Chapter 42: Volume 1- [ - 43 ]
The sentence hung in the steam. Both sisters stared at me. Their arousal meters — which had dipped during the hesitation — climbed again. Sera: 68. Lira: 75.
I reached down. Took Sera’s hand. She trembled as I lifted it from where it rested on the copper rim — and placed it on my cock.
Her fingers touched the shaft, and the sensation that ran through her was visible — a full-body shudder that started in her hand and traveled up her arm, across her shoulder, down her spine, and ended somewhere between her legs. Her eyes went wide. Her lips parted. No sound came.
’It is — it is so hot. Hard. Like — like iron wrapped in skin. It is throbbing. I can feel his heartbeat in it. It is alive. It is—’
"My lord—" Sera’s voice was a thread.
"I am sorry to ask," I said, and the embarrassment in my voice was performed so perfectly that I almost believed it myself. "But — it hurts. The weapon I used — the recoil — the force of it travels through the body, and the muscles in the groin seize, and the — the blood pools, and the balls swell, and it becomes painful. Very painful. Like a cramp that will not release."
’His balls are swollen? From the weapon? That is — is that how weapons work? I have never heard — but he is a lord, he would know — and the weapon was like nothing I have seen — perhaps the recoil is different — perhaps—’
Lira’s internal voice was already constructing the justification, building the bridge between ’I should not touch him’ and ’I must help him’ with the eager efficiency of a woman who wanted the destination and needed the road.
"Can you help me?" I asked, and the question was directed at both of them, my eyes moving from Sera to Lira, my expression open, vulnerable, the expression of a young man in pain who was too embarrassed to ask for what he needed. "Just — hold it. Stroke it. The pressure helps. It releases the tension. Please."
Sera’s hand was still on my cock. She had not moved it — had not stroked, had not squeezed, had simply held it the way one holds a hot coal, with the frozen immobility of someone who knows that any movement will make the situation worse and is paralyzed by the choice.
Lira reached over. Her hand joined her sister’s on the shaft — both of their fingers wrapping around the girth, their knuckles touching, their combined grip barely encompassing the circumference. They did not look at each other. Their eyes were fixed on the thing in their hands — the thick, veined, pulsing flesh that was harder and hotter than anything they had ever touched.
"Move your hands," I said gently. "Up and down. Slowly."
They moved. Sera first — her hand sliding upward, the skin of the shaft sliding with her, the foreskin shifting to reveal the fat crimson head beneath. Lira followed, her hand moving in the opposite direction, creating a rhythm that was clumsy, uncoordinated, the fumbling strokes of two women who had never touched a man before and were learning the mechanics in real time.
"Mmmh—" I let out a breath. Let my head fall back against the copper rim. Let my face show the relief that a man in pain shows when the pain eases. "That helps. Thank you. Thank you."
’He said thank you. We are helping him. This is — this is medical. Practical. We are helping him with his injury. It is not — it is not sexual. It is—’
Sera’s internal voice was a fortress of justification, and the fortress was built on sand, and the tide was coming in.
I reached for Lira’s breast. The left one — the fuller one, the one that had been pressing against my arm since she entered the tub. My hand found it beneath the water, cupping the weight, and the nipple stiffened against my palm like a small, hot coin. I squeezed. Lira gasped.
"My lord—"
"Does this feel good?" I asked, my thumb circling her nipple.
’I — yes — it feels — his hand is so big — my breast fits in his palm like it was made for it — the nipple — he is pressing — I can feel it in my — between my—’
"It feels — strange," Lira whispered, and the lie was so transparent that even Sera glanced at her.
I leaned down. Took her nipple into my mouth. The rose-colored peak hardened on my tongue, and I sucked — gently at first, then harder, drawing the areola in, my teeth grazing the sensitive skin. Lira’s hand on my cock tightened — involuntarily, her grip crushing, her body responding to the stimulation by clenching everything.
"Nnngh — hahh—’ Lira’s moan was low, uncontrolled, the sound of a woman whose body was overriding her mind.
Sera watched. Her hand was still on my cock, still stroking in the clumsy rhythm her sister had established, but her eyes were on Lira’s breast — on my mouth, on the way the flesh dimpled under my lips, on the way Lira’s back arched and her head fell back and her mouth opened.
’That should be — that should feel good — when he does that — does it feel — would it feel good if he—’
I heard the thought. Released Lira’s nipple with a wet sound. Turned to Sera. Took her pink nipple into my mouth.
The sound she made was nothing like Lira’s moan. It was a gasp — sharp, high, startled — followed by a tremor that ran through her entire body and ended in her toes, which curled against the copper bottom of the tub.
’Oh — oh gods — his mouth — his tongue — it is — the nipple — I did not know — I did not know it could feel like — it is going straight to my — between my—’
I sucked harder. Squeezed Lira’s breast with my free hand. Both sisters were trembling now, their hands on my cock moving faster, their grip tighter, their strokes growing more confident as the mechanics became instinct. The water sloshed around us, warm and heavy, carrying the scent of soap and arousal and the faint copper tang of blood from Sera’s torn skin.
I groaned. Let my jaw clench. Let my body stiffen — the performance of a man approaching a climax he was trying to suppress.
"My lord?" Sera’s hand stopped. "Are you—"
"It hurts," I said, and the gasp was genuine in its intensity even if the cause was fabricated. "The pressure — it is building — it needs to release — please, do not stop—"
The word ’noble’ landed on the room like a weight. Both sisters’ internal voices sparked simultaneously:
’Noble seed. The books — the romance books — the ones I bought from the traveling merchant — the ones with the woodcut illustrations — the story about the duke and the commoner woman — he said — the duke said — that a nobleman’s seed was different from a commoner’s — it was said to carry the bloodline’s essence — and the woman in the story — she — she tasted it and—’
Lira’s internal voice was a torrent. The book — one of the cheap, poorly bound romance novels that circulated among commoner women in market towns, the kind that featured a nobleman falling in love with a farmer’s daughter and elevating her through the power of his passion — had described the noble seed in terms that were flowery, inaccurate, and deeply, deeply erotic.
The heroine had tasted it.