A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 12

"Up here!" her voice hissed. He looked up and saw a flushed young woman in a blue dress at the top of the stairs going up to the veranda. At first he could not think who she was although her face was so familiar to him then he leapt out of his chair with a horrified squeal.

"Tashka!"

"Is it nice?" she asked anxiously. "I will come down to you."

When she walked down the stairs she suddenly became ridiculous. She had no idea how to control her skirts, kept heaving them way up above her knees. She was still wearing boots and the heels were catching in some frilly thing that she displayed in all its splendour to his appalled eyes. Near the bottom of the stairs she tripped with a long tearing sound and fell onto the flagstones in the courtyard.

"Sweet Angels of Hell!" she snarled. "Damn this thing to Hell!"

He rushed over to her, hauled her to her feet, anxiously he tilted her head about and examined her grazed hands. Then he looked into her furious slanted blue eyes and suddenly snorted with laughter.

"Shut it!" she growled, embarrassed and angry. "This is what comes of trying to please you! I will never wear such a cursed stupid thing again!" Her eyes creased up in fury.

"I should hope not," he replied, staring at her half in horror and half in laughter. "My Captains have never appeared before me in a dress and I do not think it is an uniform I can approve."

"Holy Hell! I must get out of this!" She started across the courtyard, hitching her skirts up around her lean hips and striding out in a way that made the whole collection of cloths absurd. "Arkyll came into Anna's room and saw me," she moaned. "I know the slack-mouthed child will say something of it!"

Vadya followed her to her room but stopped on the threshold and coughed, saying: "Er, I will wait on you."

She looked miserably round on him then slammed the door in his face so that it nearly skipped off the latch again.

When she threw the door open, she was dressed in a plain white cotton shirt, fawn breeches and knee-high boots. Vadya stood before her in the courtyard and looked pleadingly at her. His brown eyes stared into hers, his generous mouth trembled.

Tashka looked suspiciously all around the courtyard, seized his arm, pulled him into her room and shut the door after him. He had of course never been in her room. He was dimly aware of paintings on the walls and painted curtains like the ones Arianna had, of an elaborately decorated writing desk at the back of the room, some wardrobes to his left but it was evidently the room of someone in the military: box-desk and clothes-chest stacked neatly in a back corner, her mailcoat and weapons hanging glistening on their racks. Even here in her home she slept in a roll of army bedding on the floor with some cushions around it making it a pleasant seating area in the daytime.

He put his back on the wall by her door and she put her hands either side of him and leaned close to stare into his brown face. He had a little scar on his right cheek where he had cut himself once when he fell off Midnight while training him only three months after she had joined his troop. She considered his big shoulders in his loose white cotton shirt, her eyes flicked casually over his narrow muscular hips and the swell in his breeches which hinted at the big cock and balls Arianna had noticed. She allowed the thought of what he might be like as a lover to come into her mind. Her blood ran faster in her veins and she felt a tickling warmth in her sex. She licked her lip. Vadya's eyes flickered.

"So you do not like your Captains to wear dresses," she said thoughtfully, raising her eyes from his groin to his face.

He looked on the tanned face leaning close to his, at her narrowed slanted blue eyes, at her rose-petal mouth with the barely healed cut in it.

"No," he said softly, "and you are my Captain. If you ever come before me in a dress again, I will discipline you for improper conduct."

She stood away from him, her face suddenly lit up with an intense sweet smile. He wanted more than ever to kiss her. She was so happy that she could hardly bear to look on him, only give him a shy glance from under her long lashes.

"So I can come back to Sixth H'las!" she said eagerly.

"Of course not," he said.

Her face fell suddenly, she stared desperately at him. "Oh why not?" she cried.

"Hell," he said. "It has been such sweet Hell to live by your side these three years and deny my passion for you. At the beginning it was easy but now, Maien, I cannot. Angels! in Paviat I am nearly certain sure that I kissed you! You are so beautiful to look on. It has always been a problem, to keep the Lieutenants from passing remarks. How can I discipline them for it when I myself am longing for your kiss?"

