by Danice Allen
Silence. She waited, but he did not move or speak. The crickets’ chant sounded through the night, but its lulling rhythm was out of stride with Beth’s fiercely beating heart. The leaves in the boughs above them rustled noisily, then calmed, ebbing and flowing with the wind’s tide. Her breath came fast and shallow. Her skin was dewy and tingling with anticipation. It was as if she stood on the edge of a precipice, looking down, readying herself to jump. It seemed that paradise awaited her there, but she could not see it clearly. A cautious part of her feared purgatory waited instead.
Suddenly he turned, a low growl of anger or passion or resignation escaping his throat as he caught her waist and pulled her against him. His large hands were warm and strong and urgent, burning through the thin material of her night rail. Her breasts collided with his firm chest, soft curves melding and molding against masculine contours. She braced herself by grasping his upper arms. His mouth lowered and claimed hers.
Beth was stunned by the feelings that coursed through her as his lips moved over hers. This was no tentative, wooing kiss of a tender suitor. This was a bruising, savage kiss that demanded Beth’s complete submission. It was pleasure so akin to violence that she ought to have been frightened, but a primitive part of her understood, submitted, and responded eagerly to Alex’s passion. Too long! They’d been suppressing this need between them for too long. She cried out and in so doing opened her mouth to his.
Alex thrust his tongue into the wet, warm haven of her mouth, swirling and mating it with hers. Though Zach had kissed her, she’d never experienced anything so divinely intimate as this wonderful magic Alex was doing with his lips, his tongue. His hands stroked her back, his strong fingers kneading the tender dips below her shoulder blades and down into the subtle curve of her lower back.
Beth moaned and trembled, clasping him about the neck, pulling herself up on tiptoe to press closer, closer….
“God, Beth,” Alex groaned on an outflow of shuddering breath that warmed her ear. “Forgive me. I’ve wanted you so long, I’m an animal. I …”
Beth didn’t care, didn’t want to hear apologies for an all-consuming need she shared. She just wanted more. She kissed the curve of his jaw, stubbly with a day’s growth, then his neck, and down farther till she found the hollow of his throat. He was still, so still she thought he must be holding his breath. She slipped her hands inside his shirt and fanned her fingers over his chest, the soft, dark, springy hair so sensually satisfying to her tender palms. She followed each exploring caress with a kiss, her face burrowed in his chest. He smelled so good, so musky clean.
She found his nipple, and not knowing or caring whether decently brought-up young women did such things, she acted instinctively and kissed him there, then slipped out her tongue to lave the puckering bud.
Suddenly she felt a gush of breath escape him. His hands slid down her back to cup her buttocks and lift her swiftly, surely against him, against the hard bulge of his manhood. Then he turned and pressed her against the trunk of the tree, pinning her between the abrasive bark and the rocklike urgency of his aroused body.
Beth gasped, her head falling back, baring her neck to him. He uttered a snarl of pleasure, primal and male, as he devoured her neck with kisses. Her breasts were heavy and taut. His hands held her up just under her arms, bracing her against the tree. His thumbs grazed the fullness of her breasts, teasing, taunting. Then he suddenly lowered his head, and through the thin fabric of her gown he found the pebble-hard tip of her nipple and drew it into his mouth, sucking, enveloping, arousing.
Beth’s head lolled back and forth. She was awash in sensations so strong and wonderfully delicious she could barely think. But over and over a thought emerged from the mire: This is right. This is how I want to feel about the man I’m pledged to share my life with.
But another voice intruded—that of her conscience nagging her, accusing her. She’d promised God that if Zach and Alex and Gabby escaped from the tin mine, she would not betray her betrothed with his brother. She would not give in to the need that grew heavier and more demanding day by day. But this need, like a breeding woman’s nine-month babe, had painfully pushed its way, kicking and screaming, into full, flourishing life. She could not, would not stop, despite the sure knowledge that on the morrow she would regret her actions.
God forgive me, she silently pleaded. Zach, forgive me, she added, hardly knowing whom she sinned against more—Zach or the Almighty. But without Alex she was empty. So empty. Even if he went away and she never saw him again, if he loved her now, she’d have a part of him always.
