Her tears for Belch did not last long. Tucked within the safety of George’s arms, Alizon began to feel the weight of the past lifting from her. With the monster’s death came the end of all that had been . . . and the birth of all that could be.
Giddiness bubbled up inside her, an almost hysterical sense of relief and burgeoning joy. She reached behind George and squeezed his buttocks. He jerked back in surprise, then looked down at her in question. She grinned. “You said we had some unfinished business,” she began.
“You don’t want me to take care of it here,do you?” He seemed a bit shocked.
She licked his salty chest in reply.
He laughed in amazement, then swept her up into his arms and carried her to the pool. There he plunged with her into the steaming water. Alizon clung to him as the water billowed her gown and soaked through her sleeves and bodice.
“I cannot swim!” she cried.
“It is only waist deep here.” George set her down, and he yanked loose the laces of her bloody gown. Soon the soggy garment was tossed over his shoulder, her chemise following, and then his clothes as well. Slowly he helped wash every trace of dragon’s blood from her skin, then she returned the favor, at last running her hands down his body as she had wished to do all those times she had spied upon him at his bath. At last she felt comfortable doing so.
As she was finishing, George caught her again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her naked, wet body flush against his. He lifted her up into his arms and carried her from the water, up onto the beach. There he lowered her to a smooth patch of stone, the mist swirling over their bodies. Alizon dug her fingers into his hair and coaxed his head down to hers for a kiss.
His hand stroked down her side, then up again to her breast, massaging it, his fingers playing with her nipple. “Will you be all right here?” he asked, and she knew he meant making love in the lair.
“This is where it has to be,” she said, not fully understanding why, but knowing it to be true.
He started to lower his mouth back to hers, but she stopped him, her hands still in his hair. She looked up into his green eyes, alight with caring and with passion; they held nothing back from her of what was in his heart.
And she was truly no longer afraid to show him what was in her own. “I love you,” she said, and then she said it again, liking how the words felt, and liking the way his gaze deepened as she said it, as if his soul were opening even wider to her. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“My little dragonslayer,” he replied, and she thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes. Then he was suddenly lowering his mouth back to hers, and she was feeling his chest against her bare breasts, his legs entwined with her own, and his hand—oh, his hand!—moving up between her thighs, to stroke there her most sensitive place.
She parted her legs and tilted back her head as his lips moved down her throat. She opened herself to him, trusting him with her body and soul. He had seen into every dark corner of her heart, and he loved her still.
No, there was nothing to fear. He had taught her how to free herself, and now she gave herself over to his touch, trusting him to lead her into this new world.
His fingers played against her, moving slickly over flesh grown full and sensitive with desire. Alizon arched her hips up against him, wanting more, that emptiness growing in her that ached to be filled.
George positioned himself against the entrance to her body, the head of his member as large and blunt as she remembered. He held himself up on his forearms, his face close to hers. “I love you,” he said.
Alizon felt her body relax, open. George pierced her and slid deep, and this time, instead of being rent, she was filled. She wrapped her arms around his back and let him guide her hips into a rhythm, rejoicing in the feel of his muscles moving beneath her arms, and in the sweat that dampened their skin as they moved together.
She wanted it to go on forever, this thrusting fullness inside her, these deep waves of pleasure, the sound of his breathing beside her ear broken only by his whispers of her name. Then he pulled slightly away from her and reached down between them. He touched her as he thrust once more, and then she was lost within her climax, feeling the contractions of her sex around the thickness of his shaft.
He held her tight in his arms, his hips barely moving against her own, and he was saying her name over and over and over again as she felt the pulse of his release.
The cold stone virgin was gone forever.
The cold stone virgin might be gone, but a cold naked woman had taken her place. Alizon roused from her doze against the side of George’s chest, feeling the chill of the beach beneath her body. She shivered and snuggled closer.
“Cold?” George asked and rolled her up on top of him.
“A little.” She kissed his chest as he held her in place with his arms.
“I would suggest we get dressed, only I don’t know where our clothes are.”
“That is a problem,” she agreed dreamily. “Perhaps we’ll have to stay here forever.”
“I might almost be tempted.”
She was quiet a moment, thinking. “Where will we go, George, when we leave the mount? I know the virgins will return to Markesew, but where will we go?”
“Where do you want to go?”
She thought. Only one answer seemed right: “Wherever it is that you are.”
He ran his hands down her back, cupped her buttocks, and kissed her deep and hard in reply.
When the kiss ended and she got her breath back, Alizon went on: “I think I should like to see this homeland you have spoken of, and to meet your sister. If I could.”
