by Gayle Wilson
“And you’re disappointed?” he asked, his tone mocking.
“You know I’m not.”
He did know. She could see that in his eyes. An arrogance that rivaled his brother’s.
In this case, with just cause, she acknowledged.
“Horses mate,” he said. “They know nothing of making love.”
And that, of course, was what Sebastian had done tonight. Through these long dark hours he had made love to her.
“If you are interested, however, in a more—”
“No,” she denied quickly.
“No?” he said, lifting his upper body so that he could look down into her eyes.
Propped on his left elbow, he cupped his right hand under the fullness of her breast. Then he lowered his head, his tongue lightly rimming the nipple until again it began to tighten and then harden, almost aching with pleasure.
She had believed her body so sated it could not possibly respond. Not as it had before. As he began to touch her, however, that same slow heat began to coil, drifting like smoke into every emptiness she had ever felt. The warmth of its tendrils curled lightly around each nerve. Caressing. Beginning once more that spiraling descent into sheer mindlessness he had created before.
His hand deserted her breast, leaving its worship to his lips and tongue. The callused palm flattened, sliding downward, its roughness slightly abrasive over the smoothness of her skin. Another sensation, one she found as sensual as his lips against her breast.
His hand continued to move. Unhurried. Seemingly without direction.
Sunburned fingers spread to encompass the small, convex rise of her stomach. There where she would carry his children, she realized.
When she did, he would touch her exactly like this. With this love. And with joy.
And to the slow seduction of those physical caresses was added the more powerful aphrodisiac of mental images. Her belly filled with his seed, growing rounder and rounder until even the spread of his long fingers could no longer enclose it. The small rosebud mouth of their child, suckling her breasts as he did now.
With that thought, the waiting tinder of her body caught spark. What was happening within it was no longer smoke, but fire.
Then, as his fingers found the destination she had known they would ultimately seek, flame began to spread like a long, slow fuse through her lower body. Flickering along each quivering nerve and then leaping like wildfire to the next, it ignited everything in its path, gradually building into an uncontrollable conflagration.
Like the Phoenix, feelings she had believed must lie dormant awakened into life. Her pulse began to race and her breathing quickened, anticipating. She, who had learned the lessons of control at the hands of cruelty, was being taught the sweetness of release at the hands of love.
She drew breath, allowing her mind to float on the hot wind that was beginning to soar within the heart of the flame. Her body writhed against the tangled sheets, not to retreat from the demanding pressure of his stroking fingers, but to seek it.
It happened more quickly this time than before.
Her body, it seemed, was learning this new and difficult art.
Or perhaps each time he carried her there, to this place she could never have imagined, her love for him grew. Like the mythical grail, it replenished itself each time something was taken from it, growing stronger and more vital with each use.
If it did, she thought, her hips arching in response to what he was doing, eventually she would die. As then, just as she wondered if this ecstasy had already reached that point, Sebastian shifted his body so that his was over hers.
In a heartbeat, his fingers were replaced by the hard strength of his erection, pushing into her with that same sure, mindless domination of the stallions she had watched as a child. No less powerful.
She flinched away as he filled her beyond the physical limits of what she was, thrusting ever deeper until he touched the very walls of her soul. Claiming them. Making them, too, his own.
This was a man who had fought countless battles. Ruthless in war and in the defense of those he loved. From the first, she had believed in his strength. In his purpose. In his promises.
And he had never disappointed her. He didn’t in this. Almost before she had time to be aware of the pain of his entry, it was only a fading echo. The reality of it, if there had been one, drowned out by the clamor of her senses.
His mouth opened over hers. His tongue mimicked the controlled lift and fall of his hips. His skin slid hot and damp over hers.
Suddenly, more quickly than before, so quickly she sensed it took him by surprise as well, her body began to arch wildly under his. Her nails scored his back, marking his body. Adding to the scars it already bore in her name.
Her last coherent thought was shock that the hoarse, inarticulate cry she heard came from her own throat. And then her consciousness, too, was consumed by the fire that had raged through her body, turning everything that had gone before—loss and grief and bitterness—to ash.
Slowly, so slowly, the shuddering eruption resolved into a trembling exhaustion, and then, after an eternity, the movement of their bodies ceased. Nerve endings flickered once and then stilled.
Their bodies joined, Sebastian lifted onto his elbows to look down again into her face. Eyes closed, she was reluctant to face him after her unbridled responses, feeling that somehow there must be something wrong with a woman taking as much pleasure in this as a man.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Only then did she open her eyes. Their lids seemed weighted, drugged with passion’s aftermath, almost too heavy to lift.
When she had, she saw that he was smiling at her. There was no shock in the blue eyes—only love and joy. And in the undisguised pleasure of his smile, she forgot whatever silly embarrassment she had felt.
This was her husband. A man who knew her body intimately. Her body and her soul, she realized.
She did not regret making those revelations. How could she? The trust they represented were as much a part of this union as the simple vows that had joined them.
“Mi corazón,” he said softly.
She was. And because—like that of her own parents—it seemed Sinclair marriages were magical, she knew she always would be his heart. Just as he, her so beloved husband, would always be hers.
“Mi corazón.”