Tiffany Clare - The Surrender of a Lady

Leaning over her, he rubbed his face against the underside of her breast. If only it were so easy to mark her as his own in this primal fashion. He caressed her delicate flesh, indulged with his lips and tongue the taste of her sweet female musk. There would be rapture this evening. Complete abandon to indulge both their bodies and senses.

What did she think of him rubbing over her as if he were some great predatory cat tamed by her mere presence? When she lowered her hand, sliding it between their bodies, he had a feeling she wanted to aid him in release. But this wasn’t about the gratification of sex. This was about reacquainting his mind with his dreams, his fantasies. This was about holding on to the one thing that had kept passion and reason flowing in his veins over the years.

He stopped her hand from reaching its destination. “Do not touch me this eve, unless I give leave to do so.” He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so harsh.

When he released his hold, her arms fell loose to either side of her. His teeth grasped her crested nipple; he wanted to test her limits—Amir had promised a woman willing to explore the darker nature a man had.

When her back arched higher off the divan, her desire seemed to get the better of her. Both her hands shot out above her head to push against the wall. There was no need to guide her hips over his desire-ridden body. She moved to fulfill her own need. The thrust of her pelvis was jerky and it took everything in Griffin to hold out until she peaked.

“Thread your hands together, above your head.” Better to have her not touch him when his release was so close.

It didn’t matter that he’d purchased this right. He would purchase her a thousand and one nights more, if it were the only way he could spend more time in her company.

He tasted her freely now everywhere his mouth and tongue landed with each one of her thrusts. He couldn’t seem to pull her in tight enough to appease either of them.

Biting at her breast with as much gentleness as his sex-crazed body could deliver in this current state of excitement, he heard her let out a deep moan. He ground harder into her, his control gradually slipping as he rode out both their pleasure.

Her body slid with ease over his clothes. He could feel her wetness penetrating the material of his smalls when her body let out a gush of feminine fluid and her legs dropped farther open. There was no reining in his desires at that point. His cock swelled and there was no hope of stopping the release so close to overtaking him. They jerked together in the abandon of their congress.

“By all that is holy . ” Her words came in Persian as she arched farther off the divan, bringing her ribs right up to his chest as she came to her crisis.

Another rush of fluids aided the slide of their bodies. He rocked his hips a few more times as the last of his seed pumped out painfully in the constriction of his trousers.

With a slight collapse onto her, he released the tight grasp he had on her hips and breathed heavily against her for a moment. He needed to catch his breath.

Had they really just done that?

There was no thinking straight with her sensual body wrapped around his.

It didn’t matter what they’d just done. They’d both been consenting adults in this.

It was obvious they had both needed this release. She wouldn’t have taken her own pleasure so fiercely if she hadn’t needed it.

The bigger question remained, though. Did she play this game with everyone or did she remember him and find comfort in losing herself to his touch? After tonight he’d have answers, or at least he hoped to. It was obvious she would continue with this charade of hers.

But would she keep denying the truth after a few months spent in his company?

They walked down long corridors, the next indistinguishable from the last. They turned about so many ways she was lost within a few minutes. Elena wasn’t sure if she’d been to this section of the palace yet or not. Color started to slowly invade the sterile white walls, bronzes and rusts, greens in the tiled floors, then they took another turn and deep red carpet cushioned her bare feet.

She looked up from her curled toes. Doors were spaced out evenly in this hall. At the end she spied an open sitting area and could hear the laughter and chatter of other women. She was ushered into one of the rooms with Laila before she could explore farther on.

“When will I see my son?” she asked.

“Very soon. I’ll just show you your sleeping quarters. All the harem girls’ rooms line this hall and the hall on the other side of the garden.” Laila pointed out the large open window to a courtyard beyond her room. There was a square of similar windows lined with burgundy shutters, surrounding the greenery outside. Songbirds sang loudly and cheerfully, mixing with the talk and activities of the women walking or lounging in the garden.

