by The Bargain
And then it happened. The sidesaddle swung crazily downward, around the filly's girth, and at that instant Ashleigh was certain she was about to hit the ground and die. But her instincts saved her. Preventing what could easily have been a fatal fall, she grabbed the racing filly about the neck and held on.
Behind her she could hear Brett shouting, but couldn't focus on what he said as she concentrated on holding on and not thinking about the ground flying by under the filly's pounding hooves. The loose saddle was bumping against her belly and thighs, and the muscles of her shoulders began to burn with a searing pain, her arms feeling as if they were about to be torn from their sockets, but still, she managed to cling to the filly's neck, and to life itself.
She thought she sensed, on her left, her husband drawing alongside her on the stallion, thought she heard him shouting some instructions, but before she could assimilate this, the sidesaddle gave way completely, dropping to the ground that reverberated with beating hooves. She felt Irish Night's powerful neck pull sharply to the right and heard the filly's shriek of fright as she veered to escape the falling saddle. Ashleigh screamed as her arms were wrenched loose from the lathered neck, and then, suddenly, there was nothing at all as blackness wiped out the day.
* * * * *
Ashleigh floated aimlessly in a black void, unable to comprehend where she was, or why she was there, but all around her she sensed imminent danger. Then a flood of moonlight pushed the shadows away, and she was on the little balcony at the dowager's cottage. Something seemed to be pushing her toward the railing, and as she moved toward it, it broke away, leaving a gaping hole. She screamed and drew backward, only to find herself thrown onto the saddle of a racing horse. Knowing she must somehow not trust the safety of her perch, she leaned over her mount's neck, intent upon grasping it, but suddenly the horse dissolved beneath her, saddle and all, leaving her once again in the black void, and this time she was falling, falling....
"Ashleigh, don't!" Brett's voice came to her out of the darkness, and she struggled to open her eyes.
"Dear God, sweetheart, please don't scream! It's all right. You're here, with me, my darling, and you're safe! I have you, and you're safe!"
Ashleigh opened her eyes to find Brett bending over her with an anxious look on his face. Behind him, above his head, she saw leafy green branches interspersed with small patches of blue sky and the air about them was filled with the friendly chirping of birds.
"Brett...?"
She saw him close his eyes briefly, as if to shut out some unbearable image, and then open them again as he smiled down at her.
"Thank God you're back," he whispered.
"Back?"
"You blacked out just as I was able to pull you to safety when that damned saddle fell." Brett forced his words past grimly tightened lips and paled visibly before continuing. "You've been unconscious for a good ten minutes or so. Oh God, Ashleigh, I've been so worried!" Turquoise eyes searched her face. "How do you feel, love?"
Ashleigh managed to summon a smile. She was here, and she was alive, and Brett's strong, comforting presence chased the ghosts of her nightmare away. "I—I feel surprisingly fine, actually... now." Her eyes darkened as she recalled the images in her dream, and she realized it was these, more than the narrow escape she'd had, that had the power to frighten her. "Did... did I really scream before, Brett? I mean, if I did, I'm terribly sorry. I know it must have sounded aw—"
Strong arms lifted her upward as Brett drew her to him in a tight embrace. "Hush!" he whispered hoarsely. "And don't ever apologize for showing me your emotions, sweetheart," he murmured into her hair, "no matter what form they take! You were unspeakably frightened and had every reason in the world to be frightened. I won't have you denying your right to voice such feelings—not now, not ever!"
Ashleigh closed her eyes and tightened her arms about Brett's waist, basking in the utter comfort and security she felt in his arms. There was a time when, despite the presence of friends such as Dorcas and Megan, she'd forced herself to hide her fears, dragging them out to face alone when she was able, burying them in forgotten places when she was not. But now, because of the presence of this man she loved, she realized she'd never have to do that again. Oh, life was such a miracle when it was shared!
