by Lara Archer
“Come for me, darling,” John murmured. “Come, my little pagan goddess. Come, and let me watch you as you come.”
And she was helpless to resist him. At his words, at his touch, a dam seemed to break loose inside her, and waves and waves of pleasure rushed through every limb, every sensitive nerve. Her hips surged upwards, her sheath clenched and clenched around his fingers. Her head tipped back and her mouth fell open and she heard herself cry out in a voice that hardly seemed like it could be her own.
“Mary,” he was saying softly, almost reverently. “Yes, Mary. Come for me.”
And she came and came, swirls of light and pressure and sweetness cresting through her, making her eyes squeeze shut, making her all but lose consciousness of anything but the sensation of his touch.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he whispered, over and over, “yes.”
She had no idea how much time passed before she came fully to herself again, and felt the clear contours of her body once more, and the ivy twined about her wrists, and the soft cushion of pine needles beneath her back.
John was still leaning over her, on his knees, smiling at her.
“That,” he said, “was without doubt the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”
She smiled. She was too languid, too warm and soft and melted, to be embarrassed. She was stretched out naked before him, legs spread, skin flushed, but she felt no shame.
No, indeed. In fact, she was far from being done with him. She wanted more, and more, and more.
And so did he apparently. His arousal strained hard against the fall of the trousers he still wore.
He saw where her gaze was focused, and he laughed. “See what you do to me, Mary? You haven’t even touched me yet, and I’m stiff as an oak branch.”
“And what will happen if I touch you?” she asked.
He gave her a piratical smile. “I’d be only too delighted to show you, love.”
“Untie me, then.”
“Not quite yet,” he said with a dark chuckle. “I’m rather enjoying seeing you like this. Having you at my mercy.”
“John, please,” she said. “Before we go any further—”
He glanced at her face warily. “What?”
She smiled at him. “I want to see you, too. I want to see you without your clothes.”
His grin spread wide now, and without hesitation, he pulled his shirt off over his head, exposing his broad shoulders, his beautiful sculpted chest. He gleamed like diamond in the moonlight. With a wicked grin, he straightened his back, and began to work the buttons on his fall. His hard cock sprang free, bobbing against his abdomen.
He lifted himself away from her for a moment, stood to pull off the boots he still wore, to peel away his trousers. His movements were so pure, so strong, so utterly male, and when he stood there, finally naked, glorious, glistening in the moonlight, his muscles rippling, he seemed something more than simply human. He was surely partly a creature from the spirit world.
She wanted him, every inch of him.
She struggled up against the restraints at her wrists, trying to lift her head towards him. “Come closer,” she said. “I want to put my mark on you, too.”
“Your mark?”
“Like you did on my rib. With your mouth.”
John made a sound in this throat that was almost a growl. “Oh, indeed,” he said. “Bound or not, you are clearly a pirate still yourself.” He straddled her again, shifting his weight until he was leaning low over her, his palms braced against the trunk of the tree to which he’d tied her. She could feel the heat of his legs against her ribcage, the surprising softness of his skin and the crispness of his hair.
If she stretched her head, she could touch her mouth to his rock-hard abdomen.
“Make your mark, then, wench.”
With him this close, she could smell the dark musk that rose from his sex. The velvet hardness of his cock pressed against her cheek, almost as if straining for her attention.
Closing her eyes, she set her mouth to the base of his ribs and nipped and sucked at the skin there, just as he had done to hers.
He groaned now, deep and full.
She sucked harder, adding the slight pressure of her teeth, until she felt his skin strain and draw into her mouth. “There now,” she said, releasing his flesh, pleased to see a spot of darker color blooming where her lips and teeth had touched. “You’re mine now, and no one else can have you.”
He gasped. “I am yours, Mary. Truly yours.”
An almost overwhelming emotion soared through her chest at his words, more than she knew what to do with all at once. To distract them both, she darted her mouth sideways, fitting her lips around the tip of his rigid shaft. He caught his breath sharply, and his palms slipped from the tree and hit the ground hard on either side of her head.
“God, Mary,” he moaned. “You undo me.”
And he undid her as well. Her heart thundered in her chest as she took in all the sensations of being like this with him: the heat of his body above hers, the silk of the head of his cock, the warm, intoxicating scent of him, the grip of his fingers as they came against the back of her head to steady her, the pull of the ivy around her wrists. Something about it was more magical, more dreamlike even than when she had knelt before him in the morning sunlight.
They could not possibly be doing this. They could not possibly be the people called Viscount Parkhurst and Miss Wilkins, the vicar’s sister, who just minutes ago had been fully clothed and dancing in a civilized fashion on the Green with all their friends and neighbors.
And yet it was real—the most real and true and undeniable thing she had ever experienced in her life. The most purely natural. The most profound.
She opened her mouth wider to take his cock deeper, flicking her tongue around the breadth of him, round and round. In response, his fingers tightened against her scalp, tugging at her curls. She could see the muscles of his belly contract, his hips begin to flex.
She began to suckle him, drawing him in tighter with her lips and cheeks. Hard as it was to move her head, she managed to slide her mouth at least partway up and down his shaft, causing him to groan and shudder. Looking up, she could see his face above her, his mouth parting, his eyes pressed shut, as if in agony, or on the edge of ecstasy.
She could tell he was fighting hard not to thrust down her throat. Without her hands to guide him, she had to trust him not to lose control. He eased himself in and out as gently as he could, softly drawing her head towards him and away again.
It was an extraordinary intimacy, beyond anything she could have imagined. And yet a sharp, new need was building in her. She knew still greater intimacy was possible, more total joining of their bodies, and every instinct in her clamored for it.
As if he shared her thoughts, he pulled himself out of her suddenly. “Damn me, Mary—you’ll have me bursting in a moment.”
She smiled at him teasingly, surprised at her own wantonness. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“A very good thing,” he said. “But not just yet, love. I want to be inside you when it happens tonight. I—I need to be inside you. I want us to lay together, fully. I want the act to bind us together, the pagan way.”
“Oh, John....”
Something seemed to pulse through her—all the power of the earth, surging and singing through the two of them, glowing from inside their bodies, drawing them together, in tune with the night sky and the warm breeze and the gurgling creek and the song of birds and the scent of the flowers.
He knelt beside her again just long enough to untwine the ivy that had held her wrists. “No more of this for now,” he murmured. “Now I want you to feel your hands on me. I want you to put your arms around me. To welcome me inside you.”
“Yes, my love. Yes,” she said. As the last strand of ivy dropped away, she flexed her fingers. Their tips seemed more sensitive than ever; new warmth flowed through her limbs.
John stretched himself full length over her, his fingers reach
ing down between her thighs again, readying her once more, though in truth she needed no readying. She was hot and slick and open for him, her blood rioting inside her, the aching pressure in her belly so hard and urgent at her core that it could only be soothed by his touch deep, deep within her.
His abdomen came down to press against her belly, his hip bones fitting themselves against her own, his cock forceful and urgent and hot as a brand between them. And he kissed her deeply. Her hands fisted in his hair, drawing him hard against her mouth. Tongues tangled, breaths seemed to merge.
He was hot, electric, pulsing with a strange, rhythmic energy, and an answering pulse pounded within her. She pressed desperate kisses to his neck, his shoulders, his mouth. Her fingers moved down to press along the bare skin of his back, finding the ridges and grooves between his glorious muscles. He was so beautiful, so perfect—and suddenly so much a part of her, she was losing track of where her body ended and his begun. “Oh, John,” she cried out. “My John.”
He paused to brush her hair back from her forehead, to gaze deep into her eyes. “My Mary,” he said simply. “My own sweet Mary. I don’t want to be without you. Not ever again. This is what I need. This is what’s right. I want to worship your body properly.”
And with that excruciating, reverent thoroughness he had used before, he kissed and stroked her everywhere, all over again, until she was desperate for completion.
Finally, she could bear it no longer. Her body would soon melt or fly apart if she did not have him fully. “Please, John, please,” she begged him. “Come into me now. I need you now. I can’t wait...”
He let out a sigh she thought might rend him in two. And pressed himself full-length on top of her again. “Now, Mary, now...now and forever.”
And he took his hand and guided the tip of his cock to the entrance of her wet slit, pressing just the head gently against her entrance. She yearned for him, yet still felt a shock to think he was going to enter her at last, with the long, thick hardness of his cock. He pressed a bit harder, and they both groaned. Her flesh seemed to press back against him, barring his progress. It seemed she might not be able to take him in after all, after everything, and a sort of panic took her for a moment.
But he slipped his fingers in ahead of his cock, and spread her juices on his shaft. His fingers worked her flesh more fully open for him, and slowly, the length of him pressed further. And further, easing inch by inch.
She bit her lip as the pressure built suddenly, stretching her.
He thrust—a moment of quick, gasping pain—and then he slid fully into her. He held still for a few throbbing moments, letting her adjust to the size and fullness of him within her, while he kissed her gently, passionately, and found her hands with his hands, twining their fingers together, a comfort, a claim, a union.
John, she thought. This was John, John she’d known all her life, John, whom she must have loved as long as she could remember. He was fully with her now, atop her, inside her.
The two of them were together, exactly as they were always meant to be.
Such fierce, strong joy soared through her, she thought she might burst. And his eyes were on hers, full of astonishment, as if he were thinking exactly the same things about her.
And then he began to move again. Pushing deeper into her, withdrawing, pushing deep again. Setting up a rhythm that somehow she already knew, as surely as she knew her own heartbeat and the rhythm of her breath, a knowledge coming from very deep inside, older even than the trees around them, old as the moon.
She couldn’t get enough of him—his mouth, his shoulders, the silk of her curls, the hot glorious pressure of his cock moving and moving inside her. She urged her hips upward, meeting him, claiming him even as he claimed her.
Her thighs gripped his; her calves pressed themselves to his powerful buttocks.
He drove into her again and again, then stilled suddenly, gave a sort of growl, and rolled so that suddenly he was the one laying on his back, and she was above him, straddling his hips.
“What are you doing? Why did you stop?”
