Tested by the Night (3 page)

One thing was for certain, though, she couldn’t remember ever seeing a barbarian this tall, this handsome, this manly anywhere else in Alaria. And if he was half as good in bed as he was to simply stand and gape at, before this night was through, she’d definitely be beholden to whoever had the forethought to hire him.

The closer he came, the more unsure of herself Mia grew. What if she couldn’t remember how to please a man? After all, it had been more than two years since she’d had carnal knowledge of…anyone. But then, did it even really matter? This was his job after all, what he was paid to do. For some reason, though, the thought of him being disappointed in her did matter…very much. She’d seen the look of regret on a man’s face once before when she hadn’t lived up to his expectations. It was a sight she hoped to never see again. Especially not in the rich, molten chocolate brown eyes gazing so intently at her now.

He touched her hand, and she jumped. “Easy, princess, we have all night.”

She shook her head. “Na…no, we don’t. We need to do this quickly, before I lose my nerve.”

He chuckled, and his eyes held as much amusement as his voice. “Making love with a lass as lovely as yourself should never be a hurried event. That would be a crime.” He nuzzled her neck and whispered against her skin. “It’ll take at least the rest of this night and half of the morrow to do proper homage to one such as you.”

Mia shuddered. “I don’t want you to—to—to make love to me. That’s much too personal. I want you to simply fuck me, fast and hard. Just do it and get it over with.”

This time he laughed out loud, and Mia smacked him, though her heart wasn’t really in the blow. He didn’t even seem to notice. Instead, with one hand, he unclasped the broach holding her gown together at her shoulder, and with his other, he gathered her close as the deep-blue gossamer silk slithered to the floor and pooled between them.

He nuzzled her neck again, and shivers of delight scampered up and down her spine, landing with a resounding thud right in the middle of her belly. “When a starving man is set before a fine feast such as you, princess, he does not simply gobble his meal down and walk away. Oh, no, he savors every morsel of it, dines to near bursting, and thoroughly licks his plate clean afterward in appreciation.”

She gulped and a heartbeat later found herself flat on her back in the middle of the soft furs covering her bed with a very large, very handsome, very sexy barbarian straddling her. Something about the way he smiled, the gleam in his eyes, suddenly seemed familiar, and the very smallest of grains of memory began to form in the back of her mind. She started to speak. She started to ask him if she’d by chance met him on one of her trips home from school, but then, he leaned forward and his lips touched the edge of hers.

Her mind went blank as their breath mingled and every thought she’d ever had was suddenly replaced with him, his essence, his taste, his power, his being. He pressed his lips to hers more firmly, and warmth infused her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes as his tongue flicked out, capturing hers and forcing her to admit, with her body if not with words, that she did indeed want this. All of this.

She drank of him, and him of her.

The sensation was heady. He tasted of freedom and lust, hot spice and smoldering heat, and he smelled of midnight, stars, moons, and faraway lands where responsibilities and quests and thrones didn’t exist. His sighs spoke promises of pleasure she couldn’t wait to see fulfilled while his hands began blazing a path of uncharted ecstasy along the plains of her trembling body.

She fought for control as, along with his kiss, his long, strong fingers found and cupped her breast, squeezing, tweaking her nipple, and sending quivers of excitement shooting downward between her thighs, deep into her pussy. His other hand gently stroked her cheek.

A sudden knock sounded at the door, and the man stilled. “Expecting someone else, princess?”

She shook her head and gulped in air. “Only you.”

He chuckled, and his hand continued caressing her breast as his lips once more captured hers in a kiss. Sensations assaulted and flooded her mystic spiritmaster mind—warmth, safety, a sense of being cherished, a sense of truth, a strong sense of honor. His touch held no deception, no lie, and Mia relaxed again into his embrace.

The ability to know truth or lie from a touch was the only part of the spirtmaster legacy she’d received, but it was a part she was very grateful for. On many occasions her
gift
, as her aunt Lark called it, had prevented her from making some very bad mistakes. She trusted her ability completely now. She trusted her sixth sense and gave herself over to it and into this man’s care.