She proceeded to tell him, then, of the dream she'd had before regaining consciousness; her voice was steady as she spoke, reflecting none of the terror of her first recollection. When she finished, Brett loosened his embrace, holding her gently in the circle of his arms as he looked down at her.
"Brett, what is it?" she questioned, for there was a clouded look in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
Brett wrestled with himself, debating whether to tell her what he'd learned—and what was foremost on his mind now that she'd underscored it with the story of her dream.
After he'd miraculously been able to pull her off Irish Night, and once he'd pulled both horses to a halt, he'd circled back to inspect the sidesaddle as it lay on the ground. Even at the distance afforded by his perch on horseback, he clearly saw the evidence he'd feared: the saddle's cinch belt had been tampered with! Someone had sawed at its underside with a sharp instrument, not enough to sever it completely, just enough to weaken it so that it would give way at a critical moment—in all probability, when the filly was being ridden hard!
What Brett had suspected the morning after Ashleigh's close call on the balcony was now confirmed: Someone was trying to kill his wife! And whoever it was, wasn't even being very subtle about it at this point—it would have stood to reason that any saddle accident would have warranted an inspection of the tack of Ashleigh's mount. The would-be killer hadn't even cared!
But now, in the split second that all these thoughts replayed themselves in Brett's mind, he focused on an additional problem: How much should he tell Ashleigh? Would warning her of the danger she was in help make her safer? Would it really offset the hazard of instilling her with the worst kind of fear— a fear for her life—that she'd be forced to live with until the villain was found out? Praying he was right, and vowing to catch the would-be murderer before he could strike again, Brett made his choice.
"It's nothing, love," he told her. "I merely took a moment to reflect on what happened—on what might have happened if I hadn't been in time to—"
"Shh!" Ashleigh interrupted as she threw her arms about his neck and hugged him fiercely. "You were in time! That's all that matters!"
Brett held her close, and prayed she was right—that he'd be there to protect her until the evildoer was caught. His brain tripped with ideas on how to go about catching whoever the scum was, while he silently vowed not to let Ashleigh out of his sight—or that of some discreet guards he would appoint—until this happened.
Ashleigh again succumbed to his soothing embrace, her fears truly behind her now. She opened her eyes and noted for the first time that they were in a small clearing in a heavily wooded glen of sorts, and she reflected that he must have carried her into the wooded area she'd spotted in the distance as they'd raced. Nearby, Irish Night and Raven cropped calmly at some lush grasses that lined a half-hidden brook of bright, clear water.
Withdrawing a bit, she smiled brightly at her husband. "Oh, Brett, what a lovely place this is! How did you ever find it?"
Glad to see her acting more herself, Brett smiled. "I used to come here often when I was a lad. Sometimes it was because I needed a respite from the strictures of my daily schedule." He reached out to finger a shining lock of the raven hair that had come undone from its ribbon. "Sometimes, because I needed to think." He bent to brush his lips tantalizingly across hers. "And sometimes it was to have a picnic—by myself, of course, on food coaxed out of cook or Mrs. Busby—I've never brought anyone else here—until now." His eyes met hers and held.
A delicious shiver rippled the length of Ashleigh's frame as she allowed him to press her gently down upon the soft green grass. "This place has meant something special to you over the years, hasn't it?"
she whispered. "This beautiful little glen in the woods. I feel honored that you're sharing it with me."
Brett shook his head slowly as his fingers undid the buttons of her bodice, his gaze never leaving her face. "Oh, no, my love," he whispered throatily, "the honor is mine... but the pleasure, ah, the pleasure shall be yours...."
A mischievous twinkle danced in Ashleigh's sapphire eyes as his hands cupped the fullness of her breasts. Not "yours alone," my lusty husband, she thought as she felt herself capitulate to the magic of his knowing hands, for this time I mean to pleasure you as much as you do me!
Brett caught the look in her eyes and wondered at it, then bent to give one saucy nipple a playful nip through the fine cambric of her shift.
