Free Healer's Touch by Kirsten Saell Page A

erection away, trying not to replay the images of the past hour in his mind.
    It was some time before he realized he hadn’t heard Inella’s footsteps on the stairs heading back to the infirmary.
    Â 
    Inella lay in the circle of Viera’s arms and thought over all that had happened tonight. All she had allowed to happen. Her face filled with heat at the memory. Odd, that she should feel more chagrin from what she’d done tonight than from all the many times she’d fucked a man for money. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Viera was a woman.
    It had everything to do with the fact that Inella had taken pleasure in it.
    Deep down, she even understood the shame she felt. There was a moral certitude to be found in knowing that though she sold her body, she did so only to feed her children. A part of her hadn’t even registered Viera’s earlier remark about the cheap, earthly pleasure of whoring—there had certainly never been any such pleasure in it for Inella. And the fact that she took no satisfaction from it was the one thing that had allowed her to do what was necessary and still keep her deepest self apart from the taint of sin.
    It wasn’t that she hated sex. She’d just always been…unmoved by it. Even with Ned, it had been little more than another chore in her busy day. The real pleasure for her had come from lying like this with him afterward, his arms close around her body, his breath fanning the back of her neck. And there was a pleasure in it, even here and now with Viera, but despite herself, her mind kept returning, again and again, to the mindless, wanton bliss she had found in Aru’s bed, under the skilful hands of the other woman.
    And even as her cheeks warmed from shame, she found herself smiling into the dark. She felt like a child with her fingers in the honey jar, stealing a few drops of sinful sweetness when other eyes were elsewhere. And that thought led to a sudden memory of Viera’s fingers, coated with slickness, and her pink tongue curling around them, licking them clean.
    Inella shifted, squeezing her legs together as if she could hold the heat in that way.
    Viera’s arms tightened and her hand slid into Inella’s. “What is it, my dear?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just…” She frowned, shifting in Viera’s embrace. “I never imagined I could feel like that. Do you think maybe…was it always in me, just waiting for Aru to come along and wake it up?”
    She could feel Viera’s lips and the breath from her nostrils on her shoulder, comforting and stirring at the same time.
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œI’m sorry I didn’t please you.”
    Viera’s breath halted for a moment, then resumed. “What makes you think you didn’t please me?”
    Inella shrugged, her belly tight and aching. “You never…well, you didn’t…”
    â€œI didn’t come,” Viera said softly. “It was a choice, a message for Aru. That didn’t mean I took no pleasure from you. Your softness, your innocence—”
    â€œInnocence?” Inella choked, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
    Viera pulled away, tugging Inella’s hand to turn her around. It was a very hard thing to meet the other woman’s eyes, but Inella forced herself.
    â€œYes, innocence. You have no idea what it feels like to know that no other person has touched you like I have, no one else has ever brought you that kind of pleasure. No one else has tasted your come pouring onto their tongue, or felt your cunt shudder against their mouth.”
    Inella shut her eyes against waves of heat at Viera’s words. Surely it must burn the woman’s tongue to speak such things, just as it set Inella’s ears aflame to hear them. A moment later, she felt the other woman’s lips on hers, coaxing them open, and her breath was like fire.
    Â 
    Viera slid her tongue into Inella’s