Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian (8 page)

They left, reluctantly, stopping and looking back occasionally to see if she would follow. She waved them on. No time for play today.

She entered the house distracted by the desire to act but with no idea how to solve her immediate problems. She found Fabian lurking behind the door.

“Oh god in the heavens! How long have you been there?” Quickly, she stepped away biting her tongue to stop herself venting her anger and frustration on this man who claimed to have fallen out of nowhere, just, it seemed, to further complicate her already complicated life. “I told you to stay in the attic,” she said, quieter now she noticed the concern on Fabian’s face. “Hal knew I was hiding something. We mustn’t give him any more reason to come snooping.”

Fabian’s expression turned dark at the mention of Hal’s name. “I did not like the way he spoke to you. You will not marry that man.”

“No.” That much they agreed on. “I won’t marry him anytime soon. But it may come to that.”

“He spoke of a leadership challenge. I have good hearing,” Fabian added at her look of surprise.

“Then you know my ex is dead?”

“Yes. This Warrington, the new leader. What kind of man is he?”

No words of sympathy for her swollen lip? She moved to the sink and pumped water into a bowl. Took a cloth and cleaned her lip while she talked. “He’s like all new leaders, I should think.”

“Then he will want to make his mark early on. Reward his supporters and flush out his enemies. Some will rise, some fall. Fortunes will be made. Heads will roll.”

“You know your tyranny. I’m impressed.” She handed Fabian a pot of salve, unable to resist fishing for a little sympathy. “Dab a little on the cut. Hard to see what I’m doing without a mirror.”

Still, he didn’t comment. Fabian’s only reaction to her pain was a softening around the eyes when she sucked in a breath, rather too theatrically. She might have imagined the slight gentling of his finger as he dabbed on the salve, but she straightened her spine and endured it. Fabian wasn’t wallowing in self-pity and neither would she.

The lost, confused air he’d arrived with was fast being replaced by a formidable focus. Like a man who was slowly remembering his strength. A man already ruthlessly assessing where he might fit into this world.

“It’s a time of opportunity. The new leader will be at his most vulnerable now. It is a good time to strike.” Fabian regarded her for a moment, lingering on her lip with perhaps a little regret. “How strong is he?”

“Pretty strong, I guess. What is this? Plan B? In case you can’t get home?”

Warlord material, if ever she saw it. More in Fabian’s bearing and attitude than in the size and the shape of him. A man who went into battle assuming, not hoping, he would win the day.

“I will more easily return home from a position of power than weakness. This Warrington will no doubt attract the best of the mages?”

“Flawless logic,” she replied, oddly disappointed that Fabian already had his future neatly planned. One that didn’t seem to involve her. But then, why should it? She set about clearing the table of breakfast. Fabian made no effort to help, still obviously wrapped in his plans for world domination.

“There are two flour sacks to bring inside. I'd appreciate some help.”

Fabian raised his eyebrows, pulled from his musing by her sharp tone. “You’re angry with me because I struck you?”

“Not at all,” she said, wiping crumbs from the table. “I asked you to do it.” She barged past him to snatch up the sweeping brush.

“Then you are angry because I have not had you yet?”

A brave man, to say that to her while she was holding the corn-broom. He stepped nimbly out of her way as she advanced, sweeping crumbs before her. “Believe it or not, my every waking thought doesn’t revolve around you and your manly physique, Fabio. I have much more important things to worry about, like staying alive. And avoiding a life of servitude with creepy Hal. If you have any suggestions as to how I get out of that one, they’ll be gratefully received.”

Fabian disappeared and then reappeared with the flour sacks, one under his arm, the other clutched with his good hand. He dropped them onto the table.

“When a woman does not want to marry a man, she generally marries another.”

“Oh, I’ve read this book.” Tig leaned on the broom. “This is the part where you very nobly offer to marry me to save me from the marriage from hell.”

“You would be a fool to refuse if I did.” Fabian disappeared again. Came in with the oil-bottle.

“And what happens to me when you’re killed challenging Warrington? Hal won’t want me. I’ll be spoils of war and given to the troops for amusement. I’ll lose everything.”

“I will not be beaten.”

“You were before. Why is this different?”

