Her hands grasped his shoulders. The muscles were hard and tense and moist. She wanted to see him, but her eyes wouldn't open, so she called his name over and over in tempo with his quickening thrusts.
A second later it was as if she were finally flying. Her body soared with a pulsing ecstasy that rose from deep within her. Her body clutched the hard, thick length of him over and over while pleasure flooded her soul. It seemed as if it would never stop, and she didn't want it to, was still savoring it when her body finally quieted. Her heart lay open, floating on the wealth of love within it, love for this man who, in one elated magical moment, had shown her the other side of heaven.
He kept on moving within her, faster and deeper as if driven to touch her soul. She was sure he had, just before that wonderful soaring happened again, so fast, so strong, taking her even higher than the last time. She heard her own muffled cries and couldn't stop them, didn't even know what she'd said.
With each slick thrust into her she pulsed again and each time harder than the last. She felt the tickle of something feather-soft floating onto her skin. His touch, she thought, then realized his hands still held her bottom as he continued to drive harder and deeper.
He swore, loudly, just before he pushed once more and held himself inside her, filling her with the warmth of life, pulsing and throbbing as she had.
She clung to him then, their bodies moving as one, time not moving at all. It could have been a few minutes and it could have been a lifetime; she didn't know, and at that very second, she didn't care.
Slowly but vibrantly her senses came alive again.
She smelled roses—wonderful, sweet-scented roses. The air was filled with the sweet tangy fragrance of them. She felt a featherlike touch again on her arms and her face. She opened her eyes.
Hundreds of pink rose petals floated down from nowhere.
She stared at them, stunned, but she could say nothing because her body was still humming from the pleasure of him so buried so deep within her.
She blew a few petals away from her face and listened to their bodies. Her breath came in deep pants and so did his. It sounded so loud in the silent room. His heart beat against hers in a throbbing rhythm.
She watched the petals light upon their bodies, drifting down from the same magical place his body had taken her.
He lay resting, possessing the depths of her, their bellies pressed together. Her whole body felt damp and wet. The musky scent of them mixed with the tang of rose petals, the most bewitching fragrance she'd ever breathed. His head lay beside hers, his breathing finally slow and deep. She brushed some petals off his damp back and idly stroked him. She turned her face toward his and whispered, "Now I understand."
He groaned. "What?"
"Why we were doing this."
***
Alec felt his wife wiggle her hips beneath his.
"Now it fits," she said brightly.
It took him a moment to find his voice. "I'm not sure that's a compliment, Scottish."
"I just wanted you to know that you don't have to stop. It fits just fine now."
A million comments went through his mind, most of them cynical.
"That was very kind of you." She patted his shoulder gently.
"What?"
"Shrinking so you wouldn't hurt me."
He laughed out loud. He couldn't control that sharp foreign sound that came from his throat.
"You laughed. Oh, Alec, you
can
laugh! I'm so glad." She was quiet for a blessed minute. Then she said,
"I'm not sure what you found so amusing, but that doesn't matter. You laughed." She gave him an impish grin.
He shook his head and searched for an explanation, then laughed again at the thought of how she would react to the truth of how their bodies worked. She was watching him, trying to understand. He could tell from her silence. Then she sighed sleepily and snuggled her face into his neck.
She should be tired, he thought. She'd been talking incessantly for the last few minutes. She'd even thanked him. He remembered her yelling the word into his ear after she'd peaked the first time, then saying something about flying. After what he'd just gone through, he should have been thanking her.
He closed his eyes at the thought. The intensity of their joining made him feel like an inexperienced youth. When he looked into her face he felt things too deep to be real. Every time she smiled up at him the freedom of that smile touched a place he had thought didn't exist, and each time it was more captivating than the last. A part of him wanted to curl inside that smile of hers and stay there.
Such foolish thoughts didn't set well with him. He searched for some sense of control; he took a deep breath, and another. God . . . she smelled of roses, in the middle of winter. He'd noticed the scent earlier, but it seemed even stronger now. He wondered if she had some rose perfume on her skin and thought perhaps the exertion of their lovemaking had brought it forth.
He moved his lips to her neck, but it wasn't skin his lips touched.
It was the velvet feel of rose petals.
He raised his head and saw layer after soft layer of petals. He looked over his shoulder. His whole naked body was covered with pink flowers. He gazed back down at his wife, who looked up at him as if he had just given her every star in the sky.
Odd that he felt a sudden burst of pride at that look of hers. He should have been able to ignore it. He turned away for a moment and saw more petals on the mattress. "There are rose petals everywhere.
Pink rose petals."
"I know. Don't they smell wonderful?"
"Why?"
"Why do they smell? I'm not sure. I think—"
"Why are they everywhere?"
She was very quiet; then her face reflected something akin to guilt. "I don't know."
