Enchant the Dawn (24 page)

Then she was pulling at his shirt and he followed her example, shedding his clothes with embarrassing eagerness. She lay back against one of the twin trunks, opening herself to him completely. He knelt between her thighs, pulling her hips up to his and thrusting inside her once again. This time, he could watch her eyes flutter closed as he impaled her. He could watch the sway of her breasts as he drove himself deep enough to hit the entrance to her womb.

He felt hot. Her heat was searing him, flowing over his skin until they were both incandescent with it. Their bond was no longer visible, it was encompassed in all of them, their entire being. Her hands gripped at his lower back, her nails digging into his skin and pulling him closer and closer to her. Her sheath rippled around him, trapped at the peak of pleasure but refusing release until he could travel with her.

She opened her eyes suddenly, staring into his with frantic intensity. “I need you,
ashava
.” It was a whisper but he broke under that spell. With a final hard thrust he spilled himself inside her and roared. She screamed, tightening her legs locked behind his thighs and forcing him to stay deep inside her as they rocked together, shaking with surrender. Their hearts sped at the same rapid pace, their breath rose and fell together in sharp gasps. He lost all sense of time and place and he knew only her.

Slowly, the world changed. He felt the thrum of their lives. The life of the tree that cradled them, the creatures that stirred in its branches. He felt connected to the owl that flew overhead, the wildflowers blooming in the field below. And then the people. The millions of people in the city, all of them full of life and their own purpose but connected to each other in so many ways. For an instant he could see and feel it all, wrapped inside the woman he loved.

He exhaled, blinking in astonishment as the ecstasy faded and he was once again himself. She looked back at him with wide eyes, equally enthralled and mystified with the vision of beauty they had been given. It was a profound wedding gift.

He wished they could stay like this for the entire night, wrapped together in this little sanctuary high above Central Park but he was already afraid of the damage the rough bark had done to her naked back. He pulled slightly away from her and she moaned but allowed him to shift their positions until he was leaning against the opposite trunk and she was cuddled into his chest.

They listened to the sounds of the night, the wind in the trees and the small sounds of night creatures and the distant sounds of the city. It was getting cold but he didn’t want to move.

She laughed softly and he furrowed his brow, curious as to what stray thought had caused such a reaction. She turned her head to look up at him and said, “The first major decision of our marriage is going to be very strange. Who’s going to climb down the tree and get all our clothes?”

He leaned over the platform and looked down to see the dark patches of his shirt and trousers and her dress hanging from various branches between here and the ground. Then he chuckled, holding his wild woman close and thanking the heavens for the gift of finding her at last.

Epilogue

The cabin “weren’t nothing special”, except if you knew the stories of happiness she’d always heard from Grams. Grams and Granpa had lived here when they were first married, more years ago than Grams had ever desired to tell. The clapboard cabin was sturdy and Sophia remembered playing here as a child. The overgrown woods and the wildflowers created a haven in which her imagination could run amok, with tales of fairies and nymphs, cowboys and injuns or exciting adventures from the depths of the jungle.

It was hot enough for a jungle now. The air was thick and sweltering, like the heat of her breath on a cold winter’s day, so warm and moist that you could see it as much as feel it. At some blessed minute in the next hour it would start raining and bring some relief but for now she had every window wide open. The old creaky door was also propped open with her bucket as she swabbed clean the freshly whitewashed front porch.

She leaned for a moment on the mop handle, dragging the back of her hand across her brow and tucking in a wisp of hair that had escaped from the kerchief that covered her head. It wasn’t the first time since they’d come here to settle that she thanked the Seven Heavens that the cottage was here among overgrown woods, so the tall maples and birches protected the little house from the worst of the July sun.

Still, there were a few souls foolish enough to be out in the noonday sun. Including her husband. He would be coming inside soon enough to find refuge from the heat. With that thought fresh in her mind, she was unsurprised when she could feel him come closer. Still facing the opposite direction, she knew he had stepped into the dappled shade surrounding the house. Her eyes followed her uncanny senses and she turned around, taking in the sight of her man. She was struck hard with unquenchable lust, the kind she thought only existed in naughty books. His bare torso was slick with sweat, his arms thick with muscle from cutting firewood and clearing bits of the surrounding forest to use for their kitchen gardens and her herb fields. He said he was learning to settle down and regaining the strength he’d lost with the years of easy city living.

She didn’t care why he did it, only that she very much appreciated the results. His long hair was bound back at the nape of his neck. She wanted to free it and let it flow around her like a black curtain trapping her in a world where nothing existed but the two of them and desire.

“Thirsty work, taming a forest. Not so sure she likes being tamed.” She smiled and watched one dark eyebrow raise in question.

“A man works himself hard and wants only a glass of water and this is the welcome he gets?” His voice was hoarse and not just from thirst.

He stopped at the foot of the porch steps, kicking off his shoes to match her own bare feet. When he looked up, her eyes locked with his, reading the message in those green eyes—he wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him. That glass of cool water he was coming to get was nothing more than an excuse. Even if she was sweaty and smudged, her hair in a blue kerchief and dressed in an old worn shirt that had once been white and a calico skirt rucked up around her waist for the work. She could feel his need, feel it prickle up her skin, pinch her nipples, sigh into the heat of her folds.

