Taste of Passion (5 page)

Rasmus nodded, looking out of place, a naked giant in her receiving room.

“And the ceremony, the hundred veils, will help you see the beauty in yourself. And in me.”

His mouth quirked. “I already know you’re beautiful.”

“You think I’m pretty. There’s a difference.”

He shook his head. “I think you’re beautiful.”

She ignored him to finish her preparations.

“Once we begin, you can call a halt or leave at any time, but you cannot speak.”

“No speaking? What is the ceremony, exactly?”

“It’s about our bodies.”

“But not sex?”

“It’s more about aesthetics,” she tempered. “And pain.”

Rasmus drew his eyebrows together, and she began.

She took up a long red strip, the longest of the silks, and dabbed a wide brush in the honey glue. Then she bent close to him, licking across his solar plexus. She followed with the brush, painting a small circle of the sticky as his chest rose and fell in calm breathing. Over that she lay the corner of the veil, holding her hand firmly to his chest.

Under her hand, the warm glue began to set, seizing the delicate fabric. When she concentrated, she could faintly feel the strong beat of his heart.

Then Fedni stepped back, sinking into a graceful plié to bow her head.

Rasmus’s taste was a little confused, but he hadn’t left.

Traditionally, the ceremony was also performed in silence, but she thought Rasmus might appreciate the scenic tour.

“The first part of the ceremony, the affixing, is about appreciating your partner. As I work, you should concentrate on me, the feel of my hands. You should watch me. You should smell my flesh. My motions are also scripted: I will bow, I will pose. You should think on the beauty of my body, or the beauty of the human form in general.”

“And no talking?”

She smiled. “No talking.”

The next veils were again the red of passion, affixed to the inside of his thighs. His cock, already stiffening, stirred at the whisper of her breath nearby. Poor man―if he was this sensitive, he would be near to weeping before she finished.

There were one hundred veils to fasten to body parts―his wrists, his shoulders, in a line down his back. There were one hundred poses for her to gracefully sink into, showcasing her legs behind the black lace of her overgown or her breasts cradled by the corset.

At first, Rasmus was a little tense. As he waited for her to choose the next veil, she could taste the sour candy of nervous amusement. He was well behaved, though, paying attention to her and her movements. After a few self-conscious false starts, she tasted arousal or even a more pure, simple pleasure as he took in the sight of her working.

By the last veil, his cock was thick in his lap and his arousal tasted warm and creamy.

She sank low in another curtsy, a final honor. Rasmus smiled slowly, taking in the picture of her body gracefully folded and precisely placed down to the carefully angled knuckles of her fingers.

Then he took a deep throat-clearing breath.

“Shhh,” she admonished, but he said it anyway.

“I look like a parrot with a horrible disease. Or a clown’s mummy.”

She rolled her eyes, looking up to be sure he saw it. His taste sparkled with laughter.

She shed her overgown, and his attention focused back on her. Good-natured mocking was completely forgotten. She slipped off her stockings, then removed her corset. It took a bit longer, carefully unsnapping the decorative metal clasps, but it all came off, leaving her bare.

Rasmus watched her carefully, and his breath was louder. Yes, he did resemble a bird of crazy fabric plumage, but desire slithered through her anyway. He was going to love this. And so was she.

She plumped her freed breasts for him, teasing her nipples to points while he watched. Then she slid her fingers lower, running a finger between the lips of her cunt for him to admire.

She was wet. She had meditated on her own body, while he had done the same. It was impossible to ignore the comforting stretch as she posed. It was impossible to miss the thrill of Rasmus’s burning desire each time she touched him. It was easy to remember the desperate, needy way he fucked when driven to the edge.

And she would drive him to the edge.

She lightly pressed the heel of her hand to her aching clit, barely resisting the urge to grind against it. She’d gone without sex for a while, and it was stretching her patience thin.

Rasmus’s eyes burned, dark and bright, staring intently at her hand.

He’d forgotten this wasn’t about sex. He’d forgotten there would be pain.

She smiled at him.

“The rest is about you. As I remove the veils, close your eyes and pay mind to the sensations of your body.”

