Chapter Twenty-Five

 

Bartholomew's special place turned out to be a clearing in the midst of the dense, moss-draped woods, towered over by three giant trees long ago stripped of branches. Primitive carvings like those on totem poles Ariah had seen in pictures decorated the lofty trunks. At the perimeter of the clearing, trilliums and red bleeding heart nodded in the breeze above pink wood sorrel and yellow violets. Hemlocks creaked and rustled. But inside the circle, all was hushed, and so still she felt as if she stood before the altar of a holy cathedral. Sunbeams slanted through the leafy ceiling in golden prisms to spotlight the sacred trees and the azaleas blooming at their feet. The floor was a carpet of false lily of the valley, sprouting from a bed of thick, spongy moss.

Though the air never stirred, Ariah sensed movement around her and fancied that she could hear ancient voices chanting in the timeless rhythm of prayer. She felt no fear, only peace and a depth of reverence that heightened her awareness and set her heart to aching with an unfamiliar fullness. Slowly she turned to face Bartholomew and tried to smile. A tear trembled on her lower lashes. With his fingertip he caught it and brought it to his mouth.

"You feel it too," he said in a voice soft as a whisper.

"There's magic here," she answered. "I feel as though I've been enchanted by some ancient mystic."

"It's a sacred place, a ceremonial ground."

Ariah glanced nervously over her shoulder. "Won't we anger the spirits by being here?"

Bartholomew cupped her face in his callused palms. "What I feel for you is as sacred as this glade, Ariah. I can't think of a more fitting place to express that feeling."

"Oh, Bartholomew, I love you so." She put her hand over his and turned her face to kiss the warm hollow of his palm.

Emotion roiled inside him. Awe and disbelief that he was actually there with her, that she had said the words he had just heard, that soon a dream would be fulfilled. An excitement so fevered he feared he might die of it swept all hint of guilt beneath the carpet of his conscience.

"My eagle," she said as she planted a kiss on his other palm.

"And what kind of bird are you?"

"Umm. A wren."

He remembered wondering, that first day he saw her, what it was that attracted him to her so strongly. His answer had altered little since then. The woman was as gracious as a swan, as capricious as a chickadee, as ethereal as a hummingbird. As vital as life itself.

"No, you're no wren," he said huskily. "You're a nymph, one I am about to ravish."

She cocked her head as she looked up at him. "How does an eagle ravish a nymph?"

"The same way Leda was ravished by the swan. Shall I show you?"

Her gaze drifted below the waistband of his trousers. "But a swan is a waterfowl and probably equipped sexually like a man. An eagle lacks the . . . essential equipment."

Bartholomew's gaze followed hers and saw that his arousal was plainly visible within the taut fabric of his trousers. When he looked up, Ariah's chameleon eyes had changed to smoky amethyst, her hunger for him almost as evident as his for her. With a low growl, he pulled her to him, kissing her with an urgency that matched the need raging inside him. The small moan that issued from her throat sizzled through him like a lit fuse, threatening to annihilate him.

He was dangerously out of control with wanting her, a sensation that was not new to him, though he had never felt it so strongly before. All his life he had held back, reined in his passions, denied his needs. Once he’d laid eyes on Ariah, the chore became a near impossibility. Now he sensed himself revoltingly close to ruining everything. A moment such as this must not be rushed, but prolonged, savored, exalted.

Ariah did not seem to share his feelings. She was raining kisses over his face and pleading for more, not less.

"Love me, Bartholomew. I need you. I need the magic of your hands, and to feel you inside me. You. No one else, only you."

Her hands tugged at the buttons of his shirt and the heat of her mouth on his would rival an August sun. When he succumbed and the shirt was tossed aside, she splayed her hands over the hardness of his chest. She kissed the pulse beating an erratic tattoo at the base of his throat. Her lips trailed along the ridge of his clavicle and down the bearded plane of his breast to a small dark nipple. Bartholomew shuddered as her teeth closed gently over the nub.

"You turn me inside out, woman. If you do that again, I'm likely to shatter at your feet."

"Then you touch me instead."

"Gladly."

He kissed her neck, her ear, her temple and her eyes while his hands freed her hair and spread it around her shoulders, stroking its silk. Beneath the thick strands the texture of her dress felt wrong, out of place. One by one he unfastened the buttons. As the fabric fell open, he drew it down, pressing his lips to the skin thus exposed. Moments later the dress lay at her feet. Her chemise followed and he said a silent prayer of thanks for her dislike of corsets.

When she stood before him, as naked as God had created her, he stepped back and let his gaze take its fill. She endured his perusal quietly, only the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat exposing the turmoil inside her body. He had expected her to look different from the last time he had seen her naked. Less innocent somehow. More pregnant perhaps? No! She was his nymph, not Pritchard's.

