Cursed by Ice (20 page)

Anyone at all.

Except … she didn’t really want anyone. She wanted Garreth. Oh, she was a foolish girl, she realized. A silly,
stupid girl. But it didn’t change the way she felt. She wanted him. For what and for how long was not known to her yet, but she would like the opportunity to find out.

And so she sat up that night and waited for juquil’s hour.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Garreth returned to camp as soon as he was able, his body still shivering and cold. He tied his horse to the rear of Vinqua’s wagon and moved toward the bedroll he had laid out next to his brother. But as he moved a hand came out of the darkness and closed around his biceps.

He started in surprise and turned to look down into pale blue eyes that were lit by the moon. As was her fair lavender skin. She looked almost white in the moonlight, as white as he was … as if they weren’t from different worlds.

“You’re cold,” she said with a gasp, her hand tightening on his arm.

“I was riding in the wind,” he lied.

“Riding should warm you, and there is not that much wind. Why are you so cold?”

He shrugged her off and turned away. “Shouldn’t you be asleep with the girls?”

“I was waiting for you,” she said, and he could hear the note of pained confusion in her voice.

“What for?” he asked, knowing he was being a prick to her but unable to control himself. She was getting too close. Far too close. He had fought so hard to bring her
back to him, but now that she was there, she was asking for answers he just wasn’t willing to give her. About things he would much sooner have her live without the knowledge of.

“To be close to you,” she said to him softly. “I … I thought you would want that.”

He did. He wanted it so badly he could taste it. But the same problems remained. He couldn’t really keep her. Not like he might have wanted to. Maybe it would be better if he ended it all now. She had her sisters back. She didn’t need him. He would hand her the city and she wouldn’t need anyone after that.

So why did that thought make him feel so desolate inside? So alone? He had been alone for decades, but right then he felt it more so than he had while frozen to the Airidara mountainside.

In spite of himself, he turned back to her, lifted his hand to her face, traced the line of her jaw with his fingertips.

“I do want it. More than I should. More than I have a right to,” he said passionately.

She exhaled a relieved sigh, her warm breath skimming over his cold hand. “I thought … I thought you might have grown weary of me already. Or perhaps I was not very good as a lover.”

“What?” he said sharply. “You are an outstanding lover, Sarielle, and do not let anything I do or say change your perception of that!”

“Then why haven’t you kissed me by now?”

He wanted to. He could see her full, dark mouth in the moonlight and he wanted to kiss her so badly it just about killed him.

“The girls …” he hedged.

“They are asleep. Everyone is asleep.” She moved closer to him. Close enough that he could feel her warmth seeping into him. “It is as though we are alone,” she said.

“But we are not alone,” he said.

“We are,” she argued. “There is no one of any importance here save you and me.” She rested the front of her body along the length of his and he felt her shiver a little. It made him frown. He lifted a hand to push her away, but his fingers accidentally brushed the rigid point of a nipple, the tip puckered from the chill she had gotten. Instead of putting her away from himself, he let his knuckles brush over that pointed tip once again, listened to the way her breath caught in her throat on the softest little gasp.

Before he knew what he was doing, he turned the full expanse of his palm toward her breast, his free hand going to her waist and drawing her in tight to his body. His fingers found her nipple again, pulling at it … tugging at it. It made his mouth water to think of it on his tongue.

That was all it took. The next instant he was kissing her, drinking deeply from her mouth, tasting her on his tongue. He pushed their bodies into the side of the wagon, the wooden wall of it behind her back. His thigh slid between her legs.

He had not worn full metal armor, but he was wearing leather braces and a hard leather vest. Both were suddenly irritating to him, since they interfered with his touching of her. In the next instant he was stripping them away until he was in only a tunic and breeches, the slenderest of fabrics between their bodies. But then there were her skirts, full and voluminous. Thank the gods she didn’t wear one of those ridiculous corsets, with its metal boning and constricting ways. It was one of the inventions he had woken up to that utterly baffled him. He would much rather be able to see and feel a woman’s natural breasts, ripe and full and soft like hers were. There for the taking at any instant.

He broke from her mouth, his breath coming hard,
his body taut with want. It had taken all of an instant for him to go from not wanting to get close to her to this ravaging need assailing him at that very instant. He grabbed for the front of her dress, pulling it down hard at the neckline, exposing the soft slope of her breast to his mouth. His fingers dipped inside her bodice, pushing her nipple upward until it came free of the fabric and was jutting out into the cool night air. But it did not stay cool for long, because he closed his hot mouth over it, sucked it in deep, almost punishingly so. Punishing her for making him want her so damn much he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t act the way he should.

She gasped, a sultry, excited sound that sought out his spine and made it tighten the way her nipple tightened against his teeth. He felt her knee, padded in skirts, rising up between his thighs until she was in full contact with him. Had she been able to feel him through all of those skirts, she would have found him hard.

But then she was exploring him with her hands, her fingers shaping him through the soft fabric of his breeches. She molded her hand to him, pressing into him just like he needed her to. It was uncanny, as though she could read his mind. As if it were she and not Vinqua who could manipulate the magic of the mind.

