"Serena," Rand murmured, a feral sound that made her pause.
He sat up a bit straighter on the bed and dragged her to him for a kiss. Somehow, as he plundered her mouth and stirred her toward a mindlessness she could only surrender to, he stripped off his clothes. He was naked before her, glorious in his nudity. Serena's mouth went dry looking upon him, he was so magnificent.
"Now you," he said, roughly whispering the words below her ear as he kissed her some more.
With patient, trembling hands, he undressed her. Serena knew no uncertainty, no shame, as he slowly bared her body to his smoldering, hooded gaze. Her simple bliaut fell away to the floor, then her pale chemise.
"Beauty," Rand named her, drawing back to look at her fully. "My God, Serena. You are so exquisite. My woodland nymph."
She smiled, feeling her lips curve under his praising words and the fierce, hungry look in his eyes. He lifted her hand to his mouth and placed a kiss in her palm. He pressed her down beneath him, resting her back onto the plush warmth of the fur. His mouth was hot on her breast, his tongue laving her in rapturous sensuality.
Where he touched her body, his large hands skimming down along her ribs, to her abdomen, to the crisp thatch of curls between her legs, Serena dissolved in mindless delight. She squirmed against him, quaking and sighing as he now took his time exploring her. More than once, his strong fingers drifted to the dampening cleft between her thighs. Each time he stroked her more boldly, until she felt him delve between her slick folds, and deeper still, the tip of his finger breaching that most sacred part of her.
His name was a shaky gasp on her lips. "Oh, God," she whispered, shocked and so very delirious with pleasure as he teased her with his wicked touch. "Rand...yes."
He went deeper, and she could not hold back her cry. She knew not what he was doing to her, or how he knew just where she needed him the most, but eagerly she let him play her as he wanted, surrendering to him completely.
"Touch me," he commanded her between fevered kisses. He guided her to the stiff rod that pressed so deliciously against her belly. "I want to feel your hands on me."
Serena obliged him gladly, taking his length in her hand and stroking him as he moved her over him in a teaching rhythm. Soon he was aiding her, thrusting into her grasp, his breath soughing harshly at her ear.
"I need to be in you."
She understood what he wanted. The part of her that would take him within was urging her toward the same thing, throbbing with want for him. Serena could not voice her need, but she lifted up and kissed him, her hand bringing his sex down between her legs.
"When we join," he whispered, his voice thick, breaking off in a curse. "Oh, sweetest heart, I cannot do this without hurting you. If the pain is too great--"
"Shh, I'm not afraid." Serena shook her head, cradling his face in her hands. She lifted up to kiss him, delighting in the heated mesh of their lips, and lower, the dizzying torment of their bodies pressed so intimately together. "There is no pain when I am touching you," she murmured against his mouth. "I am not afraid of this, Rand. I've never wanted anything more."
His answering growl rumbled through her body. He bent his head and kissed her deeply, sucking her lip between his teeth, penetrating her mouth with his tongue. He curled his arms beneath her shoulders, holding her against him, a firm, possessive imprisonment that she hoped never to escape. With his knee, he edged her thighs farther apart, until his pelvis settled fully between them, his sex like a thick length of fire-warmed steel nestling in her moist cleft.
Serena thought she would perish for the astonishing sensation of his shaft caressing her with fluid motion, teasing without entering, the smooth, liquid slide stoking a flame within her very core. She moved with him, needing more, delirious with the sweet, deep ache he bred in her.
Rand broke their kiss and stared down at her, his eyes dark as midnight. His clean-shaven jaw was taut, clenched; the corded muscles in his neck bulging with the rigidity that seemed to engulf him. He dipped his head down once more, nipping her mouth, then bent lower, suckling her breast.
And all the while, he rocked against her, his hard length slipping between her folds until her sex was weeping for him. Serena gasped his name, her spine arched, her fingers clutching at him, needing him closer. He lifted his head, letting her tight nipple slip from between his softly abrading teeth.
The Knowing lashed at her like a tempest, drawing Rand's emotion with little resistance. He did not fight it, but fed it, she realized, all his desire for her dousing her in wave after wave of heat and hunger. He wanted to show her everything, to open her eyes to the world, and to the passion that ran so wild within him.
"Show me," she whispered, panting now, willing to beg him. "Please, show me."
All for you, said the Knowing.
"Only you," said Rand, holding her gaze with an intensity that robbed her breath.
He shifted, and now that hard, demanding part of him was poised like an arrow at the mouth of her womb. He gave a nudge of his hips, seating the blunt tip of him, and then he pushed, watching her eyes as the pressure built and her body prepared to accept his.
"Yes," she sighed. "Rand...yes..."
He thrust forward, and filled her with a fullness that defied description. Heat spread from her most feminine core, to her heart...all the way to her soul. Not pain, but a sharpness of her senses, a sudden awakening. An elemental wisdom.
The Knowing, for all of its unyielding hold on her, was strangely silent now, as though shamed mute by the force of this new feeling.
