“Let me,” he said, and pulled the teddy
downward in rough haste. He had barely removed it before he was on
top of her, his mouth searing hers, one hand in her hair, the other
holding her face still for his kiss, and all his weight on her,
fastening her to the earth. The ache that had been growing inside
her suddenly became an all-consuming need. Caught in a delirious
surge of passion, she shifted her legs, allowing him to fit between
her thighs. In one swift, determined thrust he was inside her,
where she wanted him to be, and her clamoring emptiness was filled.
She clutched at him, raking her nails across his back in her urgent
desire to be closer, ever closer to him, to make herself one with
him. It was a hard and fierce joining, and a brief one, for their
mutual climax was almost instantaneous and it caught her like a
whirlwind, tearing thought from her mind and breath from her lungs.
She heard a woman scream and a man cry out, and then she knew
nothing except her body’s violent throbbing.
When she again became aware of her
surroundings, Theu was stroking her breasts, which were still
covered by her bra, for he had not given her time to remove it.
“This gossamer fabric is like cobwebs,” he
whispered, setting his tongue against one nipple. India squirmed in
pleasure. Seeing her reaction, he transferred his attention to her
other breast.
“This can’t be happening again,” she moaned.
“Not so soon.”
“Why not, if we want it to happen? I wish we
had loved more often. It’s my only regret about our time together.
So many days I have ridden southward with you, watching you while
my desire for you grew and grew, wondering if we would come
together again or if you would disappear forever. Now we have so
little time left before I have to leave you. For this afternoon we
will enjoy each other without waiting, and without concern for how
often. Nor will I ever repent what we do. I love you too well to
feel guilt.”
“In that case …” Boldly she touched him,
delighting in his immediate response and in the pleasure he
displayed at her actions.
“You are like wine in my veins,” he said. “I
am drunk on you. I reel with happiness each time you accept me into
your lovely body. But I would not have you think I am only a rough
warrior. I can be gentle.”
“I have no objection to your fierceness,” she
murmured, acknowledging a renewed sensation of aching emptiness as
his hands and his mouth began to arouse her to fever pitch. She
reciprocated his every caress, growing more and more shameless in
what she did to him, until he begged her to stop lest he lose all
control. Obeying his harsh whisper, she lay back on his cloak and
let him do with her what he would.
She thought he would never stop stroking or
kissing her, thought she would die of wanting him inside her, and
believed he would burst from his need of her, before slowly,
tenderly, he entered her once more. Then, with infinite care and
patience, he showed her what his kind of gentleness meant, and she
wept with the beauty of it and gave him all of her heart without
reservation.
“I love you,” she whispered, tears upon her
cheeks.
“I have longed to hear you say it,” he
replied, “for though I once swore never to love again, you have
conquered my heart. Know now the proof of my love.” His mouth
covered hers, he moved still deeper into her, and together they
dissolved into a long, breathless kiss.
“I will love you forever,” he whispered.
“Forever.”
She lay beside him with the sun shining down
upon them, a soft golden warmth on her closed lids. He was
sleeping. She could hear his peaceful breathing. They had eaten and
talked and slept. She knew he would waken soon and love her
again.
She was completely relaxed, her body
pleasured beyond anything she had imagined possible in her earlier
life. The physical component of the love between herself and Theu
was so strong and so explosive that at times it overwhelmed her.
Yet even during the height of their passion there was always
something more than the joining of two bodies. There was a
spiritual joining, too, a combining of their souls and hearts in
which each took what was needed, each gave completely to the other,
and both emerged stronger and more firmly bound together. Fierce
and gentle, valiant warrior and tender lover, staunch friend and
loyal follower of his king, Theu was all she could ever want in a
man. She felt him move beside her and knew he was watching her.
“Lying naked in the sun, you will burn your
fair skin,” he warned.
“It’s your back that will be burned,” she
teased, not opening her eyes just yet. “You have been sheltering me
all afternoon.”