"They said things of me, in Sixth H'las?" she asked in surprise.

"No one meant any thing by it," he looked anxiously at her.

"Hmm," she raised a sceptical eyebrow then said, "but it was you protected me from them, you never even let me hear them speaking in that way. You protected me from your own lust too."

The corner of his mouth twisted wryly up. "Maybe," he said, "but your skill with the rapier had a good part in it."

"So you love me for my eyes," she suggested, provocatively flickering her long lashes at him.

His heart fluttered. He smiled. "My Captain," he said gently, "if it were only that, I could forswear it. I am in love with your eyes, yes, but what I cannot control is my love for you. I am in love with your intelligence. It has always been a source of wonder to me, how you can tell what any troop will do from a few pieces of gossip, your knowledge of the army and what you have unconsciously understood of the terrain we are in. It has been a pleasure indeed to train your mind in military strategy, you are a born officer and," he hesitated then said: "I hoped you would become my Major General and stand by my side to work with me the whole of my life."

She smiled wistfully, her blue eyes became dreamy. "Ay," she said. "It would have been my dream too."

"And I am in love with your affectionate friendliness," he went on. "You have been the truest friend to me a man could wish for. Especially after ... Mada died. I love those filthy stories of yours, how you can always make me laugh when I am in an ill humour, how you are always there for me if I have cause to weep. I did wish it that I could have been the one to have your tears, your troubles, but I understand. You never cry with any but Clair or Pava in case others think you are weak because you are a woman."

She looked at him in a kind of wonder that he knew her so well then she said: "And you'll send me away, although I am not weak, for that I am a woman," in a sobbing sort of voice. Her eyes were still dry but they had a hurt look in them that went to his heart.

"No not for that," he said impatiently. "Because I look on you. I wish I had never found out who you are. But my, my dearest friend and ... and my love. I will not have you suffer for it. Come back to H'las with my father and me and have your Commander's banner. You know it well that my father will give you whatever you ask for. If you ask him for the highest position on his strategic staff, he will give it you gladly, he will give it you at double pay! He has said it, you may hold him to his word. If you say you want your own troop and to stay in the field, he will give you that. This stupid marriage must be, because some merchants will be happier if I put a bit of gold on your finger but it means you will be van H'las, not van Sietter. You can take any position in the chain of command that my father chooses to offer you. Except to be my Captain. Damn the Angels, Maien! how I am caught in this craziness like a fly in a web! I love you as truly as any one may love but I cannot have you any longer by my side without I lie with you. I have thought, Maien." His voice shook and he looked aside with tears in his brown eyes.

Tashka stood perfectly still, staring at him with wide slanted blue eyes. His curly head was bowed, his generous mouth trembled. He lifted his head and she saw the tears in his gentle brown eyes.

"Maien," he said huskily, "better I, who love you for what you are, than some scum like el V'lair van Athagine, who would chain you. He would try to make you wear skirts and might even force your favours. I will never force you."

Tashka flicked her tanned fingers and said impatiently: "Forget el V'lair. Skirts or breeches, he does not care s'long as he can pin me. But I never cared about him. Sweet Heaven, el Gaiel, if I was to admit ..." She paused, turning her head and looking intently at him from her slanted blue eyes. It was the same unfamiliar narrow-eyed assessing gaze she had fixed on him in the courtyard. He felt curiously uncertain and shy. When her eyes dipped down from his, he still could not quite believe where they seemed to be looking.

At last she looked away from him completely and said: "I do not want to be a Commander in the field nor go to the strategic staff." She hesitated, fiddled with the plain collar of her white cotton shirt. "I just like to be with you," she admitted.

