Fruit of the Golden Vine (28 page)

“I’ve always been a romantic at heart, and you have something between your teeth.” Silvana waited while Adelina prodded at her teeth. “Yes, you have it. As I said, I’ve always wanted romance, but each time I’ve let myself become enamored with a woman, it has ended in heartbreak. Oh, some of my more fervent lovers have sworn to part from their families and travel with me, but in the end the pressure was too great.”

“I won’t be that way. Haven’t I already proved that?”

“Yes.” Silvana exhaled, and something like an old shadow escaped with the breath, leaving her heart clear. “Yes, you have.”

“I dreamed about you. The day I rejected you, I went to my room and fell back to sleeping.” Adelina’s forehead furrowed. “I saw you in a tree about to hang yourself. I’ll never forget the words you spoke. ‘Old roots wend deep, Adelina. I feel this night will never end.’”

A fearful thrill ran down Silvana’s spine and set her blood tingling. “Where did you first hear those words?”

“I just told you. In my dream.”

“How can that be? The first words are one of the ritual sayings of my childhood faith. And the second words I spoke to Rafael on our first night here.”

“There was something else too. A strange phrase I heard in my head. ‘The blood will call.’”

Silvana shivered. “Goddess within. It can’t be.”

“I suppose that has some magical significance to you as well?”

“It’s the most powerful invocation of my faith. Rafael and I were deemed holy, and the elders repeated those words to us to remind us that despite our intentions, someday we would return to act as archons over the faithful.” Silvana gazed at the full moon visible above the rooftops. “But that faith is gone. The elders died one by one. My mother faded of a wasting sickness, and my father lost his mind. The villagers turned to a less mystical form of worship. Rafael, who had never believed, and I, who had only ever believed in the Goddess and never in the God, gladly tossed aside the masks and garments and entered the world of flesh and blood.”

“You’re not having a conversion, are you? Mother is religious, and she’s insufferable. I don’t want you to become the same way.”

“No. I think the truth of the Goddess is more sublime than our superstitious elders could ever have conceived. And we will never know it with a waking mind.” Silvana turned her eyes back to Adelina. “Have you ever been overwhelmed by the realization of love’s tragedy? As if for a moment you were given true comprehension of the sacrifice and beauty that is two frail lives each depending upon the other?”

“I think I know what you mean.” Adelina’s eyes glittered. “Love is our greatest joy and our greatest agony. We’ll never know a greater happiness, and when one of us passes from this world, the one left behind will never know a greater sorrow.”

“Hence the urge to hold you to my breast, to never want to be parted, to be dragged into that abyss with you…” Silvana sighed. “Hence the Goddess who keeps us in Her embrace even after death. I feel that my long night is over, and tomorrow will mark the first true morning since our eyes first met. Take me to your room, Adelina. I want to show you what’s been left untaught.”

Adelina stood and crooked her finger. “Come, nymph!”

She took off at a run, laughing as she pattered across the floorboards, and Silvana set off in pursuit. Adelina leaped up a precarious flight of stairs, and Silvana followed with a little more care, not much liking the idea of breaking her neck.

The stairs opened into a long, empty corridor. Adelina’s head peeked through an open door at its end, and she beckoned again. Smiling, Silvana strode down the hall and entered the bedchamber. Adelina awaited her on a narrow wooden bed, her tunic already cast off and her breasts bared in the lamplight.

Silvana closed the door and leaned against it while admiring Adelina’s considerable curves. “I see you’ve lost your shyness,” she said.

“I was afraid at first that my breasts were too large.” Adelina arched her back and stretched her arms behind her head. “But now I realize that I’m just how I am, and that’s how it is.”

“Profound.” Silvana took off her own tunic, and Adelina’s gaze lowered without hesitation. “Does your arm still hurt, my love?”

“No. It’s better. You cured me with your kisses.” The crimson in Adelina’s cheeks crept to her ears. “Take everything off.”

“Oh? You’re commanding me?”

“I want to see you.”

Silvana knelt and untied her boots. After kicking them free, she stood, unloosed her belt and stepped out of her pants. Adelina watched the performance wide-eyed, a bent finger caught in the corner of her mouth. Now entirely naked, Silvana put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Are you satisfied?”

“Um.” Adelina bit on the end of her finger. “Oh, God.”

“I’m curious to see if you can become any redder.”

