Temperance (20 page)

But she was. Hell, she wasn’t stupid. Her body was willing. It was throbbing like she was on the verge of orgasm and he’d done nothing but touch his fingers to her face. It was her mind that was rebelling.

“So, what’s it to be, little rabbit? Do we stay or do we go?”

She blinked once and felt her breasts push against his palm on an inhale as she tried to pull herself from the fog that was engulfing her.

“What happens if we stay?”
 

His grey eyes darkened as they tracked down to where his fingers lingered between her breasts, and Naeve heard a soft moan slip from her lips.

“I’m going to put my hands on you, and you’re going to let me.”

She could feel the damp heat of desire as it pooled between her thighs. It was glaring proof that she wanted his hands, wanted him…
but—

“Will you let me go after that?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones to say. The hunger she’d seen in his eyes quickly turned to anger, and he grabbed her arm. She gasped at the bite of pain his fingers inflicted as they dug into her flesh.
 

He drew her forward from the wall, leaned down so their noses were touching, and told her through his teeth, “I see that you lied to me earlier.”

Wincing, Naeve attempted to pull her arm free, but it was pointless. He was much too strong.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You told me that you weren’t a whore, yet here you are, ready to bargain with your body.”

Without even thinking it, the hand by her side swung up and her palm connected with his cheek in a slap so hard that the cracking sound echoed off the walls.

Quick as a flash, he took her by both arms and lifted her, restraining her against the wall. With a grunt, he wedged his body between her legs, which were dangling above the ground, and Naeve automatically reached for his shoulders to brace herself. She kept her eyes locked with his as one of his hands moved to her knee, and he hitched her thigh up along his side. Then she moaned, louder this time, as the rough material of his pants rubbed the inside of her legs, and his eyes zeroed in on her lips.

“Gods, I like that sound,” he groaned.

Naeve clutched the coarse material of the cape he had over his shoulders.
Why am I letting him touch me this way? And enjoying it?
He’d just called her a whore, but as he gripped her other leg and wrapped it around his waist, she closed her eyes and held on tight.

He was like everything else in this strange, new world—a beautiful nightmare. Dark, dangerous, and lethal.

One she knew she should wake from but felt herself sliding deeper inside of.

She was positive she should have been resisting, but as she searched his fiercely attractive features and his hands trailed up her outer thighs, Naeve knew she wanted this. A taste of danger.

* * *

Kai could feel Naeve’s fingers dig into his shoulders as she strained against him. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to get closer or escape. Her eyes looked wild as she shifted up his body, and when that delicious moan left her lips once more, he had to remind himself where he was.

There was a time when he’d given no thought to taking a maid in the halls of L’Mere, but this place was no longer his home. He no longer felt welcome, or comfortable, with his pants down and his cock out.

With that in mind, he placed a hand at the base of her smooth, creamy throat. He felt her swallow and watched her pink tongue flick over her bottom lip.

“You will not slap me again, do you hear me?”

Her eyes blazed at him as the desire there warred with anger. “Yes. But only if you stop calling me a whore.”

 
Kai jutted his hips forward, causing a soft gasp to escape her. “Are you denying your current need to slake your lust?”

She closed her eyes, and Kai thought it was telling that she was trying to block him out, but he was having none of that. He slid his palm down her chest and cupped one of her breasts. Immediately, she arched her hips against him.

“Are you?” he growled, and her eyes opened, trying to focus on him.

“No. I’m not denying I want you. But I do deny that I’m a…a…”

Kai lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “Harlot?”

He figured that would get him another slap to the face or teeth marks in his cheek from her biting him in retaliation, and maybe he deserved them. He didn’t understand his body’s response to her, and it was unnerving. It was as if she were somehow inside his skin and he could feel her stroking every part of him until he wanted to explode.

He had no control, and for a man who lacked it at the best of times, the destruction of the thin strand he held on to meant…havoc.

“If you ask me,” he murmured, “bargaining your body for something you want is exactly the same as taking cock for coin.”

She let out an indignant sound, and her breath ghosted over his lips. “That’s not what I was doing.”

“Yes, it was,” he argued, lowering his head so their mouths touched. “But I don’t want your coins, and I don’t plan to let you go, so if that’s the only reason you’re offering—cease. Otherwise, you will get a lot more than you bargained for.”

As the final word left his mouth, he crushed his lips against hers.
 

The kiss was brutal as he unleashed years of pent-up frustration on the woman opening her mouth under his. She could deny her offer all she wanted, but she was as desperate for his mouth as he was for hers. He could feel her heart thumping quickly behind her breast as he squeezed his hand around her soft flesh.
 

She feels good. So damn good.

He wanted to take her down to one of L’Mere’s rooms, throw her on the bed, and rip her ridiculous
sundress
off her. The material was so flimsy that he knew it wouldn’t be a problem, and even if it were, he’d just use his knife to get closer to that soft, supple skin.

His tongue rubbed against hers, and if he’d thought she would be timid or shy, he’d been greatly mistaken. She tangled with him, and he heard his own groan as he pushed her harder against the wall.

Gods
, if he didn’t stop, he was going to take her like an animal right there in the hall.

He ripped his mouth away from hers and felt his cock pounding inside his pants. “I haven’t lain with a woman in years. That makes a man two things: ravenous and reckless. But I’m not willing to die for the sweet slide of your body just yet.” He released her legs, and as they slid down his sides and her feet touched the floor, he stepped away. “Li’Am gave us mounts. We ride to Claremont tonight. You best get control of your body or you will find the journey either incredibly uncomfortable or perhaps…pleasurable.”

