Dear Impostor (45 page)

          The kiss lengthened, and her lips parted, till
he could taste the sweetness of her mouth and tantalize the softness he found
there. He thought of other soft places waiting for his invasion, and his groin
ached till he feared he would disgrace himself like a green boy, indeed. He
pulled a little away.

          She opened her eyes, her expression perplexed.

          “When I love you, I want it to be as if we
have forever,” he explained, trailing his hand down the soft curve of her
throat. Her pulse jumped, like a small bird fluttering beneath his hand. “It
would take forever for me to have my fill of you.”

          She relaxed. For an instant, however, he had
seen a trace of nervousness beneath her calm.

          “We can have forever, my love,” she whispered.      

          But instead of reassurances, Gabriel leaned
forward with careful slowness and kissed her again.

          His lips were firm and sure. Psyche thought
she might float away, such was the aching sweetness of his touch. Then the kiss
became deeper and more demanding, his tongue probing, and Psyche pressed
herself against him, ready to meet his passion with the rising heat within her
own breast.

          Her eyes shut, Psyche became aware of the
touch of his hand on her face, the slow soft movements of his fingers as he
stroked her cheek. The light touch sent tingles of feeling through her, and
when he dropped his hand to her neck, caressing the curve of her throat, then
the hollow at the base of her neck, she felt prickles of sensation that made
her feel as if her skin were on fire.

          She waited, eager for his hands to move on,
but Gabriel took his time, fingertips gliding over her throat and shoulders and
neck again and again until she trembled with eagerness, feeling as if she were
an instrument on which he played a harmonious melody.

          Psyche could not speak; she was beyond words. Where
this stream of sensual joy would take her, she could not rationally predict,
but thoughts were gone, only feelings existed. She felt as if she were falling
into a morass of sensation–then she found that she
was
falling, or at
least, Gabriel was carefully placing her back against the floor. He had untied
her dark cloak and laid it against the dusty boards.

          “I want to believe that this is our bed, and I
am laying you down on scented sheets and down-filled pillows,” he whispered
huskily in her ear. She smiled at the image and raised her arms to him as he
lay beside her.

          “And this is not a dirty costume but a gown
you have specially chosen to wear for your lover.” With a sure motion of his
hand, he slipped her tunic to her waist and pushed it further down past her
thighs.

          She made a soft sound of protest at the loss
of his touch, but he moved his right hand up and caressed each one of her
breasts in turn until the ripples of feeling again threatened to overwhelm her.
With practiced fingers, he traced the curve of her breast. No man had ever
touched her there–Percy’s awkward fumblings during the times she had slapped
her cousin’s hand away could not be compared to this. But thinking about her
cousin or any other man now was sacrilege.

          Psyche arched her back, pressing her breast
deeper into his palm. She had no desire to push Gabriel away. Her nipples
strained, erect and tender, as if instinctively aware of the pleasures they
were owed. Gabriel did not deny her; he cupped one breast in his hand, stroking
it softly, teasing the nipple with a skillful touch. And while she breathed
long sighs of pleasure, he leaned forward and she found to her surprise that he
had pressed his lips to her breast.

          What was–then she gasped, as his mouth found
her nipple, kissed it, surrounded it, gently manipulated the tender flesh until
waves of pleasure ran over her like a warm tide from a tropical sea.

          Was it possible to die of pure joy? She could
not imagine how much more pleasure love-making could offer, if this brief
interlude left her so charged with sensation—and then she found that she was
woefully, joyfully wrong.

           Gabriel lowered his head and kissed the soft
skin of her belly, till she shuddered from the impact of his warm lips, and his
hand cupped the sweet curve of her, touched the silky golden hair.

          She stiffened, alarmed for an instant; yet the
feelings in her belly were so intense that she could not push him away. She
instinctively wanted whatever it was that Gabriel was offering, but she had no
idea what it was.

          But Gabriel did. He would delight her in ways
that surely few women had known before. His hand soothed her, incited her,
opened her up to sensations that she had not even known existed, brought her to
such heights that she almost could not breath. Pressure swirled and built
between her thighs as he held her prisoner with only the tips of his fingers. She
paused, breathlessly, reaching sightlessly for something she could not name but
wanted desperately.

          She sobbed his name in supplication. Gabriel
smiled down into her flushed face in understanding and then replaced his
fingertips with his mouth.

          Psyche reared up in open-eyed shock, then the
delicious sensation enveloped her. Mindlessly, she fisted her hands in his
thick hair and held tight as his hungry mouth devoured her secrets.

          Gabriel slid his hands beneath her writhing
hips and cupped her buttocks in his palms, burying tongue and lips into her. Gasps
heaved in and out of her chest, and just when she thought her heart would
surely explode, he gave a final caress with his clever tongue, and her heart
and all else exploded into a burst of color and light. Her hips jerked and
thrust, but Gabriel slid up her body and kissed her into stillness.         

          He watched her, taking all his delight in her
pleasure, her surprised but passionate responses. She rested for a moment,
looking dazed, her fair body a stark contrast against the dark cloak. During
the lovemaking, her hair had come unbound and was twisted around her
sweat-dampened body. Tendrils clung to her chest and cheeks.

          “I never knew.” She voiced her amazement.

          “I thought I knew,” he said hoarsely, feeling
his heart still pounding. “But I can see there is much that you can teach me.”   

          Shaking her head at the absurdity of that, she
realized she was completely naked and he was fully clothed.

