That was why he had snorted!
“Do I need to use it on you, my lord?” she teased, still staggered by the gift. So much value.
Sebastian grinned at her. “I think not.” His smile deepened. “I love you already.”
“Oh!” Melissa found that she could scarcely breathe. Torn between delight and wonder, the moment remained suspended between them, rarer than gold and more precious. “What now?” she mumbled when she remembered how to speak.
“Now you pick another gift,” Sebastian said quietly, as if he had not just confessed that he loved her. But then, why should she be surprised? He was above all, very much a man, her man.
With a happy sigh and trembling fingers, Melissa reached forward.
Another jar produced the dried flowers of marigold, good for fighting wounds and infections, she was told. There was also rosemary, for protection against bad dreams, lavender, to aid in bathing, sage and mint for tisanes, sprigs of thyme she could wear so that no evil spirits could creep up on her. The phials were filled with oil, rose oil for perfume, olive oil for the skin.
“Mulled wine?” Sebastian asked while she cradled her bounty.
She nodded and he poured a single cup for them to share. She wanted to thank him but was afraid she would start gabbling. Sebastian loved her…
He tweaked her hair. “Do not look stricken. These things are not obligations. If they please you, that is enough.”
“They do, very much,” Melissa answered, and she sat a little straighter on his knees. She did not want to seem completely overwhelmed, however much she might be. “Must I expire of thirst, my lord?”
A dark laugh revealed her clumsy tease had been accepted. Sebastian deftly plied her with the wine and took a few sips himself, drinking from the same side of the cup as she had. Melissa watched him replace the cup on the hearth, her breath catching as he lifted the basket off her lap and placed that behind them.
“What next, my lord?”
“The greenery.”
He indicated the small branches of holly and other boughs scattered around the base of the chair. He must have brought those in with the basket, though again she had been so busy watching him she had even missed these.
“I thought it might please you to decorate our chamber, Melissa. Ready for Christmas.”
How had he guessed she had never been allowed such pleasant tasks within her uncle and aunt’s household? “It will. Thank you.” Her burning throat closed up and she could not say more, but it did not matter. Sebastian understood.
Amidst the shiny green leaves and prickles she now spotted another plant, this more pagan and certainly more erotic. Swiftly, her lips already tingling in response, she jerked her head aside, hoping he would not notice her reaction, which was of course an impossible idea.
“Finally, the mistletoe.” Sebastian had seen her glance and her blush—he must see that, she felt her cheeks had burst with two suns. Shifting with his usual elegant grace, he plucked a spray from the flagstones, twirling it in his clever fingers. “To foster peace and reconciliation.”
It was a chance, an invitation, and she took it. “How so?”
Sebastian’s stark features molded into what, in a less compelling man, would have been a look of mischief. “In Christian tradition, you take a mistletoe berry to receive a kiss.” He tickled the spray with its waxy leaves and milky berries down her arm, making her aware of every single curve and dip of her now-sensitized limb, every aching scrap of skin—and that while I am wearing a sleeved gown.
She stopped the delicious, tormenting tendril with a finger and looked up into Sebastian’s saturnine face. “Are there other traditions?” she prompted.
She spotted the glitter of desire and interest in his half-hidden dark eyes, the tremble of his long, black eyelashes. It delighted her that she could affect him in that way, although his voice when he replied masked every emotion save a desire to explain.
“Naturally, little Felix. An ancient, pagan rite has berries removed in exchange for a kiss and a piece of clothing.”
“I take a berry?” Melissa felt faint. Desire warred with shyness and excitement, and her body was the battleground. Could she do this? Did she want to?
“And I take a kiss. A loving kiss.” Sebastian cupped her face with warm, callused fingers, his simple gesture of comfort steadying her, reminding her she was owned and cherished. “Then we divest, one item for each berry…a belt, a boot, a mantle, a gown.”
Melissa smiled and took a berry.
Chapter 9
Sebastian lowered his head. His mouth clashed with Melissa’s flat, taut stomach as she levered herself from his lap and sank onto the rug beside the fire, her slender fingers tearing at his shoulders. She is trying to pull me with her, not push me away. Allowing himself to relax, he pitched onto the flags like a slowly toppling tree, the mistletoe scattering with him.
“Sorry, I am sorry.” Melissa attempted to cradle him and they finished in a sprawl on the rug. “Sorry, sir! I was trying to be elegant.”
“Whatever for?”
She flinched, a stricken look making her eyes seem larger and warmer than ever.
“Lucifer, spare me from bold yet nervous virgins,” he muttered beneath his breath. In truth the volatile mix was appealing, no doubt because this was Melissa.
“I know I am short,” Melissa was saying, and he placed a finger across her lips to quieten her.
“Hush now.” He straightened his long legs and wound his arms about her, lifting her so she straddled his thighs, facing his front while sitting on him with her legs stretching behind him. Her back was to the fire but he could see her anxious face clearly. He leaned down and kissed the furrow on her forehead. “What I said was not well put, but you have other qualities, more lasting and powerful.”
