Adele felt his tension. "Do you remember knowing a girl like that, Brian?"
"No," he replied. "I have no idea where that thought came from. I wonder...But we were talking about you."
"Can we talk about something else?" It was so frustrating to her to feel the intense hunger she had for this man and know it was hopeless. "Let's talk about how well you're taking to farm work."
Brian raised his hands to her, palms up. His formerly smooth hands were marked with new calluses that bore mute witness. His nails were clean, but the manicured cuticles were now ragged. "I guess I'm not such a city man anymore."
"No, you might make a farmer yet, but, you know, winter is the easiest time on a farm. If you're still here come spring when we start plowing and planting, then you'll find out what really hard work is."
"I wasn't aware I was leaving."
"Well, you weren't expecting to stay, were you?" Adele asked cautiously.
"Where else would I go? What other home have I?"
"Well, your memory could still return...."
Brian cut her off. "And if it does I'll deal with it then." How can I leave when I feel about you the way I do? he added to himself.
Adele responded quietly, "I'm not asking you to leave. Stay as long as you want. It's so pleasant to have you around." God, I want to put my arms around him so much. "What I mean to say is it's good to have a man around the house again."
God, I want her to put her arms around me so much, his thoughts raced. The lust he experienced the first time he laid eyes on Adele had changed. He still battled with arousal, but there was a growing warmth inside him that transcended the merely physical urges. Brian did not want to consider the import of these new feelings. A man with no past had business falling in love.
Falling in love? Where did that thought come from?
Brian quickly changed the subject. "Can we go to the site where you found me tomorrow? I want to look around and see if I can find any clues to my identity."
"It's quite a ways. I have Pa's old saddle, but I'm not sure we can ride double. I don't ride astride and the jenny doesn't like to be ridden. She's strictly a plow and cart mule."
"Can we try? You can bring the rifle and maybe you can teach me to hunt."
"If you learn that like you've learned everything else, I won't have any chores left that you haven't taken over. I may have to start cooking again."
"Oh, God," teased Brian, putting the back of his hand over his eyes, "anything but that."
Adele punched him on the back. "Oh hush up. You've never tasted my cooking."
"According to Susannah, that's probably why I'm still alive."
"I should put ipecac in the stew just to get you for that," she responded, punching him again.
Feeling her fist, Brian turned and grabbed Adele by her upper arms. He pulled her close to his chest and pressed his lips to hers. Adele's eyes widened. She tried to pull her arms out of his grasp, but gradually decided she didn't want him to let go and surrendered to the sensations that began to course through her. Brian's kiss became more demanding; Adele could feel his lips part slightly and his tongue play on her lips, demanding entrance. She slid her arms around his ribcage and parted her lips slightly. His teeth nibbled gently on her lower lip, followed by his tongue's entrance into her mouth, where he tasted her teeth and the soft inside of her mouth. His tongue met hers and she instinctively sucked slightly on the muscular intruder, which drove Brian wild. He pulled her closer to him, crushing her small breasts against his bare chest.
Adele's hands slid up his back. She could feel the new muscles move beneath his skin as he pressed her closer to him. She could feel his heat in her hands and through her calico gown. Her fingers ran up his neck and nestled in his raven hair, which was becoming shaggy. His hair was soft, almost too soft. He smelled of hard work and liniment and something distinctly male Adele couldn't exactly define. Instinctively she pressed closer, feeling her breasts flattened against his chest. A growing heat began in her most private core and spread warmth through her body. She felt like she was melting into his caress.
Brian's arms tightened around Adele as well. To him she smelled of roses and wood smoke. He moved from her lips to brush his own against the shell of her ear, teasing it with his tongue and mustache. Her breathing became increasingly more rapid. He sensed that she was squeezing her thighs together from the building sensations. He himself was becoming hard as a steel rod; he was sure she could feel his arousal through his trousers and her skirt and petticoats. He began to slide one hand around her ribcage to touch the underside of one of her small, firm breasts when the mood was shattered by the sound of dropping papers and a gasped:
"Oh, my!"
Brian looked up to see Susannah standing in the doorway staring open-mouthed at them. He loosened his grip and Adele, with a horrified shriek, pushed away from him. She lost her balance and landed seated on the floor. Her face suffusing with red, she quickly righted herself and rushed past her astonished sister out the cabin door.
Brian sat shocked for a moment, then grabbed a quilt off the bed and wrapped it around himself as he pushed past Susannah and followed Adele out the door.
Adele reached the barn and climbed up the rope ladder to the haymow, pushing her way through the hay to the extreme end of the barn. Her breathing was ragged with sobs; tears splashed down her heated cheeks as she sat in the corner of the hayloft, her hand cautiously tracing her skirts over the apex of her thighs, hoping to still the tumult she felt.
"You know, you'll feel ever so much better if I do that."
"Go away, Brian. Please go away."
He closed the gap between them.
"Why are you doing this to me?" she sobbed.
"It's no more than you are doing to me, sweetheart." His voice was gentle and caressing. His big hand traced the line of her jaw and then her mouth. "So soft, so beautiful, so full of passion." He dropped the quilt and drew her to his bare chest. In almost a whisper he told her, "I cannot imagine wanting a woman so much as I want you now. You ignite my senses. You could not have responded to me like you did in there if you didn't feel it, too."
