Raine: The Lords of Satyr (7 page)

T
he interior of the gondola’s felze was dim and private. The perfect setting for intimacies.

In the confined space, the man across from Jordan loomed larger now than he had on the street. More compelling. She felt the subtle pressure of his sexual interest. What was he thinking as he sat there so silently, his arms relaxed along his thighs?

Her eyes found his hands. They were long fingered and strong, though not beefy as Salerno’s were. Somehow, she knew he would not hurt her with them. Her skin tingled with the need to feel their touch.

She felt herself sway sideways to the left, then slowly sway back toward the right. The gondola was making its way out of the second curve in the backward S shape formed by the Grand Canal. Leaving behind pastel-colored Byzantine and Renaissance buildings, it slid stealthily out into the lagoon.

“Where are we going?” she asked softly, so as not to shatter the velvet darkness.

“I’ve taken rooms in the Arbruzzi Palazzo on the Lido,” her companion murmured. His voice, too, was low.

“Where Byron stayed.”

The man’s brow lifted. A lantern swayed on the serrated iron point of the gondola’s prow, dancing light and shadow over him. He faced the bow and she the stern, so she knew her features would be less easy to read.

“The English poet Byron. He vacationed there five years ago,” she explained. “All Venice was agog at the presence of such a dashing, mysterious visitor. People lined up each morning to watch him take his daily horseback ride.”

“And did you line up?”

“I saw him once,” she said, omitting the information that the occasion on which she’d done so had been at the author’s instigation. He’d come to view her one September in Venice when she was on display and then only fourteen. He and his entourage had requested an exlusive showing and Salerno had been only too happy to oblige.

She recalled that Byron had been writing a work called
Childe
at the time, which he’d discussed with her. Though he was charming and far too handsome, he was self-absorbed and she hadn’t liked him.

The lights of the city, which splintered starbursts through the rain-spattered windows, dwindled as they made their way from shore. Behind them the San Marco piazza quickly faded from sight as they were swallowed into the night and the lagoon.

Her companion half stood and lowered the gauzy drapes, effectively shielding them from the boatmen but still allowing light to permeate. The windows to the side admitted the cool mist that drifted off the water.

It was as though they were together in their own mystical world. She didn’t know him. Didn’t want to know him beyond tonight—beyond the pleasure his body could provide if he proved willing.

The glow of the lighthouse on the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore slowly came into view on the starboard side. Time was fleeting. She was missing a golden chance that might never come again.

Slowly, Jordan eased forward off the seat and sank onto her knees before him. His hands fell to the cushioned seat and he altered his position, making room for her between his legs. Encouraged, she shaped his kneecaps with tentative hands. Bravely, she slid her fingers along the hard muscles of his thighs, eventually meeting at their juncture. The bulge there was thick and hot, even through the fabric that encased it.

Her gaze found his. “You want me. As a man wants—a woman.”

Molten silver flickered. He gave her the briefest of nods.

Her eyes held his as she learned the contours of him through his trousers. High between her legs, Jordan pulsed for want of him. She moved slightly so that the back of her heel pressed against her core, trying to find surreptitious relief.

The manipulation her body had received at the hands of Salerno and his cronies was rough and unkind. But it had stimulated her even as it shamed her. After such events as tonight’s, she was always left angry. And longing for fulfillment at the hands of other, kinder men who surely might better know how to treat a woman.

“What service would you like me to perform?” she asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

Across the compartment their gazes met and locked. Outside, the gondolier softly called out to another boatman they passed, but other than that only the rhythmic echo of the oars and the slap of the sea sang to them.

The air was almost totally black now, and she could barely discern his features. And that meant he wouldn’t be able to see her well either, she realized happily. She wasn’t ashamed of her body. But she wouldn’t take any chances. She didn’t want this beautiful man to look upon her with disgust. She didn’t want his beautiful mouth to hurl insults at her and call her a monster. Not tonight. Tonight she would be his ladylove, the woman he desired.

“What do you suggest?” the man returned, crossing his arms and slackening his thighs even wider for her. He seemed reluctantly amused by her blatant eagerness.

Her pulse thumped with erratic hope and fear.

“Are you looking for quick pleasure?” She lowered the cape and let it pool at her waist, wanting his gaze on her.

His eyes hooded and she sensed something shift in him. Something succumb. He seemed to relax into the romance of the night and into the pull of her desire for him.

