by Gen Bailey
He followed her up into a sitting position and at last said, “Let me speak plainly so there is no doubt in your mind as to my meaning. In a man’s life, there are many people who come and go. This is to be expected. However, now and again a person appears in his life who he would like to keep close to him. You are such a person.”
“I . . . thank you,” she said, looking down at her lap.
“It is my thought,” he continued, “that rather than you and I going our separate ways, perhaps you might like to stay with me until I fulfill my duty to Wild Mint. And then . . .”
She didn’t speak for several minutes, and when she did, all she said was, “And then? ”
He didn’t answer.
What could she say? On one hand, what he proposed was appealing. After all, she was more than aware that this man stirred feelings within her that were best experienced between a man and a wife. But to stay with him while he was committed to another—even if that commitment were to a person who was a mere ghost?
She couldn’t do it. Always she would wonder about herself and about him.
Besides, there were their separate cultures to consider. Where would they live?
There was also her servitude that might interfere. Five more years . . .
When she didn’t immediately answer, he uttered, “It is a foolish idea, for I have no right to keep you with me until I am free to make you mine.”
Sarah knew she should say something, but what?
At length—perhaps because of her extended silence—he drew back from her. He said, “Perhaps you are right. Maybe we should find the one you call Miss Marisa. But we can talk more of this later, after I have had a chance to think over what we have discussed so far.”
At last she blurted out, “It’s not a foolish idea, sir.”
She watched him as he swallowed. And she was struck by the observation that her response might indeed be important to him. It gave her the courage to ask another question—one more directly from her heart.
“Sir,” she said. “I would make another inquiry of you, if I might.”
He nodded, as though to encourage her to speak. But it wasn’t an easy question to put to him, and she hesitated.
At length, he asked, “You have a query?”
“Aye, sir, I do.” Sarah raised her chin, if only to give herself courage. Then she said, “I fear my hesitation accounts for my confusion as to how to ask this of you.”
He nodded as if he understood her exactly. Then he said, “Be at ease. You can ask me most anything and I will answer and give you my opinion.”
“’Tis not that sort of question, sir.” She drew in her breath and looked away from him. But in the end, she knew that once begun, she needed to carry this thought to its end, and so she said, “I thank you for your offer, sir. But you must know I cannot stay with you. We were, the two of us, raised so differently, and I believe this might eventually cause dissension between us. Besides, as I’ve already mentioned, I fear my servitude would ultimately catch up with me. Therefore, in my mind, I have no option but to fulfill my debt. However, it’s also because of my debt, and my servitude, that I would ask this of you, sir.”
He nodded, and she paused while she gathered her courage together. At last she said, “’Tis my consideration that if I am to serve out my next five years before I’m allowed my freedom . . . then I . . .” She sighed. “Oh, I can’t do it. I shouldn’t ask,” she declared. “I know I shouldn’t. ’Tis silly, really.” She made to raise up and get to her feet. “Forgive me. I’ll go and fix us our supper if I can find . . .”
But he, too, rose up along with her, and grabbed for her wrist when she would have left, and he asked, “I thought my idea was foolish, yet I asked it. Please tell me, what is in your mind? ”
She sat down again and looked askance at him as she said, “Sir, I . . . I . . . would like to know . . .”
“Is it something to do with my people? Or perhaps a thing you fear to ask about my people?” he supplied. “If so, do not hesitate. I will answer as best I can, and I am not easily insulted.”
“No, sir, were it a subject easily spoken of and not personal, I wouldn’t be having a hard time putting my thoughts to words.”
Again he nodded.
“Sir, I . . . I would know . . . I would know . . .”
Both of them were sitting perfectly still. Both of them were staring at one another.
“. . . Love.”
He frowned, and she wondered if she’d said something wrong. What was he thinking?
She waited until he spoke at last, saying, “Nyoh, yes, many men and women would know more about this if they could.”
She sighed. He didn’t get it. “Yes,” she said, “you are right. But, sir, I fear you still don’t understand me,” She gazed away from him, so embarrassed was she. Thus, as she prepared to say what was in her heart, she found herself looking at her hands, instead of at him. She continued, “If I’m to serve out my next five years—and I feel that I must—then they will be years spent without love. Therefore, it occurs to me that I’d like to come to know love . . . now, sir.”
He didn’t move a muscle. In fact, he looked as if he might have been struck by lightning.
“I’m sorry, sir, if I have shocked you, but—”
“You have not shocked me,” he said. Then he sighed as he closed his eyes. But within seconds, he was leaning in toward her, and once again, took her hand in his.
She didn’t understand. Why didn’t he say something . . . anything? Was he now the one teasing her?
She tried to remove her hand from his, but he wouldn’t let go of it. Instead, he gathered her into the shelter of his arms, brought her in close, and he said, “I thought you were never going to ask.”
Eleven
He turned her head into his and rubbed his cheek over hers. Then as though she were a sweetened treat he’d long been denied, he buried his face deeply within the crook of her neck. At length, he whispered in her ear, “I have been waiting for these words from you for days.”