"All right, wench!" he laughed as his attention drifted to her parted, half-smiling lips, "What are you up to, hmm?" Bracing himself above her with his hands on the grass on each side of her head, he gave her a wicked grin, then rolled to the side, pulling her on top of him and drawing her hips against his with hands that clasped the rounded curves of her buttocks.
"Oh!" Ashleigh gasped, feeling the bold stirring of his passion against the juncture of her thighs, even through the linen of her riding skirt.
But she had little time to say more, for Brett's hands moved upward, stroking the length of her before gently cupping her head and bringing her mouth to his for a kiss that robbed her of breath.
It was an utterly sensual kiss, beginning with his warm lips moving over hers from side to side, lazily, deliberately, his tongue gliding temptingly along the seam between. His thumbs underscored this rhythm, tracing lazy circles along her temples while his fingers laced through the thick hair behind her ears.
Then his tongue gently sought and gained entrance, advancing ever so carefully between her teeth, grazing them, then tempting the tip of her own with its touch.
At this, Ashleigh shuddered, feeling the rush of something familiarly warm and moist at her core. Brett guessed at her reaction, his soft, knowing laughter eclipsing her rapid intake of breath while his mouth moved to her ear and a hand once again stroked and cupped her buttocks.
"Ah, little one... sweet, beloved wife," he murmured as he turned them so they were facing each other on their sides, and his free hand moved back to her half-exposed breasts. "You're always so ready for me, darling. Here... see?" he murmured as he undid the lacing of her shift and a pair of hard-tipped, thrusting breasts spilled free. "See how you peak for me here, love?" he questioned. "See how your lovely body tells me you want me?"
Ashleigh felt his questing fingers graze the thrusting peaks he spoke of and softly moaned her passion against his lips, lips that nibbled and played with her own, teasing, tantalizing even as his fingers did the same below.
But then she forced herself to pause a moment while she pondered his words. Yes, my darling, she thought, you know how to tell when I want you, but I, too, can read the signs of passion.
Carefully, cautiously, not wanting to err in the execution of her plan, she trailed her hands lightly down his muscled back and then around and between their two bodies until at last she found her courage and placed one small palm over Brett's hard, throbbing shaft.
"Wha—?" her husband questioned, then groaned as nimble fingers traced the bulging length of his maleness through the cloth of the riding breeches. "Ashleigh," he rasped, "for God's sake, Ashleigh!"
But his wife only smiled deliciously, looking at him through half-closed lids as she continued her experiment.
"You little vixen!" Brett gasped, but as he would have said more, he felt her fingers undoing the fastenings of his breeches, and with a groan more desperate than before, he rolled with her until she lay beneath him.
"Witch!" he murmured as he buried his face in her hair.
Ashleigh twisted until she could see his face. "But Brett, I was only trying to see if I could do to you, what you do to me," she explained, innocence evident in her wide-eyed gaze.
Brett managed a chuckle. "Oh, little one," he breathed, "if you only knew what you do to me without even trying!"
"But if I don't experiment with something more, how will I ever keep you when I grow old, when my beauty fades?"
With gentle laughter, he cupped her face between his hands and bent to place on her parted lips a kiss that was fraught with tenderness.
"Oh, little love," he murmured as he raised his head and gazed deeply into her eyes, "don't you know the way I feel about you has more to do with who you are than with how you appear? Always, even when I am an old, old man, and you, a little snowy-haired angel, I shall want you... because it isn't your perfect beauty I fell in love with—although, I'll admit, it did much to open the door at first.
"But Ashleigh, my darling, it's the you that's inside that draws me far more than all your lovely physical charms. It's your heart and soul that draw me to you, sweetheart. It's like you're the other half of me... of my heart, my own soul... and that will always be, with no amount of infirm flesh or silvered hair to change it."
He shifted his weight and reached down to take both her hands in his. Turning them over, he bent to place a kiss, almost reverently, in the palm of each before gently folding her fingers and then drawing her closed fists to his heart.