R
aine stared at her. At those dark eyes that were too large for her face and that pointed chin and slender throat. At those round, wine-tipped breasts that would scarcely fill his palms yet were perfectly shaped. The rest of her body was lost to him, obscured by the cloak bunched at her waist. But he remembered exactly what was hidden beneath its velvet folds.

Under her hand, his taut cock thickened, lengthened. Bacchus, yes, he wanted her to pleasure him.

“I want to taste you,” she whispered.

His eyes went to her mouth. It was plump. Moist. The same color as the tips of her breasts. The same color as finest rosé he’d ever concocted from the sacred juice of Satyr grapes.

Without conscious volition, he felt himself nod.

What the hell was he doing? She hadn’t even touched his flesh yet and he was on the verge of losing control.

Was she Faerie or whore? he wondered again. More than likely the latter. He shouldn’t let her work her wiles on him, regardless. Wouldn’t let her. He should tell her he only wanted her company, nothing more. He should tell her so. Now.

But he desperately wanted the warmth of a Human woman against him as he found his release tonight. So he hesitated.

He studied the top of her head as her hands searched and found the opening of his trousers. She struggled over the fastenings for long moments and then let out a huff of air.

“It appears to be stuck on your c—Um, I mean your phallus,” she told him.

His lips quirked at her use of such a formal term. His hands preempted hers, finding and making quick work of the fastenings. He opened the front of his trousers wide and pulled his cock free of their stranglehold.

Her blue-black witch’s hair hung in loose waves ending just short of her shoulders. It wasn’t as long as most women wore theirs. Nevertheless, it was shiny, lush, and beautiful, as was she. He smoothed it back, his fingers catching on the string of the bauta.

“Take off the mask,” he said.

Without hesitation, she slipped it off and flung it away on the seat behind her, then dipped her head before he had a chance to make out her features. The tips of her raven hair dusted his inner thighs as she leaned over him.

He closed his eyes, waiting. Wanting. Imagining the feel of her wet mouth sucking at him.

He felt her warm breath first. Then those luscious, pillowy lips descended on him like the kiss of heaven. The O of them slicked over his crown, firm yet soft. She enveloped him to the ridge of his head and then tugged ever so slightly. The firm point of her tongue found and pressed at his cumslit as her thumb massaged the plinth where it was notched.

Bacchus! Where the fuck had she learned to do that?

He braced his palms flat against the felze walls on either side of him to keep from touching her. To keep from holding her head and ramming himself in and out of her the embarrassingly few times it would take for him to spill.

Slowly, her mouth slid lower over him, taking more of his length. And more. And still more.

His head fell back. Bacchus, she was good at this! She knew exactly how to hold him on the flat of her tongue, curling the sides of it around him, using every inch of its moist sandpapery warmth to stroke him.

She took him deeper. He felt his tip squeeze into her throat. And tunnel deeper still. She was small—how in the hell was she taking so much of him? There was no reflexive gagging. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she truly wanted this, relished it in fact.

Ridiculous. No woman wanted this. It was an act only whores offered, in exchange for payment. She had no doubt done it in just this way for many other patrons before him and had thereby polished her performance. That was all.

“San Lazzaro Degli Armeni,” the boatman’s mournful voice announced. They were nearing the Armenian monastery on an island just this side of the Lido. They were getting close.

He
was getting close.

Cum gathered, hardening his balls to boulders. Raine gritted his teeth. His hands fisted, straining against the side walls of the felze. He wanted this rare pleasure to last. Dammit. He would control it. Make it las—”

Milky semen surged its way up his cock, fighting its way free of him. “Gods!”

It shot from him, hurtling into her throat. She jerked back from him and a second blast hit her mouth and cheek. She put her fingers to her lips, smearing the glossy substance as though surprised to find it there. Yet another spurt of cum spattered her chin. She swirled her tongue over it and then took him back in her mouth. Her hands clenched in the fabric of the trousers bunched tight across his hips. Her throat worked as she accepted and swallowed the rest of what he pumped. His slick desire flooded her, drowning her in his solitary pleasure.

Slowly, slowly the tension in his body subsided. Her mouth began to release him. Her hands massaged him gently in the wake of her retreating lips. Attuned to his mood, her touch grew ever softer, lazier. When her tongue grazed his crown, he flinched and cupped her chin with his hand, drawing her away.

“Sensitive?” she asked, lifting her gaze to his.

His eyes sharpened but couldn’t permeate the darkness well enough to make out her features. He nodded, brushing a thumb over her cheek. He wanted to tell her how good it had been. How unusually good. He wanted to tell her.

