TSTA update (Patreon)

Blake’s horse continued through the blasted, burning wastes of Aethiopia. He had traveled far in fleeing the Shadow Cult, far past the clime of his animal, and he feared the deserts they trod would prove endless. But if he perished in this sea of sand, at least the amulet would be forever beyond their reach. He could imagine no other having the forbearance to travel as far and as harshly as he had. 

Blake's reverie was interrupted suddenly by a scream--the high-pitched scream of a woman in mortal fear. Blake pivoted, his eyes darting to locate the source of distress. Again the scream came, this time with great urgency. Two shadowed figures struggled in a grove of palm trees near the base of a sand dune. Without a thought of what he was interfering with, Blake began to ride toward the trees.

As he reached the edge of the grove, he stopped and dismounted. A woman, gorgeous by any standards, was fighting, or trying to, a man who was dressed in a manner befitting a Celt, bare-chested with a white linen kilt down his legs. He had a long, sharp sword of a strange make.

The woman, mostly unclothed, was a classical damsel in distress, straight out of the fairy tales. Her dark hair flew in a tangled fury as she struggled to escape the man's clutches.

But to Blake, she had little hope of eluding such a powerfully built man. Twisting, the woman saw him. Her topaz green eyes pleaded her cause far more eloquently than a thousand words.

Wishing he had the appropriate words to shout, Blake leaped at the two silently. He reached the locked pair and tore them apart with a strong shove that sent the rogue staggering back and the scantily-clad beauty floundering to the ground. He glanced at her, making sure she was uninjured, then turned to her attacker. The sight that met his eyes made him wish he had thought twice before he jumped into the fray like some gallant fool.

He reached for his sword, but the rogue came on, pressing him back. Realizing he would never have the time to draw his own blade and no manner of quick talking was going to save him now, Blake took the only avenue open to him--he did some quick back-pedaling, only to be stopped by the trunk of one of the towering palms. Assured of victory, the rogue stepped forward and brought his glinting blue-black blade downward in an arc directed at the center of Blake's skull.

The strange sword abruptly stopped in mid-air with a loud thud. Blake glanced up to see the keenly honed steel blade lodged securely in an overhanging, bent tree trunk.

While the rogue struggled to dislodge his own weapon from the gripping wood, Blake clenched the pommel of his sword and swung it out of its sheath and into the rogue with all his might. The gleaming black blade sang toward the rogue's side.

The results were predictable.

Finished with him, Blake stabbed his sword into the sand, pulling it out cleaned of blood. He sheathed it and went to the woman. She had dressed, though barely—he had overestimated how much the rogue had stripped her. She wore a simple white dress of the same material of the rogue’s wear, a collar of turquoise jewelry around her neck, and dark blue make-up around her smoky eyes. Sandals showed her feet, her bare toes painted blue, as were the last knuckles of her fingers. It was clear the dress was all she wore—there were none of the undergarments a good Christian woman would have on. Blake could not say he missed them. 

“Are you alright?” he asked her, though he scant expected a heathen foreigner to speak his language.

She looked at him, confused as he might’ve thought, but then said in almost accentless English. “Yes. Thank you.”

“You speak English?”

“Yes.” She smiled at him. “Don’t you?”

He grunted. Clever tongue. He supposed he couldn’t hope to spare himself that. Blake gave the corpse a kick. “Who’s this?”

“A bandit,” she said high-handedly. “Of no particular concern.”

“You dismiss a man’s life easily.”

“You take it easily,” she told him. “I have provisions for a long journey. If you’d like, you can share them. This seems as pleasant shade as we’re likely to find for miles.”

“It could be made more so.” He gave the body another kick, to roll the rest of the way down the dune.

***

The woman, Chay-Ara, was indeed well-appointed. She had a strange sort of mule tied up nearby, another wandering close by that Blake took it the rogue had ridden. He corralled them both and roped them to the trees as she set out a tiny feast for the pair of them. She had a wineskin with contents that tasted far sweeter and fresher than the dank water he had hauled up from the last well.

“That strange beast of yours—you should cut it loose. My assailant’s camel will travel far better under you,” she told him, as her first foray into conversation.

“My stead has served me well. I won’t abandon him in this godforsaken heat.”

“Are you sick?” she asked him. 

“Why?” Blake asked right back. “Did my strength of arms not impress?”

“It’s just… you are very pale.”

Bruce looked down at himself. With the clothing he’d stripped off to make this overwarm clime bearable, his fish-white belly was exposed by a tear in his tunic.

“You are over dark, my lady. I had assumed you’d grown ruddy from works in the fields.”

Her eyes grew large. “Work in the fields? I am a princess of the House of Hathor! I do not labor like a common slave!”

