Diamonds and Dreams (44 page)

Saber tasted the salty tears on her mouth,
and felt his own eyes begin to sting.
Who was this girl who
could bring him tears?
he wondered. Who made him laugh? Whose
simple wisdom affected him so deeply? Whose presence filled the
aching void in his life, whose smile lit up his entire life?

And whose brush with death brought him such
excruciating grief?

Goldie felt a tremor run through him.
“Saber, everything’s all right. We didn’t get hurt.”

“I know, but—The shot—The man—Judging by the
way he was dressed, I think he was a coster.”
A coster.
A
coster, he deliberated, wouldn’t be involved with Hutchins or
Doyle. Had the man been intent on robbery? He made a mental note to
notify Tyler Escott’s men about the incident.

“A coster?” Goldie repeated.

“A street seller. I’m sure he intended to
rob us, but you could have been hurt. Are you certain you’re all
right?”

“Yes,” she tried to reassure him, but knew
by the expression in his eyes that he was still doubtful. She
wondered what to say to him that would convince him, but came up
with nothing different from what she’d already said.

Actions were all she had left to her. The
thought brought a warm, deep rush of anticipation. Languidly she
removed her dress, her eyes never leaving Saber’s face. Her
underthings followed. Reaching up to the back of her neck, she
removed the pins that held her hair and shook her head. Her curls
sprang free, spilling to her breasts.

Instant desire twisted through Saber’s
loins. He wondered what she would do, when she would begin.

His heart slammed against his chest when she
came closer.

The scorching expression in his gaze made
Goldie sense the power she held over him. Excitement mounted as she
contemplated the things she would to do him. Straddling his hips,
she began to unbutton his shirt. As each button came undone, his
shirt parted further, and she took time to touch her fingers to the
smooth, hard chest so slowly revealed to her. Finally, she removed
the garment altogether, bringing it slowly toward her face, and
closing her eyes. The warm virile scent clinging to it surrounded
her, drifting into her, heightening her anticipation.

Opening her eyes, she saw Saber regarding
her intently, a slow, knowing smile slanting his lips. Her cheeks
warming, she crawled to the end of the bed and removed his shoes
and stockings before laying her palms on his upper thighs. Keeping
her movements as leisurely as she could make them, she slid her
hands toward the fastening of his breeches. The buttons there
opened easily. She smiled when Saber accommodated her by arching
his hips off the bed. Slowly, she rolled the breeches and his
undergarments downward, pulling them off his legs, and smiling at
the sight of the diamond birthmark on his left upper thigh.

She held the clothes, still warm from his
body, in her lap, staring at them for a long moment before raising
her eyes. The sight of Saber, of each perfect and wonderful part of
sinewy form, set her heart aflutter and her body aflame.

A low moan escaping her, she buried herself
in the arms he held out to her. He took her mouth in a kiss that
was savage and tender at once. His hand brushed over the soft curls
between her thighs; his fingers began to stroke her. Pleasure
engulfed her, her desire building when she felt her own moistness,
her own hot readiness. She knew Saber felt it too when his eyes
darkened, and his body tensed as his fingers delved deeply inside
her.

With those same fingers, he then parted her
legs, and moved above her. She welcomed his weight when he settled
himself upon her. His scent of sandalwood wafted about her as she
felt his maleness probing between her thighs. Closing her eyes, she
prepared herself for the pain. She knew it would come, but she
didn’t care. Only Saber mattered. Only Saber.

“Now,” she whispered. “Please now.”

Her desperate plea almost sent Saber over
the brink. Struggling to leash his wild desire, he pushed into her
only slightly, giving her as much time as she needed to adjust to
him. To want more of him. To change her mind. His heavy arousal
ached. Every nerve in his body throbbed, making control an
impossible thing. But tenderness flowed inside him, too, soothing
him, transcending his powerful need. He held himself motionless,
waiting for her to show him what she wanted him to do.

“Saber.”

He tried to decipher what it was he heard in
her small voice, but the feel of her nipples stiffening against his
chest, the pleading pressure of her fanned fingers upon the muscles
in his back, and the way her silky legs curved around his own,
stole every other thought from his mind.

