Oh, gods, what had she done? She had tried to avoid the admission. She had done her best to change the subject, to distract him from the truth inside her heart, but he had coaxed it from her like a snake from a basket.
He smiled at her wickedly now and she knew that the torture was about to begin. ‘It makes you wild when I speak in my mother tongue. Is that it, fy hyfryd?’
Her skin began to itch. ‘Rydw i dy eisiau di,’ he said. Hot, unbearable yearning churned within her. ‘Nawr.’
By the gods, she was doomed. ‘Have mercy on me, please,’ she begged.
He shook his head deviously and she could sense his wicked mind at work. He untied their hands and reached for the bunch of flowers, which he lifted to her nose. She closed her eyes and, as she breathed in their otherworldly scent, she felt a husky whisper in her ear. ‘Mor dda.’
Oh, no. It was too much. The words themselves were kisses—tiny, deeply erotic kisses that made her heart ache with yearning. If he said any more of them, she just might combust. As it was, she wanted to tear off both their tunics.
Fortunately, he was of the same mind. He tossed the bunch of flowers to the floor, then lifted her tunic over her head and undid her breast band. He did the same with his own tunic and then they were standing together, the sunlight pouring down on to their naked figures.
He wrapped his arms around her and she delighted in the feeling of his skin against hers. He held her for a long while, cradling her head against his chest and stroking her hair.
‘May I undo your braid, Arria?’
She almost laughed. ‘If you wish to brave such an endeavour, I will not stop you.’ He gave a grateful smile, then pulled off her hair tie and glided his finger through her curly locks.
‘Will you shake it for me?’ he asked.
‘Now I see that you are truly mad.’
‘I have been wanting to untie that braid since the night we met.’
‘Well, in that case...’ She stepped backwards and shook out her hair. Her curls opened up and surrounded her head in a great twisting riot. She expected to see him grimace, but his expression was full of wonder.
‘By the gods, you are beautiful,’ he said.
She touched a round lock. ‘This? Beautiful?’
‘Yes, that. You.’ His eyes slid down her naked chest. ‘Beautiful.’
She gave him a doubting look. ‘I think I would rather be bald than have this unruly nest atop my head.’ She gazed at his shiny head. ‘May I?’
He nodded and she moved her hands over the smooth surface of his head and said a prayer of gratitude, for it was as if she were touching a sacred object.
She did not wish to stop touching him, so she traced his thick eyebrows, then made a path down his cheeks and across his jaw. She let one of her fingers whisper across the contours of his lips.
When she moved to withdraw the digit, he closed his own lips around it and sucked softly, and a hot giggle bubbled out of her.
‘Give me another kiss,’ he demanded. He slid his fingers sensually into her hair and cradled her neck, then pressed his lips against hers.
This was wondrous. This was bliss. There was something so natural about kissing him. It was like eating or breathing. A foregone conclusion. The will of the Fates.
‘You taste like heaven,’ he said.
She glanced down. He was already fully aroused. His desire had emerged from beneath his loincloth. Still, she was not afraid. Experimentally, she pressed her stomach against his, trapping the huge pillar of flesh between them and rubbing her naked breasts against his chest. He gave a gratifying groan.
She stepped backwards in surprise. Was the beast so easily tamed? She smiled, but he did not return her grin. Instead he gave her a dangerous look. ‘Take me in hand,’ he said. He gripped her hand and pressed it against his fullness.
She could do nothing but obey as he guided her down the enormity of him.
‘Now it is you who must have mercy on me,’ he growled.
She began to stroke him, slowly at first, then with an increasing boldness. He was so very hard, yet his skin was soft and pliant. He groaned with pleasure as she gradually increased her speed. ‘Do you know what you are doing to me?’
She did know. Or at least, she had an idea. When they had last lain together, he had rubbed his desire against her body until he was overcome with pleasure. She had thought of that moment so often afterwards that it had become something like a prayer inside her mind, or a beautifully painted fresco.
Though it was not piety that she felt when she thought of it. It was an odd kind of hunger—the kind that began not in the belly, but further down. Now that she was coaxing him towards his peak of pleasure once again, she was feeling that hunger again, too. It was growing inside her, like her own secret beast. It wanted to be fed.
He reached to the knot at her stomach and tugged it undone, then pulled her loincloth free.
She felt her body stiffen as his finger slipped into her hot folds. His breaths were raspy and short. ‘I want you, Arria.’ Sparks of sensation snapped and popped inside her, and she closed her eyes as his thick finger pushed slowly deeper. ‘And you want me,’ he said. ‘I can feel that you do.’
‘You can?’
