"There are a couple of them actually, if you can call those dribbles waterfalls."
"It's water and it is falling." Her gaze moved on along the line of the cliff where it curved out into the sea. "Oh, there are caves, too."
"Sea caves," he said as they walked on, arm in arm. "The tide is almost low enough for us to get out to them, but not quite. It will be coming in again soon. Perhaps we can explore them another day, if you'd like."
"I'd love to. What are they like inside?"
"Dark, wet, mysterious."
She laughed up at him. "Like you?"
"You find me mysterious?"
"Sometimes."
He stooped and plucked something off the sand. "Here. Your first agate."
"Oh, it's beautiful."
Lying on his palm was a wet stone the size of a robin’s egg, its color ranging from milky white to nearly translucent. She took it from him, examined it from every angle, and held it up to the sun to let the brilliant rays show through. "I've never seen a anything like it. It's the most beautiful stone I've ever seen, like a jewel."
"They're thousands of years old, created before the ice age and buried in the basalt until the eroding sea frees them for us to find."
She clutched it in a closed fist over her heart and flashed him a smile. "Thank you. I will treasure it."
His sensuous lips curled upward in a teasing smile. "Enough to reward me if I find you another one?"
"Reward you with what? I have no money," she said, purposely misunderstanding the innuendo in his tone.
His smile remained but his gaze grew heated. "You could give me a kiss."
Ariah's smile faded, his words coming too close to what she herself wanted at that moment. She forced her errant thoughts aside and matched his teasing smile. "You must find another agate first. A very special one."
"Will this do?"
With cocky assurance he took a much larger stone from his pocket and deposited it in her hand. It was a dark bluish-gray, one side smooth and glassy as though broken cleanly in half. An "eye" marked the center, a round depression encircled with faint lines of a lighter color, radiating outward.
"Oh," she cried, "you deserve two kisses for this one."
"I would take them . . .gladly."
She stared at him, her eyes a passionate lavender now, brimming with the moisture of emotions too close to the surface. "Oh, Bartholomew . . ."
Knowing full well that he was insane to do it, he caught her to him and took her lips in a kiss almost as violent as his need. Rather than resisting the hard pressure of his mouth on hers, she pressed closer. Her arms twined around his neck. Her lips parted and their tongues met in furious, desperate demand.
After a long while the kiss gentled, as the fear that someone would come and tear them away from each other had faded. Only Apollo's frantic barking broke them apart.
Bartholomew shoved her behind him as his gaze raked the beach for whatever had aroused the dog. Fifty yards up the strand, Apollo raced back and forth along the edge of the surf. Out a few feet in deeper water, a seal calmly watched the dog, seeming unconcerned. The rest of the beach was deserted except for gulls and an oyster catcher or two.
Relief shattered the tension rippling through Bartholomew’s body. Turning back to Ariah, he swung her in a circle, suddenly overflowing with a happiness he hadn’t known in weeks.
"Good hell, but I've missed my nymph." He brought their impromptu dance to a halt and his gaze devoured her face. "You'll never know how much."
"Yes. I would."
He scoured the depths of her expressive eyes and his heart smiled at what he saw. Need, every bit as desperate as his. But more than that—love. His pulse accelerated.
"Maybe you do." He took her hand. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Into the woods. I know a special place."
The true question, left unsaid, was implicit in the hoarse, sensual tone of his voice. Anticipation sent her blood rushing. Her heart fluttered like a dragonfly’s wings. She made a halfhearted stab at sanity. "Now?" she said, not bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he intended.
"Yes, now. I feel as though I have waited forever."
"No longer than I have."
He drew her toward the path that climbed the bluff above the strand, gathering their clothing as he went.
"Look." He pointed to the sky as they neared the top of the bluff. "A bald eagle."
Ariah watched the huge, graceful bird circle above them, the sun glinting off its white head. "He has a fish in his talons."
"He's taking it to a nest in a snag up there on the edge of the cape. I've watched him and the mother before. See?"