“Saber, please.”

“Goldie—”

She arched into him, gasping when she felt
more of him slide into her. She opened further for him, spreading
her legs wider, giving him complete, unhindered access to her.

Saber could feel the thin veil of her
virginity. It was all that lay between him and the ecstasy he
yearned to find in her body. Desire tightened each of his muscles;
he felt them coil with readiness. The fire in his loins threatened
to consume him. “Goldie,” he said between clenched teeth, “I—I’m
going to hurt you. I don’t want to. God, Goldie, I don’t want
to.”

His tender worry and heartfelt reluctance to
cause her any pain were the sweetest things anyone had ever shown
her. Determined to have all of the wonderful man gazing down at her
with such gentle emotion spilling from his beautiful eyes, she
lifted her legs, wrapping them around his broad back. Her heels
pressed his firm bottom, urging his hips forward, coercing him
toward the deepest part of her.

Saber could hold back no longer. He knew in
his soul she wanted their sensual union every bit as much as he
did. “Goldie,” he whispered, his lips curved over her mouth, “come
to me. Come to me, my golden angel.” When she lifted herself to him
again, he met her. With one bold thrust, he took her from her
maiden’s world and into one where he could be with her.

Her soft cry, the stiffening of her body,
stilled him. “Goldie.” Her name came from him on a tormented
moan.

Goldie took his face between her hands.
“Saber,” she cooed, all pain melting away at the sound of his name,
“It only hurt for a minute.”

Her voice seemed to be wrapped in satin. Her
words made him feel beyond wonderful. He began to move inside her,
plunging, withdrawing, circling his hips upon hers, and loving each
tiny, mewling sound that came from her.

Goldie was astonished by the odd, but
completely beautiful way he felt buried so deeply within her. She
felt her body move as if by its own accord. Indeed, she felt as
though she had no control at all, and so, gave herself up to
whatever desire led her to do. From side to side, she moved her
hips, then circled them, lifted them, desperation taking her when
he left her, rapture filling her when he came to her again. The
pleasure he offered gathered slowly. It rose, then faded, built
again, diminishing less each time, until finally it ebbed no
longer, but instead burst, sending shimmering bits of bliss
shooting through every part of her.

With a shuddering sigh, she peered up at
him. The dark, simmering look in his eyes told her he wasn’t nearly
finished with her. Her realization was confirmed when he drove
deeply into her, seeking and finding the very center of her
womanhood.

The muscles in his back knotted beneath her
palms. There was no denying his strength. It was everywhere,
exuding from his body, his groans of exertion, and the invisible
aura of power that surrounded him. He was, she realized at that
moment, a man different from the Saber she knew.

The man who held her so possessively in his
arms, whose body demanded all she could give him, whose darkening
eyes radiated such hunger, excited her. His scent of sandalwood was
gone, replaced with the scorching fragrance of heat. Of something
wildly afire. It made her burn for him again.

“Before now,” he panted down to her, “you’ve
found fulfillment alone. Now, Goldie, now find it with me. Stay
with me, come into it with me, share it with me.”

She flushed at the sultry sound of his
voice, the unspoken promise that laced his sensual command. She met
him halfway when he bent to kiss her, ribbons of returning desire
streaming through her when his tongue began matching the
same...deep...urgent...rhythm of his body. She felt swallowed by
him, taken into him, and she gloried in the exquisite sensation his
total possession of her brought.

“Goldie. Now. Goldie.” With one, last
all-seeking thrust, he gave her everything he had to give her.

She felt him grow harder inside her. He
didn’t withdraw from her this time, but stayed imbedded deeply
within her, throbbing wildly. The pulsations, the ecstasy she felt
pounding through him quickly brought her her own. Her cries joined
his, their shared bliss lifting her so high, she wondered if she
would ever come down.

“Goldie,” Saber murmured, pleasure still
seeping through him.

She clung to him, feeling the last,
lingering bits of sensation slowly fade. Fulfillment drugged with
tranquility. Surrendering to the quiet joy, she sighed, smiling
into the curve of his shoulder, breathing deeply of his sensual
male scent.