Fabian placed the oil bottle onto the table. “Because this time, for the first time, I will be fighting for my life.”

* * * *

And yours
. He should have added that sentiment but couldn’t do so now without sounding insincere. Tig was at the door, briskly sweeping the crumbs into the yard. Disappointed in him, no doubt. One moment direct as an arrow, the next wanting him to play the troubadour. Over the years and many conquests, he’d learned to read a woman’s moods and knew he would bear the brunt of Tig’s built-up frustrations and anger simply by being there. He also knew that the best way to be rid of this all too-human angst was to build it up and then release it in one glorious, explosive blaze. Whether on the battlefield, or in bed, the end-result was the same.

“We should lie together. The need is hanging too heavy between us. Clouding the issue when we require clear heads to think of the next move. It will help.”

Tig made a choking sound, somewhere between laughter and disbelief. “What makes you think I want to lie with you?” she said without turning around.

“Your body talking to mine.” He moved closer, enough to invade her personal space. Tig shivered visibly. Fabian lowered his voice to a deep bedroom rumble. “You wore the gown so I would notice you. To arouse me? Is that not true?”

Tig absorbed the blow, shook off the embarrassment. Turned to face him; he already knew she wasn’t a coward. Brush in one hand, the other hand on her hip, she said, “Did it work?”

He moved closer. Not touching. Yet. Pointedly, he glanced at his crotch. “It worked. It’s working.”

Tig kept her gaze studiously above his waist. “Which is what I should be doing. Working. Hal took most of my current stock. Need to replace it.”

“It can wait.” Coaxing would succeed, to a point. Tig, he suspected, was stubborn enough to refuse simply to retain the independence she’d fostered so fiercely. “I’m injured, and I haven’t had a woman in a thousand years, which probably means I’ll last barely an hour.”

“An hour?” Tig mouthed the word, more to herself than to him. A shrug of indifference followed the brief look of awe she’d been unable to hide.

“Hardly adequate. But I think you will find that even my worst is more than you’ve ever had.”

Tig leaned the broom against the wall. “When did you get to be so modest?”

“I don’t believe in modesty,” he said, taking her words as a cue to further the dance. “There’s no shame in two people finding relief when they need it. Even now your body is preparing itself for me.” He leaned close, his lips barely brushing her ear. “I can smell it on you. It’s making me hard as an iron post.”

He withdrew. Her turn to move and by moving, give her consent. He tried to match her indifference, but the heavy throb of his loins was impossible to ignore. Mind and body were slipping smoothly towards a single thought and goal. Release.

“So, you make me horny? Look at you, Fabian. What woman wouldn’t want to jump your bones? Just because I want to, doesn’t mean I should.”

Bravado with a deep blush. A beguiling combination. “It’s here for the taking. You need only step over that imaginary line you draw for yourself. Have you ever attended an orgy? Immersed yourself so deeply in decadence, that you lose all sense of who you are?”

“Once.”

Her reply surprised him, pleased him. His cock strained painfully against the confines of the pants. “Then you know what bliss there is in forgetting and simply being.”

Tig’s gaze slid below his belt. “I do. I also know that it makes the remembering all the more painful. At some point you have to come back, pick up the threads and keep going.”

Fabian crooked his fingers, the slightest beckoning motion. Tig hesitated and then nodded, giving herself permission to move. She touched the splint holding his arm. “You have only one arm and I have a split lip. How is this going to work?”

“Like this.” He pressed a light kiss to the unblemished corner of her mouth. Took her hand and guided it to his erection. “Be gentle with me, as I will be with you. I think that’s what we both need right now.”

Tig’s fingers twitched. Fabian pushed into her hand. “You’re a silver-tongued rogue,” she said and began a slow stroking that sent his temperature soaring.

“I know,” he gasped. “And you’re an enigma I mean to unravel, very slowly.”

Tig’s eyes clouded. “Don’t promise things like that. This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just stranger sex, nothing more.”

He understood and felt an odd pang of regret that he would not know this woman as he wanted to. When he returned home, she could not follow. He almost stepped away, then. Once they did this, he would be forever left wondering how much more there could have been between them. But who would step away from such clever little hands?

