Song of Seduction (25 page)

“I beg your pardon,” he replied theatrically. “I am a brutish lout.”

“Don’t be absurd. The more rudely you behave, the easier it might be to dismiss your genuine feeling should I reject you.”

The muscles of Arie’s torso and upper arms constricted. “Will you reject me?”

“I know not,” she said. “I won’t be able to show my face in society beside a man who sits a horse as poorly as you do.”

“You vex me.”

“Becoming your wife will not change that.” She pulled him close for a deep kiss, taking his lower lip in her teeth. He groaned and gripped her thighs. “Will you love me? Always?”

With a conquered sigh, he leaned back and dragged her across him. He smoothed long strands of hair away from her face. “I will love you always.”

Her heart thumped in a crazy rhythm at his words, his touch, his loving desperation. “Say it again.”

“Ik zal altijd van je blijven houden.”

“Yes.”

“To what?”

“Anything you ask.”

“You will marry me?”

She marveled at the near frantic tone of his rumbling voice. That he loved her so deeply, that he could still be so uncertain of her response, amazed her. Her single, breathless word was a vow. “Yes.”

“Goed.”

He arched her body and took a bare nipple into his mouth. She gasped. He groaned. With restless hands, she clenched the flesh of his buttocks, pulling his hips toward hers as they sank into the mattress. Arie hardened in moments, pressed against her thighs. He teased and suckled, and she squirmed against him in mindless response.

Opening her legs, letting him enter—nothing had ever been so effortless.

She lost herself in the drowsy rhythm of his thrusts. Feeling wanton and feline, secure, she sighed. Returning to each other, feeling cleansed of ghosts and pains, revealed a happiness she had never known. Their passion had been a torture of insecurities and hesitancy, but this…this was easy and deep. Unhurried.

Enchanted by the calm, resonant emotion intensifying her desire, she floated on gathering waves. She twisted toward the sources of her delicious torment: his lunging shaft and his mouth at her breast. He surrounded her, invaded her. His rumbling whispers danced in her ears. He nipped and tugged, his teeth at her nipple, until jagged sparks raced through her veins.

When Arie lifted his head, she groaned in frustration.

His knowing laugh mocked her need. “I am not the only one who likes biting.”

In retaliation, she bit down on his shoulder. He bucked into her, deeply, his breath a spiky exhale of rough pleasure. She bit again, and he pushed her into the pillow, imprisoning her with a harsh kiss. His hips accelerated, the edge of his desire becoming sharp and forceful.

She recognized the change in his tempo. His hips beat in a building, frantic rhythm. His hands became demanding, clutching, possessing. “Easy,” she whispered.

“God, Tilda, I love you.”

She laughed softly. “You still do not trust that I will stay. You cannot believe you are worth this. Being happy.”

“I will. Give me time.”

“My point exactly. We have time.”

She stroked his hips, his lower back. When he kissed her mouth, he tasted of the berries they had shared upon waking. She sighed and wondered at the seductress who sounded so much like Mathilda Heidel. “I do like the biting, I think. Makes me wonder if you like touching yourself.”

His hips stilled entirely. He collapsed against her on the mattress, his body shaking. He was laughing.

Mathilda transformed from a seductress into a silly innocent in the span of two sentences. She smacked him on the shoulder. “What?”

“How do you think I survived these months?” His wicked grin could have set the room alight. “Music can sustain me only so long.”

The heat of a vicious blush covered her face and bosom, but she refused to be intimidated. In fact, the idea of Arie touching himself sparked her imagination.

“Show me.”

The mirth drained from his face. His breathing roughened, quickened. Flexing within her, he said, “I have no thought to leave you right now.”

“You’ll be allowed to return.” She pushed harder against the lanky wall of his body. His expression remained dubious—intrigued, but dubious. “Do this for me.”

Arie pulled away. The depths he had filled with such magnificent completion were left hollow and wanting. But kneeling astride her, above her—blatant and immodest—he grinned. His mischievous, watchful eyes challenged her to break the hold of his gaze and feast, instead, on his brazen display.

Mathilda accepted his unspoken dare. She lowered her lids until every thought centered on his hand rubbing up and down the hard length of his arousal. Steam replaced blood in her veins. Hips thrust slightly forward, Arie’s stance was one of such intense male eroticism that a dizzy heat twirled through her body. He captivated her, tugging and clenching his rigid shaft, circling his palm over the head and tightening his buttocks in time with his strokes.

Arrogant. Hard. Shameless.

His lips turned up in an arrogant smirk. “Is this what you want to see?”

She mumbled something, its meaning inarticulate even to her own distracted mind. Yes…hypnotized.

“Now you,” Arie said. “Knees up.”

Complying, impatient to join him in their adventurous game, Mathilda bent her knees. She found her slippery apex and matched his tempo. With her free hand, she flicked and pulled her nipples, teasing them both until Arie relented first. He abandoned their torturous sport. With a guttural curse, he hooked her knee in the crook of his elbow and plunged. His thrusts neared cruelty, but he gave as much as he claimed.

And greedy, she wanted more. She was his. Her body became his domain. The pure, free delight of their union overwhelmed her doubts. She flew past the obstacles that had bound and frustrated her. No thought. No hesitation. When she came, the surprise and ruthless joy of her climax shuddered over and around her.

