The Sleeping Beauty's Tale (2 page)

He ducked through the opening and carried her into the cave of the hot spring.

“You squeaked the last time I carried you over a threshold.”

Hale laid his wife on the level rock beside the fire.

“Do you remember that day?” he continued.

He unwrapped the blankets, layer by layer.

“My palms were sweating in the church. I was embarrassed to take your hand.”

The sleeves of her nightgown were cuffed in knotted bows. It took a full minute to undo each one.

“Your dress had petals stuck to it. After we rode in the carriage? I don't think I ever told you.” Hale glanced at her and smiled. “All across the seat. Red flower petals. I could not stop looking at them. It occurred to me, that I could just reach out and brush them away. You were my wife. I was allowed to touch my wife's bottom.”

With careful fingers, he tugged loose the string that closed the neck on her shift.

“More than allowed…I was expected to touch my wife's bottom. After we'd finished choking down our breakfast and cake and coffee fortified with a little Dutch courage, I would most certainly be touching my new wife's bottom.

“It was a very distracting thought.” Hale raised the hem of her nightgown, easing it beneath her hips one side at a time. He paused to admire the creamy curves of thigh turning to hip and the shadows that made every shape more interesting. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

Hale? Are you coming?

What? No!

No? But…Hale, darling? Are you…blushing?

Gown off, Polly curled onto her side. Hale thought she looked like a wood nymph. A creature capable of magic. Bewitching. It might not be safe even to watch her sleep. He could be risking…

Her lips parted for a sigh.

“I'm here, pretty Polly.”

He stood and shucked his jacket, boots, shirt and, finally, pants.

He knelt beside her. Traced her boundary with his hand—throat, shoulder, breast, waist. Her skin pebbled with awareness. He felt the change of texture beneath his fingers.

“Is this the touch you dreamed of?”

He cupped her bottom in his palm, soothing that ripple of arousal, then squeezing hard. She pushed back into his hand. He loved the tension of her taut, muscled flesh. Somehow, he could never quite hold on tight enough.

Hale, is this customary?

Customary?

Well..normal?

I've no idea. Shall we survey the congregation after Sunday meeting?

Perhaps…not. Mmmmm, again?

Again would be—

Customary?

Exceptional.

He stepped back. Tested the water, stepped into the pond. It was warmer than he expected and slippery with natural salts. He eased his body off the ledge, plunging into water above his hips. Normally, a bath would cool his blood, lessen the pulsing awareness of his eager cock. The pond did the opposite. Soaking in hot, slick liquid made him burn. He felt thick, longer, as if that lusting root inside had spiraled down the back of his thighs to the bottoms of his feet. As if his entire body recognized the pond as a welcoming woman. He could not stop himself from clenching the cheeks of his ass, rocking forward until he stood poised on the balls of his feet.

But there was nothing, nothing to counter the pressure building under his skin, only a gentle, buoyant support.

Polly needed the water. Polly needed to heal.

Grabbing the hem of the blankets where she lay, he dragged her to him.

Her body glided over the flat rock, as smoothly as if she rested upon a flying carpet. Safe at the pond's rim, he took her wounded foot in hand and kissed the red star-shaped mark where the thorn had punctured her sole.

“There you are.”

He lowered her foot in the water, then eased her other leg into the warmth.

“Let the spring work its magic.”

Polly moaned.

Perhaps the angle of her bent knees felt uncomfortable? If she were closer to the edge, her legs could stretch out in the water.

Hale slid his one hand up the back of her thigh, his fingertips tingling with the urge to explore the creases where thigh turned to cheek and cheeks came together.

He pulled her deeper into the water. Supported by his hands, her legs floated just below the surface.

Polly licked her lips.

Hale watched, fascinated. In all the months that they'd been married, he couldn't think of a time when he'd had the opportunity to allow his gaze to luxuriate in her nude body. He'd watched her in sleep, always wrapped in blankets or nightclothes. He'd seen flashes of her, of course. But they'd both been in motion, her reaching for him, him reaching for her. Her eyes open and knowing.

