Page 86 of My Hero
He had no idea what she was babbling about, and he suspected neither did she.
Sometime soon he would need to breathe. “Go now, Cynthia. Go.”
“But…” She looked dismayed for an instant. Then sudden inspiration sparked in her eyes. “Kiss me!”
His gaze dropped involuntarily down to her mouth, that wide, sensuous mouth that probably tasted of fine ale.
“Nay, my lady.”
“Then I shall kiss you.”
It would have been unforgivable to jerk away from her then. Particularly when she looked so naïve and vulnerable, weaving on her feet. It would have hurt her. At least, that’s what he told himself. But he should have. He should have recoiled as if from fire. Instead, he let her raise her mouth to his.
Her lips tasted like autumn, with the harvest done, and the smells of cut wheat and ripe apples filling the air, when pine boughs crackled on evening fires and tankards of golden ale warmed the belly. He could no more refuse that taste than a starving man could refuse a loaf of bread. And once lost in that intoxicating nectar, he could do nothing else but drink deeper.
She was warm from the bath. Her damp hair smelled of spice. He wove one hand into the fragrant mass as he plundered her mouth. The other hand slid along her spine, catching in the delicate fabric of her gown, slipping it across her satiny skin.
Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice protested, telling him he was making a mistake, telling him he should stop now before he made a fool of himself. But he ignored it. It sounded too much like Mariana’s scolding. And at present, the voice of passion spoke louder than the voice of reason. It spoke like thunder in his ears.
Cynthia wriggled closer, locking her arms about his neck, devouring him as if he were a Christmas feast. She moaned against his lips, wordlessly begging for more.
And, God help him, he obliged.
He plunged his tongue deep into her mouth, savoring the sweet, warm recesses with the desperation of a condemned man at his last meal. Desire rushed through his veins like strong poison, leaching out all sense, compelling him to taste her, to embrace her, compelling him, aye, to take her.
Still ravaging her mouth, he wrested out of his cassock. She, too, pulled free of her garment, tearing the neck of the frail thing. It slid sinuously over her curves and pooled at her feet. And then there was nothing between them.
Tongues of fire lapped at him as she kissed his neck, his shoulder, his chest, seeking and finding his mouth again. He endured the torture of her nipples grazing him, her unbound hair rasping across his skin, the sizzling of his blood as she danced just out of reach. And then he could endure no more.
He hauled her up against him, hard, forging her flesh to his like iron to steel. He swept her onto the bed, his bed, where he’d spent too many long, guilty nights dreaming of this very thing, this soul-searing union he’d never hoped to relive.
Yet here she was again, beneath him, writhing, gasping, twisting her head back and forth across the furs as if she were tortured by some demon of yearning.
He knew how she felt. The blood pounded in his loins and sang through his body like a siren’s call, driving him mad—mad enough to cover her hot flesh with his own, mad enough to rest his lust-heavy weight atop her, to part the swollen petals of her womanhood and plunge into the welcome harbor of her womb.
It was heaven. God forgive him, it was heaven.
Whorls of sensation circled Cynthia, leaving her dizzy and breathless. She was drunk, aye, but this euphoria had nothing to do with ale. Garth was everywhere—above her, around her, inside her—and it was where he belonged. She felt possessed by him, as if their two souls were somehow forged together.
Then he moved, and it was much finer than she remembered, that slow, relentless tide he forced her to. Her loins prickled with need, and he soothed that need with each stroke. She wrapped her legs about him, wanting him closer, and she could feel the muscles of his buttocks flex and release. Her hands wandered over his massive shoulders, down his tensed back, and that delicious thrill of fear coursed through her once more.
She was losing control. She could feel it coming as surely as the sun came up over the hills. Moans came to her lips unbidden. Her hips undulated to their own rhythms, striving upward against him. She held on for dear life. But this time, as she teetered on the narrow ledge of fulfillment, she felt no panic.
Perhaps it was the ale. Perhaps it was Elspeth’s words.
This time, she let the flood carry her away, past care, past reason. She gasped, arching impossibly beneath him as he, too, drove with bold abandon deep within her. For one glorious moment, they were one, soaring high above the earth like a solitary flaming angel. Then they plunged downward, clasped together, rocking with tremors as old as time, to extinguish their passion in a tranquil sea.
Cynthia drifted on that sea like a ship without a wheel. She couldn’t cease smiling. Her whole body glowed the way it did when she stood too close to the fire. But she didn’t want to move away from this fire. Nay, she wanted to lie here beneath Garth forever.
The last thing Garth wanted to do was move. He was drained, physically and mentally. Cynthia would want more. For a woman, Mariana had told him, once was never enough. But lying quiet, he could float aimlessly, oblivious to the guilt threatening to press down upon him, oblivious to the demands surely to come from Cynthia, demands he wasn’t sure he could answer.
And yet, affection did what neither guilt nor demands could. Helongedto fulfill her again. He longed to satisfy her completely. At least he had to try.
And if his staff was not wont to rise again, what it couldn’t achieve, a skilled hand could accomplish.
Separating from her no more than an inch, he snaked his fingers down over her flat belly toward the damp curls mingling with his. Carefully, gently, he parted her soft folds and ran one slick finger over the tiny bud hidden there.
“Nay,” she groaned, wincing, halting his hand.