She turned and looked into his face. His round brown eyes were wide, he stared at her as if he could not believe he had heard her right then she said with a blush: "It was I who kissed you - in Paviat. Afterwards I tried to forget it, thinking I was too drunk to know what I was doing but I know now. I kissed you, because... I was too drunk to hide it; how much I like you," her head dipped and then came up with her eyes embarrassed and laughing and her mouth soft in question, would he, would he not take it badly? Her senior officer. He looked at her lip and his face screwed up. He reached out and touched the mark on her lip where his gauntlet had caught her mouth. Tashka suddenly licked his finger and he started at the soft wet kiss of her tongue. She raised an eyebrow. He could almost hear her husky voice saying: "Shall we move the camp more that way? That wood is an hazard."

"Shall we move more this way?" Tashka suggested. "We can be seen from the window."

Vadya looked sideways at her window and went obediently to the other side of the door. He was aware of Tashka looking at his bottom and hips as he walked, that made him nervous. Then her arms were suddenly around his waist and the small curve of her breasts pressed against his back. He turned in her embrace, looked into her face with passionate eyes, caught her head in his hands and put his mouth to hers.

Tashka's tongue pushed at his lips, her strong arms were wrapped about his waist, her hips pressed hard in on his, pushing him back against the wall, her flat stomach pressed to his. Vadya made a little noise, his lips parted and Tashka's tongue curled in his mouth against his tongue. He held her head gently and firmly in his big hands. Her tongue was moving in his mouth. His lips were kissing at last with the rose-petal lips that were suddenly full of sweet passion for him.

"Maien!" he murmured as their lips parted, his hands still holding her head.

"el Gaiel," she whispered. "Angels' sake! do not let me go! Oh how much I have loved you and if you ever give me the go-by now that I have admitted it, I will die."

"Maien," he whispered, pressing a kiss under her ear. "My love, my love."

He tilted her head to him again, turning to kiss her, feeling her mouth smooth under his and the curling pressure of her tongue against his. Tashka's fingers were tangling in his hair, she held his shoulder in her other hand and pressed the whole of her body with the hard muscles and curving breasts and waist to Vadya's. Her legs were spread about his hips and she was pushing against his cock and balls which were already rising softly in his breeches in response. He hugged her in against him with his arms. Slowly he pressed his hands down over her lean back, he spread his big hands on her narrow waist, feeling the curve of her hips with a kind of wonder at the shape that she was under her loose shirt. His hands moved down to press her buttocks so she would keep up that pressure of her mound against his sex while her mouth pressed hot and wet to his mouth.

As their lips parted this time she said fiercely: "Give me the go-by and I will kill you and then die!"

He laughed, breathily, holding her close to him, insisting to hold her whole body to his body and kissing her many times below her ear.

"You know it well," he said. "I will never give you the go-by. My love, my Captain and my love! I have longed for your kiss since the day I saw you first."

"I have loved you longer than that," she said with a curving lazy smile. "Even when H'las and Sietter were at war, it was my dream to be your officer. I was with Pava in Vail so I could get reports of the action from both sides. I used to look out for the reports of Sixth H'las' engagements and read them secretly and admire your tactical skill. I kept the reports under my pillow to look at in the night!" Vadya laughed to hear that, his arms full of this muscular warm young officer. "Oh, how I prayed for you to take me for your Captain when Pava wrote to you of me. He said it was too dangerous but I made him do it, I was happy to risk being hung for a spy just to have that time under your Command. I had followed your career for so long in the despatches, how I longed to meet you and hear your thoughts on your strategies from your own mouth." She leaned her head back and looked into his face. She did not move her hips from around his, as if she knew how much yearning pleasure he was getting from the pressure of her sex on his sex. (Considering the stories he had overheard her sniggering about to the Lieutenants, Vadya knew she did know.) He held her by the waist in gentle big hands, panting and smiling tremulously. He could not quite believe that she loved him like this yet she was standing in his arms, her blue eyes dark with passion for him and her mound pressed to his cock.

