The Water Nymph (22 page)

Crispin put the manuscript down and cast his eyes around again. Then he began to laugh. No wonder he had begun hearing his father’s voice as they descended. The man was probably haunting the place desperate to ensure that his secret not be found out. Dear Hugo, perfect, polite Hugo, Hugo to whom no door had been closed, nor any pair of soft peachy thighs, Hugo whom everyone adored, Hugo that spouter of wise adages, Hugo that model of gentlemanly comportment, Hugo—his father, the man he would never be—had been a jewel thief. What could possibly be better?

And what would The Aunts say? As Crispin had that thought, the voices in his head began to jangle more loudly, warning Crispin to leave, berating him for probing secrets that were not his, for risking the family honor. In a flash Crispin saw that his father had been as subjugated by The Aunts as he was, that “your father, our brother, dear Hugo,” had been routed just as much, if not more than, his son. The horrible statue on Hugo’s desk had been the means of his escape, his relief.

His fulfillment. Feeling a new affection for his father, and also a new pity, Crispin opened his arms wide and addressed the room.

“Do not worry, Father,” he said aloud. “I won’t tell The Aunts.” And as if by magic, his thoughts fell silent.

At peace again, Crispin turned to look at Sophie, but her back was to him. After inhaling half the asparagus and all the cherries, she had blown the dust off a ruby tiara and was settling it atop her red mane. As Crispin watched, she hooked a pair of dangling ruby earrings through her ears and clasped a matching choker behind her neck. Then she let the red-and-gold silk robe slip from her shoulders and turned to face him, completely naked.

She was a goddess, an empress, a divinity come to earth, a siren, a sorceress, she was incredible and inexplicably beautiful. Crispin wanted to touch her, just let his fingers move near her skin, to assure himself that she was real, that she was there. She defied Crispin’s imagination, defied his capacity to understand or believe. Awash with rubies, she glittered and shone from every angle, stirring his deepest depths.

Crispin’s eyes glowed as he approached her, glowed with awe and wonder. They touched, still at a distance, then moved closer to one another, then closer. With each step Crispin shed another layer of his clothing, so that finally there was nothing between them but their skin. They pressed against the length of one another, pressing together, their eyes locked. Food was completely forgotten.

Crispin spread the silk robe over the wooden floor, and they lay atop it, Sophie on her back, Crispin alongside her. Reaching out a hand he found a ruby necklace, two large stones on a fine gold chain, and dangled it over Sophie’s body. He moved the rubies like a pendulum over her breasts, then down her stomach, into the cleft between her legs.

The red stones rested amid the red curls there until he gently pushed them down further. Sophie arched up as her aroused nub was deliciously sandwiched between the gems, and moaned as the gold chain followed them. Crispin carefully made the chain taut and pulled it back and forth on either side of her nub and below, rubbing it over the soft petals there, letting the rubies press into her, framing her tender place like a jewel in a golden setting. He shifted slightly so she could see into the mirrors alongside and behind them, so she could watch his fingers, watch the gems, watch herself in her pleasure.

The feel of the gemstone between her legs, inside her, while the chain played over her nub made Sophie begin to tremble, but it was when she saw and felt Crispin add the pressure of his finger to the chain that she neared her threshold. She called out his name as he moved his fingers faster, moaned it out as he pressed the gemstones into her, and breathed it out as he followed the stones with a finger, slipping it smoothly between her wet folds. In the mirror Sophie could see his fingers working over her, dancing over her, the rubies appearing and disappearing between the wet folds of her body. She saw him push her nub with his thumb while sliding his middle finger into her, saw him lower his head over her slowly, saw his tongue, pointed, teasing her, watched it dart between the folds, following the rubies, looked at his golden head between her legs as he suckled her, then watched him rub her with four fingertips, and she exploded. Her climax crashed over his fingers, pulsing and throbbing around him, around the rubies, and her laughter whistled in his ears.

It had not died down when she reached her hand out for his shaft. She needed to feel him inside of her, feel their bodies together. “Crispin, make love to me.”