Saber pressed his face into the silken mass
of her wild curls. He was loathe to withdraw from her, and so he
stayed within her for as long as nature would allow. And when at
last his body left hers, he slipped to the violet-scattered
mattress, drawing her into his arms. “Goldie—”

“Saber, y’know what I’m thinkin’ right now?”
she asked, molding herself to the curve of his body.

The lush happiness he heard in her voice
made him smile. “I cannot begin to imagine.”

“I’m thinkin’,” she began, her fingers
tracing circles around his taut nipples, “that it’s a damn shame
you aren’t the ravishin’ kind. If you were, I’d have known what all
this was about the very day you found me at the pond.”

He chuckled both at what she told him and
the tickle he felt as she caressed his chest. “Goldie, you wouldn’t
have liked it had I taken you by force. Rape has nothing at all to
do with lovemaking, poppet. There’s nothing but violence involved.
What we just did—”

“Was the most beautiful thing that’s ever
happened to me. Saber, I—Thank you.”

“No, Goldie. You owe me no gratitude. We
shared
everything that happened tonight.”

She moved away from him a bit so she could
see him better. As she did, she caught sight of herself and the
bedsheets. “Saber,” she whispered raggedly. Fear kicked inside her,
a contained scream filled her throat.

“Goldie,” he said in a rush of breath when
he saw the reason for her horror, “you were a virgin. You bled. It
doesn’t mean you’re hurt, and it won’t happen again.” Rising from
the bed, he crossed to a small table upon which a soft towel and a
pitcher of water sat. He dampened the cloth and returned to
Goldie.

He held the wet cloth tightly in his hands
for moment to warm it. “Lie still,” he told her, sitting beside
her. As if she were made of delicate crystal, he touched the cloth
to her thighs and womanhood very lightly, smoothing it over her
skin with whisper-soft strokes. He continued his tender
ministrations until not a trace of her virginity was left.

“Saber.”

He saw the fear had left her eyes, but a
different emotion replaced it. It was something fragile. “Are you
sorry, Goldie?” he asked brokenly. “Sorry you gave your virginity
to me?”

She noted the haunted look on his face. “I
wish I could have it back. So I could give it to you again.”

Indescribable joy consumed him. He crushed
her to him, his hands skimming over each silken inch of her.
“Maybe,” he began, his lips whispering over hers, “it started the
day you told me the story about dandelions. Maybe it started with
our mud fight. Or the day you taught me how to bake bread. Or the
night I found you wandering in the maze. Or maybe, my poppet,” he
decided, his lips moving from her mouth to her cheeks, to her
temple, to her ear, “it began the day I first saw you. When you
thought I was a highwayman. When you pointed your claymore at me,
looking at me with such fear and fury in your eyes. Whatever the
truth, from the moment I met you, Goldie, you have been a part of
me. I’m lonesome for you when you’re not with me, and I dream about
you at night.

“For so long,” he continued tenderly, his
hand lost within the golden splendor of her hair, “I have wondered
what it was I felt for you, tried to understand the joy your smile,
your giggle bring to me. I have pondered the warm and quiet
contentment the sight of you gives me. I—”

“Saber—”

“I lived behind a curtain before knowing
you. Bit by bit, you lifted the veil, showing me the man who
dwelled behind it. You reminded me about things I’d forgotten.
Important things like the smell and feel of dirt. And flowers. Lazy
days, moonlit walks, and holding hands. Your laughter pulls
emotions from me that I never knew I had. You take the simplest
things and paint them with profound significance. You’re like
sunshine, Goldie. You chase away the dark, warming everything you
touch.”

“Saber, you—”

“It’s not infatuation. And it’s not just
that I enjoy your company. Goldie...” His words trailed away as he
lifted his head and stared at her incredible beauty. With startling
clarity, he realized exactly what it was he felt for the
outrageously wonderful girl in his arms. There was no denying it
any longer.

“Goldie,” he told her softly, achingly, “I
love you. Dear God, I love you. I—”

She placed her hand over his mouth. “Don’t
say anything else,” she begged him, her eyes bright with unshed
tears. “I can’t—It’s all so...I’ve never heard such wonderful
things. But I—Saber...”