Gryph was so astonished he nearly dropped the mug. “Another man? After we have already lain together?” It took him an instant to recover himself. He could tell by the curious expression on her face that she had no real notion of the effort it took to master the wave of possessive rage her words had unleashed within him. He finished off the last of the ale in one long gulp.
“Gryph? Are you all right?”
“Do us both a favor, Sariana.” His voice was strained with the tension of containing his anger. “Don’t ever talk to me of going to another man’s bed.”
“I’m sorry, Gryph,” she said very earnestly. “I can see it upsets you.”
He lifted his eyes beseechingly toward the stars. “You have a talent for driving me to the edge. Be careful that you don’t succeed in pushing me over one of these days.”
“I said I’m sorry, but you must try to understand this situation from my point of view. I don’t consider myself married. You cannot, in all good conscience, expect me to submit to the rules and customs established by western First Generation tales. I don’t believe in all your legends.”
“I could make you believe in them.”
It was a warning and a declaration, but Sariana did not seem aware of either. For all her logic and her ability with words, his Shieldmate could be amazingly obtuse at times. Gryph was sure that obtuseness was deliberate. She used it when it served her purposes.
“As I said earlier, Gryph, it would be better if we don’t discuss our personal situation until our mission is accomplished. I urge you to consider my offer of a working truce.”
Gryph set down the mug, no longer able to resist putting his hands on her. He clasped her shoulders, wondering if she would flinch away from him and oddly pleased when she did not. “If I am to accept a truce, then it will be in all things, not just in the matter of retrieving the cutter.”
She gazed up at him with dawning relief and satisfaction. “You’ll accept my offer to work together as a team?”
“As usual, Sariana, you have heard only what you want to hear. “I accept your offer of a truce, if that’s what you want to call it. If you’d rather we didn’t discuss our marriage until we return to Serendipity, I’ll go along with that, too.”
“Thank you, Gryph. This will all work out for the best. You’ll see.”
“But that still leaves us with a problem.”
“What problem?”
“The matter of that single bunk in the cabin.” His hand flexed on her shoulders.
“Gryph, I’m not sure how we should handle that problem.”
“You were willing enough to start an affair with me the other night,” he reminded her.
She touched the tip of her tongue to one corner of her lips. In the silvery moonlight her eyes were very deep and filled with unanswered questions. “Yes,” she said with a simple honesty that took away his breath. “I thought an affair with you might be very…well, very interesting.”
“Ah, there you go again. You have such a delicate way with language. Well, I suppose I should be glad you at least find me interesting.” Gryph slid his hands inside the hood of her cloak, finding the slender column of her throat. He held her lightly, stroking his thumbs along the line of her jaw. “You’ve said that you can’t bring yourself to admit you’re married. Can you think of yourself as involved in an affair with me? For the duration of this truce of ours, can you have the affair you intended to start two nights ago?”
A tremor went through her. Gryph could feel the rising warmth in the silky skin of her throat. His fingers shook a little as he continued to stroke her skin.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m not sure what to do. Nothing worked out as I thought it would, including that.” She looked up at him with an aching longing tinged with deep wariness. “I thought it would be so different.”
“It will be this time,” he promised her recklessly. “That first time I was a clumsy, blundering idiot. I apologize again. I will apologize for that fiasco for the rest of my life, if that’s what you want.”
“Well, you weren’t that bad,” she offered consolingly.
He nearly choked on his laughter as he realized just how serious she was. “Thank you, Sariana. That’s very generous of you.” He urged her closer until the folds of her cloak brushed against him. Her unique fragrance filled his senses. Gryph forced himself to speak carefully. “I would like a second chance, Sariana. I want to show you how it should be. Spend the time of this truce having the affair you wanted to have with me. We’ll let the future take care of itself.”
She parted her lips to answer him. Gryph decided he didn’t quite trust the response that hovered on the tip of her tongue. She was still poised on the brink, the passion in her at war with her practicality and reason. He needed to find a way for her to let the passion subdue her natural caution.
Carefully, lightly, restraining himself until his body throbbed with the effort, Gryph kissed her. He brushed his mouth against hers, demanding nothing, apologizing yet again for the way he had bungled their first time together, pleading for a second chance.
Intuitively he knew it was the humble plea that won the battle for him. Sariana, for all her strength, fortitude and will, was defenseless against his earnest, entreating approach. Gryph realized suddenly that she could not turn down his silent appeal any more than she had been able to refuse Luri’s gift of the scarlet-toe. There was a deeply empathetic side to her nature. It was one of the things that made her a Shieldmate.
Sariana trembled again and then her arms emerged from the folds of the cloak and stole softly around his waist, Gryph’s sense of relief and triumph was enough to make him shudder. Cautiously he deepened the kiss, tasting again the enticing warmth of her mouth. His hands slid farther into the cloak, seeking the small, delicate curves of her breasts. He froze when he realized he could feel her nipples very plainly beneath his palms.
