“No, it wasn’t.” He gave in to the impulse to touch her hair. The solid mass of the braid was unsatisfying against his fingertips. “I married you because I needed you in my life. You were everything I wasn’t—warm, vital, alive. I’d been a dead man for more than two years. I couldn’t bear to think that something might happen to you, that you might die and I’d lose the one glimpse of life I’d had. Even then, even in those first hours together, I loved you.”
She couldn’t look away again. He had captured her. She made a noise low in her throat, a protest, a moan. He wove his fingers into the braid and slowly, giving her all the time she needed to move away, brought her lips to his.
She’d had both no time and all the time in the world to resist, but only when his lips touched hers did she realize how final her defeat was. Kissing Thomas was a door into the world, into emotion, sorrow and despair. She didn’t believe they could start where they’d left off and build something new together. She didn’t believe he really loved her. He was an honorable man, a man who believed in standing by vows, even vows made for the wrong reasons.
Yet she kissed him anyway. His mouth slanted over hers, and she drank in the moist warmth of his kiss as if she were dying and he could keep her alive. Her hands crept to his neck. His skin was warm, and she could feel the rapid thrum of his pulse against her fingertips. Her lips parted, and the invitation was accepted. The kiss deepened, and he moved closer; she moved closer, too, until her breasts pressed gently against his chest.
At last he cradled her head against his shoulder. He had loosened her hair and spread it like a cape around them both.
“The attraction has always been there,” she said, giving him one last chance to retreat, “but that doesn’t mean the marriage can work. You don’t have to stay married to me. Your obligations are over, and you’re alive again.”
“Will you marry me?” he asked against her hair. “A real marriage? I couldn’t come to you before. I wasn’t sure I could be the husband you needed.”
“Sex is only a part of marriage. We could have worked it out if we’d tried.”
“I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about all the ways I failed Patricia. I was ambitious and shortsighted and selfish. I never let Patricia be a real wife, and then she was gone and I didn’t have a chance to try anymore.”
“But you understood how you’d failed her.”
“I still questioned my ability to be a real husband to you. Can you see that? I was afraid I hadn’t learned enough from what had happened, but even worse, I was afraid there was something vital missing inside me. I couldn’t trust myself, and I didn’t trust God. I was sure I’d sinned so terribly that I was beyond His love. I couldn’t be a real husband to you before, not in any way that mattered. I wouldn’t let myself. Now, I can be.”
She knew he was talking about more than days spent building a marriage. He was talking about nights together in each other’s arms. “And what will happen if you try to be a husband, if you try to make love to me, and you still can’t?”
“Then we try again. And if that doesn’t succeed after a while, we go for help.” He smiled tenderly, confidently. “But I don’t think we’ll need to save our pennies for counseling. I don’t think we’ll need to worry about counseling at all.”
She knew what he was offering. A lifetime together. This was not to be a marriage of convenience. Nothing would be held back now. From this moment on, if she said yes, they would share their days and nights, share their anger and sorrows, and most of all—and most frightening—share their love. It would hurt. There would be times when they both would wish they had never married, times when life in the Corners would make love painful.
She knew what she was getting into. But she knew, even better, what life was like without him. “I think I’ve said it before. I’ve always lived dangerously.”
She could feel him sag against her, as if he had doubted that she would accept. He squeezed her tightly, exuberantly. “You can’t know how much I’ve missed you. I just had to be sure I could give you what you needed. I love you too much to shortchange you.”
This time she surrendered her doubts that he loved her. He had told her twice. But she didn’t know where to go from here. This was nearly perfect. She was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, because she was afraid that if she did, she would find she had dreamed it all.
Then he kissed her again, and she knew it wasn’t a dream. He was warm and real and determined. The patience it had taken to explain himself was gone. His hands trembled slightly against her neck, but not, she thought, from fear. From desire. From longing.
Months of repressed feelings welled inside her. She couldn’t touch him enough. Later she would take her time, explore him slowly and thoroughly, indulge herself in the feel of his broad shoulders under her palms, his heartbeat under her fingertips. Now she swept him with her hands, touching everywhere and nowhere, filling her senses with the whole man.
She couldn’t separate one kiss from another, one warm, intimate caress from the next. Her clothes disappeared, and she didn’t know how they were removed. His followed the same path, and she had only the vaguest sense of helping him undress. Passion was a haze that both sped and slowed time. Words blurred one into the next in her head. She only realized that she had told him out loud that she loved him when he responded in kind.
On her bed, their bodies entwined, she was too overcome with happier emotions to have any room for fear. Sometime between one burst of sensation and another she had pushed away all doubts. She had to believe Thomas’s promise that if he was still unable to make love to her, it wouldn’t matter. They would find a way to conquer this, as they had conquered their emotional barriers. Surely this, too, could be theirs. He wouldn’t withdraw ashamed, tortured into silence once more. He wouldn’t sacrifice their marriage on the altar of his pride. The marriage would be real, no matter what happened here.
