No Greater Pleasure Read online

  “By the Arrow, I can feel your desire.” His voice shook and broke. “I want to taste you. Tell me you want that.”

  “I want you to put your mouth on me,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder. “Please, Gabriel.”

  His hand left her, and she made a noise of protest, but in the next moment he had pushed upward, off the chair, and laid her down on the rug in front of the fireplace, all in one smooth motion. His body covered hers, the heat of his erection against her thigh, prominent even through two layers of clothes.

  He kissed her again, rocking against her, his hard cock pressing between her legs in a way that made her squirm. He sat up, hand going to his tie and tugging it free. Quilla started to sit, to assist him, but he shook his head.

  “You will not move.”

  She lay back and watched him pull off his tie, unbutton and shrug out of his shirt, strip out of his trousers. When he stood naked before her, cast in shadows of gold and black and red from the fire, her breath caught.

  Then he knelt beside her and his fingers went to the row of buttons on the front of her gown. They began at the banded collar and went to the hem, and Gabriel began with the topmost one.

  He unhooked each button from its hole and spread the fabric as far as he was able, kissing every section as he exposed it. The neckline of the simple white shift she wore beneath began just above the curve of her breasts, and by the time he got there, she was already struggling to remember to breathe.

  Gabriel laid open the cloth of her gown over her chest and nuzzled her breasts through the shift, sucking first one nipple and then the other through the material until it was wet through and both nipples stood erect. His fingers continued with the buttons as he kissed and sucked her nipples.

  By the time his hands reached her waist, shivers of desire ran through her. His mouth continued to follow the path left by the open buttons, his kisses undulled by the layer of flaxen between his lips and her skin. Farther still, to her thighs, and the heat of his mouth found her heat. He kissed her there, nuzzling through the shift, and she cried out. His fingers moved faster on the buttons, pulling up the hem to finish and lay the gown completely open.

  For an interminable moment he stared down at her, doing nothing. Until she spoke.

  “Please.”

  He put his hands to the front of her shift and tore it open, right down the front. The air hit her skin and she gasped and arched her back. His hands smoothed over her breasts, rolling her nipples, then over the slope of her belly, to the tender skin of her inner thighs. He parted her legs, laid himself between them, and kissed her curls. His tongue found her clit.

  Quilla stopped thinking.

  There was nothing to think of but the way his mouth felt on her, the scratch of his unshaven chin on her skin, the wet heat of his tongue stroking her over and over until the flow of her blood seemed to no longer go toward her heart, but to the secret place between her legs. Her pulse pounded there, every beat of it sending her closer and closer to the edge.

  She tightened her fingers in his hair, not holding him to her, holding on to him to save herself from the feeling she was going to let loose from the earth and fly upward to the stars. Fire filled her, and the surge of the sea. The pulse and pound of creation suffused her, weighed her down and lifted her up all at the same time.

  The dance of his tongue stopped as she hovered on the brink. His breath puffed against her, a touch as light as stardust drifting through a nighttime sky, or the flutter of a lady beetle’s wings against a flower from which it supped.

  Then he kissed her again, his mouth infinitely gentle against her skin, and it was, at last, enough.

  Fire and water. Earth and air. All combined in elemental force to tip her toward climax. It surely was the gift of the Invisible Mother, this capacity for ecstasy, and Quilla cried out a blessing in Kedalya’s name first, then Gabriel’s name after that.

  For some moments she was unable to move or to speak. Quilla blinked and looked at him, surprised to see his eyes glimmered as though with tears.

  “Gabriel,” she said quietly. “My heart.”

  He groaned and covered her again with his body, and slid inside her but did not move at first. Quilla wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding him to her. When he at last began moving, the sensation made her gasp aloud, pleasure filling her again though she’d already been so well completed.

  He kissed her, hard, nothing gentle about these biting kisses. His mouth traveled down her throat and to the curve of her shoulder, where he bit the collarbone hard enough to make her cry out; but she did not protest beyond that because in the next moment he soothed the hurt with his tongue and lips and murmured into her ear. Not words of love. No, she did not expect that from him.

  His thrusts became more ragged, until he cried out her name again and thrust once more before collapsing on top of her.

  His weight made breathing difficult, but Quilla made no complaints. She stroked his back over and over again, and after a bit he slid most of his weight off her but kept his face buried in her shoulder.

  Quilla said nothing, for nothing seemed to be needed, and after a while he got up and took her to his bed, where he slipped under the covers with her and held her against him while he slept.

  It took her a bit longer to find the oblivion of dreams. Quilla lay in the darkness with Gabriel’s hand on her breast, her buttocks nestled against his groin. She heard the creak of the door, and held her breath, shifting naught but her gaze toward it.

  In the dark, a pale hand gleamed, a flash of what might have been a golden curl. Then nothing, no sound, no word, not even the hissing sob or cry that meant someone watched them.

  Yet Quilla knew they had been watched, and who had stood there.

  He did not, overnight, become a considerate and solicitous lover. He did not wake her with kisses and love poetry, nor did Gabriel seem to have more patience for her in the workroom.

  Yet Quilla noticed the differences in him. A glance he allowed to linger a bit longer than before. The way he thanked her when she passed him a vial, or prepared his tea. The simple but telling manner in which he allowed her to button his white work coat for him.

  To others it might have seemed like nothing, but to Quilla it was as though he’d shouted his affection for her from the roof. Affection; she dared not allow herself to think of it as more than that. Nor did she allow herself to dwell on the turn her feelings had taken for him.

  For now, it was enough to serve him as best she could. To make certain the simple pleasures she could provide were constant and consistent. To continue giving him what he needed before he needed it.

  To keep filling Sinder’s Quiver.

  He did not make love to her in front of the fireplace again, but then, he didn’t drink heavily, either. But in the afternoon, when he sent her away, he always added, “I would have you here tonight.”

  She knew what he did in the hours between the time she left him and the time she came back. He spent them with Saradin, or with his son, and Quilla did not begrudge him the time spent with either.

  His lady wife had not improved, despite the daily time Gabriel spent with her. Saradin seemed to alternate between ranting rages and sullen silence, at least according to Florentine, who presumably got her information from Allora Walles.

  The medicus had come, but could do nothing for her.

  “She’s mad as May,” said Florentine as she rolled out yet another day’s worth of bread. “And not from the mercury, mind you. ’Tis her own jealous nature.”

  Quilla paused in icing the cinnamon-flavored muffins on the plate in front of her. “You would blame me?”

  Florentine looked up, face surprised. “No, Quilla Caden. I don’t blame you.”

  “Because it sounded as though you did.”

  Florentine wiped her hands upon her apron. “Do you feel guilty?”

  “Of her jealous nature?” Quilla shook her head. “Of her madness? No.”

  Florentine knew too muc