Awaiting the Moon (37 page)

The room was in darkness except for the twinkling light of candles softly glowing and the gentle radiance of the firelight; he felt a peace in his heart, a deep welling of gratitude for this woman and this moment. Even if they never made love, he would remember this as the sweetest of nights. He moved onto his stomach, too, and floated between her legs, squeezing her delectable bottom and nipping one plump cheek with his teeth. She squeaked a protest but then splashed and giggled. He was enchanted, having never seen her so relaxed and languid.

He nipped again and circled her hips with his hands, lifting her slightly above the water, nibbling both cheeks and teasing and kissing her. When he let one hand drift down her belly in front to caress her between her thighs, he could feel how ready she was for his touch. His arousal ached and throbbed, but he kept his mind on his task, and that was to surround her in love and safety. Never would he be one to use her when she trusted him most. He pushed from his mind the fear he had of ultimately having to betray that trust, in the need to take care of her in the moment.

Drifting and floating over top of her, his hard shaft slipping between her legs, he felt her jerk nervously.

“Do not worry,” he whispered into her ear. “I cannot help what I feel, but it will stay so, and I will take no liberties.” He nipped at her earlobe.

She sighed, and her body sagged into the water under his weight. Concentration was required, because it seemed to him her instinct was to entice him. Her legs parted, and with every motion his swollen rod nudged her fastness just behind where he tickled and rubbed, his fingers delightfully aware of her vulnerable nakedness and the softness of her skin. He kissed her neck and felt her body warm and plump under his touch, ready and willing to accept him into her.

Surely she would like it, and maybe she needed urging. Perhaps she needed him to take command before she could allow herself to enjoy what nature made for them to share. After all, he had taken command the night before, and he remembered how joyous was her acceptance of his advances. Beyond her first embarrassment at the intimacy of his attentions had lain a sensual submission to his tutelage.

He shook his head, clearing the fog of lust that overtook him, deliberately cleansing his mind of such seductive fantasies. He had been unwise to put himself in such a position, just inches away from delirium. She arched her back and moaned, as he touched her, and he felt her edging toward climax, her buttocks pushing up urgently as she bobbed and pushed down onto his fingers.

She writhed wetly, crying out, “Yes, Nik, please…” as she pierced herself on his thick fingers, two inserted as he teased the sensitive nub with his thumb.

He spread her wider with his fingers and his arousal fit itself to her plump cleft, nudging her open as she reached satisfaction. Her invitation seemed clear, the raised bottom, the spread legs, and he surged over her, the mist lowering over his sight and reason, his instincts flooding his body with heat even as his organ was engorged with blood and seed. Kissing wasn’t enough. He needed to taste her, her tender skin beneath his lips inviting. He bit her neck gently and her back arched more in response, changing her position slightly, ready for mating.

He thrust into her and groaned aloud, feeling her velvet slickness sheath him, and he bit harder, pulling out and stroking in again, almost crazed with the need to fill her, to command her… to claim her as his woman. He muttered endearments in German, over and over, telling her of his need for her.

“No!”

The word bit into his consciousness and he groaned. But he pulled out fully, his organ pulsing and swollen. He doubled over for a second with denied need but then kissed her shoulder where he had left a red mark. “Elizabeth,” he whispered, shaking with the urgency of his desire. “I am so sorry, my dearest…”

“No,” she whispered, turning under him in the water. “No, don’t apologize.” She reached up and covered his mouth with one finger while she stared into his eyes. He hovered over her, hope in his dark eyes, yearning in his expression. “Don’t say another word, Nik.”

She could still feel a throbbing within her where he had been and she felt empty, unfulfilled, desolate now that he had withdrawn. She ached to be filled again, stretched to surfeit with his delicious thickness, for there would never in her whole life be another moment like this one.

What was life, if it was lived in safety? Her decision was swift, and she would allow no possible future regrets to taint this sweet moment. She pulled him down and he floated between her legs, gazing up at her, his chin resting on her wet stomach, the bathwater lapping at his jaw. “Not from behind,” she said, staring into his eyes, sending him the message. She framed his face, pushed back the dark wet curls off his broad forehead and kissed it. “Not like an animal, Nik.”

