Savage Read online

  “Siara…” He stopped walking when she did, only two paces separating them. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks pink from the cold and her lips parted.

  “Again.”

  “What, lover?” He used the endearment to soften her. If she’d woken this morning angry enough to stab him, it would take a lot of sweet talking to disarm her.

  “Again.” She held out his sword. He nearly jumped when she thrust out her arm, but it was the handle, not the blade she pushed towards him.

  When he took it from her, brow furrowing, Siara turned and danced back to the cabin. Leaping into the doorway she huddled in her fur, and, even from a distance, Anleeh could see her legs twitching with shivers.

  “Siara,” he raised his voice. “Go inside, you cannot be naked out here.”

  “No. I want to watch.”

  “Watch what?”

  “You, again.” Anleeh looked down at the sword she’d brought him, and understood.

  Turning his back to her, he hefted the sword. Once more he started his practice. Thrusting forward, whirling, passing the sword from hand-to-hand as he fought an imaginary opponent. As he moved, working in a circle, Anleeh increased the force of each movement, imagining the way the sword would sink into flesh or armor, compensating for the momentum, each swing created by forcing his muscles to reverse the blow. His shoulders, arms and chest bulged and flexed.

  Feet numb from the cold even as sweat dripped down his face, Anleeh whirled once more, faster, harder, nearing the end of his set. Thrust, whirl, stab back, a waist-level blow with enough force to chop a man in half, another two-handed overhead strike that would cleave a body from shoulder to opposite hip.

  Turning to fight the invisible foe behind him, Anleeh had only a split second to check the blow. Siara stood there, her eyes on his face, never even glancing at the tip of the sword, which was stopped less than a hand’s span from her chest.

  “I could have…” he gasped.

  “No. You wouldn’t have.”

  Anleeh flipped the sword in his hand and drove the tip into the ground. In his belly the beast clawed, scrambling up, claws raking at him. She hadn’t allowed him to finish his exercises, had interrupted him near the zenith of the set. His muscles twitched, his breath labored.

  “You should not have interrupted me.” His voice was a growl, the beast’s growl.

  “I know.”

  He shivered uncontrollably as the cold air dried the sweat on his skin. “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to see you do it with the sword in your hand.”

  “Why? What do you see in me?”

  She shook her head. Anleeh snarled and grabbed her, one hand curling around the back of her neck, his thumb forcing her jaw up, the other fisted at her back, pulling her towards him. Her hands still held the blanket closed across her chest and his movement trapped her arms between their bodies.

  Anleeh’s mouth came down and Siara stretched onto her toes to meet him. Teeth raked and nipped, tongues forced between lips to duel. Siara fought for the kiss, fought for control of it, but Anleeh used the grip on her jaw to force her submission, battling her back until their tongues played within the warm hollow of her mouth.

  Bending his knees, Anleeh wrapped one arm around her upper thighs and lifted her. A few long strides brought them to a tree. Keeping her toes off the ground Anleeh pressed her against the tree and leaned into her. Turning his head to the side, he allowed her to nip at his jaw while he loosened her hold on the blanket.

  Understanding what he wanted, Siara let go of the fur and wrapped her arms around him, one hand tangling in his hair.

  Free to press fully against her Anleeh leaned in and then helped her wrap her legs around his hips. Her eyes went wide when she realized how the position had opened her sex. Grinding his hips between her spread legs Anleeh turned his head and reclaimed her mouth. The kiss and the position of her body had softened her. Now her mouth welcomed him, lured him in, submitted to his kiss.

  Her body was soft and yielding against his, her flesh giving way, allowing him control. Pressed between the tree at her back and his hard muscled chest, her breathing was limited, controlled.

  “I want you. I want to take you here and now. Spill your virgin blood here on the earth.”

  “Yes. Please, I need you.”

