Instructing the Novice Read online

Deliberately, Lone turned his back to Lizabeth and began to strip. He was willing to let her have her privacy if it was so important to her. She had never been exactly shy with him but he knew she was a modest person. Other than the time of her first and only needing, he had never seen more than her lower legs and her throat and wrists, since she wore business skirt-suits almost exclusively.

  After a moment he heard the rustle of furs and other clothing and knew that Lizabeth was stripping too. He stood naked, waiting for her, keeping his gaze turned resolutely away although he ached to turn and feast his eyes on her ripe curves.

  Gods how he wished he could see her—touch her—again. But it seemed that wasn’t to be.

  Lizabeth was more than grateful for Lone’s consideration of her privacy. She was embarrassed at the idea of him seeing her naked. She wasn’t quite as firm as she’d been before her forties had hit and she was also considerably fuller-figured than she had been before her divorce. But her main concern was that he might see her swollen breasts and guess that she had been lying about the needing going away.

  She looked down at herself ruefully as she peeled off her blouse and the bra with its nursing pads and left them on the floor, along with the heap of heat-keeping furs since there seemed to be nowhere else to put them. Her breasts, if possible, looked even bigger than they had ever been before. Her nipples were red and swollen, though for once they weren’t leaking. But her entire chest area ached—it made Lizabeth feel like a cow that needed to be milked.

  How long can I go on like this? she wondered dismally. How long before I get mastitis or some kind of infection? God, it hurts so much!

  Longingly, she remembered the deep, pleasurable suction of Lone’s hot mouth the one and only time he had helped her—the immediate easing of pain as he drew the sticky nectar from her nipples and freed her of the aching and tightness. God, if only she could ask his help again!

  But no—letting him do that once had been bad enough. She wondered again if it had disgusted him or if he had only done it as a favor because he knew she needed it. Was he like other loner Twin Kindred with no sexual feelings at all? Had it all been a study in awkwardness to him—an unpleasant duty he'd had to perform?

  But even if he’d liked it, it was still wrong…still wildly inappropriate. She was too old for him…she was his boss. There was no way anything could or should happen between them. If it did, she would be no better than her ex, Bernard, flaunting his ridiculous new relationship with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Lizabeth had been down the road of having a relationship with a younger man once in her life, before she’d gotten married. It had not ended prettily. They—

  “Oh!” Lizabeth gave a little exclamation of surprise as she slipped out of the thick boots she’d been wearing and put her bare foot on the carved blue-gray flagstones.

  “Lizabeth—I mean, Mistress?” Lone half turned his head and then seemed to stop himself before he looked at her over his broad shoulder. “Are you well?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Just…surprised.” Lizabeth raised her foot and put it down again. “It’s warm—the stones are warm. I didn’t expect that—I thought they would be freezing cold.”

  “Joren did tell us that the interior of the Tower had been hollowed out by hot springs,” he reminded her. “Perhaps the water in the cleansing pools is also running beneath the flagstones—a kind of natural hydro-thermal energy source right below our feet.”

  “Maybe so.” Lizabeth said. “That would make sense. Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’m ready to go. Are you?”

  “You can look at me and see that I am if you want to,” was his reply. “I don’t mind.”

  “Oh, well…” Lizabeth cleared her throat. She couldn’t deny that her eyes had been straying to his tall, muscular naked form…his broad back…his tight ass…his long legs…In every way her assistant was completely mouthwatering.

  And completely off-limits, she reminded herself sternly as her breasts ached even more at the thought. She wished she could see his front side too and then squashed the thought almost immediately. It was bad enough that she’d been ogling his ass.

  “Um, we should probably go in,” she said, to cover her confusion.

  “Agreed. I have never asked you this, but can you swim?” Lone asked, a tinge of worry in his voice. “The pool looks deep—especially in the middle.”

  “I was raised in Florida, land of a thousand swampy lakes and a million backyard pools,” Lizabeth said dryly. “My mom and dad made sure I had swimming lessons almost before I could walk—it’s the only way to keep your babies safe from drowning down there.”

  “Very well—I’m glad to hear it.” Lone sounded relieved.

  “Can you—swim I mean?” Lizabeth asked him.

  “Twin Moons is a planet dotted with islands,” he told her, a little smile playing around the corner of his sensuous mouth, though he still wasn’t looking at her. “I was also taught to swim almost before I could walk.”

  “Good then—let’s go get this over with.”

  Taking a deep breath, Lizabeth headed for the water. She got right up to the edge of the pinkish-red half of the pool and dipped her toes in—only to pull back with a sharp hiss of pain.

  “Ouch!” she exclaimed. “They weren’t kidding when they said hot springs—this water’s boiling! There’s no way we can get in there.”

  “That hot, is it?” Lone knelt by the blue side of the pool and dipped his fingers in experimentally. But he pulled back as quickly as Lizabeth had.

  “Hot, isn’t it?” Lizabeth said grimly.

  “Actually, no.” He frowned, still carefully not looking at her. “It’s cold—freezing.”

  “What? But that doesn’t make any sense!” Lizabeth protested. “How can one side be boiling hot and the other be freezing cold in the same pool? And how are we supposed to go into it and through it if it’s both too hot and too cold to stand at the same time?”

  “Oh my dears, what’s taking you so long?”

  Suddenly Mistress Anarrah appeared at the far end of the pool. She had some long swatches of fabric over one of her arms which might have been the clothing they were supposed to wear.

  Lizabeth gave a little gasp and tried to cover herself with her arms. She didn’t want her new teacher seeing her naked any more than she wanted Lone—or anybody else for that matter—seeing her in the nude. She had always been an extremely private and modest person.

  “We’re trying to get into the cleansing pool but the pink half is too hot and the blue half is too cold,” she called to Mistress Anarrah, her voice echoing and bouncing in the stone chamber. “How are we supposed to do this? Are we doing something wrong?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so if you’re attempting to go in alone. You must touch each other, my dear.” Mistress Anarrah made motions at them. “That way the male and female energy will balance each other out and you can traverse the pool together. No one can go through the cleansing pool alone, which is one reason we require all the Initiates to Knowledge who comes to us to bring a Novice with them.”

  “Oh, well…all right.” Lizabeth nodded reluctantly. “Give us another minute then, we’ll, uh, be to the other side soon.”

  “See that you are. I’m almost through choosing your robes and the Mistress Superior won’t like to be kept waiting for the oath-taking ceremony.”

  With a nod of her silver head, Mistress Anarrah turned and went back into the small room at the far end of the pool.

  “All right,” Lone said, still not looking at her. “Would you like to hold hands as we enter the pool, Mistress?”

  “Yes. But you don’t have to call me that when it’s just us, Lone,” she protested.

  “I think it’s better to keep in character,” he said mildly. “I don’t know what the punishment might be if I forgot and called you by your first name in front of the Mistress Superior.”

  “That’s true,” Lizabeth agreed. “Since she nearly bit your head off just for speaking your mind back