He nodded.

She fell to her knees in front of him and ran her hands along his leg. She also paid attention to his body―the quiet strength of his calves, the soft rasp of the hair on his legs.

A short blue veil jauntily clung to his ankle, just behind the knob, on his pulse point. She folded it around her hand, then pulled sharply. It caught, then quickly separated from his skin.

“Ow! Ow. What—”

“Shhh,” she admonished.

“Sky Lords,” he muttered.

She hid a smile by bending to kiss the just-bared spot. What a baby. It didn’t hurt that much.

His skin tasted like honey. She licked wide, letting the glue dissolve under her tongue. She nibbled the spot, then licked again, finding the edge of the honey glue, cleaning it from his skin.

The sweet did nothing to hide the true taste of Rasmus’s emotions. She could trace the lemony tang of surprise pain. She could drown in the sweet thickness of a body burning in slow arousal, like a thick whipped cream.

After a last little kiss on his ankle, she sat back and glanced at his face. His eyes were closed. He’d been shocked by the pain, but he was obediently trying to find the pleasure.

She leaned to his other ankle, and pressed her undulating tongue to the veil. She loosened it with her own spit until it slipped free.

Rasmus grunted a protest. “You couldn’t do that before?”

“No,” she murmured, letting him feel her lips moving against his skin. “The pain clears your nerves and magnifies pleasure.”

After that, she worked in silence. When she pulled the green, life-celebrating veil from his abdomen, she paused to run the flat rough of her tongue across his nipples. As she slowly freed the veils festooning his arms, she massaged his hands, loosening the tension she found there.

She found herself worried at his reaction, putting great value in his pleasure. She wanted him to enjoy this, and not in a detached, professional way. She wanted this strange man who tasted of kindness to be impressed by her, by the world she treasured.

The veils on his back were long, fastened in wide strips. She knelt behind him, pressing her peaked nipples into his back. Gently, she nibbled his neck, his earlobe.

“This isn’t sex?” Rasmus moaned.

“It’s about pain.”

She took the top veil in her hand, ripping it free with a hard clean jerk. Rasmus roared, hurt and defiance bleeding out through his voice.

A long welt of abraded skin was left behind, evidence of the pain he’d felt. If he was going to leave, it would be now.

Rasmus took a deep shaky breath, and waited for her next move.

She licked across his shoulder. His arousal was still sweet, though conflicted, his senses muddled by confusion. That was exactly where she wanted him—his pain extended by pleasure, his pleasure driven higher by pain.

When his back wore six long stripes, she returned to licking and nibbling, freeing the final veils with her mouth or hands. Either way made Rasmus moan.

Finally returning to his inner thighs, she carefully pressed his straining cock out of her way and ignored the drop of pre-come at the tip. He whimpered needily. While she lapped at the veil, he tangled his hands in her hair and whispered desperately in his native language.

She could guess what he was demanding. “Suck me,” or “Suck it.” Something harsh, by the bright taste of cayenne. Something desperate.

She let him find his mind again and waited while he carefully untangled his fingers from her hair. She moved higher, straddling him on the chaise to reach the last long red veil firmly fixed to the center of his chest.

“Do you want me to swallow your cock?” Fedni murmured.

He moaned.

She traced her fingers along the veil, letting him find words.

“Yes, please. I’ll do the same for you. I’ll...”

She ripped the veil free. Rasmus yelled, flailing and knocking a cushion free. The glue left a final red mark on his skin, mottled in outrage.

When he stilled she slid down and took his straining cock into her mouth, while the adrenaline of the shock was still overpowering the pain. She bobbed her head, each time taking him deeper, then swallowed, opening her throat.

Rasmus needed release far too desperately to bother with licking or nibbling. She sucked. She swallowed and sucked and pressed her face into his lap.

Above, he muttered a stream of obscenities, in Xanian and in the language of his home.

The words thudded in her ears like blood in her veins. She was drunk with his taste. It was searing with need, heady and bubbling with shocks of mindless pleasure. His taste drove her crazy, drove her faster.