He knew the minute his meaning sank in because her eyes widened in shock. Then she crouched down to grab the blanket from the floor.

“You’re disgusting,” she spat out.

Kai chuckled low in his throat but didn’t deny the claim. What he wanted to do to her
was
disgusting, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“That may be so. But when I touch you, your whole body responds to me. Deny it all you want, but for some reason or another, you want me.”

She glared at him as she stood and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders as if it were a shield.

“You’re as drawn to me as I am to you, and I for one want to know why.” He backed away until he was at the door they’d first stopped in front of. “Now, let us go. We have at least one night’s ride ahead of us.”

* * *

Ry’Ker stood before his Commander and tried to figure out whether or not he’d lost his mind. What was he thinking sending that woman away with Kai, and what of Bastian?

He let his eyes slide to the man still on the ground and felt a pang of…
What? Sympathy?
He didn’t know the sensualeer, but to see him as he was now made Ry’Ker uncomfortable for obeying his leader and doing nothing—which was definitely a first.

“Ry’Ker?”

His name, delivered in that authoritative tone, snapped him out of his thoughts and had him focusing back on Li’Am.
 

“Yes, Commander?”

“I know this makes little sense to you.”
 

How about none
, he thought.

 
“But it will soon enough. The woman will be safe for now with Kai. For the most part. And I don’t want to hear anything more of it. Do you understand?”

He didn’t, but he knew what was really being said.
Don’t ask any more questions, and do not follow them.

“What of Si’Bastian?” he heard himself ask without realizing he cared.

Li’Am walked over and stopped in front of him. “I’m not sure yet. But he will be returned to his chambers.”

His cell,
Ry’Ker thought, knowing that the sensualeer was confined to the East tower of L’Mere.

“Are you concerned for him?”

He wasn’t overly—except for the fact that Si’Bastian hadn’t moved since being shackled. He didn’t say that though. He kept his expression inscrutable and responded, “No. I trust your judgment, as always.”

Li’Am took two steps down until they were standing directly opposite one another. His dark eyes bored into his own as he waited several minutes, trying to provoke more of a response from his head guard. When it was clear Ry’Ker wouldn’t be saying anything else, Li’Am spoke.
 

“I’m pleased you feel that way, because I want you in charge of his watch.”

Ry’Ker felt the order like a weight upon his shoulders. His eyes drifted to the ground, and then back to that man’s father.

“I thought that would be over now that we’re back. Clearly, you’ve devised a way to immobilize him.”

“Yes. But it’s not fair to keep him unconscious forever, is it?”

He wasn’t sure what Li’Am wanted to hear, so he asked a much more troubling question of his own. “Do you plan to release him?”

“No. I plan to lessen the amount of mossfire bark used to line the cuffs. He will be awake but nonfunctioning.”

Ry’Ker tried to work through the information being given to him, but he felt as though it were in pieces, not the full story. So, still, he was confused.

“Nonfunctioning as in…?”

“He won’t be able to access his abilities. He will be just like you and me.”

He looked down at Si’Bastian, and this time, instead of feeling a pang of sympathy, he felt the full force of it well up inside of him. Yes, the sensualeer would be just like they were, but in order to do that, his own father was stripping him of everything that made him who he was.

“And what will I be doing?” he managed to ask.

Li’Am walked back up to the dais and over to the large West window. “You will keep an eye on him, and report back to me.”

“So I’m to be his keeper once more?”

Li’Am whirled around and pinned him with serious eyes. “No, you are to be my eyes. I want to know what my son is thinking. His guard, Finn never tells me anything, and he’s been with the boy since birth. I need to know what he’s capable of. Especially now that Seraphine has gotten to him.”

He knew better than to question his leader, but he did want to know. “What makes you think he will tell me anything?”

Li’Am’s mouth curled to the side, and his answer made Ry’Ker think back to something Kai had said to him only days before. “
Be careful who you choose to follow.”

“He will have no other contact. I wish to keep it private, so Finn is to be discharged. It will either be you or silence. And it’s a known fact that sensualeers thrive on contact. Be it intellectual or physical.”

Well, he thought when Li’Am finally dismissed him, it was appropriate that the head guard was given a prisoner. He’d just never suspected that it would be the Commander’s son.
 

A person who would hate him the second he awoke.

Naeve hurried after Kai as he walked across the mud-covered ground to stop by a large, white horse. She came to an abrupt halt when her favorite pair of boots sank down and disappeared to the ankle.
 

“Oh for God’s sake,” she muttered, pulling her foot free, thankful for the first time for the boot’s practicality and not its aesthetic appeal.

“Is there a problem?” Kai asked, turning to see why she’d stopped.

She was about to launch into all the reasons why her Prada boots being caked with mud was a problem, but when she saw the way he was looking at her, she thought it best to keep her mouth shut.

“No. No problem. I just wasn’t expecting the mud bath.”

He ran his eyes down her body until they landed on her feet, and then she could have sworn she saw him…smile.

“It’s hardly a bath when it’s just your boots. But if you believe in the finer qualities of horse’s shit and mud, then feel free to strip down and roll in it. I won’t stop you, and I assure you neither will they.”

When he pointed behind her, she turned to see a group of men standing there. Each of them dressed just as Kai was—all black, head to toe, and hoods pulled up to cover them.

Once she’d spun back to face the man who was taunting her, Naeve trudged through the slop, wincing at the squish under each step she took. When she reached him, she stuck her hands on her hips and angled her face up to him.