Marrying Stone (32 page)

She grinned back.

They sat there, sharing the moment as the rain continued to pour down, running along the edge of the single slope roof and spattering loudly onto the already soaked ground. Once more the silence lay between them, but there was no uneasiness about it.

To Roe's surprise, Meggie took a deep breath and began to sing. Roe listened to her for a couple of moments deciding that her unusual voice was not as bad as he'd first thought, before blending his own with hers.

They discovered that between the two of them they knew nine verses to "Polly Vaughn." It was warm and pleasurable singing together, their very disparate singing tones joined in such unexpected harmony. After "Polly Vaughn" they sang "Silver Dagger." To better combine their voices, Roe sat at her feet in the dirt by the sawbuck. He loved being close to her, and the sheer pleasure of sharing the simple music was like a burst of sunshine on the dark, rainy day.

Song after song they sang together. She taught him "Taney County Bad Companions." He taught her 'The Old Man Who Came Over the Moor."

"Do you know this one?" she asked him.

"Come all you pretty fair maids

Who flourish in your prime,

Be sure to keep your garden clean,

Let no one take your thyme."

Roe's eyes widened in shock, then, grinning, he listened to the sweet sound of her voice.

"My thyme it is all gone away,

I cannot plant anew,

And in the place where my thyme stood

It's all grown up in rue."

She sang the song sweetly as if it were but a children's tune like "Mary Contrary" or "Cat in the Fiddle." But Roe knew the old English ballad and his thoughts flew from its pretty words to the archaic meaning in its symbols. A meaning obviously unknown to Meggie Best. The sprig of thyme represented virginity, while the bitter leaves of rue construed remorse and sorrow for the unsanctioned pleasures of the flesh. The sweet garden song she sang was a warning to young women in the less sheltered times of the past not to trust the false hearts of men who asked for their bodies before they asked to marry.

"The pink it is a pretty flower

But it will bud too soon,

I have a posy of mine own

I am sure 'twill wait 'til June."

Roe looked up to the young woman who had given her thyme to him and for whom the plucked flower would never live long enough to see the wedding day. Still, as he watched her face and heard her voice, he couldn't regret the tenderness that she had given so freely and had asked him no price. But he couldn't help but worry that one day she would feel regret.

"In June comes in the primrose flower

But it is not for me,

I will pull up my primrose flower

And plant a willow tree."

As the last sweet note faded, Roe reached to clasp her hand in his own. Her eyes widened as she stared at him. He rose to his knees and brought her long, work-callused fingers to his lips.

"Marry me, Meggie," he whispered.

"Roe, I told you I—"

"I know what you told me. In my heart I've heard you tell me over and over. But that's not the answer that I want to hear."

He pulled her closer and pressed his fingers to her lips.

"Roe, you can't possibly think that—"

"When you're this close to me, Meggie, I can't possibly think at all."

He reached for her and she knelt beside him. His hands caressed her cheeks, her brow. He traced the line of her jaw, smoothing one damp curling strand of hair out of her face.

"I think of nothing but you, Meggie, nothing at all. I ache for you," he whispered against her ear.

Roe heard the catch in her breath. Gently, he eased apart the long plait of hair that hung down her back. He raked his hands through her hair as if it were a treasure of pure gold. Then he twisted the strands in his fist and used them to pull her closer. Closer. He pulled her closer until her lips were a hairsbreadth from his own. And he trembled.

He fought the desire to pull her against him and kiss her again as he had in the sweet bed of clover they had known before. He had been hurried then, maybe too rough. He wanted to be sweet for his Meggie. He wanted to be tender and patient and husbandly. This time he wanted it to be perfect. This time he would let neither the effects of strong drink nor his passion control him.

Her little nervous breath felt warm against his own skin. He bent forward only slightly, just to touch his lips against hers.

"Marry me, Meggie," he whispered an instant before their mouths met in a gentle kiss, as genteel as it was unsatisfactory.

Roe swallowed determinedly and tried to pull away from her to wait patiently for her answer. But it didn't come in words.

With a tiny cry of desire, Meggie wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his own.

"Kiss me, kiss me, Roe."

Meggie pressed the sweet soft warmth of her bosom against him. She had tried so hard not to want him, not to need him. But the invitation of his arms was more than she could refuse. The hard points of her nipples, swelled with eagerness for his touch, and the tender, innocent kiss that they had started quickly became an achy, clenching need to possess.

Roe drew a sharp gasp of breath through his nose; to Meggie it looked like a stallion catching the scent. She felt him clasp her around the waist. With more instinct than calculation, her hands skimmed the long, muscled length of his back to bury themselves in the wild strands of his thick black hair.

She felt the movement of Roe's hands upon her. While his right hand continued to knead and tease her breast, his left slid down the round curve of her buttocks, pressing her body close against him.

