A Sinless Betrayal by Cherie Benjamin (books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

number one checklist spot for a while now.

When my lips touch Abigor's, I feel the warmth, the passion, and the lust bleeding out of him and into me. As he presses me to his chest, I can feel his heart thump loudly in tune with mine beneath his breast. With his teeth he gently urges my mouth open, nipping at my bottom lip tenderly before dipping his tongue into my mouth for a tentative taste.

And I do the last the thing I ever expect to do. I moan loudly; the way that his tongue is rubbing against mine makes the inner sex appeal inside of me blossom like a flower in the springtime. As he hears my moan, he deepens the kiss, which I didn't think was possible, and grabs my backside, squeezing me in his large hands.

He grabs the underside of one of my thighs and swings my leg over his hip, and then he follows with the other one. I'm surprised with my reaction. I hook my feet together around his back, pulling myself closer. His warm hands slide from my knees all the way to the insides of my thighs, caressing the soft ivory skin there.

When he cups me there, I buck up in surprise, trying to get his hand away from such a forbidden place. But as his fingers start to work magic, I find myself giving into the foreign sensation. "Yes," he whispers. "Oh, soyayya. Give in to me. Give in to what you want."

I bury my face into his shoulder as he peppers gentle kisses down my bared neck and touches me in that special place that makes me feel so good. "Oh, what is it?" I ask him, my lips mashed to the side of his broad, muscled shoulder.

He chuckles deeply, his smooth baritone bass gliding through my ears like a piece of music. I shudder. "It is your passion, the lust that you have been so selfishly keeping from me for too long," he says.

I want to kiss him again. The wine that I had overloaded on before bed was starting to kick in. I felt dizzy with lust and passion, whereas my normal-self would have been backing away into the corner. I lift my head back up, and before I can even request, his lips are on mine, moving in perfect sync and suckling tenderly. My insides turn to jelly almost immediately.

I break away, a strand of saliva still connecting our swollen lips together. My eyes are heavy-lidded and his breathing is laboured. "Let me finish you," he says.

I shake my head, blinking my eyes slowly. "I-I don't understand what you mean."

He gives me another kiss. "Then I shall be your teacher." He reaches out and touches my lips. "Lips. Lebe." Then he kisses the spot above my breasts. "Breasts. Kiraza."

"Lebe," I reply. "Kiraza."

Then he touches me there again, hard and fast. I fall off an unseen cliff, crying out into his shoulder. "Pleasure," he gasps, his voice husky. "Dadi."

"Dadi," I whisper softly. "Dadi. You touched me. I've never been touched like that before."

He cradles me in his arms. "You have never been touched in many ways, budurwa. But prepare yourself little one, for I am known for my skill in the bedroom. I shall treat you well."

I look into his eyes. And for once, I don't see him as a filthy barbarian king that steals, kills and rapes. I see him as a teacher, a friend, a brother…a lover. "I trust you," I say. And I really do mean it.

0o0o0o0o

We sit by the fire in the night, sipping a glass of wine and sitting by the fire. The open window blows cold air into the room, so the fire blazing inside of the stone hearth does us both some good. He sits in his chair while I sit on the floor, back pressed up against the wall.

The firelight flickers off of his beautiful being, casting shadows along the perfect contoured edges of his face. "Tell me a story," I beg of him. The crickets croon loudly in the night, making me feel peaceful, quiet and at ease. I have forgotten the events of the earlier night.

He lifts the goblet to his lips and takes a small sip. I watch his Adam's apple bob as the liquid slides down his throat. "What would you like to know?"

"I don't know," I whisper and shrug my shoulders softly. "Anything, really. Something to pass the time here. I don't know if I wish to sleep just yet."

He leans back against the furs of his seat. "Very well. I shall tell you of my family." He lights his pipe with a match and slips it between his lips. I draw my knees to my chest and rest my chin atop them. "I had three other siblings. Iron Coyote, then my twin sisters Gentle Raven and Snow Lion. I am the youngest."

I listen to him intently, my head cocked to the side with interest. "I did not know of your sisters."

He leans against the armrest of the chair. "Snow Lion, or as we call her by her Commoner's name Mairwen, is married off to the one you know as Three Horses. They have a family and Snow Lion is under his name now. Gentle Raven, Lavanya, died when I was five, and she was 7. I s'pose it was some kind of common illness gone rogue."

I bite my lip and lower my head a little. "I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "My mother died the same way when I was seven, my only other sister Snow Lion was nine, and Iron Coyote was twelve. That was thirteen years ago. My father didn't raise us. We were raised by house-maids but were punished by my father. He'd whip us when we did somethin' wrong. When my brother was whipped, he'd sit there an' cry like an infant bein' slaughtered. I'd sit and take it surprisingly well for a young boy, five years younger than my brother. My father took notice of that."