“Alex,” she murmured, tunneling her fingers through his thick silken hair. “Love me. Fill me, Alex. Please!”
Chapter Ten
Alex lifted his head. It was dark in the shadows, but luminescent beams trickled through the pattering leaves, touching Beth’s pale cheek and revealing her eyes to him, half closed and burning with passion. Alex’s mind was fogged with desire. Had Beth truly begged him to make love to her, to fill her? It was what he wished most to hear and yet what he dreaded above all else. Taking Beth’s virginity would be the ultimate betrayal of his brother. It would be unforgivable, the very essence of disloyalty.
God, but she was a picture of utterly innocent, utterly natural sensuality! Her head fell back against the tree trunk, her hair a satiny cascade. She clung to his shoulders, her fingers curled and tight. Her lips were parted and moist from his plundering kisses. Her night rail hung crooked, nearly exposing one white shoulder. The front of her bodice had a circle of wetness over one breast where he’d taken her peaked nipple into his mouth and …
Good Lord, he had her pinned against the tree! What kind of a man—nay, what kind of an animal was he? If she had not startled him with her beseeching, sweetly seductive words, would he have taken her like a savage, rending her tender maiden’s body with the thrusts of a beast?
“I think I’m losing my mind,” he whispered, gently easing her away from the tree and lifting her into his arms. Like a confiding child, she nuzzled her head under his chin, draped her arms about his neck, and sighed. Her breath was sweet, yet laced with the musky essence he recognized as his own scent. He swallowed hard. She was so childlike in her trustful, complete giving of herself, so unlike the jaded caution of experienced lovers who were afraid to give without first knowing what would be accepted. But her body was that of a woman—rounded of breast, slender of waist, subtly curved at the hips, and so responsive and ready for the gentle ministerings of a first lover. Gentle, he repeated to himself. Not pinned against a tree to be ravaged like a Drury Lane whore.
He carried her to the tall grass that bent in the soughing breeze and laid her down. He knelt beside her and sat back against his heels, his hands spread flat on his thighs. She’d thrown her arms above her head, the palms of both hands lying limp and open, her eyes slanted and heavy with need, yet patient, as if the two of them had all the time in the world, though Alex felt deep in his heart that they hadn’t any time that wasn’t stolen. An ache knotted in his throat, constricting his breathing.
The traitorous moon shone fully on her now, rendering her night rail diaphanous, exposing too clearly the dark thicket of hair at the apex of her thighs, the deep rose areolae of her breasts. His groin pulsated with need, need for Beth and only Beth. He closed his eyes, saying a desperate prayer. He had to resist this sweet madness, yet how could he do so without hurting and humiliating her?
Beth seemed to sense his turmoil. He felt her small fingers glide over his, then clasp his wrist. He opened his eyes and watched as she drew his hand down to tenderly kiss the ridge of his knuckles. “Alex, please don’t think of leaving me now.” She turned his hand and kissed the palm, the satin of her lips searing his flesh. “Don’t think of anyone or anything but this.” She tugged, gently urging him down to her, to her parted waiting lips, to her eager, compliant body.
Goaded beyond endurance, Alex lifted his face to the star-studded canopy that separated man from heaven, cursing a
God that would demand so cruel a test of loyalty: allegiance to a brother at the expense of true love’s fulfillment. For it was true love he felt for Beth, a kind of worshipful devotion that made all his past dalliances with women a travesty. Every day, every hour of his life had been preparing him for this moment of awakening, for this sure knowledge of a perfect counterpart of self—spiritually and physically.
“Why must it be so?” he whispered, anguish cutting through his heart like a saber. “Why must I choose?” Then he bent to Beth, lowering himself atop her, balancing on his forearms to spare her the full weight of his body. In that moment he made his choice, silently begging Zach’s forgiveness. Then he seized Beth’s hot, sweet mouth with hungry, possessive kisses.
