Page 39 of Ondine

Once again his kiss fell. His fingers strayed in her hair, and she floated in that drugged state that told her this was worth dying for; this was the stuff of ballads, of history’s great passions, of—

Comparisons!

Oh, God! That he should think to compare her to that viperous Anne and to a host of others.

“Oh!” she screamed aloud in fury, wrenching his hair in her grasp, shoving her knee against his endowments. Quite startled, he grunted in pain—and she was free.

“You! You, my lord Warwick Chatham, are nothing but a giant rotting codpiece! You made a promise to me! You—”

“I am what?” he demanded, and his tone seemed laced now with fury as he threw his legs over the bed and rose to face her. “I made a promise to you! Well, what is it, then, my love? Homage to the king, but not to the lord of your own manor?”

“Oh, stop this prattle about the king! You are—oh!”

He was on his feet, not touching her, but grasping the tattered remainder of her gown, and then she wore nothing. She could not escape the determined glitter of his eyes. No anger now could save her, and so she sought belatedly to plead his good graces. “Warwick! Nay, your temper—”

“Is sorely vexed. Just as my—endowments are injured by your less than gentle touch! Yet we’ll ease them of such stress, shall we not?”

“Warwick—”

She backed herself once again to the wall, and that was where he pinned her, her hands held in his own.

She expected fury and found it in the first onslaught of his kiss, one that conquered and bruised .

. . but did not, could not, remain brutal.

Even in searing panic and desperation she felt again the call to her senses, to all her aching, yearning excitement and desire.

To her love. Again the nectar claimed her, the honeyed feeling, so alive and vibrant.

It made her tremble, made her hunger . . .

Her fingers slowly, slowly curled around his.

She did not know when it began, but her lips sought his touch as surely as he gave it.

Again it seemed as if the pulse of the tide beat within her, as if only the rush of the sea ruled her heart and mind.

Her head fell back as he raised her in his arms, her arms entwined around his neck, and there were no words between them, only the golden determination in his eyes and the drugged daze in her own as he returned her to the bed.

She thought he would come to her arms; he did not.

He shed his boots and his velvet coat, then paused and knelt at the side of the bed.

And then he took her foot into his hand.

He held it first, as if it were a fine porcelain figure. Then he stroked the arch, and the heat of his kiss glazed her toes, an exotic feeling, one that teased, one that burned.

That elusive, maddening touch continued—the stroke of his fingers, nails, the caress of his kiss, the spear of his tongue—taunting, evoking along the length of her.

She did not think that she breathed the air; she just lay there, spellbound and sated with each new experience of his touch.

The movement of his fingers, his kiss, slowly finding erotic places—the back of her knee, along her inner thigh, the down juncture where her limbs met . . .

A gasp, a whisper, escaped her. A soft cry that she must, must escape his intimate caress, one that blinded her, elated her, made her feel as if her entire body ran rampant with a hot honeyed elixir.

She tried so hard to twist from him, yet succeeded only in curling to him, abetting him with the swift and sudden discovery of desperate passion.

She knew not where she was, or even who; she did not know herself at all, not this creature who cried out, who writhed and twisted, moaning inarticulate things.

She did not know the woman who grasped at his hair, bringing his kiss at last to her lips, bestowing delicious pleasure with her tongue, which nipped and sought and sank, deeper and deeper into the wonder . . .

Suddenly she was bereft. Cold and bereft.

He was gone. Dazed, she opened her eyes to the glowing candlelight.

He was not gone. His eyes were on her, fire in that light.

His features, shadowed, dark and tense. She closed her eyes, trembling as reality came to her.

She loved him . . . and she wanted him, she wanted . . . this.

She felt his fingers first, the tips, just streaking along her thigh.

Instinct brought her to tense against that pressure; he did not note that last defense of something she held moral.

He but leaned down to capture her lips, and the pressure of his knee came between hers, the wonder of his strength enwrapped her.

His touch, his warmth, returned her to that mystical plain where she could seek nothing but satiation to all the liquid, burning hunger that rioted throughout her being . . .

