Grim resolve tightened like a drawn arrow within me. I would not lose Amber. Not him, too.
"Watching you hurt her would hurt me worse," I said to him. "Come to me."
He stopped, shuddered, took a sobbing, sobering breath. "It would destroy me to see fear in your eyes. I would not be able to stand it. Not now."
"Look into my eyes, Amber. You will not see fear." My voice deepened and the right words came to me from somewhere deep inside. "I am your Queen. It is my right to aid and comfort you. Heed me now. Come to me."
Almost against his will, he turned to me, his cat eyes a frightening gleam. I held out my hands to him and he slowly flowed to me on all fours, using muscles that no human possessed. He was beautifully, dangerously graceful, even with restraints hampering his movement.
I reached out to him, wanting to lay my hands on his terrible wounds. To heal him.
"No!" he cried desperately. "I shall not be able to control myself if you touch me."
"Alright." I lay back, offering myself to him freely.
"You're too weak."
I laughed. "I don't need much strength to just lie on my back. I promise I'll let you do all the work this time." My eyes twinkled up at him.
The sound of my laughter eased some of that terrible tension in him.
He turned his head toward Mona Carlisse. "Don't look," he rumbled warningly.
Her head whipped around to face the wall, and my heart grew soft and warm at the realization that even now, wracked with such terrible need, Amber remembered my discomfort, my odd modesty.
I smiled tremulously up at him as he crawled over me, careful not to touch me.
"Oh, Amber." His name was a soft sigh upon my lips.
He crouched above me, straddling my thighs. His hands reached beneath my shirt, between my legs. One thick finger tested me. My eyes fluttered closed for a moment and I bit back a welling moan.
"You're not wet enough," he breathed harshly, a faint trembling shaking his entire frame.
I was wet, but not enough for him, for his size. "I'll be fine."
"Give me your hands," he gritted, opening his pants and freeing himself. Licking both my palms, wetting them with his saliva, he wrapped my hands roughly around his spearing length, one atop the other, leaving room yet for still another hand had I had one, so thick around that my fingertips did not meet. He groaned harshly and levered over me, his forearms braced above my head. I held him tightly, my hands creating a sheath between my thighs.
"Squeeze me harder! Yes!" He pumped himself above me, hard, vigorous, violent strokes, not pausing or hesitating even when my hands started to tingle and heat and my power started to flow. He lit the dingy room with incandescent light that shone from within, outlined above me in brutal, savage glory.
I turned my face and licked the wound at his throat, my tongue going deep, causing him pain, causing him pleasure. He cried out and slammed his lower body into my hands even harder, faster, more urgently, propelling us several inches up the blanket with each pounding stroke. His muscles tightened and he roared his release, spilling his hot essence between my thighs.
"You're glowing," he said with gritty surprise, lifting his head, his eyes still that animal amber. But the desperate wild edge in them was gone.
"I love your pleasure," I said, purring, noting with rich, hot satisfaction the smooth, perfect skin that now covered his neck where that deep wound had been.
"Your hands are hot," he whispered.
"And you're not afraid," was my soft reply.
"'You would never hurt me."
"Oh, Amber." I sighed and brushed him against my hungry opening, drenched wet with his ejaculation. He was smaller, semi-hard in my hands. I moaned and lifted up against him, sliding in his broad tip. "I'm wet enough now," I enticed. My hands dipped down, coated and caressed him with his own fluid.
He lifted his upper body up, freeing my hands, and I lifted my arms over my head, moving my shackles out of the way. I writhed against him. Opened my legs wider. With his beautiful, dangerous eyes clinging to mine, he pushed slowly into me, so gradually that there was no discomfort, just a feeling of being wonderfully stretched. It was easier now that he was smaller but he still had to work his way deep with gentle, small thrusts that weren't enough. Not nearly enough. Once he was seated in me fully, he stilled. I felt him grow, lengthening and thickening within me to full arousal, filling me deliciously, painfully full and then some, until I felt as if I would burst if he moved, until I felt as if I would burst if he didn't move. I whimpered and arched up against him.
"Shhh," he soothed roughly. "You said you would allow me to do the work."
"Then do it," I snapped.
His rough laughter warmed my heart. His deep thrust suspended my breath. "Oh." The wildly pleasurable tearing sensation that ripped through my body hazed my vision.
"I love giving you pleasure," he rumbled and stroked strongly, leisurely, setting a slow, steady rhythm that was almost but not quite gentle. He surged steadily, relentlessly, like the tide, building the wave of our pleasure until the light emitting from us was pure and blinding. My wave crested and broke and I spasmed on endlessly. He loosened his control and with one forceful plunge that stole my breath, buried himself hilt-deep in me, all the way to my womb, and held still, letting my strong squeezing contractions milk him to his own glorious release. He groaned sweetly and collapsed over me, his arms still bearing most of his massive weight, and I savored the moment, the closeness, and the triumph. I had come so close to losing him.
I rubbed my cheek against his in simple affection. "I love your strength, your bigness."
I felt his passion-slashed cheeks heat even more and I giggled when I realized that he had mistook my meaning.
"Down there, yes. But also your size, your height. You make me feel safe," came my whispered confession.
Amber pulled out of me, the slide of his withdrawal making me quiver. He rolled with me onto his back so that I sprawled atop him. Covering me with the blanket, he brushed his lips sweetly, tenderly, against mine. "You make me feel safe, too," he said.
I smiled, happy, tired, and relaxed, and willingly embraced the bliss of sleep that called to me.
Chapter Fourteen
The sun was a high ball of fire in the sky when I awoke. Amber's large hands slid up my spine in a slow, savoring stroke and I lifted my head and smiled at him.
"How do you feel?" he queried softly.
"Better," I said after a moment's consideration, "and stronger, oddly enough." I tested the restraints at my wrists and they snapped apart easily. Perhaps when I had healed Amber, I had healed myself as well. Or maybe I had just recovered quickly after some much-needed rest. Or perhaps Amber had imparted some of his own great physical strength to me. That raised another question. Did Queens receive some of their lovers' gifts or did it only work the other way around? Whatever it was, I was too grateful for the return of my strength to question it much now. I stripped off the manacles, freeing Amber.
With ease, he rolled to his feet with me cradled in his arms and set me down. "Let us depart," he said.
"Take me with you." Mona Carlisse's quiet voice coming from the corner startled me. She had been so quiet and still that I had actually forgotten she was there.
I hesitated. "The sun is at its hottest now."
She stood up. "I care not. I would rather die free in the sun than submit to another rutting pig one more day."
I looked askance at Amber.
"They will be less inclined to hunt us if she remains. A good chance, in truth, that they will simply depart to another hiding place. If we take her with us, they shall have no other choice but to come after us."