“I want to see you better,” he said, reaching up to stroke her cheek with one hand, even as the other hand gripped the side of her hip and urged her to keep moving up and down along his shaft. “I want to see you with the stars and sky above you. Ride me, Mary.”
Ride him? What exactly did he mean? Wasn’t he supposed to be above her, guiding everything that happened?
Could the meaning be as obvious as it sounded? Suddenly shy again, she rose up on her knees, then came down again tentatively. The sensation was different than having him thrust into her. He filled her differently, and the pressure against the sensitive place at her front was more full, more sweet. She gasped at the pleasure of it, tested it again. She liked the ability to control what was happening, and began to increase her speed, until at last she gripped his shoulders with her hands, began to ride him more vigorously, her head thrown back.
“Jesus!” he cried out. “Gods, Mary—I wish you could see yourself. So beautiful. You are Boadicea, a warrior goddess. My goddess.”
And then he could speak no more.
His breath went ragged as his hips surged up against her, as his hands gripped her by the waist, his fingers pressing into the curve of her buttocks, holding her steady as she began to fall apart.
She felt like a goddess, full of spectacular power, full of light even in the darkness of the night. And this glorious man beneath her: he was her pagan god.
She rode him and rode him, the pleasure inside her swelling and heating, until it seemed she was shimmering with sunlight just beneath the surface of her flesh, sunlight that pierced through all that was dark in her, that splintered all conscious thought, that shattered her solid self, and sent her flaring out in flashing, swirling stars.
She could not tell how far she flew, but he flew with her, all the light inside of him, the two of them wrapping about each other, coalescing, becoming one molten, scintillating gleam.
Then slowly, slowly, the solidity of their bodies returned to them. She felt the muscles of her thighs once more, aching as they pressed against him. She felt the hard bones of his shoulders beneath her palms.
They were both breathing so hard, their lungs rasped. Sweat gleamed on their skin.
And he was gazing up at her with undisguised wonder, his eyes shining as if with tears.
She collapsed against him then, nuzzling her face into his throat, and his arms came around her back and pressed her tight to his chest. She felt his pulse pound clear through her ribcage, beat for beat in sync with her own.
He pressed kisses against her ear, against the line of her hair. “God, Mary. That was—” he broke off, sighing. “I’ve...I’ve never felt anything...anything even remotely like that.”
“Nor have I.” She kissed his jawline, breathing in the scent from his throat. He was hers, hers completely. And she was his. The miracle of it all took her breath away. “I never imagined such a thing.”
He brushed back her hair with his fingers, then tipped her face up so their eyes met. “Promise me something,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Never forsake me, Mary.”
“Never,” she swore fervently. “I never could.”
Why had he even asked such a thing? Didn’t he know her by now? Didn’t he know how completely bound she was to him—how completely bound she had been, heart and soul, even before they’d come into the woods tonight?
It was as if they’d been coming to reach this place from the first time they set out roaming together as children.
And now they were finally, finally coming home.
She smiled at him. “Forever, John.”
“Forever.”
Such happiness gripped her as she never could have imagined. She could never have imagined this would be her reality—could scarcely have believed John could feel this way about her, give himself to her as eagerly as she gave herself to him. And yet, here he was in her arms,
his face alight as he gazed at her, warm as the sun. And it all felt so right, so perfectly, inevitably right.
They just stared at one another for a very long time, quiet now, and sated. The warmth of his skin against hers was a perfect balm, the sight of his wondrous face was the dearest thing in the world.
It wasn’t until an owl hooted in a pine tree above them that they realized how much time was passing, how the breeze was cooler than before, and they were lying naked on the forest floor.
“We probably ought to go back,” John said, sighing again. “People will realize we’re missing. And I haven’t exactly made an honest woman of you.”
She laughed. “A dishonest woman. That’s what you’ve made me.” But she could not think it a sin, what they’d done. And she knew now that they would marry. She wouldn’t refuse his proposal this time. Now that she knew he wasn’t with her out of obligation, somehow her other objections seemed less weighty.
She would make him happy somehow, make a viscountess out of herself, although the thought still made her stomach plunge in panic.
Though she still straddled his body, John reached out one long arm and pulled her fallen dress back towards her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make yourself respectable again, at least for a little while.”
Sighing, she lifted herself off of him and began to dress. He got reluctantly to his feet and did the same.
Subtle worries began to fill her once more as the warmth of his body left her and the heady magic of their lovemaking began to ebb away. “Thomas will surely notice soon that I’ve gone missing,” she said. “I’m not quite sure how to explain things to him. And you’ll certainly be missed by Annabel Lawton. I don’t think she understands your true intentions towards her. She scarcely took her eyes off you all—”
“We won’t speak her name, Mary. Not here. Not now. Put her out of your mind.” His voice was firm—but then his eyes twinkled. “Think only of you and me, my love. Only the two of us.”
“All right.” She smiled, but the tingle of anxiety rising through her wouldn’t go away. She whisked her hands down the front of her rumpled dress, then patted at her hair, which was a messy billow of tangles. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid I don’t stand much chance of looking respectable at this point.”