This Fierce Splendor (47 page)

She touched the cloak with gentle, tentative fingers. The garment was a shimmering mesh of woven gold bordered in emeralds and pearls. “It’s magnificent,” she whispered. “It looks like something that should be worn by an empress.”

“Then it may be good enough for you.” He reached out and unclasped her fingers from the blanket. “Try it on.” The wool blanket fell to the floor and something hot and intent flared in his eyes as they ran over her glowing nudity garbed only in the necklace. “And do hurry before I realize what an idiot I am to have you put on clothes.”

She smiled shakily. “You once told me a man’s chief pleasure was in removing barriers.” She could feel her nipples tautening, her breasts swelling as his gaze touched them. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No.” He stepped closer and threw the golden cloak around her shoulders. The silk lining was a cool, sensuous shock against her warm flesh. He fastened the round emerald and pearl brooch at her throat with trembling hands. “It just becomes more difficult to wait when you know what’s beyond the barrier.”

“You don’t have to wait.” The words were spoken in a tone a level above a whisper. “It’s more difficult for me to wait now too.”

His fingers tightened spasmodically on the brooch before he forced himself to release the jewel and take a step back. “Sometimes it’s better to wait.” The pulse beating wildly in his temple and the flush darkening
his long jaws belied the words. “It makes the pleasure sharper. I’d wager that the people of Kantalan knew the value of anticipation.”

“Why do you say that?”

He was searching in the chest again. “I’ll tell you—or rather show you—later.” He found the four objects he was looking for and drew them out. “Wear these.”

“Bracelets?”

He nodded as he clasped a broad band of emeralds and pearls around her left wrist. “To match your necklace.” He clasped an identical bracelet on her right wrist. He knelt before her, pushing the cloak aside. “And these are to match the bracelets.” He fastened a jeweled band around first her left ankle and then her right. He sat back on his heels and looked at her pale bare feet flowing into delicate slender ankles and sweetly curved calves. The hard shimmering jewels shown in barbaric splendor against her soft flesh and a sudden wrench of sheer lust tore through him.

“I think you should wear those all the time.” His palm cupped her left calf and squeezed gently. He heard the soft hiss of the intake of her breath, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the delicate shapeliness of her limbs. His fingers moved up to rub the soft skin behind her knee. “Will you do that when we’re alone like this?” He leaned forward and nibbled gently at the soft fullness of her thigh. “Will you let me put them on you then?” He parted her thighs gently. “You look so pretty. They match your eyes.”

“You’re not looking at my eyes.”

“No.” He blew gently on the secret heart of her womanhood. “But maybe I will later. Will you?”

She shivered and swayed toward him. “Yes … anything you want. Dominic, I—” She gasped as his warm tongue flicked out with expert precision.

He sat back on his heels again, his fingers gently massaging the flesh behind her knees. His gaze lifted slowly to her face. His skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones and his light eyes were burning as he searched her expression. “Now you’re ready to learn
something new about Kantalan.” He rose lithely to his feet and took her hand. “Come with me.” He led her toward the far corner of the room. “Astronomy wasn’t the only interest the royal household had. Evidently Kantalan was a society composed of very sensual people.” He stopped before a collection of statues on a long, low marble table against the wall. “Look at them,” he said softly. “Have you ever seen anything like this in your temples in India?”

Elspeth’s eyes widened as her cheeks grew warm. The statues were incredibly beautiful in both material and execution and more erotic than anything she had ever seen anywhere. Each foot-high statue portrayed a man and a woman in a different position in the act of love, some she had never dreamed possible. In every statue the woman was depicted in fragile mother-of-pearl and the man in a rich ebony wood; the materials were so smooth and polished they begged to be touched. The tactile artistry added to the subject matter brought a surge of arousal rippling through Elspeth. “Never. They’re shocking.”

He was standing behind her, his breath warm against her ear. “And are you shocked, love?”

“No.” Her tongue moistened her lower lip, her gaze fixed in fascination on the statue directly in front of her. Did men and women actually do that? “I suppose I should be, but I think I’m more curious than shocked.”

