This time I take what is mine. This time there will be no chance for betrayals or leaving.
“Mine!” he roared, and fell on top of her.
Chapter 7
Melissa pleaded for the chance to explain, but Sebastian tossed her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a cloak and hauled her upstairs. After pummeling his unyielding back all the way up, she took the chance to express her real feelings when he threw her down on the bed and sprawled across her.
She knew she should have been terrified to the bottom of her Christian soul but she was not. Sebastian’s fury heated his craggy face to a glowing bronze and his eyes to the color of the northern seas. His hands and body spoke to her of need, want and possession, wonderfully heady things to the young woman who as a child had been ignored and abandoned. Even as he gagged her mouth with kisses, burning, tongue-plunging kisses, she did not want him to stop.
She slackened her body and went utterly still. Sebastian was still kissing her and she responded enthusiastically to his fierce, toe-tingling embraces, but otherwise she did not move.
“You are not fighting me,” Sebastian observed after a long, heated moment, his fingers skimming her face as if he was blind.
“I shall never fight you, my lord,” she replied, smiling up at him. “I am yours. You are mine. I love you.”
His fierce eyes blinked.
“I see only you,” Melissa went on softly. “If I knew how to write I would carve this very tower into the likeness of your name.”
“You seek to divert my anger,” Sebastian huffed against her cheek.
“No need for anger,” Melissa replied, putting all her faith and hope into her next words. “My heart belongs to you.”
The blue eyes locked onto hers flashed. “Words. You were pawing that boy.”
She heard and refused to feed the jealousy by any argument. “I caught him so he would not stumble. As you did Robert.”
“So quick.” Sebastian crooked his thin, mobile mouth into a parody of a smile. “So busy.”
“Did you not tell me that my name means a bee?” He had done so while they labored together in the snowy garden of the tower.
“You will tire of this.” Sebastian braced his rangy body on his elbows, allowing her a welcome, deeper breath. “You will become sick of reassuring, explaining, placating. You will tire of me.”
Melissa smiled. She had not expected Sebastian to admit so much of his inner feelings and fears so swiftly. “How can I? I am yours. I want to be yours and no other’s. I love you and I shall tell you every day and not grow weary in the telling.” She eased her hands from the heavy, comforting cage of his limbs and stroked his stubbly chin, feeling the strong pulse beneath the pale skin. “You cherish me.”
“No,” he said, sounding for the first time uncertain. He kissed her forehead, then stopped. “What am I doing? What am I thinking?”
“You have no need to doubt,” Melissa said steadily. “I am where I wish to be…”
“You cannot be! I am ugly, older, dark, possessive…”
“…In your arms.”
“The newness of it only,” he scoffed, but his face remained taut, and when she ran her fingers through his silken hair, he shuddered. “But what newness,” he whispered, his face open and naked for an instant. “How can you…care for me?”
Because you are loveable, she longed to say, but she thought action might be more compelling than words. Inspired, she blew gently on his ear and his hips bucked once against hers. However furious Sebastian thought himself with her, his body yearned for her touch.
“You are young, mutable.” Sebastian tried again, determined to believe the worse, it seemed, of both of them. “A few assays and all secrets will be discovered for you. You will be bored.”
“You are pure gold to me,” she answered, using the alchemical language he had spoken to her. “Every day, every night is different with you,” she continued firmly, her feelings making her bold, his grudging yet strangely sweet responses giving her insight and rekindled courage. I will not allow him to turn away from me, not now. “That will never change. You are like the sky, always above me, always there, always some new delight and challenge. You are my elixir.”
Straddling her, taking his weight on his arms, he stared down at her as if she had gone mad. Melissa licked her lips. She did not want to justify anything. She did not want to quarrel. She wanted Sebastian to see her, not her mother, nor other women. She refused to try to seduce him. I would not know what to do and he must realize for himself that he need not be mistrustful of me. “Please,” she said. “See me. Love me.”
