Page 45 of Ondine
He was almost upon her. Warily she backed away from him, closer to the fire that burned in her grate, cornered against it.
“Nay—get away from me!” Ondine cried, her temper soaring. “You, sir, are a beast! I’ll not be among your lusting number, a pet to be pawed and patted and stroked and kept in a cage! I, sir—”
“You are my wife,” he reminded her with humor.
“Not your wife!” she corrected him fiercely. “Rather an associate, milord! An accomplice, an abettor, paid for my cooperation, as it were, with life—and coin, so you assure me. Jealous? Nay. Hope, have none! You, sir, will respect me, you will—ohhhh!”
A long and startling shriek swept away her words, for it was not all the heat of anger she had felt, or even that of his presence. So far had she moved that a spark of the fire caught on her towel, and sensation warned her that her flesh was near to scorching.
“Oh!” She spun, on fire, confused, carrying the towel with her.
Warwick moved with the swiftness of an arrow hurtling toward her, wrenching the burning linen from her grasp, casting it to the floor and quenching the flame hurriedly with his boot.
Ondine stared first at the floor, concerned lest the flame catch, yet so quickly was it out that her concern became far more for her person, flesh now naked to the night—and her husband’s perusal.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her.
“No, not hurt!” she gasped out, racing for her bed, wrenching from it the brocade cover to hurl about herself.
He walked toward her slowly, as ever amused, yet imperious as ever in his bold and open scrutiny. “Scorched, milady? It grieves me to think that the purity of your flesh might have been kissed by the flame.”
He came too close, and she rolled across the bed, finding her feet quickly, facing him with the expanse of a safe barrier between them.
“You had let me alone at first!” she reminded him reproachfully. “You swore some oath that I should be freed—and you let me be! What is this, then? You foreswore your manners as poor; you promised that they would improve!”
“Aye, I know,” he murmured apologetically.
“I did long to live with the belief that I could be withdrawn; a cavalier. A man with a haunted past, vowed to release a beauty. Alas, my love, all that I find myself to be in truth is a man, haunted not by the past, but by the present. My vow was that you should live; my manners I demanded of myself lest I should become involved, but that, I am afraid, I am, and manners cannot bend nor ease the torment!” He clutched the bedpost as he talked, in movement slow and silent, yet it brought him around without haste or measure to where she stood, undecided now to keep her ground—or dash across the bed once again.
“Get away from me!” she warned with a shaking voice, but he gave her no heed, just leaned against the second post and smiled with rueful bemusement as he caught her gaze in the fiery glow of his own.
“I have thought, and thought, my lady, of manners, or rights. I have given all the gravest concern. I have thought on the freedom you so crave, and none of these makes any sense, not when memory intrudes. Night after night, milady, I have paced these halls in torment, paced and strode and walked in the night so far that I might have reached London on foot. I have lain awake in my bed, knowing you were not but a few yards distant. I have dreamt of you, imagined you, reached for you in the night, burned in hell’s gravest agony as some torture of the mind brought the recall of your flesh bare to mine, tense and seeking.
I’ve twisted, lady, turned and tossed. I’ve sworn and raged inside, and prevailed upon all that is decent in a man.
I’ve endured rigor, strain, and sleepless nights—all for the honor of her I call wife.
Yet tonight, Ondine, even as truth became known, I pondered once again the ungodly restraint, the tortured hours, the high tempered days.
And all that I could surmise upon the confused ending of such thought was, For what? ”
He came to her, clutching the spread at her throat where she held it close. His smile ever in place, dark lashes over a prism of amber eyes that glowed warm with seduction.
“My dear lady,” he murmured, “I did, quite frankly, think merely, to hell with all this! The future is always some distant thing which must unravel itself.”
The future . . . oh, the future! It was that one word that loomed before her, that broke the spell of his rugged allure.
“To hell with this!” she shrieked, jerking furiously from his touch, choosing that option to bound across the bed once again.
Yet she bound with no barrier upon her, for his hand caught the brocade spread, and before she could pitch from the mattress, she found herself captured beneath the lean hard length of him, staring into mocking eyes that glittered with amusement and the triumph they had known all along.
