Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (25 page)

“The weighing of decisions, of actions. Each and every one of them must be considered. I must constantly guess, estimate and measure the possible consequences.”

“I was one of those decisions, wasn’t I?”

Again, he sighed deeply. “Bringing you here was purely selfish. I gave it no more thought beyond what
I
wanted, with no thought of the risks.”

“Tonight, you’ve started to wonder what the price will be for that indulgence.”

“A little, yes.” His hand came down to rest on her waist, heavy and warm. “But only a little. I will not regret this and neither should you.”

She could hear a tightness in his voice. Fear? “You don’t sound very convincing, Nick,” she said softly.

His silence seemed to throb between them, speaking of the tension within him.

Calli brushed her fingers across his cheek and kissed him very gently. She meant it simply as a sign of empathy and affection, but it gave her an idea. She sat up and turned to face him on her knees. She pushed at his shoulder, coaxing him to lie on his back. It was like pushing on a rock-face, but he lay down anyway. “What...?” he began.

“Shhh.” She leaned over him and kissed him, tasting his tongue and lips. She let her lips travel where they wanted over his face, his neck. She trailed them up to his ears and down again to his collar bones. His skin tasted salty and soft to her tongue and lips. His hand rested on her thigh and she paused. “You don’t have to do anything,” she said softly. “This is for you.”

“Calli—”

“It’s all right. I know you’re troubled. Let me help ease your mind. Relax. Let it happen, Nick.”

“But...”

She put her finger on his lips, silencing him. “If you’re about to tell me it’s your role to give pleasure then you can remain silent. You have given me so much pleasure this day, Nick. It’s my turn. Let me do this. Let me give pleasure.”

His lips moved against her finger. A kiss. “As you wish,” he murmured.

She smiled and bent down to kiss him, letting her breast rest against his chest. “Yes, this is my wish.” She kissed her way back down to his collarbone again.

She did not speak the rest of her thought aloud: That it was only a part of her wish. The wish she hid from him had been growing all evening, shaping itself in her mind.

She spent long minutes tasting and stroking the flesh over his shoulders and chest, teasing the taut flat discs of his nipples with her fingernails, listening to his breathing and the small little sounds of reaction to what she did. She slid her tongue down the shallow indentation of his abdomen, swirled around his navel and smiled at the catch of his breath.

“You’re enjoying this, after all,” she teased.

“It is very intense, to simply accept it,” he murmured, his voice thick.

Calli nudged his thighs apart and settled herself between them. His engorged cock lay on his stomach. When she leaned over and blew on it gently, she heard his breath hitch yet again. What a delicious sound.

Carefully avoiding the throbbing shaft, she nibbled and tasted his skin all around. She felt the taut plane of muscles beneath bunch and quiver in reaction. For a long moment she paused, her mouth hovering over his cock, then moved on to taste along the length of his thigh to the inside of his knee. Then over to the other knee, and a slow crawl back up to his hip, along the inner thigh.

Which brought her back to his cock, which strained and jerked. She slid her fingertip along its length, to linger for a moment on the very tip and it reared. Quickly, she gripped him in her hand and Nick gasped. “Hot,” he muttered.

“Hotter still,” Calli responded and bent to take him into her mouth, her lips sliding over the thick head.

His hips lifted beneath her and he gave a groan that seemed to be pulled from deep, deep within him.

She swirled her tongue around the ridge of skin edging the head of his cock and drew him into her mouth, deeper, then let him slide out. From the corner of her eye she saw Nick’s hand claw at the sheet beside her knee. Encouraged, she kept up the motion, exploring the shape and size of him with her tongue, teeth and lips, her hand cupping his testicles, gently caressing them.

He panted now, clenching and releasing his butt, his muscles spasming. Almost...almost....

At the last minute she pulled away, licking her lips for the taste of him.

Nick gave a growl of frustration and she lifted her head to watch him fall back onto the mattress, the tension released when he realized she would not allow him to climax.

It was a small power she had, yet one that would bring immense pleasure if she wielded it properly.

To be able to provide such pleasure gave her joy. It touched again the secret wish building inside her. To always provide such pleasure to Nick...what a joy that would be.

She bent to take his throbbing cock back into her mouth again and Nick gave a small hiss of what sounded like pain.

“Ah, Calli, to tease so isn’t ladylike,” he said, his voice husky.

She sucked at him, letting her tongue answer him.

He arched against her, his hips bucking hard. She could feel the tension building in him again, his thighs tightening. As soon as she suspected his climax approached, she halted for the necessary few moments for it to subside, before taking him back into her mouth.

She repeated the rise and fall cycle over and over again, until Nick writhed beneath her, panting and quivering at her slightest touch. His hands clenched at the sheets, mauling them. The tendons of his neck and arms corded under the skin and his whole body quivered, drum tight. Sweat glistened at his temples, reflecting the last of the moonlight.

She slithered up the length of his body, letting her breasts brush against him, and kissed his dry lips. “Shall I let you come?” she whispered.

“Ah, please...!” he croaked.

She settled her knees on either side of his hips and lowered herself until she felt his cock pushing against her slit.

She heard Nick’s breathing pause at the touch.

She sank down, taking him into her, feeling the hot thickness of his shaft spread her apart. He gasped unsteadily.

She paused, savoring the feel of him deep inside her. She stored the impression in her memory. She would need such memories later, when she returned home.

Slowly she drew up, up, to a point close to where he would slip out of her, then slid down, down, back slowly down again.

