Kathryn Kramer (25 page)

Kneeling, he
entwined his fingers in her dark hair, pulling her face up to his.  He kissed her again, his knowing, seeking lips moving with tender urgency across hers..

The
n they lay together kissing, touching, and his hands were doing wondrous things to her, making her writhe and groan.  Every inch of her body caught fire as passion exploded between them with a wild oblivion. He moved against her, sending waves of pleasure exploding along every nerve in her body. 

"Christopher....love me..." she breathed.

His hands caressed her, warming her with their heat.  They took sheer delight in the texture and pressure of each other's body.  Sensuously, his fingers slid down the velvety flesh of her belly, moving to that place between her thighs that ached for his entry. 

His swollen length
brushed across her thighs. Then he was covering her. His gentle probing ignited a sweet fire, curling deep inside her as spirals of pulsating sensations engulfed her. 

She felt hi
s maleness at the fragile entryway to her womanhood, then the pressing of that delicate membrane. Every inch of her tingled with an intense arousing awareness of his body.  There was only a brief moment of pain, but the other sensations pushed it away.  Alandra was conscious only of  unbearable pleasure as he began to move within her.             

Nicholas groaned softly, the blood pounding thickly in his head.
She was so warm, so tight around him. His hold on her hips tightened as he moved back and forth, initiating her fully into the depths of passion and love.

Instinctively Alandra tightened her legs around him
, certain she could never withstand the ecstasy that was engulfing her body. It was as if the night shattered into a thousand stars, bursting within her.   She was melting inside, merging with him into one being.   As spasms overtook her she dug her nails into the skin of his back whispering his name.

A sweet shaft of ecstasy shot through Nicholas and he closed his eyes.  Even when the intensity of their passion was spent
, they still clung to each other, unable to let this magical moment end.  They touched each other gently, wonderingly.

"What a passionate wench you are." He nibbled playfully at her ear.

"Am I now?  And are you not pleased?"

"Aye! But not surprised." 

Nicholas was not taken unaware by the passion she expressed.   He had sensed that she would be a woman to whom the culmination of desire was like a whirlwind, and she was all that he could have asked for, all that he wanted.  Indeed, she made love with the same  carefree, honest, loving spirit with which she lived. 

Cradling her against his chest
, he lay silent for a long, long time as he savored her presence beside him.  His hands fondled her gently as she molded her body so trustingly to his. 
If only I could keep her with me forever
, he thought,
and never let Elizabeth, Owen Stafford or the ambitious court of England intrude.  

Nicholas realized that for the first time
in his life he was truly happy.  Money and power were said to be the most important things on earth, but he knew differently. Without someone who really cared, life was hollow and made of a man a shallow creature.  Alandra made him feel alive!

Don't go back.  Stay with the actors. 
The very idea was so tempting.  But could he just give up his past with no regrets?  As he leaned his chin against Alandra's soft, fragrant hair he was almost persuaded to do so. 

Chapter Thirty-Two

The moon was beginning its downward descent  when Nicholas and Alandra reluctantly made their way back to the inn
, laughing and talking uninhibitedly, like two mischievous youths returning from a misdeed.  Indeed, it had been a night time tryst that neither would ever forget, a joyful, passionate joining that caused them the greatest happiness and not even a moment's regret.

So this is love
, Alandra thought, a feeling that not even Shakespeare's verse could fully express.  Nothing could have prepared her for this breathtaking ride on a world spinning out of control.  She had never realized just how incomplete she was without Christopher until the moment she had known the glorious satisfaction of Christopher making her his. He had made her want to blend herself with him until they were flesh of one flesh, heart of one heart, inseparable from that moment on. Now she was a woman and no longer a girl.               

"Are you as content and happy as I am?"

Alandra felt her heart skip a beat as Nicholas tugged at her hair. "Doubly so," she answered.  She paused to look  regretfully from the direction they had come.  "I wish we could go back.  It will be a special place to me from now on.  An enchanted grove."

