Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [45]
"Do you think we might take this at a slower pace today?" I asked.
"We can try." Sidonie stood between my legs and cupped my upturned face. I rested my hands on her hips and we gazed at one another. Her hair was pinned in a complicated chignon with looping tendrils, and the sunlight made an aureole of it. She kissed my face, my eyelids, the corners of my lips. " 'The lover showers kisses on the face of the beloved,' " she recited softly from the Trois Milles Joies, " 'like petals falling in a summer rain.'" Her lips brushed mine, once, then again. The tip of her tongue darted, fleeting. "'The lover seeks to open the beloved's lips like a tight-furled bud.'“
" 'The beloved's lips open like a blossom to admit the lover,'" I whispered, and then her mouth was on mine and her tongue in my mouth, my arms hard around her waist. We fell over onto the bed, kissing.
Elua, it was sweet, so sweet! When I could tear myself away from her mouth, I undressed her in between kisses, and kissed every part I uncovered, while Sidonie did the same. She found the scars; the battle-scars and the others. I felt her touch linger over the faint traces of old weals on my back, the brand on my left flank.
She lifted her head, eyes grave. "Will you tell me about these?”
I nodded. "But not now.”
"No, not now." One finger brushed along the underside of the rigid arch of my phallus, which quivered in response. "Can we do it like before? Only properly.”
I smiled. "You liked that?”
"Mmm." Sidonie kissed me. "Yes. Now, please. I don't want to wait.”
She didn't say why and I didn't ask. I knew. It was a threshold. Until we crossed it, we could still go back. We could still tell ourselves it was nothing more than a few feverish moments of kissing and groping. Afterward, it would be different.
"You're sure?" I whispered when she was straddling me, her bare thighs nestled on the outside of mine. My phallus was throbbing in my fist, the swollen head nudging her nether-lips. They were parted and slick with desire, and I thought I might die if she said no.
"I'm sure." Sidonie shifted deliberately, and we both drew in our breath as the head of my phallus slipped inside her. "Oh, yes! I'm sure.”
Inch by inch, she took me in, until I was sheathed to the hilt. I felt like laughing and I felt like crying. I wrapped my arms around her as she rocked atop me. And ah, Elua! It was hot and tight and slick, and terrifyingly intimate in a way I'd never felt before. We held each other and leaned our brows together and I watched her eyelids flutter, echoing the steady surge of ripples below that made her pant and gasp, until I couldn't stand it. With her hands wrapped around my head, I clung to her and groaned against her breast, my seed spurting deep inside her.
Everything was different now.
"Imriel?" Sidonie murmured. "Why do we fit so well together?”
I lay on my back, exhausted. "I wish I knew.”
She wriggled atop me, clamping her thighs together and preventing my softening phallus from slipping out. I rolled her onto her side, rolling with her. We stayed conjoined, her upper thigh flung over mine. Our entwined limbs slid against each other and I felt the surge of desire returning, sooner than I would have thought possible. Sidonie laughed deep in her throat, legs squeezing mine. "I could climb you like a tree.”
"I didn't think you liked climbing trees," I said.
She kissed me. "I don't.”
"Do you know what I love?" I whispered. "I love your eyes. I love the way they don't match the rest of you.”
"Cruithne eyes." Sidonie smiled. "You don't mind?”
"No." I kissed the outer corners of her eyelids, moving slowly inside her. "I like them. I always did." I dug my fingers into her thigh, moving it higher. I settled deeper into her, and she caught her breath in a