“I might if you keep laughing like that.” Adelina wriggled out of her pants. Nude and blushing, she sat upright, her hands folded in her lap but not quite concealing the dark triangle between her legs. “Am I too fat, do you think?”

“You’re beautiful, Ada.”

“Then hold me, dryad, and whisper poetry into my ear.”

“You’re the poetess here, my little star.” Silvana lay on the bed and put her arms around Adelina. The meeting of their bare skin stirred Silvana’s lust further, but she willed her urges to temper themselves. Adelina, the beautiful innocent, was trembling again. “Don’t be nervous.”

“How can I not be?”

“This love will be unlike our first time. We’re going to complete something heavenly, you and I.”

Adelina nuzzled Silvana, and her lashes brushed against Silvana’s cheek. “Tell me how.”

“First we make love with words.” Silvana entwined their fingers together. “Speak your feelings for me.”

“Um. I’ve completely forgotten how to be poetic.”

“How can that be? We’ve been practicing so often.”

“But your thigh is touching my thigh, and I can see your breasts and…between you.” Adelina’s blush deepened. “I’m not thinking about romantic starlight, weepy souls, trembling hearts and all that pretty nonsense right now. I’m thinking about the unchaste things I want to do to you.”

“And what might those be?”

With deliberate slowness, Adelina studied Silvana’s body. “I want to lay a trail of kisses across your chest, while I cup your breasts and feel your nipples stiffen against my palms. I want to trace the line of your neck and the swell of your hip. I want to place my fingers inside you, and I want to sit astride your thighs and gaze into your face while your lashes flutter in ecstasy.”

“So much for courtly love.”

Adelina’s lips curled into a wicked grin. “To hell with courtly love.”

Silvana kissed her, and their tongues met. When the kiss had broken, Silvana placed another upon Adelina’s cheek, and then upon her neck, and then upon her collarbone.

“Love and lust are as one for us,” Silvana said, breathing her words into Adelina’s ear. “To feel the heat of her wanting skin, to follow the lineament of her body and elicit pleasure in her most intimate places…this is how we make love, Adelina, with hearts as well as hands, with words as well as lips.”

“I didn’t know it could be like this.” Adelina shivered as Silvana touched the soft inside of her thigh. “It’s never like this in the romances.”

“For those are written by men.”

Adelina murmured, and her hand slid between Silvana’s legs and fumbled there—too soon, and too painfully. Silvana trapped Adelina’s clumsy fingers. “Slower, my love.”

Adelina flared red. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s your first time.”

Adelina’s fingers moved in a more gentle, tentative motion, and a pleasant pressure built in Silvana’s groin. “Is that better?”

“Much.” Silvana pressed her teeth against her lower lip. She’d lain with many experienced women, yet an inexpert touch from Adelina was more exciting by far than the work of any accomplished hand. “Focus upon where your finger is now, but don’t forget about the rest of me.”

With her free hand, Adelina reached for Silvana’s breast and toyed with its sensitive nipple. Silvana gasped. “You do learn quickly.”

“Stop talking and kiss me again.”

Their mouths met, and Silvana sucked on Adelina’s lower lip before pulling away. “Yes, I’ll kiss you,” she said. “Somewhere you’ve never before been kissed.”

“On my bottom?”

Silvana covered a snort of laughter. “What, you’ve never been kissed there? Where I come from, it’s a customary greeting.”

“How can you be joking while I’m pleasuring you? You should be enrapt and moaning.”

Silvana closed her eyes and focused on the increasingly confident activity taking place between her legs, where an erotic pressure continued to build in intensity. “I’m enrapt, believe me. But laughter is part of making love too.”

“Oh, you’re so wise. So where is it that you intend to kiss me?”

Silvana sat upright, freeing herself from Adelina’s amorous grip, and placed her hands on Adelina’s hips. She placed several light kisses along Adelina’s stomach, each time moving lower. “Oh, God,” said Adelina. “There?”

Silvana chuckled. “Yes, there.” She continued her lingering kisses until her face hovered over Adelina’s coarse thatch of hair. Her tongue dipped between Adelina’s parted lips, tasting the mixture of sweat and desire.

“You clever nymph,” Adelina said, her voice little more than a murmur. “I love you. This is…” She twitched. “Oh, fuck!”

Silvana raised her head. “Goddess, you’re vulgar.”

“Don’t you dare stop!”