“My God, I’m lucky. Every man should be so fortunate as to have a curious woman in his bed.” His teeth bit gently on the lobe of her ear. “Let’s see what we can do to satisfy that curiosity, Elspeth.”

“Have you made love in all these ways?”

“Most of them. The Kantalanians must have been pretty agile to have managed some of those positions.” His tongue plunged into her ear. She shivered and melted back against him. “That one you’re looking at now can be rather amusing.”

“Amusing? I never felt amused when you …” Her words trailed off as the magnitude of his arousal became evident even through the garments that separated them.

“And I have never felt amused when loving you,” he said hoarsely. “Never with you, Elspeth. Loving you is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

“Then all cats aren’t the same in the dark?”

“No.” His hands closed on her shoulders. “God, no, love.”

“Then it was very wicked of you to tell me such a falsehood. It … it worried me.”

“I’ll try to make amends.” His hands splayed out and slid over her shoulders to cup her breasts through the gleaming gold of the cloak. “Will it help to know that I haven’t wanted to touch any other woman since you invaded Rina’s with those damn firecrackers.” He stroked gently up and down, the silk lining of the cloak rubbing teasingly against her nipples.

“Yes.” Her gaze was fixed in fascination on the lifelike eroticism of the statues. The male was on his knees, his shoulders hunched and strained. What beautiful shoulders he possessed, Elspeth thought. They were corded with supple muscle, and the taut bulging line of his brawny thighs reminded her of Dominic’s in the last instant before he plunged forward and … Her chest was so tight she was having difficulty forcing air into her lungs. She swallowed and tried to remember what she had been saying. “But I think I’d be very fierce if you ever visited one of those hetaeras again.”

His hands slipped beneath the cloak, plucking at the crests of her nipples. She made a low sound deep in her throat. “I find I’m only interested in one hetaera these days.” He pinched her with just enough pressure to send a tingle of heat through her. “Elspeth MacGregor Delaney.” His left hand slid down her body to the soft swell of her belly, and his palm began to rub, pet, and then, with sudden impatience, pressed her hard against him. “Touch them.”

“What?” She couldn’t think; her bones seemed to have no substance because of the heat of him against her.

“The statues. The texture is very pleasing to the touch. Rub your hand over one of them.”

She reached out a hesitant finger and brushed it
against the rippling musculature of the shoulder of the male figure on the statue before her. The wood was warm, it felt almost as alive as it looked.

Dominic’s hand suddenly closed over her own on the statue. “More,” he whispered. “He likes it. Close your eyes and feel the tension of him and think about what he’s doing to her.”

She closed her eyes and arched her head back against his shoulder. Her lips parted and her breathing was shallow as she allowed Dominic to move her palm slowly over the figure. Here palm was tingling and the aching emptiness between her thighs was increasing with each passing second. Why could she still see the statue even though her eyes were closed? But now the ebony wood figure was no longer small but life-sized and alive. Moving. Sleek and hot. Dark rippling muscle and driving thighs.

“Do you feel it?”

She moistened her lips and nodded dreamily.

Dominic’s hand on her breast cupped and squeezed gently. “Do you want it?”

She nodded again.

Dominic gently pried her hand from the smooth warmth of the statue. “Now?”

“Yes.”

His hands cupped her shoulders and steadied her as he took a step back. “Not yet.”

Her eyes flew open. “No?”

She heard him moving behind her and and she started to turn to face him. “Why?”

“Don’t turn around. Keep your eyes on your friend in the statue there.”

“Why?” she asked again.

“Anticipation. The oldest game in the world and probably more fun than any of those variations you’re looking at now.”

He was right. She could feel the tension increasing with every breath as she waited. Why wouldn’t he let her turn around and face him? She wanted to reach out and touch him as she had touched the man in the statue.

His hands were on her shoulders again, shifting the
cloak to bare her body and form a shining cowl around her throat and then trail down her back in a golden train. He lifted her fair hair, threading it through his fingers before letting it float down in a wild tawny cloud around her. Then his hands were gone and she heard him moving away from her.

“Dominic, where are you going?”

“Not very far. Come and join me.”

She whirled to face him in a brilliant swirl of gold and emerald and pearl.

