Jayne Fresina (26 page)

“Oh yes. They didn’t care who a woman belonged to, if they wanted her.”

She snuggled up to his sleeve and rested her head against his wide shoulder. “Would you ever steal me away?”

“I don’t have to. You’re here with me now.”

“But if I wasn’t…” Something selfish squeezed hard around her heart, forcing her to ask. “….if I was married to another man.”

“Well you’re not are you? Look at the moon, Lucy. It will fall on us at any minute.”

She closed her eyes, feeling as if the moon had already fallen and crushed her flat.

Chapter 17

His mother was roused from the back of the cart and she trundled into the house, yawning , Vince trotting at her side, leaving them to put the horses away and lock the gate.

Lucy checked on her pigs first and then returned to find him. Busy with the horses, rubbing them down, he was aware of Lucy watching, leaning against a wooden beam, hands behind her back. Her presence had become so important to him, he couldn’t imagine what he’d do if she left.

She was turning slowly now, leaving the stables. He followed her, his step quicker, catching up before she reached the door. He captured her in his arms, the breath hard in his lungs, the need to claim and keep her as sharp and painful as the prick of a blade in his gut. “I’ll have my winnings now then, if you please. As you promised me.”

“John…stop, you fool…”

“You’ve made me wait long enough, but we’re alone now and I want my prize. Give it to me!”

“You truly are a spoiled only son…”

“Say you love me, Lucy,” he groaned into her hair, the sweet fragrance of those roses filling his nostrils, making him dizzy. “Say it.”

“I can’t.” But her face turned, so he nuzzled her soft cheek, slightly colored now by her weeks in the country.

“Why?” He drew her back, away from the open door. “Is it Nathaniel? Are you worried about him? Don’t be.” He turned her around, his hands on her waist as he stepped back into an empty stall, bringing her with him. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll explain everything…”

“It’s not Nathaniel,” she mewled.

“Then what? Who?” His heart thumped so hard in his chest, he thought it would break a rib. “There’s another man?”

“No,” she gasped. “There’s only you, John. Only you.”

He kissed her then, unable to wait longer, ready to take this pleasure he’d known before and never forgotten. “I’ve dreamed of you since May,” he muttered gruffly into her lips and her cheek. “I think I’ve dreamed of you all my life.”

She kissed him back the same way, her fingers in his hair, her body falling against his, bringing back every stinging, delicious sensation he’d enjoyed in her company on that rainy night, not so long ago.

Then she pulled away. “But I can’t. I can’t do this.”

This time he wouldn’t let her go and, struggling together, they tipped into the piled straw. “Why can’t you love me?” he demanded, holding her under him, his hands around her wrists.

He felt her breathing as if every breath was her last. Her eyes gleamed bright with unshed tears. “It’s not that I can’t love you,” she cried out, helpless, frustrated. “I can’t not love you.”

John stared down at her, at this beautiful, beguiling creature who brought out the rogue in him, just when he thought he had it vanquished. And he knew he would never let her go again. This was what he’d waited for every day of his adult life. He’d known she was out there, somewhere, his to claim, just as soon as he found her.

“You said yourself, John,” she whimpered, writhing under him, “we can’t choose who we love. If I could choose, my life would be so much easier.” She was still trying to get free, arching her back, heaving with her hips, when she must know the futility of fighting him. He was much stronger than she and she wasn’t going anywhere without him ever again.

Laughing softly, he leaned down and kissed her nose, then her chin, then let his tongue travel slowly up along her smooth jaw to her ear. “Thank God I found you again,” he whispered, banking the desire to take her too quickly.

“Damn you,” she whined.

“Do you like saying ‘damn,’ Lucy?” He’d noticed her saying it a lot lately.

“Yes.”

It amused him, the way she cursed, spitting it out in a rush of breath, trying to sound fierce, as if she meant it, when he sensed she really wanted to say something quite different. She struggled with her emotions, just as he struggled with his. They were both out of their depth, he suspected.

The few dampened, bedraggled flowers still left in her hair now tumbled down the thick tresses, some petals laying in the straw already, standing out like bright drops of blood in the lantern light. Her sleeves were down over her shoulders, the pulse in her neck throbbing visibly with a passionate temper.