  “Goddess, how you tempt me.” Anleeh rested his cheek against hers, breathing in her smell. As he pressed his face to hers, he forced his beast down; her submission and clear willingness loaned him control. She was innocent, and he would not take her here against the tree. Her first time would be wild and perfect, tender and pleasurable.

  Siara wiggled against him, her beast clearly still active, her arousal not dimmed by the concerns that plagued him.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “What?”

  “Touch me.”

  “Where?”

  “Between my legs, my … sex, as you did yesterday.”

  He wanted to give her what she asked, wanted to please her, but this wasn’t really about them, and their wants. It was about training her, teaching her to submit. “Beg,” he commanded.

  As he’d expected now that she knew pleasure, it did not seem unreasonable to beg. She was fast becoming addicted to the molten potency of arousal singing in her veins.

  “Touch me, please. I want you, need you, to touch me and pleasure me. I will do whatever you want, touch you, please you, take you in my mouth, for the pleasure of your fingers on me.”

  Her eyes grew darker with arousal at her own words, her breathing labored, her chest struggling to rise against the pressure of his body on hers.

  “You need it, don’t you? The pleasure flowing through your body, my hands on you.”

  “Yes, oh yes.”

  Anleeh hitched her up a bit higher, supporting her thighs as he opened her legs wider and then carefully settled his confined cock against her. His aroused flesh pushed at the front of his leggings, straining the lacings.

  Siara moaned as his leather covered cock, textured by rough lacings, pressed between the lips of her sex.

  “How does that feel?”

  “Rough and hot and hard and good.”

  “Ride.”

  “I—I do not understand.”

  “You do. Listen to your body. Your beast will tell you how to bring yourself pleasure with what I have provided you.”

  Siara closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the tree. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and the sight of her white teeth biting her plump pink lip was beautiful. Innocent and sexual, like Siara herself.

  Just when Anleeh thought he could hold still no longer, when he was tempted to take her hips and move them, Siara started to rock against him. Though at first she was unsure, her movements jerky, soon she found a rhythm. Her hips ground up and down along his, raking the soft flesh of her sex over the lacing of his pants. Even through the thick hide he could feel her heat, and the ease of her movements let him know she was wet.

  Again and again she ground herself against him, and when her soft cries of pleasure turned to growls, and her movements lost rhythm as the approaching orgasm fractured her concentration, Anleeh took her hips in his hands and aided her. Holding her still by the hips, he rubbed himself against her, up and down. His cock pulsed against her, the laces abraded her clit.

  When her orgasm came, Siara dug her nails into his back, raking them over his skin and when that wasn’t enough, she leaned forward and bit his shoulder, hard, driven by instinct.

  Anleeh’s beast rose again, called by the primal act. Pulling back slightly he slipped his fingers down into her sex, which still quivered with her orgasm. He raked a finger over her clit.

  Siara un-sunk her teeth and moaned, “No more.”

  “Again.” His fingers stroked.

  She cried out. “I am—I am sore, too sore.”

  “You will come again, because I command it.”

  Siara tried to protest but his fingers playing over her clit brou
ght her body to another orgasm, this one painful in its intensity, every muscle going rigid, the pleasure-like pain a razor sharp power.

  Anleeh pinched her clit and then lowered her, pushing her to her knees. Still blurry eyed with the force of her pleasure, Siara needed no instruction. With quick movement, she undid the sopping laces of his pants, jerking them open.

  His cock, dripping with need, sprung free. Before the cold could overtake him, Siara raised both hands and wrapped them around the shaft, taking the head into her mouth.

  As she licked the tip, Anleeh repositioned one of her hands over his balls, protecting his sac from the cold. He was wet enough that she was able to slip her lips down around him in one long tight stroke.

  She squeezed her fist around him and sucked hard, and he came. Cupped in her palm, his sac moved as his seed filled her mouth. She swallowed and squeezed him again. Anleeh cried out, reaching out to brace himself against the tree with one hand. Lips still tight around him, Siara looked up, and the sight of her, lips wrapped around him, cheeks flushed with her own pleasure, was primal. Anleeh closed his eyes as her actions pulled a second dry orgasm from him.

