Enchanted

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “What are your dreams, nightingale?” Simon asked in a soft, rough voice. “Do you want me now the way I wanted you the first time I saw you?”

  Very gently, Simon caressed the edges of Ariane’s tightly furled petals. The hot, sensuous dew of her response gilded his fingers and made his heartbeat quicken. With exquisite care, he eased a fingertip just between the sultry folds. His touch eased slowly forward, caressing and parting her at the same time.

  At the peak of the caress, Simon discovered the hidden pearl. It was sleek, firm, full. When his moist fingertip circled, Ariane sighed brokenly. Her hips moved subtly, luxuriously, as though seeking more.

  Simon’s hand withdrew until nothing of his body was touching Ariane. She made a protesting sound and turned her head from side to side with a languid restlessness that spoke eloquently of both her desire and the healing thrall of the dream.

  It was as Cassandra had said. Ariane will awaken feeling as though she has dreamed deeply. And within the dream, she will also feel deeply. As will you.

  “What are you feeling, nightingale?” Simon asked huskily. “Is it disgust?”

  He ran his fingertips down the inside of Ariane’s thigh. She arched up to him as though swimming through heavy liquid. Each movement was slowed to a shadow of her usual quickness. Each small motion was a sensuous reflection of her dreams.

  “Nay, it isn’t disgust that moves you,” Simon whispered. “Is it the heat swelling deep within that drives you? Do you lift to me, knowing it is I who stroke you?”

  His fingertips caressed petals that were no longer so tightly furled. They were swollen, hot, and they wept with Ariane’s desire.

  Simon’s breath hissed out as though he were in pain.

  “I could test the depth of your heat,” he whispered, “but I do not trust myself to be content with the feel of your virginity snug around my finger. It would be too easy to open you more and then still more, until I could press my hungry sword deeply into your sheath.”

  Closing his eyes, Simon fought the desire that clenched his whole being.

  “Do you wonder what it would feel like to look at me and I at you while our hearts hammer and our bodies strain to be locked ever more closely in loving combat?”

  Ariane didn’t awaken to answer Simon’s question, though the flesh beneath his grazing, skimming caresses was an answer in itself.

  She was hot, fevered.

  Nor was it the dry heat of illness whose presence burned Simon’s fingertips. This was the liquid heat of a woman whose hunger had been summoned by a lover’s touch.

  Simon opened his eyes and measured Ariane’s arousal in the slow, voluptuous movements of her hips. The heightened color brought by passion had flushed her lips and nipples deep rose.

  Motionless, Simon sat on the bed, fighting himself with every ragged breath he drew, knowing he should get up and leave the enthralled girl who could say neither yes nor no.

  But I can choose for her.

  The thought was agony.

  “Do you want me so deeply inside you that you feel my seed leaping as surely as I do?” Simon asked in a raw whisper.

  Ariane’s answer was as silent as it was unmistakable. Her body was no longer utterly languid. She was taut, vibrant, open, lush with expectation. The scent of her desire sank into him, setting his mind on fire.

  Simon made an anguished sound.

  By Christ’s blue eyes, what is wrong with me? Why can’t I stand up and walk away?

  Yet even as the words battered within Simon’s mind, the pounding of his own heartbeat overwhelmed them. Not trusting himself to touch Ariane with his hands again, unable to turn away from her sensuous, expectant beauty, he bent down to his wife once more.

  Ariane murmured dreamily at the caress of Simon’s cheek against her thigh. He breathed deeply, infusing himself with her perfume, immersing himself in the fragrance of passion as though it were a healing thrall.

  He kissed the creamy flesh with a languid care that equaled her dreamlike movements. When he sucked lightly, creating a rush of heat beneath her fair skin, she sighed raggedly and shifted, making a deeper nest for him between her legs.

  Heal me.

  He whispered her name against her softness as he tasted the essence of moonlight and roses and the wild, leashed storm that seethed dreamily between them, enthralling both.

