"Probably not." She knelt down beside him, put her boots down beside her, then unexpectedly seized his head in both her hands, leaned down to water-level, and presented him with the most enthusiastic-and expert-kiss he'd ever had from her. His mouth opened under her questing tongue, and he clutched the rim with both hands, convulsively.
What-she never gets aggressive- He became aware that not all the heat coursing through his veins was due to the temperature of the water. He closed his eyes, went passive, and let her lips and tongue play with his, until he was breathless. Her hair fell around him, enveloping him in her own silken waterfall.
She released him, and he nearly slid under.
" that was for going back and saving my dyheli," she said, sitting back on her heels, balancing there as if she had no weight at all.
"I didn't-exactly-" He regretted having to confess that he had very little to do with it, if that was what she had in mind for a reward.
She dismissed everything he was going to say with a wave of her hand.
"I know, there's that Changechild involved in it, and it did the magic-but you stayed with them, and you Mindcalled them. They'd never have found their way out without that."
"It" did the magic. She doesn't know Nyara is female... His attention was captured and held, as she began removing her clothing in the most provocative way, slowly, teasingly. He found himself watching her with parted lips. First the tunic-lacings loosened, then pulling the garment slowly over her head. Then the breeches, inching them down over her hips, sliding them a little at a time down her long, lithe legs-all the while maneuvering so that the shirt covered all the strategically important parts of her. Then the shirt followed the tunic at the same tantalizingly slow speed.
At that moment she seemed just as exotic as Nyara, and just as desirable.
Nyara- If she doesn't know Nyara's a female, there's no harm in not telling her-She was down to a short chemise now, and she winked, once, then vanished into the shadows, reappearing before he had time to think why she had left.
"I put the 'in use' marker at the entrance," she said. "Not that there's anyone likely to be here tonight. I knew you were at the meeting, and I waited to catch you to thank you properly. But you didn't go the way I thought you would. I had to chase you, loverhawk." She stood in an unconscious pose at the rim, moonlight softening the hard muscles, and turning her into something as soft and quicksilver as a Changechild.
"I wanted to avoid Father," he said, filling his eyes with her.
I thought so," she said, and laughed. "I figured, knowing you, that as long as you were here you'd probably decide to soak him out of your thoughts. I've been checking every pool between here and Rainlance's ekele."
"I'm glad you found me," he said softly.
She sat on the rim, slid out of the chemise, and into his arms. "So T " -I,- -his-red and buried her hands in his damp hair, her lips and tongue devouring him, teasing him, doing things no woman had ever done to him before.
His hands slid down her back, to cup her buttocks and hold her against him. She strained into the embrace, as if she wanted to reach past his skin, to merge with him. Her kiss took on a fiercer quality, and she worked her mouth around to his neck, biting him softly just beneath his ear, while he ran his hands over every inch of her, re-exploring what had become new again, and making her shiver despite the heat of the pool. He gasped as she nuzzled the soft skin behind his ear, then worked her way back to the hollow of his throat, and gasped again when she untangled her fingers from his hair, and slid them down his chest, slowly-teasingly.
"Not in here-" he managed to whisper, as he grew a little lightheaded from the combined heat of the water and his blood.
She laughed, low and throatily. "All right." She began to back up, one tiny step at a time, rewarding him for following her with her clever fingers, which were now hard at work well below the waterline and threatening to make his knees go to jelly at any moment.
They reached the edge of the pool, right beside the waterfall, where some kind soul had left a pile of waterproof cushions and mats. She turned away from him to hoist herself up on the rim.
He caught her by the waist, lifted her up, and held her there, nibbling his way up the inside of her thighs until it was her turn to gasp.
She buried her hands in his wet hair and her fingers flexed in time with her breathing.
Then she clutched two fistfuls of hair, pulled him away, and swore at him, half laughing. "Get up here, you oaf" she hissed, "Or I'll get back in the water and do the same to you! You just might drown!"
"We can't have that," he chuckled, and joined her; tumbling her into the cushions, nibbling and touching, making her squeal with laughter and surprise.
He only had the upper hand for a moment. Then she somehow squirmed out from beneath him, and pulled a wrestler's trick on him.
Then she had him on his back, bestriding him, a wicked smile on her face as she lowered herself down, a teasing hair's breadth at a time.
He arched to meet her, his hands full of her breasts, catching her unawares.
She cried out and arched her back, driving herself down onto him.
Their minds met as their bodies met, and the shared pleasures enhanced their own, as she felt his passion and he experienced every touch of his fingers on her flesh.
She roused him almost to the climax, again and again, building the passion higher and higher, until he thought he would not be able to bear another heartbeat-Then she loosed the jesses, and they soared together.
"Dear-gods," he whispered, as they lay together in a trembling symmetry of arms and legs.
She giggled. "The reward of virtue."
"I think I shall strive to be virtuous," he mumbled, then exhaustion took him down into sleep before he could hear her reply. If she even made one. Verbally.
When he woke, she had moved away from him to lie in a careless sprawl an arm's length away. He'd expected as much; he'd learned over the past few months that she was a restless sleeper-after more than once finding himself crowded onto a tiny sliver of sleeping pad. The moon was just retreating behind the rock of the waterfall. He slipped into the pool for a moment, to rinse himself off after his exertions, warm up his muscles, and to cross to the other side without rustling the undergrowth. that would surely wake her, as the sound of someone swimming would not.
On the other side of the pool, he used his shirt to dry himself and pulled on the rest of his clothing. He hated to leave her like that.
But she is as curious as two cats, and I am not certain I want to answer all the questions she is likely to have when she wakes.
She ~ ask about the rescue, and she would also want to know about the changechild. And when she found out that Nyara was female am not ready to fend off-fits of jealousy, he thought, wearily. Father's accusation are bad enough. Hers would be worse. And their is no reason for Yet. Not that he hadn't entertained a fantasy or two.
But they are only fantasies and will Y~tn so, he told his conscience firmly. still, they are things I would rather she did not know about. She is not old enough to accept them calmly, for the simple daydreams that they are. Hmmer saffiffing.