Heartstrings (45 page)

She thought about all the things Oble Smott had chatted about: his mule, dog, and problems with the food in Mexico. He disagreed with hurrying. He’d not done anything of vital importance in his life, but he’d lived his simple days happily.

Hold on tight to each other, hear?
he’d advised.
Love good, laugh a lot, and y’all’ll have a real fine life together.

Fine lives, she thought. Separate lives—Roman’s in Texas, hers in Brazil.

There wouldn’t be anyone in Brazil with whom she could practice country chatting. Dr. Wallaby wouldn’t understand it and wouldn’t have time to learn it. If not for Roman,
she
wouldn’t have understood or taken the time to learn it, either.

She wondered how many, many other things he could teach her that she would never have the opportunity to learn, and the painful emptiness filled her once more.

“Theodosia, did you hear what I said?”

“What? No. No, I’m sorry, Roman, I did not.”

“I asked if you’d forgotten about last night. Judging by that blank look on your face, you have. I swore I’d remind you in the morning, and I always keep my promises.”

She crossed her hands over her breasts. “Roman, Oble Smott will see—”

“He’s long gone,” Roman said, pulling at the ribbons on the front of her gown. “Besides, I’m sure he suspected we were going to indulge in a little nightgown-pulling-upping and seed-spilling as soon as he left. He won’t come back.”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her back to their sleeping pallet. There he laid her down and stretched out beside her. “He’s right, you know. Oble Smott is. People do hurry too much, Theodosia. I’m going to take his advice and make slow, slow love to you.”

She turned into his arms, deciding that she, too, would heed Oble’s sage advice. Dismissing thoughts of tomorrow, she concentrated on what was before her very eyes.

And oh, what a sexy sight it was. Roman’s gaze flickered with blue fire, and his desire became her own.

She didn’t remember him taking her nightrail off, nor could she recall him shrugging out of his breeches. Her recollections started when his lips met the soft sensitive flesh at the hollow of her throat and he began to kiss her body.

And while he so thoroughly caressed her with his mouth, his heavy male hardness slid upon her as well. His lips…his hands…the cascade of his long raven hair…his hot arousal…

Every part of him touched every part of her. She bucked beneath his skillful stroking, her body trembling for the feel of hard male flesh inside her.

Sensitive to her need though he was, Roman wanted her hotter. He lifted her to her knees, then lay down with his head propped up on the mound of thick pillows. With his hands, he showed her what he wanted her to do.

When she realized her dark and compelling lover’s intentions, Theodosia gasped with surprise but, with the most profound anticipation lending strength to her quivering muscles, she submitted to the urgings of his hands and moved to kneel over his face.

One hand kneading her breast and the other fondling her bottom, Roman nuzzled with his lips the soft pale hair between her thighs, then began to tease her wet female flesh with the tip of his tongue. He knew where to touch her, knew precisely how to set her ablaze with deeper need.

His sensual caresses spread fire through Theodosia’s every nerve. She arched her back; her head fell over her shoulders, and her flaxen hair pooled on Roman’s smooth brown chest. Circling her hips over his warm mouth, she abandoned herself to the glorious pleasure.

Vitally aware of each small tremor of rising bliss he brought to her, Roman continued pleasuring her until he knew she’d almost reached the pinnacle of ecstasy. And then, with one strong, fluid motion, he took hold of her hips and pushed her downward.

Before Theodosia had time to realize what he was doing, she felt him thrust into her, his thick masculinity impaling her fully. So smooth were his actions that her climax never faltered, but rose to such an incredible height that when the final burst of rapture shot through her, she screamed Roman’s name with all the fervent passion his magic had drawn forth from her.

“Again,” Roman whispered hotly into her ear. “Again.”

She barely heard him, barely understood him until he began pumping wildly. The thick hair between his hips brushed against her slick femininity as he ground into her. Immediately, she felt herself spiraling into a second encounter with sweet all-consuming bliss.

Her climax gripped him tightly, luring and beckoning him toward his own fiery release. Hot spasms exploded through his body, rippling through his muscled frame like thunderbolts through the sky.

Exhausted but fully sated, Theodosia stilled upon his chest, her cheek pressed against his moist shoulder. She could not move, didn’t want to.

And neither did Roman.

Morning sunshine drifting over them, they lay quietly, their bodies still joined in sensual union, the beats of their hearts meshed as one.

A
s the days wandered into
weeks, Theodosia discovered she could no longer recall what date of the month it was. She tried to keep count, but time eluded her and soon ceased to hold any meaning for her at all.

Only Roman mattered. In the wonderful world he’d introduced to her, she played with him. Beneath trees and open skies. She danced with him, and he swirled her across ballrooms of forest floors and flower-strewn meadows. She sang with him, nature’s music the hauntingly beautiful symphony that accompanied them.

She loved with him. Sheltered within tall emerald grass, upon soft beds of leaves, or in sparkling streams, she surrendered to him at dawn, in the sultry heat of noon, and lying under the twinkling stars of cool nights.

She was never without him. By day he was at her side, by night he filled her every dream.

And her happiness knew no bounds.

“I’m sorry you’re in such a bad mood, Theodosia,” Roman teased one evening. Standing with his back against a tree, he cleaned his knife with a soft rag and listened to Theodosia’s bright laughter fill the air as she played with the baby possum he’d managed to catch for her. She laughed all the time now, he mused. Any silly little thing set her off.