The words sounded different, tasted different, as Crispin kissed them off her lips, ambrosial words. He slid the ruby necklace from between their bodies, from between her legs, and felt Sophie shudder. Her cherry-flavored lips trembled under his as they kissed lightly, once, twice, once again. Their mouths parted then, gone exploring, moving across smooth skin, over soft hair, along necks, finding each other briefly and then separating to go on their individual expeditions joined by tongues, teeth, hands, feet. They drank each other in, savoring tastes and textures and smells, lapping at one another’s delicacies. Soon their bodies were pressuring them for more, to deepen the kiss, complete it.

Crispin rolled onto his back and bent his knees to make a throne for Sophie as she raised herself and guided him inside her passage, still tight and wet from her climax. She leaned back against his legs, aware of every place his thighs touched her back, of the way her bottom pressed into them, while his member pressed into her. For a time neither of them moved or spoke or breathed, too busy memorizing the feel of their bodies together, of this new kiss, too busy looking into one another’s eyes. Never letting Crispin slip from inside her, Sophie lay down on top of him.

Their mouths touched, lips pressed against lips, and Sophie felt Crispin bucking within her of his own accord. It was then that the kiss changed, became more insistent, more fiery. Sophie began to rotate her hips in slow wide circles, letting him slide in and out of her as she danced around him. She straightened her arms and pushed her body up over him, lifting her mouth from his so her breasts could caress his chest with her movements, and her eyes could whisper her desires to him.

His eyes stayed on hers as he raised his head and took one soft pink nipple between his lips. He just barely touched it, then moved to the other, letting his lips, chapped from kissing, taste each first, fleetingly. Chapped lips parted then, sucking the softest, supplest skin on her body into his mouth, letting her nipples feel the warm wetness of his tongue. He rolled first one and then the other around in his mouth until they became firm and erect, until she moaned once, then again, louder.

Sophie felt his lips on her nipples everywhere. Every pull of his mouth, every skim of his teeth, spiraled through her body, bouncing off first one place then another, leaving points of heat and tenderness in its wake. When she moved to let him slide out of her, her bottom was caressed by his thighs. When she arched to take him back in, her hips grazed his, her breasts skimmed over his chest. Her feet touched his feet, wrapped around their ankles, were raised by them so she could take him in farther. Soon every part of her skin was alight, sensitive to the merest caress of his lips, responding to every thrust, every glide, every motion of their bodies.

Crispin reached his arms up and pulled her back to his chest, rubbing himself into her, covering her lips with his again. Her legs were bent on either side of him so that she could lift herself off of him, pull him far out of her and then slide back down over him, all the way to the base, pressing him into her as hard as he would go. He reached his hands down to stroke her, having learned that her climaxes were even more resonant that way, and she responded instantly, quickening her pace, breathing faster, deeper. The way the tips of Crispin’s fingers brushed over her most sensitive place, the way that place felt when it was rubbed against him, when he thrust himself up to meet her, grinding himself and his hips against her, touching her with his entire body, immersing within her his entire length, made Sophie feel dizzy, alight, alive.

The light of the lantern shimmered in the thousands of gemstones that surrounded them, refracting their color and fire off the mirrors, filling the room with shards of color that moved and flickered each time they breathed. A hundred small rainbows danced over Crispin’s chest, across Sophie’s cheeks, along his arms, around her neck, and spilled down her back. The light slid over them, slid inside them, bathing them in its rainbow prisms, filling them with its hot power, melding them together.

Their lovemaking shined that night, rainbows danced from the places their bodies met, exploded from their fingertips, flashed from their lips, wrapped around them, and held them in their warmth. The glittering gems tumbled over them, falling from the shelves to join them, to sanctify them with their brilliant light, to give them their blessing, the blessing of a jewel thief. The stones wrapped their colors around the lovers, binding them together, glowing and ecstatic.

Sophie grasped Crispin’s hand, holding on to him as tightly as she could, and Crispin felt himself soaring. She took him places he had never been, never even imagined. His body trembled with happiness at her proximity, with wonder at the immense joy she inspired within him, with ecstasy, and with a deep, overwhelming contentment that he had never experienced before. He gripped her hand and knew that he was holding on to the only thing he needed in the world to be happy.

