Across the Plains

Tatyana's stomach rumbled urgently. Her knees were beginning to ache. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was too humiliating, too intimate. The smell of the stew that the warrior had brought back to his tent for her teased her senses mercilessly. Hunger twisted her belly in knots but the warrior didn't even permit her to look in the direction of the savory, steaming bowl he had set down on the table. Though her knees were growing numb after at least a quarter of an hour, he held her in place, one hand loosely resting under her chin and tilting her face up, his eyes fixed on hers.

'Don't tell me your man never had you do this,' the warrior confronted her, his stare patient and unwavering. His cock stood stiffly out above his pants.

Unable even to glance away from him, Tatyana's eyes flashed briefly. Yes, she had closed her lips around her late husband's cock. Some of their tenderest moments in bed had been when she had sucked on his hard flesh and he had moaned to her that it felt like heaven. She had learned exactly how he liked to feel her mouth on him. Every place on his shaft where he enjoyed it when she pressed her lips harder. Each spot where he shuddered when she massaged it with her velvety tongue.

Doing such a thing had been showing her love for Grigor.

She loathed the thought of doing that same thing for the warrior who held her captive now. It was true that he was not the brute she had expected, even if he did belong to the vast tribe of horsemen that terrorized the plains and, just days ago, had burned her village to the ground. He had actually treated her well, given the circumstances. But Tatyana still hated to perform such an intimate, loving act for a man she didn't love, and who held her as a bed slave.

'Are you one of those women who find it disgusting, perhaps?' the warrior asked, scrutinizing her with mild disappointment in his eyes.

Tatyana didn't want him to discard her and leave her to other horsemen who might be worse, so she couldn't ignore him. This warrior had shown that he had no interest in beating her down, but neither would he waste his time with her if she was too difficult.

'No. I have done it before,' Tatyana confessed. His gaze was intense enough that she glanced away for a moment, fidgeting self-consciously. Her stomach chose that moment to gurgle loudly enough that Tatyana cringed at her own weakness.

The warrior, however, grinned lopsidedly at her and slid his hand from her chin to the back of her head, where he slowly, methodically wound her hair around it and then gave a firm tug. Tatyana's face tilted up even higher toward him. With his other hand, he guided his cock to her cheek and gently began rubbing it over her face. The tender tip traced the bridge of her nose, the outline of her lips, along her chin and jawline, even around her eyes.

As the warrior dragged his cock over her face, he said, 'I could have out-waited you, but you won't have the stamina for it. They marched you all day to get here, didn't they?' At Tatyana's nod, the warrior chuckled, 'And you're still stubborn enough to refuse a good meal because you won't take my cock in your mouth. Now, open up. Hold me in your mouth for a moment and I'll feed you. Or don't, and collapse from hunger. If you're this ridiculous, I'll let you starve to death.'

Tears stung at the corners of Tatyana's eyes but she refused to let them fall. Her will was failing her. She wished she were strong enough to reject the warrior's offer, but it was so patient, so soothing, that she found herself parting her lips at last to receive his cock. He gave a gentle tug of approval on her hair as he guided his thick, rigid length into her mouth. Then, as she knelt before him, her chin tilted up and her mouth gloving his flesh right down to the hilt, he caressed her cheek with his free hand.

'Your mouth feels like the gateway to the gods,' he praised her. Guilt stabbed at Tatyana's heart as she thought of what Grigor had always said, but then, perhaps because she was swooning with hunger, she imagined she heard her lost husband whispering reassurances to her.

Don't die for me, Tanya. It would shame me to be the reason you gave up your life.

It was nearly her undoing. Tatyana quickly closed her eyes to hold back tears that threatened to fall; in so doing, she could block out the warrior for a moment and pretend that she was pleasuring Grigor instead. She laved her tongue along the underside of the warrior's shaft and squeezed her lips to form a tighter seal around its straining flesh--

--but was caught off-guard when he eased her back, causing his erection to slip from her mouth.

Blinking, she looked up at him.

'Your skills are promising,' the horseman remarked, his voice a bit rougher than usual as he tucked his rigid cock back into his pants, 'But they can wait until you are ready to use them on me without closing your eyes and thinking of that other man of yours. He is dead, I take it?'

