by Juliana Gray
“Ah, Lilibet,” he murmured. His hands moved upward to cover her breasts, to brush his thumbs against her hardened nipples.
“Please, Roland. Now. What’s an hour or two?”
“Everything, possibly.” But he kissed her again, stroked his tongue against hers. He rolled her nipples lightly between his thumb and forefingers. Sensation snaked through her body, sharp and electric.
“That’s nonsense. He’s in Florence. Ages away, even if he knew where to find us.” She raised her buoyant legs and wrapped them around his hips.
“I suppose,” he said, between kisses, “we could leave at dawn. But no later, Lilibet.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Oh, now, Roland. Please.”
He chuckled against her skin. “Eager Lilibet. Darling girl. No, not now.”
“What’s that?”
“Mmm. You see, I promised myself, that if I were so fortunate as to have you in my bed again, so to speak . . .”
“Beds are for dull married couples.”
“Quite right. Stables and lakes much more to the purpose.” His fingers went on massaging her nipples with exquisite slowness, just the right pressure, and her head fell back in delirium. “But as I said, I promised myself I’d do the thing properly. No mindless coupling, no swift conclusion. I’d give you the bedding—again, so to speak—you deserved.”
“And what is that?” She could hardly speak; she could hardly think. Her torso floated in the water, anchored by her legs about his waist and his fingers on her breasts; the stars winked happily at her from the silvery black sky. She felt as if she were in another world.
Heat flooded her right breast as his mouth replaced his fingers. “Pleasure, darling,” he said, into her skin. “All the pleasure I can possibly lavish on this lovely body of yours. I mean to show you just how a man makes love to the woman he adores. I mean to leave you in no doubt at all to whom you belong.”
“I don’t have any doubt about that. Not any longer.”
His mouth tightened about her nipple, suckling fiercely. She gasped at the sensation it evoked, the way his heat seemed to spread through her body. His hands moved to her back, resting on her shoulder blades, holding her up for the tug of his lips. “Ah, God, they’re so beautiful,” he said, his words slurring together at the ends. He kissed his way to her other breast. “So sweet, so soft and endless. In my dreams, I’m doing this. Feasting on you for hours.”
Her hands traveled up his face to his hair, tangling in the wet strands, and then swept down again to explore the line of his broad shoulders, the ridge of his clavicle, the hard, flat planes of his chest. She couldn’t quite believe she was doing this, that Roland’s body lay before her, that she could touch him at will, feel his skin beneath her fingers; could see the light scattering of downy hair glinting in the moonlight. His bones felt sturdy and solid beneath her legs; the thick hardness of his member settled snugly into the crease of her buttocks, unbearably tantalizing. She wanted him inside her, part of her; she wanted it with an immediacy that made her shudder.
She pulled herself upward and found his lips with hers. “Roland, I’m ready,” she whispered. “You’re ready. Please. I can’t bear it.”
He shook his head, his smile growing beneath her lips. “Yes, you can, darling. You’re going to have to bear a great deal more. I haven’t shown you nearly enough.” His hands slid down her waist and cupped her hips, his spread fingers encompassing the tops of her thighs. He drew her apart from him, loosening her legs from their death grip around his waist. Not once did his mouth move away from hers. He kissed her gently, relentlessly, his silken tongue ranging about in loving strokes.
Sensation rushed at her everywhere: from his kiss, from the rub of his chest against her sensitized breasts, from the firm roundness of his buttocks against her hooked heels; from his fingers, spiraling along the inside of her leg, closer and closer to the juncture between her thighs. One hand slid to the small of her back, supporting her, while the other roamed deeper, sending currents of water eddying about her loins. She held her breath: waiting, wanting.
His thumb brushed against her curls at last, and a gust of air released from her lungs.