As she watched, he began to playfully tongue her navel. She giggled and he licked her wet belly and then moved up to her breasts. Closing her eyes and stretching her arms above her, over the edge of the tub, she felt his tongue rough on her nipples, and they pebbled hard under his laving. He suckled, drawing each one into his mouth, leaving it pink and hard, erect.

“Yes,” she moaned, “face-to-face, Nik.” His arousal nudged against her as he moved up and covered her mouth with his. She spread her legs wide, helpless against the wave of need, convinced against her more reasonable mind. “Yes,” she whispered into his hair. She pulled him up and kissed his ear, inhaling his musky scent, murmuring, “Come home to me.”

His hands cradled her bottom and he fitted himself to her, then pushed in, slowly, his thick stiffness countered by her swollen, sensitive softness. She watched what she could see of his face, riveted by the ecstatic expression on his face as he took her wholly, pushing fully into her body, water sloshing over the edge of the copper bath from his tightly controlled movement. The fit was strained, and she felt a moment of pain as her body adjusted to his swollen shaft, but then a tremor of resolute joy overwhelmed the pain and she sighed, spreading her legs wider and clasping her heels behind his back.

And then he began stroking, pushing in and withdrawing, thicker and heavier with each movement. She lost all thought or consciousness but the feel of him taking her beyond anywhere she had ever been, beyond care, beyond pain, toward a misty distant shore named ecstasy. It was so much more than mere touching and tickling and teasing and tonguing.

Swept along by the fervor of his movements and rapture in his eyes as he gazed down at her, she felt the moment coming, and then, together, they clung to each other.

She cried out and her nails dug into his muscled back, raking his skin as he pushed into her and convulsed, his body doubling and bucking as he filled her with his release. She clung to him, her legs wrapped around him; her arms rigid she held on, weeping with shuddering joy as the water splashed and sloshed in the huge tub.

Then they drifted as the water became tepid finally and the divine madness of their mutual desire receded. They kissed, their mouths sealing, their limbs tangling and their bodies still joined in intimate union.

I love you
, she thought, but dared not whisper.

I love you
, he felt, but dared not believe.

SHE STAYED in his room; after their loving bath, he dried her on the rug in front of the fire, carried her to his bed, and made love to her again, slowly, and after a few hours of sleep, as the morning light began to peek around the crimson curtains, again they found happiness together.

He fell back into a deep sleep as morning tiptoed into the room, and she watched him, his chest rising and falling, the dark whorls of hair still damp from his excitement. Delicately she patterned the hair and touched his nipples and lay her hand possessively on his hard stomach.

It was intensely exciting to own this man, if only for a while. His vitality was enthralling, his energy flowing out of him and into her at his merest touch. His hard jaw was dark with stubble, and his sensitive lips, the site of so much delicious enjoyment, were slack and full in his repose. She bent over him, her hair falling over his chest, as she kissed his lips. He opened his mouth slightly, even in his sleep, and she kissed him deeply before slipping from his bed, her female region throbbing from his vigorous lovemaking.

Stiff from the sweetest exercise, she slipped back into her room just a moment before Fanny pushed the door open with her bottom and entered with morning tea. The girl gazed at Elizabeth with an odd expression on her face, perhaps startled that her mistress should be out of bed and near the wardrobe. Elizabeth carefully kept her gaze from the sliding panel.

“Good morning! Is it not a beautiful day?” Elizabeth said lightly.

“It snows again, miss,” Fanny said primly, setting the tea down and opening the curtain.

“Yes, lovely, lovely.” Elizabeth caught a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror and what she saw startled her. There stood a woman very much in love, her cheeks rosy, her body voluptuous under her nightrail, her lips pursed in sweet happiness; she looked completely different from the pale and nervous wretch who had entered Wolfram Castle just two months before. She swallowed over a knot and stared. Was this young woman she saw in the mirror, so full of devotion and passion, doomed to dwindle when Nikolas inevitably deserted her as his family’s needs took precedence?