While they were entwined, he rolled to his back, bringing her over him as he kissed her. She could feel the stretch of his legs, the breadth of his chest, the cradle of his hips, the proof of his longing for her. She knew he was ready for lovemaking. He had branded her with his kisses, left indelible impressions in her heart. Now he had only to claim her.
She slid her hands between them, but he grasped them before she could possess him. He turned her to her back, covering her with his body as he did. Then, gazing into her eyes, he made them one.
He didn’t take his eyes from hers as he made love to her. Every emotion he felt was there for her to see, the joy, the love, the pride. In seconds she was lost, consumed by what she saw. She could feel his love inside her, like dawn after the darkest night.
He struggled for patience, murmuring love words and kissing her as he filled her again and again. He seemed to understand her deepest needs and doubts, showing her with his body, his lips, the emotion in his eyes, that she was his very heart. His love was sunlight, blazing through her to warm the coldest parts of her soul.
She had not known that lovemaking could be this way, that each movement, each caress, could be an awakening and a renewal. Now she was sure that he needed her in the most elemental way, just as she needed him.
When fulfillment was no longer an impossible dream but a reality neither of them could resist, she gave herself to the heat and the radiant burst that encompassed them both.
She gave herself to him.
Time passed before they spoke. She didn’t know how much time. She had drifted into sleep, exhausted. Complete satisfaction was more draining than she had ever imagined.
“Are you awake?” he asked.
“Mmm...” She tried to cuddle closer and found it was impossible.
“Does this mean you’re going to give our marriage another try?” he asked.
“And another and another.” She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “I’ll have to lengthen my skirts, won’t I? And scoop ice cream at Wednesday night sharing suppers.”
“Your skirts are fine,
and you can leave the ice cream to somebody else. Just be there for me, and I’ll be there for you. It will be simple.”
She knew that being together would never be simple. They both had dragons to slay, both inside themselves and in the small world of the Corners where they had chosen to stand and fight. But she wasn’t going to remind him of that. Not now. Because, simple or not, it was possible. It was necessary. It was as vital as the air they breathed.
“I’ll be there,” she said. “You can count on it.”
He smiled the warm, confident smile that was completely new and one hundred and ten percent seductive. “And I’ll be there, too,” he said.
She gave herself up to the promise in his voice, his eyes, his hands. They had months to make up for and a lifetime ahead of them.
A real marriage had begun.
Afterword
Some years ago I was happily writing romances for Silhouette Books when my editor tapped me for a new promotion. Did I have a profession I would like to explore? I immediately volunteered to write about a minister.
Be careful what you volunteer for. It's rarely as easy as it sounds.
At the time–and still--I was a big fan of ministers, having been married to one for years. Churches are microcosms of the world around them, with the same problems and possibilities. And the men and women who serve them professionally are saints and sinners, sometimes in the very same day. Like the rest of us, they get discouraged, angry, depressed, but they also find inspiration and sustenance not only from their relationship with the holy, but also by trying to make the world around them a better place.
I didn't want to preach, and I wasn't interested in writing about anybody who had all the answers. In fact the more I got to know the Reverend Thomas Stonehill, the more I realized he had few. The answers he'd found earlier in life had all been destroyed by a personal tragedy, leaving him an empty shell. Then in walked Garnet Anthony, a maternal health nurse as different from the women he'd know, as fire and ice. Put them together in the inner city where gangs roamed the streets and opportunities for a better life were few, and Dragonslayer came into being.
The year after publication Dragonslayer won the Romance Writers of America RITA award, and just as thrilling, one of Romantic Times magazine's extremely rare 5 Star reviews.
In the words of Melinda Helfer, one of RT's top reviewers: "Innovative plots can often open gateways for an author, but they can never take the place of the gifts of the human experience that the very best books bring to our hearts. Every reader has their own set of 5s, books that have significantly influenced the way they look at the world. Without question, Dragonslayer (5) is one of mine."
I hope that you, too, find this story compelling, and that the characters' struggles will resonate with your own, as different as they may be. I've made only a few revisions to help make the details more relevant for today's readers. But the story is the same, and all these years later, I'm still delighted I wrote it.
In the years since I've written two more novels with ministers as major characters. Endless Chain, the second novel of my five book Shenandoah Album series, and The Color of Light, the fourth novel of my Goddesses Anonymous series. You can discover more about both of them by following this link to my book pages.
If you would like to share your thoughts about Dragonslayer, please take a moment to share your review online. Reviews are always appreciated by authors and other readers.
To learn more about upcoming books, giveaways and special content for subscribers, sign up for Emilie's monthly newsletter.
JOIN EMILIE AND HER READERS:
* * *
Website: www.emilierichards.com
* * *
Blog: www.emilierichards.com/blog
* * *
Facebook Author Page:
https://www.facebook.com/authoremilierichards
* * *
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilieRichards
* * *
Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/emilierichards/
* * *
To learn more about upcoming books, giveaways and special content for subscribers, sign up for Emilie's monthly newsletter:
http://emilierichards.com/mailing-list/
Also by Emilie Richards
If you enjoyed Dragonslayer I think you'll enjoy some other earlier romances. You can find the list of available books at my website under ebook exclusives. Here are two of my favorites, though, written about the same time as Dragonslayer. They are connected stories meant to be read together. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from Once Upon A Feeling.