“Then what are you doing so far from shelter? I should think even a burnt creature like yourself would need food and water, and in greater abundance than what you carry.”

She bit her lip and thought fiercely. “I come from a far-off kingdom—though not so far-off that we are not touched by the sun. I come here to wed the Pharaoh.”

“Seems like a simple enough task,” Blake commented.

“We were set upon by raiders.” She nodded to the fallen rogue. “His like. I rode away. Someone should’ve come looking, but it’s been days. I suppose I’m the last of the caravan.” She looked at him bluntly. “If you take me to the East Kingdom, my groom will reward you handsomely. I should think even a bleached creature like yourself would need food and water, and new clothes that have not tasted the road.”

Blake picked at a frayed thread on his trousers. His clothes had known years and years, but he still disliked the thought of accepting payment for a good deed. Especially when his king had already charged him with a task. “Don’t speak of payment. Just tell me this. Where is your East Kingdom, exactly? Does it lie northerly? Or to the south?”

“The south, good sir. Far, yet—we were not truly into our journey when we were ambushed.”

Blake nodded tersely. “Good. The further away from the north, the better.”

“That is where you come from, then?”

“Yes.”

“Do you flee some crime?”

His eyes burned as he looked at her. “I have not nor will I dishonor myself! I head south for the good of all!”

She was unperturbed by his outburst. “I can believe it.” 

***

"Blake, look! There—by the roadside—a rose!" Chay-Ara's excited words drew him from his idle thoughts of the past, and the strange events that had driven him from his home. He sooner would’ve believed himself a criminal as well, over the truth.

Tugging his loyal horse to a halt, Blake watched as the girl slid from the back of her mount and trotted toward the deep red bloom.

Chay-Ara had been more than valuable during the week's journey from their first meeting. Her knowledge of the terrain had saved him at least a week's extra ride. And her outdoorsmanship had provided a ceaseless variety of delectable repasts each evening. Not to mention her companionship. The girl was a veritable wealth of information about Aethiopia. During their endless hours of bouncing on the backs of their sturdy steeds, he had never tired of her explanations of various sights they passed, foolish pagan superstitions though they were. 

"Look, Blake!" Chay-Ara panted as she remounted her camel "This is quite a rarity!" the girl exclaimed, holding the carmine flower out for his examination. "Some say the petals can be crushed and the slightest drop mixed with wine forms a powerful elixir—an aphrodisiac."

Blake smiled at his impish companion, "What would you want with a love potion?"

"I have no need of such a brew." She glared somewhat contemptuously at him. "But there are those that do!"

Her heels nudged her mount forward without another word. The girl's eyes stared straight ahead as she settled to the back of her camel. The rest of the day's journey continued in much the same manner. The silence irritated him for some strange reason. Even when he suggested they stop for the night, she merely grunted and gave a curt nod of her head.

***

She showed sense, or as much as a woman ever possessed, once he’d built a fire that lit up the small well they’d come to. Blake was using the second camel to haul, among other things, a bundle of sticks from the last oasis, but he knew the supply wouldn’t last. He could only hope the sand ended at some point. Some days it felt like it had swallowed the entire world, and he had no home to go back to even if it weren’t for his obligation.

As if she could see his thoughts of home, Chay-Ara spoke up. “What does bring you out here, so far from your own kind?”

“It’s been a week,” he said, and saw dawning incomprehension on her face. As well-educated as the princess was, he was her first true English speaker. “Seven days. Is that how curious you are?”

“I had thought you did not desire to talk about it.”

“That I’m embarrassed?” he asked her, and she gave a hesitant nod. 

Reaching into his pack, Blake brought out the strongbox. “The Amulet of the Dead. Were this to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used for unspeakable evil. The further away it is from those hands, the safer we all are.”

“Why not just destroy it?”

“Can’t be done. The magic inside it would prevent it.“

“Then it must be hidden.” She looked at him ponderously. “Is there no place in your home it can be hidden?”

“None that can be trusted.”

“Then why not simply bury it here? Surely, in the middle of the desert, no one could find it.”

“Not today or tomorrow, perhaps. But years from now? Haven’t your people grown in your lifetime? How many lifetimes would it take for my people to reach yours, and for the Shadow-Cult to look here? No. If I make it to the ends of the earth, there I can bury it. Assuming I’m not able to simply throw it over the edge—“

"Do you think I need an aphrodisiac to win a man?" she interrupted as he sat on the ground near the fire.

Suddenly, Blake felt a sharp pain in his hand. He jumped up, saw a scurrying black shape flying from where his hand had laid, and hit the well as he backed away. His hand burning, he toppled over the brickwork and down into the well, not stopping until the cold water embraced him.

