Chapter 8
The hall was bustling well into supper when Elain sat down heavily on the bench next to Gwen. She set her hands to the worn tabletop as if to connect herself to something solid. Gwen covered one of those hands with her own. It felt chilled. Then she noticed that, though it was neatly plaited, Elain’s hair was damp.
“Have you gone for a swim without me?” Gwen teased.
Elain gave her a weary smile. “No. Met with an old friend.”
“Oh. Me too.”
Elain’s eyebrows rose. “Here? Who?”
“You first.”
Elain took a deep breath and settled her shoulders. “Palahmed.”
“The man who trained you!” Gwen looked at the faces nearby. “Which is he?”
“He’s in no condition for society yet.” She made that tired smile again. “But now he’s had a bath, so it’s a start.”
“What happened?”
“Had his heart broken. It’s a long, sordid tale.”
“Poor fellow.”
“He’ll be fine. If ever I’ve met a resilient person, it’s Palahmed. You, now—what friend did you meet?”
“Tiro.”
Elain froze like a deer before a hunter’s bow. Then she bolted up from the bench to scan the hall.
Gwen pulled her back down. “He’s left already.”
Elain’s eyes were wide. “He came to take you back, didn’t he?”
“He came on Ta’s behalf, yes. I sent him home.” She told Elain about her summons to Rhys’s council chamber and how he’d drawn out her confession before presenting Tiro. “You said Rhys knew of your bargain with my father, to distract Bedwyr from Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“I think it predisposed him to see that nothing had changed between them. He sent them on patrol to occupy them usefully. Then he challenged me to do the same.”
“Go on patrol?” Elain said dubiously.
“No, goose. To make myself useful. I started today, helping to clean around the brothel—”
Elain rose and tugged Gwen to standing.
“Where are we going?”
But Elain only gripped her hand and pulled her from the hall. In no time they had crossed the walkway to the brothel and were making their way through the corridors and along the rat passage to the far corner. When they reached their ladder, Elain gestured for her to climb up first. She seemed incapable of speech, so Gwen hurried up the rungs.
When Elain stepped onto the loft boards, she took hold of Gwen’s head in shaking hands.
Gwen wrapped her fingers around the woman’s wrists, tense with corded muscle. “What is it?”
“He could have taken you, and I wasn’t there. I promised to be there.”
“I’m fine. Everything’s fi—”
Elain kissed her, a fierce thing that took Gwen by surprise, but only for a moment and then she was kissing her back.
Elain broke away. “Strip.”
The starkness of the word sent a swift shiver up Gwen’s spine.
It took a few attempts to work out the knots, the same ones she’d tied and untied her entire life, but her fingers weren’t altogether cooperating. Finally, she was able to step out of her skirts and hang them on the nail she’d claimed on her side of the small mattress. Slipping her tunic over her head, she sighed in relief. Their loft was warm to begin with—a condition she should be grateful for, as winter would soon settle in—but she felt feverish just now. Her plait fell heavy over her shoulder as she pulled off her shoes.
Then Elain was there. She hadn’t made a sound, but the warmth at Gwen’s back was unmistakable, and the soft lips brushing the side of her neck.
She closed her eyes to feel it better, that gentler kiss. As much as she’d wanted this, she still felt a strange fear that it had begun. Despite the things she’d seen and heard this day, she didn’t have the first notion where to begin, how to do this correctly. When she thought about trying to imitate the sounds and movements of the whores below, a small scornful voice in her mind laughed. She was barely a woman and, despite her own proddings on her wedding night, still a virgin, so what did she know of anything? She should leave women’s pleasures to women.
But because the voice sounded like her father’s woman, Eira, Gwen steeled herself and turned to face Elain.
The lamplight did nothing to dim Elain’s eyes. If anything, they seemed to shine brighter, like two blue flames. She wore her shift, as Gwen did, except not at all as Gwen did. Her shoulders were more square, with small knobs on top. Gwen set her fingertips on them, pressing into the bone. She followed the strength there, along the collarbones, gathering her courage, before letting her touch slip off the edges and down onto Elain’s chest.
Elain caught her wrists in twin grips that were too tight but only for a few seconds. They eased as she lifted Gwen’s hands above her head. “Hold on to the beam.”
Surprised, she found a place to hook her fingers. Its rough-hewn edge felt nothing like the smooth grace of Elain’s collarbone.
“Don’t let go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“You told me, you mean.”
Elain’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not quite into humor, and Gwen’s belly fluttered with that.
She sighed some of the tension away as Elain drew her hands down her arms. They came to rest on her ribs, warm and still, and then Elain’s gaze slid to her breasts.
They felt heavy, as they always did after she unlaced her tunic for the night. Now, though, her skin felt tight and overheated, the wool of her shift scratching her in a thousand tiny places. She twisted, trying to ease the sensation, but it persisted.
Her twisting affected Elain, loosening her jaw until her mouth fell open slightly. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip.
Gwen pressed her knees together. “Let me—”
“Hold the beam.”
She caught her breath at the command, more forceful than before.
Elain’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Please,” she added.
Gwen exhaled at the glimpse of the woman she knew. Her breath hitched again when Elain curled her long fingers and brushed her knuckles down the sides of her breasts. They felt warm through the wool, and she knew from holding Elain’s hands that her knuckles would have felt a bit rough against her bare skin. She wanted to tear off her shift to feel that but not knowing what Elain planned to do had her waiting to see.
She didn’t have to wait long before Elain filled her hands with Gwen’s breasts and lifted them. The absence of their weight disoriented her for a moment, but what coursed through her body felt much hotter than relief. Elain supported her, let her down again and then pushed back up. Gods, but she wanted— “Put your mouth on me.”
