wet feel of his tongue parting her cleft and
slipping inside her channel made her shudder from head to toe. Her hands went
to his sleek black hair and she held his head against her, breathing deeply
then more shallowly as he increased his rhythm, the movement of his tongue. He
was lapping at her, nibbling, pressing, flicking, and when she came, she came
with a trill of release that echoed through the stone chamber and came back at
her.

Shanee was trembling, her heart pounding,
the blood rushing through her ears and her body felt strung as tightly as a new
bow. Her release had been momentary and already she wanted his touch again, the
feel of her climax rippling through her once more.

“Cool yourself in the pool,” he invited,
letting his hands slide from her. “We have all the time in the world,
ionúin
.”

As though in a trance she stepped back and
walked toward the milky green glow of the waters. So unlike the skilled
warrioress she was, she didn’t ask about the depth of the pool. She didn’t
inquire of creatures that might be lurking in its deepness. She did not
question how she knew to step up upon a broad flat area and then jackknife her
body below the rippling surface.

The waters were sheer paradise—cooling,
soothing, washing away the sweat and grime of her trek through the jungle.
Beneath the plane of the water’s expanse, the light turned the waters to a
mystical shade of green. She cut through that glorious color like a fish for
nearly two full minutes and when she broke the surface at last to gulp air into
her depleted lungs, she was amazed anew at the absolute beauty of her
surroundings.

Her hair had come free of its tightly
controlled chignon and now hung behind her, floating in the water.

“Like it?” he asked. He was sitting on the
rock from which she’d dived with his bare feet dangling over the edge. Beneath
the hem of the breechclout, she could see his privates and a tingle of pure
lust drove straight through her lower body.

“Join me,” she said, and hardly recognized
her husky voice.

He hesitated for a moment then got to his
feet, stripped the breechclout from his hips and arched into the water like the
champion she knew he’d been from reading his file.

Though acute pain had clawed at his back as
he dared to go against his hellion, the moment he entered the water, his queen
released her tight control on him, without doubt feeling the exhilaration and
pleasure he was experiencing at being in the water after so long a time denied
its soothing delights.

The pool was deep and Shanee treaded water
as she watched him cut through the water with purpose, his powerful strokes
pulling him along. She could see the muscles bunching in his upper arms, his
shoulders, and now and then a glimpse of his perfect backside made her lick her
lips.

Oh how she wanted this man! she thought as
she watched him dive deep below the surface. She ached between her legs with
such fiery need she wanted to drag him out of the water, stake him upon the
crushed pebbles and straddle him, impaling herself as deep as he could go. She
longed to taste him, to feel the weight of his body pressing down on hers, the
hot warmth of his hands and mouth on her breasts.

When he shot up right in front of her—his
body sliding sensually against hers, his strong legs churning the water—she had
no other thought in her head than to lift her legs and lock them around his
hips, her arms around his neck, flattening her breasts to his broad chest.

He never faltered, never even batted an eye.
He just stretched out on his lean flanks and moved backward in the water, his
arms pulling them toward the shore until his feet could touch the sloped bottom
of the pool. His cock rested along the cleft of her ass and it was hard and
thick and hot, pulsing now and then against her.

“I want you,” she said as he turned and
walked with her out of the water.

“I know.”

It had not been said arrogantly or with
conceit but as an acceptance of her need that matched his. When he carried her
to his pallet and knelt down to allow her to lie on her back on that soft
expanse, she did not break her hold on him, and he stretched out atop her, his
weight a heavenly burden that sent shivers of delight through her groin. He
touched the wound that marred her shoulder.

“Who did this?” he asked, anger leaping in
his amber gaze.

“A dead man,” she answered.

He held her gaze for a long moment then
lowered his head to the wound and kissed it gently, laving it with his tongue.
As he did, his cock leapt against her.

She wriggled against him, wanting that
delicious cock inside her, but when he shook his head, she wanted to scream.
“Why not?”

He smiled gently and put his hands to
either side of her face. “Because you are ovulating,
ionúin
, and I would
not give you a child until we are legally Joined as man and wife. I want no
bastard son of ours to ever feel the disapproval of his peers.”

From all the reading she had done about the
men who had been experimented on at R-9, Shanee knew Reapers mated only once in
their lives. No other woman would ever know the power and thrust of them. They
would allow no other man to have what was theirs. She knew when Ailyn Harmattan
took her, he would be the last man she would ever allow that right.