Minutes later, he managed to climb up using the goatskin and rope that Chay-Ara sent down. She pulled him the rest of the way out as soon as he was high enough, and wiped the blood from his wound with her dress. “It’s not poisonous,” she said. “But it needs to be cleaned and bandaged to stop infection.”

“What was it?” he asked.

“Just a scorpion. Sit. The swelling will go down soon. Nothing to worry about.”

“No,” he told her.

“No?”

"No," he assured her in a soft but determined voice. "You have absolutely no need of that rose you found today."

"Are you sure?" she questioned, as she wrapped a white bandage around his hand and tied it securely.

"Yes," he replied letting his eyes linger over the gentle curves of her body a little longer than necessary. "You are very beautiful. Probably far much more than you realize."

"And I have no need of the rose?" she continued.

"None at all," he smiled.

"Good," she grinned, then changing the subject. "You're shivering!"

"It's the coolness of the night and these soaking wet clothes," he answered.

"Get out of them and get into your bedroll. That'll get you warm," she commanded.

Following her directions, he lifted himself from the ground and walked to his laid-out bedroll. With a little bit of difficulty caused by his stiffening arm, he managed to strip down to his undergarments, then prepared to climb into the soft bed.

"Get that off, too!" Chay-Ara ordered from behind him. "I don't want you catching a cold."

Glancing over his shoulder, he sheepishly grinned at the girl, realizing he had never fully stripped before her during their week together. But shrugging his shoulders, he pulled the garment down, and dropped it atop the pile of his other clothes.

Chay-Ara walked to his side and gathered up the wet clothing and began laying it out before the fire to dry as he once again prepared to get into his sleeping bag.

"Did you know that these sleeping bags are of a special design?" she suddenly questioned.

"No," he answered, studying the bedroll with a puzzled look.

"They are," she continued in a nonchalant voice. "They are designed so they can be fastened together into one large bag—big enough to hold two people."

His groin lurched at the words that he had just heard and he turned to the girl still arranging his clothes by the fire.

Somewhat unbelieving and astonished, he questioned, "Chay-Ara, did you just proposition me?"

Innocently, her eyes met his and she replied, "I know nothing of propositions, but there is a tradition that if a man saves a young woman from danger, he has the right to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Twice now you have saved me from death and yet you have refused to exercise your privilege. I think that I have need of my rose."

"You don't have to use that damned flower," he said, trying to think of some polite way of telling this girl, that had just offered to jump into bed with him, that they could never be together.

"Is it because I'm a virgin that you find me so unattractive?" she puzzled.

Virgin! The word blasted through his mind leaving him slightly more than a little unsure and confused. Fumbling for some answer, he blurted out, "A sleeping bag in the middle of the desert is no place to be offering your maidenhead.”

The words sounded every bit as foolish to him as they were. He was just too flustered by her offer to actually think about it.

"Is that what you think?" she exclaimed. "Do you think I need soft sheets and a perfumed cushion to enjoy myself? Or perhaps it’s you who can only enjoy yourself that way."

Suddenly faced with the realization that he was about to have his first confrontation with a virgin in a very large number of years, he walked to the girl still kneeling by the fire.

"Would you like to show me how to put these sleeping bags together?" he said, holding his hand down to her.

The helping hand wasn't needed. A bundle of very pleased and very lovely woman sprang up and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her lips pressed against his in a loud and wet kiss.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I knew you would be the one. I knew it!"

He grinned into the sparkling eyes before him, "I'm the one that should be thanking you. It's not often I get an offer this hard to refuse..."

Her lips smothered his once again and her tongue flicked over his tongue.

When at last she pulled away, he continued. "Twice?” She moved to kiss him again, but he stopped her. “No, I mean, you said I’ve saved your life twice. I only saved you from that highwayman. Since then, you’ve saved me, finding water, preparing food, navigating our course.

She laughed. "Warm yourself by the fire, Sir Blake, while I prepare the sleeping bags. You can ask me that another day."

Slipping herself from his arms, she trotted to the bags and began to button them together. Completed, she slid into the one gigantic bag and signaled him to join her.

Chuckling to himself in disbelief, he did just that. Any doubts he harbored did little good against the incentive she offered, and soon was forgotten as he felt Chay-Ara's warm body snuggled against his side.

"I want you," she whispered softly in his ear.

His lips covered hers in answer. Teasingly his tongue parted her willing lips and darted into the warm sweetness of her mouth. As their tongues toyed and played with one another, his hands roved over the sleek smoothness of her body, soothing and gentling her; yet at the same time, letting her know that he knew what was coming next and would lead her into pleasures that had lain dormant in her young body.

His every movement was slow and deliberate, allowing her time to get used to a man's caressing hand on her body. He had no intention of displeasing this girl who so openly offered herself to him. Tenderness was the watchword to his foreplay. He was in no rush to ravish her. They had the night for their love-making, and if it took that long to have everything right, he would take it.

