Holm put his hands over hers. “Thank you, Mamá.”
She shook her head in wonder. “Where did the years go? It seemed just yesterday your father was asking me for a dance.” She began to hum an ancient waltz. “We wed an eightday later. You should be able to do the same.” She tilted her head, looking at him. “I know my sons. I think you worry overmuch.”
The knowledge of the rough days ahead took a bit of the shine off her words of praise. He didn’t worry overmuch.
Passiflora rested her hand on his shoulder. “You will find that each time you meet with your HeartMate, the link between you will grow stronger. Even before the ultimate consummation of the HeartBond, she will be with you.”
She touched her breast. “Your Father was like a song in my heart.” She chuckled again. “And in my head. I heard him, the rhythm of his thoughts ran as an undertone to mine when we were courting.” Now she placed both hands on his shoulders. “From the evidence on your throat, you must have met your lady enough times for that to have developed. Rest your head against the back of your chair. Shut your eyes. Relax. And listen.”
Holm did as she bid. First he became aware of the light beyond his eyelids, golden spellballs that softly lit his sitting room. He dismissed that sight and concentrated on the exact hue of black of his love’s hair, the violet of her eyes. Next came the lingering scent of the incense he’d been burning and his mother’s familiar apple fragrance. He shut that away, and when he inhaled he thought of hawthorn blossoms instead. His fingers rested lightly on his desk blotter and the thick suede feel changed to the commoncloth trous-suits his Healer wore. He wanted to dress her in the most expensive of silkeens.
Finally he sank into the image of her, how she looked, laughing, on the beach, and the link between them. He strengthened that bond, visualizing it as deep purple and green intertwining, then changing from House colors to silver, then gold. The connection pulsed with the energy and the life that circled between them. With every pulse a whisper came to him, then a beat, then a flow of not-quite-melody, something like the humming of his own thoughts mingled with notes of birdsong, and finally the ancient cadence of the ocean and the heart. His Bélla was a Healer, her lifeforce beat in the same meter as a human heart, the same song.
“Ahhh,” said Passiflora, and broke the spell.
Holm opened his eyes and she took her hands from her shoulders. “You see?” she said. “You are bonded and can sense her even now.”
His mother blinked rapidly, sniffed. “My son will soon wed.” She sniffed again. “It is good.”
When she looked at him, tears dewed her eyes. Again she touched his hair. “Silvergilt hair, the Holly legacy. It looks just as good on you and Tinne as on your Father.”
“But we are better looking. Finer features—your genes helped out there.”
She laughed and shook her head again. “The Hollys have always been wildly handsome and irresistible, each generation, in their own way.” She tugged lightly at his hair, then dropped her hand, to bend down and lightly kiss his cheek. “My Blessing upon you and your HeartMate, son Holm.”
He inclined his head, his chest tight. “Thank you, Mamá.”
With one last smile, she danced from the room.
Holm’s lips were still curved when his personal chime sounded. “A private and confidential delivery for T’HollyHeir,” a low, incredibly sexy voice said.
Holm’s smile widened as he heard the seductive voice of his announcement. It was the first time in a long time that he actually noticed the voice he’d bespelled for his rooms as an adolescent. The voice belonged to his first lover. Now his smile turned reminiscent. An older woman, she’d been patient, demanding, and inventive. He’d chosen well.
The chime and voice came again, pulling Holm from nostalgia. “Personal acceptance is required for the delivery to remain,” it added. The unusual stipulation snagged Holm’s interest.
“Who’s it from?”
A small pause followed. “To release such information, the delivery spell has requested I verify your personal password and your voice print.”
Holm raised his brows. Odder and odder. “Sex,” he said, reflecting that he’d have to change the password and the voice soon if he won Bélla and she came to live at T’Holly Residence.
“You were always very good at that, my dear,” his personal voice purred in programmed response.
The chimes tangled. “Final notice of a delivery, scry locale unidentified, but sender identified herself as ‘Bélla.’”
