Sorrows of Adoration (27 page)

He rolled back near me
and looked at me with earnest. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to
happen. Not so soon.”

“Kurit,” I said, “I’m
not sure what’s wrong. Did I do something wrong? Did I not do
something I was supposed to?”

“No, no, no,” he said
quickly, putting a gentle finger on my lips to hush me. “I failed
you, not the other way around.”

“You did?”

“Well, yes,” he said,
seeming confused at my question. “Unless you … well unless you
are very quiet when you are happy.”

I looked at him in
complete bafflement.

“Aenna, I finished too
soon. I couldn’t help it. I’ve wanted you so badly for so
long … It just happened. I wanted to please you so much, I’m
really sorry.”

I finally understood
what he was saying, more or less. “Well, couldn’t we just try
again?” I asked.

“Yes, of course! I just
wish you hadn’t gone without already.”

“Kurit, I’m not even
entirely certain what it is that I’m missing.”

A wicked little smile
crossed his face. “Then let me show you,” he whispered, kissing me
again. He moved onto me once more, but this time when he entered me
I felt no pain.

He pushed himself up
onto his arms, looking down at me in happy ecstasy as he made love
with me. His hips moved slowly, sensually. I rubbed my thumbs over
the contours of his muscled upper arms, tense as they held him up.
I began to feel a warm tickle below my stomach that soon spread as
little lines of fire through my torso, up to my nipples, down my
arms and legs. He dipped his head down frequently to kiss me or
flick my lips with his tongue, the latter never failing to make me
moan in delight.

His hair hung forward
in his face like a shroud. As his hips moved faster, he snapped his
head back in pleasure, sending the hair flying behind him. I don’t
know why, but that image drove me wild, and my resulting gasp of
rapture inspired him to go faster still. He ground himself against
a tender spot above where he slipped in and out of me, and I became
overwhelmed with unimaginable ecstasy.

Waves of fluidic joy
washed over me, and from afar I heard myself cry out his name. I
lost all sense of time and place as he took me, grunting in his own
delight.

I opened my eyes to
find that he had collapsed upon me and was nuzzling my cheek with
the bridge of his nose, kissing my chin softly. I wanted to say
something romantic or in happy gratitude, but all words were washed
away as soon as I managed to consider them. I gave up and just
sighed pleasantly.

“That was what I wanted
to do for you the first time,” he whispered. “But since I failed, I
suppose I shall have to make it up to you by giving you a thousand
more.”

He rolled to the side,
slipping his arms around me as he went and pulling me along with
him. We lay side by side in silence for a long time, occasionally
kissing softly, smiling happily.

When he noticed that
our stillness had allowed my skin to become a bit cold, he sat up
to pull the blankets up from the foot of the bed. With as much
gentle care as he had shown in the coach with his cloak, he wrapped
me in their softness.

Then with a kiss on the
cheek, he rose. “I should snuff these candles,” he said.

“But it will take you
all night,” I said, pouting playfully.

“Pah. Watch how fast I
can go when I get to return to you as a reward for finishing,” he
replied with a roguish wink. He darted about with the little metal
candle snuff, being careful not to tip any over and drop hot wax on
the furniture or worse, his naked self. When he was done, he
scampered back to the bed and leapt under the covers with me.
“See?” he said boyishly, tickling my side before I could block
him.

Part of me was still
aroused and wanted to entice him to make love with me again, but
the rest of me was exhausted from what had been a very long, very
busy day. So, when he put his arms around me gently, I simply put
my head against his shoulder, my arms folded between us, and fell
happily to sleep.

* * *

I woke the next morning
at the sound of him moving about the room. He was getting
dressed.

“Surely you didn’t
intend to leave me to wake alone this morning?” I asked with a
smile.

Kurit looked up when I
spoke. He finished pulling on his trousers, then sat beside me on
the bed. “I was hoping you’d stay asleep for just a little bit
longer. I have to run downstairs for a moment,” he said as he ran a
gentle finger down my cheek.

“Whatever for?”