Beth had heard the tormented whispers, felt them tremble in the humid air all about her before they floated heavenward. Yes, why? But only God knew why. At this moment she had no patience for a soul-draining confrontation with deity concerning the trials required of mankind. For Beth, heaven and all its glittery promises paled beside the bliss of Alex’s arms, Alex’s body holding her to earth, to a paradise they’d create through their own giving and taking in the eternal sacrament of love.
Beth’s arms tightened around Alex as he drank deeply from her mouth. She stroked the strong cords of his neck, then allowed her hands to roam freely over the smooth musculature of his broad back, then down, slowly down to his firm buttocks. Alex gasped in astonished pleasure, their panting breath commingling as their mouths broke contact.
“Beth, you’ve bewitched me,” he murmured. “So full of passion and curiosity. ’Tis witchery, is it not?” He shifted a little to the side and slid one long, sinewy leg between her thighs.
Honeyed heat suffused Beth, and a sweet tension gathered in her lower stomach like a brewing summer storm on the moor, dark and rumbling, yet promising cool relief in its aftermath. Her whole body ached, yearning to be closer, flesh to flesh, with Alex. She arched, thrusting her breasts hard against him. His right hand reached up to cup her breast, kneading its softness in his warm palm, gently tugging on the turgid nipple.
“T-too much. My gown … There’s too much between us, Alex,” she murmured, grasping at the ribbons of her night rail. “I want to feel you next to me.”
Since realizing that he’d crushed her against a tree trunk, Alex had tried to tamp down his fiery need. He didn’t want to hurt her, physically or emotionally, by going too fast, though the throbbing tumescence of his loins demanded release. But her words inflamed him. She was as eager as he, as needful of the ultimate joining. He braced himself on one elbow and scanned the front closure of her night rail with desperate eyes. Damnation, she was shackled from neck to ankle by a row of tiny buttons only the most patient, dexterous pair of female hands could manipulate. Alex was not feeling at all patient—or the least bit female, for that matter!
“Hold still, love. I’m going to rip your gown,” he warned her in a tremulous voice that strove to be matter-of-fact. Her eyes widened, and her mouth parted on a sharp intake of breath, but she said nothing. With her silence she’d given her permission and expressed her own impatience to lie naked before him. His ardor fanned by this further proof of her innocent passion, he grasped the placket of her night rail and yanked, the sound of rending cloth a savage symbol of their violent need for each other. As tiny pearl buttons flew, winking in the moonlight like gossamer bubbles, Beth gasped.
Alex rose to his knees and looked down at Beth. The night rail was parted, exposing the white porcelain perfection of her body. Then, while he stared, awed, she slid her arms out of the sleeves and patted down the night rail beneath her like a coverlet. It seemed so deliberate, so pragmatic a move, but she trembled like a fragile daisy in the wind. Then Beth lay down and returned his steady gaze, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her eyes conflicting pools of desire and fear. She lifted her arms, bidding him to come to her.
A fierce protectiveness surged through Alex, as strong as the pent-up longings that held him hostage. He must be gentle with her. He must not cause her any more pain than absolutely necessary. He knew instinctively that it was the pain she feared, since pain was a happenstance of a woman’s first experience, the tale of which she did not fail to pass on to following generations, sometimes with dramatic exaggeration.
“Patience, sweet Beth,” he crooned. Then he began to remove his own clothing.
Beth lowered her arms and laid her hands, palm down, on her flat stomach. Mesmerized, she watched Alex pull his shirttail out of his trousers and tug the fine muslin up and over his head. Inch by inch his taut stomach, with its narrow swirl of dark hair that wickedly disappeared into the band of his breeches, was revealed. Then his chest, so sculpted, so brown. Ah, just as she remembered! Beth’s heart beat a fervid, fluttering tempo. Her breath was ragged and erratic.
Alex pared off his boots and stockings, then stood up to remove his pants. Beth’s eyes widened when he unbuttoned his trousers, drew them down, and kicked them effortlessly off, leaving them in a pool at his feet. Beth’s pulse increased in volume to thunder in her ears. She did not remember that particular part of his body being so very large, so firm and …
He bent and lay down beside her, taking her gently into his arms. She could feel his manhood pressing against her stomach, heavy and hot. She whimpered, but not from fear.