Don't be a fool; she is the man's wife.

Bartholomew couldn't deny that, but knew suddenly that it didn't matter. If she were carrying a child, it would be a part of her, a beautiful part, and he would be helpless to do anything but love it as well.

His hands shook as he peeled off his trousers. When he reached for her, she held up her hands. "It's my turn now."

The experience of having a woman so thoroughly scrutinize his physique was unique to him. And extremely arousing. But his patience soon dissolved beneath the heat of her avid gaze.

"Enough, nymph, unless you wish to unman me."

Bartholomew drew her down with him onto the bedding of their clothes. His mouth devoured hers, as greedy for her sweetness as a bee for pollen. His hand found a breast. She breathed a soft moan against his mouth as he stroked her rounded flesh to a taut peak.

Against her lips he whispered, "'I had been hungry all the years; my noon had come to dine; I, trembling, drew the table near, and touched the curious wine'." He substituted his mouth for his hand. Ariah's breath caught and she arched against him.

When she could breathe again, she said, "You've been reading Emily Dickinson."

"Um. Keeps you close to me."

She drew his face back up to hers and kissed him. "I've missed you so."

"Me?" he teased, "or this?" He laved her breast and scored her nipple with his teeth.

"You . . .this . . .everything." She buried her fingers in his hair. Her voice was breathless yet firm. "Most of all, you. Don't tease me, Bartholomew. I want you too much."

Bartholomew lifted his head and gazed at her with dark solemn eyes. "You are my soul, do you know that? The blood that pumps through my heart, the vessels that keep me alive, the marrow of my bones. Living without you, without being able to express my need and my love for you has been like blundering through an endless, meaningless hell."

"Oh, Bartholomew. If only I could have known that Hester . . . I never should have married—"

"Shh. No one exists here except you and me."

He captured her hand, nibbled the tips of her fingers, and trailed his tongue across her palm until she shivered. "Warm me," he said. "I've been so cold without you, so empty."

"I'll warm you, but it's you who must fill me."

She drew his lower lip into her mouth and suckled it while her hand moved down over his chest, the fingers plowing furrows in the dark hair growing there. He shivered when her nails lightly scraped his small nipple. Ariah smiled, enjoying the chance to give back some of the sweet torture he had bestowed on her. His hands refused to remain still, however, and busied themselves painting rapture on her naked flesh, the same way his tongue etched her breast with images of bliss, but Ariah knew how to get the upper hand, and she took it.

"'I gave myself to him, and took himself for pay'," she recited as her hand closed over his most sensitive flesh. "'The solemn contract of a life was ratified this way'."

Bartholomew groaned. His body tensed and ceased movement as he savored her touch.

"Don't talk of contracts, nymph. It reminds me of the one that says you'll never be mine."

"I am yours, Bartholomew. My heart has been yours since the moment we met, and after today my body will be as well. No man but you will ever touch me this way."

Her words were music. Even though he knew she was in no position to make such promises, his need for her was too great to prevent him from hoping they would be kept. He pushed aside dark thoughts and let only the pleasure she was giving him fill his mind. An inferno blazed inside him. God help him, he had no defenses against his desire for her. At this moment, he believed himself capable of killing, if necessary, to have her. The thought terrified him, but did not quench the flames.

"How can you be so soft and so hard at the same time?" she murmured as she explored the secrets of his masculinity.

Bartholomew could not answer. He was hanging by a thread. The sweetness of their aromatic bed blended with the fragrance that was hers—hot, passionate woman—bathing him in scented mist. Balanced tipsily on the edge of control, he buried his face in the hollow of her neck and allowed the aroma and the feel of her silken flesh honey-coat his senses. The raspy sound of her rapid breathing was a mere echo of his own.

Ariah's hand on him was clumsy with inexperience and still she sent him spiraling upward in dizzying assent as passion soared within him. Paradise lay just around the corner. A paradise he refused to enjoy. Yet.

Bartholomew snatched her hand away and brought it to his lips. "I pray you are as eager for me as I am for you, little nymph, for I don't think I can hold off any longer."

"Oh, yes, Bartholomew. I'm eager. Very eager."

He claimed her breast with his mouth while his fingers drifted over her flat belly to her thighs. The sultry softness he discovered waiting for him wrenched a groan from deep inside his throat. She was indeed more than ready. His intimate touch alone nearly unraveled her.

"You taste like a warm sea, alluring, elusive and salty sweet," he said huskily as he lifted his head, "and you feel like a sunbeam, hot, sensuous, mellifluous.”

Passion roughened her laughter. "And you are like life, hard, mysterious, stingy."

"Stingy?"

"Yes. How much longer are you going to torment me?"

"Is that what I'm doing?" His fingers continued to explore her heated femininity.