I look up at him in the darkness, admiring how the firelight danced off of his skin so perfectly. "You have many scars on your back," I remark. "Were you punished often?"

He nods, drawing from his pipe a long curl of smoke, then let it fall out of his lips like a smoky waterfall. "I deserved it most of the time—stealin' from the kitchens, gettin' into fights with other kids, and breakin' valuables."

I can't contain my laughter. "But aren't you brought up to steal?" I ask him. "That's what you do. You steal, you fight, and you break. I don't understand why your father punished you for that."

He looks at me in the eye, his lips pursed. "I was touchin' things, I guess, that was already rightfully stolen. I was a hell of a troublemaker when I was a boy. My father admired my fighting skills most of the time, but when I nearly killed the butcher's son for slapping my lil' eight-year-old girlfriend, he kind o' snapped on me."

My mouth drops open. "Well, how'd you almost kill him?"

He closes his eyes for a moment as if trying to rekindle the memories of that particular day. "First, I choked him. Then I brought out my new khopesh, the one that my father gave to me on my eight birthday to practice with, and cut a long gash on his arm. I was about to slice his neck open, but the boy's dad, the butcher, came out and chased me away with a hot iron skewer before I could deliver the blow. I got thirty lashes that night after the butcher went and complained. My father was in a rage."

I find myself biting my nails when he finishes his story. "Do you still know that little girl?"

"I used to be in love with her," Abigor tells me. "White Fawn was her name. We were together until our fifteenth summer. She married another against my will. I willed her to stay with me, and I could marry her. But her father had already sold her. Her husband beat her when she went wrong and showed her no love. When she was pregnant, he beat her for not movin' fast enough, for bein' ugly in his eyes, and for throwin' up regularly in the mornings and making the bathrooms smell. And when she gave birth, it killed her. The child was a stillborn as well."

I feel tears at the corners of my eyes. I can tell that it kills him to talk about her. "And what of the husband?"

"I wanted to kill him," he bit out. "But I couldn't. Because he was my brother."

I reel back in horror. "Your brother married your first love?" I ask him in shock. He nods. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and chew on it softly with my teeth. I can only imagine the pain.

"And," he begins, settling the little glass goblet of wine back on the wooden table beside his chair. "That's why I don't want you anywhere near my brother. If you see him, turn your back and come to my side. He won' hurt you by my side. He wouldn't dare. I not gonna lose you too, Tiger Claw."

I narrow my eyes at him. "But I'm nothing but a whore to you. You don't love me."

He opens and closes his mouth like a fish thrown out of the water. "I-I…um, well. I feel very…strongly obligated to protect you. Don' know why. Just do."

I sigh and lean back against the wall. "So I'm no different than the other whores in the harem, like Cassandra or…perhaps Athenodora?" I watch him thickly swallow as he leans back in his chair. I smirk. "You seemed to be enjoying Athenodora quite a lot last night."

His face turns red in the darkness of the morning, but I can still see the colour of his cheeks. "I tol' you I was sorry about 'dat," he tells me stiffly. "I shouldn't have done that. But the real point to it is that you're different than the other whores. I tol' you b'fore that I t'ought you were a challenge. The others are common lust. What I had with White Fawn was…love, I t'ink. Stupid, young love."

I stretch my legs out on the cold floor. "And with me…it's just a desire of the flesh?" I ask.

Abigor looks at me, contemplating things inside of his face. He's having a mental battle. "With you, Tiger Claw?" He clears his throat. "Both. I want you, but I also want you safe…in my arms. It's where you belong."

I'm surprised by what I hear, and what he tells me—how I belong in his arms, how he wishes me safe, how he wants me. "I don't…"

He cuts me off before I can say more. "You do."

I look down at my bare feet, my legs are hidden beneath the white cotton of my nightgown. I do not look up at him when I speak. "You killed a man for me," I say, my voice breaking the deadly silence. "I never thought…"

He shakes his head, his hair falling into his eyes. It's wet, soft, and unbraided. Strands of black cover half of his face and I can only see one of his beautifully intense eyes staring back at me. It spills over his chest and down to his hips. "No, never," he says in sarcasm. "I'm the king of the barbarians. And I'm the nastiest fucker of em' all."

I'm silent as I stand, letting the chilly breeze float through the window blow my nightgown forward. "Not by what you've told me," I object. "You had a rough childhood."

He watches my every movement as I walk to the counter to pour myself a glass of wine. Abigor waits as I pour the red liquid into my goblet. "Weakness," he growls. "You're a weakness. I can't say no to you. If you were any other person, I'd have fucked you by now. Tell me somethin'—why are you so enticing?"

I take a