He smiled pleasantly,
and though it might have fooled anyone else, I could tell his false
smiles from his genuine ones. “I’ll be right back up, my love. I
promise.”

“Something’s
wrong.”

His smile faded
somewhat. “Everything’s fine, Aenna. I just need to speak with
someone downstairs. I’ll be right back.”

“Kurit, what is
it?”

He rose from the bed.
“Forgive me for doing this today. I promise, I’ll come right back
upstairs and tell you everything.” He hurried out of the room
before I could ask any further questions.

I wondered what
loathsome person needed to speak with the Prince so badly that it
was worth interrupting his sleep after his wedding night. Then it
occurred to me that no one would in their right mind disturb him
unless something was very wrong.

I leapt out of the bed
and grabbed my nightdress. I pulled it over myself quickly, then
went into the other bedroom. Leiset was there, putting out my
clothes for the day.

“What’s wrong?” she
asked quickly, for I imagine that I did not have a happy, newlywed
expression upon my face.

“I don’t know,” I
muttered, “but I intend to find out. I need to get dressed
quickly.”

Leiset helped me
hurriedly do something passable with my hair and get into a simple
dress. Then I ran down the stairs and searched all over for Kurit.
I did not find him, so I went outside.

I saw him then, over by
the stables. He was speaking with some guards and the coachman from
the night before. I jogged over to them, and the others all bowed
at my arrival.

“What’s the matter?” I
asked.

None of them spoke.
Each looked to the others warily.

“Well, something must
be afoot if you’ve dragged Kurit out here.”

Again, none of them
spoke, not even Kurit.

I crossed my arms in
frustration. “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, I shall
invent my own notions of what the trouble might be and worry
accordingly. So please, gentlemen, what is the problem?”

“Aenna, six armed
riders approached the broken-down coach about ten minutes after we
left,” said Kurit slowly.

My blood turned cold.
It is a horrible thing to have one’s paranoid delusions come
true.

Kurit put a hand on my
arm. “Now before you panic, they didn’t do anything. As you can
see, the coachman stands before us, unhurt. So they may have just
been what they claimed to be, innocent travelers.”

“Indeed, Highness,”
said the coachman, “they simply asked if I needed assistance, and
when I said I did not, they asked if the people I had been carrying
were hurt.”

“Well, then they were
looking for us,” I said, trying not to sound as afraid as I
was.

“Not necessarily,
Highness,” said the guard who had remained behind with the
coachman. “The coach was carrying baggage, marked with the royal
crest, and everyone in this part of Keshaerlan was well aware of
your wedding yesterday. It would be logical, even considerate, for
them to have inquired if we had injured people.”

I was unconvinced. It
seemed too coincidental that armed riders would suddenly come up
from behind. “How commonly used is that route?” I asked. “Where
does it go, other than here?”

The men looked
uncomfortable again. Kurit cleared his throat, kicked at some dirt,
and muttered, “It’s not really a route to anywhere but here, at
that point. It’s not unheard of for people to go across open land
to get somewhere, though. And it’s possible that they could have
simply been following the mountain line on their way to Taern.”

“Possible, but
unlikely,” I stated.

Kurit nodded.

“So what now?” I
asked.

“Highness, there’s not
much to be done, other than to ensure guards are kept around the
cottage. We cannot hunt down men who truly did nothing wrong.”

What reply could I make
to that? I did not wish to appear hysterical in front of the other
men, and I certainly didn’t wish to worry Kurit with my anxieties.
I nodded politely at them and returned to the cottage.

Kurit came knocking at
my door not long thereafter. He found me there with Leiset, who was
upset because I would not tell her what had occurred. I wanted to,
but the last thing I needed was for her and me to discuss it and
fuel each other’s fear. Kurit politely asked Leiset to leave us
alone, and she did.

He held his arms out to
me, so I rose from my seat and gladly went to him.

As he cradled me to
him, he said, “I would never let anyone hurt you, Aenna. I don’t
think those men meant any harm. I have to believe it’s all a
coincidence. But even if it wasn’t,” he insisted as he took my face
gently in his hands and looked at me with intense eyes, “even if it
was all a plot to harm you, you must always remember that I
wouldn’t let anyone get to you. When you were wounded by that bolt,
I swore to myself that I would never be so careless again. Anyone
who wants to harm you has to come through me first.”

