Forever Mine

by Charlene Raddon

  In spite of his efforts to resist her, she pushed his hand away and gently stroked his straining flesh. It was heaven. It was hell. Only the hot moist honey of her body closing around him, drawing him deeper and deeper inside of her, could compare to the delight her hands gave him. He was so lost in it, he didn't notice when she changed position. When her wet tongue touched him, swirling languidly around his hardness, he almost came apart.

  Bartholomew jerked from her grasp and rolled onto his back, grateful for the coolness of the air which helped him regain the control he had so nearly lost.

  "Bartholomew?" Ariah put her hand on his damp chest. "Did I hurt you?"

  "No." His laugh came out choked. He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. "Just the opposite, I'm afraid."

  "You mean, you liked it?"

  "Of course I liked it. What fool wouldn't? But I told you what the results would be."

  "And I told you I don't care."

  Before he could stop her, she scooted down and took him in her mouth, suckling him the way he had suckled her breasts. The delicious tremors of a climax began to coil inside him. If he didn't pull away now he would be lost. Yet he couldn't. There was only one other choice.

  Taking hold of her arms, he drew her up beside him. He rolled toward her so they lay on their sides facing each other. At the merest pressure of his hand, her legs parted and he slipped into the hot, moist valley at their apex. So close. So close.

  Her legs clamped tightly about him. The increased pressure on his engorged flesh intensified the rapturous sensations he was experiencing as he thrust into that slick, wet heat. His lips pulled back over his clenched teeth as he strained to keep from taking that extra proverbial inch and burying himself inside her. In his mind, he was inside her. It was enough.

  He stiffened as a rainbow of sensation burst inside him. Lord, he had never felt anything like it. The pleasure was so intense he doubted he could survive it. But he did.

  For a lengthy time, they lay there entwined, happy both in mind and in body. Bartholomew roused himself enough to draw the cloak over them against the chill of the wind. Ariah's small sigh fanned the hair on his chest as she curled closer into his embrace.

  "What are we to do, Bartholomew?" she asked finally. "I can't marry Pritchard. It would be unfair to him, feeling as I do about you."

  He was too human not to take delight in her words, but he was also too realistic to accept them. "What will you do then, leave here? Run like your parents did, from continent to continent, until your uncle finally catches up with you and marries you off to some wealthy old man?"

  The words were too true to be anything but cruel.

  "You and Pritchard might have a better chance at happiness somewhere else," Bartholomew said tonelessly. "But you must marry him, you haven't any choice."

  He didn't say that he couldn't bear for her to marry anyone else. A better man than Pritchard Monteer might one day win her love, thereby stealing it from Bartholomew, something he could not endure. Though he couldn't speak this truth to her, neither could he deny it to himself.

  "What happened tonight can never happen again," he said. "From now on, I will be Uncle Bartholomew, nothing more—"

  "And nothing less," she finished.

  There was nothing more to be said. He cleansed her of the evidence of his passion with his handkerchief and helped her to dress. Silently they walked to the house. At the back porch, he whispered for her to go on in, that he would wait awhile, just in case. She started up the porch steps, and then hurried back for a final kiss—the last one she would likely ever have from him.

  When finally the door was closed behind her, Ariah wearily turned to the stairway. There, on the steps, stood Hester.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hester drew herself upright. "Out kind of late, aren't you?" Standing as she was on the steps above Ariah, she loomed larger than life to the nervous girl.

  "I-I thought I heard Bar . . .Mr. Noon's puffin crying, so I went out to see if it was hurt." Ariah prayed Hester had not seen her and Bartholomew together, that he would not suffer because of her impetuous act in going to him tonight.

  "And was it hurt?" Hester came down one step toward her. "Is that why you came back with my husband? I suppose you went to tell him about his precious bird?"

  Hester's face was a mask of malevolence. Ariah told herself it was only her guilt that made her see murder in the woman's cold hazel eyes. Yet she could not deny her fear.

  "Yes, I . . ." Ariah stopped herself. Any minute Bartholomew would come through the back door, unaware of their predicament and the lie she'd told to explain her being out in the middle of the night. There had to be a way to warn him. "I think he's still looking for the bird." She cocked her head as if to listen. "No, I hear him coming now."