“You must be sure it is I you want, little
Amazeen,” he said, looking down into her eyes.

“Am I what you want?” she asked, staring at
his sensual mouth.

He stroked his thumbs over her cheekbones.
“Morrigunia Herself sent you to me. I’ve no doubt in my mind about that. Can
you not feel Her hand in this?”

Shanee knew they shared the goddess in
common in their religions but she’d never thought much about such things.
Though she gave lip service to the deities, she had never really believed in
Their existence or Their supposed power to sway fate. At that moment though,
she believed.

“Of all the women in the megaverse who
could have been sent here, it was you who came,” he said. “I felt the pull as
soon as your ship sailed overhead. I didn’t know what awaited me or who, but I
knew my life would never be the same again. I accepted that the moment I felt
your thoughts last eve.”

“We could be all wrong for one another,”
she said, trying to be a responsible adult.

“You don’t believe that and neither do I,”
he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

As experienced as she was, Shanee had never
known a kiss could be so enthralling, so devastating and so powerful that it
literally made her toes curl. His mouth was a warm haven into which her very
soul sank as he drew upon her lips. She throbbed in places she didn’t even know
she had and such a powerful sense of rightness with this man passed over her
that she melted into his embrace.

“I want… I need…”

“I know what you need,
ionúin.
Let
me provide it.”

He eased off her to lie beside her, sliding
his hand to her silken curls as he bent over and claimed her breast between his
lips. His fingers—first one then two then three—slid into her warm sheath and
began a deep, penetrating rhythm while his thumb grazed her swollen clit.

She writhed on the pallet, her hips arching
up to meet his sure strokes. Her breast tingled where his mouth plied it. He
went deep, held and then slowly withdrew, going deeper still when she groaned.
He twisted his fingers gently inside her moist box until he found that
mysterious spot that drew him like a magnet.

The moment he touched that button within
her, Shanee bore down on his fingers and wrapped her arms around his neck to
press his mouth firmer over her breast. His teeth were grazing her nipple,
plucking at it, grinding it tenderly, and she was on fire with a lust that sent
waves of heat coursing through her entire body.

“Ailyn,” she said, and the word was a
pleading, a begging and a needing that set his own soul aflame.

He pressed deeply into her, suckled her
nipple hard, stabbed its swollen tip with his tongue and felt the ripples of
pleasure undulating through her moistness.

“Ailyn!” she shouted, her body quivering as
wave after wave of intense pleasure moved through her. She rode that
concentrated tickle, ground against it, pushed up toward it and it seemed to go
on and on and on until she couldn’t take the enjoyment any longer. “Stop.
Stop!”

Very slowly he withdrew his fingers and
with his gaze fused with her half-lidded, sated one, he brought those fingers
to his mouth to lick away her juices, to taste her, to revel in her spilled
passion.

She drew in a harsh breath as she watched
him. Never had she seen anything so carnal, so forceful. It sent ripples of
desire through her, igniting her senses. Her breathing was so erratic she
thought she might pass out from the sheer intensity of the passion that had
rocked her to her foundation.

When every bit of her moistness was gone
from his flesh, he smiled lazily at her. “Want to taste me now?” he asked in a
deep, throaty growl.

“Aye,” she said, and sprang up and over him
with such fierce purpose she surprised him. His laugh was all the goading she
needed to position herself between his legs—her knees spreading his thighs
farther apart—and sit back on her haunches to stare down at the perfection of
his hard cock.

His was larger than any man’s she’d ever
seen. Even Tariq seemed small in comparison and she thought that man’s root to
be massive when she’d surreptitiously ogled it. Ailyn’s shaft was long and
thick with prominent veins running along its length. The glistening head was
darker than and as soft as a baby’s ass when she touched it with the tip of her
finger. His sac was full and pendulous as she slid her hand beneath him to heft
the weight of those hairy orbs.

“You should be sculpted,” she said in awe.
“At the very least painted.”

He stretched out his arm so he could trail
his fingers down her breast. “Paint me with your saliva,
ionúin
.
That
will be art enough for me.”

Completely amazed, her hand shook as she
wrapped her fingers around his erect length, she was further stunned to find
she could not encircle that straining flesh completely within the span of her
closed grip. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes met his.