A Journey of the Heart (39 page)

I knew what she was doing. Each touch was a question. She was asking me what I would give and what I would withhold, what I would reveal, what I would hide. I had told her that I loved her. Perhaps she was unsure of what I meant, and now she was asking me the questions she couldn't frame in words. How much of myself would I give her? How much was hers?

I hid nothing from her. I had no wish to. And if she believed that only I revealed myself in that exchange, she was mistaken. Her every touch revealed her. Each one told me that she doubted me, doubted herself, doubted her own perceptions, that she needed to see, again and again, what I could have told her in a word, if she would have believed me.

But if this was how she chose to question me, I was glad to answer her. The pleasure of her touch on my skin gave way to a deeper pleasure. She had explored the boundaries, and now she easily slipped past them, to take my heart into her hand and teach it to beat to the rhythm of her own heart. When her lips touched mine, they made me tell her all my secrets, in a language more ancient, more eloquent, than speech.

She undid my belt and loosened the waistband of my trousers, slipped her hand inside them and began to touch me. Her fingers opened me, explored me, caressed me, and this time her intent was to give me what I wanted. I hid my face against her shoulder, inhaled the sweet fragrance of her skin, listened to her breathing quicken with mine. She was as gentle as I wanted her to be.

If she could have held me in that place forever, I would have been content to stay there. The purest pleasure flowed from the secret place between my legs over the surface of my skin and through my blood and bones. The taste of it lay on my tongue. The sweetness of it filled my heart. It was enough. It needed nothing more, it had no destination, but it was more than my body could contain. It burst through my skin, ran through me like fire, burned itself to ash, and left me breathless in her arms.

I needed her arms around me then. I needed her to gather me up and hold me, until all the scattered parts of me came back together. She understood, and she stayed with me. She pulled me into a tight embrace and soothed me with whispered words I didn't understand and with a touch so tender it made me want to weep. I felt as if I were returning to her after a long journey, yet she had been with me all the time.

I became aware of her in a way I hadn't been before. Against my body hers was soft and yielding. I felt the heat of her skin even through her clothing. I turned my head to kiss her, and my lips touched the base of her throat. Her desire still beat there. My hand found her breast, and her body responded to my touch, but she took my hand in hers to stop me.

"The fire," she whispered.

I hadn't noticed that the fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals. I almost let her go, but when she began to leave me, I felt a sudden shock of fear, as if something precious that had been within my grasp was about to slip away.

"Leave it," I said. I tangled my fingers in her shirt front.

For a moment I thought she would resist me. Before she could make up her mind to free herself, I pushed her gently onto her back and lay half on top of her. She lay still, although she could easily have moved me aside. Even if her body did not resist me, her heart was already searching for a hiding place.

"Don't," I whispered.

"What?"

"Don't leave me."

"I'm right here."

I leaned up on my elbow and looked down at her. Even in the dim light, I saw her confusion in her eyes. She didn't know what she was doing.

"Do you want me?" I asked her.

When she opened her mouth to reply, her lower lip trembled. She said nothing, but she had answered me. I took her lower lip between my lips and loved it, because it had trembled, because it had given her away. She returned my kiss. Her lips were full and soft, and they caressed mine with tenderness and longing.

I closed my eyes and let my mouth explore her, and although I didn't think about it at the time, I questioned her as she had questioned me. I had never listened as intently as I listened to that wordless conversation. Again and again I asked her permission. May I? Here? And here? Is this too much? Too little? Can you hear me? This is my heart.

She made a sound deep in her throat, and her body moved under me. I slipped my leg between hers. Then her arms were around me, holding my body tight against her, as her hips rose and she pressed herself against my thigh. I was afraid she would satisfy the desire of her body before I found her heart. It was her heart I wanted.

"No," I whispered.

She stopped. Her body stiffened, and she let go of me. I thought she might push me away, but she didn't move. She waited.

"Let me touch you," I said.

I didn't wait for her answer. I undid her trousers and opened them, slipping them down as far as I could, to expose the soft skin of her belly. I slid down to kiss her there. She recoiled a little, more from surprise, I think, than from displeasure. I laid my cheek against that tender place. Just beneath the softness of her skin, the muscles tightened, as if to shield her. I gave her a little time to grow used to my touch before I began to kiss her again.

Slowly she relaxed, and the way she moved told me that my kisses gave her pleasure. I slipped her trousers down a little more, until I could see the dark curls between her legs. I brushed my fingertips across them. I longed to touch her more intimately, but I knew it was too soon. I pushed her shirt up and laid my head down on her breast. Her skin was hot against my cheek. I cupped her breast in my hand and held it, stroking it gently with my fingertips for a little while before taking her nipple into my mouth.

She responded differently to each new touch. She was easily surprised. I learned to wait for her body to catch up with me. Touching her gave me so much pleasure that I might have become impatient, but this was for her pleasure. I listened to her body, not my own, and although her movements were subtle, they were revealing. She held herself still for as long as possible, until her pleasure took control away from her and her body responded to my touch.

I brushed my fingers through the curls between her legs, then pressed the heel of my hand against her, until her hips rose in response. Her legs opened when I touched her. She was swollen and slippery with desire. I was careful with her, careful not to hurt her and careful not to hurry her. I let her body tell me where she wanted me to touch her, what kind of touch she wanted.

I began to learn the rhythm of her desire. It flowed through her in waves, building until her body was rigid with it, then fading as she softened and coiled back into herself. And little by little, I coaxed her heart out of hiding. I felt first a shy touch on my back. Then her fingers clutched at my shirt as her desire grew. Her hips rose to my touch. My own desire was intense. Her body joined mine in a dance of love and pleasure.

Then she stopped.

I waited for her to tell me what she needed.

"I can't," she said.