“I’ve waited months for you, Lucy, since the last time. I’m ready to burst with wanting.”

Her eyes flashed. “You’ve had no other in all this time?” She didn’t believe him, of course. Who knew what Nathaniel told her. Probably nothing good.

“I’m a reformed man,” he protested, sitting astride her hips, shedding his shirt and flinging it to the straw.

“And you were once a rogue. Your cousin told me.”

She was very solemn now, her hair a ruffled cloud of cinnamon and nutmeg, her eyelids lowered, as if she daren’t look at him. He reached down with his thumb and forefinger, pinching her chin gently, lifting it.

“There might be a little of the rogue left in me, but only you know where to find him, Lucy.” He brushed a hair back from her cheek, dislodging another rose. “I know why you’re worried, but I don’t care about your past. I don’t care what you were before. None of that matters now.”

Her lashes fluttered wide open in surprise and he saw his face reflected in her wide black pupils. Liquid passion bubbled over inside him, his pulse quickened, his arousal too exultant, irrepressible.

He began pulling on her bodice and her sleeves, forgetting the purpose of hooks and laces. They rolled together, straw sticking to hair and skin.

* * * *

He kissed her fervently, as if he needed her for sustenance. In the beginning she almost feared it, this passion he had for her, but her own desires soon kept apace and she let her doubts fall away like the rose petals from her hair. All the facts of how she came to be there, the things he didn’t know that she should have told him, all the warnings, they were insignificant when measured with this yearning that had dwelled inside her since the first time they had met. Here she was, living her heavenly dream. Let it last a while yet.

Nuzzling her breasts, he gasped her name, his thighs hard between hers, sliding them apart quickly. In the next stall, a horse whinnied, wondering what they were doing on the other side of the wooden barrier. And then he entered her, slick and hot, her skirt and petticoat up around her waist, since he was in too much hurry to remove it. She felt him inside her, filling her, stretching her sheath, plowing forward and upward. He found the rhythm quickly, his expression strained, the light in his eyes purely carnal, covetous.

They rolled again until she was astride him and he lifted his hips, grunting, thrusting upward. She cried out, her head flung back, his hands on her breasts. Her body was his now and his belonged to her. They couldn’t stop, there was no end in sight. There were no words, only sensations, pleasure, pain and ecstasy.

* * * *

Pounding into her, strange sounds spat out over his lips and then he drowned inside her, rapidly emptying his seed into her warm haven. It came so quickly, he didn’t even try to hold back. She would have moved off him when she felt the peak begin–he felt her shift–but his hands came down on her hips and held her there, his singular intent being the ultimate sharing, the most potent sign of his love, and his declaration to her, a commitment to their future.

He lay still, spent, relaxed in the straw. They’d have twenty babes, a mix of redheads and dark, boys or girls, he didn’t care as long as they were healthy. He already saw them all, mischievous little creatures, running around the yard, avoiding their chores, laughing and happy. His heart sang wildly at the thought of it, at the picture of an idyllic family life. Children, a wife, all things he didn’t give much more than a cursory, skeptical thought to before this.

She curled against his chest and kissed his nipple. “Is that it?” she whispered.

“Is that it?” he repeated, shaking his head so the straw crackled. “I forgot how demanding you are.”

“It was very….quick. For all your insufferable boasting…”

One hand to the back of her head, he drew her lips to his and kissed her hard. “I’ve only just begun, wench.”

So had she. She reached down to hold his sac in her hands, stroking. “I remember how easily you’re roused again after the first.”

Yes, he thought happily, they were both starved for one another. It wouldn’t be long before he was ready again. Slowly she kissed her way down his chest and he, blissfully supine in the straw, gazed up at the beams as he felt her warm, silken mouth descend, making love to that part of him no one ever lavished with so much adoration as she did. Her tongue wrapped his crest in velvet and he moaned, a slow shuddering breath of delight. She lapped at him, kissed and sucked. He clenched his muscles, lifted his hips, his hands feeling for her hair as it spilled around his thighs and stroked his groin.