Tig looked as stricken as he felt. Already too far down the road to turn back but wondering anxiously where it would lead. “Are we foolish to do this?” she asked.

“Utterly. If I can’t kiss your lips, I will have to find other places. Tell me, where do you like to be kissed?”

“Here.” Tig angled her neck without breaking stride, her voice more breath than word. “Men don’t normally bother to ask.”

“On this occasion, I wish to give as well as take pleasure. Make me come,” he whispered against the fragrant skin of her neck. “It will slow me down.”

“Only if you say please.”

“You wish me to beg?” He slipped open one of her shirt buttons, swept back her hair, the better to access the sensitive skin where neck curved into shoulder. Tig squirmed under his seeking lips. He latched on and sucked, harder than was comfortable. Easing off when she protested and tried to push him away. He held her, easily, his good arm curved firmly about her waist.

“Don’t mark me. I’ll never be able to explain it.”

A pink circle glowed against Tig’s tanned skin. Fabian reined back the primitive urge to mark her where everyone would see. Sex usually involved politics of one kind or another, but they were here for comfort, not to stake personal claims, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Just a kiss then,” he conceded and slipped open another button, then another. Beneath the silky fabric of her undergarment, her breasts were loose, outlined by the thin cloth, the hardened peaks of her nipples clearly visible. The sight of them, her hand working its insistent magic on him, made it difficult to breathe. He sucked in a shaky breath and bent his head to wet the fabric with his tongue. Tig made a small, whimpering sound and yanked at the fastenings of his pants.

“Let me lock the door,” she whispered. “And then come upstairs with me.”

Reluctantly, he let her go, still feeling the imprint of her hand on him.

“I wish I had use of both arms. I would have swept you from your feet and carried you to bed.”

Tig smiled, slowly, seductively. “It would have been a first.” She threw the bolt and then crossed the room to the stairs. “Let’s do this before I come to my senses and realise what a fool I am.”

She waited for him, needing the reassurance only he could give. Halfway up the stairs, she leaned back, pressing herself against him, urging him without words to wrap her in his arms and touch her through the frustrating barrier of her clothes.

“I’m afraid I’m doing this just to spite Hal.”

“It’s a possibility.” Fabian kept up his relentless torture, dipping a hand between her legs, stroking, coaxing.

“Do you want me just because he does? Is that why you offered this?”

“You talk too much. Let me take you to bed.”

Tig sighed deeply. A sound of pleasure and resignation. “Come.”

In the bedroom, they faced each other, Tig suddenly a little shy as he threw off his shirt and flexed his powerful shoulders. He knew his worth, on the battlefield and in the bedroom. Still had his prowess, if not his immortality. Tig would get the best he could give.

“Undress for me.”

“If you will.”

“Of course,” he said, pulling slowly at the lacings fastening his pants. Tig picked up his rhythm, flowing with him in the slow reveal. She’d seen him, but he’d only seen promises of her. An unfamiliar pang squeezed his heart when he glanced up and saw her naked for the first time. Her expression held more than the usual woman’s anxieties about her body. Tig looked almost ashamed.

“I’m not much to look at. You must be used to better than this.”

He stepped from the pants, his erection full and ready. “You need a little more flesh on your bones, that is true. But you are nicely made and have an attraction that goes beyond the physical. I can see full-well why Hal is obsessed with you. I will praise your beauty, if you wish. It is part of the ritual.”

“No.” Tig’s skin bloomed with a rising blush. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I just don’t feel…”

He was across the room, stopping the words with a kiss that gave no concession to her split lip. Tig moaned and pulled him closer, remembering what he’d asked for in the kitchen. A jolt of pleasure hit him like a lightning strike. Blissful release, the taste of her blood on his mouth. Generosity, such as he had never known. A tumble of sensation that left him clinging to her as if she were his anchor in this new world.

“Shhh,” she said. “Gentle, remember? Let me find some protection.”

Desperation made the release all the sweeter. Made him clumsy as he pushed Tig towards the bed. They fell together, he beneath her because he owed her that privilege. And because his trembling arms and legs wouldn’t hold him. Tig settled astride his stomach, knees spread wide. She dipped gracefully and swept his chest with the tips of her hair, ran a tongue over his nipples. Reached behind to stroke him.