He realized that his performance, not hers was what mattered tonight. The first sexual experience for a woman determined what would develop and grow later. For the man plunged himself in like he was striking a killing blow, there was the reward of a totally cold, frustrated woman who hated the very thought of having sex. But for the man who was willing enough to care of his woman, to take the needed time to soothe her fears and understand the strangeness of the first sexual encounter, there was a woman waiting that enjoyed and needed sex as much as he did.

It was this knowledge that guided Blake's every motion. His mouth left her lips only when her breathing increased and she was ready for further stimulations. Then his lips, tongue, and teeth teased and taunted their way over the gentle slopes of her neck and shoulders.

When her moans deepened with desire and her body writhed its softness against his, he allowed his hands to tenderly slip from her back and arms, and lightly cup her firm breasts. Likewise, there was no roughness to his manipulations. Soothingly, his palms and fingers stroked the silken-softness at the base of the twin peaks until they heaved with desire for his touch. Then he prolonged the light swirling of his experienced fingers as they travelled up the trembling mounds. His deliberately slow titillation of this willing girl brought whimpers of delight from her lips as his fingertips sought and found the quiescent nipples perched atop her proud breasts.

Awakened to the touch of a man, her body strained to increase its closeness to his. Trembling and quivering with a new found arousal, she moaned and nibbled at his ear, letting him know that what he was doing was good.

But all the pleasure was not hers. As he gave, he received. Aside from the fact that he had one hell of a desirable woman beside him, and one who wanted him, he was filled with the fact that he was igniting never-before-felt emotion and desire within her. Feelings and desires he understood and helped her to attain to the fullest.

Moving downward with his mouth, his lips and tongue replaced his hands on her sensually warming breasts. Once again she gave a series of whimpering little pleasure cries as his tongue lavished soft caresses over and around the sensitive buttons that his fingers had brought to a plump hard stiffness. When at last he sucked at the sweetness of her breasts, he did so gently, but with enough force that she knew he desired her as much as she did him. Moaning in deep satisfaction, her back arched to him trying to force more of the willing flesh into his mouth. An offer which he did his best to accommodate.

While his mouth busied her now fully fired breasts, his hands stroked up and down the velvet curves of her sides. As his fingers moved toward the firm flat plain of her young stomach, he soothingly danced little swirls to calm the quivering anticipation of the unknown. Easily, his hand and fingers played and reassured her for his next moves.

Slowly, but with gentle determination, he allowed one of his hands to slide to the summery warmth of her supple thighs. The girl moaned with the new intimate contact of his exploring hands, realizing he was inching his way closer and closer to his ultimate goal. He fondled and teased the outside of her thigh until her legs spread to him, voluntarily and completely under their own desire. But still he soothed and assured her, not wishing to move in too soon.

Far from remaining motionless, her hands explored the muscular expanse of his broad back. She was thrilled as she felt the thick muscles roll beneath the manly feel of his skin. Almost in imitating fashion, she allowed her hands to follow the direction of his.

Lovingly she caressed the fullness of his shoulders, then drifted her fingers to the forest of hairs sprouting on his chest. Tickling her way through the curly mat, she found his nipples as he had found hers. Lightly rolling them with the tips of her fingers, enjoying feeling them come alive under her ministrations and grow to hard little pebbles of desire.

Unhesitant about her explorations, she followed the path his hands were taking on her body, only on his. Her hands glided softly down his sides and played among the hairs on his hard stomach. Likewise, she rubbed the warmth of his thigh and even allowed her fingers to trace over the contours of his taut buttocks. Her pleasure soared as he moaned and pressed tightly against her. Gooseflesh rippled along her body as she felt the hard length of his sex roll aroused over her thigh. She realized that it was stiff and erect for one reason and only one reason—her!

Continuing his teasing caresses, he moved his palms into the warm softness of her inner thigh. As the girl he now controlled groaned with increased desire, he stroked over the tender smoothness. Higher and higher, he worked his hand, allowing her to accustom herself to its tantalizing touch. Then when she was prepared for it to move to her waiting mound of willingness, his palm floated over her vulva, barely tickling the down there and repeated the same gentle caresses on her opposite thigh.

"Ohhhh," she moaned in a throaty, aroused voice of passion. "God, it feels soooo good. Please—please touch me!"

Then, and only then, did he allow his hand to glide to the waiting mound. Lightly, he encompassed the quivering vulva with his hand, feeling the excited thrill of pleasure shoot through her body and exit from her trembling lips as pleading little whimpers.