He was sitting across the room on the wool blanket he had spread over the marble bench before the copper brazier. The leaping firelight played on the bronzed slide of the muscles of his brawny shoulders. He was beautifully nude and male and as aroused as the man in the statue.

He held out his hand to her, his light eyes soft and liquidly intent in the fireglow. “Come, love.”

She walked slowly toward him. There was something wildly barbaric and exciting in coming to him like this. She could see the jewels glitter on her ankles with every step; she could feel the sensuous tug of the golden cloak as it brushed the floor behind her. She was beautiful to him; she could see it in his face. He wanted her. His gaze clung and moved down her body in an almost tactile caress. Anticipation.

She stopped before him, feeling bold and breathlessly shy at the same time. “Now?”

“If we wait any longer, I may die of frustration. You look—” He stopped, groping for words. Elspeth was pagan queen and sensual slave. Sorceress. Mistress. He slowly shook his head. There were really no words but one to describe her:
Beloved
.

She put her hand in his but stopped as he would have drawn her into his arms. Her smile was suddenly mischievous as she unfastened the brooch at her throat and let the cloak fall to the floor. “Not yet.” She pushed him down on his back. “Anticipation, remember?”

“Elspeth …” Dominic’s voice was hoarse. “I can’t—” He gasped as she suddenly straddled him, sheathing him with teasing slowness, allowing only
the shallowest entry. He grasped her hips, trying to draw her down upon him, but she would not permit it. “Dammit, Elspeth, you’re
killing
me.”

“I want you to love me in all those different ways.” She clenched around him, her gaze narrowed on his face. His lips were parted, his nostrils flaring, and he was beautiful in his need. “Will you do that for me, Dominic?”

“Yes, anything,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just let me come up in you and—”

“Like this?” She moved the slightest bit and he flexed yearningly within her. “Enough?”

“No.” He groaned, his lips drawn away from his lips as if in pain. “More.”

She clenched around him once again and he gasped, his fingers digging into the blanket beneath him.

“But what about anticipation?”

“
Damn
anticipation.”

“That’s my view on the subject.” She smiled lovingly down at him. “We don’t need anticipation, Dominic. We don’t need anything but this.” Then she released him, took him, let him enter as he willed. This time it was she who gasped. “Dominic!”

He wasn’t listening, he drove upward in mindless, frantic hunger and then began a heated rhythm more urgent than they had ever known. The rhythm increased, the tension grew. Elspeth’s head was whirling. Her fingers moved over Dominic’s shoulders in feverish pleasure. Textures. Warmer than the wood of the statue, bronze not ebony. Yet the two had some-how blended and become one in her mind.

He plunged deeper and she moaned as the tension mounted. Fire flickering on white marble walls. Ten planets spinning around a burning sun. Jewels, pearls, overflowing a golden coffer. Dalkar. Merging. The flames burning in the temple. A silver filigree curtain holding back the indigo night. A promise … fulfilled. Dalkar-Dominic!

Joy!

Afterward they lay holding each other, their breathing
gradually slowing, lost in a haze of warm pleasure.

Elspeth’s lids lifted slowly. “Dominic?”

“Yes, love?”

“The flames didn’t lie,” she said dreamily. “It is forever. You and I.” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

He could tell she was on the drifting edge of slumber, scarcely aware of what she was saying. He kissed her gently. “Wonderful.
You’re
wonderful, love.” He sat up and began wrapping her in the wool blanket. “But now it’s time to go back to camp.” He rose from the bench, crossed the room to where he had discarded his clothes beside the chest, and began to dress.

“Why? I like it here, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do like it here.” He liked it too much. He felt the same mysterious sense of belonging that Elspeth was experiencing. Since the moment they had ridden into the city there had been some unusual hold on both of them.
Home
. The word suddenly popped into his mind from out of nowhere. But Kantalan wasn’t home and Elspeth’s blissful contentment might possibly pose a danger. “But we’ll go back to camp anyway, That bench would be damn hard to sleep on.”

“If you say so.”

He crossed the room and gathered her up in his arms, brushing her closed lids with the lightest of kisses. “You’re being amazingly docile.”