Holm shot to his feet. “Accepted. Immediately. Is there a scried message?”
“Playing the message,” his room voice said.
“I know you must have increased security measures, so I’m confirming that I personally crafted and teleported this gift.” Lark’s tones whispered through his rooms and the lilt of it, so dear to him now, and deeply reverberating to his core, was infinitely sexier to him than the previous voice.
There was a pause of several heartbeats. “Bélla.” The message ended.
Holm grinned. Just hearing her acknowledge the name he’d given her, the name no one else in the world called her, was gift enough, but what was her present? He allowed himself a moment of luxurious anticipation and tried to recall if he’d heard of any hobby of Bélla’s.
He shook his head. He couldn’t remember, and nothing that had passed between them had told him of her skill. His own talent was calligraphy, but he hadn’t used a brush in over a year. He’d better start practicing if he wanted to give her a gift.
“Save the message until further notice and teleport the gift to my desk at once,” Holm ordered.
“Don’t I always do what you wish?” murmured the standard response.
With a small whish, a magnificent floral wreath appeared then settled gently atop his desk.
Holm stood, stunned at the offering. He’d often given flowers to various women, but had never received them.
The mixture of blooms and herbs and ferns showed true artistry, as did the mingling of their scents. Bélla’s aura permeated the wreath, lingering and refreshing the tendril of connection that ran between them.
With one whiff, he was fully aroused. Unsteadily, but with infinite gentleness, he picked up the wreath, and knew with the touch that she’d thought of passion and surrender when she’d crafted the present. He narrowed his eyes as he read the language of the flowers—passion, surrender, and a brief affair. It was not enough.
It might have been enough with another woman in the past, but it was not enough for him and his HeartMate. She must know it, to spend such time and energy on a gift. This wasn’t a gift to a onenight lover or even a eightday fling.
Now was the time to inform her of—some—of his intentions. Pleased and irritated, he donned the wreath.
Just as he visualized the hallway outside Bélla’s apartment, T’Holly Residence announced, “T’Yarrow has arrived and is waiting in the Mistletoe Room.”
Holm swore, picked up the instructions for the new family wills and his notes, and swept from his chambers. T’Yarrow wouldn’t like being shoved the papyrus and hustled away, but the lawyer had just fallen to the bottom of Holm’s priorities.
His blood was up, he had to see his Bélla, and not to talk. He could not wait a micron longer.
Thirteen
Lark tidied her apartment with a small housekeeping spell and lounged on the red sofa, lazily listening to a musicbroadcast. She stared at the ceiling and tinted it a light blue with wispy white clouds.
Satisfaction, tingling anticipation, and a small ache of sexual tension fizzed through her as she thought of her decision to be free and spontaneous and indulge in a wild affair with Holm Holly. She’d see him at the ball tonight.
A hard rapping came on her door. Blinking away daydreams, she sat up and put a grumbling Phyll on the floor, where he ostentatiously decided to groom himself. She smiled, then crossed to the door and opened it.
There stood Holm Holly, wide shoulders emphasized
by an open-collared, billowing-sleeved shirt. He wore deep green breeches and boots. And her wreath.
She caught her breath at the sheer masculinity of him, sharply contrasting with the fragile, colorful blossoms on his head. As he entered he brushed his body against hers, and a low, prowling craving started in her center.
Lark gulped, shut the door, and retreated to the sofa.
He stared at her, and she became aware of the fine trembling of her body. His mind brushed hers, and she opened her own emotions and thoughts almost instinctively, like a flower opening its petals to the sun.
For a long moment he studied her. An irritation she felt on the edges of his mind calmed, then focused, then he made a decision. His eyes narrowed, a flash of calculation appeared and vanished before she could wonder what it meant. Not that she was thinking. His desire stormed back to her, bubbling in her pulse and sending heat washing through her until all she could do was feel. And wait for his touch.