“Hunter’s hell, woman, you aren’t dressed.” He pulled back slightly, thoroughly outraged. “What do you mean by coming on deck wearing only your nightclothes? You haven’t even got a robe on underneath your cloak.”
She looked up at him, bemused by the passion that was just beginning to unfurl within her. She concentrated for a moment on his complaint and then smiled reassuringly. “No one can see how I’m dressed beneath my cloak.”
“That’s not the point. It’s the principle of the thing. You’re my—” He broke off just before calling her his Shieldmate. “You can’t parade around in public wearing only a sleeping chemise and a traveling cloak. What if the wind catches the cloak? Sariana, it isn’t like you to be so unconcerned about such things.”
She studied him from beneath her lashes. “You’re right. It isn’t like me. You have a strange effect on me at times, Gryph.”
He heard the return of wariness in her voice and cursed himself for having come very close to ruining everything a second time. Like the trained hunter he was he moved quickly to recover his position. He could scold her later for such lapses. There would be plenty of time in the future to teach her that his sense of possessiveness did not permit such immodest behavior on her part.
It was odd, Gryph thought fleetingly as he pulled her back against him. He had never been particularly concerned about a woman’s modesty or lack of it before in his life. He was learning quickly that a man felt differently about such things when the woman in question was his wife.
He kissed her again, silently apologizing for the outburst. He seemed to be always apologizing to this woman. But it was worth it when he felt her begin to relax once more. Gryph held the kiss for a long while, luxuriating in the sweet, hot flavor of her. When the tip of her tongue touched his and followed it back into his own mouth Gryph stifled a groan and broke the kiss reluctantly. When she looked up at him with a thousand questions in her eyes he wrapped his arm around her. Without a word he led her toward the stairs that wou
ld take them down to their cabin. Sariana made no protest.
The scarlet-toe raised its sleek head and watched silently as Gryph led Sariana into the cabin. Then, apparently satisfied that all was as it should be, it went back to sleep.
Gryph ignored the small creature. His attention was centered on the woman in front of him. He was shaking with need and he hadn’t even gotten her out of the cloak. He sought for self-control with all the skill at his command, determined not to bungle things this time.
Carefully be undid the fastenings of the cloak and eased it off Sariana’s shoulders. It fell into a pool at her feet and in the moonlight he could see the shadows and curves of her body beneath the soft chemise.
He yanked impatiently at the laces of his shirt, flinging the garment heedlessly into the shadows. His fingers were on the buckle of his belt when he saw the direction of Sariana’s wary gaze. She was eyeing the prisma lock of the weapon kit.
“Not this time, Sariana.” He left his belt undone and reached out to catch her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He dropped a short, reassuring kiss on her parted lips. “We don’t need it now. The link between us was forged that first time. We’ll never need the prisma again.”
She tilted her head questioningly, her eyes shimmering. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. It doesn’t matter.” He bit her very gently on her lower lip. “Just trust me, Sariana. This time it’s going to be very good for you. I swear it. There is so much passion waiting to be discovered in you. I would have to be completely inept not to be able to help you find it this time.”
She sighed softly and stepped closer under the gentle urging of his hand, Gryph slipped the chemise over her head and stared at her slender, graceful body with hungry fascination. Next to her he felt large and heavy and awkward. She was so soft and tantalizing. His fingers grazed lightly over the peaks of her breasts and he was rewarded when her sensitive flesh responded to his touch.
“You’re so strong and hard,” she breathed wonderingly as she spread her fingers across his chest. Her silver nails glimmered in the moonlight as she moved her hands to the broad curve of his shoulders.
Gryph thought he would go out of his mind. He brought her closer, sliding his fingers down under the sensual weight of her buttocks. He lifted her up against him, letting her feel his rigid manhood. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with a newfound boldness.
Gryph felt the first stirrings of the mental and emotional link that would soon leap to life between them. An intriguingly alien excitement raced through him. He was already starting to pick up on Sariana’s sensations. Memories of that first night when he had experienced the shock of his own intrusion into her body even as she experienced it slammed into his head.
Gryph fought to control the crossover effects of the link this time. Sariana would not have the vaguest idea of how to channel and focus the devastatingly intimate contact. He had only a rough notion of how to do it himself, based on his training as a Shield.
It was freely acknowledged among Shields that however experienced a man was with prisma or with women, he was a novice when it came to establishing the permanent link with his Shieldmate. Each man struggled through the experience alone and unaided.
The task was made even more difficult, Gryph realized, because the woman involved had no training at all. No woman ever received Shield training.
In his case the whole event was further complicated by the fact that, in spite of having been through the initial linking, Sariana insisted on denying that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. He knew he would soon be getting the full impact of her reactions. She wouldn’t know how to conceal them. Already he was being inundated with her rising passion.
The problem was that, for a man, there was no greater aphrodisiac in the universe than a woman’s genuine passion. Gryph’s desire was feeding hungrily on the rich feast it was being offered. The blare within him was rapidly turning into a roaring fire.