"It is the middle of winter. Roses do not bloom in winter. I am not a fool. Did you think to impress me by conjuring these up?"
"But I didn't! Not on purpose, anyway. They just came out of nowhere." She turned her head aside and took a deep breath. "I cannot always control my magic. 'Tis the curse of the MacQuarries." He could hear the shame in her voice when she quietly added, "I'm sorry."
He watched her fight a silent battle with her own demon and felt something that bonded them, something other than blinding sex. Without a thought, he raised his hand to trace her hairline, something he'd never done to a woman in his life. He touched her hair, brushed the petals away, then pulled the pins from it. It was little more than a rich brown knot of tangles. Slowly he unraveled it, combing it with his fingers, watching the rose petals cling to it. It was so long that when he spread it out beside them, it spilled over the edge of the mattress.
She watched him, seemingly fascinated by what he was doing.
"It's so long, Scottish. I've never seen hair so long."
"It's tangled."
He fingered it, felt the weight of it in his hands. He looked at her then, at her odd face and those deep green eyes that saw the world so differently than he did.
She saw diamonds; he saw ice. She saw fairies; he saw death. She loved life; he despised it.
He closed his eyes and blocked out all that confusion, at least for now. He opened them again and saw that her white skin was flushed and there were pink marks from his rough beard on her chin and lips and —he looked downward—on her breasts. He ran his mouth along the marks. They were the signs of his possession. She could no longer claim that she wasn't his wife, because she was. But it wasn't the power of possession that made his blood flow now; it was pride.
And at that very moment he didn't give a bloody damn about witchcraft or anything else, because he could feel his desire again, feel the tight knot of it in his groin. He rolled over, taking her with him in a shower of petals. She gasped at the sudden motion.
Above him now, surrounded by the sweet scent of roses, she gave him a curious look of innocence, a look that belonged only to her. He kissed her, ran his hand through her petaled hair, and let it spill over them. The deeper he kissed her, the more she responded, and the tighter his desire became. He could feel her hair spill down over their hips in a silky caress of pure sensation. Then she shifted, and it fell between their legs and brushed against the sensitive flesh of his stones.
He buried his tongue in her warm mouth and tasted his wife. She moved her small plush body atop his, opening her mouth wider for him. She learned quickly. He gripped her buttocks, and his hands filled with soft warm flesh and the occasional velvet texture of roses. It was the most sensuous experience of his life.
She moved her hips over the length of him, brushing his hardness with the feminine mound of downy nether hair. He moved then, edging closer to her center.
She pulled back, her eyes wide and worried. He tried to kiss her again, but she held back. "Alec."
He stopped trying to kiss her and took in her worried face. "What's wrong?"
"Can't you shrink it a wee bit?"
He lifted his mouth to her ear to hide his smile. "Don't worry, Scottish, I'll make certain it fits." And he did.
Chapter 16
Two blissful days passed during which Joy marveled at the way Alec could control and command his body, swelling and shrinking at will. It was the same command with which he did everything else. She had told him so, too. He had laughed again, once. Since then she had carried the memory of that raspy foreign sound cupped like precious fairy wishes deep within her heart.
They'd talked for hours, with her prodding, and he had told her what
London
would be like, but she couldn't believe that it was as horrid as he said—after all, this was the man who couldn't see the beauty of the snow. He had told her repeatedly what would be expected of her—which mostly boiled down to not doing anything that remotely resembled magic.
However, he did admit that he had been wrong about the contents of the trunk. He'd told her that when he was brushing her hair dry after a bath in which more water ended up on the floor than in the tub or on the two lovers within it. It seemed odd to her at the time that a duke would play lady's maid. But as he slowly drew the brush through her hair, she could see from his face he did not consider it a chore. He seemed to have some fascination with her hair, and the act soon became a prelude to being locked in deep love with her husband.
Afterward, he claimed the brush had been quite good luck, so had the man's shaving kit and an old game of draughts painted on a faded flat piece of tin. He had never played the game, but it was one of her favorites, which was why she had conjured it up along with the brush, his razor, and some other things she felt they needed. She had made a few mistakes, but he had assumed the sack of mush, the knife blade, and the incomplete deck of playing cards were more of the trunk's cast-off contents, and completely useless.
She figured what Alec didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
Now she stood in the kitchen, preparing dinner the mortal way. It was a shame that she couldn't conjure up dinner, but she knew he wouldn't swallow that. She winced . . . bad pun. She gave the inn door a quick glance, wondering how long he would be gone. He had stepped outside to bring in some more wood and feed the cow. She smiled. The Duke of Belmore feeding a cow—imagine that.
During the past few days he had not been so hard edged, so wrapped up in the illustrious Belmore name. His voice was less tense, every phrase did not sound like an order. He was more approachable; their time together not strained. It was almost as if he thought that being married to a witch wasn't so bad a thing after all.