His chuckle warmed the skin of her throat. “You liked that, did you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”
His thumb brushed her again, delicate and deliberate, until she thought she might perhaps go mad; she strained against him, desperate for more. He began to probe with exquisite care, working his way between the folds of her flesh, parting her, sliding so slowly along the slickness of her lips within that she threw back her head and cried out. “Hush,” he said, pressing kisses into her neck. “Be patient, darling. Let it come to you.”
How could she be patient, when his thumb was so maddeningly slow? How could she hush and wait, when his thumb at last reached the bundle of nerves at her core and began to circle it, as if they had all the time in the world, as if she weren’t bursting from her skin? How could she not simply explode, as he increased the pressure and the rhythm and then backed away, over and over, knowing exactly when she approached each brink, reading every nuance of her body with fine precision.
“Please,” she sobbed, rubbing her cheek against his rough wet hair. “Please, Roland.”
He drew his thumb away, and it was like the sun slipping behind the mountains. She gave a bereft little cry and opened her eyes. He gazed down at her, smiling, lifting his thumb to his mouth and tasting her.
“Roland,” she said, “I’m going to die, right now, right now . . .”
“Trust me.”
His hand moved to her buttocks, cupping them, and then slid along her thighs to her knees. “Swim for me,” he said, lifting her legs up to his shoulders, one by one, easing her torso against the tender lap of the water. She shivered at the loss of contact, at the anticipation of the next. Her arms swayed in the water, keeping her afloat. He would take her now; he would thrust inside her at last; he would . . .
Her body jumped out of the water with an inarticulate Oh God! as his mouth descended between her legs, so hot and lush she felt her insides melt and rush toward his waiting lips. He held one knee firmly with his hand; the other hand he placed in the center of her back, supporting her, as his tongue swept her hidden flesh with velvet strokes. Cool water lapped against them, mingling with his heated mouth, making her gasp and cry out and shudder, outside her own body with the pleasure engulfing her. His tongue began to work at her exposed bud, flicked back and forth in a relentless rhythm, and she could not stop saying his name, could not stop the waves of release. They crested and broke and ran down her body, until the only thing keeping her afloat was Roland’s hands, Roland’s arms, Roland’s unyielding shoulders beneath her legs.
* * *
He thought he might die from the sight of her.
She came and came, contracting in ripples against his tongue, her heady musk rich in his nose and her voice crying his name into the evening air. Before him, the gentle slope of her ripening belly merged with the fullness of her breasts, and her long wet hair tangled with his hand underneath her back. She lay helpless with release atop the water, trusting everything to him.
He remained still, knees bent, feet planted solidly on the lake bottom, letting her body drift down from the peak in its own time. With his hands he supported her, kept her head above the surface, kept her sweet quim just at the waterline, where the lapping waves would meet the dying aftershocks of her climax. He ignored his body’s urgent shout to take the magnificent woman laid out before him; this was their wedding night, their true joining, and he wanted everything perfect for her.
At last her arms began to move, waving in the water. She reached for him, and he helped her upright, covering her cooling flesh with his own before she had a chance to shiver. She buried her head at the base of his neck. “I won’t ask where you learned how to do
that.”
He kissed her hair, smoothing away the dripping tangles. “In my dreams, sweetheart. You’ve sentenced me to more lonely hours in my bed than I care to remember. I think I’ve plotted out every last possible detail, by now.”
A soft gurgle of laughter. “Oh, well said.”
He put his hands to her cheeks and lifted her head. “You don’t believe me?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? You’re mine now. I believe that.” She moved her hips against his, and this time he couldn’t resist her. Even in the cool embrace of the water, his cock was hard and huge with need; the nudge of her body against his engorged flesh knocked away the last tenacious remnants of his self-control.
He kissed her, long and deep. His hands slid down her neck and sides to her bottom; he lifted her buoyant body and positioned it above the eager tip of his staff. With a soft groan he pulled his mouth from hers and met her gaze. Her lips were open, her eyes half-closed; she was breathing in shallow little gasps, grinding downward against him.
