“My dear paladin, there are a remarkable number of things you can do without using your hands.
I’ll show you.” Her grin widened. “Don’t think you’re just going to lay back and think of Archenhold.
Just don’t break the thread.”
She actually saw the moment he relaxed. A tension in his arms and the line of his jaw eased, and then, slowly, was replaced by a different tension entirely. “Whatever my lady commands,” he said hoarsely.
“Good.”
IN THE END, they didn’t actually do anything terribly sophisticated. If nothing else, they had an early start tomorrow. But once he was bound, even just by a pair of threads, it was suddenly easy. She positioned herself exactly as she liked, looking down at him, and he pressed his mouth against her flesh. She didn’t let him stop until she was gasping and clutching the bedframe herself.
Not that he showed any signs of wanting to stop either.
“Very good,” she said, when she could breathe again. “Very, very good. Now, I suppose I could untie you”—a tremor went through him at the words, and she wondered if it was eagerness or disappointment—“but I think I’ll leave you just as you are for now.”
This time, when she curled her fingers around his cock, he damn near levitated.
That’s more like it…
It didn’t take long at all. To Shane, it probably felt like an eternity, but that was all to the good.
She only teased him for a moment, then rode him until he was panting, his eyes thin rings of blue around the pupils. She would have kept going longer, but her thigh muscles weren’t going to last, so she leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Break the threads. Now.”
He hesitated for a gratifying heartbeat, then snapped them. An instant later, he rolled her over and took her, hard and fierce, frantic this time with his own need. She wrapped her legs around his waist and listened to the small sound, almost a whimper, at the base of each breath, and then he shouted her name loud enough to wake anyone in the next room and collapsed on top of her as if he’d been killed.
Marguerite stroked the back of his neck and felt ungodly smug about everything.
SEVERAL MINUTES after having come so hard that he wasn’t sure he still had bones left, Shane said,
“Dear god,” into Marguerite’s hair.
“Mmmm,” she said.
He propped himself up on his elbows, suddenly worried. “Was I too rough?”
“Not in the least.” She stretched against him, which would have turned his mind to paste if it hadn’t been already. “You were magnificent. Was I too…ah… sophisticated?”
“Dreaming God, no. I’ve never…” He raked a hand through his hair, not even sure what to say.
“I…that is…no one’s ever…” He swallowed and tried again. “I knew what I was supposed to be doing.”
Which was a bizarre thing to say, he realized, even as he said it. But it was true. The Saint had given him certainty, which Shane had always lacked, and he felt that lack keenly every moment the Saint was gone. But with a length of red thread, she had given him a different kind of certainty. Be here, right now. Touch me like I show you. Don’t break the thread until the end.
He’d heard about such things, of course, but the notion of being restrained had never struck him as interesting. He’d assumed those people enjoyed being immobilized. He’d had no idea at all.
It was terrifying and glorious and he hardly knew how to feel. Astonished that he had found what he needed. Appalled to realize how much he had needed it.
Marguerite did not laugh or scoff or demand that he explain himself. She simply nodded. “Good.
And you did it perfectly,” and it turned out that he had needed that, too.
A thought occurred to him suddenly and he turned toward her. “Should I be calling you Marguerite?”
“Hmm?”
“You, um, said it wasn’t your real name. Would you rather I call you something else?”
Her body tensed just slightly. If he hadn’t been pressed full-length against her, he likely would not have noticed. Damn, that was the wrong thing to say. He stroked the curve of her back hesitantly, hoping to soothe her and cursing his misguided impulse.
“I’ve used a number of names,” she said. “Different names and different…personas…for different jobs. But Marguerite is the one that I’ve been the longest and like the most. Marguerite is the person I want to be.”
Her back was smooth, the hollow of her spine leading to the warm curve of her buttocks, and Shane ran his fingers along it, trying to decide what he could say that wouldn’t ruin the moment.
He wanted to say, I am desperately in love with the person you are. But he could not imagine that she felt the same way, and the thought of driving her away horrified him.
Marguerite stretched again and propped herself up on one elbow. She had a slight, inquisitive
smile on her face. “Better than a stone floor, I trust?”
Answer her, for the Dreaming God’s sake, he ordered himself. Say yes. Make a joke. Tell her she’s beautiful. Say something.
“I will serve you,” he said hoarsely, “however I can. As long as you’ll have me.”
…or you could say that, I suppose.
Marguerite set her fingers against his lips. “That’s a dangerous thing to promise,” she said. “I might take you up on it, and then where would you be?”
He thought about answering her. Then he thought about just how badly words could ruin what lay between them, and instead he reached out and gathered her up in his arms, turning so that they lay curled together on the bed.
“Mmm,” said Marguerite sleepily, and that, it seemed, was answer enough.
FORTY
IT WAS difficult to tell the time of day underground, but it still seemed very early to Shane when someone tapped on the door. Marguerite had moved away from him in her sleep and was now a lump of covers that growled when he touched it.
“It’s time to get up.”
“Nnnrrrggg.”
“We wanted to make an early start.”
“Rrrrrrr.”
“There are bad people after us.”
“Ggghhh…” She shoved the covers back and scowled at him. “They’re very bad if they’re taking me away from this bed.”
“No question there.”
Her scowl softened. “You should do that more often.”
“Do what?”
“Smile.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. Don’t deny it. I know what I saw.”
“If you say so.”
She threw a pillow at him, which he caught easily. “Right,” she muttered. “Mornings. On the road.
Dodging murderous thugs. I can do this.”
The earliness of the hour was confirmed when the foursome trooped outside. Ashes Magnus was already up, inspecting a wagon and a pair of mules, under a sky the color of raw egg whites.
“Why is it so much earlier when you’ve been in a bed instead of sleeping on the ground?” asked Davith blearily, still drinking tea provided by Nallan’s servants.
“Because when you’re sleeping on the ground, you want to get up so you can stop,” said Ashes.