Miracle (32 page)

She pressed close, her shoulder to his, her arm looped around his, her fingers entwined with his, and offered her face to the wind god. The yellow light through the panes illuminated her in a halo, set fire to her hair that, even as it became wet from the rain, whipped out behind her as if it had life of its own.

He saw no fear in her face, only peace—escape. Was she flying? Had she left him here, afraid, clutching the balustrade so fiercely he could, albeit remotely, feel the splinters of rotten wood digging into his flesh?

Relax. Breathe. Trust her.

The erratic light glowing from the pit reached as far as the immediate sea below him, and the water and waves were climbing up the sides of the lighthouse; only the very tip of the stone crucifix atop the chapel could be seen, and even as he stared down through the dim light and rain, he could see the waves swallow the cross into its turbulent depths.

Too late for escape. No way out.

The wind howled more loudly. The rain drove more determinedly.

"Your Grace," came Miracle's voice through the roar. "Your Grace, please . . ."

He forced his gaze away from the water, back to her face.

"My hand," her lips said. "You're hurting my hand."

He gripped it fiercely, so fiercely he wondered if he might have shattered it. Still, he could not seem to release it. He might fall. He might slide under.

"Clayton, darling, give me your hand!"

"Come with me.
Quickly!
This way, my lord. Careful. There. Stand there. I'll secure the door. There, there, Your Grace. Safe now. You're safe now. I've shut out the storm—"

"No you haven't," he snapped in a tight voice. His body pressed against the wall within the dry sanctuary of the lighthouse. He forced open his eyes, feeling the rage of the storm pound against the structure at his back.

"You're frightened of the storm?"

"The water. The goddamn water."

Her cool hands cradled his face. Her fingers brushed aside the wet hair clinging to his brow. "
Shh
," she consoled him. "The water can't reach you here." She stroked his face, his brows, his lips. Going up on her toes, she pressed her cheek to his, and his arms came up to clutch her almost painfully to him. He buried his face in her hair, allowed the smell of rain, of rosewater, of sweet, warm, feminine flesh to sluice through him, and suddenly the storm seemed neither fierce nor loud, but faded into a drone that was eclipsed by the softness of the gentle, willing body in his arms.

"I was ten," he heard himself saying. "My brother and I had traveled to the Far East with my parents. We were on our way home when there was an explosion on the ship—a fire. It opened up the belly of the ship and it sank like a stone. There were so many passengers . . . so few skiffs. So many hurt, burned by the fire. There were bodies strewn over the water like so much flotsam. Those of us who survived the fire clung to anything that floated . . . for days. Few rations. No water to drink. People were dying .. .

"Then the sharks came.

"They took my father first. Then eventually my mother
. . .
when she grew too weak to fight, too despondent over my father . . .Sometime during the night while my brother and I were sleeping, she slid into the black water and disappeared. They were everywhere, the sharks, bumping the bottoms of the skiffs or whatever driftwood the survivors clung to. At some point I lost consciousness.
Í
awoke with water in my face and my brother crying my name. All around me there were gray bodies, dorsal fins that seemed to hang suspended with each swell of the water. My brother . . . jumped in and swam for me—swam right through the bloody sharks—I remember him kicking the cursed monsters, all the while yelling at the top of his voice for me not to give up. He saved my life,
Meri
Mine."

Miracle looked into his eyes. "I won't let you drown, sir." Going to her toes, she pressed a timid kiss to his lips, lingered, her warm breath soft upon his mouth. He closed his eyes.

"Meri,"
he heard himself murmur.
"Meri. Meri.
I . . .
can't. I shouldn't. I . . .have a confession."

She kissed him again. Her hands came up and tugged away his stock while her warm tongue teased his lips, his teeth, until he allowed her sweet invasion. The breath left him. The chill of his wet clothes and the trembling of fear vaporized into a warmth that began in his chest and flowed outward. Burying his hands in her hair, he forced back her head. Her eyes were slumberous, her lips red and slightly parted. "I have a confession . . ." he repeated.

"Tell me, my lord. Quickly, so I might kiss you again."

"I . . .
I love you."

A smile. A tear. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she brought down his head and kissed him fiercely, then hugged him with a strength that seemed too great for her slender body. It left him breathless and aching.

"You tremble, sir. Are you still so frightened? I promised you that I would keep you safe, and I will." She slid his coat off his shoulders; it spilled to his feet. She tugged his shirttail from his breeches, and when it hung loose to his hips, she ran her warm hands beneath it, slid them up over his belly, making him catch his breath. He flinched, listened to the voice of warning screaming in his head, and then he ignored it.

She removed his shirt and stood before him as if mesmerized. "Nay, you're not like those farmers at all, Your Grace. You are . . . bronze and beautiful. I'm not certain I have ever seen anything so perfect. Is it wrong of me to say so?"

