Chapter 7
Gretchen's absence added a bitter taste to the evening that even the sweetness of the Apfelmuskuchen couldn't dispel. Sarah sat staring at her plate, her fork hardly making a dent in the sweet apple tart, while Anna sat beside him, her hand resting lightly on Hans' back.
"You're welcome here, Hessian soldier," Anna said, her voice a low purr. "We discussed your visit before we extended the invitation, and Gretchen was as enthusiastic as the rest of us. Well, maybe not as enthusiastic as Sarah ..."
Anna smiled across the table at Sarah and winked; Sarah hunched her shoulders as a blush spread across her delicate features. Hans wondered how much German she understood; probably quite a bit, he reasoned, having lived with Anna for so many years.
"I don't mean to come between you, though," said Hans. "I should leave. If he asks, you can tell Colonel Rall that I felt bound by duty to return to my regiment ..."
"Hush," said Anna. "We have a duty to give you a meal and a bed for your service today, and rest assured I will have no words with Colonel Rall if it can be avoided."
"But —"
Anna pressed a finger against Hans' lips and shook her head. A smile crept across her lips and her dark eyes sparkled.
"No," said Anna. "Gretchen will return when she has cleared her head in the cold air, and you will be nestled snug under a warm quilt, having earned our hospitality with your generous labor."
Hans stifled a yawn, and also a smile. With supper in his belly and the warm glow of the oven nearby, he could feel sleep's tender arms reaching to enfold him. His arms and back had a pleasant ache, and his head felt heavy.
"A warm quilt does sound nice," Hans said. "And more pleasant than a bedroll in the drafty barracks."
***
Hans woke with a start, and for a moment feared that he had slept well past dawn: the moon was high and nearly full, casting a silvery glow through the window above his bed. He shifted and groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and sat up against the soft pillows.
He had fallen asleep almost the moment his head touched the pillow.
Anna had provided him with one of her husband's nightshirts — a bit too short, with the hem falling high on his thighs, but cut more generously in the shoulders and provided with loose ties at the chest that gave him room to stretch.
His sleep had been sweet and gentle, visited by just the briefest of dreams: the recollection of Sarah's kiss in the woodshed, of Anna's hand on his arm, of Sarah's hands on his skin while he bathed.
And, he noted with a pleasant sigh, the arousal that had appeared in the bath had found him again in the bed.
His nightshirt had ridden up to his waist, and the friction of the sheets against his manhood had urged the thickening and lengthening that came with that touch.
Perhaps it was the urgency of his erection that had woken him so suddenly.
Or perhaps it was the quiet creak of the bedroom door, and soft footsteps crossing the floor toward his bed.
He blinked, peering into the long shadows cast by the moon, heart racing.
A figure stepped from the darkness, small and slender, glimmering white in the moonlight.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see the auburn curls that escaped the figure's white linen cap and the ruddy glow of her cheeks.
"Sarah?" Hans asked, his voice croaking. "What are —"
She held a finger to her smiling lips, urging him to silence, and climbed gracefully on the foot of the bed, sitting with his feet between her knees.
Slowly, she moved closer, the only sound that of the quilt against her skin and the soft crackle of the straw-filled mattress beneath her knees.
Hans' heart raced, and he propped himself on his elbows, eyes fixed on Sarah's sylphlike shape as she drew nearer.
"Sarah —" he began again when she was straddling his hips.
She silenced him with her mouth against his, soft and warm and open.
This was a kiss unlike that short, chaste peck in the woodshed: this was a hungry kiss, threatening to consume him, body and soul, a dangerous kiss that made his heart pound in his chest and his cock, momentarily cowed by Sarah's sudden appearance, stiffen.
When she drew her lips away from his, Hans fell back against the pillows, gasping as though he had run a league in the snow. Though the air in the room was chilly, his skin was hot, almost feverish, and he was afraid he might faint.
Sarah reached under the quilt for his hand.
Her fingers were nimble and firm, lifting his arm above the bedding, and he offered no resistance.
She traced her thumb along his palm, sending a shuddering jolt through him, and guided his hand slowly beneath her linen shift.
He felt the soft skin of her thighs, warm and firm, the taut muscles of her belly, and then the wet, willing flesh of her sex.
A soft moan escaped from Sarah's lips as his fingers probed, gently and fearfully, experiencing the mystery of a woman's body for the first time.
His cock ached with need, and he let out a quiet whimper.
As though sensing his agony and choosing to take pity on his state, Sarah tugged at the quilt, lifting her knees so she could pull it past his thighs.
Hans' shaft rose rigid in the moonlight, the purple tip already glistening, and when Sarah took hold of it with her soft fingers, he let out a rasping moan.
Her smiled broadened, making her green eyes glow like emeralds, and she ran first one hand, then the other, up his length.
"Sarah," Hans moaned, as softly as he could. Surely this was a dream, a wonderful, wicked dream, and he was terrified of waking from it.
"Hans," Sarah replied, her voice lilting musically.
His untutored fingers continued to explore the delicate folds of her sex, and from her quickening breath, he supposed she was enjoying his touch as much as he was enjoying hers.
Some of the men in camp bragged about the moans and cries they elicited from the prostitutes in the New York City brothels, but Hans had been sure that they lied, or that the women were performing for their coins.
Sarah's little gasps, though — Hans was certain those were genuine.
She rotated her hips, closed her eyes, and bit her lip, and an expression of pleasure made her face glow like an angel's.
"Oh, Hans," Sarah gasped. "It's been so long ... so long ..."
She leaned forward, rising up on her knees, and guided his manhood toward her sex.
Hans groaned as she took him inside her, lowering herself inch by inch onto his shaft, moving so slowly he thought he would die of want, until her thighs rested on his.
She sat still for what seemed like hours, holding him tightly in her velvet sheath, and then she began to move in slow, gentle circles upon him.
Hans strained against the exquisite pleasure, his heart racing and his skin hot.
When he tried to lift his hips to meet hers, his buttocks tightening above the sheets, she pressed her hands against his belly to hold him fast to the bed.
She shook her head at him, still smiling, then began to move in slow circles again.
Hans felt tears stinging his eyes, his own need to move was so great, but he dared not disobey Sarah's silent command: Be still, her eyes seemed to demand, be still, and let me take charge.
She took the hem of her shift in her trembling fingers and lifted the thin fabric up and over her head.
Her cap fell, and she shook her head, letting her auburn hair tumble in waves over her bare shoulders.
Hans' eyes fixed on her breasts, firm and high, capped with dark nipples, and he watched mesmerized as they rose and fell with Sarah's breath and with her steady movements upon him.
The nectar flowed freely from her, warming his thighs and slicking his shaft so that she was able to move faster, harder, rising high enough that he feared his cock might slip free of its velvet prison before she fell against his hips again.
"Sarah," he croaked, quivering like a candle flame. He could feel the moment of crisis rising in him, overpowering in its urgency. "Sarah, I ... I ..."
"Yes," she whispered, pressing her knees against his haunches and bearing down upon him. Her channel seemed to grip his shaft as if it were held in a fist. "Yes, Hans, yes — please, yes!"
He bit his lip to choke back a cry and let his seed flow into Sarah. She fell upon him, breasts hot and slick against his chest, and smothered his mouth with burning kisses.