With Dreams Only of You

by Kathryn Le Veque, Suzan Tisdale, Eliza Knight, Cynthia Wright, Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon

  “Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.”

  Breasts were meant to feed a child, and yet he’d kissed them before, and she’d liked it. He was kissing them again, tongue swirling over her puckered nipple until her back arched, and she tugged at his hair. Whimpers escaped her lips. She was flushed red, hot and shivering.

  Sebastien kissed his way to her belly as he tugged the fabric of her shift up over her legs, exposing the heat of her sex to the room. She shuddered again, trembling with a need for more and worry over whether she’d please him.

  “Sit up,” he urged gently, tugging at her arms.

  When she did his bidding, he pulled the remainder of her shift off and tossed it to the floor, then he pulled her against him, her breasts crushed to his chest. Both of them let out groans at the contact.

  This was wicked, sinful, but so amazing.

  “Sebastien…” she crooned. “I love you.”

  “Oh, Max, I love you so much.”

  His mouth pressed to hers once more, tongue dancing inside her mouth while his fingers trailed a path over her thighs to brush against her curls. She jolted in his arms.

  “Trust me, love,” he said. “I’m going to touch you and then I want you to touch me.”

  Max nodded, letting her thighs fall open. Her husband fluttered his fingers through her curls, over her folds, causing frissons of heated pleasure to roll over her. Then he touched a place that sparked, and she gasped, moaned, bucked her hips.

  “That’s it, love,” he whispered against her ear. “That feels good, does it not?”

  “Yes,” she managed to say through a moan as he continued to caress her. When he dipped a finger inside her, she emitted a cry.

  His mouth crashed over hers, tongue mimicking what his fingers did to her nether parts, and then something happened. The pressure inside her core built to a point where she could no longer breathe, no longer think, only feel, and then she was breaking. Shattering into pieces as intense pleasure took hold, tossing her into the windstorm.

  “Oh!” she cried out. “Sebastien…”

  His forehead fell to hers and his breathing was just as erratic. “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I want to watch you climax again.”

  “It was wonderful,” she said, her thighs still shaking.

  Sebastien kissed his way down her body, nipping gently at her hipbone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when his mouth hovered over her mound.

  “Trust me, love. I’m going to kiss you until you cry out once more.”

  She watched as his tongue darted out to flick against her folds, but then she fell back at the pleasure it brought. Tucking her knees up, she gripped on to the sheets as his tongue taught her a new lesson in what a man could do to a woman.

  Max moaned in pleasure with each stroke, until she did, in fact, cry out, this time the climax even more intense than it had been before. Sebastien crawled up her body, his thick length pressing hotly to where he’d just kissed.

  “Touch me.” He gripped her hand, pulling it between their two bodies until her fingers brushed his thick, hard arousal. It was silkier than she’d expected. She wrapped her fingers around him, watching his eyes fall closed. A groan of pleasure tumbled from his lips.

  “You’re so… hard,” she said. How did skin get that hard?

  “Yes,” he said. “You do this to me.”

  “It’s not always this way?”

  “Nay, love. Only when I want to make love.”

  “Oh,” she said in awe, stroking up and down his shaft and tracing the ridges at the top.

  Sebastien leaned over her, his tongue teasing her lower lip until she opened her mouth to kiss him. He gently covered her hand with his and slid the tip of his erection against her opening.

  “We’ll do this together,” he said.

  “Together?”

  “Yes. I’ll hold you holding me and we’ll guide me inside you together.”

  A fresh wave of sensation made her insides pulse. Max nodded, lifting up to kiss him again. Together, they guided his erection to her body, but when a slight pinch caused her to flinch, she paused.

  “It will hurt a little at first,” he said, his voice sounding strained, “but it will be over quickly, and then pleasure will begin anew.”

  “I trust you,” she said again. Lord, how she did.

  Slowly, he pushed, and she squeezed his shaft with her hand as the pain increased, but then he stilled.

  “You’re not in all the way,” she said.