  Ariah swung open the door. "Mr. Noon? Did you find Harlequin?"

  Bartholomew appeared on the porch, his brow furrowed as he silently asked what on earth she was doing.

  Aware of his confusion, she said, "I was telling Hester how I heard your bird crying and that you were looking for it to make certain it wasn't hurt. Did you find it?"

  His gaze moved past her into the dimly lit hall. His eyes narrowed with a wariness that made him look every bit the eagle Ariah had once dubbed him.

  "Harlequin's fine. Perhaps you heard a gull. Their cries tend to sound very forlorn."

  "Yes. Perhaps that was it." Ariah moved aside as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

  A scowl twisted Hester's thin lips as she silently greeted her husband. He could tell there would be no breakfast in the morning. Hester would plead exhaustion and keep to her bed all day, whining and demanding attention as punishment. Bartholomew cared nothing for that; he was used to her machinations. His only worry was for Ariah. Hester always took revenge on those she felt had wronged her.

  "Thank you for your concern, Miss Scott." He gave her a polite nod, making certain to keep his mouth a straight line, all emotion swept from his face for Hester's benefit. "Don't let us keep you any longer from your bed. It was kind of you to worry over my pet, but tomorrow is your wedding day and you'll want to be well rested for the festivities."

  Hester's scowl transformed into a ghastly caricature of a smile aimed at Bartholomew, though her words were for Ariah. "Yes, you should save some of your energy. My nephew is young and in the prime of manhood. You'll likely find tomorrow night even more exhausting than tonight's . . .adventure."

  Bartholomew cursed wordlessly as Ariah blanched. With a mumbled goodnight she hurried up the stairs to her room in the garret. Bartholomew hung up his coat and cap, banked the fire and put out the lamps as he headed for his own bed.

  He had expected Hester to lay into him with nasty, heated words, but she said nothing, merely watched him with her icy glare, arms crossed over her flat chest, squashing the ruffles that ran up and down the buttoned closure of her wrapper. He behaved as though all were normal, but inside, his heart thudded like nails hammered into a coffin lid. Had she seen him guide Ariah behind the shrubs? Had she waited for them to reappear, knowing what they must be doing there?

  Those moments among the salal were the most beautiful of his life. Time had stood still while the world spun on its axis. Nothing would ever be the same again. Certainly not Bartholomew.

  He climbed the stairs, went past Hester's room into the one she called her sitting room, which sat between his bedroom and Ariah's. The slap slap of Hester's slippers on the wood floor behind him informed him she had followed him. Even knowing she was there, he could not stop his gaze from going to Ariah's closed door. No light shone beneath it. No doubt she was in bed.

  What would Hester do if he went into Ariah's room, instead of his own? If the door had a lock that could keep out Hester and the rest of reality, he would be tempted to do exactly that.

  Shaking off the heaviness that suddenly overcame him, he entered his room and shut the door. At least in the privacy of his room he was spared Hester's hostility,
and he could dream of Ariah. Tomorrow she would be married, but in truth, she would be no farther out of reach then than she was at this moment. Or so he told himself as he tried to fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning—the morning of Ariah Scott's wedding day.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  In spite of his late hours, Bartholomew arose early the next morning, his sleep having been tormented by images of Ariah in Pritchard's arms, nightmares of the boy's clumsy handling of her as he took the virginity Bartholomew had so carefully, and painfully, preserved.

  Old Seamus had predicted true; it was raining, a gentle shower that drenched him thoroughly as he made his way to the pheasant's pen for the morning feeding. He rounded the corner of the barn and saw through the mist a dark hooded figure huddled before the door of the pen. A familiar figure that elevated his blood pressure and set his heart thrumming.

  Ariah looked up as he reached her side. Her face was wet with more than rain. Her eyes held horror, disbelief and pain. Then he saw the source of her grief. On the ground lay the limp, sodden body of his puffin. The tiny raisin eyes, with their black horns above, were dull and sightless, the red webbed feet loosely folded. The feathers Harlequin had kept so meticulously groomed were now matted and muddy from the rain. Bartholomew hunkered beside Ariah and tenderly lifted the bird in his hands. The head dangled limply, the neck obviously broken.

