Wind and wildfire mages.., p.38
Wind & Wildfire (Mages of the Wheel), page 38
The magic returned to his skin, flickers of sunlight, racing down his arms, to his fingers, and all the places on his body she wanted to touch, sweeping over his chest and down his stomach then disappearing beneath the place her legs crossed his.
She moved her fingers between them, circling his shaft and he grunted, fumbling for and grabbing her wrists, holding her hands still.
“Wait.” He dropped his head against the back of the couch, and Dilay reluctantly released her hold on him. She concentrated on not squirming her hips to his, not pushing him further, though all she wanted was to pet him, to fill up the empty well of longing that had accompanied her since they met. “There are so many things I was not creative enough to imagine,” he said, running his hands up her arms. “That your touch would make me forget my own name, for instance.”
“Omar,” Dilay whispered. “My Omar.”
She squealed in surprise when he cinched his arms around her and had her on her back on the plush carpet before she even understood what happened.
“Yes,” he said. He rose over her on all fours, and pressed his fingertips to her belly and up, the softest of touches. It bordered on tickling her, but instead of making her squirm in discomfort, she made a little sound of pleading as her skin prickled again.
She dragged her nails down his stomach as he dropped his head to kiss her shoulder, reaching again to wrap her fingers around him. His ragged pant made her shiver, and he looked at her, the muscles in his neck and arms tightening. Light flickered in and out of his pupils.
“Are you all right?”
“Trust me to tell you,” he said. She couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t lose his grip on it at some point, but she did trust him. The aroused part of her kept whispering she didn’t even care if he did lose control. But she did, and so did he. Neither of them wanted that between them. Even in love there was room for privacy. A person’s hidden mind was theirs, the good, and the bad.
Dilay ran her nails lightly down his back. The magic danced and he visibly trembled before he stretched out on top of her. She murmured approval, for the warmth, and the pleasure of his weight and skin on hers, the shift of his stomach against hers, the hot, hard demand of his erection pressed first against the valley of her hip and belly. A little shift of her hips angled him between her legs.
She offered a kiss with a soft brush of her mouth, and he took it, trying to dig his fingers into her hair and stymied by the damp braids. He grumbled in irritation, and she tilted her head to give him better reach. He rose on his knees, pulling her up to sitting and they both worked to undo her hair.
“Don’t lose the pins,” Dilay said when he tossed them carelessly aside.
“I will buy you new ones.” He combed his fingers through her hair as he kissed her neck, urging her gently down again.
“I do not want new ones, I want those,” she said. Omar shifted to peer down at her with raised brows.
“Shall I stop and crawl about the carpet to look for your rusty pins?”
“They are not rusty,” Dilay feigned indignation. “And I would be very amused to watch the Vali Ahad scurrying about—”
He tightened his fingers into her ribs and she shrieked a laugh, trying to wriggle out from beneath him.
“Disrespectful girl,” he complained, shifting down to plant a line of quick, soft kisses along her midsection. Dilay sucked in a few gulps of air as she recovered from the shock of his tickling. She bent her legs up to either side of him, squeezing against his ribs as he kissed his way back up. He nipped her lower lip, then drew a circle over her right breast with his palm, making her moan, drew a line on the underside with the pad of his thumb, then circled her nipple with it as well. Dilay pressed toward him with a throaty sound and he covered her breast with his hand. He repeated it with her left. Then he did the same with whisper-soft kisses, trailing his bearded chin over her skin until she gasped his name.
She was panting when he moved up to hover his face above hers. Magic shone erratically over his body, and she cupped his face. “Are you all right?”
Omar chuckled. He rocked down and collapsed between her thighs as he buried his face into the curve of her low belly and laughed. And she couldn’t help but giggle. Omar nudged his nose and mouth against her skin, then kissed her navel, rubbing slow circles with his thumbs as he worked his way back up to her head, planting a wet, sucking kiss on each nipple. She nearly lunged up to push him on his back, but he covered her, his weight pressing her into the carpet. Dilay twined her legs around his hips, and he edged up another fraction so his erection rested against her core.
She did not want to rush him, but her entire body was a useless throb of want, so she felt half drunk on desire.
“I am surviving,” he answered, kissing the place where her collarbones met. “And you?”
“No. You’re torturing me.” She tightened her legs, rolling her hips up, wishing for much more than little teases of sensation.
“Good torture, or bad?” His face reflected real concern. Dilay took his hand in hers, and avoided his eyes as she guided his hand between her legs.
“Both,” she said, a little shyly.
Omar rolled to his side, pulling her with him and urging her to hook a leg over his hip. He ducked his head to hers, drawing a line along her jaw with his lips. “Show me,” he ordered. She laid her hand over his, directing his touches, whispering encouragement when he tried without her guidance. He moved too slowly, but each tentative circle of his fingers made her push against him, made her breathing more stilted.
She curled her fingers around him to return the favor, keeping her touch light, stroking him from tip to base. He pressed his mouth to her shoulder, and she felt his teeth scrape, a long, harsh moan vibrating against her skin. His fingers faltered in their touch, leaving damp trails along her thigh as he moved his hand to wrap around hers where she held him.
