“And I, you.”
It had been almost five years since she’d first felt him watching her, nearly three since she had lain in his arms. Yet she had never been able to forget him. Rei wondered now whether she was mad. Her father had at last broken down her will to refuse the marriage, and in two weeks’ time, she would become Kenzo’s bride. An alliance between the two villages would improve life for all concerned.
No more raids. No more burning houses or dead livestock. Thus she had been told, over and over again.
So what was she doing here, breaking her vows for a golden dream that had come to seem no more real than the touch of the breeze upon her skin? The answer was simple: she could not deny him. He lived in her blood, like a fever. Yet she could not blame him for what had passed between them. She had seduced him, and if she were honest, that sense of power offered great allure. In her village, she had little, even as chieftain’s daughter. But she had bewitched this impossibly powerful male — and that certainty was heady.
Just once more, she told herself. Kenzo will never know. He had not been promised a virgin bride, after all. Rei had married young, and her husband perished of fever. She had been a widow for some months before she encountered Camael by the river, else she would not have known how to seduce him.
But this time, it was different. She sensed it even before he put his arms around her. He was more centred, more sure of himself. Rei did not yet know what that change signified.
He kissed his brow to hers. “I want to know you.”
Rei thought it a poetic way of asking to make love to her again, so she nodded. Suddenly her mind filled with him, every small shame and unworthy secret — he possessed them all. The moment she tried to resist, he went away again, leaving her alone, and that might be worse.
“What—”
“I thought you gave permission.”
“For that?” It seemed wholly more intimate than sharing her body.
“I wanted to know you this time, before. .”
Before they made love. She understood the impulse, though in her experience, such knowledge came in small trickles, not in a single brush of their minds. But she knew him now, too, and he was unquestionably alien. He had touched no women in this world or any other. Rei could not have explained why that excited her; only that it did. It lit a fire unlike any she’d ever known.
But even so, she wasn’t the aggressor. This time, she could tell he knew what he wanted. His mouth claimed hers, tender but implacable as well, as if his kiss branded her. Madness. Though she had been free three years ago, she was no longer. And yet she could not refuse him. Did not desire to, no matter the cost later. She had been like a shade, echoing the memory of life after vitality had fled. Only in his arms did she kindle beyond that pale shadow.
As he kissed her throat, she shivered. When he stroked her inner thigh, her legs fell open in welcome. There was nothing so divine as a godling slaking his desire. Her breath hitched as he traced the curve of her hip and nibbled behind her ear. Then he slipped his hand around her body, playing with her right breast.
But he wasn’t as sure as he pretended. In the firelight, his oddly innocent eyes asked reassurance. “You like that?”
Mutely, she nodded, not sure if she could speak. Rei’s husband had never taken such care with her. Sometimes she wanted the mating, and sometimes she didn’t; it had all been the same to him. In her world, men most oft felt so. They held all the authority. Despite his otherworldly power, the same did not hold true with Camael. She marvelled at that, even as he caressed her. It seemed to her she had never truly known free will before.
He paused, holding her arms to the light. “Who did this?”
“Kenzo.”
The Tanaka’s firstborn saw no reason to be gentle with a woman. He used his strength instead. Camael bent his head and pressed his lips to the marks. As she watched, they faded with a god’s power to heal. Rei wanted to weep, but instead she answered with a kiss to his throat.
The firelight permitted her to see his response — awe gilded his beautiful face, even as much as the fire did. He revelled in her pleasure and his own ability to invoke those feelings. His lips followed his fingers: full of delicacy, demand, and burgeoning confidence. The heat against her skin was delicious and unexpected; his mouth sliding along her curves made her scrape the soles of her feet against the rock. Groaning in response, he licked until her nipple stood erect, begging for his attention. She cried out when he sucked it into his mouth and teased her with his teeth.
“Tell me what you want now,” he murmured, sounding odd and hoarse.
Unbearable tension rose within her as his golden head surged between her breasts. She did not notice when he slid the robe completely away, baring her body. Aware of a momentary lapse in contact, her senses swam as she tried to focus and received only the sweet shock of his hot skin against hers.
Dipping his fingers into the slick, swollen folds of her femininity, he stroked her, making her hips lurch up to meet him. He found a place that felt to her as if he held lightning against her flesh. Rei tested him in turn, fingers stealing down his abdomen and curling around his man’s flesh. He bucked, strain evident in his face. For long moments, he worked against her cupped palm, moaning with each push.
Oh, now, my love. Now.
She was ready, so ready. But to her surprise, he did not cover her. Instead he slid lower. Since he was innocent, he must have taken this from her darkest and most secret fantasies. No man would stoop to perform this intimacy for a woman. But a god would. Only such a one could possess the self-assurance to humble himself so.
“Camael!” she cried as his mouth found her.
Rei clutched his head, fingers tangled in his gilded hair, and rocked against his mouth. He licked her, just so. Climax shook her, head to toe. Giving her no chance to recover, he slid up and pushed inside. Once, twice, thrice, he thrust, making her moan. He wrapped his arms about her hips, dragging her up to meet each push and she locked her legs about him. His fierce beauty almost hurt her eyes, seeing his intensity so focused on her body.
Her second peak crashed almost as hard as the first, coming in relentless spasms, and it drove him over the edge. Though her own satisfaction had been staggering, she still knew when he shook in the familiar response. But she had never been so fiercely glad of it before. Her husband had used her body, but only Camael made her feel this way, and she took visceral pleasure in maddening him in the same fashion. He offered no accompanying gush of seed, however, and she regretted the lack. It was the only imperfect part of their union.
She did not protest when he rolled to the side and wrapped himself about her for warmth. With him at her back and the fire at her front, she felt the cold beyond their private haven not at all. But the world would intrude soon enough.
“I heeded your summons this last time,” she said softly. “But I can come to you no more. I have made promises to others, now.”
“Yes. I saw that in you.”
Of course he would have. How could he permit it? Why wouldn’t he take her away, back to his godly palace, and keep her there for himself? Yet those were not questions she could ask, and so she swallowed the pain like a shard of broken pottery.
“Rei. . according to the rules of heaven, this is wrong. I am not to have you. Not to do what I have done. Twice now. Twice the sin.” He did not sound as though he felt guilty, though, merely sad beyond bearing.
“So you will not call to me again, either.”
“No.” He laid his head on her breast, ear to her heart, as if listening to what she could not say. “But if I did, if I found a way, would you give up everything for me, Rei of the River?”