Elisabeth Whitfield is having a doozy of a midlife crisis, but that midlife is about to take an extraordinary turn. Following a near-fatal car wreck, the Elisabeth who awakens in the hospital is a new woman, in someone else’s younger, sexier body. Now she has a second chance at the exciting life she gave up to marry and be a full-time mother. But “be careful what you wish for” could be more than a cliche. Getting everything she wanted might cost her everything that matters.
Publisher's Weekly said: “Richards guides Elisabeth through this seductive women’s daydream with skill, humor and an iron morality.”
Purchase Once More With Feeling for your Kindle here: bit.ly/OnceMoreRichards
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING: Chapter 1
Sometime during the restless eternity of Thursday night, Elisabeth Whitfield dreamed that Owen, her husband of twenty-five years, was having an affair. She woke up Friday morning, as she had every morning for the past month, afraid it wasn't a dream at all. As Friday afternoon waned she completed preparations for the dinner party that might give her the proof she needed.
Elisabeth's parties were always elegant, tasteful, and ultimately forgettable, too much like their hostess to be truly memorable. She had learned to give a party from her mother Katherine Brookshire Vanderhoff, who had insisted that God and the American flag came in a poor third and fourth behind an eternally pleasant expression and a flair with canapés. She had learned to choose wines and menus, caterers and florists. She had learned how to set a congenial atmosphere.
But she had never learned to like any of it.
This afternoon Elisabeth was enjoying the fine art of hostessing even less than usual. Weeks before, when she had seen the party only as a chance to socialize with old friends, she had rashly decided to hire younger, fashionable, and totally unfamiliar staff. Now, with her enthusiasm at an historically low ebb, she was paying the price.
The new caterer, a sleek young redhead in Ralph Lauren khaki, had furtively examined every visible room of the Whitfield residence as she and her assistant marched in and out carrying platters and equipment. Elisabeth's own kitchen had not yielded the proper number of copper bowls and marble pastry slabs. She had carefully evaluated the neoclassical furniture, Owen's prized collection of Barbizon landscapes, the octagonal skylights and the white granite floor of the entrance hall.
"You have an absolutely spectacular home," the caterer pronounced at last, when Elisabeth's kitchen no longer looked as if it belonged to her.
Elisabeth acknowledged the compliment with the smile she had learned from her mother. "It's kind of you to say so."
"I've catered parties all over the Gold Coast, and I've never seen anything quite like this. Everything's . . . perfect." The young woman dragged out the last word like a feline with an exceptional vocabulary.
"My husband is the architect."
"I know."
Elisabeth suspected that the caterer also knew what clients Owen had designed for, the international competitions he had won, and his income to the nearest hundred thousand. She obviously had her sights set on more than the kitchens of Long Island.
The florist was new, as well. The old man who had faithfully provided Elizabeth with pastel tulips in the spring and pastel chrysanthemums in the fall had died quietly at Christmas, knee deep in pink and white poinsettas. Rick With-No-Last Name, his ponytailed and fashionable replacement, was a differe
nt breed entirely.
Elisabeth found the young man in the first floor powder room, assembling an arrangment of leafless twigs and excrement-hued cinnamon fern in three upturned rolls of toilet paper. As she watched he stood back to observe what he'd done, then leaned forward and artistically unwound a foot of one of the rolls and draped it over the edge of the counter.
It was good toilet paper. Elisabeth had to give him that much. A squeezable roll of ecological white. He turned and grinned infectiously. "Sm. . .oking!"
Blinded by white teeth and shining expectations, she lowered her eyes and found an arrangement of brightly colored bowl brushes in a stainless steel urinal on the floor beside the commode. The brushes were interspersed with long stems of bottlebrush buckeye.
"I can't wait to see what you'll do in the dining room." She added a gentle, vaguely regretful warning. "Just remember, there are going to be some terribly staid old fogies here tonight. And there are only so many Nassau County paramedics on call at any given moment."
He laughed conspiratorally. "I thought an aquatic theme since you're serving fish . . ."
She pictured mermaids impaled on skewers and belly-up dolphins with arugula and radicchio in what passed for their navels. "Remember the first arrangment you did as a very young man. That's what I want."
"Can't do it. I didn't bring my skulls today."
Elisabeth could see that this conversation, like too many aspects of her life, had spun out of control. Rick had quickly guessed the truth about the woman who had hired him. She was the eternal peacemaker, a doormat who would always back down rather than cause a fight. She was so nauseatingly gracious, so intrinsically diplomatic, that one time or another every charity on Long Island had asked her to oversee a fund-raiser.
Dragonslayer Page 24