“Dilay”—his hand squeezed hers tighter—“I want…” His words choked off when she stroked again, pulling carefully to settle him between her thighs.
“You want,” she prompted huskily, tightening her leg around his hips.
“You”—he kissed her chin, his hand gripping her hip—“inside you.”
She whispered his name as permission, reaching down to help. He slid in, a smooth, exquisite invasion that made her gasp. Omar rolled her onto her back once more, his hips settling into the cradle of hers, his head buried in the slope of her neck and shoulder.
His breath came in unsteady rhythm. His body taut along hers. He dropped unsteadily to his elbows, withdrawing then returning, and gasped an invocation. Magic glowed steadily on his skin, from beneath his lashes. Her own sparkled over her skin, light like starfall, and he slitted his eyes to watch it, holding excruciatingly still.
She pet him, his chest and arms, focusing hard not to move her hips or press against him, to feel that sweet friction her body yearned for.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice raw. He dropped his head to hers. “I will not admit how many times I imagined you like this.”
“Shall I guess?” Dilay teased. He made an experimental shift, then another lift and return. She whimpered.
“Too many.” He stared at her, a wide-eyed look of wonder on his face that would endear him to her for all her life.
“I have imagined you too.” She slung her legs over his hips again, low to avoid his back, and rested her hands on his neck. When he began again, watching her face as he did, she helped guide him to an angle and rhythm that made her weak and thoughtless. There was nothing but her body and his, how they came together, the sound of his rough breathing mingling with hers, the taste of magic and heat in the air between them. She had not realized how much time she spent buried in her own mind, until this, until she could exist in no other way but with every physical fiber and sense.
Her magic slipped out of her mental control when Omar made a subtle shift in his position, lighting sparks and sun behind her eyes. Every muscle in her body seized, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she cried out and crashed through her own magic. More light flashed above her closed eyes and she opened them to see Omar, lit like a beacon. His eyes met hers for a moment, his own body quaking, then he clamped his eyes closed and shoved up and off her with a strangled curse. Her first instinct was to reach for him, but he yanked away. His magic whipped, light rocketing off him as he shook and gasped on all fours. Then he dropped to his belly, his face buried in his arms.
“Are…are you all right?” The light was fading swiftly to a more subdued glow, and his back rose and fell unsteadily.
For a long moment he did not respond. Finally, he propped himself on his elbows and scrubbed his fingers over his face before he turned to look at her from the corners of his eyes. Red crept up his neck, and his mouth was tight.
“I thought I had control of the magic,” he said, quietly, turning his gaze away again. “Forgive me if I ruined everything.”
“Do you have control now?” she asked. He nodded, and Dilay lay down and squirmed her way under his arm, so her face was beneath his. He tried not to smile, but failed, adjusting a bit so he could kiss her.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” she said, heat rising up her neck. “Did you not feel me, what you did to me?”
He shifted again, hooking a leg over hers, and propped his head in one hand so he could stroke her arm. “I was preoccupied with what you did to me,” he said. He searched her face. “What I did to you was good?”
She could not tell if he was blushing, but there was diffidence in his expression. She traced a muscle in his arm. “Hmm…” she mused. “It was so long ago I can hardly remember. Shall we try again?”
He hummed agreement, ducking his head to her shoulder, and his beard tickled her as he kissed her skin. “Perhaps somewhere other than the floor?”
“You do have an unnecessarily large bed.” Dilay traced the dips between his ribs, and he shuddered. He sat up, urging her to her feet as he stood.
“You should stay in it”—he turned her around so her back was to him and wrapped his arms around her, steering her toward the bedroom—“with me.”
“My city classes resume tonight.”
He huffed impatience. “You will move those to the day. I won’t give you up every night.”
“Oh, will I?” She spun to face him as they made it into the bedroom and he kicked the door shut behind him. She circled her arms around his neck. “Who said I would stay with you every night?”
“You are going to marry me, where else would you stay?”
“I did not say that.”
He hoisted her onto the bed. “You have to do what I say, I’m going to be the Sultan,” Omar mumbled into her neck as he climbed over her. Dilay laughed, pinching at his ribs as he kissed her. “Or I will leave a trail of books between your classroom and here to lure you back every night.”
“Or”—she stroked his hair—“you could agree to a few simple requests.”
“Mmm,” he said in suspicion. He shifted, and traced the line of her collarbones as he watched her expectantly.
“If I marry you, would you want me to leave the University? I cannot,” she said.
“No.” He stroked her cheek. “Of course not.”
“And the school you promised me?” she said, hopefully.
“Schools,” he corrected. There was brightness in his eyes. Teasing and joy. Dilay returned his smile, settling more comfortably beneath him and rubbing her calf along his.
“I won’t be paraded around the palace in choking clothes and sit silent and ornamental while you chatter at your Council.”
“No,” he said. “The palace has plenty of beautiful things to look at, and while you are very beautiful”—he kissed her nose—“that is not why I want you to marry me.”
“Or abandoned in my own suite like an unfavored pet?”
