My Beloved (24 page)

J
uliana followed the stream until it curved beneath some large boulders and disappeared. She lifted her skirts, crossed the mossy stones carefully. There she sat and waited.

She inspected her hands in the sunlight. She would always have scars, but she'd been able to regain some use of her right hand. One day, perhaps soon, she would take up a quill again.

“It is not wise to simply walk away like that, Juliana,” Sebastian said, his frown forbidding.

She looked up, unconcerned. “I knew you would find me.”

“You might have been set upon.”

“By rabbits and squirrels?” She smiled at him, but his own smile was not coaxed free. Instead, he stood silent on the other side of the stream. A powerful knight with a face like stone.

Now was the time to fear him.

She could not summon such an emotion, not when she was surfeit with another more powerful feeling. Love. It seemed to surge through her at the sight of him.

She stood, bent down and grabbed the hem of her surcoat, pulled it over her head.

Still, he did not move.
Please, Sebastian, do not rebuff me
. It had taken all of her courage to lure him to her this way, and even more to do what she planned next.

Not a cloud marked the pristine purity of the blue sky. Nothing moved upon the landscape but the gentle sway of leaves in the trees, the stream that flowed at their feet. They each remained silent, Adam garbed in armor and Eve stripping herself bare.

She bent and removed her shoes, stood before him as she never had before, clad in nothing more substantial than her thin cotte. No, once before she'd sat naked while he'd watched. Once before she had trembled beneath his gaze.

“What do you do, Juliana?” The passion of his look was matched by the tenderness in his voice.

“This moment has been long in coming, Sebastian.”

“Has it?” He did not move toward her.

She removed her cotte with a swift movement as if daring herself. A moment more and she stood naked before him.

“Juliana,” he began, his frown deepening.

“No,” she interrupted him. Her hand came up as if to physically stave off his words. “Do not chastise me, Sebastian. Do not tell me that I do not know how I feel, or that I have no choice. It is you who are without choice in this matter.”

He stood and stared at her, studying her in the sunlight that streamed over her. Suddenly he was jumping over the mossy stepping-stones, following her path over the stream. His hands were on her waist and she was suspended above him, his laughter echoing throughout this enchanted glade. She
braced her hands on his shoulders, looked down at his beloved face.

“Where has my timid Juliana gone?” he asked, his lips curved in a smile, the blaze of his eyes hinting at emotions other than humor.

“She has left forever,” she confessed, matching his smile with one of her own. “Will you miss her?”

“In truth I never saw her. Only heard of her existence from you. The woman I know asks if I am Death and tells the world she is a leper in order to remain with me. And now bares herself and tells me I am lax in my duty as husband.”

“Oh, Sebastian,” she said tenderly, her heart overflowing, “don't you know it is you who have made me brave?”

He stared up at her, the fierceness on his face that of a warrior. The tenderness she felt abruptly tumbled into something else. This emotion was not soft or gentle—it was fueled by a heat that raced through her and scorched where it touched.

He laid his forehead between her breasts. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, the abrasion of his whiskered cheeks. A soft kiss upon the slope of her breast summoned a moan from between her lips. He still held her suspended. Helpless and powerless was not what she wanted to be.

His lips teased a taut nipple just before he mouthed it, then sucked on it strongly. Her breast prickled with a sensation that ran like a fiery cord through her body. Her palms bracketed his head; her soft gasp was both awareness and encouragement.

He lowered her slowly, her naked breasts brushing against his face, then his chest, the chain mail gently abrading. He was armored and she nude. The contrast was startling.

She felt a surge of heat so pure that it rivaled fire.

Her fingers fumbled over his tunic, skidded over the finely crafted links of his chain mail. She wanted to feel him, touch his skin. Thwarted, she slapped her hands against his chest. His smile erupted into a chuckle.