She shrugged, as if ready to dispute this.
“Enough, Melissa,” he said firmly, running a hand down her back, loving her tender shiver. “You are kind, warm-hearted, forgiving, brave. You have a golden soul.”
She waggled her feather-arch eyebrows. “So have you, sir. Dark gold.” She carded his hair, surged up, and kissed a single flyaway lock. Her touch thrilled him and even more her words. Dark gold, eh? He allowed himself to relish the compliment, then returned to their play.
“You are also delectable.” He kissed her lower lip. “A pearl.” He sucked on her upper lip. “Beautiful as a rain-drop.” He brushed a soft kiss onto her cheek. “My tiny jewel.” He traced kisses across her jaw and chin. “Pretty elf.” He caught her shimmering hand in his larger one and embraced each whitening knuckle. “Dainty little bee.”
She sighed, dissolving into his embrace, snuggling tight against him. She fitted so well and they rocked together, the slender strands of space between them seeming to sparkle.
“Mine.”
“Yours.” She smiled. “Kiss me. Please.”
Exultant at her open desire, he asked gently, “Where?”
In answer she clashed softly against him, causing throbbing sparks in his groin as she skidded up his chest to tongue at the curve of his ear. Her flickering caress aroused him further.
“Naughty little Felix.” He captured her writhing form and nibbled all the way along the perfect pink shell of her earlobe before plunging his tongue into her ear. She squealed, bucking against him, jerking her head so his mouth plundered hers.
“Shall I do that again?” he demanded, when they finally broke a little apart, both of them shivering. “Do you want to hear my kisses?”
“Please, please.” She was glassy-eyed with need, plucking now at his belt.
“One piece of clothing, yes?” He murmured against her ear. Without waiting for her answer, he seized his dark blue mantle and tore it from his body, uncaring if the long tunic was ripped.
Sebastian accepted his long, lean body as nothing beautiful, functional enough with his long legs, flat stomach, strong hips and broad shoulders, but nothing handsome. He had too many battle scars on his arms, chest, b
elly and thighs to be the perfect parchment so admired in courtly circles. Yes, he was sinewy and powerful, but he also knew he was moon-skinned, too pale, and covered in an unsightly scatter of black, wiry hair that a previous lover once kindly described as “not too coarse.”
Melissa lightly brushed the black sprinkles across his chest. Braced for her shyness, at the most her curiosity, she stunned him yet again by giving a long, low sigh, deep in her throat.
“Please.” She traced the biceps of his arm, brushed her foot against his thigh. “Will you stand for me?”
She truly wanted to see him. Sebastian carefully rose with her still in his embrace, ensured she was standing safely, and then straightened. He was wearing braies but was now naked from the waist upward.
“Dark and light,” she whispered, piercing his body with her trembling, reverent touches. “You are wonderful to me, my lord, my dark protector.”
Her words were balm, another form of healing when already Melissa had done so much to revitalize his heart and soul. Her next act, sliding her gown from her shoulders, revealed her passion and faith, but he spotted the faint dithering, faster than the wing-beats of a bird, in her stiff yet graceful movements.
Still shy, beloved? On this solstice night we do not need to rush.
“Wait.” He had wanted to disrobe because he needed her to see him, needed to be reassured she would not find him too big, too brutal, needed to show her what a man looked like. “Let me.”
He untied her belt, dropping it behind them, catching a flicker of relief in her open face. She inched toward him, her hands rising seemingly of their own volition to memorize each slab of muscle of his shoulders, back and chest. He panted beneath her sweet touch, closing his eyes as explosions of pleasure made him see stars.
And this before I touch her, see her naked, before she sees me fully nude.
“Another berry?” he suggested softly.
“Wine, also,” she answered.
Sebastian laughed, the tension breaking in the room. Over by the threshold, Artos yawned and shook his ears. Melissa retrieved the cup and offered it to him. Sebastian shook his head. “Let me drink from you.”
Understanding, she took a mouthful of wine and raised her mouth to his. She tasted of raisins and summer, sweetness and sharpness. “Swallow,” he said, after a long moment, watching her eyelashes shimmer as she tasted him in turn.
“You said that to me on our first night,” Melissa reminded him. “You stopped me falling into panic. It was kind.”
“It would not have helped me if you had fainted,” said Sebastian gruffly, unsure with this species of compliment. You are easy to be kind to.
She crouched and took another berry from the nearest heap of mistletoe, holding it aloft in her fingers like a trophy. “And your boots to come off,” she added.
Sebastian grinned. “You are easy to be kind to,” he admitted, kicking off his footwear. His feet had been aching for a while and it was no hardship to go barefoot, especially when Melissa’s eyes widened and gleamed in appreciation.
“May I?” she asked, crouching again to place a warm, dry palm over his toes. Before he could speak or even stare, she pressed a swift kiss to the curve of his instep and sat back on her heels, her face a blaze of heat. “You have shapely feet. I never realized men could have…”
Her trust, her appreciation, her honesty, knocked him to his knees. He caught her into his arms. “My turn for a berry,” he said, stretching a long arm and seizing one, “and a kiss.”