“Nay!” she cried in maddened panic, for if he touched her further, she would be lost, and he would know that all resistance was a lie.
She was free and she thought to strike him; her hand caught his cheek, and he reacted with no anger, but twisted her arms beneath her so that she could not lash out more.
All that was left was words, and she used those bitterly, the best she could, trembling violently at the impression of his body against hers.
“Go to those who long for this caress! Go back to your voluptuous Anne with the feline eyes! I want nothing of your well-worn touch. I—”
His kiss stopped her, the hungry, encompassing pressure of his mouth against hers, filling her with warmth, the taste of brandy, moistness, enveloping sensation.
Ah, that kiss! It burned greater than any fire; it reached inside of her, and all of her was alive to the manly feel of him.
His tongue moved deep into her mouth, caressing, seeking, creating what was surely madness, an ache of longing within her womb.
That kiss was slow, leisurely, creating pressure but no pain, a force not brutal, but undeniable.
His hand played upon her naked breast, fingering that bud he called a rose.
Subtly, subtly he stroked her, moving the tip of his thumb over the peak, then splaying his fingers to leave it free as he at last took his mouth from hers to use upon her breast, tasting it, suckling so that the nipple came to graze his teeth.
Explosive flashes shuddered throughout her; she gasped in pleasure and pain, wishing to wrench herself from him, wishing to hurry that promise of the flesh, which now filled her like liquid fire.
“Nay!” she charged him brokenly, but they were both aware that the denial meant nothing.
He did not respond at first, but nuzzled his head between the deep valley of her breasts and there her flesh knew all textures, that of his hair, his cheeks, his lips.
Then he tended as carefully to one breast as to the other, and she knew that she was betrayed, betrayed by her body, as never by her word or mind.
He rose slightly above her, and she saw a different look in him.
Humor gone, his tension and passion were foremost.
“Lady!” he demanded, staring hard in heated challenge. “Can you say that I truly wrong you, that this, this wonder between us, is something that you want not?”
She twisted her head to the side in anguish.
He caught her cheeks tenderly between his hands and drew her face back, pressing then with the force of his muscular thighs against her long limbs so that they, too, were forced to give.
Though he remained clothed, she felt all the strength and ardor of his body fully against hers.
She had no control over the mystery of the sexes, no way to ebb the longing that washed over her, hot and pulsing, with the relentless sway of a tide.
She closed her eyes tightly, whispering her answer.
“What choice have I, milord?”
“Damn!” he exploded harshly. “I speak not of choice, but of desire!”
“You, milord, may do so. The power is yours, and the strength. I’ve no weapons such as yours—”
“Your weapons, Ondine, have always been your beauty and your wit, your pride and spirit, and all those secrets that lurk in your soul. And, lady, you use them well!”
“What is it, my lord, that you wish from me?” she cried. “Surrender? As I told you, it seems I’ve little choice!”
He shook his head with impatience, pressing his hips against hers with blunt, evocative insinuation.
He trailed his fingers from her cheek to her throat and down to her breasts, where he played idly and spoke softly, tensely, almost with anguish.
“Nay, lady, never surrender! Admission, nothing more! Say only that this fair flesh craves the caress of my hand, just as that hand hungers for the touch. Say that your fair form is eager to be water for my thirst, for all that I am is arid without your cascading liquid rhythm. Say that the sweet place of nectar between your thighs longs to be a receptacle for my seed, just as I cannot be whole this night unless I fill you, body and soul, with all myself.”
“Oh!”
“Ondine!”
“Take me, then, milord!” she cried, hating him afresh. How could he do this to her—draw forth these words she was loathe to say! “Nay, my countess, there is no talk of surrender; you shall take me, and I shall come eagerly!”
“What . . .”
He was gone from her, at the side of the bed, divesting clothing with the greatest speed. He returned to her naked, and she was in his arms, too quickly at sea, lost and adrift in his kiss, the fierceness of his ardor, the muffled urgings of his words.
“Ah, surely, lady, never hath God created flesh so fine, so fair, breasts so ripe as to haunt a man, waking and sleeping. Never have hips been so sleek and smooth, never have legs been so long and sensually wicked, their movement a lair that might create internal imprisonment . . .”