The power of it, the pure male strength of it, made her weak with yearning.
“Don’t be afraid, Beth,” he soothed. “I’ll prepare you. Trust me.”
Beth nodded and swallowed, from nervousness or excitement, she knew not which. Then he kissed her again, his mouth settling over hers with slow and purposeful intent, his tongue delving, deepening. His hands glided over her body, every secret, sensitive nerve aquiver from his masterful touch. Beth was aware of so many feelings, so many tactile impressions. Cool night air against damp skin, especially where he’d last kissed her. The smell of him—so richly masculine, a mix of sandalwood and salt. The taste of his mouth—brandy-laced.
When he took her nipple into his mouth, without the cambric gown as a barrier between, she thought she might die. While he tugged and nibbled, sucked and tantalized with swirling motions, spears of pleasure radiated outward, downward, coiling in her stomach, making her legs limp and languorous. The tension in that most private, sensitive part of her built and blossomed. Agony. Ecstasy. They were one and the same. She felt his hand slide into the dip of her waist, over her hip and down between her thighs, tangling in the curls there. Pleasure shuddered through her.
“Alex! Oh, please … What’s happening to me?” Beth cried, clasping his shoulders and arching against him.
“I’m loving you, Beth,” he answered caressively. Then she felt him slide one long finger into the tight channel of her womanhood. She bit her lip. His touch was so intimate, so personal, yet felt so good. And so right. It was right because Alex was doing it.
“I’m making you mine, Beth. Mine,” he whispered hoarsely as he moved his finger inside her, probing, stretching, preparing her for their joining. After a time, she needed more.
“Alex, don’t … Please stop. I want … I want …”
“What do you want, my Beth? Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to love me, Alex. To fill me … To make me yours. Please, Alex, now!” she begged, near delirious with a need she didn’t understand, a need she’d never experienced before in her life. She just knew that Alex was the only one who could satisfy the hunger that raged through her body like a storm.
Alex let loose a deep, ragged sigh and rose to ease himself between her thighs. Beth parted her legs willingly, trustingly, and he settled his narrow hips against her pelvis, the hard arc of his manhood hot against her skin. He braced his hands on the ground on either side of her head, and she curled her fingers around his forearms. Their eyes met and locked, never wavering as he positioned himself and entered her. Slowly, slowly …
Beth’s eyes fluttered shut, and she dug h
er nails into Alex’s arms as pleasure was replaced by pain, sharp and tearing.
“’Tis only for a moment, my Beth,” Alex whispered as he clenched his jaw. “Bear it for a moment and I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
Beth believed him, trusted him, even before the pain abated. And when it went away, a new urgency blossomed within her. She instinctively lifted her hips. Responding to her obvious readiness, Alex moaned low in his throat and thrust deep within her. Oh, so deep. He was filling her, filling her. Filling the emptiness, sating the hunger, assuaging the need.
But it wasn’t over, this sweet madness. It had just begun. Alex began to move within her, plunging deep, then pulling lack. Again and again, setting a rhythm Beth mindlessly, wantonly met need for need. A tear trickled down Beth’s cheek, which Alex kissed away. She was losing herself in his man, losing every thought, every dream except those that centered in him. All she felt, all she knew was Alex. Alex …
Fragmented. She was shattering into a million shards of glass, diamond-bright, brilliant, piercing. She was drifting heavenward, cradled in love’s embrace. Alex cried her name and strained against her, and she against him while ripple after ripple of staggering pleasure debilitated her, conquered her. Then her whole being exploded, pieces scattering on the wind and finally raining down to settle on the cool ground. Anchored to earth. Wrapped in a sweet tangle of arms and legs. Alex’s arms and legs.
Silence, except for their quick, shallow breathing and the night voices. Crickets and toads, rustling leaves and the soughing wind. The distant warbling of a nightingale. The gurgle and slosh of the creek. Movement and sound. Life.
“I love you, Alex,” she said, then nestled her head in the crook of his arm and slept.