See me. Love me. The brave, halting words ripped away the dark, smoldering veils of jealousy with such force that Sebastian felt he had swallowed the sun. Life smashed through him with the force of a great wave, a shimmering force of which Lucifer himself, the light-bringer, would have been proud. Shamed of how foolish, how blind he had been, Sebastian snapped his eyes shut, re-opening them instantly to see his lover again.
My lover. How could I be in fear with my Melissa?
Melissa smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling with glints of gold, her lips and tongue very pink as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. Eager to touch her in return, he echoed her caress, loving the warm flow of hers, before he found himself burying his face into her neck with something of a sob.
“I am an idiot,” he rasped, ashamed and gratified in equal measures.
She sighed, but never stopped hugging him. “Everyone is at times.”
“I am sorry.” Guilt made him flinch and he tried to clamber off her. In a swish of skirts, Melissa wrapped a leg over his and toed a bare foot against his calf.
“You have no need to be.” She blushed as brightly as a flaming dragon and he felt her heat comfort him in a blanket of silk. “I rather like your possessiveness…love it, even.”
“Do you now.” Love it? Love me? He trembled at the thought. How can I deserve such happiness? “I have come to the difficult and sad conclusion that it makes me selfish.”
“Love is selfish, sometimes. But glorious, as well.”
He chuckled softly, feeling his somewhat guilty joy rumble through her slender, lithe body. “Ah, my Melissa, you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”
“But, being selfish, you will not let me go?”
Was he imagining it, or did she sound hopeful at the idea? “And how would you know that?”
“I am jealous, too, you know.” She rubbed her foot up and down as much of his leg as she could, a little hesitant, a little clumsy, but still delicious.
“Are you now?”
“I want to go out with you on patrol.”
“Impossible,” snorted Sebastian, nipping her neck.
He did not expect this to deter her and, after granting him a pout that he kissed off her, Melissa resumed. “I want to ride with you. I want to help as much as I can with your alchemy. I want to learn to read so I can spy on your parchments.”
Sebastian lifted his head, a tiny speck of suspicion, insidious as an ant, creeping over his back. “Why that?”
“So I can make sure no woman is writing to you!”
Now he laughed, loudly, expansively, and, after an instant where she tried to glare, Melissa joined him. They were still laughing, Sebastian deciding he would tickle the wench and have her writhe and wriggle completely in his arms, when Artos growled.
At once Melissa froze, stopped giggling, plucked her eating dagger from her waist and handed it to him. That swift, single action convinced him afresh. She clearly trusted him utterly, unreservedly, and had sense enough to recognize that if there was danger he was the fighter, not her. Clever girl. Yet, even now, he could not resist a tease.
“Do you not think I have my daggers of my own, little Felix?” he whispered. Dropping her blade onto the pillow beside her head, he rose quickly from the bed, twisting to shield her with his body.
He heard a spate of rushing footsteps, then relaxed
slightly as Robert appeared at the ruined entrance to the chamber, gawping at the shattered door. His squire was red-faced and breathless, but the physic in Sebastian instantly recognized the youth had recovered from his fever.
“My lord?” Robert still appeared stunned. “What are your orders for tonight? Do we close the gates and bar the doors?”
Sebastian folded his arms across his chest. “As we always do, Robert.” Why was he troubling him with this, especially now?
Robert flushed even more, to the color of a melting red ochre. “John the wainwright is missing.”
Behind him, Sebastian heard Melissa give a soft sigh and the softer word, “Good.” He felt the same. If that particular young man had vanished it was a relief. A darker part of Sebastian clamored briefly for vengeance, but what would be the point? He had what he wanted here already, in this chamber. Knowing that, it was easy to fight down the anxious, bitter resentment and jealousy.
“You have searched?” he demanded, sensing movement behind him as Melissa came to stand beside him.
“Yes, sir. He cannot be found.”
“Has John the wainwright taken anything that is not his?”
“No, sir.”
