“Oh? I hadn’t heard.”
“I thought that you and Prosser might. . . .” his voice trailed off to awkward silence. “As I said, I followed the proceedings and I saw you there, heard you speak on his behalf.”
“Oh? Oh, no.” She looked down and thought she must have blushed lightly at his suggestion. “I know he was involved, but he realized his mistake and he did save my life.” She shrugged. “There wasn’t anything more to it.”
“That’s good to hear.”
The relief in his voice made her raise her head. “Oh? Why?”
Now it was Marc’s turn to blush, which surprised her. “Well, it means you’re not seeing him and I hope that means you might not be seeing anyone. . . . special?”
“Why would you hope something like that?” she coyly inquired, suspecting she’d developed a thin streak of cruelty because she enjoyed the way this handsome man squirmed at her attitude. “I thought you said you want me to be happy.”
“I do!” he exclaimed.
“I thought you said I deserve to be happy,” she added.
“You do!” he asserted.
“Shouldn’t you hope I’ve found someone nice and stable with whom to settle down?”
“No!” he exclaimed vehemently and her eyebrows rose. “Why didn’t you take any of my calls?” he abruptly changed the subject.
“I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding.”
“About what?”
“All of that, what happened,” she said, making a small motion with her right hand. “The Wellspring business, you know. That was over and done with and I didn’t want you to think you had to—stick around.”
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me,” she interrupted. “But I think you still weren’t ready to accept that I wasn’t the Wellspring so you had—misplaced affection.”
“You are the most aggravating, stubborn, silly—”
“Silly?” she echoed with a hint of insult to her tone.
“Yes, silly,” he reiterated. “I don’t care if you are this fabled Wellspring or just an aggravating girl, I have fallen in love with you.”
She looked up at him and tears sprang to her eyes. “I wish you’d said that when I thought you were Marc Woodmont, slightly eccentric philanthropist.”
“I am Marc Wood—eccentric?”
She nodded. “Everyone says so.”
“Do they?” His expression matched his rueful tone and Yule couldn’t help bursting into tears because the expression was so familiar on the beautiful face that was so unfamiliar. “Yule, what is it? Why are you crying?” And his impossibly muscular arms were around her, holding her with such gentleness that she only wept harder.
“There might have been a ch—chance when you were just Ma—Marc, this charming, laid-back, but mostly normal guy.” Her tears were absorbed by his shirt and she was grateful he’d worn that and jeans rather than come bare-chested and in a pareo because blubbering on his naked chest would have been embarrassingly messy. “But now you’re this—this supermodel demigod guy and so far out of my league that I think there’s a law against people like me even thinking about being with people like you!” His chest moved oddly under her cheek and she heard an odd sound rumbling around inside him so she looked up questioningly and realized he was struggling to refrain from laughing! “I’m so glad you find me funny!” She struggled to escape his arms to no avail.
“Don’t you see? That’s exactly what you are,” he told her. “You’re my funny, darling girl.” He tenderly caressed her cheek. “You’re utterly ridiculous—and I love you.” Any protestations she might have voice were muffled and swept away when he bent and captured her trembling lips in his strong, sure ones. After a moment more of half-hearted struggling her arms went around his neck and her body melted against his.
In the next moment they were struggling with each other’s clothes and their own, neither able to be rid of the barriers fast enough to suit them and they laughed breathlessly at their mutual impatience, but when Yule finally faced the masculine perfection before her she felt her stomach knot with familiar self-reproach. The large hands that gently captured her face between them startled her and she looked up into his eyes.
"You’ve haunted my dreams every night since we parted ways on the roof, do you know that?" When Yule shook her head in disbelief, Marc smiled. "It's true. I'm ensnared by the spell of your eyes. It makes me want you more than anything else. If it’s magic—I can’t break the enchantment, I can’t even want to."
Marc began to lean forward and Yule knew what was coming. She knew because this was all so familiar and she tried to remember why—thought it was important somehow. She held her breath, terrified that even the faint sound of exhalation might break the man's momentum toward her, and closed her eyes as the last centimeter was crossed. Marc's lips sealing over hers.