Just as Bartholomew said, the great raptor landed in a dead tree farther along the edge of the bluff. At once the sound of baby birds demanding food came to them.
"He's magnificent," she said. "Like you."
Bartholomew grinned. "Like me?"
Glad to have her thoughts distracted from where he was taking her and what they would do when they got there, she gave him a teasing smile. "From the first, I thought of you as an eagle. Proud, beautiful . . . and rare."
Passion darkened his eyes. He took her hand and drew her to him. "Come, we'll watch my brother eagle another day. I want you. More than anything else in this world. And I want you now."
Ariah's breath caught at the intensity of his words and the depth of need visible in his eyes. Fear, as well as excitement, coursed through her veins. They were insane in what they were doing, this flaunting of morality. She worried how it would affect Bartholomew later, after the passion was spent and reality returned.
Honor meant too much to him, to allow it to be ignored.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bartholomew's special place turned out to be a clearing in the midst of the dense, moss-draped woods, towered over by three giant trees long ago stripped of branches. Primitive carvings like those on totem poles Ariah had seen in pictures decorated the lofty trunks. At the perimeter of the clearing, trilliums and red bleeding heart nodded in the breeze above pink wood sorrel and yellow violets. Hemlocks creaked and rustled. But inside the circle, all was hushed, and so still she felt as if she stood before the altar of a holy cathedral. Sunbeams slanted through the leafy ceiling in golden prisms to spotlight the sacred trees and the azaleas blooming at their feet. The floor was a carpet of false lily of the valley, sprouting from a bed of thick, spongy moss.
Though the air never stirred, Ariah sensed movement around her and fancied that she could hear ancient voices chanting in the timeless rhythm of prayer. She felt no fear, only peace and a depth of reverence that heightened her awareness and set her heart to aching with an unfamiliar fullness. Slowly she turned to face Bartholomew and tried to smile. A tear trembled on her lower lashes. With his fingertip he caught it and brought it to his mouth.
"You feel it too," he said in a voice soft as a whisper.
"There's magic here," she answered. "I feel as though I've been enchanted by some ancient mystic."
"It's a sacred place, a ceremonial ground."
Ariah glanced nervously over her shoulder. "Won't we anger the spirits by being here?"
Bartholomew cupped her face in his callused palms. "What I feel for you is as sacred as this glade, Ariah. I can't think of a more fitting place to express that feeling."
"Oh, Bartholomew, I love you so." She put her hand over his and turned her face to kiss the warm hollow of his palm.
Emotion roiled inside him. Awe and disbelief that he was actually there with her, that she had said the words he had just heard, that soon a dream would be fulfilled. An excitement so fevered he feared he might die of it swept all hint of guilt beneath the carpet of his conscience.
"My eagle," she said as she planted a kiss on his other palm.
"And what kind of bird are you?"
"Umm. A wren."
He remembered wondering, that first day he saw her, what it was that attracted him to her so strongly. His an
swer had altered little since then. The woman was as gracious as a swan, as capricious as a chickadee, as ethereal as a hummingbird. As vital as life itself.
"No, you're no wren," he said huskily. "You're a nymph, one I am about to ravish."
She cocked her head as she looked up at him. "How does an eagle ravish a nymph?"
"The same way Leda was ravished by the swan. Shall I show you?"
Her gaze drifted below the waistband of his trousers. "But a swan is a waterfowl and probably equipped sexually like a man. An eagle lacks the . . . essential equipment."
Bartholomew's gaze followed hers and saw that his arousal was plainly visible within the taut fabric of his trousers. When he looked up, Ariah's chameleon eyes had changed to smoky amethyst, her hunger for him almost as evident as his for her. With a low growl, he pulled her to him, kissing her with an urgency that matched the need raging inside him. The small moan that issued from her throat sizzled through him like a lit fuse, threatening to annihilate him.
He was dangerously out of control with wanting her, a sensation that was not new to him, though he had never felt it so strongly before. All his life he had held back, reined in his passions, denied his needs. Once he’d laid eyes on Ariah, the chore became a near impossibility. Now he sensed himself revoltingly close to ruining everything. A moment such as this must not be rushed, but prolonged, savored, exalted.