But he couldn’t find the words and the moment passed. Reason returned and he straightened, glad he’d kept his feelings bottled in his throat. He didn’t like to remember how much he’d wanted her just moments ago. How much he’d needed her. The loss of control seemed like a failure.

He found himself hoping she would prove to be the one he sought. That would mean he could have those lips on him again and again for all of his days. His cock reinvigorated at the thought.

Still, he reminded himself—if she proved not to be Faerie, his only duty to her would be the payment of coin at the end of the night. If she wasn’t the second daughter of King Feydon, he would let her go. And forget her.

“Arbruzzi Palazzo,” the gondolier announced distantly. They’d arrived at their destination, the Lido, a strip of land that protected the lagoon from the ravages of the Adriatic Sea.

She picked up her bauta from the seat behind her where she’d placed it, preparing to put it on.

Raine gathered himself and refastened his trousers.

“You’ll come to my hotel?” he asked. If she refused, he’d have to take her there by force, then bespell her to wipe her memory of it later. He couldn’t let her out of his sight until he’d regained his olfactory abilities and could test whether she truly was Faerie.

Her fingers stilled on the mask, then she put it on and raised her face to his. “For how long?”

“The night, possibly longer.” Depending on how long this cold fouled his nose.

“You want to lie with me.”

Bacchus! He’d never wanted anything more in his life. He nodded curtly.

“And you plan to pay me?”

“Name your price. It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re wealthy then?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Very wealthy?”

“Yes.”

“But not Venetian. I’ve not seen you before.”

“No. From Tuscany.”

G
ood, thought Jordan. He wasn’t local. Still, did she dare accept him?

He reopened the drapes in anticipation of their arrival. She surveyed him in the increased light, feeling braver within her mask than she might have without it. His dark clothes and hair were severe in style, yet within the bounds of current fashion and fastidiously kept. His throat rose as a sculpted masculine column from his starched collar. His jaw was strong, rigid, and dusted with the blue-black shadow of his evening stubble. His lips looked soft and were well shaped. His cheekbones were high and flushed from the effects of her recent tipping. Like a sundial, the strong blade of his nose cast a shadow across his face.

But his eyes were what drew her. Heavily lashed, they were an unusual color—that of the surface of the lagoon on a stormy morning. Though whatever turbulent storms raged within him were now tightly leashed.

This handsome man believed her to be a woman. A woman who appealed to him enough that he wanted to employ her for an entire night of debauchery in his hotel chambers.

This man—this beautiful man—was offering to put that huge cock of his, which had so recently been in her mouth, between her legs as well. If she went with him now, he would lay her down on his bed and push her woman’s slit wide with it. It would tunnel deep inside her, and deeper still, until it was fully seated.

What would it feel like? Deep within her secret core, she yearned, wanting to find out.

Would he stroke her to orgasm with it? Was it even possible for her strange body to achieve one? Her cock had spilled many times, always in her sleep. But she’d never yet had a woman’s orgasm.

Due to the years of poking and prodding by medical men, she wondered if she had been disfigured internally in some way that made such an occurrence impossible. If Salerno caught her again, he might ruin her beyond redemption.

This man might be offering her the only chance she’d ever have to experience a pleasurable joining as a woman. And she wanted it. How she wanted it. This one night. Together with this man.

But what if, in the course of such an encounter, he discovered that her body was a blend of both man and woman. What then? Things could turn ugly.

Still, she couldn’t seem to make herself refuse him. Rationalizations sprang to her mind like weeds in a garden of good sense. She could hide what she was from him, she told herself. Take what she desired. All she had to do was set some rules to ensure he did not discover the truth.

“Very well. For the night then,” she agreed at last.

The gondola had slowed to a standstill. It lurched once, then twice, as both of the gondoliers leaped off, preparing to tether the boat to land. Nervousness fizzed in her.

“However I wish to set some rules for our engagement,” she added belatedly.

The man nodded, not questioning what she meant. Stepping outside, he reached to assist her from the felze.

A thrill coursed through her as she put her hand in his. She stored his gesture, as she had the previous one. It fell into a chest of treasured memories she would save from the events of this evening to be pulled out, examined, and cherished in leaner times.

Together they dashed through the drizzle and entered a palazzo. Far taller and broader than she, he sheltered her from the wet as best he could. Never in her life had a man offered her the protection of his body. Another gesture to cherish, later.

A door opened and her thick shoes clunked across a fine, marble entry. The sound was masculine and hard. It sought to puncture the bubble of the happy feminine vision of herself she’d temporarily created in her mind. How she wished she could kick them off.