“But you said nothing to me,” she complained, “and not by a single action have I thought that you—”
“Of course not. Did I not promise you? ” His hands were massaging her back, moving up and down her spinal column, and everywhere he touched, he sent shivers of delight over her body. Sarah melted in against him.
“Please fear not that I am trying to encourage you to marry me, sir,” she whispered against his shoulder, since she felt she owed him an explanation. “Indeed, you have made yourself clearly understood on that account. And though I still believe that a man and woman should be married before they commit the act of love, it is only that . . .” She sighed into the crook of his shoulder. “I little know how to explain it. Seeing you with the bear and realizing I could lose you . . .”
“Shhh,” he murmured, putting his forefinger over her lips. “That is all behind us now. I understand.”
And then he kissed her.
At first it was a soft kiss, nothing more than his lips against hers. But then it became something far different. Slowly his lips beset hers, his tongue tracing the outline of her lips before he kissed her eyes, her nose, her cheeks. His actions were prolonged and slow, as though he might memorize every contour of her countenance.
However, what was happening to her was far from slow. Sarah felt as though wave after wave of excitement had taken control over her senses. Even her stomach responded to him, creating a giddy sensation deep within her, making her feel as if she might have jumped off a precipice.
Sarah moaned, trying to fit her body in close enough to his to satisfy the fiery tide of passion that had taken possession of her. It seemed impossible. Indeed, she couldn’t get close enough. She wanted, she needed, to feel his imprint against her. She wanted all of him.
He moved, bringing her down into a lying position and onto her side, where he settled in next to her. But he didn’t end the kiss. Instead it became more intense.
Where his
lips had adored her, his fingers now smoothed over her eyes, her cheeks, her ears. And Sarah lost track of time and place.
Indeed, his simple kiss might have been working magic over her, for it seemed to Sarah that the world around her disappeared. As his lips paid homage to her face, her neck, her shoulders, Sarah found herself squirming in against him, searching for . . . something.
When he lowered her so that she was lying down on her back, not a single thought of objection occurred to her. He came up over her, but he didn’t press his weight over her. Rather, he found new places to kiss and caress.
Gradually his kiss found her lips once more, but this time, he encouraged her to open to him, and as soon as she acquiesced, his tongue invaded the hot recess of her mouth, making love to her with nothing more than tongue and gentle persuasion. She answered him back in the age-old rhythm of love.
Their tongues danced as though with feverish delight while he explored the inner sanctum of her mouth. Was this heaven? she wondered. She wanted to embrace him, to love him, to give him the essence of all she was. If only he could be hers. For if he were, she would give all that she had, all that she was, to this one man, alone.
As his kiss took possession of her, the exterior world did, indeed, vanish. There was only him, her.
And it was a thing of beauty.
Eventually even he had to break away for air and when he did so, he groaned, he growled, and when he next kissed her, it was with the passion that only a man can give a woman.
Gone was the soft, gentle possession. In its place was a sexual appetite so real, it took her breath. As his tongue again claimed ownership of her mouth, his hand trailed down over her face and neck to her shoulders.
The erotic feeling was out of proportion to what he was doing, and she rocked back and forth as the hunger for all that this man could give her took over. She’d never wanted anything more in her life. Dear Lord, was it merely her opinion, or was this man a rare breed of human being?
“It is good between us,” he whispered against her lips.
His words were such an understatement that Sarah couldn’t help responding by saying, “’Tis a bit of heaven, I think.”
“I, too, believe this,” he said. “I, too.”
His hand unerringly found her breasts, and she sucked in her breath at the ultra-rich sensation. Again, she squirmed against him, setting back her shoulders, as though only in this way might she better experience the love being made between them.
“Dear sir,” she said, “what you are doing is exquisite. I fear I never knew I had the capability to feel so much pleasure.”
“Dear Miss Sarah,” he murmured against her, “I, too, am overwhelmed with feeling. It is not always this way between two people. What is happening with us is uncommon, I think.”
“Is it? ”
“I believe so.”
Then he shifted position again, bringing his head down to her chest, and with his lips, he made love to her breasts, even through the barrier of the linen of her corset and chemise. First he adored one breast, then the other.
For Sarah’s part, she had never felt more loved. She swayed back and forth, first putting herself into one position so that he had easy access to her, then another. She was still dressed in her underclothes, but it didn’t seem to curtail him in any manner. He kissed and caressed her as though she lay naked before him.
And when his hand trailed on down over her belly, massaging and caressing as he explored farther and farther down her form, her hips rose up to greet him. Her petticoats might have presented him a barrier, but thank goodness for the English style of dress. There was nothing under those petticoats but her.
His touch unerringly found that most feminine place on her body, and she again reacted as though she had taken a steep plunge off a cliff. Her stomach felt as though it was as light as a feather, and her hips rose up and down in a rhythm that was as old as time itself.
