Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(45)
Brishen wiggled his eyebrows at her and crossed his arms. “Ah, a tale of your past. You keep your secrets close, wife. Tell me this one. What lovers taught you the pleasures of the flesh?”
She squeezed his fingers, relieved that her admission incited only curiosity. Maybe the Kai didn’t place the same value on such a silly notion as the Gauri did.
“Lover,” she said. “Just one and I didn’t find it all that pleasurable.” Brishen lost his slight smile but remained silent. Ildiko shrugged. “It was nice but certainly not worth drinking lorus flower tea beforehand.” She shuddered at that memory.
“Did he force you?” Brishen asked the question in a voice gone guttural. Tiny white sparks flashed in his eyes.
Ildiko patted his arm and eased her hand out of his before he forgot he could crush her fingers with one squeeze. “Of course not. He was a pleasant lad, the youngest of a minor nobleman’s eight sons. Neither one of us knew what we were doing really. It was messy and awkward and not worth bothering with after the third time.”
Brishen’s mouth contorted into strange shapes as he struggled to hold back his laughter. “Why didn’t you try someone else? An experienced lover would have taught you much. It’s called ‘pleasures of the flesh’ for a reason, Ildiko, and goes far beyond clumsy fumblings under the covers.”
She waved a nonchalant hand. “It still wouldn’t have been worth it in my opinion. Lorus flower tea prevents a man’s seed from catching in the womb, but it tastes so foul even the memory of it makes my stomach turn. Surely, there is nothing so pleasurable to make it worth drinking that swill.”
Her comment made Brishen laugh outright, his fangs gleaming white in the room’s twilight. He reached for her braid and wrapped it loosely around his forearm. “Ah, my Ildiko, what a practical soul you have.”
“I consider it an attribute, not a fault. More people could use a dose of practicality now and then.”
He tugged on her braid. “I don’t disparage you. I find such a trait one of your charms.”
The color of his eyes had deepened once more to the lamplight gold he’d shown her when he first woke. While Ildiko couldn’t track the movement of his eyes except for the slight jerk at the edges of his eye sockets, she had the sense his gaze touched long on her hair, her shoulders and neck, her bare arms.
The fine tingle dancing along her skin transformed to a sizzle. Ildiko inhaled sharply as Brishen leaned close to nuzzle the sensitive spot at her temple with his nose. His breath tickled her ear. “One of many,” he whispered, and his words were a caress along her back.
Brishen’s lips fluttered along the edge of her ear to her earlobe. Caught between the sensual beguilement of his light touch and the unconquerable fear that he might inadvertently snap off her earlobe with his teeth, Ildiko sat frozen, her breath riding through her mouth and nose in jagged exhalations.
As if he sensed her wariness more than her desire, he pulled away slowly, shoulders rigid, face wiped clean of expression. He uncoiled her braid from his arm and smoothed it over her shoulder, his movements controlled and careful. He drew away from her in both body and spirit.
Ildiko clutched his arm, unwilling to have him leave her side. “I enjoy your touch, Brishen.”
The stiffness eased from his shoulders. He gave her a wry look and pressed his palm to the pale expanse of skin just below her collarbones. His hand rose and fell in quick time to her breathing. “I believe you, but this tells me you fear it as well.”
She winced. “Your teeth are so...sharp.”
“They are, but I’m not careless, wife. And if, for some unfathomable reason, I accidently bite you, you’re welcome to bite me back.”
His attempt at humor worked, and Ildiko chuckled. “Brishen—” She offered him a toothy grin. “These wouldn’t do much damage.”
He traced the line of her collarbones with the rough pads of his fingers, their dark claws a whisper of movement across her flesh. “You have obviously never been badly bitten by a horse.”
Strange as the analogy was, she had no argument to rebut it. Instead she contented herself with lifting strands of his hair from his shoulder and letting it slide between her fingers. Brishen’s eyes drifted shut at the caress, and he shifted position so that he laid crossways on the bed, his head in her lap, his back to her.
If they both didn’t have a hundred tasks to complete once they rose, she’d be content to stroke his silky hair for hours. A lock of hair snagged in her loose grip. “Sorry,” she said. “You’ve a few tangles back here.”
“You can brush it for me when we get up.”
Very clever, she thought. “I’ll brush your hair if you tell me about your first lover. Hopefully, the encounter was more memorable than mine.”
She felt the tensing of his cheek on her leg when he smiled. He stayed quiet, and she pulled on one of his tangles. “I told you a past tale, Brishen. Your turn.”
“Wouldn’t you rather hear about how my nurse caught me practicing how to write my name by pissing on my bedroom walls?”
Ildiko rolled her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. You just told me too much already.”
Silent laughter shimmied down her leg. Brishen turned onto his other side to face her. His head pressed into her belly, warm and heavy. He took her hand and placed it back on his head. She took the hint and resumed carding his hair.