His lashes lowered as he murmured denial, and he reached down to guide her leg around his hips.
“You will open the University to all mages who can afford it and pass the exams,” she said, with more demand, more assured for the desire she saw warming in his eyes. “All of them, not just nobility.”
He proffered a smile. “I will do my best,” he said. “Though you will have to learn to argue with the Council beside me.”
She scoffed. “If I must do your work as well, then I also want a scholarship for gifted children from the lower classes and poor districts to attend the University.” She raised her eyebrows.
He started to reply, but she added, “And I still want access to the palace library, as you promised.”
“Are you finished?” he asked. “Anything else? Your own wing of the palace?”
“Spectacles like yours for the children in my class who need them.”
He made a thoughtful sound. “As you wish.”
“I will marry you,” she said, catching his face between her hands and kissing him. He returned it, first with force, then tenderness, tangling his fingers in her hair. “There is no one else in all of Tamar I would rather stand beside,” she added when he released her.
“Nor I,” he replied. Then his brow wrinkled. “Do you need to go? To prepare for your class?”
“Night is a very long time from now,” Dilay said. “Unless I am keeping you?”
“Keep me,” he said, touching his lips to her brow. “Keep me forever.”
Thirty-Two
BREATHE IN. SHE FORCED THE rhythm as she strode forward when the doors opened before her. Then she had to force it out again at the sight of all the Viziers, lining both sides of the aisle leading to the dais. The Sultan sat there, and on a stool beside him the Queen Sultana. Benches at the base of the dais and perpendicular to it served as seats to the most highly ranked in the court. Omar sat to the Sultan’s left, then Mazhar. On the bench across the aisle, Eymen Demir, the Grand Vizier, then all the Viziers in descending rank toward the doors.
The tap of Dilay’s shoes on the marble seemed remarkably loud. The men did not even whisper as she walked toward the dais. If they had whispered it might have been easier, she was used to whispers. A woman who did not belong.
Omar caught her gaze and winked, and she suppressed a smile. But she did belong. With him. It had come to her in little pieces, every time they were together. That was what mattered. Not the other people in the room, not the fact that her father had refused to speak to her for all of half a day, not that it was new fodder for the people who thought she had not earned the spaces she occupied. Just Omar, and how she had woken up to him in the middle of the night, staring at her with magic on his skin and worship in his eyes.
Dilay stopped between Omar and the Grand Vizier and bowed to the Sultan and his wife.
“Instructor Akar,” the Sultan said, “you seem intent on bringing yourself to the attention of my court.”
She considered whether it was best to remain bowed forward, so he could not see her face, or to straighten, so he could. Omar had warned her that he could be mercurial. She straightened her back and folded her hands in front of her. Beste had lent her clothes fit for an audience with a Sultan, and arranged her hair in a coil at the back of her neck like the ladies of the Sultan’s court wore. She had expected to feel constricted and out of place in such formal attire, stiff, heavy brocade in pale blue, and slippery silk salvar to match. Even the slippers were ornate, with lengthened toes and embroidery. She’d almost tripped and fallen on her face in the hall. A fitting introduction as a potential future Sultana.
But, the clothes felt good. Like armor she had donned, or a disguise. There was, after all, safety in fitting in, one less thing for them to hold against her.
“I am honored to be allowed before you, Sultan Efendim,” Dilay said.
“The Vali Ahad seems to think you would make an acceptable Princess Sultana,” he said. Dilay studied the sapphire pin on his turban. It was the largest stone she had ever seen. Enough to cover the purchase price of half the Earth District.
“He has mentioned that, yes, Efendim.” Her mother and aunts had helped Beste dress her that morning, and Beste had nodded along as her mother imparted the only wisdom she had offered. There is a time to win a battle with force, and there is a time to win a battle with subterfuge. Today was a day for subtlety and deference.
“And do you have an opinion?”
“No, Sultan Efendim. I know only that I love your son, and I love my homeland and this city, and I will serve as best I am able in any capacity.”
Someone made a pleased grunt of approval, which felt like a victory.
“You already serve my city, as an instructor at the University. An odd choice for a woman. Though I am told good things about your skill. How had you intended to raise a family?”
Dilay clasped her hands in front of her. “I had assumed I would not, Efendim.” That garnered her many mumbles of shocked disapproval from the men who surrounded her. She felt penned in, like a horse on an auction block. She wished suddenly that her mother and father were there, so she could look at them. Instinct told her that looking too often at Omar would make her appear weak.
“Why not?”
“I did not believe I could devote myself to a family and to my students.” She knew where he was heading, but saw no way to stop things.
“Do you intend to give up your position if you are chosen as a bride for the Vali Ahad?”
“Not if I can fulfill my duties as Sultana while maintaining my position at the University.”
“Preposterous,” someone guffawed behind and to her left. Dilay curled her fingers into her palms and forced a neutral smile.
“Master Bugra was a full-time tutor for both princes for many Turns while maintaining a position as a Master Instructor at the University. His duties at the palace had him here night and day.”
“He was not participating in decisions of state,” someone else said, purposefully loud enough to carry to the Sultan’s ears.