  A slow heat went through Ariane, a burning that was all the more thorough for its languorous pace.

  I am on fire.

  I can taste it.

  Yes. Taste me.

  Swirling slowly, succumbing wholly to the sultry thrall, Simon knew only the feel and taste of Ariane, her heat flushing his skin until he breathed only pure fragrance and fire.

  I burn.

  Yes.

  Burn with me.

  Always.

  We are.

  Burning.

  17

  Warily Simon eyed the pot of fresh balm Cassandra was handing to him. He uncapped it and sniffed.

  A luxuriant shudder went through him, memory and desire combined.

  “Ariane,” Simon said huskily.

  “Of course,” said the Learned woman.

  Saying nothing more, Simon put the cap back on the pot with quick, final gestures and turned to Ariane’s bed.

  “Does the balm displease you?” Cassandra asked.

  A ripple of memory and dream entwined cascaded through Simon. He had tried not to think about the past night, when he had awakened half-dressed with his wholly naked wife lying asleep in his arms…and the healing fragrance of the balm had risen from his body as much as from hers.

  Simon had tried not to think of what had happened between himself and his wife, because it made no sense. It had neither reason nor logic. It could not be weighed or measured, held or examined.

  It could not have happened.

  I can’t have shared her healing.

  I can’t have felt her burning.

  But he could have burned.

  He had.

  And so had she.

  “Thrice,” Cassandra said. Simon started, wondering how she had known.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Until Ariane awakens, you must apply the balm three times each day,” the Learned woman said patiently.

  Despite Cassandra’s neutral expression, Simon thought he detected an amused gleam in her quicksilver eyes.

  “Aye, you explained that to me several times already,” Simon said shortly.

  This time he was certain the Learned woman smiled.

  “Have you checked her wound this morning?” Cassandra asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Simon’s tone was curt. He had no desire to explain that he didn’t trust himself to undress his wife again, much less to smooth fragrant, artful balm all over her skin until there was nothing between them but roses and moonlight, a distant storm, and a slow, consuming fire.

  He breathed deeply, trying to control the savage response of his body.

  Just a dream. ’Tis all.

  I fell asleep. And I dreamed.

  Sweet God, I pray that I could dream such dreams while still awake!

  And Ariane dream with me…

  With a silent, searing curse, Simon went to the bed and began undressing Ariane. When the last of the dress and bandage fell away, he drew in a swift breath.

  The crimson line of the wound had faded to a pale pink. There was not even the faintest shadow of bruising beneath her creamy skin.

  “She will awaken soon,” Cassandra said with satisfaction. “The healing is almost complete.”

  “Almost?” Simon asked. “What remains?”

  “We will know when she awakens.”

  With that cryptic comment, Cassandra turned and left the room.

  In the silence that followed, the cry of yet another storm came to Simon, muted by thick stone walls. He picked up a pot of medicinal ointment and sat on the bed next to Ariane as he had so many times since she had been wounded.

  “�
��Tis just as well Meg and Dominic left for Blackthorne days ago,” Simon said as he rubbed the pungent salve into what remained of the knife wound. “Despite Meg’s determination and spirit, she would have suffered during a cold, stormy ride back home.”

  Simon spoke aloud as had become his habit during the long days when he sat by Ariane’s bedside, waiting for color to come back into her face. He had discovered that the sound of his voice had a calming effect on Ariane.

  “Dominic would have been an utter churl by the time we reached Blackthorne Keep,” Simon added. “He is very fierce in defense of his small falcon.”

  Simon smiled slightly, remembering Meg’s golden jesses.

  “Do you know, I miss the sound of those tiny gold bells. And Meg’s laughter. I miss that, too.”

  From the floor below came the sound of a man’s laughter, followed a moment later by a woman’s.

  “But there is the sound of Duncan’s and Amber’s laughter to replace Meg’s,” Simon said. “They drink not a drop, yet they romp like a squire after his first jug of wine.”