With a stifled groan, he picked Sariana up and settled her in the middle of the wide bunk. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her sleek, slender body while he jerked off his boots and stepped out of his trousers. She lay there devouring him with her eyes, one leg slightly drawn up to partially shadow the secrets between her thighs.
Gryph sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over her, bracing himself with a hand on either side of her. When she touched his thigh inquisitively he groaned again and bent down to taste the tip of her breast with his tongue.
“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me,” he whispered. “Here I am going through prisma fire trying to control myself and you’re showering me with everything you’ve got.”
She smiled up at him as her soft palm found his extended shaft. “Aren’t you going to shower me with everything you’ve got?”
“On top of everything else, you’re going to turn out to be a tease. I should have guessed.” He felt her uncertain touch on his sensitive flesh and he shuddered again. She was going to drive him wild. He reached down to cover her hand with his own. “That’s it, sweetheart. Pet me and stroke me and drive me out of my mind. I don’t have much of a grasp left on it, anyway.”
She looked up at him with genuine delight as she felt his physical reaction. He certainly wasn’t going to bother trying to hide that part from her, Gryph decided. He couldn’t have camouflaged his body’s blunt, bold responses even if he had wanted to. It was hard enough trying to restrain his emotional reactions.
He pulsed under her touch and felt the thrill that went through her as she learned the extent of her own power over him. He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. He knew from past experience that Sariana was a woman who enjoyed exercising her strengths and abilities. When she discovered just how much talent she had for manipulating him, Gryph told himself, he was going to be in big trouble.
But a man could die happy in this kind of trouble.
“It’s worth the risk,” he told her, knowing she wouldn’t understand the cryptic statement. “Besides, two can play at this game.”
He flattened his palm on her stomach and swept his fingers through the triangle of hair below. She flinched when he unerringly found the nub that was the core of her sensations. Her fingers flexed on his leg and he felt the tips of her silvery nails digging into him.
Gryph stiffened in reaction and closed his eyes against the excitement that swept through him. For a few seconds he lost his grip on the control he was exerting. The power of his own emotions was too strong. They slipped from his grasp and poured into Sariana. She quivered beneath him, drawing back instinctively as his raging desire hit her mentally as well as physically. She let out a soft protest.
Gryph swore violently as he felt her trying to retreat. “No,” he grated, anchoring her with one leg while he pushed her back into the pillows. “No, it’s all right. I’ve got it now. Relax, Sariana, I’m in control. It’s all right. Relax, my sweet. It’s going to be okay. Don’t be afraid. It’s just that I want you so much.” He rained small kisses across her breasts, his pulse thudding with the mental and physical effort he was exerting.
“I know,” Sariana’s voice was husky with the discovery she had just made. A thread of fear underlined her words. She clutched at him, her nails gripping his skin. “For a minute there I knew exactly how much you want me. It was like this the other night. I was so aware of how you felt. Gryph, what’s happening between us?”
“Nothing that wasn’t meant to happen.” He hushed her with a kiss and rolled onto his back, taking her with him. He had to halt her agile mind from going down this path tonight. Now was not the time for her to acknowledge what was really happening. She might panic. He had to find a way to distract her.
He knew the exact instant passion reasserted its grip on her. It occurred when Sariana discovered herself astride him, his hot, throbbing manhood in her hands. She looked down at her prize and he
r thighs tightened convulsively around him. Her lashes were dark sweeps against her cheeks.
“There’s so much power in you.” She stroked him in wonder. “Everything about you is large and solid and beautiful in a way I can’t quite explain.”
He vibrated with the genuine pleasure she was taking in his masculinity. Gryph had to brace himself against the waves of desire beating at him. He locked his muscles, willing himself to take a step back from the edge of the climax that awaited him.
“Sariana, I keep telling you, you have a way with words.”
He found the damp, hot flesh between her widely spread thighs and slowly slid a finger into her. She gasped and tightened around him. Gryph fought harder for his self-control. Slowly he withdrew his finger, his thumb gliding lightly over the small, secret bud of her desire in the process.
Sariana gave a tiny, choked cry. She rose to her knees in response to the new level of tension he was inducing. Gryph took advantage of the new position to trace the valley between her buttocks with his damp finger. Sariana quivered and inhaled deeply.
Gently he eased her back down until she was again sitting astride him. Her eyes were closed and he could see her tiny white teeth sinking into her lower lip. Her breasts were high and full with sexual tension. He could feel her reaching for the unknown conclusion to the exquisite torture and deliberately he stroked the fires within her with another slow insertion of his finger.
Again and again he repeated the slow, tantalizing caress, never filling her damp sheath as much as she craved, never removing his finger entirely. And always he finished the withdrawing stroke with a gentle circle around the beautifully sensitive nubbin sheltered in the triangular nest of hair.
Her climax hit her without warning. Gryph was taken as much by surprise as she was when it struck. One instant she was straining toward release, lost in the powerful new sensations that he was coaxing from her, and the next she was convulsing around his finger, crying out his name as her head tipped back and her eyes squeezed tightly shut.