by Cready, Gwyn
“Oh, yes.”
He brought a second hand to meet the first and slipped both forefingers into her slit.
“Oh, Jamie.”
He thrust his hips, thumping his cock against her bud as his fingers plucked and tugged. Every movement drew her deeper and deeper into the rising storm of pleasure. She clasped her hands behind his neck, spread her legs, and let him ravish her.
“I will never forget this,” he said into her ear, “or you.”
She felt the wave of pleasure begin to break and rode it hard, crying shamelessly. He moaned himself, uncoupling from her and lowering his head to her thighs.
“The pain from my wounds may kill me, but I’ll be damned if I’ll miss the opportunity to know the taste of you.” He brought his mouth to her bud, and the wave rose again, slowly at first, and then harder and higher, until it hit the shore so fiercely and relentlessly that she buried her mouth in the sheets to drown out the choking cry.
When she relaxed, he flopped onto his back and curled an arm around her thigh. She was too limp to move, but their fingers met and laced, and he made a deep groan followed by a long, happy sigh.
“That was nice,” she said.
He squeezed her hand. “There’s more to come. If I can get these old bones moving, that is.”
“Your bones seem perfectly fine.” She traced the sturdy rib cage and iron-tight forearms. “Aching they might be. Old they are not. And as far as moving . . .”
Her eyes strayed to the blunt instrument swaying ever so slightly between his legs.
“Oh, that,” he said.
She had been right: Any familial resemblance between Jamie and his half-brother ended here. Jamie was long and thick, a pale pink spear towering over compact testes and a thick carpet of golden-brown fur. She wondered what it might be like to take his length in her hand and feel his desire strain against her.
Their eyes met, and his dared her to do what he knew she was thinking.
With a flush, she took hold of him, amazed as always at the silk in which such a steely surface was wrapped.
She caressed him and he thickened.
“I want you like a whore,” he said breathlessly, “riding me shamelessly, your breasts bouncing as I watch.”
A torrent of heat scorched her belly.
“And I want you on your knees, showing me the tricks that mouth has learned. But for now,” he said, “I want you just like this.”
He pulled himself on top of her, his body a shield from the cares of the world, and entered her slowly. The green in his eyes sparked like lakes in the summer sun. How she would welcome mornings if each one began like this, she thought. He held her gingerly, moving with care as if she might break, which made her smile, for she knew he was the one in pain.
She laid a hand on his cheek, lost in a joy so deep the chirps of the sparrows outside seemed as if they might be from another time. His hips, ropey with muscle, moved hesitantly, finding the rhythm at which he might labor unpained. The lush warmth he stirred in her made her sigh. She ran a hand over the wounds in his back, hoping her touch might give some comfort. He smiled.
“Do you want to finish now?” she asked. “There are things I could do . . .”
“I shall finish soon in any case. God help me, I am nearly undone by the look on your face and the sounds of your pleasure.”
She provided more of the latter, groaning happily a few moments later at a particularly deep thrust, and he pulled himself free, spilling his seed over her with a husky sigh.
He gathered her in his arms and closed his eyes. “That,” he said simply, “is an argument for heaven.”
She laughed, taking in the soft soapy smell of his hair and the fragrant musk that permeated their bed. That had been different from the trysts she remembered. Perhaps it was because she was older now—or perhaps the knowledge that their time together was short had made her conscious of the emotion beneath the physicality—but her heart told her it was something else.
When she lifted her hand and gazed at the ring on her finger, the certainty suffused through her.
Admit it, Panna: The lovemaking was different because of the vow you made.
Her more pragmatic self was quick to disagree. You know that’s ridiculous. Even if you were foolish enough to have meant it, a vow like that means nothing unless each person has pledged it from his heart.
And yet, even her more pragmatic self could not deny the singular magic that had just transpired. While her experience with lovers was far from extensive, she had bedded enough men to know the difference between bone-rattling sex and soul-quenching love.
Seeing her hand extended, he lifted his as well, and she brought her palm to his, enjoying the way his fingers dwarfed hers. The gash left by his grandfather’s knife was a dark, crusty red.
“Do you still long for your husband?”
She was startled from her thoughts but smiled. “Charlie? I shall always miss him. He was a good man. Does it hurt?” She ducked her head toward Jamie’s hand.
“I hurt in so many places I can hardly feel it. Should I assume by your changing of the subject you do not wish to speak of him?”
“No, it’s all right. He died two years ago after a yearlong illness. We’d been married eight years.”
“Do you have children?”
“No. I guess it was something we thought we’d always have time for. And then suddenly the time was gone.” She realized that in Jamie’s world there was no reliable way to plan when to have children, and that even the act of pulling out prior to ejaculation was like some sort of casino game in which every player eventually loses.
“What was he like?”
“Strong. Funny. Smart. And so determined to help other people. He really taught me a lot about generosity of spirit.”
Jamie stroked her hair. “Were you in love?”
It dawned on her that a marriage based on love might be an exception in this age.