Melissa wrapped her warm, narrow fingers round his hand. “Will this bitter young man have gathered any knowledge of you and this tower that he can share with a new lord, to your disadvantage?” she asked softly.
“I think not,” Sebastian said steadily, half smiling at her grasp of strategy and gratified that she was thinking of him. Selfish, I know, but as Melissa says, love is selfish—and glorious.
“Good,” she said a second time, giving his palm a gentle squeeze.
Not that I need reassurance, little Felix, but I am not complaining. “Let it be known that John has quit the tower of his own choosing.” And if he had any sense of survival he would stay gone. “There is to be no pursuit.”
“All are free here,” murmured Melissa against his shoulder, her breath the softest of caresses.
“Yes, sir.” Robert glanced at Melissa. “Then I shall leave you both.”
“Until morning,” Melissa said, ignoring Sebastian’s bark of laughter and raised eyebrows.
Flustered, Robert bowed his way to the top of the staircase and fled. Sebastian waited for the scampering footfalls to die away and opened his arms. Your choice, little one. It must be your choice.
For a heart-stopping moment she did nothing, then he was gathered in, Melissa wrapping her arms about his back and middle, tugging on his shoulders, kissing his chest, neck, and higher.
Sebastian lowered his head and took possession of her mouth. “What is your desire?” he whispered against her lips, kissing her lightly after each word.
She moaned and sagged against him. “You, only you. I want, I need,” she was saying, her limbs buckling as she yielded to his kisses. He caught her before she fell, astonished and thrilled afresh by her responsiveness, touched by her generous courage and trust in showing what she felt.
“So open, my Melissa.”
She widened her bright brown eyes, stiffening slightly in his arms. “Is that wrong? Am I being amiss, too much?”
Lucifer! Never believe that, my heart.
“Never,” he answered aloud, cradling her to him and leaving Artos to guard. “Never too much. It shall be as you wish. Everything. I know what you need.” He needed it himself—a special, healing, passionate bonding. The time was right. The very day and night was right. That surely must have been a sign. His alchemy spoke of secret, sacred marriage, the joining of male and female elements, the feminine in the great work to discover the elixir of life. He had hoped but never dreamed to discover such a union, or experience it for himself, and for Melissa, with Melissa, for her and with her most of all.
He could do no other. He wanted no other. He loved her.
Trembling with wonder, not fear, he began.
Chapter 8
Sebastian carried the chair, his chair, from the table to the hearth and made up the fire. He brought her to the chair, ensconcing her like a queen, tucking pillows about her waist and placing the footstool by her feet.
“Watch the flames a moment, my darling,” he coaxed, his voice low and sensual. “I have some things to collect downstairs.” With a gentle squeeze of her shoulder he was gone, Artos shadowing him.
Melissa warmed her numbed hands by the blaze and waited. She had been resolute earlier, defending her lord from his demons. Now in this quiet she faced her own anew. He cares, but will I be enough for him? Small, worthless, no dowry…the old taunts rose like vengeful ghosts to torment her. And though she had confessed her love for him, Sebastian had not said those words back—
“Will I always be fighting ancient fears?” she burst out.
“I imagine we both shall, for a time, my Melissa. But it does become easier.”
She turned to look at Sebastian re-gracing the threshold, the sight of his tall, hard frame bringing a different heat to her face. Suddenly too shy to speak, she gestured to the shattered door, half hanging off its hinges, a reminder of his recent strife with inner devils. He smirked.
“I know,” he admitted, a touch wryly. “Yet better a few planks of wood than a person.”
Melissa nodded, acknowledging a kind of progress. Why could she not speak? Why was her mouth so dry?
“It is a fight we shall have again and again,” Sebastian went on. “I believe we are winning.”
“I think so, too,” she forced through parched lips. “I want us to.” Why did everything she was saying sound as if it could have two meanings, one chaste, one as far from that state as could be?
