“Of course,” Elli echoed faintly. She couldn’t imagine getting engaged to the man you would spend your life with at such an early age. Still, it was apparently the Tenebrian way and nobody here seemed to mind it.
“Your turn is next,” the Duke breathed as the couple in front of them stepped through the wooden archway and bowed low before the golden thRoke. “Remember, let me do the talking when you are presented to His Majesty.”
Roke and Elli nodded and then, before she knew it, the man in the feathered hat was speaking in low tones to the Duke.
“And who might these two foreigners be?” he demanded.
“These are Lady Ellilah and her Heart’s Companion, Roke,” the Duke told the Grand Vizier. “They are here because of a special accommodation I arranged with His Highness ahead of time.”
“Very well.” The Tenebrian Grand Vizier appeared to be very old to Elli. His pale blue face was wrinkled and his features sagged like dough. But his faded green eyes were sharp and watchful as he looked at her and Roke.
“Come with me through the arch,” he instructed them in a low voice. “Once I announce you to the Crown Prince, you must bow deeply and then you—” He pointed at Roke. “Must drop to your knees and kiss your lady’s breasts and sex before rising to kiss her lips.”
“Over my clothes, right?” Elli couldn’t help asking.
“I beg your pardon?” The Tenebrian Grand Vizier raised one snow-white eyebrow at her.
“I said, he has to kiss me over my clothes—correct?” she asked. “I mean, he’s not going to have to, er, open my dress and, uh—”
“Oh, of course not!” The Grand Vizier looked shocked. “This is the Formal Introduction, not Bathing Day, after all!”
“Um, of course.” Elli nodded. “Thank you for the clarification.”
The Grand Vizier simply shook his head and muttered something under his breath about, “foreigners.” But the next moment he was ushering them through the wooden archway.
They walked forward about fifty feet and then stopped where the Grand Vizier indicated to bow low before the thRoke. Elli performed a kind of curtsey, as she had seen some of the other women doing, as Roke bowed at the waist.
They rose from the bow and then the big warrior was sinking to his knees before her. He was so tall that this new position still put them almost eye to eye and Elli found that their gazes were locked as Roke bent his head to place a hot, gentle kiss on her right breast.
“So beautiful, my little priestess,” he murmured and she shivered as his warm breath penetrated the crimson fabric and made her right nipple tighten in response.
Roke repeated the kiss on her left breast—again somehow unerringly finding her nipple—and then ducked lower and pressed his face into her skirts.
Elli swallowed a gasp as she felt his hot breath right at the apex of her sex, bathing her secret spot in a way she knew was wrong, and yet somehow felt incredibly good and right.
It seemed to her that Roke spent more time there than he really ought to, but she couldn’t exactly ask him to stop. Besides, if she was honest with herself, she didn’t really want him to stop. His warm breath and the way the big warrior was nuzzling against her was giving her all kinds of forbidden shivers and tingles that ran all through her body.
But nothing lasts forever. At last Roke rose smoothly to tower over her again. Looking down, he took Elli in his arms and pulled her close.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured and slanted his mouth over hers, stealing Elli’s breath with a long, slow kiss.
She could still taste the sweet honey cakes on his tongue, which slipped between her lips before she could stop it. And then she found she didn’t want to stop it—she wanted to kiss him back, to taste him as thoroughly as the big warrior was tasting her. Eagerly, she met his tongue with her own, exploring him as he had explored her, learning his hot, spicy-sweet taste as intimately as he had learned hers.
“Mmm…” Roke growled approvingly and pulled her even closer, sucking gently at her tongue as his big hands roved over her back and sides.
The slow, deliberate kiss made Elli remember their brief time together in the storage closet at the humans’ Christmas party. Once again, she found herself nearly panting with desire, her breasts and secret spot tingling and hot, her whole body alight with sexual need…
But I thought that was only because I was drugged last time, she thought, feeling dazed. I shouldn’t be acting like this right now—shouldn’t be reacting to his kiss the same way I was when the aphrodisiac was in my system…should I?
Before she could answer that question, someone cleared their throat loudly and Roke reluctantly pulled away from her, breaking the kiss.