His hand moved with a pressure that was no more than a soft petting of the silken down covering her sex. Gradually, as she moaned and writhed her approval, he increased the force of his fingers and palm to a healthy fondle. Her body trembled and quaked in response and was asking for more.

Obliging, he now massaged the willing mound in a steady almost kneading fashion. Her lips and teeth that nipped delightfully at his neck, told him that she had accepted his touch, loved it, and wanted more.

The dampness that welled from her newly excited depths and touched his massaging hand signalled that she was truly ready for him to proceed. As he worked back and forward on the trembling swell of her cunt, he slid his index finger into the crease of her labia and ran it lengthwise up and down the heated slash. Each stroke brushed against the awakening button of her clitoris, igniting a fire of passion that could be satisfied by but one method. Her moans and groans of desire told him she was prepared for that.

Once more possessing her mouth with his lips, he rolled atop the willing girl. His hand continued its pleasurable stroking and massaging until he felt the tenseness escape from her body.

"I am ready," she urged in a deep passionate voice. "Now, please, I am ready for you in me!"

Reaching out with his massaging hand, he grasped the thick end of his cock, while he used his thumb to open the entrance to her vagina. Gently, he guided the swollen pole of his sex into the outer lips of her labia. Throbbing in the liquid beat of her excitement, he lay motionless letting her feel the demanding smoothness of his cock.

He lifted himself above the girl, so that he was fully raised on his extended arms. He smiled down at her assuringly.

"I’m coming to you now," he whispered, allowing her to prepare for his entry.

Her eyes sparkled back at him and she urged him on with her reply, "All at once. I want you all at once!"

His buttocks drew taut as he prepared for the thrust that would follow. His breath sucked in deep. Then he lunged!

In one swift, fluid surge, he sent his cock against the thin membrane of her hymen, the last guardian of her virginity. The head of his rod felt the slight resistance she gave as he shot through into the exquisite tightness of her soft virgin channel. Immediately he was aware of the tenseness in her body as a sharp blast of pain coursed through her open nerve endings at the breaking of her maidenhead. Motionless, he lay within her as the walls of her vulnerable cunt closed tightly around the bulky invader.

"It hurt!" she moaned. "It hurt and it feels so big!"

"Yes," he whispered, in an assuring tone. "I know, but it will never hurt again. I promise."

Remaining motionless until she relaxed, he then eased his shaft from the opened mouth of her belly. She groaned with the sudden movement and tightened again. As she relaxed, he once more slid back into the liquid warmth of her caressing sex. There was no blocking hymen to cause pain this time and her moans came only from the strangeness that filled her cunt that was unaccustomed to accommodating a man. The thick flow of lubricants he had so carefully set in motion by his extended foreplay protected the delicate walls from any irritating friction.

Again and again, he eased the swollen length of his cock in and out of her. By the sixth stroke, her moans came from the stirring desire that licked out from her core.

Easily he lowered himself back to the awaiting bed of flesh beneath. He felt the head of his shaft jerk and nudge the elastic walls surrounding it, as his chest made contact with desire-hardened pinnacles of her breasts. His lips lightly touched hers and his tongue tenderly flicked over the full luscious lips it found.

"It feels good," she whispered almost in a surprised voice and wiggled a little, rolling the satin-covered pillows of her breasts against him.

"Very good," he said in between a flourish of small kisses.

Her belly was hot and yearning against his now, as he continued to pump slowly in and out of her cunt with increasing ease. He savored the little tremors of heightening desire within the girl. She moved beneath him, pushing her pelvis up against him as if exploring what her own body was capable of. She twisted and writhed in small undulating motions around his cock, moaning softly with pleasure as she did.

Leaning a little to one side, he managed to slide a hand down between them. Her moans were demanding when his fingers found the splayed lips of her sex. Probing into the warm, moist crease, he found the extended node of her clit. Her body quaked with a provocative tremor as he touched the aroused button.

Intently circling the pleasure-laden bump, he fanned the flames he had ignited previously. Her body responded, pumping rhythmically with the motion of his hips.

Pulling himself out, he paused momentarily to watch her body quiver and her eyes open questioningly. Smiling in answer, he sent himself plunging back into resilient folds of the cleft of her loins with a force equal to his hymen breaking entry. Her body trembled under the excitement of the impact. She groaned under the dual stimulation of having a man slam himself into her and the massaging finger that skillfully manipulated her clit.

He wrenched free, his exit leaving only the throbbing crown of his aching prick within the outer lips of her cunt. He listened as her breath sucked deeply, fully aware of what was to come next. Then he gave it to her, driving deeply into the warm, wet cavern of her belly.

Her desire-filled pelvis leaped up to greet his entry. There were no longer any traces of fear or pain. The clinging walls of her sex now knew a man and wanted him.