She smiled, licking her lips, wondering how exactly he would start the dance this time. While their desire was never something they could hide from one another, her husband seemed to relish the chance to tease her, to surprise her. To drive her into madness until he’d take her, giving them sweet release and drawing them so close they could see the divine within each other. Her knees went just a bit weak at the thought. Truth was, she loved every minute of his games.

Daron had made it his mission to tease her. He’d taunted her from the moment they’d left New York, running his fingers over the nape of her neck and blowing in her ear and making her wild for him. The only thing keeping her from ripping off his clothes and riding him to Timbuktu was the pair of wide blue eyes that would every so often pop up over the front seat and stare at them with a six-year-old’s blatant curiosity. They’d hitched a ride with Alan, June and Hester in the six-seater Studebaker Alan had got in trade for his beloved Ol’ Nellie. Behind them they’d pulled a rickety trailer stacked up with their lives in boxes.

Somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania the parade had halted and Alan had managed to rustle up an amenable Justice of the Peace. Quick as a wink, there was a whole passel of newly married folk, Alan and June Lowbridge and Daron and Sophia Hunter. It had taken less time to do the ceremonies than to explain to the poor fella that the men in Daron’s family had always, apparently for more generations than a person could count on both fingers and toes, taken their wife’s family name as their own.

Sophia knew that her Grams would have been tickled by the whole situation. Grams would have liked them all—Alan and June and sweet little Hester, who looked like she was having the time of her life traveling all the way across the country to Arizona. Alan had a professor friend who’d become the head of the Chemistry Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson and it just so happened that he’d sent Alan a job offer the very same day Alan had met June. It was funny how fate seemed to work out that way. Grams used to say that an awful lot too.

Grams would have especially liked Daron. She’d have made a long whistle the first time she caught sight of the man. Mama had just looked him over and frowned. But Mama had no say in the matter, they were married and the cabin had been hers free and clear since Grams had died. The cabin and the acres surrounding it. There was no pressing headache, no sense of being crushed by the weight of a million souls, no one around for miles but squirrels and possums.

Sophia could make all the noise she wanted to. Daron, sure did look like he’d like to help her to do just that. She watched a drop of sweat inch its way down the cords of his neck as he slowly climbed up the three stairs to the porch. Would he tease her? Start at her bare toes and kiss every inch of her? Follow her into the house for that glass of water and end up bending her over the table, testing the strength of that sturdy oak as he slammed into her hard enough to send them and the table scooting across the floor?

He pounced suddenly, striding across the porch and wrapping his hands around her waist, pushing her back into the doorframe. The bucket got pushed aside and the mop fell to the floor as she looped her arms around his neck and loosened the tie binding his hair with practiced ease. His lips and tongue tasted salty as they ravaged her mouth, tasting her like he’d not had her in weeks instead of mere hours. He’d woken her up with his tongue swirling around her nipple and his fingers deep within her sheath. Hours later, she was still more than ready for him, so when he pushed off her skirt and pushed down his loose trousers, she was eager for the feel of him within her, happy that he wouldn’t make her wait.

She propped a leg up against the opposite side of the doorframe and he ran two fingers over her clit and dipped deep inside her, making her as ready as her moans sounded. She wrapped her hand around his hard cock, loving the way he pulsed in her hand as she positioned him.

Daron bent his knees and thrust himself into her, pushing her into the doorframe and hitting every spot just right. He still stretched her in the most wonderful ways, making her wince just slightly with pleasurable pain at the first moment of entry. She pushed back against him as he thrust, watching his face from half closed eyes as she stared down to where they were joined. The lust was plain on his face. A mixture of animalistic passion and tenderness was her
ashava
unleashed. He made her feel like the most perfect example of woman in the world and she almost believed it when those green eyes held her captive. His eyes flickered up to hers as though hearing her thoughts and suddenly she couldn’t think anymore at all.

He tore the kerchief out of her hair, leaving sweaty strands of her hair to fall around her neck in wild disarray. Then he ripped off all the buttons on the old shirt she wore, breaking eye contact to lean down and suck each nipple hard enough to make her flutter internal muscles against his thrusting cock, flirting with orgasm just long enough to make her toes curl.

That was just a bit more than he could stand. He was close, she could tell. She tightened those muscles one more time, trying her best to drive him over the edge. She knew she’d succeeded when he gripped her hips and pulled himself as close to her as possible, bending his knees and driving up into her as his teeth scraped the skin of her collarbone. She clung to his shoulders for dear life, whimpering as his pelvic bone dug into her clit at exactly the right angle. Pushing against the doorframe with one shaking leg, she rolled her hips to keep up the rhythm until a scream was torn from her.

Lightning flashed in the distance as her climax washed over her and the skies opened up with much-needed rain. The waves of her orgasm crashed into Daron and with a shout he pumped his semen into her, the force of his last thrusts the only thing keeping her upright.

They sagged against each other in the doorway, holding each other and stroking sweat-drenched skin. He pulled away and she moaned slightly as her legs threatened to crumple under her.

“Time for a drink,
ashavi
!”

Finding strength from out of nowhere, he picked her up as if she was as light as a feather and walked out into the pouring rain. She squealed and then laughed, opening her mouth and drinking in the rain, letting it soak into her skin as he swung her around in a circle.

When she’d first seen Daron West, mysterious
Magi
, the world had come flooding back into her heart. Now that she was completely his, she embraced the deluge. Together, they were stronger than the storm.