Chapter 11 #4
“That’s it…only a little more now,” he breathed, as he eased another finger into her, at the same time continuing to rub in teasing circles the little pearl nestled just above, flicking and pressing with the pad of his thumb until she thought she might go senseless from the pleasure of it.
He coaxed her closer, closer to the edge of sweet oblivion—
Suddenly Alissende’s vision exploded with sparks of light, and she cried out as her body took over, tipping into the bliss of completion. The shudders of her climax rippled through her, so intense that she almost lost her hold on awareness.
When she floated back to earth, her body still quaking gently, it was to find herself cradled against Damien’s chest, the strength of his arms wound round her.
Tipping her head up, she met his gaze for an instant before he slanted his mouth across hers again with a low growl of pleasure, and the sound of his desire set her own yearning blazing anew.
There was no denying his need for her; the jutting heat of him demanded attention, and Alissende reached down to his braies to untie them, finally, wanting him as naked as she, to see his magnificence again at long last. But he caught her hand, lacing her fingers with his and effectively stopping her from exposing the lower half of his body to her gaze.
“Nay, lady,” he murmured, pulling back enough to look into her eyes. “Hold for one moment more, if you would.”
“Why—is aught amiss?”
He smiled, the look slow and so powerfully sensual that her knees would have buckled beneath her had she been standing.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “And the first is this—”
He kept his gaze locked with hers as he reached up to yank the heavy curtains closed around the bed, enveloping them in a heady cocoon of darkness that cast them both in shadow.
“Then this—” he continued on a huskier note, at last divesting himself of his braies in one fluid movement. In the next instant he startled her by pulling her up to straddle him, guiding her with the strong warmth of his hands so that her parted legs perched over his straining, hard length.
Then, taking in a deep breath and seeming to hold it, he finished on a low and utterly sensual rasp, “—and finally, this.”
With that exhalation, he thrust up and slid with one, smooth stroke deep inside her.
She released a gasping cry that was echoed by his groan, arching back with the absolute bliss of the feeling.
Lights danced before her vision, and she rocked instinctively against him after the first delicious shock had passed, overcome by the beauty of their joining, even as she realized in some distant part of her awareness that he had gone completely still.
“Ah, by all the angels and saints, Alissende,” he said with a guttural sound, clutching at her hips and trying to halt her rocking movements, “you must wait, lady, or I’ll not last. ’Tis why I pulled you atop me, hoping to withstand the pleasure a little longer, but…”
Alissende exhaled slowly, the wondrous feelings goading her to continue, so that she needed to exert all her effort in trying to fulfill his appeal for patience. She braced her hands on his chest and felt the warm play of muscles beneath her palms as they both struggled to remain still.
It was a futile effort.
He was buried deeply inside her, and it felt so good…
so good that in another moment she realized that she could not comply with his request. Nay, not if the world commanded it—though she would not deny him the joy of the same kind of explosive completion as she had known, either, given freely in all its fierce, unstoppable glory.
And so, considering that the turnabout was fair play, she gripped his shoulders and suddenly rolled sideways, breaking their connection for what she hoped would be naught but a brief instant in order to bring him up, poised over her now.
She cradled him between her legs, and his entire body shook slightly with the effort it took to maintain his control as she lifted her hips up, urging him inside her again.
“Wait no longer, Damien,” she murmured softly. “Make love to me now, in the way we’re both longing for. Fully and completely, right now…”
Even in the shadows of their bed enclosure, the delicious agony of his reaction to her command shone in his face.
With a groan, he thrust forward, rocking deeply into her once more.
And then they surrendered to the ecstasy of their lovemaking.
Alissende clung to him, matching every exquisite thrust and feeling the bliss of it building again to an unbearable, exquisite pitch…
She curled forward to Damien with the glorious tension, closing her eyes and burying her face in his neck as she pressed her lips to his salty-warm skin.
With one more perfect thrust he sent her tumbling into bliss again, and she gasped his name as she convulsed around him; a moment later she felt him stiffen and heard him cry out as he yielded to his own powerful release, filling her with the sweet warmth of his seed.
When the spasms had passed, Damien collapsed onto her.
His weight was a welcome burden, and from some dimly lit place of awareness, she felt their hearts beating in rapid, pulsing tandem.
She threaded her fingers with his and pressed a kiss to his brow, sated and complete in a way she had not felt in more than five years.
His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, though in the next moment, he shifted away from her so as not to crush her. But his arm remained draped over her waist, his hand entwined with hers.
“I am sorry I could not make it last longer, lady,” he murmured finally, his voice sounding gravelly. Spent. She smiled and raised his fingers to her lips, kissing them.
“There is no need to feel so, Damien,” she said, brushing her lips over the back of his hand now before she conceded to release it, leaving his palm splayed, warm and strong, over her belly. “It was wonderful. And it has been a long time, for both of us.”
“You have no idea.”
She tipped her face to look at him.
With her movement, he tilted his head off the bolster, opening his eyes then and meeting her gaze. “My last time, Alissende, was with you.”
“What?” The shock of hearing him say it pitched through her, making her feel wonderful and terrible all at once.
“After leaving you, I joined the Templar Brotherhood.”
“Well, of course, I know that—but I’d heard that the strict precepts of the Templar Order had fallen by the wayside over the course of time.” She gazed up now at the painted panels above the bed. “I suppose I assumed that in all this time…I just never imagined…”
Her voice trailed off, and she felt Damien shift to lie on his back as well, noticing that he took care to pull the sheet around himself as he did, to conceal the lower half of his body from her gaze.
