I wonder if he will sing his Song to me while we are naked, whispered a naughty thought in her head. Allara could just imagine his soft, low humming running over her naked skin like warm, knowing hands…
Stop it—what’s wrong with you? He is the enemy!
Not only that, but she had been frightened to death of him just a few minutes ago! But of course, that was when she’d thought he was going to take her roughly. And before his scent had started working on her again.
I must be careful of his scent—it is as seductive as his Song, she told herself. Aloud, she said,
“I suppose I understand your point. If we take baths together during the Bathing Week, what do we do during the third week? What is it called?”
His golden eyes seemed to glow in the dim bedroom.
“The third week is the Tasting Week.”
Allara shook her head.
“I do not understand. What will I be tasting?”
“You won’t be tasting anything, baby—I will,” he told her. “During the Tasting Week, the Kindred warrior is allowed to taste his bride.”
Allara looked at him in horror.
“You want to eat me? You are a cannibal?” She had heard terrible things about the giant evil ones all her life but the idea that they ate their brides was a new and horrible idea. Maybe that was why he wanted her to take a bath first—so she would be all clean for the cooking pot.
But Brand was shaking his head.
“No, no, no!” he said, chuckling. “No, baby—you have a completely wrong idea. When I say taste, I don’t mean ‘bite’ or ‘eat’—I mean lick.”
Allara frowned.
“During our third week together you will lick me?”
This didn’t seem as horrible as the idea of him actually eating her, but it was still very strange.
“Yes,” he growled softly. “I will.”
“You will lick my fingers, perhaps?” Allara asked, remembering how he had kissed her hands during their wedding ceremony and licked the white stuff from the cake off her fingertips.
He rumbled laughter again but this time there was a sensual note in his voice.
“No, baby,” he growled softly. “During the Tasting Week, I’ll lick your sweet little pussy.”
“My…pussy?” Allara shook her head.
“Your sex. Between your legs,” he clarified.
Suddenly, what he was saying became clear to her. Allara’s heart started pounding.
“You want to lick my forbidden places? But why?” she exclaimed, pressing her thighs together tightly.
Brand’s golden eyes had taken on that sleepy, half-lidded look of desire.
“To bring both of us pleasure, baby,” he told her. “Don’t you have a spot there, between your pussy lips, that feels really good when you touch it?”
Allara remembered the place she had found that day after listening to the moun horn trio at the Song House—the place that felt so good she couldn’t stop touching it until her aunt caught her at it and started beating her with the broom.
“Well…yes,” she admitted in a low voice, almost ashamed to say it.
“Well, then,” Brand murmured, holding her eyes with his own. “Just imagine how good it would feel for me to get between your legs and lick that little spot with my warm, wet tongue, baby. Imagine how much pleasure I could bring you if you spread your legs for me and let me give your soft little pussy a tongue bath.”
His soft, deep voice and the way he was looking at her made Allara feel flushed all over. How could he do this to her? How could he make her body react even when he wasn’t using his Song?
“I…I guess that would feel nice,” she whispered, feeling guilty. “But why would you want to debase your Song by putting your mouth on my body? No man of the Q’ess would do such a thing.”
“Then they don’t know what they’re missing,” Brand growled. “Kindred love to taste their females—we need to do it in order to form a deeper connection with our brides.”
“But—” Allara began.
“Don’t worry about it now,” Brand told her. “That’s not until the third week—remember? We have two whole weeks to get through before you even have to think about it.”
“All…all right.” She nodded uncertainly. “But what happens in the fourth week?”
“The fourth and final week of the Claiming Period is the Bonding Week,” Brand told her.
“And that is the week you will…” Allara swallowed hard. “Will penetrate me and fill me with your seed?”
Slowly, he nodded.
“But not until you feel ready.”
Allara wanted to tell him she was ready now. She wanted to get this over with so that she could plunge her skora into his heart while she still had the will to do so.
“We could…try again tonight, maybe?” she asked, though her throat went dry as she said the words.
But Brand shook his head firmly.
“No, sweetheart—not tonight. Not until we get to know each other and you get used to me touching you and learn to trust me.”