Steadily increasing the speed of his strokes, he pumped himself into her belly. In long, hard, deep driving plunges he delved into the sweet wetness of her unexplored recesses. Their crotches slapped wetly as he slammed into her. With each lunge she seemed to open up and accept a little more of his length into the well of her body.

Her body rocked and bucked, matching his drilling strokes when he felt the first, of a long series of tight contractions grip his cock in desperation. Abandoned in her passionate fever, she cried out her lust as the hurricane winds of her first orgasm tore her mind and scattered its pieces throughout her body.

Despite his fight to hold back the boiling load he had accumulated during a week of lusting after her, his strength fell like the breaking of a gigantic dam. Pure animal lust seized him as his cock was squeezed time and time again by the pleasure-controlled channel that held him in its hot depths.

He grunted and groaned as he poled his shaft deep into the clutching vagina. He slithered in and out at a reckless speed, until the explosion that raced from his balls, seared out over the passion-inflamed head of his cock. Quivering and trembling in spasms of unleashed passions, he clung to the girl beneath him, as she in turn held him close.

Together, locked in violent, frantic sexual pleasure, they rocked and groaned under the cover of their tandem sleeping bag; until, at last, the soothing, washing waves of fulfilment lulled them back to the soft gratification of their love-making.

As he attempted to withdraw his deflating cock, her arms held him to her. "Stay in me. I'm not ready to feel empty again so soon."

Lightly kissing her eyelids, he rolled to his side, taking her with him so that his cock remained entrenched in her come-soaked cleft.

As was inevitable, the sleeping snake at his groin eventually slid from the warm softness of her belly. But by that time, Chay-Ara was asleep with a smile of contentment on her lips.

***

The high-pitched screech pierced the misty halls of his sleep. It continued and continued to drive into his dreams. Annoyed he rolled to his side, groaning as the small pebbles beneath the sleeping bag tried to bite extra-large chunks out of his sides. His eyes fluttered open. A disgustingly happy face loomed above him. It descended, lightly kissing his lips.

"Good morning, milord," Chay-Ara greeted him, with a cheerfulness that melted a large portion of his aches and pains.

Reaching up to manoeuver her lips back to his, his arm was suddenly gripped by stabbing pains of flashing lightning, "Ohhh, my arm! Damn! It feels like there's a whole hive of bees in there."

Her satin fingers gently caressed his cheek, soothing some of the pain. "Your sleep was restless during the night. I was afraid the scorpion’s sting had done more damage than I expected."

"More than I wanted," he tried to smile. "But all that's wrong is a little stiffness. It'll heal."

"Good," she replied, letting her nipples brush lingeringly over the surfaces of his chest as she leaned over him. "I would hate to think of anything serious befalling you."

"So would I," he grinned back, fully enjoying the summery warmth of her body next to his. "This tandem sleeping bag idea of yours is proving popular!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed it... I did," she whispered, lowering her lips to his for another fleeting kiss. She purred softly as the firm cones of her tits flattened to fleshy balls against him and rolled slightly. "I was hoping that you would suggest we keep this arrangement."

He grinned at the sparkling, almost green, hazel eyes that begged with pleading innocence to him. "I suggest, if it meets your lady's approval, that we allow our sleeping arrangements to remain the same while on our journey."

“I would like that.” She licked her lips, but didn’t bring them to his again, much as he could see the desire in his eyes. “Blake?”

“Yes, Chay-Ara?” he replied obligingly.

“You don’t intend to stay in the palace… even if I were to offer you a place at my side? Even if I were to give you everything you desire?”

He shook his head, hating that their happiness had so soon turned back into… this. “It’s not about what I desire. I have my task. I must attend to it.”

“As I must marry the Pharaoh,” she said. “But I don’t want to. I want to stay with you, as you travel the world to the ends of the earth and fulfill your duty. I want this sleeping arrangement to remain the same for the rest of our lives.”

“Chay-Ara,” he said softly. “You’re a princess. A hard ground and an uncertain road are no place for a princess.”

“Then let me not be a princess. Blake, when did you save my life?”

“When I killed the robber accosting you.”

She nodded. “That was the first time. The second time was when you took me with you, spoke to me as a woman instead of as a dowry, treated me as companion instead of cargo. There were no highwaymen that attacked the caravan. I left in the night, determined to have my freedom or die trying.”

“Chay-Ara!” he said, horrified. “Starvation is a horrible way to die.”

“Would I not starve in the palace? Bereft of love? Of you?”

“Come with me then,” he said. “Don’t let me starve either.”

The kiss she planted firmly on his lips and the swirling tongue that pushed its way into his mouth was a far cry from the light pecks she had awakened him with. He felt the old familiar stirrings in his loins.