Then she ducked her head and her face became uncertain and embarrassed, she moved away from him. In the midst of his disappointment at losing the pressure on his by now fully erect penis, he worried in case she were feeling it, to stand in the arms of her senior. She lifted her eyes to him, creased in anxiety and embarrassment, and said: "el Gaiel, prithou. You will not tell it to anyone, will you, that I was so desperate for your kiss that I was even willing to wear a dress?"

He laughed then and squeezed his hands gently on her shoulders, turning his own head down in shame. "What," he answered, "and also confess that I was such a scum as to try to force a kiss from you before you were ready to give it then give you a packet of trouble when you would have been willing to be friendly with me. el Maien, what would anyone think of me, to have offered you a glove when you are not only the most beautiful officer of the H'las army but a killer who could have taken out my throat if you wished to. Am I likely to confess what a damned fool I have been?"

She looked across into his eyes with a shy expression of ardent desire that went straight to his heart. When she came to him first from Pava, reporting to him in some silly party clothes she appeared to have flung on from the night before, she had looked on him with exactly that expression of shy admiration. He had been utterly confounded to read such a look in the eyes of a junior officer with such an alluring physical beauty.

He had denied his passion for her ever since. He could not believe now that he had managed to stay out of her arms for three whole years in the field. How often had he lifted his head to meet that warm blue look of admiration across a campaign table of maps. He would turn his head aside, stuttering over his orders while the other Captains waited patiently for him to collect himself. They must have guessed their Commander's and his Captain's feelings each for other - they loved Tashka too well themselves to say anything; they trusted Vadya to respect her junior status and not to cross his vow. But it had been too long, he could no longer forswear the nature of his love for her, and she had been offered to him on the terms of a different vow. He could no longer deny his passion for her body.

She reached her head forward to meet his soft generous mouth, turning into his kiss, parting her lips as his parted. His hands pressed on her back, she felt a warm joy tingling in her skin at the pressure of his fingers on her back and waist. She gripped his shoulder and pulled his head to her with her other hand, moving to spread her hips around his so that she could feel that big cock pressed against her. She could barely contain her excitement at the size of the thing. She had of course realised that her commanding officer was well-equipped - the troopers used to whisper and snigger proudly about it on night-sentry duty and she would clip them round the back of the head and give them some punishment, sternly ignoring the quivers of arousal in her own sex. She gave a little moan of exquisite frustration in the kiss, knowing that however much he might silently enjoy her pressing on him, el Gaiel van H'las would rather cut his sizeable penis off than stain her honour by taking her favour without giving her his ring.

Vadya's mouth moved with hers. He pressed his tongue into her mouth. His hands pressed insistently on her back so that he could pretend he was just hugging her while ensuring she was still pushed hard against him.

When they finally parted they were both breathless, the blood running faster in their veins. His eyes were vague with desire and she was flushed. They drew back from each other, smiling shyly and incredulously. They held each others' hands and stood feeling foolish but unable to let the other go.

"It ... does feel strange, to kiss a Captain," Vadya said with a shy glance at her. He wriggled his hips in an attempt to get his erect penis more comfortably settled.

"Yes, it takes practice," Tashka said impishly. "I think we should practice some more."

Vadya grinned through a sudden warm blush. "I am well willing, Captain-Lord el Maien," he said, pulling her closer again.

"Commander-Lord el Gaiel," she responded mockingly. "Do you order me to kiss you?"

"No," he said, suddenly grave. She sniggered, he was so honour-bound! "but I will ask it of you as a favour from an equal."

She smiled and said boldly, "You may have my favour freely since you ask for it." She put her arms loosely around his waist and lifted her mouth to his again, holding herself back from his groin to tease him - and get the reassurance of his hands pressing her into him in the irresistible desire for her body pressed to his. Vadya kissed her, holding her head and her waist in his big fingers, pressing the wet smooth exciting kiss to and from her mouth, panting lightly in their kiss as he pushed against her back to persuade her to press up against him oh! just a little harder.