Sitting beside the fire upon a stack of folded blankets, Theodosia laughed harder when the tiny animal wrapped its long tail around her bare back and began pulling her hair with its small grappling paws. “I cannot believe there was a time in my life when I refused to sleep without a nightgown on,” she said, stroking the possum’s back and smiling when it hissed with pleasure. “Now I walk through woods and fields as naked as—”

“As naked as I like you to be,” Roman finished for her. His body was as bare as hers, as they hadn’t bothered to dress after their bath in the nearby pond. “You have to admit, though, it feels good not having to wear clothes all the time.”

She touched the possum’s pink nose. “It does,” she agreed with a smile. “Indeed, I think perhaps that I will find my garments exceedingly uncomfortable the next time I am forced to wear them for any length of time.”

Roman finished with his knife and returned it to its leather sheath. “Then don’t wear them for any length of time. Now there’s an idea. How about if we stay here for a while and live naked?”

“We’ll be Adam and Eve, and this will be our Eden.”

“Want to read for a while, Eve?” Grinning the crooked smile she so loved to see, he retrieved two books from one of her bags in the bed of the buckboard. “Spleens or sex-treats?” he asked, holding up the two volumes.

“Spleens, please.”

He studied the covers of the books. “I’m not in the mood for spleens tonight.”

“All right. Sex-treats.”

He threw the medical textbook back into the wagon, ambled toward the fire, and sat down beside her. “Your friend is too young to be around while we read this, Eve.”

She caressed the possum’s soft fur for a short while longer, placed it on the ground, then watched it waddle into the forest shadows.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Roman asked, watching the fireshine shimmer over her pale body and through her long gold hair.

His compliment brought her a rush of emotion. She leaned toward him, drawn to him by more than desire, more than passion. “I am seized by an unfamiliar feeling,” she whispered.

She explained no further.

She didn’t have to. Roman knew the same odd, yet powerful feeling. But if Theodosia had no name for it, he wouldn’t try to name it, either.

All he knew was that the profound emotion made him want to possess her body and soul.

“The book,” she murmured, her lips a breath away from his. “We were going to read the book.”

“Yeah, the book.” Pulling himself from the powerful spell of feeling cast over him, he dipped his thumbs into the pages and haphazardly opened the volume to whatever section fate decreed.

Looking down at the page staring up at them, he and Theodosia examined the detailed picture of a man who, by means of his tongue, hands, feet, and manhood, was making love to no less than six women at the same time.

“I think I’ll move to Tibet,” Roman quipped. He turned the page, upon which was illustrated another picture.

The diagram showed a man with ropes tied around each of his wrists and ankles. He hung suspended from a ceiling beam, and with his swollen shaft poised and four men handling his ropes, he was being lowered toward a spread-eagled woman on the floor.

“I think I’ll stay in Texas,” Roman decided aloud.

Giggling, Theodosia thumbed through more pages, then stopped at one. “Let’s try this.”

Roman scowled. The picture displayed a couple making love in a sitting position with their feet locked behind their heads. “Are you crazy? I can’t get my feet around the back of my neck like that.”

“Try.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He stared at her. Was this sexual daredevil really the same prudish woman who had vowed to have a brief, unfeeling bout of coitus in a pitch-dark room? “Look, Theodosia, even if I were able to get my feet crossed behind my head like that, I’d never be able to get them down again. I’d be forced to go through life inching along the ground on my bare—”

“Oh, very well.” She turned to another page. “How about this?”

In the picture she indicated, a man in a standing position made love to a woman while holding her off the floor. They were face-to-face, and the woman’s body was folded in a jackknife pose with the backs of her legs pressed against the man’s chest, her feet resting upon his shoulders, and her hands grasping the back of his neck. To further support her, the man had his hands beneath her bottom.

Roman remembered how far Theodosia had stretched her legs above her head during their sexual encounter in Red Wolf and suspected the unusual form of lovemaking wouldn’t be impossible for her. “This position has definite possibilities.” When he rose from the ground, Theodosia saw he was fully erect and ready to begin. The sight increased her own desire, and she eagerly took his hand when he held it down to her.

Roman helped her to her feet, then clasped her waist. “On the count of three jump aboard. One…two…three.”

She hopped up and into him, curling her legs around his back.

“This is all wrong,” Roman said, staring into her twinkling whiskey eyes. “Your legs are supposed to be on my chest and your feet are supposed to be on my shoulders.”

“But I can see no way of moving my legs upward while you are holding me like this. Your arms are in the way.”

“Did you see directions written anywhere on that page that shows the drawing?”

She shook her head and kissed the tip of his nose. “I believe we shall have to determine the procedure ourselves.”

Roman thought for a moment. “I have an idea.” He set her back on the ground, then lay down on his back. “All right, sit on my stomach and stretch your legs over my chest.”

Carefully, she sat on his belly and adjusted her legs before her so that her feet dangled just past his shoulders.

Her position afforded Roman a tantalizing view of pure femininity. “Why don’t we just stay like this for a while?” he suggested, his hands stroking the tops of her thighs, the tips of his fingers pressing lightly into the sweet treasure between her legs.

Theodosia leaned over and locked her hands behind his neck. “Up, my magnificent Tibetan lover.”

Holding her behind the small of her back, Roman slowly sat up. Theodosia’s legs rose with him. “Are you sure this isn’t hurting you anywhere?”

She sighed. “I feel a long, delicious stretch at the backs of my thighs, and the sweet ache of desire inside my—well, you know.”

He did indeed know. The thought nearly rendered him senseless with longing for her. “All right, I’m going to stand up now. Hold on.”

Standing proved more difficult than he’d imagined. Most of Theodosia’s weight pushed into his torso, and what with her sitting between his chest and bent knees, he was off balance and could not get enough weight pushed toward his legs to be able to stand without rolling backward.

“I’m going to have to rock to my feet,” he informed her. “You just sit still.”