Pulling her eyes from the outdoors, Elena focused on the room. Lush textiles of silks, velvets, beads, and brocades covered the furniture in an array of bold colors. A zebra-striped animal fur stretched out in front of the divan. It was a handsome room that nearly left her breathless, but her mind couldn’t take in material things.

She turned to Laila. “I thank you for showing me this, but I want to see my son. I’ve missed him so very much. I have done everything you asked of me, please let me see him,” she said in a small voice. She really couldn’t bear being refused again to see Jonathan. Her hands shook in nervousness and anxiety.

“I understand. He is a beauty, and we’ve all enjoyed looking after him. Come then.” Laila took her hand, leading her to the main sitting area she’d wanted to go toward moments ago.

There was a crowd of richly dressed harem girls. At the center of their chattering and cooing came the sounds of a happy gurgling baby.

“Oh, Jonathan!” Elena screeched her excitement and rushed forward. Dropping to her knees, she picked her son up.

She held him fiercely to her bosom and didn’t realize she was squeezing him so tightly until he cried out in complaint. She loosened her grasp enough to rain kisses on his plump face and tasted her own tears as they fell unashamedly. The happiness she felt in seeing him lifted her heart and her hopes.

“Oh, my sweet baby,” she cried out again.

Tears continued to blur her vision as she looked him over. She had to keep swiping the dampness away with the bottom edge of her dress. She’d never cried so much in all her life. But then, she’d never had such a happy moment as this. To have this joyful reunion after the despair that had ridden heavy on her shoulders these past few weeks was more than a blessing.

Jonathan had grown in the short time they’d been separated. His hair had filled in on his head and a cowlick in front stood up on end. She brushed her fingers through the dark, baby softness. She noticed in his smile the beginning of a tooth. Goodness, she’d missed so much while they were separated. She vowed then and there, she’d never be parted from her son again.

He wore white muslin designed like the caftan robes, and she felt extra padding on his bottom under the outfit. His arms were still chubby and his tiny fists clenched through the locks of her loose hair. He cooed back at her, giving her a wide, mostly gummy smile. Thank God he hadn’t forgotten her in their time apart—that would have been too heartbreaking to bear.

Elena sat heavily on the carpeted floor and pulled him into her lap, rocking and hugging him intermittently. She kissed his cheek. “I have missed you, my little boy. Do you know that?”

Content that he was comfortable in her arms, she looked up to the smiling faces around her. There were at least a dozen women. She smiled at them. Jonathan tugged again at her loose hair, and she looked down to unravel it from his small, insistent fingers.

“You see . your boy is nice and fat. We have kept him fed and very happy.”

Elena turned and faced the woman who spoke.

The girl was young, maybe seventeen, and a swarthy beauty. Her round eyes were large and bright, the color of amber. Her nose was narrow and well suited to her oval face. She had a red dot between her eyes, painted in place—Elena couldn’t remember what that was called, but she knew this woman must be Hindi to wear the mark. Her hair was worn in two thick braids on either side of her face and hung clear down to her hips, dancing on the floor where she knelt. The young woman had a beautiful smile, her teeth a bit big for her mouth but very white.

“I am Maram,” she said. “Your boy is very beautiful. He’s been such a delight to us.”

Her English was slow and slightly disjointed, as though she weren’t sure she used the right words. It almost surprised Elena to hear her native English tongue in a place where there didn’t look to be any other of her background. She wondered if everyone here spoke English.

“Where did you learn English?” Elena asked.

Maram gave a sweet laugh and ducked her head in shyness. “I grew up in a big house where my parents served an English lord and his family. His children taught me. This is how you find me here speaking your tongue not so well, but it helps that most of the men who come to the Pleasure Gardens speak English. They laugh and pinch at us when we say words wrong. They like us to do that.” She shrugged. “I do not mind it so much.”

“You wouldn’t,” another woman said from the divan, then went back to talking to the girl beside her.

Elena smiled at Maram and looked around her. Most of the women who had played with her son had more or less wandered off although a few stayed close, watching her little boy with rapt attention but giving her enough space to enjoy the reunion. It was so wonderful to have him in her arms and to feel his warmth; she’d been so cold and lifeless without him.