Page 113 of The Rose (The Godwicks 2)

“What is it?” she asked, though she knew. Of course she knew.

“I’d forgotten,” August said, “how beautiful he is.”

“I hadn’t forgotten,” Lia said. “I always knew.”

“‘“Are you afraid?”’” he asked. Of course he had to quote the book at her.

Lia answered, “No.” She was not afraid.

“I am,” August said.

“Of Pan?” It seemed impossible to be afraid of Pan.

“Of you.”

She laughed. “Why?”

He stroked her cheek. “You know why.”

She smiled, still crying.

“Poor lad,” August said, stroking the baby otter’s soft sleeping head. “We should get him home to his father.”

“Of course,” she said. Must get the lost baby otter home. August led her from the glade and she looked back at Pan, only once but once was all it took. Pan winked at her and changed his tune again. As she and August walked away, toward the boat on the bank, the pipes trilled a wedding march.

“Randy old goat,” August muttered as he put Lia and the otter in their boat.

“Not in front of the baby,” she said. August laughed softly, and they set off rowing down the river. In a muddy puddle under an oak bearded with moss, a large gray-brown otter came ashore and barked. The otter in Lia’s arms wriggled itself awake and returned the bark. Lia held up the baby and the large father otter dived quickly into the water and swam right up to their boat. After one quick kiss on top of the otter’s small furry forehead, Lia set him down onto his father’s belly, and otter and son paddled away. Lia smiled as she watched them go.

“Daddy and I wandered the woods every evening for an entire summer when I was little, looking for Pan’s Island. He read the story to me every night. He told me once he’d sell everything he had to buy me a ticket to Pan’s Island if he could. And you just...you just brought me here with a wink and a snap of your fingers. I dreamed...ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of this...and here I am. I wonder if he’d be heartbroken to know I made it here with you, not him. Even if it’s not really real...it feels real.”

“He wanted to find it foryou,” August said. “Not for himself. He’s a good father, and good fathers hold the doors open for their children that only their children can pass through. All that matters is that you found it and you’re happy. You are happy, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never been so happy,” she said, fresh hot tears running rivers down her face. She let herself weep without trying to stop, and she knew she wept not because it was over but because it had happened.

August smiled, and it was a smile to steal a young girl’s heart, and as Lia was a young girl, her heart was stolen by it. And that wasn’t even the mad part. The mad part was that Lia didn’t want it back. He could keep the heart he’d just stolen. He could keep it forever, in a box or on a shelf, though she hoped he’d keep it in his chest, next to his.

“I thought the Rose Kylix made erotic fantasies come true,” she said to August in a teasing tone. “This is the wrong kind of fantasy.”

He smiled again, a different smile. A shy sheepish smile. She loved that smile because she knew what it foretold. He locked the oars and pulled her to the floor of the boat. Lia laid her head back on the pale pink cushion as August moved on top of her slowly, careful not to tip the boat.

She shuddered in pleasure as his body met hers, the warmth of his skin, the weight of him on her and over her...it satisfied a hunger in her too long ignored. August’s mouth met hers and kissed her with almost delicate kisses, as if he understood her fragility and the fragility of the moment. This was her dream, her deepest sweetest dream, and she would have to wake soon but not yet.Please, she thought,not yet...

August braced himself, his weight on his elbows as he kissed her lips and neck and throat. “Do nothing,” he whispered into her ear. “Just lie there and let me make love to you.”

She nodded, smiled a shaky tearstained smile. He kissed the tears and returned the smile. As he lifted her gown to her waist, she watched his face. His eyes were hooded with his dark lashes and he wore an expression of the most intense concentration, like an archer with his arrow in the notch and the string pulled back to its tautest point.

Lia unbuttoned two more buttons of his shirt as he opened his trousers. He lay on her again and this time she could feel the thick hard length of him against her stomach, pressing in and down. He pushed her gown to her stomach to bare her breasts. When naked to his gaze, he ran one hand over them, not to squeeze or to grope but simply to stroke and stroke gently. Her nipples hardened against his warm palms and he lowered his mouth to her left breast. He licked the nipple once before drawing it into his mouth, and Lia tensed as he sucked it.

The pleasure was sharp, intense, focused in the tender tip that he drew on again and again. The slow draw, the tug, the moist heat on her breast, was bliss but paled before the bliss of watching August as he did it. His eyes were closed, and his lashes lay heavy on his cheeks. He looked almost pained, like he’d waited eons to kiss her breasts and the relief was so utter and complete he had to hold back tears. This display of raw emotion surprised her.

Lia lifted a hand, heavy with languor, and pushed his hair off his forehead and stroked his cheek.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, arching her back to press her breast harder to his mouth. He didn’t break the contact, but he did glance up at her once, and she smiled tenderly at him as she lightly touched the lips that suckled her. August paused only long enough to whisper a few words before taking her nipple into his mouth again.

She lay back under him, ran her fingers through the thick soft waves of his hair and then slid her hands down his back, pushing his shirt off his shoulders and to his waist. His skin was smooth and sun-warmed. She couldn’t stop touching him. Her body rose under his, almost of its own accord. August released her breast at last, but it seemed he hadn’t gotten control of his emotions enough to meet her eyes again. Instead he nudged her thighs wide and nestled between them.

August’s cock throbbed against her as if trying to find its way to her opening. Lia shifted under his chest and pushed against the tip until it slid through her wet folds and entered her. He shivered in her arms, and his breathing was ragged, his eyes still closed tight. Then he raised his head and looked at Lia, and she didn’t know who he was.

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