He wondered then about his cousin, but when he thought of her with any other man he felt a sharp pain in his heart, bile rising in his throat, so he quickly emptied his mind again, promising himself never to think of her past. Whatever had come since May, it was now August, and he would erase those other months between. Tonight she would know for sure where she belonged and with whom.

* * * *

She felt his fingers in her hair, pulling her up. His manhood was marble-hard again now, lifting and pulsing, thanks to her steady ministrations. Blushing from all the attention, it stretched almost to his navel, making her womanly core melt with joyous and greedy anticipation. Lucy gave the very tip one last lick, tasting his salt and the musk of her own body, and then he whispered at her to turn around. Straddling his chest, she did as he asked. He pressed his flat hand to the small of her back, bending her gently. She took him in her mouth again, only seconds before she felt his lips and then his tongue repaying the favor eagerly between her own thighs. She paused a moment as the quicksilver delight shot through her. Her eyelids were heavy, her heartbeat galloped, warm lust flooding through her veins, bursting forth in all directions. He stroked her thighs with his strong, firm hands, but his tongue between them never stopped, never broke its rhythm. Drawing a sharp breath, she let out a soft moan and arched.

Already it started, the rapturous surging swell. Not wanting to get there before he did, she hastily continued as she began, pleasuring her lover, while he did the same to her.

* * * *

She woke in his bed, not even sure how she made it there. In the fever of their passion, somehow, they must have put out the lantern, locked the gate, bolted the door and found their way upstairs. All she remembered were his kisses and his hands on every part of her, his body over her, under her, inside her.

Little quakes, even now, could be felt deep inside where he started the waves hours ago.

Through his open shutters, the big moon spread a wide arc and lined his profile with silver. He was asleep on his back, arms and legs flung out with carefree abandon, hair ruffled and messy. The little cut on his lip had started to bleed again in the stables, but now it dried. Tomorrow she would put a salve on it for him.

But tomorrow…tomorrow she must leave. The thought broke in abruptly, destroying her peaceful, loving perusal of his face.

Stretching, she sat up, the sheet falling away to her hips. She was naked. Presumably he got her that way, although she seemed to recall it was a struggle since he tried to do everything at once. Her most vivid memories of those last few hours were not of practical acts done by rote, but of sensations, soaring heights of ecstasy, frenzied demands scratching in her throat, slippery skin on skin, the prickle of straw in her hair, the scent of him inhaled in great, greedy gusts and the taste of his kisses, far more potent than his mother’s infamous plum wine.

Now there he lay, innocent as an angel, one arm under his head, the other stretched out toward her, palm up, thick, square fingers curled in a claw. She should go back to her bed across the hall and try to get some sleep or she’d be in no fit state for her journey tomorrow. But when she moved to slide off his bed, his hand was suddenly around her wrist, eyes observing her sleepily.

“Stay with me,” he purred, drawing her hand to his chest. “I’ve never had the pleasure of tumbling you in the morning.”

She shook her head. “I can’t stay with you.”

“Yes you can.” He was watching her through drooping lashes, fingers stroking her arm.

“I should never have come here, John,” she murmured. “If I’d known…I would never have waited on Nathaniel’s cart for you.”

“You know what my father used to say?”

She sighed. “No. Do tell.”

“Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. Won’t help us now, will it?” Slipping his arm around her waist, he drew her down into the bed and she went limp, helpless.

“What about your mother? She’ll know.”

“Let me worry about mother. In the morning. Now sleep.”

Snuggled against his side, his arm under her, she laid her head on his shoulder and eventually closed her eyes again, too comfortable and replete to argue.

Tomorrow she’d tell him. Tomorrow she’d say goodbye. She could hardly do it now.

Tomorrow.

* * * *

In the morning he woke her with a kiss, ready to resume their games. He had a long day ahead of him, he said, couldn’t lay abed with her all day, much as she might want him to.

“So I’ll take some comfort now,” he said, “in case I’m weary later.”

They both knew he’d never be too tired, but she willingly complied, charmed by the warm blue light in his eyes, the mischievous gleam of a little boy getting away with his naughtiness. The seasons might change, but he never would, not completely, no matter how he tried, because perpetual summer lived there in his luminous gaze. Today she was heart-achingly reflective, dwelling on every touch, every glance.