Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [133]
"Here, my lord." She turned to me, smiling.
"What…" I cleared my throat. "What is your signaled"
"Sunshine," she said.
"Sunshine." I echoed the word, thinking inadvertantly of Daršanga, remembering the day Phèdre had convinced Erich the Skaldi to help pry away the boards walling off the garden; the day I had seen the sun for the first time in months, cold and grey and unspeakably marvelous. I shuddered.
"My lord?" Sephira took a step closer. "Are you well?"
"Yes." I thrust one of the items I had chosen at her, a black silk blindfold. "Put this on."
She obeyed, tying it in place. When it was done, a thick swathe of silk obscured her features. She might have been any woman. She might have been Katherine, playing at one of Phèdre's covertcy games back at Montrève. With her golden hair loose and unbound, she might have been Sidonie. I took a harsh breath.
"How old are you, Sephira?" I asked.
Her blind face tracked my voice. "Eighteen last autumn, my lord."
"The age of majority." I laughed humorlessly. "Do you know what you want?"
"You, my lord," she said simply.
"Why should I believe you?" I asked.
She took another step closer and reached for my hand, placing it between her thighs. I fingered her, finding her slick and wet. Her nether-lips were plump. Naamah's Pearl throbbed as I rubbed it, and Sephira gasped.
"Believe me, my lord," she said raggedly.
I did believe, then. Grasping her head with both hands, I kissed her hard, feeling her lips part beneath mine, her body swaying against me, desperate and yearning.
It was nothing like Balm House; it was nothing like anything I had ever known. All the pent longing I had endured, all the shadowy desires I had feared to express found voice that night. I devoured her mouth, plundering it with my tongue. I ran my hands down her sides, grasping her buttocks, pulling her against me, grinding her naked loins against my rigid phallus, trapped beneath my breeches. All was permitted, all was encouraged.
"Do you like that?" I asked harshly.
"Yes, my lord!" she gasped. "Oh yes!"
Groping on the cushions, I found items I had dropped; a pair of ring-shaped pincers. They were made of silver, weighted and heavy. I cupped her breasts, thumbing her erect nipples, dropping a kiss upon each one.
"Here," I murmured. "And here."
Sephira moaned as I attached the pincers, her breasts swaying, nipples stiffening further as the weights dragged at them. The sight of her was enough to drive me mad.
"Turn around," I grated.
She obeyed my unspoken command, making her way blindly to the whipping cross and standing spread-eagled before it. I fastened the leather cuffs to her wrists and ankles, and found myself weeping without realizing it, soundlessly. Sephira turned her blindfolded head toward me.
"Yes, my lord," she said softly. "Like this, please."
I dashed away tears. "Why?"
She strained against her bonds, rubbing her pubis against the rough wood of the cross, heedless of splinters. "We want it alike, my lord. Does it matter?"
"Yes," I said. "It matters to me."
"I don't know!" Sephira's voice broke. She ground herself helplessly against the wood. "Please, my lord! I beg you, grant me ease!"
I could have withstood her desire, or mine; I could not withstand the weight of their combined urgency. The thread that bound us had grown taut. I made my way behind her, fumbling on the cushions for the deerskin flogger I had dropped. I grasped it hard, feeling its braided grip imprinting my sweating palm, and swung it.
A dozen soft thongs smacked Sephira's buttocks.
She jerked in her bonds, sighing.
Oh, Elua! It felt good, so good. Over and over, I swung the flogger, watching the sweet pink welts rise on her skin, kissing her buttocks, curving around her ribcage. There, yes; there and there. The surge of her pleasure drove