"I get the idea that the Princess would like a repeat of last night's performance," he suggested, when at last they parted.

Her eyelids fluttered toward the ground in mock-embarrassment, "I would never be so bold, good sir knight. As you said, I am a princess and such conduct would not befit my station!"

"You delightful tease," he laughed, pulling her to him with his good left hand. "Admit it. Admit that you want it as much as I do!"

"Admit that I want what, milord?" she continued her show of innocence.

His hand slid down the tepid smoothness of her skin, pausing briefly to fondle the bulging side of her breast that squeezed out from their tightly pressed bodies, "Admit that you loved every minute of last night. And having had your first taste of a man moving inside you, you can't wait for the second!"

"I'll admit no such thing. It wouldn't be ladylike... Ohhhhh," she moaned as his hand wedged its way between her legs and roughly squeezed her vulva.

He increased the pressure of his fingers as he kneaded the thick lips of her cunt. Dampness wetted his fingers—warm juices that announced what her playful attitude would not.

"Admit it," he repeated, enjoying the noticeable increase of her moans.

"No," she persisted, grinding her undulating pelvis into the palm that surrounded her trembling pussy.

Without warning, he popped his index finger into the hot hole of her sex. The heated chamber of her vagina enveloped the invading digit in clinging folds. She groaned and twisted under his impalement of her. Her eyes fluttered closed as she mashed the yearning pillows of her breasts over his chest.

Delighting in the control he commanded over this young and very willing girl, he slithered his finger in and out of her. "Admit it!"

Her crotch pumping in rhythm with his drilling attack, she panted out, "I admit it--yes! By the Gods, yes!"

"Yes, what?" he teased, fully enjoying the game they played.

His probing finger swirled around within the silken interior of her heating cunt. Urgently, he stirred the flow of warm, thick lubricants that welled at his touch. Her hips jumped to meet his new ministrations. She writhed and fucked herself on the finger that had penetrated her trembling hole.

"Yes. I admit it. I admit it!" she added in near desperation as his attack stirred and renewed the desires he had first ignited last night.

He slipped another finger into the cleft of her loins. Allowing it to dip momentarily into the flowing bath of her sexual juices, he glided the moistened fingertip to her clitoris and proceeded to taunt it to a lust-plumped button by twirling around it in rapid flourishes.

"Admit what?" he continued in a voice that imitated her own previous attempt at innocence, prolonging his teasing torture.

"I -- admit that... I-I want you!" she groaned in a near fanatic fever of passion and lust.

His own want had made itself self-evident in the jutting form of his rearing cock that throbbed at a forty-five degree angle from his loins. Just as his taunting torment of pleasure had aroused this womanly bundle of new found sensual yearnings, it had also brought his desire to a full, blood-gorged head. He savored the dominance he had over her willing young body. He thrilled at his power to bring her to submissiveness.

"But I'm here and you have me," he teased even further. "What do you want?"

His finger drilled deeper into the liquid heat of her wanton cunt. He rubbed lasciviously at her lust-inflamed, extended clit. His palm and remaining finger squeezed hard over her heated mound of love. Her whole body quaked with feverish tremors of desire.

"I want... I want..." she groaned from the depths of her throat. "I want this!"

Her hand clamped like a vise around the thick circumference of his cock, making sure there was absolutely no doubt left as to what she wanted and had been teased and taunted into begging for.

His whole body was jolted by electric thrills as her demanding hand tugged at his pole. His prolonged torture of pleasure had resulted in the effects he had sought. For the first time, she had reached down and touched and held the ponderous rod of his manhood. Her first step toward the delights she would learn and love to perform to give a man her body—her whole body, completely and with no avenues left closed.

Lovingly, her hands slid up and down the throbbing length of his manhood. Her body trembled and quivered at the intimate contact of virile masculinity. She thrilled and quaked at the power it conveyed to her exploring fingers. She moaned at the touch that was a magnificent combination of demanding, adamant hardness, and yet was smooth and sleek and warm.

Rolling her to her back, he slid atop the young excited body. He felt the shivers of her anticipation race through her full length. His mouth covered hers and his tongue dueled over the whipping softness of her own. His one good hand pushed between them and covered the flattened cone of one of her breasts. Within seconds, he pleasingly busied the resilient fleshy pillow and tweaked the taut nipple at its crest.

Beneath him, still clutching the hard rod of cock, her thighs voluntarily opened to an inviting V. She groaned as his thighs dropped to fill the space vacated by her supple legs. She writhed as the gorged crown of his shaft nuzzled and prodded at the soft down-covered mound of her passion.

"I want this!" she repeated her earlier begging and once more tugged at the pulsing column of sex now so close, but so far.

As she held him, he wiggled his hips slightly and groaned in unison with her as his glans found its mark and easily slipped between the pouting outer lips of her labia.

