Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [202]
When I tasted her, Sidonie cried aloud, her hips bucking. She buried both hands in my hair, tugging. "Please!" she gasped. "Inside me, all of you. Please!”
I crawled up the length of her body. Slippery. Somewhere, my gouges were cracked and bleeding. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but sliding my rigid, aching phallus inside her tight, wet warmth, hard and deep, filling her to the hilt.
Why do we fit so well together?
Guilt and desire and yearning merged into one aching need.
Her heels, locked behind my buttocks. I growled, shoving her thighs wider. Fitting myself deeper. Her hips rocked upward to meet my thrust, nails digging into my back. Over and over, I drove into her, riding desire like a wave. Everything I'd wanted, everything I'd been denied. Our bodies were slippery with my blood. She bit my shoulder to stifle her cries, biting and sucking at my flesh.
I wanted more and more and more, and all that I wanted, Sidonie gave. She was the bright mirror and the dark all at once, reflecting all of me, good and bad. We reflected one another. We fit.
It drove away the horror. It kept the memories at bay.
It was a promise of absolution.
I felt her climax, the helpless shudder and surge of her body. I rode it hard, pushing her, pushing myself, until I could ride it no longer. I flung my head back, my back arching, and spent myself in her in a long spasm of white-hot pleasure.
And then collapsed on her, panting.
Sidonie freed one hand to stroke my face. I gazed into her black eyes, soft and satiated now. Her golden hair was spread over the pillow in tangles. The bright and the dark. She moved her head and kissed my lips with infinite tenderness. "You're bleeding. I don't think that's good.”
"Probably not," I murmured.
She pushed gently at me. "Roll onto your back.”
I obeyed, and watched her rise. She went to the washstand to fetch a bowl, a ewer of water, and a clean cloth. From behind, her naked body looked bright as a flame in the dim chamber. She came back to kneel beside me on the bed. There was blood smeared on her breasts and belly, sticky and drying. Sidonie ignored it, washing my wounds with care.
"You're a good chirurgeon," I said softly.
She rinsed the cloth in a bowl of clean water and dabbed at my ribcage. "I'd like to lock you up for a month or so, and nurse you back to health.”
I winced as the cloth caught the edge of a scab. "I'd have to punish you for being careless.”
"Oh?" Sidonie smiled. "I can be very careless.”
"You?" I smiled back at her. "Never.”
"Only the once." She dropped the cloth in the bowl, then leaned down to kiss me before sitting back on her heels. "A very fateful once. Sit up. I need to put your bandages back on. I don't think it's bad, but you're still bleeding.”
I let her rewind my bandages, and then I poured clean water in the bowl and made her kneel while I washed my drying blood from her, watching the pink-tinged water run over her creamy skin. "I was surprised that you came here," I said. "I was afraid to hope.”
"Believe me, it wasn't easy." She smiled ruefully. "Mother threatened to have me confined to my quarters. And I threatened in turn to withdraw from the Palace altogether and take up residence on one of the estates that are a rightful part of my inheritance if she attempted to curtail my freedom. It makes a difference, having one's majority.”
"I know," I said. "I ran all the way to Tiberium.”
"And I ran to you." Sidonie gazed at me. "To snatch a morsel of joy.”
My chest tightened. "I'd stay if I could," I said. "But I can't." The spectre of Dorelei's death rose between us. "I can't forgo Kushiel's justice. Not even for you, Sun Princess.”
Her brows quirked. "Did I ask you to?”
"No," I said quietly. "You didn't.”
"When will you—”
A knock at the door interrupted her. "My lord?" It was Urist's voice, muffled through the dense wood. "There's a D'Angeline lord demands to see you and the girl. Amaury Trente. Says he's the Queen's emissary.