Tatyana's lips pressed together tightly to hold back the surge of grief that the warrior's blunt statement had provoked. She nodded once.

Killed by other warriors like you, she thought.

The warrior nodded his head toward one of the cushions at the table where the bowl of stew still sat steaming. 'Sit,' he directed.

She didn't trust her legs to support her after she had knelt for so long, or given that she was faint with hunger, so Tatyana hobbled across the short distance on her knees. The warrior had already seated himself on a cushion and held the bowl and spoon in his hand. It looked like some sort of lamb or venison stew with a few root vegetables blended in. The smell was spicier than she was used to, although not unwelcome. Indeed, Tatyana would eat nearly anything at this point.

Tentatively, she looked at the warrior and tried to reach for the bowl, but he held it away from her. Spooning up some stew, he looked at her and said, 'Open your mouth.'

'I can feed myself,' Tatyana protested.

'Not if I don't wish it,' the warrior countered, the confident tilt to his dark eyes making her scowl. In return, he flashed her an infuriating grin that made his thin, trimmed beard curve as well with his flexed jaw.

She fumed, but opened her mouth. He slid the spoon inside and Tatyana was unable to hold back a deep sigh at how delicious the stew was. Lamb, it turned out, with spices typical of the magnificent southern kingdoms. The warrior arched an eyebrow as her reaction confirmed his expectation. Tatyana silently cursed the dizzying hunger that had forced her to yield to his control, but she accepted spoonful after spoonful of stew. Each time she risked a glance at him, her eyes darted away quickly at the sight of him studying her.

'How do you know our language?' the warrior asked.

Tatyana blinked. It hadn't occurred to her that he would be interested in knowing anything about her, beyond her ability to satisfy his needs. However, he held the spoonful of stew back until she answered.

'I grew up in my uncle's inn at the crossroads south of my village. Many traders passed through and I heard their languages. Many used yours,' Tatyana explained.

The warrior fed her more stew and continued eyeing her thoughtfully. 'Yet you ended up in a poor village.'

'My mother didn't want to marry me off to a merchant who might always be traveling or live three-months' journey away. So she and my uncle found me a man who lived nearby and sold them provisions for the inn,' Tatyana anwered before accepting another savory bite of stew.

And my village wasn't poor. We lived well, she thought silently.

The warrior shrugged and shook his head with a wry grin, clearly judging her simple life and finding it inferior. Tatyana knew this was how these horsemen were: proud and arrogant toward the peaceful peoples who lived out on the edges of their rapidly expanding territory.'

He asked her only one more question before he finished feeding her the stew. 'What is your name?'

'Tatyana.'

The warrior set aside the empty bowl, gripped her by the wrist and stood up, forcing her to rise from her cushion with him. 'Well, Tatyana, you will try again. If you do well, I'll keep you. If not, you can go serve in another tent.'

He tugged her toward his bed and sat on the edge. A firm pull of his hand brought her to her knees. Tatyana's only way out was literally to leave his tent, but that would only mean serving another man who would make the same demands. So, she let go of the grief and shame that had held her back and reached into the warrior's pants to draw him out. To her surprise, he was still hard -- his manhood had not softened at all while he had fed her.

So, Tatyana knelt between the warrior's thighs and brought her mouth to the fleshy tip of his cock, its skin-sleeve pulled back as arousal swelled his shaft to its full length. Tatyana had not had much of a chance to see the warrior's cock when he had taken her the first time. It was about like Grigor's in length, perhaps thicker around the base, and traced with pulsing veins. She breathed in his scent as her lips closed around the smooth tip -- hints of leather and sweat, but clean and not unpleasant.

As soon as her tongue settled along the underside of his meaty length, Tatyana's nerves calmed. This was familiar, the feel of swollen flesh in her mouth. The anxiety that had twisted her stomach in knots over performing this intimate act for a new man faded as her lips and cheeks and tongue gently clasped his shaft. There was the brief tang of his taste on her tongue before her own saliva masked it. Then the pressure of her soft lips against his skin and the warm, vital meat that thrummed just beneath it.