A deferential voice welcomed him. She lifted her gaze, wanting and yet afraid to see how she was being judged here—as a man or a woman.

But there was no confusion in the proprietor’s face regarding her gender. He turned a blind eye to her; obviously assuming she was a courtesan or perhaps a whore. One the man who held her wanted in his bed tonight. A wealthy, handsome man of good family, who was so desperate to have her that he was willing to pay. Even with her short hair, awful shoes, and her voluminous cloak, she felt desirable, feminine. It was exhilarating.

Her lover-to-be kept an arm around her, and she kept her head tucked into him as they mounted a magnificent staircase. Peeking from the hood of her cloak, she viewed the passing paintings and urns of flowers. Gilding glistened on the balustrade. The impression of opulence was definite but fleeting as she was ushered upstairs.

It was humid and still inside his rooms. She craved the wildness of the storm outside to match that in her heart. Without asking his permission, she opened a latch and swung a window wide, letting the sounds and smells of the rain flood the room.

She kicked her offensive shoes into a corner and turned to see him preparing to light the candles.

“No more lights,” she told him. “The torches outside are enough.”

Silver found black through the semidarkness as he hesitated, then blew out the taper. “Take off that blasted mask.”

She shook her head. “My rules tonight, remember?”

He came to tower over her and draw his hands along her upper arms from shoulder to elbow and back. “Keep the mask then. But take off the cloak.”

She wrapped the cloak closer and stepped away. “Not yet.”

He set a hand at one hip. “Perhaps you should explain exactly what these rules of yours are going to entail, so that I may better plot my course with you.”

“First, give me your shirt,” she instructed.

Without quibbling, Raine released his top buttons. Then he crossed his arms, grasping the front tails of his shirt from his trousers and lifting the garment over his head. One by one a flat belly, narrow waist, and wide sculpted chest appeared as the pale linen drew ever higher.

His head was briefly obscured, only to emerge from the shirt when he slipped it off, revealing broad shoulders. Lightning flashed and his well-defined muscles danced in shadow and light as he worked his arms free of the shirt and tossed it away.

He ran fingers through his rain-dampened hair, combing it into dark furrows. Jordan took his shirt from where it had landed on the bed and turned her back to him.

Beneath Salerno’s cloak, she managed with some difficulty to work his shirt over her. Her head popped from its neck and her arms slipped through the sleeves to emerge from the cuffs, which she rolled to her elbows. Tugging, she pulled the tails low, until they fell just short of her knees.

In contrast to the sodden cloak that smelled of her nemesis, the linen shirt was white, crisp, and clean. And it smelled of him—sexy-warm and masculine.

Dropping the offensive cloak to the floor, Jordan noted the stains on it where she’d used it to wipe her chin and cheek free of his spill in the gondola. She wondered if semen would irrevocably stain velvet and satin. One could only hope. She kicked it away, into the corner by her shoes.

With her back still toward him, she fumbled below the shirt, wrapping one of his ribbons around her cock several times and tying it off. Threading another ribbon through that one, she looped the second satin length around her waist and tied it fast.

“What’s your name?” Raine asked.

She eyed him over her shoulder.

A corner of his mouth crept higher. “Sorry. Is that question against the rules?”

She shrugged and pushed the shirttails low again, hiding her nether regions before she turned to face him. Her body was hidden now except for her shapely legs, dainty wrists, and the line of her throat visible in the deep V dipping from the neckline where she’d left the shirt unfastened.

“Jordan. It’s Jordan.”

She didn’t give him her sire’s name and was glad when he didn’t press for it. And she didn’t ask his name. It didn’t matter. They were only passing a night together. Once the storm abated, they would part forever as strangers.

“Will you take me from behind?” she asked him. “Not as a man takes another man. But as a man takes a woman, I mean.”

“If you prefer,” said Raine. She didn’t want him to know how her body was formed between her legs, he realized.

Though he wanted to touch every part of her, he would let her keep her privacy for now. At least until this cold deserted him and he could determine whether she was to be a permanent fixture in his life.

Jordan nodded. “Yes. It’s what I prefer. What I insist upon.”

“We’ll call it a rule then. For tonight.”

“Yes. A rule.”

Under his shirt, her cock throbbed and bucked against its restraints. Though she’d tucked it tight and high against her belly, and trussed it in the ribbons she’d taken from him earlier, it yearned to participate in their lovemaking.