He growled his assent and something seemed to squeeze deep in her core. It pulsed through her body, spreading the hunger. She stopped stroking him, the hunger growing so acute that she could do nothing but close her eyes. ‘I can feel it,’ he said.
He eased her down on to the soft bed and she settled herself on her back, yearning to feel the weight of him atop her. Instead she felt his warm lips on her stomach, kissing a path downwards.
Whenever she thought of the last time he had kissed that part of her, she became so restless that she could not concentrate on her work. Now there was no work—unless she counted the effort she was making to keep herself from going mad with yearning.
Then she felt his tongue slip beneath her folds.
Sweet merciful Artemis.
There was nothing to imagine now. There was only the soft wet forbidden sensation of his tongue making slow swirls inside her.
She slid her fingers on to his head, caressing it in rhythm with his tongue’s soft movements. Her hips began to move of their own volition. His tongue continued its relentless mission, probing deeper until she was writhing against it with a lust so profound she had to cry out.
She felt as if she were perched on some terrible precipice and that any minute she might go tumbling off it into oblivion. ‘Cal, please,’ she begged, unsure of what exactly she needed, but knowing that whatever it was, he alone could give it.
He lifted his head from between her legs and swept over the top of her, bracing himself on his knees so that he straddled her waist without touching it, his obelisk of flesh suspended in the air above her stomach. ‘Take me in hand,’ he commanded once again and when she obeyed he moved downward, until she could feel the tip of him grazing against her soft curls.
‘This is how we will join. Do you understand?’
She nodded. Oh, she understood. She had been dreaming of this moment for days, months, all her adult life. She could feel the heat emanating from the cleft between her legs, could sense her own wetness as he pressed himself gently against the folds of her flesh. He held himself there and the seconds stretched out.
‘Do you want me?’ he said.
‘I want you,’ she whispered.
‘It may hurt a little at first,’ he warned. ‘But soon you will begin to feel pleasure.’
She nodded and gripped his shoulders as he thrust into her. He was staring down at her, his face obscured in shadow. But she could see the glint of his green eyes and the certainty reflected in them.
‘Are you in pain?’
‘No,’ she lied, digging her fingernails so tightly into his shoulders that she feared she might draw blood.
But he only moaned with pleasure, pushing deeper. He must have sensed her discomfort, for he bent and whispered into her ear. ‘Rwy’n dy garu di, Arria.’
They were beautiful words, magical words, and in her heart she knew exactly what they meant: I love you. Her body relaxed as he thrust deeper. There was pain, yet she did not wish to be anywhere else.
He made a final thrust and she realised that they were as close as two people could be. ‘The difficult part is over,’ he said. ‘The rest is only pleasure.’
He began to move inside her, his desire sliding in and out of her in a slow, enchanting rhythm. He was watching her closely, adjusting his movements as she sighed and gasped with each new sensation.
‘You feel so good, Arria,’ he moaned. He pinned her with a kiss so achingly gentle that she had to lift her chin to deepen it. ‘That is it, my love,’ he whispered into her mouth. His kiss became harder, greedier. With each thrust of his hips, his tongue plunged deeper into her mouth.
Her pleasure seemed to be building. His powerful limbs braced over her. His desire throbbed within her, plunging and thrusting and seeking something that it seemed she alone could give.
The heat. There was so much heat. And wetness. And sensation. It was as if he was chasing her up a steep cliff, tickling and daring and goading her as she stepped closer and closer towards the peak.
And then she was not walking, but running. And he was there beside her, straining with his limbs to run faster and faster until suddenly the ground disappeared from beneath their feet and they were running together in the air.
And then they were falling. The world around them blurred as they plummeted through space. They were convulsing with pleasure, moaning and gasping as the divine release hit them in slow, exquisite waves.
Gods, the sweetness of it. The pure joy. She was shocked, exhilarated, undone. She had wanted this for so long, not knowing exactly what it was. Now that she knew, she did not want it to end. This was pleasure, this was love, this was life.
This was theirs.
Cal lifted his head and let out a long, howling moan, then collapsed atop her. His voice echoed in the cavernous space, mixing with the warm spring breeze, and a collection of last season’s leaves burst out from beneath the eaves of the ancient temple as if in celebration of their love. Arria watched in wonder as the leaves fluttered through the sunlight above them in a rainbow of whites and browns and greys.
Looking closer, Arria realised they were not leaves at all, but wings.
She gasped.
‘What is it my love?’ asked Cal, his face buried in her hair. ‘Tell me, what do you see?’
‘I can hardly believe it, Cal,’ said Arria, her heart near bursting. ‘Pigeons!’
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