The warrior was more responsive than Grigor had been. Grigor had always remained still, as if he was afraid to break a spell between them. When Tatyana sucked on the warrior's cock, hollowing in her cheeks to glove every bit of his length in the velvety, wet warmth of her mouth, he thrust his hips slightly and pushed himself deeper. She and the warrior slowly felt their way to a shared rhythm, as she bobbed her head against the grinding of his loins.

His fingers threaded through her hair and pressed against her scalp with increasing tension. The sounds of his breathing, broken by grunts, soon filled the tent. Tatyana tilted her face up higher when the warrior tugged even more urgently on her silky hair, locking their eyes together--

--that was, when his eyes weren't rolled back in fleeting blinks of intense pleasure.

Tatyana was silently congratulating herself on having found the courage to pleasure her captor the way she had only ever done for Grigor when her head was suddenly spinning and the warrior's cock briefly slipped from her mouth. Drool ran down her chin as she coughed with surprise to find herself hoisted onto the bed. An instant later, she was on her back, the warrior's knees resting on either side of her head, his cock jabbing at her mouth. Hastily, Tatyana opened her mouth to swallow him, once again, down to the root. Her stomach clenched with shock, though, to feel his hands shoving her legs apart and tugging her ragged shift up. What was he doing?!

She discovered in the most wonderful, possible way.

A deep, yearning moan rose up from her chest and vibrated her throat and mouth around the warrior's cock as she felt his mouth on her own sex. Grigor had pleasured her with his fingers before, and naturally with his cock, but he had never done this. The warrior was the first man ever to -- ahhh -- sink his tongue into the steamy cavern buried deep in her slick folds and gorge himself on her pussy. Tatyana almost forgot to suck on his cock, but a light slap of the warrior's hand on her cheek snapped her out of her daze.

Tatyana's lips and tongue slurped over the warrior's swollen shaft with gusto. A sweet ache tightened in a delicate nub of flesh between her legs, leaving her writhing and devouring the warrior's cock with blinding urgency. It was a shared feeding frenzy as they both tugged and sucked and nipped, driving each other deeper into fevered obsession. From her initial reluctance, Tatyana had reached a state where she could not bear to let go of his cock. The blood in her veins and the breath in her lungs surged with fire as his mouth and OH HEAVENS his fingers, too, plundered her gushing pussy. She clutched at his engorged sac and massaged it while she closed her lips and cheeks around his shaft even tighter, fucking his cock as an ache swelled between her legs and threatened to shatter her with pleasure.

And then, the warrior seemed to lose control. He slammed his cock harder and deeper against her throat, grunting like a beast, until he thrust home one final time and held still. Or, not quite still. His entire body strained and tensed while his cock pulsed in the warmth of her mouth and she felt his release. It was slippery and sticky, as Grigor's had been -- not something she found pleasant. But Tatyana was too distracted to be repulsed. Flushed, aroused, tingling from head to toe, she gulped it down and began soothing the warrior's cock with her tongue in the aftermath of his orgasm. Oh, how she wished she had been able to cum, too.

Her lungs expanded in a sharp, sudden gasp when she felt the warrior's tongue plunge deep inside her pussy and his fingers pinch and twist her clit. All thought fled from her mind and she moaned and screamed and thrashed beneath his weight as she came. Salty, savory juices flooded out from her depths and her belly clenched and spasmed, leaving her momentarily weak and quivering with euphoria. The sounds she had made were humiliating, but Tatyana was too lost in pleasure to care.

Eventually, the warrior rolled his weight off of her and told her to shift herself on the bed. As she did so, he rose up and searched through a chest before returning with a length of leather cord. He pressed her wrists together and, in moments, had them tightly bound together. Then, he stretched out alongside her and pulled blankets over them both. His muscular body radiated warmth. If he really was letting her sleep in the bed with him, this might be the first night that Tatyana actually slept, instead of huddling and shivering with cold, since the horsemen had attacked her village.

'I'll keep you for now,' was all the warrior said as he wrapped a strong arm around her and pulled her back against his broad chest, slowly insinuating one of his sinewy legs between hers.

Tatyana let herself relax and told herself that it was better that there was no intimacy. She didn't want to like him, even if there was something alluring about his looks and gruff confidence. If she started to like him, she might lose the will to escape when she had the chance. And Tatyana was not ready to give up hope that she might escape.