  While Simon spoke, he turned away to rinse the bandage in a pan of water laced with astringent herbs. He wrung out the amethyst cloth, shook it hard, and felt its dry length with an amazement that hadn’t lessened in all the days he had cared for Ariane.

  “A canny piece of work, as Duncan would say.”

  Simon looked at the bandage and then at the pale pink scar that lay between Ariane’s ribs.

  “I think not,” he said, setting the bandage aside. “Fresh scars are too tender for even this clever cloth.”

  No matter the topic, Simon’s voice was low and soothing. He had learned while nursing Dominic back to life that a calm voice acted like a tonic to whatever part of a person’s mind it was that didn’t sleep.

  And it soothed Simon, too.

  The first thing Ariane understood as she slowly awakened was that she was propped half-upright by strong hands and arms. The touch was as warm and gentle as the fabric that was being smoothed up over her arms.

  In a rush of sensation Ariane knew that the cloth was her wedding dress. She also knew that it was Simon’s breath and his soft beard brushing against her breasts.

  Pleasure cascaded through Ariane. For an instant she wondered if it had been Simon who had brought her the healing, shimmering fire of her dreams.

  Nay, that cannot be. ’Tis madness even to think such a thing! I was defenseless. Held in thrall.

  I know full well how a man treats a helpless girl.

  My nightmares tell me.

  The bleak thought quenched the silvery sensations that had made Ariane feel awake in a way she had never known before. Except once, in Simon’s arms, when he had kissed her with sensual deliberateness.

  I tasted him.

  Or did he taste me?

  Have we tasted one another?

  Fire streaked from Ariane’s breasts to her thighs, startling her with its intensity. Disoriented, she closed her eyes, wondering what was wrong with her.

  Simon carefully was trying not to look at Ariane’s elegant body while he dressed her. Certainly he wasn’t looking at the creamy breasts whose tips had drawn up into taut, velvety pink buds at the accidental caress of his cheek.

  And he most certainly wasn’t remembering the feel and scent and taste of those very breasts.

  With grim efficiency, Simon pulled the long, full sleeves into place and began to lace up the front of Ariane’s witchy amethyst dress. The instant Simon touched them, the laces seemed to go from pure silver to quicksilver. They became impossible to hold on to, much less to thread through the many tiny embroidered eyelets that reached from Ariane’s thighs to the soft hollow of her throat.

  “God’s teeth,” Simon seethed at the laces. “Don’t go all stubborn on me now. No matter how delectable her breasts are, they must be covered.”

  A lace slipped from Simon’s hand to the creamy skin of Ariane’s abdomen. For a moment the lace nestled against the triangle of midnight hair that peeked through the front opening in the dress. Before Simon could retrieve the lace, it shifted and slid away like bright water, vanishing between Ariane’s legs.

  The feel of Simon’s fingers probing between her thighs brought Ariane bolt upright. Nightmare exploded.

  “Nay!” she said hoarsely, clawing at Simon’s wrist. “Only a beast would use a helpless woman so!”

  Simon’s head snapped up. Ariane’s wild amethyst eyes stared right through him, but it wasn’t her eyes he saw; it was the fear and revulsion on her face.

  And what else did I expect—a miracle? Simon asked himself sardonically. She is what she was before she was wounded.

  Cold.

  “Good morning, wife,” Simon said. “I trust that nine days of sleep has refreshed you?”

  The chill in Simon’s voice poured over Ariane like a basin of water fresh from the well. She drew another ragged breath and focused on her husband instead of her dream.

  “If you will take your fingernails out of my wrist,” Simon said, “I will resume dressing you. Or is it that you like having me snugged up close to your warm nest?”

  As he spoke, Simon deliberately flexed his hand, pressing his fingers against Ariane, caressing the soft petals whose every contour he had learned with lips and teeth and tongue.

  Did I dream that?

  Could I have?

  Ariane’s breath came in with a gasp as conflicting feelings shuddered through her. The first was frank fear. The second was an equally frank pleasure.