He came back to her mouth, searing her with kisses, savoring the taste and fire of her on his tongue. He forgot they were out in the open. Forgot his brother lay sleeping not five yards away. He began to frantically unlace her top until it sagged open and displayed the bounty of her breasts to his famished eyes. He put his hands to her, kneading her and shaping her, all the while feeling her hand against his cock through the fabric of his breeches. He grew harder and harder, more and more frantic with want of her.

Before he could judge his actions, he had her hips in his hands and was spinning her about, facing her backside
toward him, bending her forward as he pulled up her damnable skirts. But then there she was, supple and bare to the night air, her warmth incredible against him as he pushed his hips into hers.

He could hear her breathing quicken, the little gasps and sighs of encouragement she released. She wanted him to unlace the front of his breeches, wanted him to pull himself out into the open air, wanted him to pull her back against him so his stiff rod was running through the wet folds of her core. She gasped again, shifted her hips, caught him at her entrance, and with one easy movement, impaled herself upon him. Garreth groaned from the pleasure of it, from the pristine heat of her core as he punched into her hard. Her skirts were bunched up along her back; her breasts hung loose and full in the open air so he could reach for them and fondle them as he thrust up inside her … so he did. He pulled at her nipples in time to his thrusts, then, after a minute of that, he found he couldn’t get in deep enough, hard enough, fast enough unless he put both hands on her hips and held her still for his punctuating movements.

He thrust into her again and again, faster and faster, listening to her sounds of pleasure as she tried to bite her own lips and keep from crying out. And crying out was what he wanted to do but did not dare. The only thing protecting them was the cover of darkness and the wooden walls of the wagon. As it was, his hard movements into her were radiating through her and into the wagon, making it creak in time to his thrusts.

He was going to climax. He knew it. Felt it. It was raw and unhinged. Completely out of his control. A wild, animalistic thing. A thing she perhaps did not deserve. Perhaps she deserved better. But for now this was all he had for her, all he could offer her. So he came inside her like any beast that ruts with its mate. He didn’t even know if she came with him. Couldn’t tell in the
wall of the darkness and in the blinding strength of his culmination. He couldn’t remember ever coming so hard in his life. The sensation was brutal. Draining. Wonderful.

He drew hard for every breath as he slid away from her and pulled her skirts down to protect her from the night air and any possible prying eyes. It was a little late to think about that, but he almost didn’t care. He felt wild and strong, as if he could conquer anything … and he had started by conquering this woman. As she turned around in his arms and offered up her mouth, he was content with his spoils. She was everything he could ever have asked for and more, and for now, he was content to just enjoy her.

For now.

Together they leaned back against the wagon, trying to regain their breath, looking into each other’s faces in the dark.

“Think of that the next time you question whether or not I want you,” he said to her roughly.

“Very well, I will do so,” she said. Then she laughed and he had to laugh with her.

“We should go to bed,” he said as he lifted a hand to her cheek. She nuzzled it against his palm.

“We should. But we will sleep together,” she said firmly.

She would get no arguments from him. All his arguments had vanished in the face of the passion they shared.

“I feel I was ungentle with you,” he said with some regret.

“Don’t worry. I was just as ungentle with you.” She smiled at him.

“That is true. But we will continue this later, when I have a proper bed for you … and when I can see your face. Your face is far too expressive to deny me the pleasure of it.”

“Then I shall not deprive you of it in the least. Although
it is a little difficult for you to see my face when you’re … behind me.”

That made him laugh. “A good point. Perhaps I will have a mirror brought into my rooms.”

She smiled again. “That sounds like a lovely idea. Now come.” She picked up his hand and pulled him behind her. She brought them to his bedroll and lay down upon it, pulling him with her. Before a moment had passed, she was lying beside him, snuggled up against him, sharing the warmth of her body with him. That was when he realized he wanted her again. Right that very instant. Even though he had only just left her. He exhaled a cooling breath. He had to control the urge. There would be better circumstances for taking her come the morrow when they made it back to the keep. He could control himself until then.

At least he thought he could.

He could be wrong.

No. He would resist her charms for the remainder of this night. He would savor his desire for her until the morrow.

And that was exactly what he did.

Dethan was not sleeping when his brother returned after juquil’s hour. He never was. As long as he was within reach of his brother, he could not rest until he knew Garreth was safely delivered back from his curse.

Dethan was beginning to suspect Garreth was in over his head. That he might drown in the pain his liaison with Sarielle could create. This relationship would be like being in the sights of a catapult. The ball was huge and flaming and angry, and there was nowhere you could possibly run to that would keep you from being crushed by it. Garreth was on fire and he didn’t even know it. He was in danger and he didn’t seem to care.
But Dethan cared. Dethan feared. He would not stand idly by and let Garreth go back to the cursed existence he had finally been rescued from. Not because of some girl.

Once they got back to the keep he would find a way to stop this from going any further than it already had. He could only hope that whatever he did, it would not be too late.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN