None other he trusted that much.
Her face, so precious, so missed, meant more than he could say. He wouldn’t lose her again.
He couldn’t. If this ghost would allow him to express his love, just once, he could trust him.
Henry didn’t feel the need to worry about what Louisa thought, felt. He was a man ruled by impulse, by desire. As Henry seemed to adjust himself into Gavin’s body, it was like he could see all of it. His dreams—cut short by his death—his needs, his fears.
Henry feared losing Louisa. She was like the glittering grains of sand on a beach—the harder he gripped her, trying to keep her with him, the faster she slipped through his fingers.
He feared it so much that he blamed himself for their death in the fire so long ago. That he ended his love, his beautiful and vivacious Louisa who dared to do anything for him, ate at his soul all these years.
And he couldn’t even tell her he was sorry in all these years he’d been trapped in this house. No matter how much he might have wanted to just hold her, beg her forgiveness, something kept them apart. He could sense her, as if she was just on the edge of his vision, but never see her. Never speak to her. As if the veil that dropped over him when his life slipped away while he coughed and choked separated him from the thing he most wanted to find.
He’d waited so long for her.
Never waste a moment, Gavin. The ghost’s voice was like some internal one, like that little narrator in his head but not his. Never waste a moment because you never know which will be your last and the hell I’ve been in all this time? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Gavin’s hand lifted, a strange sensation since he wasn’t the one controlling it, and touched the face of his lover.
Gavin felt himself fading to the background, as if he was just watching a movie starring his own body rather than taking part in what was to come.
****
Louisa looked at her hands. It felt strange, after being so unable to touch, to feel sensation against her skin, to suddenly have all of it back.
These arms were far more naked than hers had ever been in the light of day. Far darker, too, as if the sun kissed the flesh. The palms, even, were rougher.
She took a testing breath and enjoyed that simple sensation of her chest filling and emptying without coughing.
For so long, she’d been trapped in a circle of events. When darkness fell on the plantation she relived her own death as surely as the clock chimed the hour of midnight.
Now, on the anniversary of the events that changed everything, she could speak the words trapped on her tongue since that first night.
“Henry?” He looked at her. Although the body was strange, she recognized her lover in the angle of his head, the arch of his brow, and the slow curl of his lips.
“My Louisa—”
Using a finger to silence him, she shook her head. Tears threatened, making the image of him waver and dance in the failing light. "I've waited so long to tell you I’m so sorry, my lover. My pride had me striking out at you, acting the fool, when all I should have done was hold you. Tell you I loved you. Assuaged your fears rather than becoming so defensive.”
He clutched the hand attached to the finger she’d pressed to his mouth, hugging it to him. “No, sweet Louisa. Never blame yourself. It was me, my foolish pride that had us battling that fateful night. I should never have doubted you or our love. Can you ever forgive me, darling, for causing this dreadful mess, this catastrophe?”
Rising to her toes, she wrapped her arms around him, the wonderful solid and warm mass of him, and met his lips, speaking the language of the heart as she took his mouth with hungry possession.
He returned her fervor with a matching starvation, as if their flesh alone had needed this contact, needed this confirmation of their feelings.
He pulled back after a moment and her heart stilled in this strange, borrowed chest. The last time he pulled away from her, he’d filled the air with painful accusations, with lack of trust and ugly things that destroyed their world and separated them for generations.
But this time, his lips curled into a devilish smile. “There were things you had planned that evening that had nothing to do with arguing and everything to do with enjoying the sins of the flesh. My only wish was that we’d survived so I could wed you and bed you and stay by your side each night for the rest of our lives.”
Her smile, quick and shimmering through a new onslaught of tears, wavered a little as she, too, imagined what their lives might have been. “My love, we’ve been together for longer than a lifetime, even if we couldn’t speak. And we’re together now. Let us not waste a moment more of this precious time to enjoy each other.”
She waved at the box, at the accumulation of things that struck her curiosity. Remembering the illicit book she’d found in the library so long ago—yet just moments ago in her mind—she couldn’t help the heat that rose in her cheeks.
“I adore your daring nature, darling.” He tugged a length of silk out of the box, soft with age and well remembered to her. Henry, always a bit of a scientist at heart, scandalized her when they’d first become lovers. She knew the lack of propriety she showed by allowing his kisses in the moonlight. Propriety be damned, she’d wanted him and she’d taken him into her body and heart and then when he’d turned that intelligent mind to new ways to pleasure, new ways to tease and tempt, she’d been his willing accomplice.
Ties were a common bit of their play. Knowing what was to come, she stripped out of her clothes, no need for artifice in her desperate need and happy for the lack of layers this generation preferred.
Once she was nude, the warm night air running its fingers over this new body, she lay on the bed while her love began to fasten first her legs and then her arms to the elaborately carved posts of the frame.
Desire licked like the flames that had consumed their lives, igniting her flesh as he kissed each wrist, each ankle. The fleeting touch of his fingertips as he secured the knots left her shivering, her notch heated and flooded with liquid heat.
He towered above her, taller in this body than he’d been before yet beautiful because the love Heather felt for this man whispered into her as she gazed at his body.
Climbing to join her on the bed, he whispered his touch along the insides of her thighs. “Do you want me to kiss your quim, my lovely bride?”
“Oh, don’t jest about that at a time like this, Henry. Never your bride will I be but your lover for all time.”
“You are my bride, the wife of my heart, the other part of my soul. And I shall make you scream your agreement to the stars, my love.” With that, his mouth kissed the most sensitive part of her and she would have shot off the bed at the rush of pleasure the sensation wrought.
But he knew her, Henry always did. His fingers, as he licked at the hard point of her desire, caught her nipple and tugged it hard, the pain transforming to pleasure faster than she could gasp at the sensation.
She writhed as he redoubled his efforts then cried out when he left her, crawling away from the bed with a devious smile. He moved again to the box, and she tried to catch her breath, catch her sanity, while he rummaged. Coming up with two metal bits, he bent to kiss her. His lips, his tongue, drove her mad and the lingering bit of her own flavor on that melding of lips only served to ratchet her need for him higher.
Then one of the clamps caught her sensitive nipple and her short yelp was captured in his mouth.
He lifted his head enough to gaze into her eyes, watching her react to the feel of the restriction in such pleasure that she couldn’t help but test the restraints on her arms, wanting to touch him, to demand he give her release.
Seeing her need, he bent to suckle the other nipple, the tug seeming to go right to her womb where she felt so empty, so hot for him.
And then he placed the second clamp and she arched her hips helplessly, unable to stop the fluid desire that rippled up and down her spine.
“I can’t resist the call of yo
ur flesh, my wanton love. “ She forced her eyes open to watch as he stripped out of his strange clothes and covered her body with his. The shock of his hot skin, the hair on his legs and the breath from his lips on her naked form made her close her eyes tight against the onslaught of sensation.
“Take me then, my Henry.”
He obeyed, rubbing his stiffened rod against the liquid seam of her body. When he finally pushed inside her, it was like they were one being. One creature united at last.
She didn’t even need the orgasm that still threatened. Meeting his eyes, she lifted her hand, shocked to find it easy to move it to rest on his face. And it was, indeed, his face. “I love you. A thousand times I’ll say it. I give you all that I am.”
“And I you, my precious one.”
****
Tears ran down her cheeks as the ghost seemed to fade away. For a moment nothing physical mattered, so enraptured by the sense of ultimate satisfaction and unity that radiated in the air in the wake of the spirit’s exit.
Then, like some great wave that would pull her out into the ocean with its fury, the passion returned.
Her gaze snapped to Gavin, still buried deep inside her and focused intently on her face. “Are you okay?" He was whispering, as if afraid to be overheard.
Arching her hips with what little motion was left to her and clutching at his cock with the walls of her aching pussy, she growled back, “Better than fine. Finish it. I need you inside me.”
Ignoring her, his attention strayed to her breasts, offered up like some pagan feast for his consumption. “The clamps…”
She worried, for a moment that he was disgusted somehow by the ghost’s choice of lovemaking although she found she kind of liked it rough. Instead, he removed one clamp and when she squeaked and then moaned, his grin told her he found it as erotic as she had. “Fuck. It’s like all the blood rushed back to—”
His lips covering the now overly sensitive nub had her crying out, her words swept away by the orgasm that shattered through her.
Like jagged glass, her every nerve felt energized, ready. Even with the release, she wanted more. He removed the second clamp and immediately caught the nipple in his teeth, tugging at the flesh at the same time as he drove back inside her.
The restrictions on her hands left her helpless to him, open in a way she’d never dared before. As he began a slow in and out motion of his hips, pivoting them in an almost wave at the peak of his thrust, she couldn’t do more than moan.
“Missed you. Missed you so much. So sorry, Heather. So very damn sorry.” His words, almost choked out, seemed to come in a torrent, ripped from his chest and she lifted her head to meet his mouth to stop them. The kiss seared her. Tongues tangled and he sped up his fevered thrusting, driving them both up…up.
She broke the kiss to scream when the next orgasm ripped through her, burning off all the old fears and leaving her shaking in its wake.
“I love you,” she whispered. The three words never meant so much. They held in them all the I’m sorries, the hurt feelings, the missed moments like this and begged for more time, however she could have him.
“I love you, too.” He buried his face in her hair, holding her close.
After a moment of remembering how to breathe, he chuckled and rolled to the side.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I have one question for you.”
“Yeah?” He began to untie her, still seeming to choke back laughter. Once he’d freed her, he tugged her onto his chest and just grinned at her, only pausing to peck her nose with a platonic kiss.
“Still want your money back?”
She laughed with him but then smiled slowly, meeting his loving gaze. “Um…well…”
“Really?” he demanded.
“There are a lot of toys in that box and we still have hours until dawn.”
His gaze heated immediately and his hold on her no longer seemed jovial. Passion snapped back to life, hair-trigger fast and she reveled in the fact she could share it with him again.
“Before the box…Garrett.”
She hushed him, pressing her hand to his face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung him on you like that. I won’t—”
“Dammit, Heather, let me talk.” He didn’t look mad. She stared at him, waiting. “If my brother has something to say, tell me. I won’t doubt you again.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry I doubted you before.”
“I expected it, to be honest. Like Garrett said that night, you had to have faith. If you didn’t know he was there, sense him with you, me telling you he watched over you wasn’t going to change anything.” She shrugged, and hid her face from him.
He didn’t allow it, turning her to meet his gaze. “Is Garrett here now?”
She gnawed her bottom lip and traced circles on his chest with a fingertip, smiling at the comfort level communication gave her. He was listening and not freaking out. This might work this time around… “I get the sense that he is but he won’t come in this room. I don’t know if it’s because this was Henry and Louisa’s space or what. Maybe we could just be alone, you and me, for awhile.”
Catching her lips with another searing kiss, he then rested his forehead on hers. “Maybe a little alone time is a great idea. Especially since we’ve hardly begun to explore the secrets of that box.”
Touching his face, she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do.
The End
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Other Books by Virginia Nelson:
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Hunting for Love Page 3