It was a wild kiss, hurried and incendiary. His mouth opened over hers and he begged to taste her. Meggie's own lips parted and she was jubilant as she slipped her tongue inside his mouth. He tasted as exotic as cinnamon and as homey as apples. She inhaled the fragrance of him and was lost.

Tighter and tighter she pressed herself against him. She wrapped her legs around him and could feel the stiffness of his erection against her now. They were near enough for joining, but yet unjoined. It was exhilarating. It was enticing. With a sound near pain he moaned against her ear and buried his face into the soft sanctuary of her hair. She felt beautiful and powerful, and she felt on fire.

Desperately she squirmed beneath him, trying to ease the throbbing ache of desire that plagued her. She meant to get closer, she needed to be closer and she spread her legs even wider before him to make that happen.

"Oh, Meggie! I only meant to kiss you," he confessed in her ear with hoarse, hard-won words. She smoothed her hands up and down his back, urging him against her, begging him to make love to her.

"But kissing is not enough," she cried plaintively. "I need you inside me, Roe. I need you now."

He made no protest, but laid her on her back on the damp dirt floor, following her down. In one hasty movement, he jerked the long, cotton homespun skirt that covered her up to her waist. The soft, oft-washed cotton of her flower sack drawers offered the last impediment to her nakedness. With eager, fumbling fingers she undid the ties at her waist and helped him skim them down her legs.

He was staring at her nakedness in the gray light of afternoon, the rain beating now as fierce a tempo as her heart.

"You are so beautiful, Meggie," he whispered.

It was with pride as well as desire that she opened her legs for him and urged him astride her.

Roe wedged his knee high between her thighs. She gasped. He used the thick strong muscles of his thigh to begin a strong seductive rhythm of caress and pleasure.

Meggie's eyes opened with desire and tiny cries of pleasure from the back of her throat. She stared up at him and saw in his face the mixture of control and pleasure that so taunted and enflamed her need.

"Roe, yes, Roe," she called his name as she squirmed beneath him. "Please, I need you. I need all of you. I'm begging," she cried as she fanned the flames that were already nearly out of control.

She heard him moaning, as if the man were in pain, and realized he was voicing his own need to her, Meggie Best, the woman in his arms.

"God help me, Meggie, I can't stop."

"Don't stop!" she pleaded.

To ensure that he didn't, she pulled his galluses from his shoulders and jerked at his shirt.

Any good sense or right thinking that either might have possessed was blinded by the haze of red-rimmed passion that glittered between them. The need to mate, to join, to unite as man and woman prevailed.

Their movements together were almost rough now and desperate. He had to be inside her. She had to have him inside her now.

She tugged at the buttons on his butternut duckings. He offered the help of his own fingers for only a minute before Meggie managed to unfasten his trousers. There was no gentleness or ease as she dragged them off his hips. He was naked beneath them, and Meggie had to touch his nakedness. She had to touch it now, she had no patience for finesse.

Her hands on the bare flesh and caressing his buttocks nearly sent him over the edge. Roe, too, sought the secrets of her private flesh.

"Meggie, I can't wait. I can't wait."

Her answer was a joyous cry as once more she wrapped her legs around his waist. Shaking with desire and clasping his flesh in her hands, she eased him inside her.

He was hot and hard and filling and her body clinched him with need.

He swore with delight and ground his teeth against the need to spill himself inside her then and there.

"You're so good. You feel so good," he told her.

Meggie's reply was an inarticulate gasp of pleasure.

With labored effort, he held himself rigid and quivering on the brink until he'd revived a semblance of his control. Meggie continued to squirm beneath him, too impatient to wait. When he began a slow, steady thrusting, she rocked and moaned beneath him.

He cried aloud at the pleasure of it.

"I can't be slow," he told her. "I can't be careful."

"Love me, Roe," she begged. "Love me hard, love me now. I can't wait!"

And he didn't. Planting his elbows firmly in the unyielding ground, he began pounding her body with quick, deep strokes, the resulting fire of which startled them both.

Again, again, again, Roe slammed himself full-length inside her, only to retreat and slam again. Meggie tightened her limbs around him tenaciously, still she was not close enough.

"More," she pleaded. "More."

Roe sat back just enough to grab her ankles. Bending her farther upward he wrapped her ankles around his shoulders and began to move inside her once more.

Meggie cried out in momentary alarm at the depth of his newly positioned stroke. But when he hesitated, she grasped his buttocks in her hands and urged him on. Her lips widened in a mask of passion and her eyes closed in breathless wonder.

In less than a half-dozen powerful, pounding thrusts, she reached the pinnacle and careened off as eagerly as if it were the Marrying Stone, screaming his name as he spent his seed inside her.