Marc felt like torch flames and jungle sunlight. The gentleness he’d always displayed was still embodied in the powerful hands that held her face, but his kiss was pure, burning passion. His mouth moved over hers with the sharp edge of possessiveness, firm lips opening hers, demanding tongue pressing for admittance. With a moan of surrender, Yule opened to him and felt bathed in fiery radiance as he slowly lowered her to the soft moss covering the ground beside the altar.
She reached up to bury her fingers in the thick lengths of Marc’s hair. The strands were heavy and silky soft between her fingers. She sighed into his mouth as her fingers traced the delicate skin behind the man's ears then clutched at his shoulders when one of his hands slid confidently between their bodies to cup where Yule tingled. Her moan of apprehensive pleasure was muffled against Marc’s lips as his talented fingers kneaded and stroked her. The flat of his palm pressed hard, his fingers curving down to lightly tease where it was already growing damp with arousal causing Yule’s entire body to shudder.
"Marc what’s happening?" she gasped, tearing her mouth free.
“We’re making love,” he told her, his tone amused.
“I don’t mean that—I mean. . . .” What did she mean? She felt a strange duality in this moment. As if it had happened even as it was happening.
Marc wouldn’t let her escape so easily, his hot lips searing a path across her cheek and along her jaw. He kissed her frantically, as if addicted to the taste of her skin and fearful of the withdrawal he’d suffer should she vanish. Yule felt consumed by a ravenous beast and was stunned by her exhilaration. She threw back her head, inviting the man to attack the bared length of her throat, and to her delight every inch of her neck was licked and suckled.
Marc wanted her! This amazing, beautiful man wanted her so badly his entire body shook from the force of it and Yule felt powerful, high on the rush of being desired, but all it took was a flex of his fingers between Yule’s thighs to remind her how completely and utterly she wanted to surrender to the man’s desire. She was lost on the waves of uncharted emotions and Yule moaned, hungry hands sweeping boldly over the curves of Marc's firmly muscled shoulders. She traced the knobs and ridges of the man's back, smoothed her palms over the sleek chest that rippled beneath her fingers. He was hard muscle and grace, tanned skin shining like gold in the dappled sunlight. Against that nutmeg skin, Yule's natural skin, no longer spell-tanned, was strikingly pale.
"You're like the inside of an ocean washed shell," Marc breathed worshipfully, running a large palm over Yule’s right breast causing the nipple to harden. His green eyes were bright when he watched this happen, like the deepest part of the ocean. "So smooth and perfect. You're beautiful, Yule. I’ve been going crazy over how much I want you."
"Both of us can take what we want here," Yule gasped, reaching down to boldly grasp the man’s erection in her hand. He was hard and dauntingly large in her small palm and she tried not to let her apprehension show as she met his sea green eyes. "Take me, Marc. Here, in the Grove of my family, by the altar of my ancient hearth, take me."
Marc made a sound like a growl, deep in
his chest and he sat back, curving a hand around the back of Yule’s head. She hadn’t released his member and now it was aimed at her face and she knew what he wanted from her, daring her to do what she just challenged him to do. She could smell Marc's arousal like a pungent spice on the air and even though she’d never given oral sex before, except in her dream of an moonlight rendezvous with Prosser, it made her hungry and desperate for a taste of the man. Mouth watering, she hesitated only to take a breath before pulling the heavy erection between her lips, surprised by the oral exertion of reality and her memory of the beach dream.
Marc groaned like she’d punched him. It was the only sound apart from the faint hum of industrious bees working among the flowers in the fields beyond the Grove. Yule lapped experimentally at the circumcised, plum-shaped head then licked the strong flesh, tasting musk, salt, and the indefinable essence that was Marc's alone. Marc tasted of spice and secrets and she licked a pearly drop from the tip of man’s weeping erection and decided she’d never sampled anything so delicious.
