Selected for Sport Ch. 11

She didn't mean to whisper, "Please."

His eyes hooded as he stepped closer and seemed to sigh, so softly it was barely audible. "You must remember who rules here, princess. Say it."

She had to swallow before she could croak, "Xanir Tahl," staring at the strong column of his throat inside his open-necked shirt.

"Louder." His hands were gentle on the tie of her halter dress, and he watched the colour flood her cheeks as she fumbled a repeat, his title breaking in the middle. The bright blue eyes darted up to his, anger and fear submerging under growing shame as the soft silk swept down over her curves and pooled on the floor around her feet. Her fair skin was suffused with colour, highlighting the growing tremble in her limbs. A lost look clouded the sparking eyes while she seemed to shrink into herself at the growing whistle of the crowd.

Xanir's hand cupped her cheek gently, the other trailing down the side of her neck toward her collarbone. "Louder," he repeated firmly.

"Xanir Tahl," her voice was chilled with suppressed tears, anger lifting her chin. She felt so cold, here in this warm air. Then a different tingle ran down her spine as feather-light fingers traced down from her collarbone toward her breasts. The tempo of their dance increased with her shortened breaths, and her eyes refocused, a warning, a plea shot from hers to his.

Then Alanna blinked, meaning filtering from the encouraging noises that the crowd were making: they were asking their Tahl to move aside. Heat ran back over her skin and she looked up at him again on the realisation, imploring.

"Xanir," she breathed, her voice breaking as his fingers circled a nipple. She swayed closer to the wide chest shielding her from view.

"Good. Keep reminding yourself, and everyone."

"Xanir!" she cried as his hand closed firmly around one breast, fingers squeezing, teasing. The other was firm against her lumber and she was arching backwards, away from the lips closing fiercely on one tender tip. She cried out again, toes almost leaving the ground, fingers caught in thick hair while unwanted excitement pulsed though her. Her body knew his touch too well, liquefying despite the crescendo of whistles from the audience at the fluttering glimpses as she writhed in his arms.

He knew her body too well.

Tears were tracing to her temples and she was panting harshly, trembling in desire when he pulled her back upright and spun her to face the window.

"Xanir," she begged almost inaudibly while he bent her forwards at the waist, hands firmly positioning hers on the edge of the stone embrasure, longing for the courage to run out from behind the shield of his bulk, run for her own rooms, seclusion, privacy. "Not here, please."

"Louder," he reminded her, and her flush darkened almost painfully. A detached corner of her brain noted that he had explained why he would not heed her: the challenge to his authority had been in public. Hence the punishment would be. She would do well to remember.

A fire of shame and desire was burning along her skin, and she hated the melting tremble in her belly as he pulled her hips back towards him. A hush had fallen in the room, the air seeming to pulse with the anticipation of the watchers straining to see past their emperor while his guards held them against the opposite walls. A sigh of satisfaction swept the room as she cried out when he thrust into her in one swift motion.

"What do you say?" he growled, circling his hips back as he slowly, slowly withdrew. A spark of unaccustomed anger lit in him at the longing whisper of, "look at that ass," from one of the watchers.

"Xanir," she mumbled, chest heaving as she struggled not to cry. A different pang of pity wrenched through him even while he slammed back home, forcing a new cry from her which she managed to strangle breathlessly to end in his name. Then she arched violently back again when his hand snaked between her legs and her voice broke into pleading cries of not here, please not here, please Xanir. Don't make me.

"Keep saying my name," he growled into her ear sternly, and worked his fingers and cock to bring her voice to a helpless, groaning ripple of sound echoing around and around the vaulted chamber. He had trained her body to respond so beautifully to his touch.

Xanir froze suddenly, eyes caught by the scowling figure of the Zalmat guard crossing under the window; the Norveig interloper who Em Feliz was surreptitiously keeping under surveillance.

Had his bride seen him? His mind travelled back to her preoccupied stare out of the window when he had arrived, and he drew a harsh breath. What had she seen?

"Shield wall," he snapped suddenly, breathlessly, his own lust surging eclipsing his control as her lithe body rippled under him, her back arching on a wordless, helpless cry of release. Eyes opaque as the pleasure of her rippling passage swamped over him, Xanir 's eyes flashed at the cries of disappointment around the walls while his and her guards blocked them from view. His hands were fierce on her hips, jerking her back to his plunging thrusts as his own release began to rocket to the surface. He shouted in pleasure, seed exploding in her depths.

Long moments later he gently withdrew from her shaking form and turned to take the carafe of ginger water, pouring some into a glass with slightly trembling hands. Never had his pleasure been so fierce; a small smile was tilting his mouth. It would seem that he loved that their audience could both see and not see.

A gulped sob sounded behind him, a harsh grunt from one of his guards, and Xanir turned, astonished, to see her shaking form sprinting up the corridor to the bridal suite, hands pressed to her burning cheeks. Her own guards were after her in a second, Limaq looking a question back at the grim-faced Tahl, but Xanir was distracted by soft hands on his foot and looked down to Bethesda in full obeisance.

"My lord, she is very young," the Mistress of the Chamber cajoled breathlessly. "And public intercourse is very shameful for her people. Please let her calm down before she apologises."

But it was the stricken panic glimpsed in the bright blue eyes as she ran from him that held Xanir from having his bride dragged back. He nodded a curt dismissal to Limaq, and turned away, slugging back the water in his clenched hand.

***

Near midnight, Em Feliz was arguing fiercely in the privacy of Xanir's chambers. "It may have some bearing on the Siane plot - Rihanne knows nothing, she is just fixated on this insane belief that you will impregnate the Inchotan. Ask your bride what she saw," he demanded.

"After today? She hated that punishment, Emf. You could not feel the tension under her skin - it was a miracle I was able to make her beg at all."

"And yet you did. Multiple times."

"For which she hates me."

"She is but a bride," said Em Feliz. "Her duty is to tell you, if you ask, regardless of her personal feelings. Just as it is her duty to accept and respond to your touch whenever you choose to bestow it. If she lies, there are -."

"Silence," hissed Xanir, and watched in grim satisfaction as his spymaster choked off the end of his sentence.

Then his cousin simply raised angry eyes and retorted, "Xan, I'm trying to help you. You know you have to send her back at the end of the year. Don't get attached."