In the Lord's Embrace (4 page)

They
both
moaned in the pleasure of their union, August’s
hands finding harbor on her hips, inducing an undulation of steady back-forth, up-down motions,
each embrace of her core over his
cock another prayer answered and another promise fulfilled.

“August
, s
peak to me.”

He gasped as he
kissed her bouncing breasts with some difficulty.
“
Mmm
, Maeve
,
mo
shíorghrá
.”

My eternal love…

“
Tá
tú
go h-
álainn
,
” he continued as the motion of her hips began to outpace his
own push and pull.

You are beautiful…

“
August
, don’t stop. I’m…” Swallowing hard, she t
hrew her head back as her
wetness increase
d ten
fold. “I’m…
ungh
….
August
, I’m so close.”

“
Mo
anamchara
…”

My soul
mate… 

“
A
chuisle
...”

My heartbeat
…
 

“Oh, Maeve
… Sweetheart, you’re burning me whole. There shall be nothing left of me. You feel so good.”

“
Ahhhh
…. gust…
”  Her moans were coming fully n
ow as she worked herself up and down his
cock in dizzying movements, moving with a rage that could only be propelled
by both
love
and need
. 

“Maeve!” Au
gust
cried out
, fe
eling the pent up fullness of his
own climax coming
upon him. “Maeve
,
a
n
bpósfaidh
tú
mé
?”

“Yes!”
S
he
crested, screaming her reply to his passionate, Irish proposal.  “Yes, August
I will marry you. I’ve only ever
wanted to marry you. Oh, Oh… Aug… Aug
….”

They
collapsed on the bed, panting and
sated. Three
years apart had not dampened their
ability to
find pleasure. All Maeve needed to know was that he was
hers that
he would take her as his wife.

As
long ago
he should have
.

Maeve scooted alongside him, laying her head on his
shoulder and cuddling against him
. Her arms loosely wrapped over ches
t and embraced him
.

“My heart…” she said
, tapping her fingers
. “My heart has missed this heart.”

“Where are we going?”

Augusta
was always full of questions
, and why should today be any different?

“The justice of the peace,” Maeve
answered. “Your father and I are getting married.”

If she was su
rprised by the announcement, the child
made no show of it. Blindly accepting this was as expected as running to get eggs from the market or logs f
or the fire from downstairs, August
continued on
merrily, her hand embraced in Maeve
’s.

“Ma, did you sleep well?” the child
suddenly questioned.

August caught
a qui
ck look of worry flit across Maeve
’s face. “Well enough, darling. Why?”

Augusta
shrugged.
“Thought I heard you yell last night.
Thought you might have had a nightmare
,
is all.”

Red as the sun, Maeve blushed, and August felt as though he
might have suffered the same.

Without warning, Maeve
stopped dead in her tracks, her face going white.
“Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph
!
Oh, August. August
, we can’t get married. “

D
umbfounded
, he spluttered. “
Wha
…
Why ever not, Maeve
?”

She looked at him as though he were slow.
“A ring, August
!
We haven’t a ring.”

With gallant
revelry
,
August pulled the silk sachet from his
coat pocket and pulled the diamond and sapphire studded
piece from its safe keeping.

Smug as a Prussian, he grinned. “Is this not a ring, Maeve
?”

“How did you…?”

Placing a finger on her
lips, August
stopped her. “I purchased it on an
errand to London years ago, Maeve
. I have kept it safely at my side. You see, I bought it for a certain Ir
ish lass whom captured my heart with a single kiss by a waterfall as a lad, and
I have waited far too long to slip it on her finger.”

“Oh, August
…”

In a backroom of the town hall,
without pomp, without circumstance, but with devolution and enraptured by her smile,
she became his forever, his wife, his love.

The boy who had kissed
this lass
at the age fourteen
in the woods above Killarney
never could have understood his happiness and his life would lie only her arms. This man, however, looked to his ladies, his wife and his daughter, and knew that at long last, his heart—and theirs—were right where they needed to be.
It wasn’t a question of
Ireland ,
or England, or even America.

It was wherever they were. It was here.

Together.