Of their own accord, her legs opened to him.
“You are wet,” he murmured as he rose up on an elbow. “Do you know what this means? ”
“I . . . do not, sir.”
Softly, he explained, “Your body tells me it is ready for me. My only question is, are you? ”
“Yes, sir. I believe that I am. Please.”
Her reply seemed to send a flurry of emotion over him, for he shut his eyes momentarily, as though only in that way might he control the passion within him. He said, “It has been very long for me since I made love to a woman. I will try to hold back my seed for as long as possible, so that I might give you much pleasure before I seek my own. Know that if that doesn’t happen this time, if I cannot hold myself back, I will next time.”
“Mr. Thunder,” she said, “you could do most anything at this moment, and I believe it would pleasure me.”
At her words, he groaned, and coming up onto his elbows, he settled himself over her. “You realize,” he said, “that it will hurt at first.”
“I know.”
“But it won’t always hurt.”
“Will it not? ”
For a moment, his countenance mirrored his confusion over her reply, but it was quickly gone as his gaze mirrored a spark of understanding.
“Mr. Thunder,” she said, “I do believe you are beautiful.”
“I? ” Even as he spoke, he was positioning himself over her. “It has long been my observation that a person sees in another those things that he or she is. Therefore, if you see beauty in me, it is most likely because you, yourself, are beautiful.”
She smiled.
“And so you are,” he observed. And then he brought their bodies together in the ancient dance of love.
The moment was charged. Sarah expected the pain of lovemaking and she braced herself for it.
This was it. She rocked under the pain . . . this part of the act she remembered. She also recalled that it got worse.
She had asked for this?
But, strangely, this time, it didn’t get worse. He hadn’t thrust any deeper into her. Instead he waited for her passion to rise up again as he leaned down to encourage that ardor by showering one kiss after another upon her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. And with his hand, he molded her breasts.
His patience worked. Gradually the pain subsided, as pure sensation took command over her. She moved her hips. It felt good.
When he thrust a little deeper into her, she waited for the pain to accompany the maneuver. But there was none. Indeed, instead of pain, a whole new realm of pleasure opened up to her.
He whispered against her ear, “Someone has mistreated you.” It was no question. He knew. Perhaps it was because their thoughts were as one.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to express what was a part of her very personal history.
He said, “The man who did this to you should be tortured slowly, first by fire and then by the knife, until he begs for his death.”
“I think not, sir,” she countered. “I would not have the miserable torment of anyone on my conscience.”
He nodded slowly against her, and then he kissed her, lingeringly and gently, as though she might break if he dare heap too much passion upon her. He said, “We will talk more of it later.”
“Perhaps. But, sir, if I might ask, I would beg you to continue your lovemaking as before. I will not break.”
For a moment, he came up to gaze down into her eyes. At first she recognized surprise there within the depths of his dark irises, but then, ever so slowly, it changed, and he grinned down at her.
“No,” he said, “I don’t believe you will.”
That was all it took to spur him into action. She raised her hips to his, and in response, he took possession of her, all of her.
She met him move for move, thrust for thrust, amazed at the incredible measure of emotion building within her. It was like being presented with little bit of heaven here on earth. Surely, this was pure grace happening between them, instead of . . .
She wouldn’t allow herse
lf to recall the horror of her past. She would hold that part of her back. But then her body was pushing her, driving her for more. It was as though a fire had been lit within her, and something deep and divine was begging for release.
Suddenly, and without warning, it happened. Pleasure consumed her, cascading through her body.
It was exquisite. And she wanted more of him, deeper, faster.
As though he knew just how to please her, he presented her with exactly what she craved. Like the rush of a moving stream, it was a dance like none other.
The sensation built within her, until all at once, Sarah tipped over the edge with so much rapture, she cried out. Over and over the elation swept over her body, until at last the ache within her was satiated.
It was over for the moment, but not so for their love. Coming up onto his elbows over her, White Thunder smiled down into her countenance before he took her lips in his own.
“Sir,” she murmured against him, “I was unaware that the act of love could be so . . . I know of no words to adequately describe it.”
“I, too, have no words to recount it, except to say that it is good between us. Always,” he said, “should it be this way. But it is not over yet.”
“Is it not? ”
“I have not yet met my pleasure. Come, let us do it all over again.”
And perhaps he might have taken her back into the realm of ecstasy once more, but it wasn’t to be—at least not this time. All at once, he burst forth his seed within her. And Sarah, wrapping her arms around him securely, felt as though she had never welcomed anything more.
In the aftermath, they lay in each other’s arms, he still a welcome part of her.
This was a surprise, she thought. A wonderful and welcome surprise. Indeed, the only detail she could recall from her distant past had been the feeling of revulsion and embarrassment.
There was none of that here. There was only beauty. There was only her. There was only him.
And what was between them was a thing of magnificence.
Twelve
“I have much feeling for you,” he admitted after their breathing had returned to normal.