“Kneel on the bed,” he told her.

His silver eyes tracked her as she climbed on the mattress to stand on her knees. She gazed back at him from beneath her lashes.

He removed his boots. Then his trousers. His movements were methodical and unhurried, even under her frankly carnal stare.

As he approached, she studied the shaft between his legs with the same thoroughness as the artist had studied hers earlier that night. Since she had neither the artist’s talent nor his charcoal at hand, she sought to imprint the picture of this man’s body in her mind instead of on vellum.

She’d seen cocks before. Paulo, Gani, and even she had sometimes whipped theirs out to piss in the streets, when the three of them had been out raising hell after dark. But their cocks had been nothing like this man’s.

Like a pendulum, it swung solid, thick, and long between his legs. It was easily twice the size of her own phallus in every dimension. Veins pulsing with fevered blood grew fat and juicy along its length like gnarled vines sprawling up a tree trunk. The crown they reached toward was bulbous, with an unusually pronounced ridge separating it from the shaft itself.

High between her legs, her slit contracted softly, wanting him more than ever.

Over her shoulder, she watched him move into position on the mattress behind her. She wanted to memorize everything about him. Everything about this night, so she could call it to mind another time in the future.

His eyes were intent now and covetous. Within moments, he would invade the aching woman’s cavity of her body with that hot, impressive cock. She shivered, anticipating it, wishing this precious moment—this night—could last forever.

The mattress depressed as he knelt close behind her, between her legs. His body warmed her back, bottom, and inner thighs.

His broad hands found her hips under the fabric of the shirt and then slid upward inside it to learn the shape of her breasts. She rested her hands flat over her phallus at first, making sure no errant touch of his would make its way there. Long moments passed. His handling wooed her, lulled her.

Her arms moved behind her, dipping under his and between their bodies. If he made any sudden moves toward her belly, she could thwart him quickly enough, she reasoned. And she longed to explore.

Smoothing her palms over him, she stroked the unforgiving hardness of his thighs and felt the light, masculine down that dusted them. Her elbows bent and she grasped the velvet muscle and bone of his shaft that rode high against her buttock. Skin stretched taut and smooth over its straining proportions. At the crown she found a pearl of pre-cum and spread it with her thumb.

A foolish, ravenous craving for his seed to take root in her tonight swept her. However, it was fortunate that the chances of conception were slim to none. If she were somehow to conceive, how would she care for an infant? Her mother would pressure her to abort it when she found out lest the Cietta family learn of it and turn them both out.

Still, she silently, stupidly yearned.

Raine left her to her investigation of his body. His lips found the juncture of her neck and shoulder, tasting her there before easing higher along the vulnerable slope of her throat. Her skin was warm, soft.

Within the shirt, his hands roamed her back, surreptitiously searching her shoulder blades and the sleek muscles on either side of her spine. His survey netted nothing. There was no fragile cartilage or down to be found there. Not even vestiges. Odd. Her half sister—Nick’s wife, Jane—had them. Hers could burgeon into full-fledged, hollow-boned wings during times of deep stress.

Nevertheless, Jordan’s lack of them was not especially telling. Not all of the Faerie sported wings. In fact, most did not. However, the absence of them was regrettable since their presence would have simplified the task of determining whether she was of Fey blood.

Without such promising evidence, he must proceed on the assumption that their coupling would likely never be repeated after this night. He must drink his fill of her. He must take enough of her to last him through all the nights ahead when he might find it his duty to mate with another less-desirable female chosen for him simply because Faerie blood coursed through her veins.

Between them, her facile hands were roving, blindly massaging his cock, knowing just how and where to touch.

He turned his lips into the fragile skin just below her ear and inhaled. Fifty hells! For a moment, he’d forgotten his cold. Because of it, he couldn’t scent her, even this close. Was she indeed a daughter of King Feydon, with the blood of ElseWorld in her veins? He wanted to know. Now. Before he joined his body with hers.

Without his highly developed sense of smell, his work at the vineyard would have been impossible. But he hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on it in a sexual context, too. The scent of an aroused female body excited him.
She
excited him, and he wanted to know her special fragrance.

Under her handling, his cock had grown heavier and hungrier. Her fingers knew exactly when and how to apply pressure. When to go softly and when to be firm. He wanted her to stop. He wanted her to go on forever.

He was suddenly glad she’d chosen this position for their mating, so she wouldn’t read his desperation for her in his face. When had she begun to set the course of their situation? It was making him uneasy. He sought the familiar comfort of taking control.