She put her hand over mine, to hold me still. Her desire still beat against my fingertips, but Maara was gone.

I lay quiet next to her and hid my face against her shoulder, so that she wouldn't see how much she'd hurt me. For a time the pain was so great that I couldn't think of her at all, but in a little while it lessened, and then I began to wonder. What was it she didn't want me to see? Was she hiding her own pain?

"Why?" I asked her.

She didn't answer.

When I tried to look at her, she turned her head away. In the soft glow of what remained of our fire, I caught a glimpse of her expression. It looked like shame.

"Who hurt you?" I asked her.

She was silent.

"Who else has touched you like this?"

"No one," she whispered.

"Then why?"

I knew she wouldn't answer me. Her heart was a fortress. Was she waiting for love to breach the walls?

"Touch me," I said.

She didn't move.

"Please." I shifted my hips back a bit, so that she could reach me more easily, and she slipped her hand between my legs and held me.

"Caress me."

My desire had waited for her. She could feel it. She was hesitant at first, but now she knew my body. Soon she had me on the edge. I leaned over her.

"Look at me," I said.

She turned her face toward me, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. I bent and kissed her, and at the same time I began to caress her. Her desire had waited for me too.

When I raised my head, she looked up at me. I let her see my pleasure. I held it in my body and waited for her. She was watching me so intently I doubt she was aware that I was watching her. I watched her face change, as mine must have been changing. Then her touch grew stronger, more demanding, until I could hold back no longer. The pleasure was so powerful that I cried out. Still I held myself above her, so that she could see me, but at last my arm began to tremble, and she pulled me down into her embrace. I was close to tears, but they were not tears of pleasure. She hadn't made the journey with me.

Again her hand covered mine, but this time she pressed my fingers hard against her, and I felt her desire uncoil between her legs as her body shuddered under me. She too cried out, a cry of pleasure mixed with pain, as if something within her had broken, so that her heart could find me.

We lay breast to breast, heart to heart. Maara held me there, and there I was content to stay. The walls that had held her heart captive lay in ruins. Of course she would rebuild them. The heart needs its walls. But for the moment she was unguarded.

It was enough then to let our hearts rest side by side. It was the most perfect moment of my life.

At last her hold loosened, and she shifted a little. I moved the weight of my body off of her, but she didn't let me go far. When I lay next to her, she tucked me close against her side. I knew better than to speak. Words would only have put distance between us. I spoke to her with my hands. She touched me too and kissed my brow in answer. Then we wrapped our arms around each other and lay still.

We lay like that for a long time. I thought she was asleep.

"You chose me," she whispered.

"I chose you," I said.

I waited for her to ask me why. Instead she drew back, so that she could look at me, and smiled. "Are we cold?"

In her arms I had been warm enough, but she was right. We were cold. I let her go this time, to tend the fire. When she came back to bed, she pulled my cloak around us and took me into her arms.

That night I dreamed. Several times I woke with my heart full of feeling from what had happened in a dream, but the dream itself I never could remember. Once I woke thinking that Maara had been trying to awaken me, only to find her deeply asleep. Her face was bathed in light, not the warm light of our fire, but the cold blue moonlight shining through the broken roof. Even in that hard light, she was more beautiful than I had ever seen her.

Toward morning I woke with a start from the sensation of falling, and that brought pieces of a dream back to me. In the dream it was not I who had fallen. It was Maara. As she fell, her cry was the cry I remembered from the night before.

I understood the dream at once, in a flash of insight that reached my heart before my mind could make much sense of it. It took some time before I could put it into words, and the words never did justice to what I had seen, but I knew that what I had done so easily when I revealed my heart to Maara was for her so difficult that I wondered how she had found the courage to do it at all.

My dream left me with a vague uneasiness, an apprehension that I might have, as my dream suggested, pushed her off a cliff, that I might have pushed her farther than she was prepared to go. She had balked at the cliff's edge. Perhaps I had done wrong by forcing her to fly before she knew she had wings.

Her kiss on my brow brought back my happiness, and for the moment I put the memory of my dream away.

"We should get up," she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her and snuggled closer. "Please. Not yet."

Her arms settled around me, and her fingertips traced a gentle pattern between my shoulder blades. We had begun to learn how our bodies fit together. Without realizing what I was doing, I began to rock against her.

"If you keep that up," she said, "we'll get no traveling done today."

I would have liked nothing better.

"Can't we stay here, just for one day?" I said.

"It's going to snow," she said. "We need to move on before we're trapped here."

"I wouldn't mind being trapped here."

"There's nothing to eat here," she said gently. "There's no game here, no streams to fish, no animals to snare. We need to reach the forest."

"How far is it?"

"Not far now."

I sighed. "All right. I suppose we should get started."

It was almost as difficult to leave the warmth of our bed as it was to leave the comfort of Maara's arms. In the cold air my skin broke out in goosebumps. I hurried into my tunic and handed Maara hers. Then I knelt to rekindle the fire.

After a hasty breakfast of porridge, Maara refolded our packs. She helped me shoulder mine, then moved to stand in front of me to adjust my cloak, frowning a little in concentration as she tugged the hood into place. It was all I could do not to step forward into her arms. Instead I studied her, seeing with new eyes the face I thought I knew better than any other. She felt my eyes on her and raised her eyebrows in question.

"You look -- " I was suddenly too shy to tell her she was beautiful. "Different," I said.

"I am different," she replied.

Her frown deepened, and her tone alarmed me. While I helped her with her pack, I thought again about my dream.

"Last night -- " I said.

"What?"

I finished adjusting the straps of her pack before I answered her. Even then, I didn't meet her eyes. "Did I ask too much?"

"Tamras," she said.

The way she spoke my name made me look up at her.

"You told me to ask for what I wanted," she said.