"Yes. I am about to die of the pain and pleasure you are inflicting on me."

Bartholomew's heart thundered in his ears. His control had been stretched beyond its limits, turning his face into a grim mask. Knowing he could not wait any longer, he moved over her. Her heat nearly scalded him as he positioned himself. The tightness that met his probing flesh both daunted and intoxicated him.

"Open for me, nymph and we'll die together."

"I-I don't know how."

Bartholomew grimaced, fearing he would explode before attaining his goal. From Pritchard's red-faced dejection the day after his wedding, Bartholomew guessed the boy had lost his own bid for consummation to a premature release. Normally, Bartholomew was a master at controlling his body, yet now, he found himself clinging by a single thread of spider silk, in danger of doing little better than his nephew.

The stunned gasp he elicited from her with the gentle pressure of his blunt flesh confused him. Her unschooled reactions enthralled him as much as her uninhibited ardor. At least Pritchard's fumbling efforts had not ruined her for passion. But had the boy pleasured only himself and left Ariah alone in the cold? Bartholomew gritted his teeth at the thought and tried harder to hang on until he could bring her a full measure of relief. Easing back he caressed her tender opening until she trembled and tensed with an approaching release.

"No!" Ariah shoved at his hand. "Not without you inside me. I never want to take my pleasure at your expense again."

"I only want to make sure you're ready for me."

"I'm past ready. Now, Bartholomew. Now."

In obedience, he brought her legs up around his hips, making her as available to his purpose as he could. Drawing a deep breath, he drove into her. Ariah's gasp of pain nearly drowned beneath the pressure of his kiss, yet he heard it. He felt her flinch, felt the pressure and the tearing of an encumbrance he hadn't expected, and froze in horror.

"My God, Ariah, why didn't you tell me?"

He tried to withdraw, but her legs tightened about him and her nails sank into his arms, refusing to let him leave her.

"It's all right," she said, "the pain is gone now."

"How . . . what happened? How can you still be a virgin?"

"I asked Pritchard to give me time."

Ariah's arms slid up around his neck and she pulled him down to her, planting wild kisses over his face. "Please, don't let it ruin everything. This is what I want. It's how it should be . . . you and me. I never wanted Pritchard to touch me and now he never will."

"This is wrong," he murmured against her temple.

"It is not wrong. In fact, nothing has ever been more right." She lifted her hips and with her heels drew him even more firmly inside.

Bartholomew groaned. Not even the shock of finding her still chaste had diminished his desire for her. If anything it inflamed him more. She felt so good. He could have remained there happily enough forever, buried in her welcoming warmth, though his body demanded more.

"Bartholomew? Please."

His conscience told him to pull out that very moment and go away. He deserved no gratification for the crime he was committing. But he was too far gone in his lust to heed such a demand. Reality, except in the sense that she belonged to him and to him alone now, had no place in the tiny world he had created for them there in the forest.

Ariah clung to him, her ardor telling him she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Her body was wrapped tightly around him and her fingernails were digging half-moons into the flesh of his shoulders, urging him on. And, thank the Lord, he was inside her. At last, gloriously, miraculously, imbedded deep inside her. No words existed, beautiful enough to do the feeling justice. His joy was more than physical, more than cerebral. It was hot, liquid poetry. A song. The tremolo of a flute, plied by lips of passion and accompanied by the sibilant voice of the sea.

Ariah whimpered beneath him.

"Patience, nymph." He ran his tongue about the perimeter of her luscious mouth, pausing to reacquaint himself with the tiny mole he adored. He moved on to trace the seam between the lush lips. They parted and his tongue thrust into the warm chasm of her mouth, tasting paradise on the satin inner surface of her lower lip. Her tongue met his, not shyly this time, but wildly wanton in its intrepidity.

As their tongues danced the rhythm their bodies would come to know, Bartholomew began to ease out of her. Ariah whimpered and clutched him to her. Her agonizing need incited his. To his surprise he found himself hardening even more. In that moment he knew his own patience was at an end. He plunged into her sweet, tight channel and heard himself groan with a prurient pleasure that surpassed anything he had ever experienced before. Caught in an avalanche of sensation, he was powerless against the concupiscent force of his own lust. And he did not care. All that mattered was that he take Ariah with him, that she share the prize at the end of their sensual rainbow.

And she did.

Together they soared like eagles racing to the sun in a courtship ritual older than time, dipping, swaying, captured by cross currents of physical pleasure and overwhelming joy.

Ariah met each of Bartholomew's thrusts and gripped him with inner talons of rising rapture that drove him higher and higher. He felt himself tumbling into a wondrous inferno and muttered her name in a guttural cry, half-prayer, half-praise, in fear that he was about to leave her behind. She stiffened. Her flesh pulsated around him in tight, shimmering heat more glorious than words could describe, and her keening cry of release plucked him over the edge.