She could not have desired any man more, yet neither could she prevent the jagged shriek of agony that escaped her lips when he moved into her at last, a knife that split and tore.

She heard him emit a startled oath, and pain helped fuel the anger that speared her, even with his touch.

Tears stung her eyes—he had truly thought her so hastily involved with the king, or elsewhere, prior to their marriage.

She choked on her tears and could say nothing against him; she pressed her palms desperately against his chest, but she could not move him.

And even as the pain blazed and then slowly faded, she heard him again, not in oaths or in question, but in tender phrases, gentle, husky words, words that eased, that lulled . . .

That seduced again . . . seduced with the movement of his hands, his kiss, his stroke upon her breasts, seduced so thoroughly that the ragged moment of agony was quickly but a distant memory.

She would not think till later that he was but the most expert of lovers. That he but knew the trade very well . . .

Now he was a part of her, filling her with bursting wonder, as if he entered every pore of her body.

He urged her with whispers, with his fingers cupped about her buttocks, caressing her breasts, lifting her once again.

It was a dance, a thing of beauty . . . his shoulders, slick and gleaming golden in the candlelight, his eyes a fire of wanting her .

. . He was beautiful, taut, sinewed, a work of art, a man . . .

This was the wonder, the sense of mercury and excitement, that which she had yearned for long before she knew—this sizzling heat that seared the body, made her blaze and soar, ache and yearn .

. . explode—with a cry from her lips, a groan from his.

Shattering, volatile . . . Oh, sweet Lord!

It was crystal magic, enwrapping her, caressing and emcompassing her with the seed of his body.

She had something of him . . . Oh, she had never, never suspected that such pleasure could be on this earth!

It took moments, long moments, for Ondine to drift down from that pinnacle of sensation.

Yet when she did, she could not look at him.

She could not face the wanton display of passion that had seized not him, but herself.

She could not believe that she—certainly no fool!

—had fallen into his arms . . . arms that had so recently held another and would most probably do so again.

Without a word she buried her face into the pillow.

And it seemed now, too, that Warwick had nothing more to say. She felt him shift; through webs of her hair she saw him rise, still splendid in taut muscular nakedness, and extinguish the candles. She felt him lie down beside her, near, but not touching.

Time ticked by. She lay as tense as stone. How much time? she wondered. She dared to shift, still hiding behind the mantle of her hair. Did he sleep?

He did not. His eyes were on the ceiling, far above him.

In the darkness she could not read his eyes.

She saw only that his features seemed grim; there was a sense of the ease of the wine about him now.

His fingers were laced behind his head, and he seemed to stare at that ceiling in deep thought, pensive and severe.

She froze as he moved, determined to feign sleep.

He rose above her and pulled the hair gently from her face. She kept her eyes tightly closed, and whether he believed she slept or not she did not know.

He shifted again. She felt the covers being pulled warmly around her. And she felt his weight as he lay down beside her again.

And though she didn’t see him, she was certain that he had regained his original pose; that he was staring at the ceiling again, and that his eyes would be troubled with secrets and mystery; that his jaw would be hard, pensive . . .

Why?

She ached; she yearned to know. She longed to reach to him, yet she could not. She didn’t dare give more of a love than she could receive in turn.

She had her own grave problems to solve, she reminded herself sharply.

She forced herself to call to mind the horrid things he had said to her—that she was nothing but a commoner, saved for his use.

In time she must escape him—prove herself loyal, regain her birthright.

He had taken much of her this night, but he had learned nothing of the king’s promise, nor would he.

None of these things could help her; none of them could hold her thoughts, her mind, or her heart. She was changed; he had changed her. She could never forget that her virginity had been shed upon this bed, with violence and tenderness, fury and laughter and—longing.

And she simply couldn’t stop thinking of Anne, thinking of her with a furious loathing. If the lady dared speak of Warwick’s endowments again, Ondine was quite certain she would tear her to shreds.

The lady Anne, it seemed, had the greater claim.

I am his wife! Ondine thought with anguish.

His gallows’ bride . . .

Taken by him at last, and never, never to be the same again.