Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (30 page)

I swallowed and understood. “Yes, I know, I understand.”

“Then touch me and know that I’m here.”

I was only too willing to obey him. His sex stood hard and ready for me, and I wanted him. A bead of moisture gathered at the tiny opening at the tip, and I touched it, smoothed it over the shiny head.

He groaned, and his fist clenched in the sheets by my side. “Not too much, my love. I want to get inside you first.”

With a wry smile he swung his body over mine and settled between my thighs when I opened them for him and drew up my knees. I clasped his narrow hips between them, loving the way he pushed my thighs wide and caressed me with his shaft. He slid down my wet crease, lifted and slid again, catching the pearl of passion, which, he told me, was correctly called the clitoris. I preferred pearl.

Richard had expanded my vocabulary in a most lascivious way and encouraged me to show him everything I wanted to in the privacy of our bedchamber. And occasionally elsewhere too. He’d unlock the door and add the spice of possible discovery to our trysts. He wanted me with an eagerness I could only respond to with equal need, and his honesty forced me to drop any pretence at maidenly modesty. Or any other kind of modesty.

Now, naked as nature intended, we explored each other’s bodies with a greed born of abstinence and a reconnection spiced by rebirth. He stroked me, slid his fingers deep into my body and found the spot that drove me wild. Mercilessly he stroked, murmuring my name and how much he wanted me. “You will come, Rose, and then I’ll come inside you. We’re not stopping this time, my love.”

I poured a litany of pleas and begging, alternately wanting him to stop and then do it more, not stop until he caused that explosion that came to me new-minted. My senses lifted, became aware of the scents of our bodies, the slightly foreign perfume of the soap we’d washed him in, not his usual one, and the musk of his arousal, so yearned for, here with me now. My sharper aroma rose to wreathe us in a sensuous perfume of our own making. His skin slid against mine, creating a friction, an embrace that was wholly Richard, one I’d know anywhere. From now on I could wake in the night and reach for him, and he’d be there.

I opened my mouth to scream, but he covered my lips with his own, taking me in a devastating explosion of mind and spirit. I pulsed around him, my body contracting in waves of magnitude, gripping him and then releasing. I lost my mind, coming to when he pushed his shaft deep inside me.

Then he stopped. Lifting his upper body, leaning on his elbows, he gazed at me, so that when I opened my eyes I found him there, waiting. He was smiling. “Sometimes I wonder, why you, why me? How did we meet all that time ago? If I’d found you after you’d come to London, if you belonged to someone else, I would have moved heaven and earth to get you, broken every law there was if I could have you. But we got there in time. If not for your trust and your generosity that day when you offered me everything you had, I might have missed you, might have done something stupid, like sacrifice myself for my family honour. The family can go hang, then and now.” With a low laugh, he withdrew and plunged back, taking me to heights he’d taught me to abandon myself to enjoy.

I thought I was worn out after the climax he’d given me. I was wrong.

I cried out helplessly, giving myself up to him. Everything I was, everything I could be, was in his hands, in his talented body, at present pounding into me. He entered, touched, retreated, thrust, until I lost count of what day it was, or why I should worry about him. Nothing. His strength surrounded me, as it always did, as it always would, and then, in that moment of stillness before my body exploded with our passion, he said, “I love you.”

I gasped his name, panted that I loved him, and then we climaxed together, his hot essence jetting into me, as I gripped him, cried his name over and over as if it would save me.

As it had.

When he finally drew away, he gave a chuckle and touched his forehead to mine. “We’re ready to turn the page and begin again.” He rolled to one side, taking me with him. I curled in, wanting contact with him all over me. I felt his firm, warm body next to mine and knew it was enough, for now. Until the fever of passion took us again, and it would, in the not-too-distant future.

I hadn’t realised how exhausting worry could be, but I knew now. I knew that must have added to Richard’s burden when I had fallen ill after the birth of our sons, and recognised the size of the weight he had unstintingly carried for the last few months.

I glanced around. The light filtering through the drapes was brighter now. Day had arrived. “Should I draw the curtains now?”