She raised her chin. She would not! First, she would not lose him if she didn’t have to. She was no feeble female—she was strong, and she loved Nikolas von Wolfram. Whatever he intended, he didn’t know how powerful a force was a woman deeply in love.

But if he did desert her… then she would go on. She would not crumble in the face of it, but survive and thrive. She might never stop loving him, but she would never let it embitter her.

And yet even as she made that stern resolution, a part of her mind was plagued by uneasiness.

How could she be thinking such thoughts? If he was the sort of man who could make love to her so thoroughly and then desert her, as she was contemplating, what did it mean? It meant, surely, that he was not the good, kind, wise man she thought him. And what did it say of her that she could not have full confidence in him, and yet had joyfully made love with him? She had sworn never to be touched again by a love that could not be returned, and yet she was giving herself wholly to a man who held secrets, who still reserved a part of himself back.

Was she doomed to always be so sure of him as long as he held her, and so uncertain when they were apart?

Fanny had slipped from the room and Elizabeth dressed, then descended for breakfast. That, in itself, was not easy, knowing that many in the household were speculating and gossiping about her relationship with Nikolas. But she was not a weakling; she would hold her head up high since she did not think she was doing anything wrong. Her religion told her she was sinning, but with the love she felt, and fearing it could never have the end she wished, she still felt justified in taking her meager allotment of joy, perhaps the only true joy that she would experience in her life. It was a compromise, yes, but what in her life had not been?

Her philosophy would be tested, she had no doubt, in the months ahead, as she learned her fate at the hands of Count Nikolas von Wolfram. Despite his determination not to marry, she felt, with him, the possibility of such great love could have no other end than matrimony. And more; she felt deeply that as much as her situation in life would be elevated by marrying a German count, she knew, too, how much she would be able to give to Nikolas. His own life would improve immeasurably by having someone who loved him and was devoted to him and who would put his needs first, as no one else, not even himself had or would do. She had hope, hope that her steadfast love would show him that marriage would give him all that he needed and thought he could never have.

And it was possible she was an even greater fool that minute than she had been when she let her first lover seduce her with promises of marriage. This time she had been seduced without even promises, and had hope without reason. Perhaps that was the very definition of a fool—to hope without reason.

She entered the breakfast room with her head held high, only to find her stern discipline unnecessary. Only Countess Adele was there, and she was distracted and worried, staring down at a letter on her plate. Elizabeth was ravenous, so she piled her plate with food, then sat near the countess. But after she sated the sharp edge of her hunger, she noticed the nerve jumping at the corner of the countess’s eye.

“Ma’am… ma’am, is something wrong?”

Her hand trembling, Adele picked up the letter and held it between her index finger and thumb as if it contained poison. “This has come for Nikolas.”

“Who is it from?” Elizabeth said, experiencing a prickle of fear at the countess’s tone.

The countess did not answer for a long moment. “It is from… it is from Melisande Davidovich’s father, I think.”

“Miss Davidovich? I didn’t even know her father was living. I mean, I assumed—”

“He is living, we just did not know where he was. Until now.”

Elizabeth fell silent, unable to continue a conversation that would at some point force her to become an inquisitor or babble without sufficient information. The silence stretched. The countess sipped tea and watched the door as Elizabeth finished her meal.

But finally Nikolas strode in, with an exuberant stride. “Good morning, sister! Good morning Eliz— Miss Stanwycke.”

Elizabeth blushed and smiled up at him, while Countess Adele looked stiffly disapproving.

Her brother paid her no mind though and piled his plate high. “My hunger is sharp this morning.”

“That seems to be common,” Adele said, gazing at Elizabeth’s nearly empty plate.

“Good appetite, Miss Stanwycke?” he asked with a sly smile. “Our air must agree with you.

Or something must.”

“Nikolas! Pay attention,” the countess said. “I have a letter here; it seems to me that it is from Mikhail Davidovich.”