Ariah did not seem to share his feelings. She was raining kisses over his face and pleading for more, not less.
"Love me, Bartholomew. I need you. I need the magic of your hands, and to feel you inside me. You. No one else, only you."
Her hands tugged at the buttons of his shirt and the heat of her mouth on his would rival an August sun. When he succumbed and the shirt was tossed aside, she splayed her hands over the hardness of his chest. She kissed the pulse beating an erratic tattoo at the base of his throat. Her lips trailed along the ridge of his clavicle and down the bearded plane of his breast to a small dark nipple. Bartholomew shuddered as her teeth closed gently over the nub.
"You turn me inside out, woman. If you do that again, I'm likely to shatter at your feet."
"Then you touch me instead."
"Gladly."
He kissed her neck, her ear, her temple and her eyes while his hands freed her hair and spread it around her shoulders, stroking its silk. Beneath the thick strands the texture of her dress felt wrong, out of place. One by one he unfastened the buttons. As the fabric fell open, he drew it down, pressing his lips to the skin thus exposed. Moments later the dress lay at her feet. Her chemise followed and he said a silent prayer of thanks for her dislike of corsets.
When she stood before him, as naked as God had created her, he stepped back and let his gaze take its fill. She endured his perusal quietly, only the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat exposing the turmoil inside her body. He had expected her to look different from the last time he had seen her naked. Less innocent somehow. More pregnant perhaps? No! She was his nymph, not Pritchard's.
Don't be a fool; she is the man's wife.
Bartholomew couldn't deny that, but knew suddenly that it didn't matter. If she were carrying a child, it would be a part of her, a beautiful part, and he would be helpless to do anything but love it as well.
His hands shook as he peeled off his trousers. When he reached for her, she held up her hands. "It's my turn now."
The experience of having a woman so thoroughly scrutinize his physique was unique to him. And extremely arousing. But his patience soon dissolved beneath the heat of her avid gaze.
"Enough, nymph, unless you wish to unman me."
Bartholomew drew her down with him onto the bedding of their clothes. His mouth devoured hers, as greedy for her sweetness as a bee for pollen. His hand found a breast. She breathed a soft moan against his mouth as he stroked her rounded flesh to a taut peak.
Against her lips he whispered, "'I had been hungry all the years; my noon had come to dine; I, trembling, drew the table near, and touched the curious wine'." He substituted his mouth for his hand. Ariah's breath caught and she arched against him.
When she could breathe again, she said, "You've been reading Emily Dickinson."
"Um. Keeps you close to me."
She drew his face back up to hers and kissed him. "I've missed you so."
"Me?" he teased, "or this?" He laved her breast and scored her nipple with his teeth.
"You . . .this . . .everything." She buried her fingers in his hair. Her voice was breathless yet firm. "Most of all, you. Don't tease me, Bartholomew. I want you too much."
Bartholomew lifted his head and gazed at her with dark solemn eyes. "You are my soul, do you know that? The blood that pumps through my heart, the vessels that keep me alive, the marrow of my bones. Living without you, without being able to express my need and my love for you has been like blundering through an endless, meaningless hell."
"Oh, Bartholomew. If only I could have known that Hester . . . I never should have married—"
"Shh. No one exists here except you and me."
He captured her hand, nibbled the tips of her fingers, and trailed his tongue across her palm until she shivered. "Warm me," he said. "I've been so cold without you, so empty."
"I'll warm you, but it's you who must fill me."
She drew his lower lip into her mouth and suckled it while her hand moved down over his chest, the fingers plowing furrows in the dark hair growing there. He shivered when her nails lightly scraped his small nipple. Ariah smiled, enjoying the chance to give back some of the sweet torture he had bestowed on her. His hands refused to remain still, however, and busied themselves painting rapture on her naked flesh, the same way his tongue etched her breast with images of bliss, but Ariah knew how to get the upper hand, and she took it.
