Chapter Twenty-Three #3
And so this time he screamed, yanking his mouth from hers, lifting his upper body in a complete arc, and doing the sound for her, only he made it lower and deeper, resembling a groan that gained in volume to her own ears.
Lisle moved her hands to his throat, held to the thick cords there, as he sent the cry to the rafters and waited for it to come back down.
The drumbeat was still there; harder, thicker, and stronger.
It was in his heartbeat against hers. It was in the trembling of his frame to hers.
It was in the sound of lungs sucking in air and releasing it.
It was in the sound of everything about them.
He was probably right about this love thing, too, but she wasn’t going to let him know of it that easily.
He rolled to his side, the movement separating them, and then he was on his back and staring without blinking up at the beams intersecting the ceiling.
“Langston?” she whispered.
“I’m afraid you’re a bruadair—a dream,” he replied.
She lifted onto an elbow to look over at him. “I am nae dream. You ken?” Her voice came out in a whisper of sound that hurt her throat. She frowned a bit at that.
“You must be. For a man to experience this, he would have to be in heaven. I’m na’ in heaven, therefore you are na’ real.”
Lisle giggled. That didn’t hurt her throat. Then, she reached over and traced along his ribcage until she got to the wound that was starting to seep a little.
“You’ve opened your wound,” she whispered.
“What wound?” he asked, and put the little frown line in his forehead into existence with the question.
“The one you have here.” She touched along his shoulder.
“Oh. That one.”
“Does it pain?”
“There isn’t a portion of my body that feels pain, love,” he replied.
“Must you lie all the time?” Lisle went to a sitting position, and shoved all the wet, cold garments all about her legs as she did so, where they started warming.
“I doona’ lie at the moment. I swear it.”
“Then…explain.”
“I have naught but happiness and joy and life and love flowing all over me at present, Lisle love. That is what is so unreal about you…about this. I canna’ feel pain. Anywhere. I swear it. I vow it.”
“Oh. That’s better, then.”
He snorted, and turned his head. Their eyes locked. Lisle’s heart fell in a swoop of movement, to land in the lowest echelons of her belly where it started pounding everything that was real through every part of her.
“You swear you’re real?” he asked in such a low tone she had to move forward to hear it.
She nodded.
“And this is real?”
“What…this?” she asked.
His eyebrows went up and down several times. Then, he was running his right hand over his chest, his belly, under the shirt ends that had miraculously stayed fastened, and growling before he brought it back out. “This. Life. You…me. This.”
“Oh. That.” She shrugged. “’Tis real enough, I suppose.”
He reached out to flick her nose. “You are a horrendous liar, Mistress Monteith,” he announced.
“I am not!”
“Tell me you doona’ love me.”
Lisle looked at him as evenly as possible, and made her face as expressionless as possible. “I doona’ love you,” she said, although her voice warbled.
“Then I shall try harder.”
“This is trying?” she asked.
“Nae. This.” He pointed to her, then back at himself, and did it several times. “This…between us…is love. Real. Love. And it’s ours. I’ll just have to try harder to get you to see it.”
“How do you propose to do that?” she asked.
“By taking you on a honeymoon, of course.”
Lisle’s ears heard it, but nothing else did. She was gazing into those beautiful eyes, watching the little crinkles about them that came into being when he teased or grinned, or all-out laughed, and not much else occurred to her.
“A—a…honey…moon?” she queried.
“Aye. To Paris. You need a wardrobe.”
Lisle stared. “I am gaining a wardrobe.”
“You need seamstresses with more use of wire.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your clothing rips too easily. It’s in disgraceful condition. We need more sturdy fabrics, and we’ll need to start using wire for thread.”
Lisle reached out and smacked him on that beautiful, rippled abdomen, and nothing even bounced. Then, her fingers opened from the fist they were in and started running over the lumps and bumps and sinews of him that all appeared to be rippling just for her.
“Are you trying to start something again, Mistress?” he asked.
She looked up at him, and kept her face as emotionless as possible. “I am checking for further injury. I need to do this before I assist you with your bath. That is what I’m here for, you ken?”
“This is what you call assisting me?”
“Oh. Aye. I do it rather well, doona’ I?”
“You’re wicked.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I do try to please.”
“And you’ll do the same again?”
In answer, she moved her hand from him and started unbuttoning her own dress. Then, she flicked her tongue out over her upper lip. He pulsed along the floor with the movement.
“But, of course, monsieur,” she replied in French. “I shall need to be dressed more appropriately the next time. I dinna’ know you required a personal assist in your water, but I am learning.”
That got her a growl, and his complete attention.