He chuckled. “No. I honestly don’t mind them being closed. I seem to have overcome my fear, although I would have wished to do it some other way. I had too much to think of at first, and by the time the confines of our imprisonment had borne on me, I was too concerned with other matters to give it much thought. I want to be close to you, and being enclosed like this adds a certain intimacy to our situation. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do.” Unlike Richard, I had always enjoyed the privacy afforded by small spaces. I had shared bedrooms for most of my life, with my sisters, and the luxury of a space of one’s own could never be overestimated in my opinion. “Can you sleep better like this?”

He chuckled. “With you in my arms? Indubitably. But I seem to have done nothing but sleep during the last three days. That and eat.” He kissed me, lingering over my lips like a dish he was reluctant to leave. His expression turned grave. “I’m ready to talk about it, if you want to hear.”

“Are you sure?”

He pressed his lips against my hair before he answered. “Yes. While it’s fresh in my mind. It was a nasty experience, and I have a feeling that the mind, which likes to forget the worst parts of everything, will discard it as soon as it can.”

“I’ll make sure your account is recorded. Tell me, Richard. If you want to.”

“I want to.” His voice, strong again, but low, created a cocoon of intimacy between us that I never wanted to end. He drew a breath, kissed my forehead and tilted up my chin once more so he could watch me while he spoke. “Carier was there at the start. I presume he told you. Forcing us down into the cellar actually protected us from the explosion. John must have set his bomb in the upper rooms. He showed me bloody hair, said the children were dead, and you were too. He wanted me to know so I’d die despairing. It only made me more determined to escape.”

I shuddered when I realised how close I’d come to losing him in that moment, but he murmured words of comfort and stroked me until I felt better. Everything was fine because I had him now. I urged him to carry on.

“We were trapped, but we decided to wait, because help would undoubtedly come and we could make things worse if we tried to dig ourselves out. When the first tremor, the warning, happened, Paul realised that it was an earthquake.

“Then the second tremor struck. It brought what was left of the house down on top of us and a chunk of masonry hit the cook who was down there with us. John had shot the man, and we’d done what we could. He was badly wounded, but still alive. The blow killed him.” He paused once more. “That would have been the time when I panicked. But I choked it down. What good would it do? I needed to keep my wits about me, if we were to get out of this situation with our lives. And it looked increasingly unlikely. Especially when the water came.

“I presume a great wave struck, one of those that often follows an earthquake. The disturbance to the earth must be the reason, I suppose. It filled the cellar, sent the body floating, and us too. It extinguished the kitchen fire, which I’d hoped to use in some way.

“We had a bare six inches in which to breathe, but we were relatively high in the city, so the wave did not completely submerge us. Eventually the water receded. The cellar had upper windows, and some of it escaped. Over the next few hours more drained away, but we were left with about a foot of water on the kitchen flags. The kitchen has drains, presumably to facilitate the ordinary cleaning routines, but the water had a way of escaping through the earth too.” He sighed, staring into space, and I lived it with him, there in that small, stinking space, not knowing if help would come but never giving up.

“We couldn’t risk missing our chance at rescue, so we slept in turns, and only for short periods.”

“Did you eat?”

He shuddered. “We found enough to keep us alive. We found some food. Cheese, apples, but not much else. We were surrounded by spoiled food and water we couldn’t drink. Bodies and sewage fouled it. But we found some bottles of wine.” He grinned. “Never have I wanted water rather than wine so much. Just before you arrived to find us, we’d discovered a small barrel of beer.”

His voice shook. I nestled closer. “You don’t have to say any more. Not if you don’t want to, or if it hurts too much.”

Tears glistened in his eyes, turning the sapphire to a vivid cobalt. “Yes I do. I thought John would kill you. He escaped, and my only hope was that Carier had caught up with him and dispatched him. But I didn’t know and I couldn’t make sure. I thought I’d go mad. You want me to say we made up our differences before he left, that I wouldn’t have killed him, given the chance? I have to disappoint you, my love. Twice he made serious attempts on your life. He said he’d already killed our children and you, but I refused to believe him. I knew that, if you’d gone, I’d know.”