"'I gave myself to him, and took himself for pay'," she recited as her hand closed over his most sensitive flesh. "'The solemn contract of a life was ratified this way'."
Bartholomew groaned. His body tensed and ceased movement as he savored her touch.
"Don't talk of contracts, nymph. It reminds me of the one that says you'll never be mine."
"I am yours, Bartholomew. My heart has been yours since the moment we met, and after today my body will be as well. No man but you will ever touch me this way."
Her words were music. Even though he knew she was in no position to make such promises, his need for her was too great to prevent him from hoping they would be kept. He pushed aside dark thoughts and let only the pleasure she was giving him fill his mind. An inferno blazed inside him. God help him, he had no defenses against his desire for her. At this moment, he believed himself capable of killing, if necessary, to have her. The thought terrified him, but did not quench the flames.
"How can you be so soft and so hard at the same time?" she murmured as she explored the secrets of his masculinity.
Bartholomew could not answer. He was hanging by a thread. The sweetness of their aromatic bed blended with the fragrance that was hers—hot, passionate woman—bathing him in scented mist. Balanced tipsily on the edge of control, he buried his face in the hollow of her neck and allowed the aroma and the feel of her silken flesh honey-coat his senses. The raspy sound of her rapid breathing was a mere echo of his own.
Ariah's hand on him was clumsy with inexperience and still she sent him spiraling upward in dizzying assent as passion soared within him. Paradise lay just around the corner. A paradise he refused to enjoy. Yet.
Bartholomew snatched her hand away and brought it to his lips. "I pray you are as eager for me as I am for you, little nymph, for I don't think I can hold off any longer."
"Oh, yes, Bartholomew. I'm eager. Very eager."
He claimed her breast with his mouth while his fingers drifted over her flat belly to her thighs. The sultry softness he discovered waiting for him wrenched a groan from deep inside his throat. She was indeed more than ready. His intimate touch alone nearly unraveled her.
"You taste like a
warm sea, alluring, elusive and salty sweet," he said huskily as he lifted his head, "and you feel like a sunbeam, hot, sensuous, mellifluous.”
Passion roughened her laughter. "And you are like life, hard, mysterious, stingy."
"Stingy?"
"Yes. How much longer are you going to torment me?"
"Is that what I'm doing?" His fingers continued to explore her heated femininity.
"Yes. I am about to die of the pain and pleasure you are inflicting on me."
Bartholomew's heart thundered in his ears. His control had been stretched beyond its limits, turning his face into a grim mask. Knowing he could not wait any longer, he moved over her. Her heat nearly scalded him as he positioned himself. The tightness that met his probing flesh both daunted and intoxicated him.
"Open for me, nymph and we'll die together."
"I-I don't know how."
Bartholomew grimaced, fearing he would explode before attaining his goal. From Pritchard's red-faced dejection the day after his wedding, Bartholomew guessed the boy had lost his own bid for consummation to a premature release. Normally, Bartholomew was a master at controlling his body, yet now, he found himself clinging by a single thread of spider silk, in danger of doing little better than his nephew.
The stunned gasp he elicited from her with the gentle pressure of his blunt flesh confused him. Her unschooled reactions enthralled him as much as her uninhibited ardor. At least Pritchard's fumbling efforts had not ruined her for passion. But had the boy pleasured only himself and left Ariah alone in the cold? Bartholomew gritted his teeth at the thought and tried harder to hang on until he could bring her a full measure of relief. Easing back he caressed her tender opening until she trembled and tensed with an approaching release.
"No!" Ariah shoved at his hand. "Not without you inside me. I never want to take my pleasure at your expense again."
"I only want to make sure you're ready for me."
"I'm past ready. Now, Bartholomew. Now."
In obedience, he brought her legs up around his hips, making her as available to his purpose as he could. Drawing a deep breath, he drove into her. Ariah's gasp of pain nearly drowned beneath the pressure of his kiss, yet he heard it. He felt her flinch, felt the pressure and the tearing of an encumbrance he hadn't expected, and froze in horror.
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