          “This will not do at all,” she said in a
temptress’s tones. Slight tremors still rocked her as she pulled at his shirt,
needing to feel the rough warmth of his skin against her. Reaching down with
urgent hands, he assisted her, yanking on buttons and ties until his chest was
bare and his masculinity exposed.

          Psyche’s eyes widened at the proof of his
desire.

          He chuckled low in his throat. “Goddess, you
do a man’s ego good.”

          Looking back up into his face, she shrugged
and gave a fair imitation of her usual icy disdain.

          “Oh, no you don’t.”

          Just when her pulse had almost slowed to
normal, he sent it rocketing again by pressing his hardness against her wet
warmth, and at the same time, taking her mouth in a desperate kiss. When he
pulled his lips from hers, he captured her chin in his hand.

          Pressing the smooth tip of himself against
her, he held himself there at the brink of her being until her lashes fluttered
open, and she focused her passion-dazed eyes upon him. His gaze captured her as
surely as his heavy body pressing her into the unyielding floor.

          “Pretend that I have a lifetime to worship you
instead of only this one time.”

          Before she could challenge that utterance, he
pushed himself into her wet warmth in one smooth stroke.

          Psyche exhaled and tensed slightly at the
strange sensation, but Gabriel seemed to anticipate her feelings because he
ducked his head down to hers. Carefully, his breath labored, he pressed kisses
to her eyelids and nuzzled in the rumpled curls at her forehead.

          Pulsing with heat inside of her, he held
himself still and let her adjust. It was all so new to her. On the edge of
fright, Psyche opened her eyes again; she saw that Gabriel was watching her;
his sea deep eyes kind, and his expression intent.

          “Relax, my love,” he told her, and then he
drew almost out of her before pushing back in to the hilt. Psyche braced
herself for more discomfort, but this time it was fleeting, and Gabriel’s arms
were comforting around her.

          He kissed her lips very gently. “You are more
dear to me than my life,” he whispered.

          Then he moved again within her, and this time
there was no pain at all, only the wonderful sensations that had been growing
through all his careful ministrations. He had incited an intensity of feeling
through his touch and his lips that now his deeper masculinity stirred into
even more blissful passion.

          Psyche felt waves of pleasure so intense they were
almost pain; she could not bear so much joy–surely, she would fall apart,
disappear into wisps of vapor that would rise like the dew toward the morning
sun.

          Still Gabriel moved inside her, his pace
quickening as her own response became more fevered. She felt joined with him at
some elemental level, as if one skin covered both their bodies, one pulse
labored in both their veins. They had been made one, and she would never again
look at the world in the same way.

          The waves were higher, deeper, but this time
Psyche knew what to expect, and she wanted it desperately for herself and
Gabriel. In characteristic fashion, she held back not at all, instead rushing
headfirst to meet it. Psyche let herself go, moving with him, pushing against
the strong thrusts, pulling him closer, kissing him so hard that her lips felt
swollen, then falling back again, barely aware of the hard floor beneath her. She
could feel only the rising passion that surged and crested at last in an
ecstasy beyond thought, beyond words, ecstasy that no poet had ever hoped to
express.

          She cried out, then felt Gabriel’s whole body
tense before he pulled himself quickly out of her body and emptied himself into
the discarded sash.

           He kissed her, then pulled her into the
circle of his arms. They lay side by side, breathless with spent passion. She
felt so alive that she thought she might hear the mice in their nests, the
spiders scuttling along their silken webs, the stars making their own celestial
music. Speech was impossible for some minutes; she was content to lay her cheek
against his chest, feel the light sheen of perspiration that coated his tanned
skin, hear his heart still beating fast, his breath at last beginning to slow,
and to know that she had mirrored his responses with perfect precision. They
were two parts of one whole.

          “Pretend that instead of just leaving your
body, I had instead come inside of you, that we had created a little life
inside your womb.” He lay a trembling hand on over her belly as if shielding a
life there. Psyche let the tears fall unhindered down her face and dampen her
hair.

          He brushed the tears away and tried to bring
back her smiles “You are a goddess indeed,” he said, very low. “I worship at
your shrine.”

          She smiled for him, though her heart ached. She
knew him so well but did not know how to convince him that he was worthy of her
love. Until he believed it, nothing she said would sway him. But this was no
time for sadness. She rallied for him and injected a teasing note into her
voice. “Don’t be irreverent.”

          “Then you are the part of my soul that I have
been lacking for so long.” This time, his tone was serious; she knew he was
sincere.

          He shut his eyes. His breathing slowed, and
she thought that he slept. He had had no rest through their carriage ride, the
hurried retreat from danger that had brought them here.

          It was as well. She could not bear to hear
more denials of their future. She had vowed her love to him, and she had meant
it. True, Gabriel had been free for so long, his affections unfettered, his
charm and face and perfect body the object of so many women’s lust.

          How could she expect to hold him?

          She just would, that was all. She would not
accept one interlude of perfect joy. That, she could expect, had in fact
already been given. But she had no doubt that the future could hold much more.

          She turned her head and gazed at Gabriel. Mid-morning
sun streamed through the uncovered windows, the grime filtering the bright
light so that it fell on his prone body reverently, softly. She studied the
strong planes and angles of his face, stern even in sleep. She would have
Gabriel, or she would have no man at all. Hands fisted at her side, she
breathed a silent plea.

         
Please, allow us a future together
!