Hers to Command (27 page)

“
Suggested, my ass,” Doral muttered between gritted teeth.

Ari
bit back his laugh when Fleur smiled and repeated, “
Suggested
to Doral, he and I make
love
to you. You left too early this morning to hear our conversation, but it seems our Doral has some misguided ideas about what he means to us.”

She looked at Doral shyly.
“I think I presented our case convincingly, but he needs to hear the words from your mouth, too.”

Doral looked away
, unable to meet her gaze.

“
Why, Visconte, you are blushing,” Ari teased softly. “Was she that outrageous?”

“
I’ll have you know my repertoire is expanding, Ari. I am certain my technique has improved.” Fleur flashed coquettish eyes at Ari.

“
I can’t imagine what you could do that would embarrass our visconte, my Queen.”

“
Oh I doubt it was what I
did
to our gentle Doral, as much as what I
said
.”

Ari
looked a question at Doral.

Doral stiffened.
“Our queen said.” He stopped, scrubbed his face with his hands and inhaled deeply. “That she found me easy to love.”

Doral
shrugged dismissively. “She said it was clear I loved you and I should tell you. He cleared his throat and looked at Fleur in appeal.

“
Tell him the rest,
Segundo
,” Fleur prompted with an encouraging lift of her brows.

Had the situation not been so sensitive,
Ari would have laughed. Doral looked as if he was being run through with a hot cautery iron.

“
She said you loved me; that you did not give your love lightly and I could trust in it,” Doral muttered.

Fleur stroked Doral’s arm and spoke softly.
“Ari, I don’t want the
Primo Signore
,
Segundo Signore
and
Prima Signora
to be present in this chamber this afternoon. This is not about our genetic compatibility. Fleur regarded him earnestly. “Both of us loved you before we ever knew of such things. ‘Fleur’ and ‘Doral’ want to make
love
to ‘Ari’—not couple to re-energize the sigil towers, even if that is a side effect.”

Ari looked at Doral. “Is that what you want?”

Doral returned his forthright gaze.
“Yes,” he croaked hoarsely.

“Well.” His
eyes lit with erotic promise. Ari held his arms out in surrender. “Take me.”

Fleur smiled and stepped back while Doral leaned forward and
with a low growl, pulled him into an inflexible hug.
Damn but the man is strong.
With a steely arm pulling Ari’s hips into his own, Doral reached up and wrapped a hand in the thick hair that hung down Ari’s shoulders. Ari could feel the pain in his scalp as Doral forced his head back, stretching and baring his neck. His unruly cock never could resist Doral. Ari felt himself begin to fill, ground against Doral’s groin.

Fleur pressed herself against
Ari’s back, wrapping her arms around his waist, effectively trapping his hands to his sides. Ari’s restraints were the lightest, yet most binding.

“
You have no conception how I hungered for you, the things I wanted to do to you, Ari.” Doral’s breath warmed his neck. The visconte stretched his head back further, exposing the smooth skin of his neck. Ari felt Doral’s lips, tongue and teeth, kiss, nip and lick a path across his jaw then up the muscles cording the side of Ari’s neck to his ears.

At
Ari’s shuddering gasp, Doral growled. “Every time you risked yourself in battle, every time you courted death to advance our cause, all I could think was that one day my blade would not be fast enough, my aim not sure enough and I would lose you. I am done waiting, Ari.”

“
Yes,” Ari hissed, alive to the feeling of Doral’s solid erection pressed into his while Fleur’s soft contours covered his back. He was achingly hard in a matter of seconds.

Doral’s teeth caught
Ari’s lower lip, sucking it then covering his mouth with warm lips and a tongue that ravenously demanded he respond in kind. Groaning, Ari countered with passionate intensity. He was lost to everything but the feel of Doral’s lips and teeth and tongue, the scrape of the stubble on the visconte’s chin as he suddenly shifted to nip and suck along Ari’s neck only to return to Ari’s lips. As Doral’s heavy cock rubbed against his, Ari groaned, “Yes, yes, more!” then he stilled.
I will not take over.