Long fingers curled into her hair, guiding her head into a rhythm with which she complied, sealing her lips around the turgid flesh and sliding wetly back and forth along its length. It passed hot and slick across her tongue, the leaking tip pressing against the back of her throat with each swallow. She could feel fine tremors passing through the strong thighs upon which she braced her hands, and something whispered in the back of her mind this was a sign that Marc was getting close to orgasm. How did she know?
Suddenly, she was pushed away and briefly wondered if she’d done something wrong, but when her back crushed the moss—releasing the clean, thick smell of forest in summer—her breasts were quickly flattened by a sleek, sweating chest as Marc fairly pounced her and she knew she’d done it right. Marc's ragged breath stirred the long tendrils of hair that had fallen around Yule's face.
"Do you have any idea how amazing you look right now?" the man asked huskily. Yule shut her eyes as strong, slender fingers dragged down her spine and settled over the curve of her buttocks. A large palm massaged the firm muscle. "Your naked body sprawled wantonly in the moss like this— It makes me want to do bad things to you. Open your eyes."
“I—I can’t,” she admitted, biting her lower lip. “No one’s ever said anything like—like what you said.”
“How many people have you been naked with?”
Yule’s eyes flew open at that. “No one else—” And she broke off, blushing and trying to repress a smile when she saw the mischief in his eyes and realized he was teasing her. “I’m just—not the kind of girl that gets said to,” she finished.
“I plan to say even more, like how edible your breasts are and how I plan to lick and nibble every square inch of you then do things you’ve only read or dreamed about,” he teased further, the light of lust rising higher in his gaze. She shivered at the sensual threat and at the touch that possessed and demanded.
"Do them," Yule whispered, nerves alive with need. She arched her back, driving her belly into his ramrod stiffness. "Do all of it, do everything! I'm begging you!" And why did that sound so familiar to her? What had she forgotten? What voice was whispering—
“The Wellspring would have a sense of her true self. She would dream of her destiny, and she would recognize the Font,” Honoa’s voice returned to her.
Her legs were abruptly pushed apart, knees shoved towards her body to open her as widely as possible. She didn’t have time to feel embarrassed at the position because Marc was suddenly licking her there. She cried out, burrowing her hands into the moss as the slick wetness of the man's tongue traced trails of liquid fire around her sensitive opening then pressed between the sensitive folds. She whimpered and tried to move, wanting more, wanting less—she didn't know. Marc's strong hands tightened around her hips, holding her firmly so that she couldn’t escape the intimate invasion. Yule let her head fall back on the soft forest floor while the beating of her heart, his heart—no, some greater heart than theirs, throbbed against her forehead and filled her already whirling senses. Something wanted her to remember—what?
She moaned softly as Marc continued to lick her. Each slow, deliberate swipe of wetness made her body tremble with pleasure. And when he curled his tongue into a point and jabbed it into her drenched entrance Yule thought that she was one step closer to death—or rebirth. She squeezed her eyes shut again, unable to help it, gritting her teeth against the maddening tickling-good sensation of that tiny, concentrated invasion. She found herself involuntarily trying to push back, wanting him deeper, needing him to satisfy the ache the way only he could. When the tongue at her entrance disappeared, Yule collapsed onto the ground with a combination of relief and disappointment.
Neither of which she was allowed to endure for long.
Marc was above her again, the blunt head of his member replacing his tongue, nestling just between her outer folds. "Relax for me, love. I'm going to make you feel even better, I promise, but there might be a moment of pain."
Yule did her best, remembering the man's considerable size, but fear still squeezed her stomach as the pressure increased against her. Her thighs tried to close even as she wanted what he was doing, but her held her spread and still, hands gentle and commanding. With a harsh groan, Marc flexed his hips and pierced the tight outer ring of yielding muscle and bit through the thin membrane of her hymen. The slide inside her slick channel was easy after that. And the rhythm of the heart—what heart—grew stronger and ever louder.
Yule shuddered at the incredible sensation of stretching—of fullness. She felt taken over, breached, invaded. Her body surrendered to Marc, immediately forgetting the brief pain she expected and savoring the penetration. She pushed toward him with her hips, needing to feel the thick flesh slide within her, and when it pulsed against the confines of her inner walls she moaned.