  “I know. I…” He lifted his head and looked at the headboard, the muscle in his jaw clenching, worrying her. “It feels so good.” Then he was looking down at her. “You feel so good.”

  Relief flooded her, and she widened her legs, relaxing against the painful pinch. She gripped his arousal tightly and tugged, forcing him to drive deeper inside her, then she removed her hand and tilted her hips. A slight aching discomfort filled her as he sank in the rest of the way, but she closed her eyes to it, believing the pleasure would begin anew, as he’d said.

  Sebastien stayed still inside her, kissing her neck, her breasts. He drew her nipple into his mouth and gently sucked until she squirmed beneath him, the pain gone and that hunger sparking where their bodies had joined.

  “Are you all right?” Sebastien gazed down at her, love and concern in his eyes.

  “Never better.” Max smiled up at him and shifted her hips.

  Eyes on hers, he slowly withdrew and then slid back inside her. She dug her nails into his shoulders, crying out at the pleasure. It was powerful. Shocking. The pleasure of his fingers and mouth had been exquisite, but this… She couldn’t describe it. Only that it was infinitely better.

  Sebastien quickened his pace, his lips crashing onto hers. She tugged her legs up at his urging and he slid deeper inside her. His pace quickened until they were both swept up in pleasure. And then once more, she was trembling and gasping at the burst of decadent sensation taking hold of her.

  “Oh, Max,” her husband growled. “Your body…” And then he was shouting out as he shuddered.

  They lay still for several moments, wrapped up in each other’s arms, and then the sound of their soft breathing lulled them both into a satisfied slumber.

  * * *

  A week later…

  “What about right here?” Max offered, pointing to a spot in the center of the garden where a yew grew. “Beneath the tree?”

  Sebastien held up his torch in the darkness. “Perfect.”

  “The tree’s roots will safeguard the Gladius for a thousand years or more.”

  “Indeed, love. With the sword hidden from the world, our descendants need not worry about the curse anymore.”

  Max nodded. If there was indeed a curse—which it seemed likely there was. Sebastien had confessed of his mother’s madness, though it had all but disappeared since they’d arrived at Rayne Hall. They seemed to be lucky enough to have escaped the madness themselves. Perhaps a clue that the relics were not as powerful as legend would have them believe.

  “No one will find it here.”

  They’d waited until the servants were abed and then snuck out into the gardens to bury the Gladius. Wrapped in a thick, wool blanket and tucked inside the three-foot-long wooden box with iron hinges his father had kept the sword in, they hoped the relic would be well protected.

  “I’ll hold the torch, unless you want to see my skill at digging,” Max said.

  “You have a digging skill?” he asked.

  “Indeed. At our house in the north I used to help in the gardens often. But I confess ’twas not of my choosing, but rather punishment whenever it suited my father.”

  They’d spent the last week in bed. Between making love and eating, they’d shared their deepest secrets with one another—including how her father had blamed her most of her life for the loss of his wife, and for him, that his mother had tried to take her own life.

  “I’ll not ever punish you, Max,” Sebastien sai
d, cupping the side of her cheek and kissing her. When he pulled back, he winked, his smile teasing. “You’ll never have to dig a hole again.”

  Max laughed. “Now I know you truly love me.”

  Part Five: Heart of Fragile Stars

  By

  Cynthia Wright

  Chapter One

  July, 1749

  Château du Soleil, St. Briac-sur-Loire, France

  “If you have not yet begun to think of marriage, it’s time you did.”

  Jean-Philippe Beauvisage glanced over at his father in frank surprise. Just a moment ago, they had been strolling together in the vineyards surrounding his ancestral home, Château du Soleil. Although he was hungry, travel stained, and aching for sleep, he’d dutifully accepted his father’s invitation to walk. This abrupt statement was the last thing he’d expected.

  “Did you send an urgent summons for me to travel home from London so that you might tell me that?”

  Étienne, Marquis de St. Briac slowly turned to gaze back through narrowed eyes. “Of course not, but I will admit that it concerns your mother and me that you live as you do. You are twenty-six, mon fils. It’s time to stop wenching and pirating and come home where you belong.”