“In my time, people almost always marry for love.”
He lifted his head. “In truth?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back on the pillow, making a noise of surprise. “Marriage must be a joyous place there.”
She chuckled. “You’d be surprised. While people marry for love, the same willingness to let emotion rule means marriages end in bitter fights, infidelity, and even boredom.”
“But not yours?”
He had asked without judgment, only curiosity.
“No. We loved each other till the end.” She choked on the last words, reliving the terrible despair.
He squeezed her shoulders. “Tis a cruel thing that a marriage born of love would end so unhappily. I am very sorry.”
“I never thought I would love another man—” She froze. Good God, what had she said? Had he caught it? His arms hadn’t moved, but she was certain his breathing had changed.
He rose to an elbow and lifted her chin. “What did you mean when you said that?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“If you love me, lass, I need to know.”
She dared not say it, but he saw the truth in her eyes.
He jumped from the bed and ran a hand wildly through his hair. She felt as if she’d been kicked and struggled for a breath.
He caught her hand and tugged the ring free.
“Sit,” he commanded.
She got up blindly, hardly aware of anything but the roar of embarrassment in her head.
“Did you make your vow to me?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that before we stood before the priest we agreed that our words carried no weight. Did your words carry weight?” he said, face flushed with emotion.
“Not in the way you mean.” She sat up.
“You did not pledge your body to me? You did not pledge your heart?”
“No.”
“Do you pledge them now? To me? Forever?”
She wasn’t sure what he was asking, and his agitation was upsetting
her. “‘Forever’ has no meaning to us, Jamie. You’re sending me back to my world, and you’ll stay in yours.”
“Take this ring,” he said, “and make your pledge. I swear I will keep you at my side. If I have to burn down what’s left of MacIver Castle to put a cork in that execrable hole, I will do it. Pledge your troth, and I swear to you we will never be parted.”
“Jamie—”
“I know my mind, lass. Do you know yours?”
“If you know your mind,” she said sharply, “speak it. You have not shared it with me.”
A crimson stain spread across his cheeks, and he dropped to one knee. Given that he was naked and half erect, this made for a very engaging picture.
“My heart yearns for your heart, just as my body yearns for your body. And if you cannot see both plainly, then I have failed you. I cannot say I loved you from the moment I saw you. I’m afraid I had other designs on you then. Despite my words, I admit my appetite was carnal at our first meeting. And then when you spoke . . . God, what a wicked tongue you possess! All I could think about was getting myself between those thighs and hammering the insolence out of you.”
Her heart thumped, but Jamie’s excitement had stirred something more than passion in her. She felt as if she were standing at the edge of a cliff, her back to the abyss, and Jamie was telling her to let go and that he would catch her before she fell. She so wanted to believe. Her heart rose in her throat.
“You have professed your lust,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady, “but that I could have apprehended without a word. I’ve heard nothing from you that suggests your feeling for me rises any higher than that absurd signal flag between your legs.”
He stood, and Panna saw the absurdity being replaced by something more dangerous. Jamie sat down and looked her in the eye.
“I love you, Panna. I thought I would die when I believed Adderly had hurt you. I have no family and few friends. You have made me feel whole, as if I had been given a reason to live and a reason to die, all at the same time. And that terrifies me. But now that I’ve had it, I can’t let go. Please, Panna, please, do not break the man you have made.”
She touched his cheek. “I will not. Oh, Jamie, I will not.”
He swept her into his arms and kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that tasted of ancient hurt and new beginnings. She didn’t know what her declaration meant for them beyond this hour, but she didn’t care. She knew it was right.
He took her left hand and held the ring beyond her finger. “Make your vow to me, Panna.”
“I make my vow.”
“And I to you.”
He slid the ring on her finger and threw his arms around her. Then he lowered her onto the pillows again. “Absurd, is it?”
With a casual thrust, he entered her again, and she gasped.
“I shall make you eat your words,” he said. “Or worse.”
This time his lovemaking was not so gentle, and Panna’s flesh, already tender, burned with his fervor. His own moans made his choice of desire over comfort plain, and in a minute or two, through sheer force of flint on steel, the mound of tinder in her belly exploded a second time.
With a deep grunt, he spilled his desire between her scorched thighs in grinding thrusts that fed the fireball between her legs like blasts of oxygen. She cried out as he drew her closer, jerking her hips, until the only sound she could form was a hoarse moan. Her arms fell limp to her sides.
“God help me.”
Eyes gleaming, he said, “I like the flavor marriage imparts to this.” Then he flicked the tip of his tongue over his finger. “And this as well.”
He stretched out beside her and for a long moment neither said anything. Panna felt as if she were being borne along on the warm waves of a tropical sea, sun on her back, buoyed by happiness that lifted her like a life preserver. For the first time in three years, everything seemed effortless.
“You make love like a twenty-first-century man,” she said, smiling.
One eye slitted open. “Tis a compliment?”
“Of course.”
The eye closed.
“Though I didn’t exactly mean it that way.”