He speared his fingers into her hair, his large, broad hands holding her head steady. His kiss was all the things he'd promised and more, talented and luring and intrusive. His tongue thrust into her mouth, enticing and forbidden. He trained her to welcome him, deepened the kiss until she saw stars behind her lids. She thought she whimpered, but that, too, might have been only another sensation in the maelstrom of the moment.

He pulled away, long enough to pull the tunic over his head. She rained kisses over his mailed chest, stood on tiptoe to kiss his neck, reached up and pulled his head down fiercely when he delayed too long.

She swallowed his smile, changed it into a guttural moan. She bit at his lips, entwined her tongue with his, inhaled the air he exhaled.

He removed the shirt of his chain mail, then the leggings, threw the heavy garments to the other side of the stream. The rest of his clothing was removed as quickly, and he stood before her, naked.

His body was taut with muscle, his skin sleek. A man in his prime. In his arms were ropes of muscles developed to wield a sword, his thighs as powerful from hours of riding. His body had been honed as a battle weapon, his scars attesting to the skill of his opponents. A thin mark ran from his back to trail upward and end beneath his arm. Another sliced from knee to upper thigh.

She had been wrong; he wasn't like the statue the
villagers had found at all. There was a part of him that was much, much larger. A breath escaped her, a soft exhalation of wonder. Her hand reached out and touched him. She jerked her hand back at his soft moan. His fingers curled around her hand, placed it back on his flesh again. Color marked his high cheekbones, and his breathing was almost as rapid as hers. She watched his face as her hand slid over him, their gazes locked and fused by fire.

And were I you, our blood would beat the same, our breaths in tune, our passions high, our love shared in mind and flesh
. Who had said that? Or was it a thought formed in that moment? She couldn't remember, didn't know.

He pulled her against the full length of his body. Her nipples brushed against his furred chest, the sensation so sharp it was almost painful. Her breasts seemed to swell, ached to be touched. She pulled his head down, guided his lips to her nipple.

He obliged at once, suckling her, his cheeks hollowing. She threw her head back, her breaths coming in hard panting gusts. Her fingers gripped his hair, kept him in place.

His hands reached around and pulled her even closer. More. She wanted more. As if he'd heard her, he cupped her bottom and lifted her to him, his mouth still locked on her breast.

His skin was hot, every part of him so heated that she thought she might be burned by touching him. But she was mindless, uncaring. She held on to his shoulders with nails grown sharp with need. She stood on her tiptoes, pushed closer to him, his manhood grinding into the notch of her thighs.

She could not breathe, was encapsulated in a fog of passion, stronger than anything she'd ever read or dreamed could exist. She would die of this, she
knew it, just as she was aware that her breath was painfully fast, her blood as quick.

He picked her up and carried her to where the moss was thickest, laid her down on the sunwarmed ground. Her gaze never left him. Her warrior. He was limned by the sun, seemed to eclipse it. She reached out to pull him down to her with greedy hands.

He'd readied her for his touch weeks ago, speaking words that had made her blood race. He'd invaded her mind with desire, preparing her for this moment. But nothing, not words, not actions, could have warned her of this, this ravenous desperation that became everything she was and all that she would be.

Her nails scraped his skin. She wanted to absorb him, gather him under her nails, inhale his breath. Become him, if necessary. She was frenzied by this feeling, adrift in it. The bulb of his shoulders, the angle of elbow, his thick wrists and powerful hands, his wide chest, they were all targets for her touch. She rained kisses over him, nipping at his strong neck, his shoulder.

Sebastian seemed as fevered. He grazed his teeth along the underside of her breasts, stroked his hands from her wrist to shoulder, from ankle to hip. His kisses were wild things that tasted of heat.

He widened her legs and knelt between them. She glanced up to meet his gaze. His look was sharp, the blue of his eyes burning like a flame's core.

Then she was being invaded by him, stretched just as he'd once warned her. Molded to become familiar with him. She wanted to scream. It was not enough. The broad head of his phallus was just inside her, but not deeply enough. More.

He kissed her, a sweeping kiss that inflamed her
further. She was on fire, and he was being too careful.