  “Pirating? You speak as if I were playing at life – like a child. I can assure you, that is not the case.” Jean-Philippe felt his own eyes harden as his barriers went up. “You raised me to make my own choices, Father, not to blindly fall in step behind you.”

  “Perhaps we are simply worried about your safety…” Étienne broke off. “Eh bien. You are right. You make your own choices. Your mother insists that hunger for the chase is in your blood. And, it is true… marriage is not the reason I asked you to come home.” He looked out over the vineyards and drew a harsh sigh. “I never thought I could feel anything but a sense of enchantment while surveying our land, but that day has come.”

  Enchantment. Jean-Philippe realized that word had always perfectly described the airy white towers of their family château and the encircling grapevine-covered hillsides that swept as far as the eye could see. It was summer, and the luminous sunshine of the Loire River Valley should have produced abundant clusters of grapes by now, but as Jean-Philippe took a closer look at the vines, he realized that the grapes were far smaller than they should have been. Even their leaves were beginning to wither.

  “This land has always given me great joy,” Étienne continued. “For three decades, your mother and I have tended the vineyards and Nature has dependably worked her miracles throughout the seasons.” His expression darkened. “Until this year.”

  Listening, Jean-Philippe wondered if he were having a bad dream. How could it be real? From the moment of his birth, this place had seemed almost too perfect, and he had rebelled against the plans his parents made for him to settle down in the family château to carry on making their estate wines. That’s what the men of this family had always done, toiling happily here since the 15th century, but Jean-Philippe could never imagine so confined a life for himself.

  “I don’t suppose it would grieve you if all the grapevines died,” Étienne muttered with a trace of suspicion. “Then you would be liberated from all our expectations.”

  “Acquit me, sir! I was on my way to an extended gambling party at Richmond House when I received word of a catastrophe from Maman. Did I not immediately call for my horse and start for France? After landing at Dieppe, Pierre and I rode all night to get here.”

  His father looked dubious. “Of course. I know that it must be a sacrifice for you to be at home rather than gaming in London, or on the quarterdeck of your pirate ship, scanning the horizon for wealthy English vessels to capture. What do they call you these days? Le Vaurien du Mer?”

  “If you mean to demean me with your words, sir, you have not succeeded. They could call me many worse things than a Sea Rogue.” Jean-Philippe stood up a bit straighter, hoping to rise an inch or two taller than the older man to emphasize his point. Secretly, he wondered if his father were a little envious of all the adventures he had enjoyed. “Now then, tell me what you have learned about the disease that is afflicting the vines. It must have a name.”

  “No one seems to have seen it before. The only person who claims to know what is happening is your mother. She insists it is a curse,” Étienne replied sardonically. He bent down and motioned to his son to look closer at the faded leaves. “Some invisible pest is putting its poison into my vines. The roots are withering, no matter how much water and sunshine they receive.”

  “Surely something can be done.”

  “Gaston, one of my winemakers, claims that he saw a similar scourge in the Americas. He prescribes the placement of a live toad under each vine, to draw the poison out.”

  “What?” Jean-Philippe exclaimed. “Now I have heard everything.”

  “Save your incredulity, mon fils. Even if I thought it would cure our problem, I can’t imagine where I would get thousands of live toads.”

  Jean-Philippe felt his stomach rumble. “We will think of something, but in the meantime, I am famished – and I promised Maman that I would help her with something in the tower storeroom before I have a bath and some sleep.”

  As the two men started down the pathway that led to the château, Étienne arched a brow and remarked, “No doubt it is connected to her curse. Brace yourself…”

  * * *

  “You are looking quite dissipated, cherie,” Danielle Beauvisage said to her only son as they climbed the tower staircase.

  “I beg you, Madame, do not mince words to save my feelings,” Jean-Philippe parried in a tone of ironic amusement. The instinct to tease her was as strong as it had ever been. “I’ve had no sleep for two days, not because I’ve been wicked, but because I was making haste to reach Château du Soleil.”

