Page 79 of My Hero
This was where she belonged. Here he was master. Here he could pleasure her at his own pace, as long as he could control his own seething ardor.
“Aye,” he sighed, trembling with the restraint of four long years. “Aye.”
Cynthia arched up in a tempest of confusion and ecstasy. This was wrong. She was supposed to sit astridehim.It had always been thus before. But Garth had her pinned like a moth under a cat’s paw. He blinded her, blotting out the moon with his great bulk, so that she could see only him. He smothered her so she could scarcely move. Surely she’d be crushed beneath him.
And yet, it felt so right. She could breathe after all, enough to relish the intoxicating masculine scent of him. And she felt no desire to look upon anything other than his face. His flesh melded to hers like molten steel, and that part of him nesting deep within her…
Ah, God—he moved…slowly, elegantly, like a dance. He forced her to feel every inch of him as he withdrew and then pressed inward again with languorous grace. His hands caught her face with utmost tenderness, his thumb brushing across her lower lip before he bent to steal a kiss.
Crickets chirped lazily in the distance, and the wind soughed through the trees overhead, but all other sounds grew muffled as Garth groaned and murmured against her ear.
Her whole body began to tingle, the way it did when she performed a healing, but the heat centered at the point where their bodies joined and spread inexorably outward like consuming fire. Every stroke was a breath fueling the flame.
There was no room for thought, only perception. It was as if a film of gauze surrounded her, blurring the world, stifling all but the extraordinary sensation building within her. Her nipples ached, and he seemed to read her mind, palming the throbbing buds. Her hips surged upward of their own accord, striving for, for…she knew not what. Her head rocked from side to side, and the moans coming from her were foreign to her own ears. Some delicious demon seemed to possess her, stealing her command, shredding away her gentility like worn linen. Never before had she known such madness, such helplessness, such ecstasy.
And then, rising to a dizzying peak with alarming swiftness, came a moment when nearly everything ceased. No breath stirred her lungs. No word escaped her. No sound penetrated the preternatural silence. Her body seemed to hang in perfect balance between two worlds. But that one spot, the place where their bodies met and merged and danced together, refused to cease. It glowed brighter still, carried beyond the realm of reality, becoming pure spirit and light and sensation.
And then waves of intense pleasure rushed over her like drowning waters, claiming her body, wrenching all will from her. She sobbed out her ecstatic release on the syllable of his name.
Then the ethereal world receded. Slowly, slowly she began to hear the crickets again. Stars glittered between the gray-green branches of the willow. The sod beneath her was damp and fragrant.
Her body, spent and weak as a kitten, felt as if it belonged to someone else. And Garth loomed over her, his flesh still melded to hers, his breath heavy upon her cheek, his male scent strong and virile.
She closed her eyes in horror. She’d done something wrong. She must have. Never had she lost control like that. Never had she surrendered so wholly or felt so vulnerable. What was wrong with her?
She’d completely neglected Garth. She should have helped him find fulfillment. It was her duty. But nay, she’d been so focused on her own thirst that she’d scarcely heeded his. And that focus had proved fatal. She’d had no power whatsoever over her body—not over her limbs, which flailed and clutched at him like a madwoman’s, not over the savage moans and cries she uttered, not even over the gluttonous, self-indulgent thoughts that led her to forget his needs in favor of her own desires.
He must be appalled.
She was like a greedy child. And she’d paid for it. Oh aye, God had sent her soul to the very edge of death.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, Garth had followed Cynthia simultaneously over passion’s precipice, plunging again and again into her sweet body, filling her with his seed, shuddering afterward like a frisky steed.
Now he wished he could stay there forever, sealed to Cynthia, inhaling the womanly scent of her, watching the shadows of breeze-blown leaves dance across her moonlit skin, listening to the ragged sound of her breathing, feeling her heart beat against his. He wanted to think of nothing but the gentle, tempestuous, serene, wanton woman beneath him. He wanted to fall asleep with her there, cradling her in his arms, protecting her from the night, dreaming of jasmine.
But he’d learned the harsh truth from Mariana. The lovely woman nestled under him was far from satiated. It was only the beginning for her. And since he’d come this far, he owed her the best he could offer, even if it couldn’t be enough.
So he summoned up what strength was left him and willed his flagging staff to stand. He ran the fingertips of one hand down past her curving waist, over a perfectly sculpted hip, through the mat of curls still damp from their love. Gently, he spread the petals below, opening her to stroke the moist bud within.
“Nay!” she hissed.
Reflexively, he drew his hand back. What had he done?
“Nay,” she whispered again.
He searched her face. There was no malice there, no disgust. Only a queer shame that kept her from meeting his eyes.
And suddenly, he was ashamed.
She was unsatisfied. That was it. Just as Mariana had said. He wasn’t man enough.
“I can do more,” he said gruffly. But even now, he felt his ardor diminish.
“Nay!” she hastened to say. “Nay. You’ve done enough already.”
His pride threatened to crack, but months of enduring Mariana’s barbs had hardened him enough to keep him from crumbling as he withdrew from her.
The crickets seemed to applaud in mockery as he wrapped his cassock around his inadequate body again. The shadows of the garden seemed harsh now against the hard-packed path.