The knock came again.

“Ignore it,” she sighed.

He replaced the hand on her breast with his hot mouth, and spiraling shockwaves of delight ricochet back and forth between her ribs.

He nipped, sucked, and licked her nipple playfully.

She squirmed beneath him and moaned.

“Easy, princess, we have a long way to go.”

She fisted her hands into his hair. “I want…now,” she gasped.

He chuckled. “If you simply want, then you aren’t anywhere near ready for what I have to give. Tell me again when you need, princess, when you must have, when you can’t live another moment without, when you’re willing to beg.”

Her? A royal princess of the house of Alaria beg? The arrogant bounder had lost his mind. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the obviously overpaid gigolo it was she who had hired him and it was she who would decide when and what she received. But then his fingers feathered across her rib cage and along her belly to the junction between her legs. A single warm digit slipped through her folds and grazed the hood of her clit. Sparks shot through her, and she rose to meet his stroke. Gentle then hard, fast then slow, his thumb stroked her while his index finger probed her pussy.

God Draka, it had been so very long. “For VoT sake, fuck me.”

He simply chuckled. “Not until you beg, princess.”

She shook her head but felt him smile against her belly, and she couldn’t help but smile herself as he scooted downward, lower, between her thighs. She held her breath.

With the very first swipe of his tongue, she came. Not a sweet little tiptoe into the outer reaches of ecstasy, but an all-out implosion of such sweet release it racked her body with spasms while bringing tears of joy to her eyes. And it didn’t stop there. Even though she tried her best to clamp her thighs together, he wouldn’t permit it. Over and over, he lavished her tender flesh with his tongue. Nipping and teasing, sucking and stroking, lapping and tasting.

She lost count of the times she came. Had it been three or four? She lost track of the sand trickling through the hourglass and where she was, she even forgot her name and why she was here in the first place. None of it mattered. All Mia Hammerstrike could recall at this precise moment was the wonderfully raspy feel of this man’s tongue upon her oh so tender clit and spiraling out of control.

For a fleeting moment, she wondered if it were possible to die from such exquisite torture, and with another swipe of his tongue, she forgot to care.

****

Oh, my God Draka, Princess Mia was like molten lava mixed with sweet honey in his arms. She tasted of ambrosia, sweet and fresh, and she smelled of sunshine. Never, not in his entire twenty-six years and very active love life, had Talon Starkweather ever held a woman as responsive, as giving, as open and perfect as Mia Hammerstrike. She came apart again with the next pass of his tongue, and he was humbled. How had he been so lucky to have been gifted with this prize if even for an hour?

He was so caught up in the feel of her skin, the sound of her sighs, the taste of her juices flowing, he almost missed her whispered, “Please.”

He smiled and licked his lips. “Please what, princess?”

She had the audacity to smack him on the top of his head. “You know what barbarian. For God Draka’s sake, fuck me.”

“Ah,” he sighed as he slid up her body and positioned his cock at her opening. “Have you been a good lass and cast your PDUP spell today, princess?”

She glared at him. “Of course I have. Every female over the age of twelve casts her prevention of disease and unwanted pregnancy spell first thing every morning. I’m not an idiot.”

He watched her face as he slowly slid the first thick inch into her hot pussy and stopped. “Humor me. Say it again just to be on the safe side. I’m a very potent man, princess, and the last thing you need, if you hope to ever complete Queen Adrina’s challenge, is a babe in your belly.”

She glared at him and shook her head, but when he simply remained still, with just that one inch inside, she complied. “Protect my body, protect my soul. Let not the specter of disease be bold. Protect my body, protect my soul. Let not the spirit of a babe take hold.”

He grinned and drove forward until his entire long, weighty cock was fully embedded within her sheath. She held her breath, her eyes growing a little bit bigger with every inch he’d forged. “Breathe,” he whispered against her skin and felt her shiver from the inside out. “You’ll like this, I promise.”