As if reading
Ari’s mind, Doral pulled back a fraction and smiled against his mouth. “You can respond, my lover. Ask for what you want. Let me hear how much you like what I do.”

“By all the gods, Doral
, the two of you are killing me.” Ari shuddered heavily. One of Fleur’s hands had found his hard shaft and was working to free it from his breeches, pulling at the leather lacings holding them closed. Her other hand had snuck underneath his tunic and was now flicking one nipple into a tight point. For the first time since his days as a novitiate, he surrendered totally to the sexual ministrations of another.

Quickly, Doral and Fleur stripped themselves and
him. Each took one of his hands and escorted him to the mound of feather pillows and silky
serici
bedding.

Fleur hopped up onto the raised dais and knelt, stroking the
bedcovers next to her. “Here, my Lord.” He followed her direction, lying back as she pressed on his chest. Doral joined them next, holding a small bottle of warm oil.

Ari
watched as Doral knelt between his legs and unstopped the bottle, drizzling a small stream onto his legs and groin before handing the bottle to Fleur. Carefully pouring a small amount into her palms, she pulled one of his broad hands into her lap, working the oil carefully from fingertip to the heel of his palm.
By all the gods, who knew hands were an erogenous zone?

“
Fleur, you might as well be stroking my cock,” Ari groaned
.

“That’s Doral’s job,” she teased.

Exhaling heavily through his nose, Doral breathed in raw admiration, “By all the gods, you are visual feast. You devastated my senses from the first moment I saw you.”

Holding
Ari’s gaze, Doral smoothed the warm oil firmly into Ari’s legs, feet and lower groin, avoiding the area he most ached to have touched. He couldn’t keep his eyelids from drooping as pleasure swamped him. A low groan of appreciation rumbled in his chest matching the bass vibrations beginning to hum through the chamber.

Fleur’s gentle,
“Doral?” could be heard above the rumble.

“
Our queen has commanded I give you words, Ari and I will not be craven.” Doral looked at his hands for a long moment before resuming.

“
I thought Lady Allegra had destroyed my ability to desire, my ability to be fascinated.” Doral’s fingers worked the arches of Ari’s feet sending the most incredible sensations straight to his groin and pulling a choking moan of approval from Ari’s throat. Ari felt his heavy staff jerking on his abdomen in time to Doral’s firm strokes. Doral noticed and caught Ari’s eye with a slight smile. “The
Oshtesh
say this portion of your foot is directly linked to your genitals.”

It took him several attempts but
Ari finally managed to croak, “They’re right.”

“I have often wondered if I could get someone off just doing this.”

“I think you could, Doral, goddess, man—that’s good.”

“Doral,” Fleur prompted with a lift of her eyebrows.

Doral’s shoulders fell as he sighed. “Yes.” He visibly composed himself. “My first glimpse of you shattered the misconception I could not feel. I was enthralled—and I was terrified.” Doral moved from Ari’s feet to his calves with strong, rolling fingers.

“
Day by day, your relentless civility eroded my determination to hold myself aloof, to protect myself. The best I could manage was some degree of physical self-discipline.” Doral’s luxuriant blond mane fell down in a thick curtain, hiding him from Ari’s languid gaze. A choking laugh came from behind the blond veil. “I am surprised the camp didn’t burn down from the heat of my erotic fantasies.”

Doral took a deep breath.
Lifting his head, his eyes sought Fleur’s. She paused in her massage of Ari’s hands. “Continue,
Segundo
.” Tender encouragement shone from her eyes.

Haltingly,
Doral continued. “Lady Allegra delighted in cruel, sexual tortures, but she could never hurt me as you can, Ari.”

Doral
inhaled shakily, but when he resumed speaking, his voice was measured and certain. “You have had all but my body for a long time.”