Adele nodded her head against his pelted chest. She was beyond words at first. Upon finding her voice she said, "But it's wrong."
"How can it be wrong when we both feel this way?" he countered. "Please, darling, let me love you now. Let me see you open up your petals, my precious rose. Bloom for me."
Brian separated from her long enough to spread the quilt on top of the sweet-smelling hay. He reached out his hand to Adele and she wordlessly obeyed, moving onto the quilt and into his arms. He quickly unbuttoned the small bone buttons on the back of her bodice and then slid it from her, revealing her clean, worn chemise and corset and her slim, bare arms. With hands not at all clumsy to the task, he undid the many hooks of the corset and pulled it away from her.
Adele took a deep breath as the released corset freed her ribcage.
"Why do you wear that horrible thing?"
"Respectable adult women...."
He stopped her words with his mouth, nibbling and teasing her lips until he could hear her breathing becoming ragged. He released her a moment to let her take a full breath.
The action caused her small breasts to rise most provocatively beneath her chemise. Brian reached for the tapes of her skirt, petticoats and pantalets and released them all. In two motions, he swept the skirts down her hips, then slid her chemise up and over her head until she was clad only in her knee-high woolen stockings and her button-closed shoes.
The big man surveyed the willowy woman who knelt before him. Her breasts were small, but firm and well-formed, tipped with dusky rose aureoles that surrounded her nipples. Her skin was like ivory. He saw the slenderness of her ribcage, the slight depressions of skin between her ribs and the red marks from her stays. Even without her corset, her waist was small enough Brian thought he could span it with his hands. Her slim hips flared slightly sliding into trim thighs whose smooth skin di
d little to hide the muscular evidence of years of hard farm work. At the apex of her thighs, a small patch of sable whorls guarded her most private place.
For a long moment, Brian stared in awe. "God, you're beautiful, more beautiful than I even imagined."
She looked at him; her eyes glazed with desire. The hard bulge of his own desire was evident through the heavy woolen cloth. "I want to see you."
"First things first," he responded and reached around her neck. He wrapped one hand loosely around her braid and brought it forward to rest like a thick, dark rope over her shoulder and down between her breasts.
As he watched, she slid the braid out of his grasp. Untying the string that bound the bottom she slowly began to unplait its length until her dark hair fell in crimped waves from her crown to just above her knees. Even in the deep shadows of the haymow it shone like fine satin, healthy and glorious.
Her hair down, framing her face, Adele was more beautiful than he had even imagined she would be. Brian felt a surge so strong he feared he might find his release merely from the sight of her. As if they were on fire, Brian nearly ripped his trousers off. The hayloft was too short for him to stand up, so he came over to the quilt on his knees, his large, hard maleness rampant and dangerous as it sprang out from his own black thatch.
Adele stared at him. She tried to keep her eyes away from his groin, but she had never seen a fully-aroused man before and his erection captured her imagination.
"You're so large," she gasped.
Brian laughed. "Not too large to fit. God designed us well for this."
Brian slid his arms around Adele and lowered her onto her back on the quilt. His lips met hers in another kiss, deeper if possible than that he had given her in the house. This time he did not have to urge her to part her lips, she did it on her own and slipped her own tongue into his mouth to taste his softness. His response was a guttural groan as he crushed her to him.
Then, he gradually released his grip on her as his fingers began to explore. He brushed them down her throat, then across her collarbone then lower until he circled them around her dusky nipples. Adele gasped in arousal that increased when he replaced with fingers with his lips, suckling and nibbling on one breast until the nipple hardened to attention. Bolts of fire shot through her from breast to core and Adele felt alive with sensation.
Not content to administer to one nipple, Brian turned his attention to the other one, teasing it and coaxing it to hardness in the same manner. As he suckled, he brought his hand slowly down her ribcage and trailed his fingernails across her flat stomach. She contracted with the pleasure.
"Something wrong?" he asked huskily.
"Is there?" she asked in innocence. She was hungry. It was the only word she knew to describe the indescribable feeling she was experiencing. She could not tell what she hungered for, but instinctively knew only this man could supply it.
"Oh, no, everything is right," Brian assured her.
Using his hands, Brian caressed the tender skin on the inside of her thighs. His newly-callused hands created sensations in her thighs that he was sure he had never been able to evoke in a woman before. Delicately, he teased the curls that were becoming damp with the evidence of her arousal. Delicately, he slipped a finger into her most personal zone. She was small and tight and so moist and ready. Adele rose slightly with a shocked noise and closed her thighs.
"No, darling, relax and enjoy what you're feeling." Brian brushed her with his fingers. "Your body is telling me you want me inside you. I doubt there's a perfume in the world that smells better than a passionate woman with the man she wants."
In a gesture so wanton she would later wonder how she'd done it, Adele reached for his hand and slowly sucked each finger, tasting the combination of his skin and her own womanliness. Brian slipped his hand out of her grasp and replaced it within her. His fingers slid in and out of her, sliding over her pleasure center as well. She began to cry out as her arousal grew. She felt as if her breasts were going to explode and felt a fire at her apex. Her cries increased until she exploded in a series of shuddering jerks like live rifle fire.