At Mathilda’s gasp, Arie surged and thumped, taking what he needed from her willing depths. A last, potent thrust coincided with a groan that broke in his throat. His body convulsed and sagged atop hers, limp and sated.

She shifted slightly, stretching her legs along either side of his as he withdrew. She hugged him fiercely, utterly overcome by the pleasure of her discovery. Disbelieving, she giggled. “Number ten.”

Propping on an elbow, only inches above her, he looked at her with an expression of happy awe. “You will get used to that.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Through Mathilda’s entire life, dusk began when the sun dipped below the ever-watchful cliffs of Mönchsberg. Her sequestered existence within the Altstadt—at first accidental and then, following Jürgen’s death, voluntary—had pressed her against the heights of mountains and buildings. Her seclusion kept her from enjoying the simple beauty of a sunset.

Among other things.

Although her heart still ached at the memory of his flight to the country, Mathilda had to admit that Arie had inadvertently introduced her to the world beyond Salzburg. Only twelve tiny miles from her city, she acknowledged the extent of her immobilizing fears and how isolated she had been.

She glanced at where Arie drowsed, fully clothed, in the tall grasses surrounding their cabin. He needed rest after the sleepless, blissful nights they had shared. The deep gold of the sun’s diminishing power bronzed his skin. Gone was his sickly pallor, and after another few days of Frau Schindler’s meals, his unhealthy thinness would reverse as well.

Contentment swelled in her breast until she could hardly stand to look at his relaxed face. Unrivaled happiness empowered her with a sense of liberation and strength.

But Arie’s lax pose and his idle contentment concealed his remaining doubts.

From the lake, she crossed the wide pasture and knelt next to her fiancé. “Are you ready to walk down for supper?”

Arie opened his eyes. “I am full from lunch still.”

“And I’m indifferent to your excuses,” she said. “You’ll not be able to conduct if you are lightheaded from lack of sustenance.”

“I survived last night just fine, wielding a much larger baton.”

She shrieked, landing atop him in a fit of laughter. “Terrible!”

Arie kissed her soundly. “You will forgive me. I am the foreign man and know not the words to say.”

“Fiend! I’ll be appalled if your knowledge of my language expands to include bawdy puns.” She sat away from him and arranged her skirts over crossed knees. Arie tried to snake a hand beneath her gown, but she swatted him away. “And to think I was going to ask you loving questions of concern and offer my unwavering support.”

“And now?”

Mathilda sighed, regarding him thoughtfully. “Is it time to go home?”

He said nothing. A look of panic flashed across his sharp features.

“I know that expression, Maestro.”

“What?”

“Where you dwell on your inadequacies and think less of yourself.”

Arie laughed. He drew closer and stroked the necklace hanging from her neck. “Maybe your pendant does not give you magic, witch. It is this chain.”

“Don’t tease,” she said. “I still have much to confess without adding the charge of witchcraft to my sins.”

“Be content in the knowledge that, in saving your soul, you will also give some hapless priest a most memorable hour.”

“You are insolent, sir!”

Throughout the days and nights she had shared with Arie since her arrival, she learned to shake free of the reflexive embarrassment fostered by his suggestive teasing. They taught each other to be permissive and experimental, and she refused to relinquish that freedom and excitement. With Arie, together, she would never need to.

Yet, he still faltered.

She took his hands. “Let us rehearse the symphony tonight. Maybe it will ease your apprehension to have my support.”

“I thought your support was unwavering.”

“It was, until you started with the nasty puns. Come, Arie, you know I’m curious. Share it with me.” She scowled when he offered nothing but a grimace. “Oh, I know that look, too.”

“Now what?”

“You wear that same expression whenever you perform a new piece for me. You look…expectant, hesitant.” She pointed her forefinger and made little circles. “And a bit annoyed around the eyes because you dislike your uncertainty.”

“You know my face so well?”

“Of course. I know that look because I anticipated it every week. I felt important when you performed a new piece, a work no one else had heard. You needed me.”

“I do,” he said, reaching for her.

Mathilda shook her head in protest. “Our situations did not equate. You were my teacher. Any criticism or encouragement from you determined the rest of my week, ill or fine. More than just my music became yours to direct and shape.”

“Whereas I wrote my symphony because that was all I could manage. I sat in my frozen flat for months, burning alive for you. My symphony…I was biding time.”

“Nonsense.”

“I do not exaggerate,” he said. “I had nowhere to direct my frustrations. That is why you remain my muse.”

“Fine,” she said, smiling. “I will be your muse, and you will be my idol. If we can make room for two in that tiny bed of yours, surely we can share a pedestal.”

Mathilda’s eyes shone with formidable emotions. She humbled him with her admiration and pride.

She loves me.

And with a clearer certainty than any he had known, Arie believed. He believed that she returned his love with the same ardor and devotion. Not even their nights of passion and promises had convinced him so absolutely.

But still he waited. He wanted to hear the words that would sustain him through the ordeal he had yet to bear.

“Breathtaking,
mijn liefde.
”

Arie exhaled in abject relief. “Then, yes. It is time to go home.”