Here, he could study every part of her, slowly—the dimples, the freckles, the endless stretch of creamy skin, the curl of hair at the crutch. She didn't squirm. Cover herself. Never turned away.

He absorbed the vision she made, admired the undulating length of her. Let each moment, each image, drip into his memory until he was full to brimming with her portrait.

“Look at you. Why haven't I ever looked at you like this? What a foolish husband you have. In the future, I will insist on nakedness while you sweep the floor at night.” Hale smiled at the thought. “Or on baking day, while you knead the bread. Leaning over the kitchen table. That would be something to see. Even better, climbing the ladder to fetch sugar from the attic. Five steps up and five steps down. The variety of perspectives. Of course, you'll have to get used to the sight of your husband's cock at full mast. Because the sight of you—”

Polly's hands began to clench the blanket. She tipped her chin toward him. The plane of her belly hollowed. Her body was reacting to his words.

He could arouse her with words?

Another thing he never knew about his wife.

Hale pulled her toward him. They touched, hip-to-thigh, in the pool. Her center of gravity dropped and water swirled up to the bottom edges of her breasts. She arched her back as if she were yearning for his touch.

His penis jumped at the thought, hardening another notch toward readiness. Hale could imagine exactly how it would feel to stand and embrace her, marrying the softness of her stomach to the stiffness of his prick. He knew exactly how he'd fit against her, from balls to crown, the hollow of her navel teasing friction from his tip.

If he stepped between her legs, thrust hard, once, twice, the way he had a hundred, a thousand times before, the tension would end. He had a premonition, there were things he would lose. Things he would never see, if he rushed ahead now.

“Polly, do you remember the first time we lay together outside? The sun was shining.”

Take off your clothes, sweet.

Ha. You take off yours…Hale? You aren't really—

Why not? There's no one for miles.

What if someone comes?

There. Your turn.

I don't think so!

Do it, Poll. One button. That's it.

Turn around. Turn around, and I'll do the rest.

All right. There…Are you done?

No.

Now?

No!

Polly? What…Come back here, you naughty girl! When I get my hands on you…

His hands wouldn't stop. He tightened his hold, kneading the muscles of her bottom, supporting the center of her body as she floated on the water.

“I wanted to look at you that day. I wanted to see you in the sunlight, every inch of you. Not that I didn't enjoy chasing you.” He kissed the top of her ear. “And catching you.”

Hale needed only one hand to support her lower body as it drifted in the bubbling undercurrent of the pond. With his free hand, he drew loops and orbits across her damp skin, circling her breasts until the nipples tightened. The riding callus on his thumb left a faint red trail where it abraded her skin. Deliberately, he flicked it back and forth over the peaks.

Polly inhaled sharply. Her arms appeared relaxed at her side but she shifted restlessly.

“You like that, don't you?”

One breast, then the other, he stroked and teased her with his fingers. He paused to observe her reactions—the flush of her skin, the hitch in her breath, the fluttering of her eyelids.

Her mouth seemed rosier, darker in color. He loved the change of color. It meant her lips would feel warmer, fuller. It made him want to kiss her. And it made him think of the deeper red, even warmer lips that waited for him. He'd always thought his kisses ripened her mouth to that shade. Perhaps there was more to it? Perhaps her own desire was the secret.

Leaning over, he brushed the bud of one breast with lips and chin, then filled his mouth with as much of her as he could. The sound of her moan flashed like liquid lightning through his blood.

Indulgence consumed him. He switched sides, devoured her other breast, still hungry for more. Hungry to return the favor. To feed her. Fill her. Her mouth, her cunt. He needed to reach down between her legs and stuff his fingers in the soft, wet swell….

Water swirled around his hand.

Hale realized, with a blurry shake of his head, Polly wasn't moaning anymore.

He lifted his head. She looked as though she were waiting. He turned back to her right breast and tasted her again.

Her gasp rang like a bell of welcome.