Crispin felt limitless, superhuman, extraordinarily happy, and extraordinarily grateful. The woman next to him had given him more than he ever dared ask, more than he had known how to ask, had given him himself.

“Thank you, Sophie,” he whispered, pressing their joined hands to his lips and looking directly into her eyes as together they climbed toward their release. Crispin had never felt so free, so vulnerable, so completely alive. He plunged into her and felt like he was tumbling off a cliff, floating and spinning and falling and flying at once, until he could contain himself no longer, and shouting her name and laughing and clutching her hand, he exploded into a pounding climax unlike anything he had dreamt of. Sophie’s laughter mingled with his, shaking the foundation of Sandal Hall, shooting out of the chimneys, bouncing off the roof tiles, rising up to soar past the sun, past the moon, into the stars, and up and up and up.

Afterward, when their laughter had died down, they held each other solemnly, religiously, and so tenderly. Although they could not both have known that the unravelable knot they had just tied was about to be ripped crudely apart, they held each other as if they sensed its peril.

They lay together quietly, half dozing, their bodies always touching, their hands clasped, their hearts still pounding. After a time, Crispin raised his head and balanced it on one hand to watch Sophie. He dipped down, kissing her lightly on the nose, and was disappointed when she did not stir. There was something that he needed to do, and soon. But first there was something he had to ask her.

He dipped down again, this time kissing her eyelid. Still nothing.

“Sophie,” he whispered. “Sophie, are you sleeping?”

Nothing.

“Sophie.” He nudged at her with his body, then ran his toes up the back of her calf. “Sophie, can you hear me?”

Getting no response, he sat up.

“Sophie.” He stared down at her, his face only an inch from hers. “Sophie?” He reached out a finger and poked her arm. “Sophie, are you awake?” Not even a twitch.

He drew back from her and said in his normal voice, “I know you are not sleeping. I can tell. Open your eyes. This minute. Before I count to three. One. Two. Th—”

“What happens if I don’t?” Sophie asked, her eyes still closed.

“Bad things. You won’t like them. Open your eyes.”

Sophie wrinkled her nose, took a long, long stretch, planted a kiss on the back of Crispin’s hand, then slowly raised her eyelids. “Lord Sandal, you really are a most charming companion. First you starve me. Then you will not let me sleep. Then you threaten me. I feel like I am in training to go to war against the Spanish fleet.”

“I have to ask you something,” Crispin said without remorse for his army-camp tactics.

“Oh, good. Now there will be an interrogation.” Sophie slithered slightly to prop her head on Crispin’s knee and wrapped his arm around herself. She looked up at him, trying to be serious but unable to repress a smile. “I am ready, Admiral.”

All at once, Crispin found that he was not. It had seemed so simple, so easy, just a few moments before when he had settled on it. But now the words seemed to have grown large and furry and terribly difficult to speak. He decided to change tactics.

“Sophie,” he began. “Sophie, before—after—when at first—”

Sophie, a bemused expression on her face, sat up to face him. “Is this a riddle? Because if it is one of those complicated ones, I might need paper.”

“It is not a riddle,” Crispin said seriously. “And it is not a joke.”

“It sounded like a joke.”

“Sophie, do you mean it?”

“Not if you don’t want me to. If you don’t want it to be a joke, it doesn’t have to be.”

“That is not what I am talking about, and you know it.” Crispin looked stern. “Sophie—” he began again, awkwardly.

“Yes, Crispin?”

“Did you mean it? When you said it? That—” He looked simultaneously so much like a little boy of ten and so much like a deeply pained man of eighty that Sophie took pity on him.

“Did I mean it when I said that I loved you?” she asked.

“Yes. Exactly. That is my question.” Crispin spoke quickly because he was holding his breath.

Sophie reached out her free hand for his cheek. “I meant it. I mean it. Against all my better judgment, I love you, Crispin Foscari.”

Crispin inhaled deeply, three times, then frowned, withdrawing his hand from her grasp. “Against your better judgment? Why? What is wrong with me?”

“Please, Crispin, it is better to leave it.”

“Leave it?” The frown deepened. “I want to know.”