Chapter 18 #2
Tristan bent and lifted her again.
“We will find that oak.”
We argue. He despises my family and probably wishes harm on my brother, but he wants to protect me.
“You were born in the wrong age,” she whispered.
“Stone age?” he asked.
“The age of knights errant,” she countered.
Tristan laughed. “Have you been spying on me? Another pursuit of pleasure is spending time in my library with stories of Arthurian legend. I always wanted to be a knight, as a boy.”
Christine smiled, feeling the crisis slipping away from them. The mutual trauma both had suffered seemed to help.
“I can tell without the need for spying. Your every action has proclaimed it.”
They reached a grove of oaks, and the rain lessened.
Gnarled, twisted boughs reached over their heads.
Decades or even centuries of growth created a thick canopy that permitted only the heaviest collections of raindrops to occasionally burst through.
The ground was almost dry. Tristan laid Christine to the ground, where roots curled around her and moss became her pillow.
He looked around and came up with a couple of stones from the earth. Christine watched as he gathered twigs that had not been exposed to the rain and formed a fire. A few minutes of striking the stones made sparks and then…
“As good as a caveman,” Tristan said.
Christine shivered as the warmth built, finally becoming vulnerable to her sodden clothes.
“I will turn my back while you remove the dress. It can dry next to the fire, somewhat at least.”
“Is that your idea of seduction?” Christine laughed.
“It is pragmatism,” Tristan responded, “wet clothes could lead to a cold or a fever.”
At that moment, Christine succumbed to a bout of shivering and teeth-chattering.
“Very well. But where I lead, you will follow. I do not want you developing a fever either.”
“I am unlikely to…”
“To agree that you are vulnerable?” Christine cut across him, “I have observed that about you, too. Remember, water breaks stone or wears it down. And if it is iron that you are made of, we all know what water does to that, don’t we?”
She knelt before the fire, looking up at Tristan. He smiled and nodded.
“Will we turn our backs on the count of three?” he grinned.
He turned, shedding his coat and unbuttoning his waistcoat. Christine turned, hands going to her back. But the buttons were too awkward, her fingers becoming too cold for proper dexterity. She was very aware of the sound of fabric falling behind her.
His waistcoat? His shirt? He would not remove his breeches, surely! That would be a step too far.
“I am not sure I am up to this task without a maid to help me,” Christine said, “but do not turn around!”
She remembered the blindfold, which she had been carrying since she removed it from Tristan.
“Here,” she said, “blind yourself and you may help me.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Tristan responded, taking the blindfold from her.
She looked back over her shoulder. He was naked from the waist up, and the sight was enough to make her knees weak.
His muscles rivalled the oak for shackled power.
His chest was broad with pectoral muscles that seemed marble, pale, and unyielding.
His stomach was flat as paving stones, with every muscle of his torso clearly delineated and accentuated.
Her head whipped back around as he looked up, now blindfold. She felt sure he would sense her gaze upon his nakedness. His hands blindly reached for and found her shoulders. She guided them down to the buttons.
Silently, he undid her dress, standing close enough that she wanted to lean back, to feel that naked perfection of the male physique press against her. Press against the thin shift she wore beneath her dress, inadequate protection against his powerful masculinity.
The dress released her. She pushed it down, wriggling her hips to send it to the ground. Tristan’s hands came to rest on her hips. His head lowered until his lips found her shoulder. They touched thin cotton but might as well have been against her skin.
Christine let her head fall back and her lips part in a sigh of pure ecstasy. Thought fled. They stood surrounded by ancient nature and became members of a primitive tribe, engaging in the most primal of acts.
A hand slipped around her waist, fingers spreading against her stomach. His lips found her neck. Kissing. Biting. He moved her damp hair aside. She made to turn in his arms, to face him, but he held her still.
“I cannot see, but you can. That hardly seems fair. Either we be so or neither do.”
Christine laughed softly. “Very well. Give me a blindfold,”
She stooped and picked up his shirt, placing the sleeve across her eyes and binding it around her head. Then she turned, blinded as he was. His hands ran over her face, and he chuckled.
“Very inventive,” was the last word he uttered before kissing her.
Christine’s senses whirled. She found herself against the tree, its roughness pressing against her, but dwarfed by the hardness of the body that pinned her.
Tristan’s hands explored her body, caressing her spine, fondling her derriere, tracing her ribs, and then encapsulating her breasts with round, firm squeezing.
She gasped and whispered against his lips, which seemed hungry compared to her own.
A desperate desire filled her, made hotter and more consuming because she had never experienced anything like this before.
Her nails raked his back, his sides, and his chest. Her lips explored his face, bit at his earlobe, and latched onto his neck, making her feel like a wild beast.
His hands wove through her hair, pulling her head back to him, finding her lips once more.
Through it all, she felt the hard maleness of him, pressing against her, insistent and undeniable.
It awakened something eternally feminine within her.
Something which demanded action, the only action possible when confronted with that primal, masculine lust.
When his hand touched her between her legs, pressing against the material of her shift, she cried out.
The world had become empty except for them.
It did not matter how loudly he made her cry.
There was no one to hear. Or perhaps everyone.
She did not care if the population of London stood around the tree.
His skillful touch brought forth lip-biting, knee-trembling moans.
He pulled at the bottom of the shift, gathering the material into his fingers, exposing more and more of her body.
Cold air touched her stockinged legs. Chilled her thighs where the stockings came to an end.
Caressed her womanhood when the material reached her waist.
Then Christine was lost, clutching at the tree and clutching at the oak-like body that held her against it.
He was pressed so tightly she could not slip a hand down to reciprocate the touch he gave her.
She did not dare to go so far, even though she was carried away by pleasure as she was.
Waves of it coursed through her body. Then tongues of fire were lapping at her senses, and she buried her face in his neck as she cried out.