On seeing the sensual shattering, Brian poised himself between her thighs. He whispered in her ear, "It only hurts the very first time. After that, it is only pleasure," he said, then thrust home, his largeness sliding into her tight sheath, piercing her maidenhead as she climaxed again.
Adele cried out with shock at the pain that accompanied the climax. Tears sprang into her eyes.
"I'm sorry, love," Brian whispered in her ear. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I swear it won't hurt like that ever again." He lay quietly on top of her, giving her a chance to become accustomed to the feel of him buried deep inside her.
"I need to move now, sweeting," he crooned.
Her tight muscles held him securely as he began to move in steady rhythm within her. Her arms surrounded him. Her nails raked along his back. He indicated with his hands that she should wrap her stocking-clad legs around his hips. She did to find the sensations increased as she tried to pull him deeper within her, if that was possible, for it seemed she had room for all of him inside her.
Adele stared at her lover. His eyes were as dark and soft as velvet as he continued to pump himself deep within her. When he came inside her, each burst of seed was accompanied by an agonized groan. Fully spent, Brian collapsed exhausted on top of her, his body shiny with perspiration.
For a few moments they lay there as if melted into one another. Finally, Brian rolled off Adele so as not to burden her with his body weight. His action disengaged them and Adele breathed a disappointed sigh as his sudden withdrawal.
Brian smiled, "Miss me already?"
"You felt so right inside me," she said, and then blushed bright.
"Sweetheart, never be ashamed of what your heart feels. If you liked this, there can always be more."
Adele sat up, suddenly panicked. Guilt flooded through her. How could she have acted this way? Brian was a stranger. She barely knew him. He barely knew himself. He would not even have a name if they had not invented one for himself. She was supposed to be a respectable spinster and she had just allowed Brian to...to...She did not even have a word for what they had just done, but it certainly was not proper behavior for a respectable spinster to engage in.
"No, there can't," she declared defensively.
Brian rose on one elbow. "Why the hell not?"
Because I liked it too much to be able to feel good about myself. Unable to voice the truth, she seized upon a convenient excuse. "Susannah."
"I think she already has an idea. She's very observant, your little sister."
"What she must think of me!"
"I really don't think we have to worry about it. Somehow I don't think Susannah will think any less of either of us. We can always come up here again if you really need to keep it a secret."
Adele began to cry. Helpless over her tears, Brian could do no more than hold her while she sobbed. He brushed her wonderful hair with one hand, smelling its rose scent.
"Do you know why you're crying?"
"No," she sobbed, "do you?"
"There's probably nothing more emotional for a woman than her first experience with a man. Strong emotion always brings out tears. Every time we make love from now on you'll cry less and laugh more."
"Laugh?"
"People laugh when they're having fun."
"Fun?"
Brian looked at her, "Yes, fun, darling. Let me show you how to have fun. I don't think anyone ever tells women that this can be fun. I wish they did."
Adele rose suddenly, crawling toward her clothes. Starting with her chemise, she began to yank her clothing back on, wrestling with getting her unbound hair out of her way. "Maybe for men it's fun," she snapped.
"Adele, Adele, next time...."
"What makes you think this is going to happen again?"
"The way you responded. I thought you wanted this as much as I did."
"I didn't mean to act li
ke a--a--fancy woman. You got me so confused I lost all control."
"The last thing I think of you as is a whore--if that's what you mean. I've never had any woman react like you did. I've never felt like this before."
She hissed at him, "How would you know? Or with everything you've forgotten you remember that?"
Brian was suddenly quiet. "I don't know what I remember and don't. I can't remember the name or face of any woman I might have known that way, but there are some things I seem to know instinctively, and one of those things is that what we just had was very special and unique."
"Maybe you really don't remember. Maybe you'd feel this way with any girl."
"I don't think so. For instance, Susannah has a pretty face and figure and she's every bit as thoughtful and kind as you are, but I'm not attracted to her."
Adele stiffened. "She's not even sixteen." She was shocked to find she was jealous of her own sister.
"That's not the point. The point is, men react differently to different women. I like your sister. She's a nice girl and very talented and very sure of herself. But I've known you both the same length of time and I've spent nearly equal amounts of time with both of you and I react to each of you differently. I've never ached to touch Susannah like I have for you. I've never wanted to feel her melt into me like you did today. She might as well be my sister as yours. Memory or none, Adele, you're the woman I want, the only one I want and the only one I'll ever want...."
Adele covered her face with her hands. "That's impossible!" she cried. "Nobody wants me."
"Don't be ridiculous, Adele," Brian responded angrily.
"I can't hear any more of this!" Adele screamed at him. "I'm ruined, completely destroyed...No! Don't touch me!" she sobbed, when he tried to comfort her. "Please...don't touch me again. I couldn't bear it." And with that, she tore down the ladder and ran back to the house.
Brian watched after her for the longest time, then slowly reached for his pants and pulled them on, muttering, "Women, who can ever understand them?"
Remember My Love Page 6