A long time later Bartholomew became aware of the wind on his back, kissing his damp flesh and leaving behind a trail of goose bumps. Trees creaked and sighed overhead. The scent of evergreens, lily of the valley and passion drifted to his nose. Reality returned to the small glade.

He lifted himself onto an elbow and gazed at the woman lying partly under him, hoping he would not find her crushed by his weight. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. Yard-long tangles of hair spread out around her, framing her delicate face in shades of honey and gold. Freckles winked from the bridge of her nose. Emotion knotted in his throat. She was so beautiful. And she belonged to him. Or would, once he spoke to Pritchard and an annulment could be arranged. His heart squeezed with a joy as fragile and rare as sunbeams in a sea cave.

Half-moons of stubby lashes flickered and her eyes opened. Her smile as she gazed up at him outshone the sun, giving him a glimpse of the crooked tooth he loved.

"Did I sleep?" she asked, yawning.

"I think we both might have."

"Might have?"

He smiled enigmatically. "I dreamed that I finally made you mine, in the most primal of manners."

Her gamin grin widened as she raked her fingers through the hair on his chest, drawing his eyes to the plumpness of a breast partly flattened against him. "Are you certain it was only a dream?"

Bartholomew kissed her. "It was too incredible for reality."

She wrapped her arms about his neck and drew him down for another kiss. "Then perhaps I had better love you again so you can learn the difference between dreams and reality."

The mere thought had him quickening with a resilience he hadn't known since adolescence. Ariah felt the movement against her thigh and reached for him. Bartholomew closed his eyes and surrendered to her ministrations. While she stroked and caressed, he found a breast and teased it until she squirmed against him, trying to bring him into her.

"Relax, nymph, there are easier ways."

He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. His hands lifted her to straddle him.

"Now," he whispered huskily.

Ariah moaned on an exhaled breath as she slid down over him. There was soreness, but it was nothing compared to the delight she felt along with it. She drew her legs alongside him and sat up fully, ensuring a deep fit. Tight, wet heat enclosed Bartholomew. The only way possible to enhance the rapture was to take her firm breasts into his big hands, draw her down and parade kisses over them. As he suckled a swollen nipple, she sighed.

"Oh, I like this." She moved and smiled at the groan of pleasure he gave. "I like having this kind of power over you."

She eased upward, paused until he murmured against her breast with impatience, and lowered herself back down. The softness sheathing him pulsed in the same rapid rhythm of his heartbeat. The intensity of the hunger racking his body, as though he hadn't finished making love to her only an hour ago, shocked him. When he could speak again, he said, "You've had me in your power since the moment I first laid eyes on you, nymph. I fear you always will."

"I thought I was the one under your spell. But this is different. It's physical rather than emotional."

As if to prove her point she raised up again until their bodies nearly separated. Before he could make the desperate move necessary to keep them joined, she sank back down, creating a fever of friction that nearly unhinged him. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against a guttural moan.

Ariah's voice came to him in a throaty purr. "Yes, I like this very much. I can drag this out as long as I like, torture you until you plead for mercy."

Bartholomew's eyes opened. He was ready to plead now. "Is that so?"

To Ariah, he looked very much the predator in that moment, with his hooded eyes and feral grin. She felt an instant of sudden vulnerability as hands of steel clamped about her waist and he began to move beneath her. In her. She was helpless to stop him, or even slow his pace. Didn't want to. The sensations splintering through her were too intense, the pleasure too great. Her hands clawed at his shoulders as she felt the beginning tremors she knew now would carry her to paradise.

Bartholomew's hands glided up her ribcage to mold her breasts in the hollows of his palms. Her rhythm as she moved with him never faltered. Her eyes were closed, her face tense with concentration. When he flicked her nipples with his thumbs, she gasped. The sound sent hot shivers over his body. He found every change of expression on her face to be beautiful. Her artless enjoyment of their coupling pleased him beyond measure. To see her with her head thrown back, her spine stiff, the nipples of her swollen breasts taut, the tip of a pink tongue barely visible between her luscious lips as she abandoned herself completely to passion's demands, heightened his own pleasure to a level he had not known possible.

When he drew her down and took her breast in his mouth, her body tightened around him like a vise, the spasms of her release clenching and unclenching until he could no longer keep his own body in rein. White hot ecstasy flooded through him as she melted around him, bathing him in liquid heat.

Ariah's frantic movements ceased. Her chin dropped onto her chest. Her fingernails sank into the hard muscle of his upper arms. The woods echoed her primal cry of bliss, a cry that went straight to his heart and filled a portion of the emptiness he had lived with so long.

The world spun away as pleasure burst repeatedly inside him, and with a ragged cry that was her name, he was flung across the threshold into Elysium.