I put my head on his
shoulder as he held me again. “But, Kurit, that’s part of the
problem. Yes, I fear for my own safety as any sane person would.
But I am just as concerned for you. What if you were the
target?”

“Don’t fret for me,” he
said.

“How can you think that
I wouldn’t? It was fretting for you that led me to meet you in the
first place,” I reminded him. “And that was solely out of duty. Or,
fine, perhaps a bit out of a desire for adventure,” I admitted.
“But I surely didn’t love you then. I didn’t even know you to set
eyes upon you. Now that I love you as I do, how can you imagine for
a moment that I could be calm about a threat to either of us?”

“I don’t think there is
a threat. Honestly, I don’t. I’m alert now to the possibility, I
suppose, but I cannot make myself believe that anyone would so
resent our marriage that they would seek to harm either of us. And
I really don’t think there are enough of the enemies from Daufrae
left alive to gather and strike again.” He kissed my forehead and
said, “You shall see. Everything shall be fine now, I promise.
Don’t let these coincidences ruin our early days of marriage.”

I tried to smile and
look as though he had successfully consoled me, even though he had
not. I knew the coincidences had to be more than just that. To this
day I believe it was an attempt to destroy me before I could
conceive a child by Kurit, though I have never found any direct,
unmistakable evidence to prove that.

After the morning meal,
I felt sufficiently better that Kurit was able to entice me to go
back to the master bedroom with him. We locked the doors, undressed
each other, and fell into bed to make love again. The pleasure of
his affections put all fear out of my mind for some time.

As we lay in each
other’s embrace, Kurit drifted into a light sleep. I nodded off
briefly myself, lulled by the sound of his regular breathing and
the warmth of his arms. My head was nestled into his shoulder, my
face turned slightly up towards his neck. As I drifted in and out
of a light doze, I kept opening my eyes to stare at his neck. I
pondered just how much of his very life was in him there, and how
fragile the human neck is. It wasn’t that I was afraid of anything
in that moment, but more that I was thankful for the preciousness
of life.

These thoughts
prevented me from falling asleep again. I just lay in Kurit’s arms,
staring at him and loving him.

As he continued to
doze, I found myself aroused just by virtue of having my face and
breasts touching his warm, naked flesh. Then my thoughts of human
fragility and the beauty of life in spite of it mingled with the
arousal to fill me with a hungry desire to make love with him
again.

I found myself turning
my face to put my lips against his shoulder. I kissed him there,
then moved my lower lip softly along his collarbone. The sound of
his breathing, the smell of him, the sight of his flesh, and the
feeling of his life beneath my roving lips engulfed me in fiery
lust.

I moved my head to kiss
the middle of his chest. I planted small, open-mouthed kisses up
and down his breastbone. Kissing my way up his chest, I felt my
almost painfully stiffened nipples brush against him as I moved. I
could tell he had woken from my actions, for his breath was no
longer slow and regular, but quick and excited, and he moaned
softly.

My lips found the edge
of the left collarbone, right below his throat. I wrapped them
softly around the little bump. Kurit shuddered a little, then began
moving his hands delicately up and down my back.

Out of the blue an idea
came to me, and the seeming naughtiness of the thought aroused me
so much that I became bold in my need. Gently, I pushed him to lie
back, and I followed, keeping my lips on his chest and collarbone
as we moved.

Blinded to any sense of
decency by my delicious arousal, I moved my left leg over him as my
lips moved to his throat. He had not bothered to shave yet that
day, and as my mouth moved up onto his chin, the stubble made my
lips burn. Though I knew they would be irritated as a result later,
I could not help but enjoy the tingling of it at that moment, like
a small, pleasant torture.

I moved myself over
him, knowing full well what I wanted. Kurit either knew it or
suspected it as well, for he put his hands on my hips and guided me
towards him. Then he raised his own hips, slipping into me.