“You would not miss Markesew?”
“I have no one there but Emoni. It is perhaps weak of me, but I should rather go to some town and country that are new to me, and me to them. I can truly begin anew that way.”
He was quiet, his hands idly playing in the small of her back.
“What is it?” she asked, a little thump of anxiety in her chest.
He squeezed her and smiled, albeit not entirely reassuringly. “I did not lie to you when I said that Emoni had summoned me with her magic. The only way I know to reach my home again is through that same magic. I do not know that it will work, and do not know that it will allow another to accompany me.”
A cold flush went through her body, and Alizon began to shake. “You are going to leave me?”
“No! No, never! You are what I came here for, not the dragon.”
“I thought you said you came to be a hero.”
“That’s what I thought, but I was an idiot. That tapestry you have been weaving, Alizon. Doesn’t that tell you something? You wove my face into it, before you ever met me. We were meant to be together, no matter the distance in time or space.”
He might be right. She set her mind on that and refused to think about any other possibility. “If we were meant to be together, then Emoni’s magic should work on us both.”
“But it might not. I do not want to take the risk.”
“I do not want to stay in England,” she said softly.
“It might not be so bad; we could find a different town . . .”
“Please take me away.”
He met her gaze, a frown of worry upon his brow. “Even if the spell does work, you may not be so happy with the result. My world is different from yours, in ways you would think me mad if I tried to explain.”
“I don’t care. If there is French toast and sandwiches, I will be able to eat. If there is a sofa, I will have someplace to sit. And there will be you.”
“That is enough?”
“It’s more than I could ever have dreamt.”
He kissed her and smiled. “There is one other good thing about returning to my world.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m filthy rich. You’ll be able to buy anything your heart desires.”
She traced his lips with the tips of her fingers. “Then may I buy another kiss from you?”
He growled, and nuzzled her neck. “A penny will get you that . . . and plenty more.”
“I’m going to like your world.”
Then he showed her again just how very much she had to look forward to.
“You should be wearing the surcoat, not me,” George said several hours later, standing on the dark stairs in the passageway to the kitchen.
“They’re all women. I don’t care if they see me nude, but you can be certain I care if they see you.”
“They’ve already seen me plenty of times,” he grumbled. A draft wafted up under the hem of the surcoat, brushing his butt with coolness and pressing its chill touch to him in uncomfortable places. He felt absurdly naked without his pants or briefs, bits of his body hanging much looser than comfort demanded.
Their clothing, so happily discarded in their passion, had unhappily sunk out of sight in Belch’s pool. The only garment remaining was George’s surcoat, which had been thrown across Belch’s eyes as a blindfold—and Alizon had insisted that he be the one to wear it.
“What are they going to think when we open that door?” Alizon fussed. “I still haven’t been able to come up with an excuse for losing my gown.”
He laughed. “Did you really think you could?”
“Greta is going to be so disappointed in me.”
“She doesn’t like me much, does she?” he asked. There was always one relative or girlfriend who didn’t like a guy, no matter how nice he tried to be.
“She’s scared she’ll be abandoned. I promised her that that would never happen, though. It won’t, will it?”
“Does she have family in Markesew?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if they will take her back,” Alizon said. “If worst came to worst . . .”
“Yes?”
“If worst came to worst, could we take her with us?”
“I’d be willing to try, but . . .”
She turned to him, and he could only barely make out her features in the dark of the passageway. “Would you be willing to try with all your heart, the same way you will try to take me with you?”
“I don’t know if—”
“But you’ll try?”
“Because you love her, I will try with all my heart,” he said.
She threw herself into his arms, nearly knocking him off his feet. She planted kisses all over his face as he found his balance, leaning up against the damp wall. He might get used to doing as Alizon wished, if this was the reaction he always got.
He let his hands roam freely over her naked body, then lifted her up so that she was straddling his hips. He was so caught up in what they were doing, he barely heard the sounds of scraping metal and soft female curses of frustration from behind the kitchen door.
He noticed when the light flooded down upon them.
“Got it! I told you I could pick the lock,” Pippa cried in triumph at the top of the stairs. Then she gasped.
He and Alizon both looked up to see the silhouettes of half a dozen heads limned in the doorway.
“A little privacy, if you don’t mind?” he called up to them.
There was a collective gasp, a quick mad shuffle complete with Pippa being dragged forcibly away, and then the door slammed shut.
“You needn’t worry about an excuse for your missing gown, now,” he said to Alizon, as she hid her face in his neck.
“Jesu mercy,” she whispered.
“Another good thing about my home: good locks on all the doors.”