She arched upward, suddenly impaling herself on him. She moaned with the feeling of it, painful pressure and more. It only intensified the ache she felt, did nothing to ease it.

Then he surged fully into her, and she screamed. Just for a moment, the pain was more than she could bear. He murmured to her, words that were meant to comfort, but it was not soothing she wanted. Only something that remained barely hidden. Something close and almost achieved.

He reached down and pulled her legs wider, sank into her still further. She clamped her lips down on the moan she would have made. He parted her still further, reached to brush his fingers over the juncture of her thighs, until he touched a place so sensitive and swollen that she almost screamed again. Not with pain, but with demand.
End this
. It was both entreaty and necessity. She could not live without it and she did not know how much more she could bear. He used his fingers to push aside the folds of her flesh, expose that spot to his strokes. This time when he surged inside her, she felt him there, too, each caress forcing her onward to madness.

Helpless need shook her. Her senses could only measure the pounding of her heart and his body pummeling hers. He invaded and demanded, stretching her, widening her for his use. It was an act of possession, male and hungry and alive.

She hurt with it. Ached with pain and desire. She was weeping, and her nails were tearing at him. Her breath came in surging pants, but the torment went on and on, the pain buried in the core of her body. She felt as if she were being plundered. Besieged.

Her hands gripped Sebastian's arms. His skin was slick with sweat.

“Juliana.” Her name was repeated over and over; it became a cadence that measured the pumping of his hips.

She felt herself being ripped apart. Pain ached and burned in the core of her. But there was another sensation, too. It began between her thighs, where Sebastian's strokes pounded ruthlessly against her flesh, radiated outward to hips and belly and knees. Widened still further to encompass her shoulders, her feet, the palms of her hands. It was a giant blazing star colored red and glowing, into which she had no choice but to collapse. It was part of her, or she was part of it, and the only thing anchoring her to the earth was Sebastian.

His voice was harsh, his words too difficult to understand. Her hands fluttered at his shoulders, there was a sound like a gasp or a moan that came from her lips. Another cry, demand this time.

Her hips arched up, her feet planted themselves on the ground and gave her leverage. Her arms wound around his neck, every other thought forgotten but this mating, this act, this hunger. She pressed herself up and against him, inviting his invasion, urging it. And then it happened.

The world turned white.

Her body shuddered again and again. Spasms wracked her as her hips arched off the ground. She saw nothing, heard nothing, could only feel the surge of pleasure so intense it forced a low, throaty groan from between her clenched lips. The sensation went on for so long that she became only feeling, only physical, whimpering her pleasure like an animal lost in mating.

His kiss both urged her on and comforted her,
linked her to him and let her fly. Then, just when she thought she could take no more, Sebastian bucked against her one last time, his body trembling, a low and harsh groan accompanying his release.

 

“I hurt you.”

She lay draped atop him, her cheek pressed against his chest. She raised her head to look at him. Her face was flushed, but her eyes met his steadily.

“No,” she said, shaking her head weakly.

“Are you certain?”

A small smile hovered over her lips. “Yes, Sebastian. Very certain.” Her flush seemed to deepen as he watched.

“Perhaps it is a good thing our coupling was delayed,” he said, threading his fingers though the hair at her temple. “I would not have been able to resist your blandishments had we known each other before.”

She scooted up on his chest, laid her forehead against his neck. Sighed against his skin. His lips curved into a smile.

“Do not say you are timid again, my lady wife.”

It amused him greatly that the woman who had nearly killed him with her passion now retreated behind silence.

“The rabbits and the squirrels were no doubt frightened away by your screams,” he said, hiding his smile with great effort.

She raised her head and frowned at him. There was a fierce look in her eyes that he'd seen only rarely. His smile surfaced.

She slitted her eyes at him, then deliberately pulled one of the hairs on his chest.

He merely rubbed the spot and continued to grin
at her. She shook her head and subsided against his chest, silent still.