“Are you certain?” he managed. “Because I can’t . . . Lilibet, this is final. We can’t go back . . .”
Her hands gripped his waist and pulled him to her. “Yes. Yes! For God’s sake, don’t stop!”
Slowly he eased himself inside her. The slick channel clasped him like a fist, hot and snug where the water had been cool and light. His arms shook; his fingers dug into her skin. “Lilibet,” he groaned, and with a final thrust he was buried fully within her body, joined with her in the most intimate way, the pulse in his neck throbbing like a dynamo against hers.
She wrapped her legs around him, securing herself on his cock; her hands traveled up his chest to his face, slipping into his hair, and kneaded his scalp. She laughed aloud. “Oh, God, Roland. It’s really you. It’s really us.” She stretched her neck backward, dipping her hair in the water behind her, offering her breasts up to him. He bent his head to suckle one dark peak and then the other, rotating her hips in a corkscrew motion, until she gasped and shivered, straining against him, urging him deeper.
He lifted his head and began to thrust in a heavy rhythm, unable to contain himself any longer. She responded at once, coordinating her movements with his, meeting the plunge of his cock with the push of her hips between his hands. The water rushed and eddied about them, creating resistance and friction even as it lightened her body, making him reach and grasp to bring her back for each plunge. It had been too long; he was too desperate. Release began to push past the iron bands of his self-control, and he freed one hand from her hip to circle the little bud just above their joined flesh with the broad pad of his thumb.
Her body jumped against his. She gave a throaty cry and ground down against him, fighting against the water to quicken the rhythm. Her heels dug into his back, anchoring her as she met his thrusts with such vigor, such passion, he thought he might burst with joy. He squeezed his eyes, concentrating, finding the exact movement of his thumb and his cock to please her, and in that instant she reached her climax. She shuddered and collapsed against him, and in two quick thrusts his balls contracted, his release burst forth, and his shout echoed off the rocks and rippled across the lake.
EIGHTEEN
They drifted against each other for some time, still joined, too replete to move. “Am I too heavy?” she whispered at last against his neck, and he shook his head.
“No, you’re perfect.” She felt his kiss against her hair, her temple. “Perfect, darling.” His voice was soft, hoarse.
She raised her head and laughed. “No, I’m not. Your legs are shaking.”
“Merely passion, darling. I’m as strong as an ox, I assure you.” He sounded just a bit defensive.
“Yes, with a lifeless heifer clinging to his hips.” Gently she eased herself away from him and felt him slide out of her in a slick rush. She was boneless, weightless in the water, her legs floating inexorably to the surface until she forced them downward to grip the pebbled lake bottom with her toes. She reached up and kissed his smiling mouth. “Mine,” she said.
“Yours.” He nibbled at her lips. “Let’s get you out of the water, shall we? Before your skin turns a most unsightly prunelike texture.”
“Bite your tongue. I’m a legendary beauty. My skin never wrinkles.”
They scrambled and staggered to shore, bodies still wobbly from the intensity of union. He dried her with his shirt, dressed her, did her buttons; she helped him with his trousers and jacket. “Your shirt’s quite soaked,” she said, holding it up before him.
“No one will notice. Come along.” He took her by the hand and led her into the olive trees.
“Where are we going?”
“My room.”
They stole up the terraces, hand in hand, pausing only when a dark figure crossed their path at the bottom of the peach orchard. “Wallingford or Burke, probably,” whispered Roland, “looking for your cousins.”
“Really? He didn’t seem tall enough. One of the villagers, I expect, taking the short way home.”
The courtyard was still full, the band still playing. They crept around the edge of the torchlight and slipped through the door and up the stairs. She paused by the door to her room.
“Don’t worry.” He tugged at her hand. “Francesca’s there. He’s quite all right.”
“She’ll worry, if I don’t return.”
“I expect she’ll figure things out. Come along.”
