A Sinless Betrayal - Cherie Benjamin (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

up on dusty wooden shelves.

His back is to me; I cannot see his face or what he is doing. I presume him to be sleeping. His head lays on the armrest of the couch and one arm hangs off of the edge. His eyes are shut.

My heart beats faster as I creep forwards and examine him. He's breathing heavily for someone who sleeps, and it interests me. And then I notice something that hadn't been noticed before. His breechcloth lay on the floor beside the place where I stand.

Leaning forward, I can a chest who muscled contours are sketched in flickering shadows. He is not sleeping. My mind begs me to look away, but my eyes stay locked on the scene before me.

His hand runs up a long column of hard, swollen flesh to fondle the tip before his fingers skate back down in a dragging stroke. Heat rises into my cheeks and bursts like summer fire-works, spreading the lustful embers throughout my body.

He opened his mouth to taking shaking breaths, his lips trembling as his hand worked at his manhood ferociously. There he was, in his most vulnerable state. I slowly crept backwards until I was behind the safety and comfort of the door.

The sound of slick flesh against his hand couldn't be heard before I'd stepped into the room, but it now seemed to be magnified in the hollow of my ear. And he moaned, no more than a quiet, wispy sound carried on the wind, but it sounded like a scream.

His hair spills over the edge of the couch's armrest as he lays his head back, eyes squeezed tightly shut, forehead lined with beads of sweat. He pants quietly over lax, sensual lips. The rough, physically-inclined king of the barbarians can't look more vulnerable, stripped of his weapons and his possessive and inhumane conduct right down to the flesh.

Abigor's skin is tough and thick, thick enough to keep it all in; even the gentleness I know that he harbours. It is a glimpse below many layers of that thick, impenetrable skin to the artless yearning of a lonely soul seeking comfort and personal pleasure at his own expense.

His movements speed up, fingers pulling at the base of his cock, then swirling back up to the tip, which was already leaking from the immense pleasure he was giving himself.

My womanly parts are slammed with heat as they tug at the end of my white flannel nightgown. And for the first time ever, I touch myself with the intention of seeking pleasure and delivering it upon myself.

Faster he goes, the muscles in his chest and abdomen twitching and bulging as he lifts his pelvis to meet his hand. "Fuck," the crude word falls from his lips softly. I'm entranced by the way his hand moves up and down that beautiful, tall column of flesh, the way his face contorts in pleasure in the firelight.

My fingers work at myself quickly, amazed by the feeling that it gives me. "Na mace," he moans. "Eliz'bella." I refrain from gasping, but I know well enough to know that he's thinking of me while in the midst of doing that sinfully, sinfully seductive thing.

I moan quietly and lean my head against the wall, letting myself go. I hear him grunt, then cry out a sticky white fluid pours all over his chest. I turn away before he can realize I'm there and rush back down the hallway.

I lay in bed waiting for him to return. I face the wall so that he may not see my face and wrap myself in bed sheets. The door opens softly a moment later. I can see him out of my peripherals, wiping himself down and sliding into bed, completely naked.

Guilt wracks my body. I shouldn't have been looking upon him, and I shouldn't have touched myself. But it felt so good to feel like that, to feel...sinful.
Wet

I meekly begin to dress in front of him. His wandering eyes roam my body like a starved beast that has not feasted in a year. The red silks are what he's chosen for me to wear, along with some pretty golden chains.

He ties his breechcloth around his waist and steps out into the sunlight. My face reddens instantly when I realize that he's looking straight at me. After last night, I've not spoken a single audible word to him. The way he stares makes me feel heated and weak.

But he only shakes his head and smiles, like he knows something I don't and he's getting a huge kick out of my squeamish behaviour. I don't like it. He goes around behind me to help me pin up the silk around my back. I let him do so without fidgeting or flinching when his warm fingertips skirt across my skin. I sweep up my hair and he pins the soft, mango-coloured silk up with a shiny golden pin.

He pulls on his deerskin pants then as I go about fixing my unruly curls, which are particularly tightly spiralled in the morning time. Sitting down at Abigor's table, the one with the great mirror propped up against the wall, I take my thick hair into my hand and I begin to braid it back tightly so it's out of my face. I tie the end of my braid with a piece of string.

I frown once I realize that a piece of my hair has come loose and hangs out of my braid oddly. I reach for one of the golden pins on the desk, but my clumsy hand knocks it off the desk. I foolishly dive for it with the belief that I could have caught it before it hit the ground, but instead, I tumble out of my chair and to the floor with a thump.