  In a heartbeat the image in Bartholomew's mind changed from a small colorful seabird to a plump domestic goose, its pure white feathers blood-splotched, the long slender neck drooping lifelessly—Midas, his childhood pet. The gander had trailed after him like a faithful dog, raiding Bartholomew's pocket for corn, protecting him, even from his own father when the man was bent on whipping him. Jacob Noon had shot the goose for its interference. Midas, the one living being whose love that young Bartholomew had never had to share, the way he'd had to share the love of his mother and siblings.

  Now Harlequin. Why must everything he loved die? His gaze met Ariah's and he remembered his casual comment to her that the puffin would be better off dead than to be domesticated. Fate—or someone—must have overheard.

  Aside from Bartholomew, Ariah was the only person who ever came to the pheasant pen. The significance of that fact was not lost on him. Anyone else might believe she had killed the bird, when in reality the act carried a subtle message that he had best stay away from her. However frightened Hester might be of her husband, she had gotten her revenge. Next time, it would be Ariah who would be the target of Hester's malignity.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  The rain had turned into a full-fledged squall by the time Reverend Ketcham and the wedding guests rode up from the bay to the station. Upstairs in her room, Ariah heard their arrival above the wail of the wind and the drumming of rain on the garret roof. The four members of Pritchard's baseball team who had accompanied Reverend and Mrs. Ketcham began shouting for the groom the moment the horses emerged from the forest. Pritchard's reply was no less boisterous or merry.

  Ariah's insides twisted with pain. Not one friend, not her father, not her mother, not a single loved one would be there to hear her say her vows.

  When she was a child her mother had often described what Ariah's wedding would be like if it were held in the ancient traditions of Demetria's Greek village. The kind of wedding Demetria should have had, instead of a rushed civil ceremony her church refused to recognize.

  The cooking would have begun the week before, with six huge wedding cakes frosted with crosses, lovers' knots, wild roses and doves, and studded with almonds for fertility. A secret pocket in Ariah's dress would have held scissors, a padlock and a comb, to protect her against the evil eye. A long black tunic with a red stripe, topped by a black satin apron embroidered in gold would have gone over the dress, and on her head, a flowered wedding kerchief with coins sewn to its corners. The whole village would have followed the wedding party to the church, singing wedding songs. Bride and groom would be crowned with rings of ribbon-looped orange blossoms. The groom would stamp on her toes to underscore his dominance, and she would spend her first night as a married woman, not with her new husband, but with her mother-in-law, to dramatize whose property she had truly become.

  Ariah gave a wan smile. She was grateful there would be no foot stomping today, but she might not have minded sleeping with Pritchard's mother tonight instead of him.

  Bartholomew appeared at her door. She gazed at him across the room, almost as pale in the glow of a single lamp as the ecru satin and lace dress she'd brought from Cincinnati.

  "Since you have no male relative to escort you down and give you away, Hester’s insisting I do it," he said.

  She blanched even paler and he gave her a grim smile.

  "Aye, she knows the irony of making me give you over to Pritchard. She sees it as particularly appropriate." He came a few steps closer and stopped, as though afraid to trust himself any nearer. "You're beautiful, little nymph."

  Ariah tried to smile, but there was no happiness inside her. Take me away, Bartholomew. Take me somewhere where we can hide and forget the rest of the world exists.

  Bartholomew closed his eyes to the entreaty plain in her eyes. She couldn't know how difficult this was for him. How desperately he wanted the same thing. One more second and he would crumble at her feet, as thoroughly destroyed as the puffin that now lay under the earth.

  "We'd best go down," she said, taking his hand.

  He started, as much from her touch as from her voice, not having heard her cross the room. He flashed a silent, loving message of gratitude for her understanding. He led her from the shadowed room. As they walked toward the small party waiting for them in the living room, she trembled and he wondered if she could feel him quiver as he fought the urge to make off with her. To give her what comfort he could, he laid his big hand over her small one, where it clutched the crook of his arm as if it were a lifeline.