Nick gave a low animal growl, deep in his throat. His hands gripped her thighs. Squeezed. The hard pressure of his fingers on her thighs and the flex of muscles in his strong wrists and forearms drove her.

Slowly, she rose and fell upon him again, lingeringly. His fingers tightened and dug a little deeper.

She read from his quivering, bow-taut body and erratic breathing that she had reached the outer limits of his control. Only a little more pressure would break that control. She watched, alert for the smallest sign, as she maintained the long, slow stroking of his cock, clenching her muscles around him to intensify the sensation for him.

Then the moment arrived.

“Calli!” he said in a desperate cry.

She gathered herself, increasing the speed of her movements, bringing on the climax that could no longer be held back. Nick thrust against her, once, twice, a third time. The fourth was the longest and his cock jerked inside her.

He fell back on the mattress once more, completely spent, his body as limp as a stringless puppet.

She settled onto the bed beside him and when she judged by his breathing that he was calm once more, she eased him over on to his side and pulled the cover up over both of them.

“Sleep,” she whispered and kissed his temple.

She snuggled up behind him, threading her arm under his and over his torso, to rest her hand against his heart. With sleep-slowed movements, he picked up her hand, kissed her fingers. She sensed he intended to return her hand to where it had been resting, but the motion was not completed. His hand grew heavy and dropped away from hers.

He slept.

* * * * *

A little later, she roused from a light slumber. Nick still lay beside her, but now he rested on his back. She couldn’t tell if he slept or not. At her movement, his hand sought hers and brought it to his lips. This time he completed the act properly and she felt his lips touch the back of her hand squarely.

“That’s very Vistarian,” she said. “I like it.”

“I am Vistarian despite my coloring. Sometimes I think I am more Vistarian than my brother who has a fondness for all things American.” All the tension and worry had left his voice. He simply observed a fact now.

“You mean Jose? Does he know about me, Nick? Does anyone?”

“Duardo and Minerva know.”

“My uncle suspects, I think.”

“A great many people have suspicions. Suspicion comes easily to Vistarians these days. Truth is in short supply.”

“You say you love Vistaria, but you speak of the people so callously sometimes.”

“Love always includes acceptance of weaknesses, haven’t you noticed? I know Vistaria and her people too well and love them too much to ignore their weaknesses. Besides, in a country this small where everyone knows just a little of everyone else’s affairs, suspicion sprouts far too easily.”

“Cynic.”

“Realist,” he corrected.

“I’m the realist. You’re the....” She cast about for the right word, but the only one that came to her was
savior
and she fell silent, confused. Sadness touched her. His talk of love had released her awareness and opened her perceptions. She couldn’t speak or find the strength to pretend nothing had changed in the last second or two.

“I’m the what?” he asked. “The doomed romantic?”

She found her voice. “Now you’re being cynical again,” she teased, pleased with the casual tone that emerged. It hid her momentary confusion and welling sorrow. “Try to sleep.”

“
Para usted, mi dama fuerte, yo trataré
,” he murmured.

She turned away from him and lay her head back on her pillow, letting the sadness that had washed over her dominate her mind.

For only now she recognized
she
was the doomed romantic. Yes, Nick had coaxed that side of her to re-bud and bloom, but now she faced an awful truth: she loved him. Within the next day, or perhaps two if she was very lucky, he would say goodbye and they would never again lie like this together.

La dama fuerte
, she mentally whispered.
Hold it together, Calli. Walk away with your chin up. That’s the bargain you struck, and now you must live with it.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day she found out what a slice farm was.

“There’s not enough flat ground in Vistaria for bulk crops,” Nick told her as they walked around the property. “And there’s not enough people to make the farming of a single product viable. Vistarian farmers figured out for themselves how to farm vertically, decades before the scientists started talking about micro-climates.”

He pointed to the top of the mountain. “Up that high, you get frosts. So they plant cherries and apple trees and other fruit. A little further down, apricots, plums and some of the hardy vegetables.” He pointed to the steep slopes a little lower than where they stood. “There, you will get coffee and lots of herbs. Down further still, pineapples, many more vegetables and spices.”

Each time he pointed, Calli picked out a terraced piece of land laid out in orderly gardens.

Nick brought his two index fingers together up in the air and traced an elongated triangle against the mountain in front of him. “There is not as much land at the top to share around, and more is given at the bottom for the crops that need room. So you end up with a piece of the mountain that looks like a slice of pie.”

“A slice farm,” Calli murmured admiringly. It was a simple concept, but very practical. Practicality seemed to be the flipside characteristic of Vistarians, offsetting a love of drama and passion in their leisure pursuits and entertainments—like the Luna festival.

Nick’s house sat on one of the middle terraces of the old farms he had acquired. They climbed to the upper levels to investigate the source of the waterfall—or at least, Calli wanted to investigate despite Nick’s assurance there was nothing to see.

By the time they climbed up the winding path for two terraces, she was breathing raggedly and her thigh and calf muscles screamed for mercy. “My god, the farmers must be just bouncing with good health climbing these things every day!”

“They’re very tough,” Nick said, grinning. He breathed easily.

“Hell, and I thought I was fit!”

“You’re not at sea level, here.”

“Montana isn’t at sea level, either. You’re not even breaking sweat. I hate you.”

Nick laughed. “Army training here is very rigorous and very thorough.”

“You’re not in the army.”

“I’ve taken every training camp, every course and every discipline they have.” He headed for the rocks that hid the top of the waterfall from sight.

“Why would you do that?” Calli asked, scrambling to catch up with him despite the burn in her quadriceps.