Carefully he removed the wreath from his head and touched one finger to a huge red blossom with purple leaves. “I received your gift.” He stroked the bloom. “It pleases me.” He lifted the wreath to his nose and his nostrils widened as he drew in the scent, spicy against the heavy perfume of the roses. “Immensely.” His eyes darkened nearly to black. “As you do, Mayblossom Larkspur, my Bélla.” A dark flush highlighted his cheekbones.
Lark snapped her mouth shut before she drooled, knowing her knees were now too weak to stand, she was so bedazzled by the sight of male hunger. She fumbled for words. “I thought you were too busy to see me before the ball tonight.”
He shrugged. “Papyrus can wait.” He smiled again, more wolfishly. “I received your message, too.”
“My message?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m fully conversant with the language of flowers, Bélla. So you choose to take me as your lover,” he said quietly, caressingly.
Lark licked her lips and realized her mistake when his gaze fastened on her mouth. He set the wreath gently on a table. “One question,” he said.
Just one? she thought. “Yes?”
“Did you put a stayfresh spell on the wreath?”
She’d wanted to, but the wreath symbolized a brief, passionate affair, so she hadn’t.
“No.”
A spell from Holm made the wreath last as long as his life. Lark suffered a pang at the phrasing.
“Also,” Holm narrowed his eyes and pointed at the wreath. “Kitten-proof!”
Lark’s eyes widened. She giggled. The delicate stems of fairybelles would lure a cat to play. She eyed the wreath. Some of the edible flowers might tempt Meserv’s appetite.
The wreath rocked on the table, taking the spell. Holm lunged for it and replaced it on his head, then picked up the musicstrip and inserted it in the entertainment slot, setting it to continuous play.
The romantic melody started quiet and lilting. Her heart contracted as the music flowed into her, making her mind and heart ache for Holm as much as her body.
Soon his warmth and strength and vitality would encompass her. Soon she would be held and petted and fulfilled. Soon.
He strode to stand before her, eyes intent. Through their bond, Lark felt the fast pumping of his blood, the control he used to keep his breathing even and his outward manner casual.
As she absorbed the sight of him, large and strong and virile, she realized he waited for her to make the first move, to tell him to stay or go. Just as on the beach, he was offering himself to her for her pleasure. She’d make the decision to be intimate. His body was hers to use as she wished.
Her own breath clogged and dizziness swirled as her senses became unbearably acute. The scent of roses and him wrapped around her, the energy field surrounding him took on the gilt of his hair and was almost too bright for her eyes, the music intensified to pure sensuality with the power of an orchestra.
The pulsing of his heart set up a deep liquid beat within her core, a rising tension transmuting to an ache.
When his whisper came, it was harsh and low. “Say the Words to undress me.”
That delicious thought tightened her insides. She licked lips dry from anticipation and the heat of her desire. “Holm’s clothes off,” she said. His garments folded next to him, atop the feet of his boots.
Now he stood before her naked, magnificent, the wreath on his head only emphasizing his masculinity and making her feel as if she’d won a great prize.
She stared at the well-defined muscles of his shoulders, his arms, his broad chest lightly haired so blond as to be silver. Her breath quickened as she let her gaze wander to his stomach and hips, then snagged on his jutting shaft.
“I want you, Bélla.”
It was obvious; she couldn’t tear her gaze away. She reminded herself she was a Healer and no body should make her tremble. But all she knew was a craving to have him cover her and move with her and climax together.
“Bed, Bélla,” he rasped.
She didn’t know how he could speak, the link between them throbbed with red-hot lust, clouding all thought. Each centimeter of her skin was sensitized, her inner hollowness begged to be filled, her nipples contracted. She slipped into the depths of the sofa. It took all thought to mentally order her own clothes gone, but instinct alone to open her thighs.
A groan ripped from him as he strode across the room. His weight pressed her deep into the cushions of the couch.
His erection pressed against her core, and she didn’t know how she could stand the sensation.
He panted and tangled his hands into her hair, and she whimpered in delight at the slight tugging and how it tingled her nerve-endings to settle in her very core.