  “But you are sometimes wicked, n’est-ce pas?”

  He laughed. “Yes, perhaps, but not today. Instead, I have come home to assist you and Father with your problem.”

  “That is precisely why I have brought you to my storeroom.”

  They came into the tower room, lit by a trio of arrow-slit windows. The space was filled with crates, trunks, and even pieces of furniture Jean-Philippe had never seen before. It occurred to him then that he couldn’t remember ever entering this chamber before. “What is all this, Maman?”

  When she waved a delicate hand at the clutter, tiers of lace fluttered gracefully from her elbow-length sleeves. “These are all the possessions I brought to my marriage. In the beginning, I thought I might need them, but with your father I soon found that all my needs were met.” Inclining her head in his direction, Danielle added, “You should begin to think about marriage, you know.”

  “How can I? Long ago I realized that any match I would make would pale compared to that of my own parents. I don’t know if I could bear the disappointment.”

  “So you have told me many times,” she said tartly. “I am not worried, for love will chase you down when you least expect it. And we have a more pressing matter, do we not? A curse has fallen on our estate but you shall save us, my darling.”

  “I will?” Plucking a tufted silk chair from a corner, he sat down and stretched out his legs. “Pray enlighten me.”

  She struck a pose in the center of the circular room, bathed in shafts of sunlight. “Attend me, then, as I tell you a story, beginning with my wedding to your father.”

  “I know all about it. When you ran away to avoid an arranged marriage to the Marquis de St. Briac, a handsome stranger found you in the woods and helped you to escape. The stranger, as it turned out, was your intended, who later became my father.” Jean-Philippe gave a short laugh. “He was every bit as much un vaurien as I, it seems.”

  “Oui, Étienne was a rogue, but he loved me instantly and loves me still. And, although I never tire of that tale, it is not the one I wanted to recount to you.”

  Jean-Philippe managed to suppress a sigh. He was bone-tired and had little patience for his mother’s dramatics, but it s
eemed that there was nothing for it but to listen. He lifted both dark brows and flipped a hand up in the air, gesturing for her to proceed.

  There was a little three-legged stool on the stone floor near him and Danielle perched there, her bronze silk skirts billowing out around her on their whalebone panniers. She looked very young as she began to speak. “We were married in Paris, just days after my sixteenth birthday. There was a banquet following the ceremony, held in the grand home of Papa’s sister, Claudette de Reyne. I was so happy, truly. I remember the countless flickering candles, immense platters of delicious food –” Danielle broke off at the sight of her son’s hooded eyelids drooping slightly. “Cherie, I shall rap you with my fan if you dare to doze!”

  He blinked. “Then kindly pare your story down to its essence. I am exhausted. All I want to do is sleep.”

  “You are such a man.”

  “Agreed,” came his cool response.

  “D’accord, I shall be brief. You see, in the warmest flush of my joy, one of the guests approached me. I can still remember that I was eating a particularly delicious sweetmeat when my English cousin, Humphrey, whispered that he wished to meet with me alone to present a special gift from the Rayne branch of the family. I suggested that Étienne should be there, too, but he insisted on privacy.”

  “How odd,” Jean-Philippe remarked. “Am I about to find out why you have never wanted to visit my Rayne cousins in England?”

  “You might say so.” Danielle sighed. “I was feeling expansive with joy, so I excused myself and met Humphrey in an antechamber. Even when we were children, my cousin was not engaging, for he enjoyed disparaging the French. He liked to spit when the subject of France was mentioned! Papa told me once that he thought the English Raynes had been searching always for a mysterious treasure, but instead of riches, they received ill fortune.”

  “Maman, this is all deeply fascinating, but what is the connection to the blight on our vineyards?”

  “Humphrey’s wedding gift is the connection.” Danielle leaned over a long, shallow, wooden chest riddled with worm-holes. Using both hands, she pried the lid open. The iron hinges groaned as a musty scent permeated the air. “Here is the so-called present that I have kept hidden away for twenty-five years.”