Both eyes opened. “Oh?”
“You make love very well,” she added quickly. “I mean, I hope you could tell I liked it.”
The color rose on his cheeks. “I liked it, too.”
“But I guess I expected it to be . . . different.” She met his eyes shyly. “I wasn’t sure if people of the eighteenth century . . . knew as much.”
He snorted.
“What?”
“You are under the impression the people of your time have gotten a leg up on things, are you?”
She threw him a look on catching the double entendre, which he ignored. “Yes. I mean, obviously.”
“Obviously?”
“You don’t think an extra three hundred years makes a difference?”
“In something that’s been going on between men and women since Adam and Eve. No, I do not.”
“Seriously?” She sat up, tucking the sheet under her arms. “With all due respect, I think you’re wrong. I know for a fact that the people of the twenty-first century have a much wider, er, range of tastes. I think mores have loosened up enough so that people don’t worry so much about what’s right or wrong anymore—as if there was ever anything one could do wrong in bed.”
“Oh, there are quite a few things one can do wrong in bed,” he said. “It took me several years and a number of very disappointed faces before I began to fully understand what they were.”
Panna smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant, but I don’t think it’s true. Like you, I think the pleasures of a bed are limitless. However, I believe people have understood that for quite a while.”
She considered the shocking things she had seen on TV or read in books. “That’s simply not possible. I mean, c’mon. What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done?”
“Is this a contest?”
Panna thought of the Cleopatra costume that had turned a drive home from Charlie’s sister’s Halloween party into a long and very public game of Riding Caesar’s Charger. “Um . . .”
“Uh-huh,” he said smugly. “That’s what I expected.”
“No, no. I’m game. Go.”
“And to the winner?” he asked.
“To the winner goes the satisfaction of . . .” The gleam in his eyes disconcerted her. “. . . the satisfaction of . . .”
“Choosing the next game?”
She felt a slightly terrifying frisson go through her. “Sure,” she said, licking her suddenly dry lips.
“My tale involves three.”
Panna covered her face with her hands and collapsed on the pillow.
“You’ll tell me if you wish me to stop, aye?”
The trouble was she didn’t.
“An acquaintance of mine—let us call her Maria—was a woman of curiosity and varied tastes. Twas her express wish I witness her and her cousin explore, shall we say, the limits of their family bond.”
“She slept with her cousin?”
“I’m afraid there was to be very little sleeping involved.”
“And he agreed?”
“‘He’? Maria’s cousin would be offended.”
Two women? Oh, God, I’m hosed.
“These limits, it seemed, were ones they had tested with great success before. However, they had come to hear a rumor that gentlemen, whom they heretofore assumed would be put off by their friendly experimentation, would in fact find it of the utmost interest, an idea they could hardly believe.”
“And you were willing to help them settle the issue?”
“Twas a matter of some import to Maria.”
“You are too kind.”
“Thank you.”
“Maria’s cousin—Louise, I believe her name was—was unwilling, however, to accept my word for it, either before or after. As she said, ‘One might be willi
ng to lie in order to preserve the fragile feelings of one’s companions.’ And so they imagined a situation in which my words would play no part.”
Oh. My. God.
“Instead,” he continued, “Maria rigged a rather elaborate, mmm . . . perhaps ‘maypole’ is the best way to describe it. Twas a full yard of pink ribbon wrapped carefully and may I say rather tightly around—”
“I get the picture.”
“But their triumph was a small bell—I do believe it came off of one of Maria’s cats—which hung to the side, rather like a bloom on a lady’s cap. Without any words on my part, the bell would either ring or not, and Maria and Louise would have their answer.”
Panna pressed her lips into a line. “Ingenious.”
He laughed. “So I thought as well.”
She sighed with comic weariness and snuggled close to him. “So you’re actually going to make me ask?”
“Ask what?” he said innocently.
“If the bell sounded.”
“I believe ‘a peal of St. Stephen’s’ was the phrase Louise used to describe it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t ‘appeal of St. Stephen’? I understand he was rather tall and plain looking.”
Jamie began to tickle her.
“Stop, stop! I give up.”
Jamie freed her and stretched out again.
“Though it certainly explains your fascination with ribbons,” she said. He went to tickle her again, but she rolled out of reach.
“Come, lass,” he said, pulling her toward him. “Tis your turn.”
“How could I top that?”
“Well, there is one way.”
“Hmmm.”
“Shall we consider the issue settled, then?”
“I still think—”
He gave her a dangerous look.
“—that you’re right. Very little has changed.”
“Good girl.” He clasped her hand and lifted it slightly to admire the ring.
Tiny sparks of green fire danced in the center of the cabochon. “I have to admit, your grandfather has excellent taste.”
“It helps to be as rich as Croesus.”
“To me it looks like the hill your castle sits on.”
“Your castle now, too, Panna.” He got up on an elbow and brought her hand to his lips. His eyes were almost the color of the sky now, filled with the light from the windows. “Will you stay with me, lass? Here in my time?”