  “Enough.”

  Siara’s tongue and hand did not stop. Anleeh slid his thumb into her mouth and forced it open, pulling himself out.

  “Naughty girl.”

  “You did the same to me.”

  He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “It does not work that way with men.”

  Bending, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the cabin.

  “Careful,” she warned.

  Anleeh glanced at the ground. “Careful of what.”

  “You’re carrying me. Please be careful.”

  Anleeh cock a brow at her.

  Siara looked away. “I’m heavy,” she told him quietly, and Anleeh finally understood what she was saying.

  He stopped.

  “Are you entirely serious?” Siara, avoiding his eyes, glanced down at her own naked body in his arms, noticed the way this position caused the flesh of her belly to bunch unattractively, and let go of his neck to cross her arms over her stomach.

  “Siara. Answer me.”

  “Yes I am serious. I am heavier…”

  “Heavier than what?”

  “Than … a person you should be carrying. Put me down.”

  “I will not. And I assure you, you are not heavy.”

  “Do not mock me.”

  “I don’t.” Anleeh bent his knees slightly and then tossed her in the air. She had time for one short scream before he caught her.

  Siara clutched at his shoulders and glared, the ferocity of which was marred by the large quantities of hair that had fallen over her face.

  “Do not do that again,” she ordered. Anleeh cocked a brow and she hastened to re-phrase. “Please. Please don’t do that again.”

  “Very well. But as punishment for being such a bossy bit of goods I’ll have to carry you like this.” Anleeh swung Siara up and over his shoulder. Emitting an inelegant ‘umph’ when her belly made contact with his shoulder, Siara planted her elbows in his back and propped her chin on them.

  “I am not bossy.”

  “Yes, lover, you are.” A few more steps brought them inside the cabin. Anleeh bent slowly, lowering Siara until her outstretched toes touched the floor. He kept his hands on her hips as he straightened and pulled her naked body against his barely clothed one. “Good morning, lover,” he breathed, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  “Good morning,” she whispered into his neck.

  Wrapping his arms around her, he set his cheek against the crown of her head. Siara tipped her head to the side, cheek against his chest, and breathed in.

  “This is not how I intended this morning to go,” Anleeh admitted.

  “You had a plan?”

  Anleeh smiled and tried not to be insulted by the surprise in her voice. “As you might say, ‘Indeed.’ You are not the only person who makes plans.”

  “But mine are usually better than everyone else’s.”

  Anleeh shouted with laughter and swatted her ass. Siara yelped and grabbed her bottom with both hands. “Why do you keep doing that?”

  “Spanking you?”

  “Hitting me.”

  “Lover, that’s not hitting, that’s spanking, and you’d best get used to it. A nice hard spanking will calm down even the wildest of women.”

  “Indeed.” Her prissy tone made him smile.

  “Don’t forget your disobedience last night. You will be punished for that, and part of that punishment will be a spanking.”

  Siara shivered, but it was not with fear. Was there something wrong with her that she would find such a thing exciting? The idea of his firm hand on her flesh?

  “Ah, lover, how you tempt me, when your eyes go dark with passion, and your breasts heave so temptingly.” Anleeh lifted her left breast in his hand. The nipple was still pebbled tight from the cold and when his warm thumb flicked it, her head tipped back on a long moan of pleasure. “Have you ever pleasured yourself?” Anleeh leaned close to whisper to her ear, his thumb rolling her nipple, the fingers of his unoccupied hand trailing up and down her backbone.

  A hard flick with his thumbnail brought another moan but no answer.

  “Have you? Have you put your fingers between your legs and stroked yourself, brought yourself to peak?”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?”

  “Every time I saw…”

  “Yes?”

  Siara moved her hips restlessly, pressing them forward into Anleeh. “I can’t think.”