  Standing next to the stern reverend, Pritchard was all teeth and glowing eyes. On the reverend’s other side stood Hester, a grim, rigid flagpole fluttering with ruffles and bows. To Bartholomew they appeared more like a gleeful firing squad than a wedding party. An appropriate image for the doom he felt in his heart.

  It took all Bartholomew's strength to force his hand to relinquish Ariah's trembling one to Pritchard. Before he could step away and take his place with Hester, Ariah gave him a tremulous smile that felt entirely too much like a final farewell, and murmured something he assumed was Greek. The reverend began the service, ending any chance he might have had to ask for a translation.

  Her voice was barely audible above the raging storm as she repeated her vows. Pritchard's came out loud, cocky, and disgustingly pleased. A hundred times Bartholomew licked his lips in preparation for halting the ceremony. A hundred times his conscience and his heart argued the rightness of letting her go through with it.

  It's me who should be marrying her, not Pritchard.

  But you're already married.

  To the wrong woman. Hester doesn't love me.

  She needs you.

  Ariah needs me. And I need her.

  You have a responsibility to Hester.

  To hell with my responsibility. Do I owe nothing to Ariah? To the woman I love?

  You are legally bound to Hester, as Ariah is now legally bound to Pritchard.

  The last words startled him from his inner debate in time to hear Ketcham announce Ariah and Pritchard man and wife. The words went through Bartholomew like a purge and left him weak and shaking. When Pritchard pasted a wet, noisy kiss on his bride's pale lips, Bartholomew had to clench his hands behind his back to keep from tearing the boy away from her. He thought he would be sick.

  The guests crowded around them to offer congratulations. Pritchard shook the reverend's hand and accepted a hug from his aunt while Mrs. Ketcham congratulated Ariah. Pritchard turned to Bartholomew and held out his hand.

  "Congratulate me, Uncle Bart. I'm a married man."

  Bartholomew stared down at the out
stretched hand. His eyes flicked up to meet Ariah's gaze over Mrs. Ketcham's plump shoulder. The virginal color of Ariah's dress magnified the blue of her magnificent eyes. Forget-me-not eyes that would never again turn violet in passion. At least, not for him. His soul shriveled inside his breast. His entire life did not pass before his eyes —only ten special days spent in a cabin on the Trask River Road—but he felt suddenly dead, certain nothing would, or could, arouse him to pleasure again.

  "Aren't you gonna shake Pritchard's hand, Bartholomew?"

  Hester's voice held amusement and he cursed himself for allowing enough of his emotions to show to entertain the woman. Forcing a smile he took Pritchard's hand.

  "Of course," Hester added maliciously, "you'll want to kiss the bride, too."

  He couldn't. One touch and he would snatch her up in his arms and flee.

  As though understanding what he was feeling and wanting to help, or perhaps feeling the same trepidation herself, Ariah stepped into the arms of one of Pritchard's baseball cronies. Nothing would do then but that the others take their turn and Bartholomew was saved.

  Someone opened a bottle of wine, glasses were filled and a toast proposed. Pritchard, hanging onto Ariah like a barnacle, was chided and teased unmercifully. "Don't let him throw you any curve balls, ma'am," one of his friends told Ariah with a lewd wink. "Hey, Prit, you sure you know how to find home base?"

  Bartholomew bent to sniff a bouquet of flowers Anna Ketcham had brought, hiding his outrage and frustration in the sweet petals. Pritchard was urging his chums on their way "so they wouldn't miss the tide." Knowing he was only trying to get rid of them so he could get on with his wedding night, their jokes became even more bawdy.

  "Try-outs start in a couple of days, Prit, so take good care of that bat of yours."

  "That'll be Mrs. Monteer's job now."

  "Yeah, stroke it real easy now, ma'am."

  The entire scene ate at Bartholomew's innards with the tenacity of tannic acid. He was contemplating knocking the eagerness from his nephew's face, as well as the proprietary arm around Ariah's waist, when he caught Hester's smug, knowing glance.