“I would shelter you for the rest of your
life if I could.” His lips touched her eyelids, each in turn, then
her cheeks, and finally her lips. She raised languid arms to
encircle his shoulders, not because she feared he would draw away,
for she knew he would not, but because she wanted to touch him, to
caress and hold him, as evidence of her love.
“I will love you once more,” he whispered,
nibbling at her earlobe, “and then we ought to leave. It will be
dark before long, and the path down this hill will be difficult for
the horses.”
“Does that mean you have brought other women
here? Is that how you discovered the tricky path?”
“What an insult!” That he was not insulted at
all she could tell from his laugh. In an abrupt movement, he broke
from her embrace to straddle her, holding her wrists at either side
of her head. He lowered himself slowly, trying to look angry and
not succeeding because of the love in his eyes. “I rode this way
yesterday, seeking a safe place to bring you. That is why I know
the path.” His mouth was by now only a fraction of an inch away
from hers.
“We do seem to spend a fair amount of time
making love in the open air,” she said, longing for his kiss. Her
lips parted, she looked straight into his silvery eyes.
“There is no place more private than the
out-of-doors. I love to watch the sun on your face and your hair,
and it turns your eyes to amber-gold. My love.” His lips touched
hers lightly, stirring warmth and deep tenderness in her. Her mouth
was still open, so his tongue slid into her, touching her own
tongue with silky heat. Between them, where their bodies were
pressed together, she felt his manhood surge into powerful hardness
yet again. He laughed softly, the sound of strong, confident
masculinity
“You have that effect on me,” he
whispered.
“As you have on me, though it doesn’t show so
obviously.”
“I can see it in your eyes. I always
can.”
This was a long, slow, highly emotional, and
ultimately tearful fusing of their separate beings into one, and
when it was over she lay exhausted and trembling, still weeping,
watching him dress and buckle on his ever-present sword.
“Come, India, we must go. The sun is near to
setting.” The golden shafts of light illuminated his face, turning
his skin to the marble translucence of a heroic statue, catching
the moisture remaining on his own lashes and making them sparkle.
She caught her breath at the beauty and the grandeur of the man she
loved. “Come, my dear girl, my beloved woman. I don’t want to go,
either, but I have obligations I cannot forget.”
She pulled on the tunic and trousers she had
worn for so many days, and stamped her feet into her boots. While
he went to release the horses from the tree where he had tied them,
she shook out and refolded his cloak. Hearing him behind her, she
turned to smile at him, standing with her back to the slowly
setting sun. He dropped the horses’ reins and came toward her.
“The sun on your hair is like rosy gold,” he
said. “How I love you.”
She leaned against him, wanting one last kiss
before they ended the perfect afternoon.
His arm was about her waist when the
peach-gold light surrounded them.
“I got her!” Hank shouted. “Stand back,
Willi. Here she comes!”
The light was so vivid that it made Willi
shut her eyes, but she could still hear the machinery humming and
throbbing.
“All right! Way to go!” But Hank’s cry of
triumph was cut short. “Oh, my God! I got somebody else too!”
Willi’s eyes flew open again. There, still
within the boundaries of the shining peach-gold globe of light,
stood India, her hair oddly longer than it had been when Willi had
seen her last just the day before, her tunic wrinkled, but she was
alive and apparently healthy. Beside her was a man unlike any man
Willi had ever seen before, a creature with such a hard toughness
about him that Willi stopped her welcoming forward motion toward
India and stood gaping as the man drew a gleaming sword and
threatened Hank with it.
“
Ahnk
!”` the man shouted and launched
into a long sentence Willi could not understand.
“Willi,” India cried, “Willi, I’m all right.
Don’t worry—”
There was a roar from the computer, a
vibration that rattled the office door, and India and the man with
the sword vanished.
“No!” Now Willi did run forward, to pound on
the computer in unbearable frustration before she turned on Hank.
He backed away from her, looking frightened. Willi raised a fist at
him. “Get her back!”