"Any place will be enchanted when we are together, 'Landra.  Our love will make it so." Just looking at her brought forth a renewed desire.  Nicholas wanted with all his heart to go back to the tree-shrouded meadow and make love to her again
, but unselfishly he thought about Alandra's reputation.  If morning came and it was found that she was not in her room, she would be the victim of gossipy chatter.   Heminges was always grumbling  about women being trouble.  He couldn't take the chance of Alandra being targeted for serious rebuke.

They walked
the rest of the way in silence, the looks that passed between them saying far more than words could ever tell.  Nicholas knew that from this moment on Alandra would be branded in his heart, his soul.                                            

The inn
yard was silvered with the moon's muted radiance, but luckily the interior of the inn was dark, without even one candle to illuminate the windows. Nicholas's arm draped possessively across her shoulders seemed perfectly natural  as they walked.  She was his. From this moment on she would always be in his heart. 

Alandra paused to look up at the sky, letting her breath out in a long, deep sigh.  "I'm so happy, Christopher!  I never knew that it was possible to feel like this."

"Nor I!"  He felt as if the years had been swept away and he was but a boy again.  He gazed intently at Alandra, wanting to engrave every detail of her beauty upon his memory--the arch of her brows, the upward tilt of her mouth, the way the moonlight danced upon her dark brown hair.

Alandra inhaled deeply.
There was something magical about her surroundings.  The grass seemed to sparkle with diamonds, the branches of the trees were entwined as if embracing, and the breeze seemed to be humming a love song.  She wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see the fairy folk that Will wrote about  dancing in the darkness.  She felt light of heart.  Carefree.  Perhaps it was always that way when one was in love

Nicholas pulled her to him.  "Alandra!  Alandra!  I've waited for you all
my life."   His lips grazed her forehead, brushing gently along the heavy brush of her dark lashes, teasing the line of her jaw, then caressing her neck. "I don't want to let you go!"  His emotions caused his throat to tighten making his voice very husky. "I want to make love to you again and again."

"And I would have you love me again, Sir,  now that I know to what delights you can take me!" Alandra arched against him in sensual pleasure, her hands sliding over t
he muscles of his arms down to the taunt flesh of his stomach.

"Oh, how you tempt me
.” His strong fingers stroked and fondled her breast as he struggled with his longing. "But you will be a bit sore after tonight, Alandra."  Especially since they had made love a second time, a mating even more passionate than the first.  "I want to be the most considerate of lovers."  He playfully touched the end of her nose.  "But tomorrow night......!"

"Tomorrow night!"  The words made her tingle as if a gentle wind caressed her.

"And the next and the next......"  For an endless moment he held her against him, then as if fearing to test his resolve, he let her go.  "Come, 'Landra.  It grows late, and as much as I regret it, we must return to the others."

"Aye."
             

They held hands as they opened the thick wooden door.  Nicholas tiptoed in, determined to protect Alandra's reputation at all costs.  He looked cautiously about the room before he was satisfied that they could enter.

"Deserted!  Everyone must be
still abed," he whispered.

Alandra paused to listen
then as she moved, she tried to tread lightly so as not to set the floorboards creaking.
But each step seemed to explode in the silence.

Nicholas led her to the stairs.  "And so I say to you, good night, my lady."

Their fingers moved over each other's faces.  "Christopher....."  She lifted her arms to encircle his neck, hardly daring to believe that he was hers now. "I will always belong to you now,"  she said softly as she clung to him, her breasts pressed against his chest, wishing they didn't have to say good night. 

Nicholas buried his fac
e in the dark cloud of her hair. "Tonight as I lay in my bed I will be thinking of you and how you should be beside me.  Oh, how I wish......"

"As do I.....  Dare she even imagine that some day they might pledge their troth to each other as man and wife?  Somehow after tonight anything seemed possible.  Perhaps if one wished hard enough
, dreams could come true.

Her body arched against his as he caressed her.  His fingers seemed to be everywhere, touching her, setting her body ablaze with desire.

But Nicholas was a man true to his word.  He repeated the word, Tomorrow."

"If I can wait that long.  Now that I know what I have been missing
, I feel the need to make up for lost hours, Christopher."

"And indeed you shall if I have my way.  But off to bed with you now."