I gasped. “I thought the same! That was why I insisted on going back to Lisbon to find you, even though others had given you up.”

He drew me closer for another kiss, taking his time. He traced the outline of my lips with his tongue and then plunged inside for a brief but devastating caress. “We are one, my love. I hoped you felt the same, that you’d come and find me.”

“I wouldn’t let them stop me. They tried.”

“I can imagine they did. I’ve set fierce guards around you, sweetheart. I was obsessed with losing you, especially after the fever nearly took you. But we have now. If we continue to live that way, we need not fear. I won’t constrain you anymore, although I reserve the right to protect you. You are the most precious thing in my life. Nothing else comes close.”

I accepted his gift now, for what it was. Not a threat, not a restriction and not something for me to be afraid of. He gave his life into my hands, and as long as I reciprocated, we’d have nothing to fear. “You mean the world to me.”

He kissed me again, but drew back to watch me. “Should I send for some food, something to drink? You’ve cared for me without stint. Now you have to rest.”

“I’m perfectly well. Better than well,” I assured him. “I have back the part of me that was missing. I’ll call for tea soon, maybe something to eat. But not yet. Finish your story.”

He sighed. “Very well. I must, I know. We managed for the first day, and Paul and I slept one after the other. We made some efforts to shift the rubble over our heads, but it only brought more down. For all we knew the entire house had collapsed on top of the kitchens and only the beams lay between us and complete collapse. But it’s hard to wait, and trust, and not do your best to escape.”

“The second day, or the third, broke. Paul had his watch, but somewhere we lost track, and all we knew was what hour of the day it was, not if it were day or night. It grew very hot in that space, despite the chill of the water swirling around our feet. We built a kind of platform from broken furniture and fittings, and piled our food and drink on it, as well as ourselves. But it wasn’t large enough for both of us at the same time, so we took turn and turn about. I donated my coat as a towel, something to dry our wet limbs on when we switched.”

“How did you see?”

He smiled. “My practical love, trust you to think of that. The upper windows sent in a very little light, hardly enough to see by. We had candles, and a tinderbox, and we tore up Paul’s shirt to provide rags. Most kitchens keep tinderboxes on a high shelf above the fireplace, and this was no exception. It had fallen into the water with the tremor, but we rescued it, and once we’d dried off the flint, it struck a spark well enough. Paul wanted to conserve the lights we had, but I couldn’t see the point. The candles would last us as long as we needed them, one way or the other.” He paused and gazed at me, as if gaining strength from the sight. I accepted it and returned it in full measure. I loved looking at him.

“We heard sounds from above, though whether it was people digging for us, or scavengers, we weren’t sure. We had one weapon. We conserved that weapon and the one shot it contained. One of us had an easier way out.”

He drew me closer. “The body of the cook had bloated, and it was stinking pretty badly. It had to be, for us to notice after we’d been living with it for days. On the third day, as near as we could tell, Paul slipped on the table and fell. It was a bad fall, and he trapped his foot in an underwater drain. One of his turns twisted it. I heard the snap, knew he’d broken something. I should have checked more rigorously, but he assured me it would do, and I believed him. I shouldn’t have done that.” He shuddered.

I held him close. Kissed his cheek, his brow, his lips. “Don’t think of it. He’s here, he’s alive.”

“I know.”

“He’s fine.” Not more than that, not yet. Paul had lost a foot, and while he was sanguine about it, at least to us, an edge of suffering tinged his expression now. He knew he’d been lucky not to lose his leg, had declared his determination to walk again, once the estate carpenter had fashioned him something to replace his lost appendage. “He’ll live and he’ll be happy because he has Lizzie and his brother to help him. Joaquin will remain here as much as he can, but since much of the family wealth depends on the winemaking, he’ll travel to the vineyards. He really loves that work. I misjudged him, Richard. He considers the making of fine wine and port akin to the creation of a work of art. It’s his calling.”