“I can’t. I keep blowing that damned – oh,
what’s the use? You wouldn’t understand.” Hank ran a hand through
his hair, leaving it more disheveled than it already was. His own
frustration at the failure of his repeated efforts in India’s
behalf boiled over into shrill anger with Willi as his target.
“You, Wilhelmina, are overly emotional and intellectually incapable
of comprehending the historic and technological significance of my
work. I have single-handedly achieved a major breakthrough
here.”
“Don’t go looking for a Nobel Prize,” she
told him sourly, “because, come tomorrow morning, I’m going to see
your job on the line unless you succeed in reversing your
experiment.”
“If you would stop screeching at me like a
banshee, maybe I could get some work done,” Hank shouted.
“I do not screech. I am a lady,” Willi said,
lifting her chin and drawing herself up to her full height of five
feet, three inches. “A
gentleman
told me so.”
“Ha! Not you,” Hank declared, still angry.
“You are a witch, a shrew, a termagant, a pain in the neck, and
just plain stupid, but never a lady. You are also interfering with
my work.”
Willi never had a chance to tell Hank how
unjust she thought his accusations were. Without even a knock this
time, Professor Moore entered and bore down on Hank with a fearsome
glare in his eyes and rage written all over his elderly face.
“Young Mr. Brant tells me you have a key to
my department office,” the professor said. “Hand it over, Mr.
Marsh.”
“I don’t know any Mr. Brant,” Hank
declared.
“I believe you let him into my office earlier
while I was not there.”
“Oh, him,” said Hank. “Who is he,
anyway?”
“He is the younger brother of the gentleman
who will replace me on January first,” Professor Moore responded.
Putting out his hand, he added, “The key, if you please, Mr.
Marsh.”
“Oh, all right.” Hank pulled out his key ring
and began to search for the correct key.
“You have a remarkable collection there.”
Professor Moore looked shocked. “Do you have a key for every door
in this university?”
“Not quite.” Hank gave up the history
department key. The professor frowned at it, then at him.
“I am sorry to have to say this, Mr. Marsh,
but I am going to have to report you to the head of Campus Security
first thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I want you out of
this office.”
“This isn’t your department. You have no
right,” Hank began.
“I have every right to stop dishonesty when I
encounter it,” Professor Moore responded. “I assume the
disreputable jacket on the floor is yours. Pick it up and leave at
once.”
“Wait!” Willi cried. “Professor Moore, you
don’t understand. Hank is in the middle of an important experiment.
If he stops now, he will have to begin all over again, at the
beginning, and that will cost the university a lot of money. Just
let him stay here and finish what he started. It won’t take much
longer.”
“It was my impression,” said the professor,
“that you two were not working at all. You have been in here
smooching, haven’t you?”
“Absolutely not,” Willi declared with great
feeling. “I have no desire whatsoever to ‘smooch’ Hank, er, Mr.
Marsh. I just want to help him finish his work successfully.
Please, Professor Moore, it’s terribly important.”
“You do seem dedicated.” He appeared to be
softening.
“I am,” Willi said, struggling against the
panic she felt at the prospect of Hank being stopped before he
could retrieve India. “Please, just give us until the university
workday begins tomorrow morning.”
“I ought to save university funds whenever I
can,” the professor said thoughtfully. “Very well, let the
experiment continue.” He added, with a look at Willi, “I always did
have a soft spot for a pretty girl.”
“Thank you,” Willi said. “You won’t be
sorry.”
“I will still report Mr. Marsh in the
morning. Now, are you certain Mrs. Baldwin will return today? She
has been gone for a remarkably long time, and I do have that typing
waiting for her. You haven’t said where she went.”
“I expect to see her back in this office any
time now,” Willi assured him. “I will remind her about the
typing.”
“Thank you.” With a last severe look at Hank,
Professor Moore allowed Willi to see him out of the office.
“Okay, Hank,” Willi said, “you may think I’m
stupid, but I just bought you all the additional time you are going
to get. Start using it.”