"Love took almost half a lifetime to reach me, Ashleigh," he continued softly. "Do you think that something as superficial as physical beauty—or its loss—would ever cause me to cast it aside? Ah, no, my love. I shall love you beyond time... I shall love you forever."
The blue of Ashleigh's eyes deepened, yet they sparkled, becoming two midnight prisms where light and shadow mixed, and he thought their brilliance put the stars to shame. "And that's how I love you, my darling," she whispered.
But then a glint of mischief shone from beneath her thick, dusky lashes. "Brett...?" She grinned as her audacious hands began to slide under his shirt.
"Aye, minx?" he answered, catching his breath as she began to remove the shirt.
"What if I weren't to, um, experiment in order to learn ways to hold your love...?" The shirt was pushed down, off his shoulders. "But, instead, for the sake of..." The shirt found its way to the grass beside them. "Of giving you pleasure? Would that be so wrong?" Her slender fingers wound through the matted chestnut hair on his chest, then found the flat male nipples and began to stroke and entice them.
With a shudder, Brett fell back and threw one arm across his forehead, then took a deep breath before answering her.
"That would be like carrying coals to Newcastle, love. Just being with you, touching you, already affords me so much pleasure, I—" He gasped as Ashleigh's delicate fingers completed the undoing of his britches.
"Ashleigh, love, I beg of you!" he rasped. "Do you want this loving to be over before it's begun?" With a fierce growl, he wrapped his arms about her small frame and rolled with her until she was trapped beneath him.
"I—I don't understand!" she stammered. "These are the things you do to me!"
"Little innocent," he said softly, looking adoringly into her eyes. "No, I suppose you don't understand... yet... but I think I can demonstrate better than tell you."
"Demonstr—?"
But her words got no further as his hands began to move over her body, gliding over all the treasured parts of her as lightly as a butterfly's touch, sliding over, slipping between her heated flesh until she began to writhe and twist in his arms, begging him to take her.
But Brett only shook his head and smiled, taking his time, and further arousing her passion with caresses that were deliberate and slow.
One by one, the pieces of clothing she wore joined his shirt on the ground, until she lay moaning on the lush grass, wearing only her delicate shift, which had been deftly raised from below, until it bunched about her waist—it was long since lowered from above—so that her aching breasts spilled free for his touch.
By now Ashleigh was a frenzied, twisting, wild thing, crying out to him, pleading sharply with him, begging to be taken. But Brett continued at a meas
ured, studied pace, gently pressing her hands to the grass on either side of her while his mouth took over what his practiced hands had begun.
Each rosy-tipped breast succumbed to the magic as he traced circles about her nipples, languidly, magically, before finally taking them, first one, and then the other, into his mouth to suckle.
"Brett!" she cried, driven half out of her mind with an aching, pulsing longing at her core.
"No, love," he murmured as his mouth and tongue began to work their way lower, to her tiny waist, her flat abdomen, her navel, her twisting hips and trembling thighs, "for I mean to show you how it is when pleasure is heaped upon pleasure...."
Then she felt his lips brush the soft triangle of hair that covered her woman's mound. Startled, she would have stopped him, but he held her hands firmly at her sides. Frantically she tried to twist away. This was so intimate! This was so—!
But then she could no longer think at all. Her husband's tongue found the delicate bud above the entrance to her throbbing femininity and began to stroke... and stroke again....
Suddenly Ashleigh was mindless with pleasure as wave after wave of it washed over her and through her, making her shudder and convulse with each deft pass of his tongue. She became a delirious mass of sensation, sobbing out her pleasure, crying out her love for him as she came, again, and again, and again.
At last he heeded her cries and released her hands as his head returned to hover over her ecstatic face, watching her, loving her, glorying in the pleasure he could bring her.
Ashleigh opened her eyes and sanity returned for one full heartbeat as her gaze locked with his. Then, with a cry, she moved her hand downward and found him, and her fingers closed over him.