In the wild rush for orgasm, she struggled to function well enough to give him what he needed, even while explosions of pleasure went off behind her eyes.

He came to a hard rapture, arched off the furniture, his cock buried deep in her mouth.

She came too, her entire body clamping and shuddering. Her hand dug deep into his thigh, gripping him desperately for support. Goaded by what little intelligence she had left, she pulled her mouth off him, finding air.

Her body continued to shudder, recovering slowly.

Rasmus’s hand tangled in her hair, dragging her close again. For a bare second she thought he would kiss her, then his fingers parted her hair behind her left ear.

He pulled her head to the side, ignoring her shock. Searching for her temple mark.

She jerked away, and he let her go. She stared at him. Asking was acceptable, but just digging in her hair like that was unspeakably rude. An assault. Her hand twitched to slap his face.

Now he knew she came from the Temple of Passion.

From her knees on the floor, she looked up into the hard glitter in his eyes. She couldn’t taste him, not now, so soon after overloading her mind with a shared orgasm. She didn’t need to. Unmasked anger sat on his face.

He pushed her hand off his knee, pulling away. “I’m not paying you for this.”

Her own anger swelled, swift and pure. She stood, suddenly feeling naked in her nudity.

“You can leave. Get out. Right now.”

He grabbed his clothes, every movement angry. He would have slammed something, if there’d been anything to open.

She watched him go with hard eyes. She refused to acknowledge how good he looked, how much a room that smelled of him affected her.

She listened to him put his clothes on in the entryway, then went to lock the door behind him.

* * *

When she went forth to sunder offensively fast-growing branches from her red, black and green topiary, Fedni found Rasmus waiting.

He looked ridiculous. He was waiting for her in his big weird garden, not even pretending to be doing anything other than waiting. For a brief outraged moment, she considered flinging her plant shears at his head.

A full night’s sleep later, and she was still that angry. How dare he imply she was going to ask for payment when no contract existed? How dare he deny her decision was her own? How dare he think he could even afford her if she were still an acolyte?

“Fedni.”

“What?” she snapped, proving yet again he wasn’t a client. That sort of tone used while under contract would have brought harsh sanctions when the client complained.

“I apologize.”

She wasn’t impressed. He apologized frequently, didn’t he? And truly, what he’d done was horrifying.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t think it, not really. I was just...I was alarmed that you are an empath. You know that only really happens here, on Xana, right?”

He just looked at her for a moment, while she stood stonily.

“I understand the empathy, with the sex. It makes it horrible. When you’re forced to have sex with a person, and you feel his personality, his perversions. I’m sorry I did that to you. I’m angry, I guess, that you didn’t warn me. You made me into a person I don’t want to be.”

If that made any sense, maybe she could have answered dismissively. But it didn’t. It didn’t make any sense at all.

And she almost felt bad for him, the crazy off-worlder, lost in a foreign land. If the memory of his hands grabbing at her hair wasn’t so vivid, she might even be willing to forgive.

She stepped right against the fence, pointedly making him uncomfortable with her nearness. “Do you know what you taste like when you climax? Like champagne. You taste like very expensive champagne, champagne I cannot afford anymore, with just a touch of a cayenne spice.”

He blinked.

Fedni stepped back to yell at him properly.

“Who do you think I am?” she demanded. “You learn, oh, I have sold my body in temple service, and now I am someone else? I am this person you invented in your own mind.

“Who I am—” she thumped her own chest for emphasis, “—I am a grown woman. I do taste your personality, and your emotion, and I thought, I want to taste more of you, and you wanted that, so I did. I am not an idiot, I am not a child, I am not hurting you, and you wanted sex too. So we had sex! You are insane.

“You forced me to have sex with you? Is that your fantasy? Because that is how men think. Everything they don’t understand must be their secret fantasy, because the fantasy is all they think of.”

Rasmus cringed. She was taken aback, just for a moment, wondering. Perhaps that was more truth than she had expected it to be. Perhaps his fantasies were darker than you would ever guess, looking at his boy-next-door all-grown-up exterior. And if so, well, good.