She followed the pull of his hand down the hall, her feet slapping softly against the stone floor, until they reached the west wing and Roland’s door.
Inside, he lit a single candle, and without a word, without even a kiss, unwrapped her clothes from her body and carried her to the bed. “Rest,” he said, drawing up the blankets around her. “We leave at dawn.”
She burrowed herself into the mattress, inhaling the clean scents of linen and Roland, the trace of his soap still on the pillow. He undressed before her, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, slinging his jacket and trousers over the chair, and then dropped into the bed next to her and gathered her close.
By necessity, in fact: The bed was quite narrow.
She lay there a moment, eyes closed, not quite believing she was in Roland’s room, Roland’s bed, his hard body molded around her and his arm across her waist. His thumb fiddled with her nipple and she laughed.
“What is it?”
She turned in his arms and drank in the sight of his face, inches from her own. “You really expect me to drop right off to sleep? Just like that?”
“Why not?” He smiled intimately and rested his hand along her hip. “You should be exhausted, by God.”
“So should you.” She couldn’t resist touching him, couldn’t resist the luxury of lifting her hand to caress the side of his face. She ran her fingers along the slope of his cheekbone, the firm line of his jaw, the tiny lines etched his forehead. “But you’re not, are you? You’re worried.”
He turned his face to kiss her palm. “No more than any groom on his wedding night.”
“Don’t hide from me, Roland. Don’t pretend. You may have the rest of the world fooled into thinking you haven’t a care in the world, but I know better.” She kissed him tenderly. “I know you, darling. There are a thousand things you’re not telling me, and I want to know them all.”
The corner of his mouth bent ruefully. “Of course you do.” But he said nothing else, nothing to enlighten her. He only stroked his hand along the side of her hip, the curve of her bottom, while his eyes searched her face.
“Roland, what is it? Are you worried about Somerton?”
“Yes. I rather resent the fact that the key to my happiness lies in his beastly paw. But I’ve been thinking also . . .” His voice drifted.
“Yes?”
“Well, we’ve got to run off, probably to some godforsake
n hole, no doctors to speak of, and I can’t help feeling . . .” He paused again, frowning.
“Tell me.”
His hand settled against her bottom, urging her closer. “Listen to me, darling. When I’d heard you were expecting, all those years ago, so soon after your wedding, I . . . well, I went rather mad. Bad enough you’d married, but that!” His eyes closed tightly for an instant. “I was rather off my head for a bit. But when the time came, when you were confined . . .”
“How did you know about that?” Her throat was dry.
“I bribed a housemaid,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I had to know you were safe. I was most awfully worried. I kept thinking, what if something goes wrong? Women die all the time, having babies. That was when I stopped being angry at you, I believe. All that mattered anymore was that you were safe, that you were alive.” His voice took on a strained note, hushed and husky in the flickering air between them. “That night I prayed. On my knees I prayed. I asked God to spare you, that I’d accept everything, anything, as long as you still existed, somewhere on this earth.”
“Oh, Roland.” She buried her head in his chest. “Oh, Roland. I was fine. Never any danger. I mean, it hurt most terribly, of course. They wanted to give me chloroform, but I refused. And . . . well . . . it was a great deal of effort. It wasn’t easy.” She lifted her head. “But I was fine. He came out beautifully. The doctor said I was built for it. Like a peasant woman.”
His hand went to her hair, stroking. “Darling, if something goes wrong, I’ll never forgive myself. For being so careless as to get you with child to begin with, and then in such circumstances. Not having married you. Not having given you my name, to protect you and the baby.”
She worked herself upward, supporting herself with one elbow. “Roland, listen to me. I want this child. Do you hear me? I’m not the slightest bit ashamed. Not anymore. As long as you’re with me, as long as Philip is with me, the rest of it doesn’t matter. Whatever happens, whatever the future holds, I’ll always have this part of you, created from you. And I am grateful to God for that.”