Rand began to move within her, slowly at first, easing her into his rhythm. Back and forth, thrusting and withdrawing, filling and denying. Serena was lost to the bliss of his lovemaking. She held on to him in near-weeping need, clinging to him and praying for no end to this magical night. A wondrous fluidity began to swirl within her as he rocked above her, the hard length of him creating a wondrous friction that both eased and aroused her. It caught her like a leaf in a funnel of water, spinning and weightless.
Serena rode the feeling, which engulfed her more with Rand's every masterful thrust. She could not hold it, for the power of this thing he gave her was too wild. It broke free like a wave, roaring over, engulfing her even as it lifted her, carrying her up...up, toward a blissful disintegration. She cried out in wonder, and a joy so pure it made her want to weep. She did, her tears spilling down her temples and into her hair.
"God," Rand panted now, increasing his urgency, his manhood seeming to grow bolder, harder, with his every plunging stroke.
Serena only crested higher, lost in another wave of sensation. Rand's body was hard as granite beneath her hands. His hips pumped deeper, once, again, again...then again, deeper still. He held this last one, throwing back his head and giving a guttural shout as a tremor shook him. Serena held him tight against her, marveling at the sudden, filling heat that poured out of him and into the heart of her womb.
"My God," he swore, collapsing atop her and nestling his face into her neck. "Why did you let me do this? Why didn't you turn me away?"
He sounded so weary, so needful. Serena wrapped her arms around him, and stroked his sweat-sheened back with loving hands.
"Why did you let me take this from you tonight?"
"You didn't take it, Rand." She pressed a kiss to his silky dark hair. "Tonight was yours. I think this night was yours from the moment the tide first washed you up onto my beach."
Chapter 19
The sun climbed toward noontide as Rand and Serena paused to rest and break their fast on the way back from Egremont the next day. He watched her nibble on the brown bread and roasted meat he had bought for them on their way out of town, knowing that if he possessed even a scrap of honor, he should be regretting the night before.
He wasn't regretting it. He was savoring the memory of their lovemaking, recalling the ecstasy of Serena's hands on him, her lips on him...and the shattering pleasure of being sheathed within the heat of her soft, welcoming body.
They had made love twice more last night at the inn; their joining seemed only to create a greater hunger, where it should have sated.
Rand wanted her again, still. He had wanted her from the moment he first opened his eyes that morn, but he held himself in check. Serena was new to passion, and he did not want to push her tender body past what she could bear. But his desire for her was fierce, helped none at all by the becoming picture she made as she sat atop a moss-cushioned boulder, surrounded in sunlight spangles and the fetching glow of a woman well pleasured. Her long ebony hair was yet damp from the quick bath they had taken in the River Ehen outside town. It draped about her like a cloak, so dark against her faded bliaut, her ravens-wing pate shining in the midday sun.
Serena smiled at him as she passed Rand the wineskin. "I nearly hated to leave Egremont this morning. Would that we could have stayed at the inn for another sennight."
"Just another night alone might well have been the death of me," he teased. "Although I cannot think of a more pleasing way to go."
Rand took the skin from her fingers and lifted the claret to his mouth. He had a long, quenching drink, but was thirsty for the wine-kissed sheen that glossed Serena's lips. He passed it back to her, every nerve and sinew already stirring with need of her.
Their fingers brushed in contact, hers ungloved and warm, his twitching with the urge to catch her hand, to ease her down off her seat of speckled granite and into his waiting arms. A blanket of tiny blossoms spread out beneath the boulder like a fragrant carpet of white and gold. It would make a fine backdrop for her beautiful, naked, supine body, he thought with too little shame. In a heartbeat, he was already picturing her there as he covered her, as he took her once again.
Control, he cautioned himself, to small avail.
The forest was quiet save the twittering of birds high above, and the gentle rustle of green summer leaves all around them. They had made good progress back from town, and there had been no hint of danger on their heels. They would be back at the cottage in a couple of short hours...too soon, when Serena's ocean-colored gaze was dancing with warmth and invitation.
With her hair sifting down around her arms, her pale skin as clear as milk but for the pink roses of her sudden blush, Serena looked every bit the sweet woodland nymph. Nay, he thought an instant later. Not a nymph, but a royal forest queen, seated atop her throne and gifting her consort with a private look of seduction. Looking at her now, his pulse thrummed hard with the memory of her lovely body arching and writhing beneath him in carnal release. In that moment, Rand wanted nothing more than to lay her down in the blanket of tiny white and gold blossoms at their feet and ravish her completely.
He swallowed on a throat suddenly gone dry. "Perhaps we'd better move on now."
Serena smiled, her Knowing touch lingering on his fingers. "If you were to pull me into your arms and make love to me again, right there among the flowers, you should know that I'd not say a word against it. A forest queen would never refuse the desires of her dearest consort, no matter how wicked they might be."
Rand chuckled. "Can I keep no secrets from your witch's gift, my lady?"
"None," she replied, ruthless in her power over him.
He laughed lightly, but his intentions were dark with sensual intrigue. "In that case, my willing queen, mayhap we'll start up here on your throne, before I lay you down in your bed of woodland blossoms."