Curiosity changed his focus. “I'll be damned. Matched set, but they don't feel the same inside, do they?” He licked her right side. She rose to meet his tongue. “You like this one better.”

That was a boost to the appetite! Knowing what she liked made him all the more eager to give it. Sheltering her left breast in his palm, he made a feast of its sensitive twin. He sucked hard enough to see the bloom of red beneath the skin, then licked the pain away. He nipped a mouthful of flesh, enjoying the resistance under his teeth, and then nuzzled with his chin. He tested every sensation he could devise, studying her response.

She gasped, twisted in his grasp, flexed her feet until she was long and taut as the rein on a panicking horse. Then he stroked her throat, between her breasts, down to the sharp jut of hipbone just beneath the water's surface.

“Shhh. That's it. Easy, sweet. There's no hurry. No hurry at all.” He cooed until she settled into edgy readiness.

Polly was a delicious mystery he'd hardly begun to unravel.

“What other secrets do you have inside, my pretty Polly?” He let his hand settle over the curls between her legs. “I want to know them all. I want to see everything. Will you show me?”

Her legs parted. In response to his hand or his question, Hale could not say. But he was glad all the same.

“Beautiful.”

He cupped her flesh, the same way he sometimes touched himself—for comfort or to resettle the mechanics of his position. With the heel of his hand firmly against her pelvis bone, he wiggled his middle finger to tease a path in. One, two, three fingers slid between and then curled inside.

She was wet everywhere.

Why did that make it so hard to think? For a moment all he could do was inhale, sliding his fingers, in, in, in.

Polly began to move with him. Bumping her pelvis against his hand, pressing harder, making waves that sloshed above his elbow. He stopped thrusting and began to coddle the hidden folds over bone.

“Open up, Polly. Look at me.”

Hale kissed her closed eyes and wondered if he were nothing but a dream to her. He felt a creeping desperation, as if time were running out.

He stepped between her legs and knelt on the shelf of smooth rock.

“This is what I want to see, Polly. See and kiss and taste.”

He raised her bottom with his hands and backed her against the edge of the pool. Fully supported, her legs floated easily over his shoulders, resting lightly.

“This is a view a man should have more often.”

He spread the folds of skin, combing back her hair with his fingers. She was more colors than he imagined, pink as her tongue when she licked her lips and the same deep red as his stiffened cock. Like calling to like.

Staring into her, he took a backhand grip around his shaft and pulled, fingers bumping over the ridge, rough following smooth. Barely a start on all he wanted, but enough to inspire another surge of girth.

“Look what you do to me, Poll. Open your eyes, sweet.”

She did not.

Hale looked down at her instead. He let his fingers play over the tiny silk swelling that she rubbed for her pleasure. His thigh, his palm, his cock had all been put to good use here at one time or another. Rubbing lightly with his fingertip, he felt the bead inside begin to bloom.

“Shall I kiss it? Will you open your eyes for me if I kiss you there?”

He nuzzled, pushing against her with his nose, his chin, his cheekbone. Turning his face, he scraped his whiskered cheek across the white insides of her thighs. The strap of tendon jumped, her skin blushed. He did it again, on the other side, and smiled as she twitched.

She was a feast. Sweet skin. Salty wet. Spicy musk. And that twitch, the power he had to make her jump—that was meat. Satisfying. Filling. A nourishment he could not survive without.

Leaning closer, he licked her. Carefully. Learning her. He curled his tongue in a come-hither hook, then soft and wide, then he flicked her with the stiffened tip. Her skin seemed softer than the inside of her mouth. Tender. Smooth as butter, melting under his tongue. He kept his hands on her, resting one beneath the cheeks of her ass, the other brushing lightly across her stomach. He noticed every ripple of nerve, every flex of muscle.

Nothing existed but her tension, feeling it climb, drinking it down. Her legs stiffened. She pushed her thighs down on his shoulders arching into his mouth, against his lips. Under his tongue, he felt the flutter of that second heartbeat, throbbing, right there. There. There.