“We keep trying.” Sebastian wrenched the ruined door closed as best he could, set Artos to guard, and walked across to her, limping slightly, possibly because of his earlier door attack. “We have each other now.”
A bubble of joy rose in her throat, but strangely she felt torn between laughter and weeping. Trembling with nerves and excitement, utterly unsure what to do, she twisted round to the fire.
“Shy again?” asked Sebastian softly, kneeling before her. “Not from fear, I hope?”
“No.” To reassure him, she added, “This is not a night for fear.”
He smiled, changing the harsh planes of his face into something real, something approachable. “Do you know what tonight is, Melissa? It is the eve of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.” He leaned closer and kissed her nose, tracing her cheek and chin with his thumb. “A time of old magic, pagan, Christian, a safe, long night.”
“So we have time,” she whispered, to show she understood, her breath heating in her chest, her fingers tingling with needles and pins.
“We have time,” he agreed. He leaned back on his heels, so near to the fire that she wanted to warn him but at the same moment she knew that he knew. He looked at her intently. “Do you know the solstice is a night for sharing gifts?”
Speaking, he shifted to the side and she noticed the basket he must have brought in with him.
“Ah…” Melissa gripped the arms of the chair, desperately seeking to quell the tears she felt standing in her eyes. But he understood, Sebastian understood.
“No one has given gifts to you before, I know, little one, but tonight is just the beginning.”
“I, I—” She had nothing for Sebastian. A warm, strong hand clasped both of hers, bringing her fingers to rest in her lap.
“I hope your gift to me tonight will be your pleasure.”
Your pleasure. The words, the continued understanding, the promise, undid her. She rocked forward, trying to fling her arms about the tall, dark man kneeling by her feet. “You have it, you always have it.”
“And no other?”
“No, thank you.”
“And if I keep you all to myself?”
She loved the possessive glint in his eyes, the fierce hunger filling his face, and tightened her grip on his broad shoulders. “Yes. Yes, please,” she said, wishing they were closer still. “Can you,
will you, join me here?”
His chuckle wrapped blankets of tenderness along her spine. “You suggest I sit on your knees?”
She had meant she would sit on his, but perhaps he did not want that. “I could join you on the rug,” Melissa began.
Her speech was silenced by a deep kiss and a swift, hurtling starburst of movement that found her snared in Sebastian’s embrace and both of them on the chair, herself firmly in his lap. “Much better,” she agreed when she had recovered her breath.
“Open a present, wench, and be quiet.”
She burrowed against his chest, recalling the occasion she had sat in this way with him before. Sebastian trailed his fingers down her back and flanks as if he, too, was remembering. The fire spoke for both of them and the rest of the world seemed still.
“It has never been like this for me,” Sebastian said, speaking her thought. “This contentment and peaceful loving.”
“Perhaps it is our first gift,” Melissa said, her heart speeding up at Sebastian’s mention of loving, and quickening further as she was rewarded with a kiss.
“Here.” The wicker basket was dangled in front of her, filled with greenery, covered jars, small leather pouches, and tiny phials in green pottery. She plucked a jar at random and Sebastian snorted.
“Open it. Smell,” he ordered, with his old imperiousness.
“I respect you, my lord,” she answered primly, “As befits the meaning of your name. But you do not need to command me in this.” She dimpled a grin at him. “Already I know I love presents.”
“Foolish Felix,” he responded, his tone indulgent, and she tore her eyes from feasting on the way his mouth moved while those deep, seductive words poured out and twisted the lid on the jar, tipping a few slender curls of fragrant bark onto her palm.
“Cinnamon.” Sebastian confirmed her guess as she swiftly tipped it back into the container. “The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed it to be used by little cinnamon birds in their nests, nests built so high in trees it was difficult to collect and so expensive. In Roman times it was worth fifteen times more than silver and is worth more than gold today. I use it in alchemy and medicine. You could use it in love philters, for cinnamon inspires romance in men.”
Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive [Medieval Captives 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 6