"Perhaps.
I . . .
don't know. I don't know anything, anymore,
Meri
Mine. If I did, I wouldn't be here now, I think."

Standing still as a statue, he watched as she removed her dress. She stood before him naked, except for the stockings, which reached only to her pale thighs. He could not take his eyes away from the downy nest at the juncture of her legs—a silken shadow of copper red, like the blaze of hair on her head.

She walked to him, paused, her
upthrusting
white breasts with their pointed pink nipples lightly brushing his chest. He took them in his hands, closed his fingers over the soft-firm globes, and allowed his lids to drift shut. A great many lovers had come and gone through his life, most of them with little scruples about revealing their assets, certain that one feel, one taste of their flesh would drive him wild with desire. His grin had mocked them. His often sarcastic remarks had cut them, infuriated them, caused them to slap his arrogant face.

But they hadn't been Miracle. Their innocence hadn't enthralled him. The use of their bodies hadn't been a gift from the heart, but a means to their own ends.

Even now, as he gently ran one hand down her soft, slender belly and found that place between her legs that felt warm and wet and inviting, he got the impression that he was taking nothing from her, that this surrender was no surrender at all, but an awakening, a flower opening, loving and embracing the sun after a lifetime of dark solitude.

They drifted to the floor, lay amid the pool of her clothes and a scattering of acorns and strings that spilled from the pocket of her skirt. For a long while, they didn't move, just lay wrapped in each other's arms, bodies pressed so tightly they could not tell where one ended and the other began, flesh pressed against flesh, hot, sweating.

Then her hands were on him again, exploring, searching, tracing each defined contour on his chest and stomach, then inching down, into the waistband of his breeches . . .

He clumsily clawed at the buttons, releasing himself into her hand.

A pause.

A swift intake of breath.

An escalating of her heart beating against his.

Ah, how
easy.
How gentle her touch. A worshiping caress that sent shivers vibrating throughout him.

He floated with the sweet, surging ecstasy. Cool fingertips against his taut, pounding skin. He felt on fire, there, where she stroked him, learning the shape, the dimension, then farther, low between his legs, causing him to bow his back, to raise his hips, to thrust hard into her cupped palm.

Kisses, light as the flutter of a butterfly, scattered over his stomach, his arms, the tense cord in his throat, around his ear. Upon his closed eyelids. Onto his mouth. She breathed into his mouth, in and out, while he could only roll his head from side to side on the cushion of her disposed clothing and imagine how good it would feel inside her.

She straddled him, as she had before, poised there, her eyes meeting his as she waited.

And he complied.

Her face looked sublime with the intimate pain, radiant with the glow of light behind her and the fire of visceral discovery. Her head thrown back, her glorious hair flowing over her shoulders, her breasts, brushing the tops of her thighs and pooling over his loins, she offered herself as if she were some virginal sacrifice to a god of passion.

His blood roared. His body shook. The air in the small chamber became impossible to breathe. His lungs were bursting, and suddenly he was drowning in a tide of incredible heat, in her eyes, her smell. Twisting his hands into the clothing beneath him, he tried to surface, to think—
oh futility
— How could he think when he wanted to possess her? To burn his body into hers. He wanted to conquer her indomitable spirit, absorb it, make it his own. He wanted to fly with her. He wanted to show her how magical this could be.

Yet, it was she who was showing him; he had bedded a hundred women, but it had never been like this. He felt like the virgin, experiencing for the first time, not just the sublimity of the body, but of the heart. It was a . . .

Miracle.

At last, she lay down against him, body to body, heart to heart. Wrapping his arms around her, crushing her small form to his, he rolled. Lying on their sides, one of her legs over his hip, loins still joined, each gazed into the other's face. Her eyes appeared dazed, her cheeks were flushed and still moist from the rain. Then her small red mouth turned up, and she whispered, "Now, when you think of water, you'll remember me. Perhaps then you won't feel so afraid."

He laughed. "Remember you?
Meri
Mine, how could I ever forget you?"

Their mouths met with a wild violence. They rolled and twisted. Their arms and legs struggled for dominance, while he thrust his body into and out of hers with a savagery he had never thought was in him.

She moaned and gasped. She clutched at his shoulders and cried, "Oh, please. This pain, this pain—"

"No pain," he breathed into her ear. "Pleasure. Only that. Hold on,
Meri
Mine, and let
me
teach
yon
how to fly."

Clayton awoke lying facedown and naked on the floor, the sun pouring through the window burning uncomfortably into his back. A moment passed before he could think of where he was.

Back on the ship? Wood creaking and groaning around him. Water hissing and roaring in the distance.