After a moment, he said quietly, “It is true that some did not live all their vows in good faith, my brother Alex among them. But I did, Alissende. One of the oaths I took was of celibacy.” He paused before adding with a hint of awkwardness to his voice, “The precepts against self-pleasure were no less strict. I was a Templar until my arrest and interrogation by the Inquisition, and I have never taken any promise I have made lightly.”
Alissende felt the power behind both that statement and the man who had uttered it.
It took her breath away and left her feeling strangely shy.
A gentle silence settled over them, and she resisted the urge to fidget.
How should she act with him now, she wondered?
Were they to go on as if naught had happened between them?
Sweet Mother Mary, could she go on as if naught had happened?
Damien solved her dilemma by extending his arm in silent invitation to nestle close to him so that he might wrap her in his embrace.
She hesitated only for an instant before she moved in gratefully, resting her head on the warm and powerfully muscled area between his shoulder and his chest. Once again she felt a twinge of surprise at how easily they had fallen into such a familiar position with each other again, and the bittersweet pang in realizing just how much she had missed it.
“Thank you, Alissende,” he murmured after a deep sigh.
She thought she must be letting her imagination get the best of her, for she would have sworn he sounded as yearning, or perhaps even sorrowful, as he did content. Ridiculous, of course.
“You did far more than I, Damien,” she settled on saying, closing her eyes and gently stroking her hand over the expanse of his chest. She could not help but feel the scars there, and she knew without second thought that they did naught to alter his magnificence in her eyes.
“For what could I possibly deserve your thanks?”
“For accepting me as I am…and for letting me back in, in this way.”
Ah, but you never left, Damien—not for me. Do you not know that?
That question echoed in Alissende’s mind, but she was too exhausted after the astonishing progression of events these past few days to find means to voice it or anything else aloud.
Sighing in a softer echo of the sound Damien had made a few moments before, Alissende snuggled closer, listening to the slow, steady beating of his heart against her ear.
She would not think beyond this moment and the sweetness of it, she resolved, lest she dissolve into some embarrassing display of emotion; for now this would be enough.
This sense of belonging, of reconciliation with Damien, was too new, and it would be too cruel to remind herself that it would pass eventually, leaving her alone once more.
Damien tightened his powerful arm around her, his warmth comforting and wonderful.
Even this simple embrace brought with it a kind of bliss, after so many years of fruitless dreaming and regret.
And so, reveling in the beauty of it, she decided to do just what he had suggested earlier; she surrendered herself to the delicious feeling of being wrapped in his arms and eased into soft, dreamless slumber.
Damien knew the moment she yielded to sleep. He could tell by the heavier weight of her head against his shoulder, by the slower, deeper, even breaths she took.
It was almost beyond belief, what had just happened between them.
He hadn’t planned it. He hadn’t even allowed himself to think on the possibility of it as they’d retired to bed.
He had simply done it, which was as unlike him as aught he could conceive about himself—responding to the deep and instinctive longing to reach out and stroke his hand up the silken length of her back without thought, without care of the consequences.
And it had felt wonderful.
Closing his eyes, he settled back onto the bolster; her delicate scent filled his senses, and he allowed himself to believe, finally, that this was true and not just another of the hundreds of tantalizing dreams he’d known in the past. Alissende was tucked against him, cradled in his arms. He had pleasured her in one of many ways he had been hungering to do.
They had made love, by all that was holy, and she had yearned for it as much as he had, pleading in sweet, whispered urgings for him not to stop.
The memory of it wound through him, sparking the embers of his spent passion anew.
It had been like a glimpse of heaven. Too much to withstand without losing control.
She had been unbearably beautiful, writhing with the pleasure of their joining.
Ah, but he could have watched her like that for hours, had he only been able to keep them both at the edge of completion a little longer.
Her second climax, when it had come, had shaken him almost as much as it had her.
It had toppled him into his own release, brought on so powerfully not only from the exquisite sensations of their lovemaking but also from watching her face during those moments of ecstasy…
from hearing her gasp his name in her bliss.
It had been worth it. And though he did not know what this would mean for them beyond now, he knew, at least, that it had been right. He did not regret it—he wouldn’t—and it would be enough. It had to be, for he had nothing else to give.
He could provide her with his protection for these six months.
He could give her all that he was capable of feeling, and he could offer the physical release they both hungered for.
But he could not give her his heart. It was not his to give any longer, for it had been lost along the way, damaged and charred beyond recognition in the flames of bitterness, hatred, and spiritual abandonment.
He sensed in her a longing for more, though it had been she who had cast him off those years ago.
But even if her feelings had changed, and even if somewhere deep inside him he had forgiven her—even if he could find some means to earn the wealth and standing that would allow them to have a true and lasting future together—it still wouldn’t be enough.
Nay, Alissende deserved a man who was whole, unspoiled, and accepted in the bosom of the Church.
One who would not spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder to avoid rearrest and interrogation by the Inquisition.
Who could give her all those things that he was incapable of giving now.
So this bond, this understanding between them, would have to be enough for now and for the months remaining in the agreement he had made to serve as her counterfeit husband and her protector against the many kinds of darkness of the world.
The irony of it, that he, the world-damaged former Templar Knight, was being trusted to protect her against the very thing that had nearly destroyed him, almost choked him.
But as he tried to settle into sleep, he repeated in his mind what he needed to remember, knowing that he had to convince himself of its truth, lest he lead them both into certain doom.
What they shared now would be enough.
Heaven help him, it had to be.