Mutely Alandra nodded, a mischievous smile trembling on her lips.  She leaned against him, outlining the shape of his mouth with her finger tips.  "And are you doubly certain you do not want to join me there.  'T would seem to me that a feather bed would be much more accommodating to lovers than the hard ground."

"Aye, 't
is soft.  But the feathers tickle my nose."  He patted her on the behind.  "Now off with you, wench.  You must learn to obey me."

"Obey, is it?"  Deliberately she rubbed up against him, smiling as his reaction to her nearness proved how much he desired her.

Nicholas groaned and reached for her, but Alandra laughed softly and danced away from his grasp.  "Tomorrow."  Blowing him an impudent kiss, she disappeared up the stairs.

Nicholas stood there for several minutes after she had gone.  A smile lit up his eyes and for a moment he was tempted to follow her, to change his mind about making love to her in her room.  Then with a shrug of his shoulders, he turned away.

"Strange how desolate I feel being alone now," now he whispered to himself.  But he was not alone, nor was their entrance unobserved.               

"I see you
were with Alandra, Christopher," a voice said softly.  Sitting  in the shadows, his feet propped up on the table was Will Shakespeare. 

"I was
!" Blushing, Nicholas tried to control the emotions raging through him, but he was certain that  Shakespeare could read everything that had happened in the glow that effused his face.  If Shakespeare could not, then Nicholas's disheveled hair and  torn, grass-stained garments  must surely give him away.

"And now you are lovers."  It was a statement, not a question.

Nicholas saw no reason to lie.  Not to Will.  He and Murray loved Alandra  too.  "Aye!"

Shakespeare shook his head, shrugging in resignation, his expression saying that he did not fully  approve.  "I knew in my heart that it was only a matter of time."  There was censure in his tone.

"You act as if Alandra has been condemned!"  Nicholas clenched his jaw, his good humor quickly changing to anger.  It was nearly as if Shakespeare was scolding him.  "I love her and she loves me.  That is all that is important when all is said and done.  Aren't you the one who always says that."

"In my plays and in my sonnets.  I write what people want to believe, what I also wish was true.  But the truth
, I fear, is a far different matter."  He stiffened his back as he looked up at Nicholas.  "We do not have control over our hearts nor our lives."

"I will not see her hurt."  Nicholas spoke  earnestly.   He would not see Alandra suffer heartache.

Will gripped the arms of his chair.  "Not you but others will have the say on that I fear, Christopher."             

Nicholas stood quietly for a long, long time,
assimilating what Shakespeare had said.  Just how much did the playwright know?  Why did he get the feeling that this man knew all?  Did he?  Was that what this warning, this chastisement was all about?  Or was Shakespeare merely chattering?

"Alandra is very dear to me, the only woman who can make me truly happy.  Again I tell
you I will not see her hurt," Nicholas answered.

But could he really make that promise?  He was in danger
, and therefore by her association with him, Alandra too was in peril.  There was Owen Stafford, Morgana and most dangerous of all Elizabeth.  But the only way they would be dangerous was if he was recognized and captured.

"How I hope that you can hold to your word!"  Will's eyebrows furled, his eyes glowed in the
moonlight that reflected in the windows, and in that moment Nicholas had the feeling that Shakespeare knew far more than he was revealing.  "And what will you do now?  What are your plans?"

Nicholas was very tempted to trust this man, to tell him the story of what had happened, to ask his advice, but caution held him back.  "Why, to stay among the actors of course."  He tried to make light of
it though his entire world seemed to be turning upside down.  "You have said yourself that I have a measure of talent."

"You do.  Aye, that you do.  But here is not where you belong. Someday, be that tomorrow or the next day or the next
, your past will intrude on your god intentions and it is then that I fear for Alandra!"

Nicholas was adama
nt, wanting put end to the matter. "I repeat, I will not see Alandra wounded because of me.  On that you have my word."

Nicholas turned to leave, but as he made his way to the stairs he heard Will Shakespeare say,  "then I wish you the greatest happiness in this love you have found, but I would caution you on this.  As I wrote in
Midsummer Night's Dream
, the course of true love never did run smoothly.  Just remember and brace yourself for when those trying days come upon you."  His tone seemed to say, "and those days will come.  They most definitely will."