  “Do you want more?”

  “Yes, more. Touch me.”

  “I would, lover, but we have no time for me to arouse and calm your beast.” Anleeh bent and kissed each nipple. “I am going to bathe.” Anleeh grabbed a satchel containing drying sheets and soap, slinging it over his shoulder.

  “Siara?”

  “Yes?”

  “You may not pleasure yourself while I am gone.”

  Siara folded her arms beneath her breasts, smiling with satisfaction when Anleeh’s eyes dropped there. “You shall not stop me.”

  With visible effort, he brought his gaze to her face. “I shall. For you have only known the pleasure of my fingers in your sex. If you pleasure yourself against my orders, if you refuse to submit control of your body’s satisfaction, you will never know the touch of my lips against you. Imagine my kiss, but against your nether lips. Imagine my tongue and teeth and lips covering every inch of you.” His baritone voice dropped lower. “Can you feel it, my tongue between your legs, my lips upon your bud of pleasure? I see you can, I see you are aroused, your breasts heaving, knees pressed together. But if you disobey me, all you will know is my fingers, and, eventually, my cock.”

  Anleeh stroked the back of his fingers down her cheek and across her lips.

  “You.” He kissed the corner of her lips. “Will not.” He kissed the other corner. “Pleasure yourself.” His hand slipped around her throat, his thumb forcing her jaw up and kissed her, hard.

  When he pulled away, Siara was left gasping, her body heavy and wet with the arousal his words and touch had brought.

  “I will return.”

  Siara bobbed her head, waiting for her foggy mind to clear. As Anleeh opened the door, inviting a gush of cold air, the question arousal had pushed to the back of her thoughts, resurfaced.

  “You are going to bathe … outside?”

  “Yes. Most men do, in streams colder than this will be. I need to reacclimatize myself to the temperature.”

  “Should I come?”

  “No, we are not so barbaric to make our women bathe in melted snow.” With a wry smile he closed the door.

  Siara dragged what was left of their pallet closer to the fire and sat down, moving one of water skins closer to the banked flames. Slowly she added one log at a time, stoking the fire, using the time to sort out her muddled thoughts.

  Used to long stretches of time in which s
he could think, Siara was overwhelmed by everything she had to ponder. From the cold, and its effect on her, to the change in the way the air tasted. The unexpected magic of the door carvings, to the internal ‘beast’ Anleeh spoke of.

  Anleeh.

  How could it be that his words and actions, some so sweet, some so sinister, aroused her equally? Was he correct that a beast, a beast of power and strength, lived in her? She was not of Den, not one of its people, so how could this be true?

  Her infatuation with him was growing worse. She’d half hoped that contact with him would cure her of this aching need for him. But it was like hunger, never fully satisfied. Now she would never look at his lips without remembering their taste, nor his hands without knowing the calluses and ridges. Try as she might, Siara could not help herself from thinking of their return to the Great City. His commitment to helping her choose a new wardrobe seemed to promise a continued relationship.

  As the flames licked the wood, she let her thoughts circle. When the harsh snap of a breaking log startled her from her reverie, Siara cleared her mind and carefully packed away her thoughts. This was merely wasted time. She was in the middle of a journey, a great adventure; she should not waste a moment of it worrying and wondering about a relationship, and a man who would most likely disappear from her life when it was over.

  Ignoring the plummeting of her heart, she grabbed a rag and small pad of soap. Using the warmed water from the skin she’d set by the fire, Siara bathed.

  It felt glorious to be clean, even if the little wet rag was pitiful when compared to the bathing chambers of the Temple, which had pools big enough to submerge one’s entire body in and water scented with oils and heated till it steamed.

  She finished by standing and wiping herself down, letting the excess water drip to the floor. Siara patted herself dry and then pulled a cloak around her shoulders. She remembered Anleeh’s order regarding clothing, and, except for moments of self consciousness or those times when he touched her, she was able to forget her nudity.