  And the second was even more frightening than the first.

  “Please,” she whispered brokenly. “Don’t. I can’t—I can’t bear it.”

  Disgust with himself rose like bile in Simon’s throat. He jerked his hand free of its soft confinement.

  “Then kindly retrieve your own lace, madam,” he said through his teeth.

  Ariane gave him a bewildered look.

  “Your silver lace,” he said curtly. “I was fastening your dress when the cursed thing slipped free.”

  Ariane looked down. The front of her dress was undone all the way to her thighs. Except for folds of amethyst cloth that revealed more than they concealed, she was quite naked.

  “My undergarments…” Ariane’s voice dried up.

  Simon waited for her to finish.

  Licking her dry lips, Ariane tried again.

  “I have nothing on but my dress,” she said huskily.

  “I am well aware of that.”

  And of much more besides. God’s wounds, how can a girl whose body is so plainly made for passion draw back in disgust from it?

  Or perhaps, despite her protests, it is I who disgust her, not passion.

  Aye. That must be the truth. No girl who was repelled by passion itself could have responded as she did last night.

  A dream.

  Just a dream.

  Ariane flushed from her breasts to her forehead as she looked down at her own near nudity.

  “I usually wear…”

  Her voice frayed. She licked her dry lips again.

  The sight of Ariane’s elegant pink tongue could not have been more arousing to Simon if it had been his own aching flesh that was being licked.

  “God blind me!” Simon said savagely.

  He surged to his feet, poured a cup of water from the ewer on the chest, and stalked back to the bed.

  “Drink this,” Simon said. “If you lick your lips any more you’ll make them raw.”

  Ariane lifted trembling fingers to the mug. Simon took one look and waved her hands aside.

  “You have less strength than a kitten,” he muttered. “Here.”

  Simon held the mug against Ariane’s lips and tilted it. Very quickly she choked and water spilled in cool silver streams down her chin.

  “By the Cross,” cursed Simon, lowering the cup. “It was easier when you were senseless.”

  “What—” Ariane coughed and cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”

  “When you were
senseless, I fed you from my own lips.”

  Ariane’s mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”

  Simon drank from the cup, bent to Ariane, and fed her the water as he had so many times when she lay in thrall to Learned healing.

  The giving of water was so swiftly done that Ariane had no time to object. And even if she wanted to object, she had to swallow before she spoke.

  “More?” Simon asked, holding the mug to his lips.

  Again Ariane’s mouth opened in amazement as she understood just how Simon had cared for her.

  Again he sipped and again leaned down to her mouth.

  She watched him with dazed amethyst eyes. The sight of him bending down to her sent odd sensations cascading through her body.

  She swallowed convulsively.

  “You do that so…casually,” Ariane said.

  “I have had near ten days to become adept at nursing you,” Simon said.

  Ariane’s mouth opened again. She closed it hastily when Simon raised the mug once more.

  “You?” she whispered. “You tended me?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Cassandra required it.”

  Ariane blinked.

  “Cassandra,” Ariane repeated slowly, as though she had never heard the name. “Why in the name of all that is holy did she require that?”

  “Why does a Learned one do anything?” Simon retorted. “And while we’re asking questions, why in the name of God didn’t you gallop for the keep when you had a chance?”

  “The keep?”

  “When the renegade knights attacked.”

  Suddenly it all came back to Ariane—the shout from Simon, the attacking knights, and the realization that he was going to stand and defend her when he could have outrun them quite easily.

  “You stayed,” she said simply.

  “What?”

  “You defended me when you would have been better served if you let the renegades have me.”

  “What kind of a beast do you think I am?” Simon asked in an icy tone.

  Then, remembering his response to the enthralling sensuality of the balm, Simon went pale.

  “I may be a beast when it comes to matters of the bedchamber,” he said tonelessly, “but I am not a craven to leave a girl to be torn apart by marauding bastards dressed as knights.”