His lips found hers.
She had never known such pleasure. To look at Sebastian was glorious, to touch him wonderful, to have him touch her a living miracle. Somehow, in a flurry of berries, sighs, and strewn clothes, they were naked together on the rug, surrounded by pillows, warmed by firelight and each other. Drunk with sensation, Melissa reached and yearned, each new moment of exploration and discovery a sparkling magic.
Sebastian was the most magical creature of the solstice night. He revealed loveliness to her in her small, pink-nippled breasts, in the narrow dip of her waist and the smooth, glossy, fire-shadowed curves of her hips, in the whirls of dark intimate curls between her thighs. He kissed her naval and along her spine and the dimples on her bottom. “Beautiful,” he kept saying, and his eyes echoed his words. He tongued her calves and toes, tickled the downy, unseen hair on her thighs, worshiped her with sweeping caresses.
The orange glow in the chamber seemed to grow stronger and yet more intimate the longer Sebastian touched and teased her, allowing her to map his strong body with her fingers and toes and mouth. Finally he hung above her, captured between her legs, his handsome-ugly face rapt with concern and concentration, his black hair spilling into his glittering, intense eyes.
“Yes?” he asked, braced upon his arms, a bead of sweat running down the plane of his cheekbone as he waited for her permission to enter her, to join with her.
“Please,” she murmured, relaxing against him, welcoming, raising her body up to meet and enclose his. There was no pain in this intimacy, rather a slow, languorous pleasure as Sebastian stroked her, inside and out, and she him. “Mine,” she cried once, in delighted possession, gripping his shoulders as he rocked them, slow and warm as summer.
“Always yours,” he whispered against her throat, rolling with them so she was above him, smiling, arching into his reaching hands, feeling as exotic and sensual as a mermaid.
I am home. We are home.
Sebastian rolled again, taking Melissa with him. Beneath him now, she raised her hips and locked her ankles behind his back, a silent, sweetly innocent invitation for him to do more. “Please,” she said a second time. “I need, I want—” Her head fell back as he quickened his slick, smooth glides within her. She began to pant, her toes scratching teasingly along his flanks, her fingers curling against his shoulders. He felt the hairs on his thighs tingling and jolting as he brushed up and down her body. He smelled her bluebell sweetness, laced with an earthier, muskier desire, and tasted her need for him when they kissed.
She moaned, writhing.
“Soon, little Felix,” he promised, gritting his teeth as he willed himself to take care. Her first time. Let it be special. This is for her, my Melissa.
“God and Lucifer…please. Sebastian! Please!”
He could no more resist her delicious pleading than stop the moon from rising. Something snapped within him, and in another instant he was pounding into her, her whimpers, moans, and gasps spurring him on, faster, deeper, harder. He felt her clenching around him, heard her stunned shout of completion, and slammed and shattered into his own long climax, completely, thoroughly undone.
Home, he thought, as he wrapped Melissa in his arms and spooned with her, nipping her ear and throat and smiling at her contented sighs. Finally I am home.
Tomorrow he would need to repair the door, tomorrow he would have to go out on patrol, but for tonight, this long, magical night, he and Melissa could sleep and love one another. Sebastian chuckled at the thought and kissed his sleepy, messy-haired beauty. My Melissa.
“I love you, so much,” he said, kissing her again. “Will you marry me, Melissa? Will you be my lady of the tower?”
Her closed eyelids flickered and flew open. An instant later she jabbed an elbow in his chest as she squirmed about and lifted herself to look at him.
“Marry? Me?”
Her delicious confusion and delight made him almost laugh aloud but by an effort of will he kept his face straight.
“So very grim,” she murmured, tracing his back eyebrows with a finger. “Even in church? We marry in church?”
The little wretch had wrapped him round her finger like a ribbon and he did not greatly care. “Even there,” he agreed. “If it means so much to you. And our children can be baptized, if you wish.”
“Little ones…” For an instant she looked stunned. “Ours.”
Sebastian thought of sons and daughters as tall and long-limbed as him, with their mother’s sweet yet fiery
nature and, pray God, her nose. “They shall be my heirs,” he vowed, before recollecting that Melissa had not yet agreed. A flicker of unease made him tighten his grip about her slender middle. “And now, my lady, your answer?”
She smiled, her lips curved in an echo of her mother’s but her loving eyes and the rest of her shining face her own. “Yes,” she said, and dropped a kiss upon his eager, trembling mouth. “Yes, please.”
The rest of their solstice was blissful.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsay has been writing stories since she was six years old. History and the past have always intrigued her, and writing stories about heroes and heroines overcoming massive problems and finding love as they do so is a wonderful way to earn a living!
Lindsay is married and lives in England in the beautiful county of Yorkshire. When she’s not writing or researching about the past, she enjoys reading, walking, swimming and cooking. A member of her local writers’ group, she teaches creative writing at her local college.
For all titles by Lindsay Townsend, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/lindsay-townsend
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Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive [Medieval Captives 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 7