Her eager servant, Rand smoothed his hands beneath her skirts, baring her to his gaze. He bowed over her, then kissed a solemn homage up her slender calves and satiny thighs, to the sweetest petals he would ever know.
"As my royal duty," he whispered, sipping at her with his tongue and lips, delighting in her every breathless gasp, "I don't think I shall stop until you are weeping from pleasure."
"Oh, yes," she whispered, her voice catching on a sigh. "As your queen, I command it."
And so Rand happily obliged.
* * *
All her praying had been for naught. Calandra realized the truth of it the instant she spied Serena returning through the woods from Egremont. She and the man--the Outsider, Randwulf of Greycliff--walked together along the forest's narrow path toward the cottage.
It surprised her to see him coming back when it had not been in his plan to do so. It dismayed her, for she had thought that in taking Serena to see the town, he would, at least, be gone. Calandra wondered at his motive. Did he return to search once more for the treasure he claimed was his? Had he decided Serena could prove a useful tool to him, as Calandra suspected he eventually would? Or was it something...other?
Serena's hair was unbound, dancing around her on the breeze. Her hands were ungloved, including the one that was slipped so easily into his. They talked in familiar cadence, hushed voices and flashing smiles. Calandra inched back into a wedge of shade, silent with dread.
They did not see her watching. Newly come from her morning at prayer within the woods, she had heard the soft murmur of voices. She knew it was them, and paused behind a thicket of hemlock, all her breath sucked out of her. All her hopes of keeping this last of her kin safe were dashed in an instant. Serena was lost to the world outside the grove now; Calandra knew it for certes. This man had corrupted her with his false kindnesses and empty friendship.
But that was not all.
As Calandra peered through the bracken, she saw Rand bend to kiss Serena full on the mouth. He had something in his other hand--a sprig of tiny yellow flowers, which he smilingly tucked behind her ear. Serena's blush told all. Her willing kiss, her intimate manner with him....
Calandra turned away at once, stricken.
She had failed the child terribly. She had tried to protect her from this, just as she had tried to protect the others from making her same mistakes.
They never listened.
They never learned.
And in the end, one by one, the Outside world had killed them all.
Calandra retreated before Serena and Rand could draw near enough to discern her presence. Perhaps there was a way to make him leave for good. Perhaps there was one last thing she could do to ensure Serena did not suffer anything further in letting herself care for this warring man.
It was likely the only way.
She should have done it from the very beginning, after it was clear the man who washed ashore would not perish there as she had hoped.
With desperation dogging each step, Calandra set her feet onto another path, which led deep into the other side of the forest.
Chapter 20
He had intended to leave once he knew Serena was safely escorted home from Egremont, but somehow a few hours became a day and then a night, and then another morning. Rand could not credit his reluctance to leave as simple lust for Serena, although he had that in ample supply. She occupied his thoughts, and he could not recall a time when he had ever felt so...at peace. He enjoyed her companionship, her easy nature, her intriguing way of seeing life.
He enjoyed her passion as well, for never had he known a more responsive, giving lover.
In the day that they had been returned from Egremont, Rand conspired to spend his every spare moment with her, manufacturing reasons why he should accompany Serena through her daily work about the cottage and in the grove. He told himself that his concern was purely protective, that he meant to keep her near so he could keep her safe. While that was true, he had to admit his motives were not entirely so honorable.
After that first taste of intimacy in Egremont, and on the way back, Rand's desire for her had become insatiable. But this hunger was itself part of his newfound peace with Serena; the smoldering need in his body, the yearning in his heart, while consuming, had brought him to life once more.
He could not keep from glancing at her now, where she stood in the shaded overhang of the fishing cove, observing his attempts to net their supper. He was an able hunter on land with bow and arrow, but this was proving embarrassing. Serena had made it look so effortless, almost artful, the way she had cast the net ou
t over the tidal pool. Each time Rand tried, the fish darted out in all directions, eluding him.
"You don't have to do this," Serena called from behind him, her back pressed against the darkened rock of the sheltering crag.
"What manner of provider am I if I cannot feed my lady a decent sup?"
He let fly the net, then cursed roundly as his quarry evaded him once more.
Serena laughed. "You might try singing to them instead. If you ask the fish nicely, they might come to you."
"You have your methods," he grumbled, "and I have mine."
"Aye," she agreed, too easily. "Mine work, and yours, well..."
Rand shot her a wry look over his shoulder, then turned and flung the net out once more, aiming for a clustered school of fish that had just gathered nearby. As expected, not one remained as he pulled the sodden net in. But he was not about to admit defeat. His failures only made him more determined to triumph. As he hauled in the empty net, Rand had spotted a fat ocean trout nibbling on a patch of seaweed not far from where he stood.
"As my method is proving inadequate, perhaps another is in order," he said, lifting a brow in Serena's direction. With the net bunched in one hand, he reached down with the other and grabbed the dagger from his belt.
"Wait!" Serena called. "Do not--"
He probably wouldn't have released the blade, but Serena launched herself at him and it was all he could do to catch her from knocking them both into the water. He was chuckling, and it took but a moment for her to realize he had only meant to tease her.
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