"Do you like the feel of me inside you?" Marc asked with a raspy, barely controlled tease, his lips playing with the curve of Yule's ear.
"Yes," she managed weakly, thinking that was a silly question. "Oh, yes."
"You feel so incredible, Yule, so damned tight around me. All I want to do is bury myself deep inside you and never come out. How would you like that, love? Having me inside your beautiful body ready to—" He flexed his hips hard. "Pleasure you whenever you wanted it?"
"Oh, Goddess," Yule whimpered, pulling up fistfuls of fragrant moss. "Please, Marc—I don’t know what I want you to do, but whatever it is, do it now!" She had invoked the Goddess, why? She didn’t think it was simply a cry of ecstasy, she had a suspicion it was a true invocation—a cry to the Goddess to turn her eyes upon them and bear witness—to what?
Marc was laughing softly at her desperation. "I might have an idea. Something like this?" He pulled back until he was nearly free of her tight confines then surged forward in a smooth, commanding stroke. His erection dragged over her nub then bumped into something deep within Yule that briefly turned her vision white and sun-spotted. She cried out, arching against that explosion of electric like ecstasy. "That's where the pleasure hides," Marc murmured, his voice taking on a note of strain. "Let me show it to you again."
He began to piston into her rhythmically, slowly at first, each sure stroke striking that place inside her that had Yule writhing beneath him as if she were trying to escape the very thing for which she begged. Time and again Marc filled her only to empty her once more, like the tide rushing onto the shores of Atlantis. Atlantis! Something stirred in her memory and pulsed in the ground beneath her back. Each ebb and flow left Yule panting in an agony of need and she returned the torture the only way she knew how, tightening her inner muscles, trying to milk the hard flesh that impaled her. Marc was relentless atop her, his rhythm calculated to bring Yule to the peak of desire as slowly as possible, to draw out the moment into eternity.
Yule’s head rolled from side to side on the moss while the pulse of her home joined the throbbing in her chest and between her thighs. She instinctively ground her hips a
gainst him each time he buried himself to the hilt in her heat and she smiled in satisfaction at his gasps of pleasure.
“Oh, Goddess, I feel it!” She could feel the heartbeat of Atlantis surrounding them, seeping into her skin, and wondered if Marc felt it too. The harder Marc pumped into her, the deeper he pushed Yule into the living core of Atlantis where the source of all— All what? She didn’t know, she grit her teeth against the pressure building inside her body, suddenly frightened of what was happening.
“It’s all right, Yule, it’s all right,” she heard his ragged voice assure her as if from a distance. “I’m right here with you. Open your eyes, my love. Open them and see me.”
His love! Her green eyes snapped wide at that and she saw him smiling down at her, but only for a moment. His muscular arms slipped around her and drew her up as her sat back in a kneeling position, her thighs spread wide across his lap, length still embedded in her fiery depths.
“It’s the Heart,” she struggled to tell him as her dream rushed back to her like the wave of an incoming tide. “It’s the Heart of Atlantis! Don’t you feel it?”
“The heart of Atlantis is far away, beloved. It’s hidden deep in Shangrilonn, you can’t possibly—” But he broke off and she could see the reason in his eyes. He did hear it! He felt it too and she suddenly laughed.
“It’s everywhere, Marc! The Eye sees every magic place and the Heart beats in all magic folk in the world!”
His mouth savaged hers, calloused fingertips stroking her shoulders and the muscles alongside her spine as she strained against the forces working inside her. His lips moved to her neck, sharp teeth closing on tender skin and gently biting. She panted and dropped her head on his shoulder as the thrusts into her body grew more forceful, their rhythm irregular. Yule moaned despairingly as Marc slammed into her again and again, uncertain she could resist the urge to—scream? She didn’t know what exactly, explode maybe, but whatever it was she didn't think she could take any more. The pressure was becoming too much and—
The Wellspring Page 17