His cock, heavily engorged, retreated only to plunge forward once more, and then again, and again, and again. She wrapped her legs about his waist and rose to meet each thrust, her pussy clenching around him, holding him in close, cradling him. Her nails scored his back, as her teeth nipped his shoulder. Reality began to fade and what their ancestors had described as the lust fog began to take them both. It was a barbarian need so deeply seated it possessed the soul and did away with self-control.

Talon forced in deep breaths. He’d always prided himself on being able to stay aloof, apart from his lovers. Always giving pleasure, but also always holding back a part of himself. Never, ever with anyone had he come as remotely close to losing that self-control as he was this very moment with Mia.

Then, she simply took his face between her hands and kissed him. A kiss so gentle, a kiss so trusting, a kiss so sweet, so soul deep his heart stuttered and stopped before starting up again. A blazing heat swept through him, as if he were being consumed by her fire, yet at the same time, he couldn’t get close enough to her flames to satisfy his need. His soul was nothing more than a pile of scorched embers as tremors of pleasure ran the length of his spine shooting right through the head of his cock.

That’s when the red fog of barbarian lust descended upon him. That’s when he lost all reason, all sense of time and place. His balls tightened, his back arched, his thighs pumped wildly, and his mind exploded with bliss along with the rest of him. Over and over, he spasmed and spurted as he shouted his release for all of Alaria to hear.

He tried to catch his breath. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He closed his eyes and shuddered once more, and a part of him that he’d kept hidden, kept separate, from everyone else, even himself, gave itself over into Mia Hammerstrike’s keeping.

Talon shifted until he was lying beside her, and gloried in the afterglow of their lovemaking. He held her close, breathed hard, and tried his best to figure out what the VoT had just happened to him? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It never had been before. He was the one with all the sexual experience, yet Zander’s little sister had just flayed his soul wide open and taught him a lesson he’d not soon forget.

He couldn’t let her know what she’d done, what she was capable of. He had to get himself back under control, and he had to do it now. There was no way he could complete the job Zander expected of him if Mia ever came to realize how much power she wielded.

****

Mia snuggled into the man’s embrace and giggled. “You, sir, should demand double payment for what you just did. You were magnificent.”

“Double payment?”

His voice sounded strange, and she glanced into eyes that no longer held even a hint of laughter. She sat up straight, pulling the sheet tight around her body. “Yes, a double fee for the extraordinary sex you’ve provided. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in being justly compensated for a job well done.”

It was the man’s turn to sit up, and when he did, the sheet fell away, exposing his gloriously chiseled torso and muscular legs. Even his flaccid cock seemed bigger, thicker, than barbarianly possible. It was all she could do to snap her mouth shut and not stare.

He suddenly stood before her with his hands fisted at his hips. “You honestly think I’m some kind of paid prostitute or something?”

His voice was so low, so deep, so serious, she found her own mouth going dry. The only response she could give him was a nod.

The man laughed, though there was nothing humorous in his tone. “Me a, a gigolo? I suppose it really was just a matter of time.” He glared at her. “I guess that explains your, umm request when I came through the door. You really don’t remember me at all, do you, princess? And here I honestly thought I’d left a lasting impression the last time we met.”

She gulped. “Last time?”

He nodded. “Yeah. About five years ago?”

She shook her head.

“Of course, you don’t remember me. But then why would you?” He jabbed himself in the chest. “Talon Starkweather? Zander’s best friend? The great, great whatever grandson of the traitor Flint Starkweather? The guy you used to sneak peeks at while he was bathing? The guy you didn’t realize knew exactly what you were up to and even posed for you once in a while?”

Heat wicked up her neck and flooded her cheeks. Could it really be him? It had been almost five years since she’d last laid eyes on her brother Zander’s friend Talon. The man presently standing before her bore little resemblance to the young man she remembered from way back then.

Now that her lust had been sated, she looked, really looked. Yes, his hair was the same rich, wavy, dark brown it had always been, but it was shoulder length instead of spiky short. And yes, his eyes were still that same molten chocolate, his lips still full and lush, and his nose still straight and noble, but his chin was stubbled with dark growth, and a small scar crossed his forehead. A bigger one across his right thigh marred what was once perfection.