“Bélla, my Bélla, do you want me?”
“More—” more than she could say. More than she wanted anything else.
He moved slightly, his chest hair teasing her nipples until they ached, her body sending more demands for fulfillment to her dimming mind.
His hands slid under her bottom and he poised himself at her entrance. “I can’t wait. I can’t.”
She gloried at the wildness of his eyes, the probing of his manhood, and the powerful thrust that joined them.
Her eyes shut and she whimpered with the delight of having him in her.
“Look at me,” he said, and she didn’t know if it was a harsh whisper or a rough mind-call. Either one, she couldn’t refuse. She opened her lashes to blazing mercury eyes in a taut face.
“You were ready for me,” he said. “Wet. Hot. Tight.” He shuddered and she felt it deep inside. An answering tremor racked her. The fine tautness of his muscular body on her, and the sheer sensual expectation of what was to come when he started to move, made her pant.
“Bélla,” he said, and brushed her mouth with his own. Her lips were swollen, ultrasensitive.
“Please,” she whispered.
He lifted himself on his elbows. “Yes! Now.”
The inner sound of his control snapping was an instant warning of the withdrawal of his body. She cried out at the loss.
Then he plunged into her and everything except sensation tore away. The glide of their bodies together, the riptide of passion reverberating between their mental link, the sheer weight and scent and energy of him were her world. Red desire led her exquisitely up the shining crest of a wave she’d never experienced, then plummeted her down until she shattered.
An instant later a long, low moan echoed from Holm. He surged and she screamed again in awful rapture. Their climaxes mingled and flooded together.
When he collapsed on her, she could only wonder how she lived through the passion. She clutched at him, not able to let him go. A moment’s clarity hit. What had she done?
Holm groaned. This time not in ecstasy. This time in self-disgust. What had he done? He’d disgraced himself, not made the loving perfect for her.
He’d lost every shred of control and simply jumped on her, mating like the primitive male he was instead of showing any finesse, any civilized recognition
of her own needs.
He tested the tie between them and shuddered as he experienced the same small white bursts of pleasure still streaking through her. Lord and Lady, so good. So incredible!
His own body jerked in one last pulsing spurt of rapture.
He wanted to take her again, needed her. The coming together had been too fast, over too quickly. He had to strengthen the bond between them until it could never be broken. And he must pay more attention to that link. Before—just moments before—he’d only been aware that it sizzled passion between them, each stroke of his body escalating into unimaginable ecstasy as he felt the delicious sensations she knew. Now he wanted the bond to send more than lust, he wanted to affect her emotions.
Again he examined their bond. Only dazed completion throbbed from her. Relief lightened his heart. He had another chance. Next time he’d be suave, sophisticated, spin the loving out until she accepted that there was more to their relationship than physical desire. Next time he’d be a perfect lover.
So his heart was light. His body wasn’t. He crushed her into the sofa. He winced. More care was needed there, too. Taking her fast, uncontrolled on the sofa, he hadn’t considered her delicate body except to feel it beneath his, around his.
Still, he’d never experienced anything more powerful in his life than his release. He didn’t know how he could keep away from her now. He’d forgotten every syllable of his mantra of control and suspected that he’d remember the words only out of her presence. With her, he would always fight for restraint, and he feared it would be a constant battle he’d always lose.
When he could move, he stood. His brain was too scrambled for the complex calculations required to port them to her bedsponge. He looked down at her and all his blood pooled in his groin. His mouth dried.
The bright red couch framed her pale, dainty body. He’d been too gripped in passion to notice anything but the creaminess of her rounded thighs and the heaven that lay between. She was well-made with small bones, full breasts, narrow waist, welcoming hips. Her thick black hair tumbled to her shoulders, contrasting with the purple of her eyes, the rosy crowns of her breasts. Near the edge of his vision was a rose the exact same shade as her lips, her nipples, the flesh peeking through the black triangle of hair.
Heart Duel Page 15