Elain looked at her, eyes wide, and then dropped to her knees with twin thuds on the floor boards. Leaning in, she pressed her open mouth to Gwen’s breast through her shift. Her tongue soaked it through, but then all Gwen could feel was warm, wet wool, and she wanted more. Frantically, Gwen whipped her shift over her head.
Elain made a hungry sound in her throat, deep and raw, and then her generous mouth closed over Gwen’s nipple. The sensation of being suckled felt odd and strangely terrifying, and she pressed her knees together.
“Please,” she said again, though she didn’t know why.
Maybe Elain did, because she gave the nipple one more swirl over her tongue before kissing it. Gripping Gwen’s hips in her hands, she kissed down her ribs, over her belly, to the ticklish skin at the top of her thigh. She was so close.
As if she’d heard Gwen’s pleading thoughts, Elain began kissing again, brushing her lips toward Gwen’s hair. Her cunt throbbed in anticipation, and she instinctively pressed her fingers to it.
Elain kissed her fingers, then gently pulled them away. Closing her eyes, she pressed her nose to Gwen’s hair and inhaled. A cool rush of air swept over her skin, causing her to shiver, followed by a hot exhalation that made her moan.
“Elain…”
Whether the woman ignored her or answered her plea, she slipped her fingertips between Gwen’s thighs and swept them through her swollen cunt, and a groan escaped Gwen unbidden. Elain’s lashes flickered as she looked up at her. One by one, she sucked on her fingers. Then she used those fingers to part Gwen and sweep her tongue up her pulsing skin.
Gwen’s knees gave out, and she tumbled onto the mattress with a clumsy thump. She landed with legs splayed, and Elain followed, giving her no chance to recover. With firm hands holding her thighs open, Elain buried her face between Gwen’s legs.
She needn’t have worried about making sounds—they were making themselves without her thinking on it. Every swipe of Elain’s tongue brought another until Gwen didn’t recognize this rasping, begging voice using her throat. Her heels pushed at the bedding. She clutched at Elain’s hair. She needed more. Her belly felt molten and restless and on the edge of something. Elain shifted up then and began to suck on her, and Gwen shouted. She was turning inside out, becoming some wild thing that could only say yes, yes, yes, and then laugh and cry and surrender to the spasms that racked her body.
Even before she could make out her surroundings again, she became aware of a sense of peace, and of binding. Elain’s head rested on one of her thighs. Gwen reached down to brush away the strands of hair hiding her face, and Elain lifted her gaze. Her blue eyes burned bright, sending another wave of heat over Gwen’s skin.
“Come up here.”
Elain obeyed the command immediately, giving Gwen a small thrill and just enough confidence to try another. “Strip.”
Elain’s eyes flashed with something akin to humor, but Gwen didn’t care because the next moment her clothing was thrown aside and Elain was naked.
And so beautiful, Gwen’s ribs felt as if they might crack apart. With hands that still shook from her release, she reached for the woman above her and drew her down until she hovered above Gwen.
“You won’t break me.”
“I know,” Elain said, though not convincingly.
Gwen pulled until most of Elain’s weight rested on her. She was long and strong, her lean muscle flexing under Gwen’s palms. When she shifted, her cock rubbed across Gwen’s sensitive flesh, and they both hissed.
Gwen hooked one leg around Elain’s and kissed her throat. “Please.”
Elain drew back, her eyes flicking over Gwen’s face as if trying to memorize it.
Which was taking entirely too long. She rose until she could nip an ear. “Elain…”
“Yes?” she said on a rush of breath.
“Fuck me.”
Elain groaned, and the sound seemed to swell in their small loft until it was as solid as the woman herself. “We can get a remedy from Caron.”
“We don’t need one.”
Elain blinked down at her, and Gwen gave her a hopeful smile.
“Do we?”
Smoothing her hands down Elain’s back, Gwen took hold of her arse and squeezed. Elain gasped, then slipped an arm under one of Gwen’s thighs. Pressing it up, she arched her back and then she was pushing inside.
Gwen had expected pain, but there was none. Only the slick, snug glide of Elain’s cock, the odd pressure of her meeting Gwen’s limit, and then as she drew back out—
“Oh!”
“Again?”
“Again,” Gwen ordered. “Slowly.”
Elain kissed her, and she tasted herself on the woman’s tongue. It was different mingled with Elain’s flavor—fuller, richer. Then Elain was holding herself above Gwen, watching her face as she pushed in again. Fullness, then pressure, then that delicious scrape.
No wonder the whores made so much noise. Maybe it was genuine after all.
She could hear herself making those sounds again, the needy ones, and then she couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t grab Elain hard enough, bring her deep enough. All her striving had the frustrating effect of pulling their bodies apart. This was nothing like the people she’d glimpsed fucking, and yet it was just the same desperate, mindless smack of flesh on flesh. Elain’s sounds were as needy as her own, but softer, the low rasp of her voice growing hoarse as she dragged feverish kisses across Gwen’s shoulder and up her neck. There, her breath grew harsher. Her long fingers slid into Gwen’s hair and clutched tight. Gwen’s scalp prickled with pain, and then Elain gasped her name. Her body tensed, her hips shoving against Gwen’s. Inside her, Elain’s cock pulsed. Gwen squeezed her own muscles, wanting to hold on, to keep Elain inside and this feeling of being bound. She felt possessive and protective at once, and as Elain’s erratic movements slowed and she slumped, panting, Gwen wanted nothing more than to hold her, skin to skin, for as long as she might.
Here, in their tiny loft, it felt as though they could hide away forever.