Page 66 of The Daughters of Avalon
“I remember,” she said. “I do remember.” And, thereafter, she was acutely aware of the heat of Malcom’s skin, even through the layers of her clothing. Her nipples ached, and she pressed her breasts against herhusband, wanting to command him to stop. But stop what? He wasn’t doing anything—she was!
Elspeth groaned, wiggling again, leaning her weight on Malcom, trying to make it stop, praying he wouldn’t guess at her troubles.
The horse kept right on trotting—trot, trot, trot.
“Oh, my,” she said breathlessly.
“What?”
Without warning, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she clutched at Malcom’s arms, gasping softly as tiny tremors rushed through her body. Once they’d passed she swallowed,blinking, startled. Never in her life had she experienced such a keen surge of pleasure, and now her body was… entirely too sensitive, and she didn’t know what to say. “Tis naught,” she said, in a small voice, embarrassed.
It felt like an eternity passed before he spoke again, and then he said, “Oh!” as though he hadn’t any inkling that she’d experienced some miraculous awakening. “I nearly forgot.”
Elspeth was almost too dazed to follow.
“Your sister bade me tell you something: She said, ‘I merely called you, I did not beguile you.’ Do you know what she meant by that?”
Elspeth blinked.
She did not beguile Malcom?
“Nay,” she lied, swallowing as she laid her head back down, closing her eyes, her heart flowering with joy.
All he was doing… all he had done… it was by his own free will and knowing this pleased Elspeth immensely. And sweet fates, her body suddenly felt sated in a way she hadn’t ever known before. “I’m sleepy,” she whispered, smiling.
“Not that wretched sleeping spell, I hope?”
Elspeth laughed, nuzzling her cheek against his scarlet tunic, only a wee bit regretful now that she’d lost her matching gown. And she dared to jest with him. “Evidently, we are traveling in the right direction.”
There was a hint of smile in his voice, but rather than annoy her, it pleased her immensely. “We are going home,” he told her, and if, indeed, he was coming to rue the day he’d met her, it wasn’t obvious in his tone.
Elspeth dared to hope.
Hours later,she couldn’t stop thinking about…thatthing… that delicious thing that happened in the saddle. It was likemagikand she wanted to do it again—and again, and again.
Even now, with merely the memory, her body seemed to be on the verge of something spectacular, and it was Malcom’s presence that evoked it. She was warm, despite the cool evening, and wished she were lying in his arms.
What, in the name of the Goddess, came over her?
Instinctively, she knew her aura must be burning a bright red, and she was grateful Malcom could not see it. For his part, he sat striking together flint to steel, trying to catch a flame whilst she sat watching, longing to help, but reluctant to do anything unless he asked.
They had spoken more, at length, about the Craft anddewinesand thehud, but it seemed to Elspeth that he held this particular task rather sacred—as though his ability to rouse a flame were somehow integral to his manhood. If he only realized what other flame he had kindled—perhaps then he wouldn’t be so concerned with the one beneath his flint.
Alas, the onetime she’d attempted to start it for him, he’d cast her a warning glare and said, “I need nomagikto feed my belly or yours.”
Five days now they’d been traveling, and they’d stopped early this evening to camp in a boggy woodland. Everything felt grey and dewy, as though it had been raining for years. She longed to bring out the sun and burn off the haze, but she knew better than to go about willy-nilly, casting aether spells. Even if it wouldn’t revile Malcom, it wasn’t in anyone’s best interest to thwart the will of the gods. As yet, she still had no inkling what fate woulddemand for that spell she and her sisters cast in Wales. And so far, she’d not told Malcom about that—or about the auras she could read. It didn’t seem to behoove her, considering his concerns.
If he realized she could read his desires, and his fears, and his joys in the air surrounding him, even before a thought ever reached his head, what then would he say?
So, then, she let him strike away at his flint, saying nothing, looking askance, and trying not to notice the deep red hue surrounding him—deeper yet by the second, and she knew very well it wasn’t anger.
Well, so he might be annoyed by the lack of fire, but that was only frustration. With her, he had been nothing if not kind and gentle, and the closer they came to arriving “home,” the sweeter he became.
He desires me,she realized, with a clarity borne of her sister’s message.He truly desires me.
Tonight the evidence was plain to see—a vivid cloud of red that enveloped him wholly. And if she wasn’t quite so famished, she would show him exactly how she felt about him. Alas, her stomach growled.
“Art hungry?” he asked.
