Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [93]
"There!" she gasped, reaching down to spread her folds and show me. "Naamah's Pearl!"
I licked and sucked avidly at the swollen pink bud, sliding two fingers deep inside her. Stone and sea, it felt good! In and out, the slow wave of pleasure rising and bursting in hard spasms. I kept going until they stopped, and a little longer.
"Oh, my." Jehanne unknotted her fists from my hair. "Are you sure you haven't done that before?"
"Very sure," I said breathlessly.
"Well." She twisted agilely and regarded me, then cupped my face and kissed me hard and deep. "Let's see what I have to teach you, shall we?"
As it transpired, quite a bit.
She demonstrated kisses and caresses, naming each one. Sweet and fluttering—biting and sucking. Gentle as the touch of a butterfly's wing—hard and forceful. It was a veritable banquet of pleasure.
"Enough teaching!" I pleaded at last. "Please!"
"You're sure ?" she teased.
"Stone and sea, yes!"
Jehanne pushed her fingers into me, curling them and pressing against my inner walls in a way that made me writhe in ecstasy. "I want to watch your face." Her gaze never left mine. It heightened my arousal in a way I couldn't explain. I saw my pleasure reflected in her eyes as I climaxed over and over beneath her impossibly skilled touch. When it was over, she smiled and kissed me. "Thank you. That will be my favorite memory, I think."
"Mine, too."
She laughed and sat up, reaching for an elegant glass pitcher on the bedside table. "Wine? Love-making makes me thirsty."
"Aye, please." Behind the shining, pale fall of her hair, I could see the full scope of her marque for the first time. A vast unfamiliar flower, ivory tinted with the faintest blush of pink, climbed from the base of her spine to blossom across her lovely shoulders. I pushed her hair aside to see where the tip of the uppermost petal touched the nape of her neck. "It's beautiful. How long did it take?"
"Almost two years." Jehanne turned and handed me a wineglass. "I was just shy of my eighteenth year when it was finished."
The wine was delicious and refreshing. "How old are you now?"
Her eyes flickered. "That's a rude question to ask."
"It is?" I lowered my glass. "Why?"
"Cereus House may celebrate beauty's fleeting nature, but that doesn't mean her adepts care for reminders of the fact that their own will wither and fade," she said coolly. "Particularly from the lips of one scarce out of girlhood."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." I touched her hand. "Don't be angry. I was only curious."
Jehanne pursed her lips. "Twenty-three."
"I think it's safe to say that you're a very, very long way from withering and fading, your majesty," I offered.
It mollified her. "Then satisfy my curiosity, Moirin. Why are you here? In Terre d'Ange, I mean."
For some reason, I told her the truth. "I'm supposed to have a destiny. I'm trying to find it."
She smiled a little. "A grave prophecy uttered at birth? Were you born beneath a shooting star?"
"No." I shook my head. "Nothing like that. I saw a vision. Not like in the old stories," I added hastily. "The Maghuin Dhonn haven't sought to scry the future since long before I was born. All I know is that I was meant to cross an ocean. Finding my father was the only thing I could think to do. But now…" I fell silent.
Jehanne finished the thought I left unspoken, her tone neutral. "Now you think you've found your destiny in Raphael de Mereliot?"
"I don't know," I murmured. "Only that he's bound up in it."
She sipped her wine, considering her reply. "Please don't think I'm being cruel or vain or seeking to manipulate you when I say this, but so long as I live, Raphael will never give his heart to you."
"Do you love him?" I asked.
"Yes." Her mouth quirked. "Unfortunately."
"And the King?"
"Him, too," Jehanne agreed. She put down her wine and reached out to run a few strands of my hair through her fingers. "Does it seem strange to you? I suppose