When I look up, he's right there to see if I'm all right. When I look up, I'm face to face with the body part that had sweetly and sinfully haunted my dreams last night. He is not yet aroused, but, even in his calm state, the man is still impressive. "Gods, woman," he says. "You are clumsy, like an infant."

Abigor grabs my arm and helps me to my feet slowly. I've got the pin tightly in my hand, but my grip loosens when I see his face. I have seen his face countless times and realized his sheer beauty, but I don't think it has truly yet occurred to me that I am lucky; he is a man of splendour and handsomeness and masculinity. The deep cleft in his chin and the way his cheekbones are contoured adds to it.

I am still wobbly, like a newborn calf. I nearly face plant into him when my foot catches on the end of my discarded nightgown, the one that I'd carelessly thrown into the corner only a few moments before. He catches me like he always does. Burying his nose in my hair, he intakes my scent through his nostrils.

"Mmm," he murmurs. "You wear new fragrances?"

I'm not quite sure what he means at first. But as soon as I see the mischief in his eyes and the way his lips are curled smugly. "Um…oh," I place my palms flat on his chest and push away from him. The wetness between my legs only intensifies. "You get away from me."

He only laughs, pulling me closer towards him. He plants a kiss below my ear before pulling my earlobe between his teeth and nibbling gently. "I'm ready when you are, little one. Kawai kuke bukatar tambaya." (You only need to ask.)

I huff and go back to sit at the table. Looking into the mirror, I pin back the unruly curl and secure it into place. He goes to the table, where a bowl of red paints lays and slops some markings over his copper skin.

I look over at him as I'm placing the crystal headdress over my braid. "Raid today?" I ask him.

0o0o0o0o

Breakfast goes on normally without him touching me from underneath the table. He left me eating while he talked on with his men. I know the language, but not well enough to be able to understand slang and full sentences of it.

Now we are at the stables, getting ready to ride out to some secret place on the backs of our horses. I remember my Rana Fashe, Daybreak, and eagerly mount her. He has already mounted his black stallion Tsakar Dare, or Midnight, and is riding out ahead of me.

The day is bleak and the clouds aren't quite visible, but it is unforgivably scorching hot outside. I lightly nudge Rana Fashe into a canter before galloping to catch up with Abigor and his horse. He sits proudly upon his horse, gazing out into the tree line with that same egotistical look on his face.

"Where are we going?" I ask him. His men are watching us from behind the corner of the castle, interested in what we're doing and where we're going. I see Iron Coyote sneering at me from behind a tree. He makes a kiss at me, and I glare right back at him.

Abigor just ignores his brother as well as the other onlookers, riding out into the day. "You'll just have to see when we get there," he remarks. I frown and ride on ahead. "Why do you ride fast when you don't even know where you are going?"

I look over at him in wonder. "Well…perhaps I am urging you to move faster. The eyes of your men are unyielding; they look upon us both with a certain unwelcome watchfulness."

With this, Abigor turns around and yells something at his men that's pretty much unintelligible to me. They jump a few feet into the air before turning on their heels and running off. I laugh; they look like a bunch of scared children that just got caught in the act of stealing a biscuit.

He turns and looks at me, nodding his head towards the door. "Okay. Let's go." He digs his heels into Tsakar Dare's black belly and speeds the horse off into the woods.

"H-hey!" I call. I nudge Rana Fashe's belly with the tip of my leather shoe and off she runs into the distance, taking me with her. I hang onto the reins tightly as she gallops into the trees, jumping over fallen trees and skillfully dodging the great thorny bushes growing in the middle of the forest. My horse follows Abigor's great black horse.

The wind runs its fingers through my hair and kisses my cheeks with a light breeze that refreshes me greatly in the hot weather. Abigor's horse runs fast, and with that, it makes him look stealthy, strong, and nimble. For once, I consider that I might be lucky to have him as a master.

But he's a thief, I think. Why do I feel this way about him?

As soon as we reach a certain point in the forest, he gets off his horse. I start to slip out of my saddle as well, but he holds up a hand to stop me. "No, stay on." He grabs the reins of Tsakar Dare then walks over and grabs Rana Fashe's reins. My horse whinnies and bucks, but the look she's given by Abigor instantly makes her calm down.