His hair fell back as
Doral raised his head and held Ari with an openly vulnerable gaze, truly. a window into his soul. What Ari saw in Doral’s eyes humbled him.

The sigil chamber
vibrated with a deep booming bass. Wherever there was an opening in the luxurious bedding, brilliant light strafed the room.

Fleur laid
Ari’s hand down and straightened to her knees. Leaning over to Doral, running her hands along the nape of his neck, she pulled him forward into a tender kiss. Sitting back, eyes gleaming from unshed tears her hand caressed his face. “For someone not good with words, that was very well done,” she whispered, “and very brave.”

Doral
smiled weakly and murmured, “If what I feel for you, my Lady, isn’t love, well, give me some time.” His blue eyes crinkled with tender amusement. “You could worm your way into the hardest of hearts.” His expression changed abruptly and he shot her a narrow look. “And don’t you
ever
ask me to do this again.”

She
bit her lower lip and beamed at Doral as she shook her head. “No. I won’t.”

Watching the tender interchange between the two,
Ari felt a sense of deep satisfaction, but Doral’s controlled words had smashed into the hard walls surrounding his heart obliterating them. He would add Doral’s name to that short list. The loss of either would destroy him.

“
Ari?” Fleur shot him a look of expectation.

Shit.
He had to clear his throat several times. “I love you, Doral. I have known for some time.”

She smiled tenderly as she poured
warm oil onto his upper body. Sitting on her knees beside Ari, she stroked the oil into the muscles of his abdomen and chest.             

“
When Patricio summoned me for the
Great Rite
I was certain it was the end for Verdantia and me. Only Sari had any confidence I could complete the
Rite
.”              

Fleur began at
Ari’s neck with soft pressure from her fingertips. “Somehow you took a green, inadequately prepared, young woman and made one of the most treacherous rituals we perform work. In the process, you saved our planet and me.”

“
You had something to do with that.”

“
Hmm. If you say so. What I remember is being hurled about in a mindless haze of sexual agony. My salvation was this ever-present, deep voice, persuading, cajoling and guiding me back to cool sanctuary. Always, the voice was there to encourage me to come back, come back to
him
, patiently offering refuge and comfort if I could somehow find my way.”

Fleur continued her gentle caresses but held
Ari with tender eyes. “Your voice was all that grounded me, Ari. How I labored to return to you. You said we succeeded because I was obedient—perhaps. I will always think it had more to do with your staunch refusal to let me go. I owe you my life. I have given you my heart. I love you, Ari.”

“
And I you,” Ari managed on an exhaled whisper. Doral’s massage had reached his groin. He closed his eyes concentrating on the feel of Doral smoothing oil through the curling brown hairs of his pubis and then
finally
, to his rigidly engorged, shaft—burning with heat but for the coolness where escaping pre-come had left a track. With warms hands coated in slippery oil, Doral fisted his shaft.

“Damnation, man!”
Ari bit out, surging into Doral’s hands.

Doral’s low chuckle was wicked as he
worked his way up stopping at the frenulum to circle his thumbs in a titillating explosion of sensation.

“Ah
… gods!” Ari panted. Pressure continued to build in his balls. The tingle forming at the base of his spine grew to a pulsing sparkle of excitement. He exhaled in a gust unable to prevent the involuntary lift of his hips seeking greater friction from Doral’s teasing hands, only to reside again at Fleur’s light pressure on his hip.

“
Roll over, my Lord,” Fleur said.

Ari
lay regrouping for a moment before he could comply. Doral was there, placing a wedged pillow under his hips, raising his buttocks at an angle off the dais. More warm oil and two sets of hands continued their sensual assault. After Doral’s teasing treatment, Ari’s cock bobbed stiffly in the small space created by the pillow. It was raised just enough. He could not press his shaft into the bedding to add to what Doral’s hands had started. His arousal spiked significantly when Doral knelt between his legs, muscling his legs wide apart, leaving his tightly drawn balls and jerking cock to hang freely between them.