Then he gave it to her. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he drove forward. Racing like a battering ram of flesh, his cock into the sweet cleft of her cunt as if intent on rending through the protective wall of her hymen. But there was no longer a maidenhead to provide the least bit of resistance to his entry. There was no longer the jagged shooting pain of a lost virginity. Gone, too, was the fearful anticipation of the unknown.

There was the complete feeling of a woman as he packed himself into her body. There was the hardness. There was the fullness and the satisfaction as the demanding stiff invasion rammed its way into the deep reaches of her enfolding cunt.

Her hands grasped his taut ass cheeks and strained to pull him deeper into her clinging channel. Her hot belly arched up and thrust itself onto his crotch, trying to impale herself further on his lance of manhood.

Last night they had made love. Today they fucked in an abandoned want for each other.

In animal-like hunger, he battered into the soft lips of her open cunt. Each hard stroke seeking and finding the new untouched depths of her yearning channel. Deeper and deeper he thrust into the soft recesses of her hot pussy. He slammed into the hunching mound of sex, spraying its lips wide under the heavy impacts of his crotch.

The thickening lips of her cock-hungry cunt followed every movement of his shaft. Lovingly caressing the length of his commanding member, they flowered outward in a tight pink ring of clutching muscles. Then the wanton mouth closed as he rammed forward, driving the flowing lips back into her.

His balls slapped sweat-slicked at the bottom of the slash of her cunt as he drilled into the welcoming hole of her desire. Gripping his length, the soft, silken channel closed around him in humid warmth. She squeezed and warmly trapped his cock.

She moaned and writhed against the body above her. The globes of her breasts squirmed at his chest, drilling their stiff nipples into his skin. He speared into her and her pelvis bucked up to gather more of the swollen shaft that dominated her body.

As her fingernails bit into the demi-globes of his rock-hard ass, he pounded violently into her. His pelvis ground into her fully aroused clitoris, forcing further groans of lust from her quivering lips.

In the sensual desperation of her near climatic condition, she twisted and bucked with a reckless abandon that matched his own. As he drove her closer and closer to the threshold of release, she seemed to find the control of her vaginal muscles and squeezed. Tighter and tighter the puckered ring of pink lips clutched at his staff. Her cunt seemed to milk and suck at him, lovingly and flowingly.

Her now ecstatically wild whimpers, moans, cries and groans announced the nearness of her coming. Wanting to reach that peak with her, he whipped on the burrowing speed of his plowing pole. In a frantic frenzy, he slammed into her cunt, drilling into the spongy texture of her volcanic channel. Grunting and groaning in near bestial fever, he wrenched his swollen rod from the tight vaginal folds, then plunged back, entrenching himself once more in her depths.

Her whole body shuddered and quaked under the dam-breaking tidal waves of ecstasy that raced up from her burning loins, finally ending in a nova of white hot light exploding in orgasmic release in her brain. Her body was no longer hers! It belonged to the conquering sensations that tore it apart with pleasure, then assembled it and blasted it apart again.

As if attempting to retain some contact with the world she had been rocketed from as she came, her nails bit into his ass deeply, then raked up the stiffened contours of his back. She thrashed and writhed and twisted beneath his body. Her moans and groans had turned to abandoned cries of pleasure.

With perfect timing, his own body went rigid and he drilled deeply into her exploding body. He shuddered and quaked as his testicles freely gave up the boiling load they had held. Seemingly gallon upon gallon of thick, white cream emptied itself gratefully into the surrounding heat of her body.

The liquid warmth of her pleasure-overloaded channel contracted and relaxed around his spasmodically pulsing rod. The gentle soft insistence of her caressing folds lovingly flowed around the swollen, jerking root of his lust, soothing him with fulfilled embraces.

Slowly the lulling waters of satisfaction washed through their coupled bodies, replacing the violent desperation of their coming. Their lips thankfully brushed over each other and their hands tenderly stroked the cooling flesh of their bodies. Their actions had no other purpose other than just to feel the closeness of skin on skin.

When at last he rolled from this girl, transformed into a very enticing woman, she snuggled back against him, her head laying on his chest. Tenderly, he caressed the silken softness of her short black hair that was completely in a wild disarray that pleased him. The warm flow of her breath streamed from her nostrils and tickled its way through the forest of curly black hairs on his chest.

Neither of them spoke or moved, afraid of losing, too soon, the intimate contact of their bodies and spoiling the memories of ecstasy they had shared. The softness of their breathing blended with the rustle of a morning breeze that stirred through the sands around them.

“You must promise me something,” he said.

“Anything.”

“If I fall, you must take up the amulet. Continue its journey far from here. Take it somewhere it will never be found.”