As Silvana worked her mouth and tongue, delving deeper into wet, waiting heat, Adelina produced a litany of praises, curses, gasps and incoherent moans. A blush prickled across Silvana’s cheeks. No doubt every guest in the inn could hear them.

“Fuck, I love you.” Adelina clawed at Silvana’s hair. “I’m close, I’m so close, don’t stop…”

With a moan of her own, Silvana let herself loose to passion. The guests be damned.

Silvana cracked open an eyelid and peered into Adelina’s grinning face. “Have you been watching me sleep?”

“Did you know you talk midslumber?” Adelina sat cross-legged on the bed, naked and impish. “At one point during the night, you said, ‘I’d love to have a pretty dress.’”

“I didn’t.” Silvana sat upright. Morning light filled the room, and the sound of loud conversation, rattling wheels and tramping feet clamored from the street below. “I can tell you’re lying, Ada. You’re smiling far too widely.”

“I am not.” Adelina pursed her lips. “This is my usual smile.”

“What other childish pranks do you intend to play? Have you knotted my laces together?”

“You also said, ‘Kiss me, you big hairy man.’ I heard it distinctly.”

“These pranks are futile. You’re a terrible liar.”

“You’re one to talk.” Adelina arched her eyebrow. “It was frightening how you managed to deceive me so well.”

Silvana’s merriment evaporated, leaving a hollowness in her chest. “I thought that was past us.”

“It is. I just speak before I think.” Adelina squished her lips between her fingers. “I should walk around like this.”

“You’d make a terrible diplomat.”

“Well, good. There’s nothing alluring about being a diplomat.”

“You might be surprised.” Silvana touched Adelina’s hair. “These short locks of yours will take some getting accustomed to. I miss being able to brush the hair from your face.”

“I’ll grow a beard then.”

Silvana laughed and pulled Adelina into her arms. “You’re exactly what I needed in my life, you absurdity. I never thought I’d find someone who could so lift my heavy heart.”

Adelina nestled against Silvana’s side, and Silvana kissed the top of her head. “Have you really been that unhappy?” said Adelina.

“Really.”

“How old are you? You never gave me a clear answer.”

“I’m ten years your elder. Thirty-three.”

“That’s not so old.” Adelina nuzzled Silvana’s ear, tickling Silvana with her breath. “Not considering the doddering old fools that fathers force their daughters to marry. Besides, your greater maturity is one of the reasons I find you irresistible. You’re like a ripe fruit.”

“A ripe fruit?” Silvana grimaced. “I’m not sure I enjoy that poeticism much.”

“But it’s true. And I’m just a little green grape on the vine.”

“I was unwise to pluck you then. I ought to have waited.”

“I’m still sweet, aren’t I? And I’ll keep growing so long as you tend to me daily.” Adelina slid her fingers up Silvana’s bare leg. “That’s an innuendo, by the way.”

“I expected as much from your lecherous mouth.”

“Mmm. Lecherous mouth. Oh, well. Shall we make ready?”

“I suppose so. We don’t want to dally, as the town watch will be looking for us, and I’m hardly inconspicuous.”

“Because of your big nose?”

Silvana prodded Adelina in the ribs, and she squealed and shied away. “Get dressed, you peculiar beast.”

The women clothed themselves and splashed their faces with clear water before descending to the inn’s entrance hall. Agnete stood by the front door, sweeping dust onto the street. She looked at Silvana with an amused light in her eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very soundly,” said Adelina. “We were quite tired.”

Agnete propped her broom against the wall. “I’ve no doubt.”

“Oh.” Adelina turned red and covered her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the three guests who complained this morning. As far as I’m concerned, it’s livened up an otherwise dull day.” Agnete lowered her voice. “But between the three of us, how the hell did you manage it in that little bed?”

Silvana smiled. “You’ve a voluptuary mind, my lady.”

“Voluptuary, is it? I’ll take that as an insult and shake my broom at you.”

Adelina gasped in mock horror. “Silvana, she’ll whisk us to pieces! Quickly, draw your sword and cut her down!”

“You baboon, Marielle.” Agnete rubbed her hands. “I don’t have time for your foolery. I’ve some breakfasts to prepare. Are you off so early?”

“We are, but we’ll come back.” Adelina looped her arm through Silvana’s. “I’m taking Silvana to see my parents.”

“You’re an odd one.” Agnete bustled down the corridor, swiping the broom at Adelina’s ankles in passing. Adelina giggled as she skipped away.