Free Carnal Sacrifice by Lacey Alexander Page B

  cold   to her exactly, but certainly one would never guess the two of them had shared such intimacies the previous night.  She’d imagined a much… warmer   reception when she’d departed the bedroom looking for him, and she couldn’t quell the disappointment flowing through her.
    A few minutes later, she served the bread with goblets of water on a wooden platter. Garon picked up the first slice of bread, examining it closely, then glanced at  Baelor before looking back to her, his eyes tinged with amusement. “Your first time in a kitchen, I presume.”
    She nodded.

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    “You’ll get better at it. Now eat and get to work.”
    She drew in her breath at the command, growing more miffed by the second, but  then she remembered the alternative—doing with the old man Ogran what she’d done  last night with Garon. To avoid   that   fate, she would happily clean the tavern from top to  bottom and put up with a bit of gruffness, as well.
    “The new look of your hair becomes you,” Baelor said.
    She turned to find the young man wearing a knowing grin, a grin which reminded  her that out here, outside the fortress, sex was commonplace, nothing secretive. It didn’t  matter that what she’d shared with Garon had felt profound and moving to her—out  here, everyone had sex with everyone else. So she couldn’t blush or act shy. Instead, she  summoned a smile and tried her best to look alluring. “I…enjoyed letting Garon take it  down for me.”
    “So I heard.”
    And to Laela’s surprise, the very act of acknowledging sex with Garon to his friend made her feel…provocative, both excited and exciting. The earlier tingling sensation between her legs returned, soft but potent, and her nipples tightened under the silk.
    She flashed a look at her lover, her…master, she supposed, imagining him sharing the details of their bedplay with Baelor. Yesterday, the notion would have embarrassed her, but today…well, today, everything was different. Envisioning the two men discussing her body and what Garon had done with her only intensified the flow of heat that currently rushed through her nether regions.
    Out here, sex was simply…sex. She might   want   it to be more, but that was one more luxury she didn’t possess, and she’d have to get used to doing without   any   luxuries from this point forward. In the meantime, she’d just gained a new, rather delicious understanding of how to…well, how to   appreciate   it for what it was. For with even this most subtle of discussions about it, the air in the room had grown hotter, along with  Laela’s cunt. Obviously,   everything   about sex with Garon thrilled her—even having him share it with his friend.
    Such sensual amusement laced Garon’s gaze that she almost wondered if he could read her mind. “Get to work and be a good little tavern maid today,” he said, “and maybe tonight I’ll give you some new things to enjoy.”

    * * * * *

    It was perhaps the longest day of Laela’s life. She’d had no notion of how hard the maids in the fortress worked to keep things in order. And her work, it turned out, wasn’t done when the outer room was clean and ready to open again for business that night. The moment she finished   that   work, Garon instructed her to tidy up the bedroom, as well, and then to wash the rags and drying cloths used the previous night in the tavern in a big wooden tub behind the building.

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    It was nearly nightfall when she emptied the dirty water and stepped back inside.  Garon sat in a chair at one of the long tables, his feet propped atop it. He’d already lit thick candles to illuminate the tavern for the evening and, in the dim glow, his eyes glittered with open sensuality.
    “How was your day, princess?” He used the words, accompanied by a smile, to tease her. She’d made the mistake of thinking he wasn’t arrogant, but he   was   —about some things. About his