Stormfire (100 page)

 
"What is
it, darling?" Catherine looked up at him with
 
concern. His grip had
tightened almost painfully on her
hand.

"I
was
praying, I suppose." His lips sought hers as if they were children tasting the innocence of a first kiss.

A long
mometít
later, Sean chuckled softly. "Our son isn't going to relinquish his place under your blankets so easily
every
night. A night with
Mei
Lih is an irresistible temptation to any man, but in the morning he'll know he's been had."

"He isn't.the only one who'll know he's been had." Catherine impishly tugged him in the direction of her room.

"Are you sure this haste is seemly, ma'am?"

His bride slowed to a maddening amble, eyes demurely downcast. He snatched her up in his arms. "No more nonsense, woman. You're about to become a respectable wife and mend your wicked ways."

"My
wicked ways?" She lifted a derisive eyebrow.

He grinned. "Suitably matched, aren't we?"

They came to the end of the building, but nothing was beyond but more garden. "Where is this room of yours anyway?" Catherine gave him a feline smile. "Out with it,
madame!
I'm hot!" he demanded in his best general's bellow. Flushing scarlet, she pointed hastily to the door nearest her groom's broad shoulder.

As he kicked open the door, she gave his hair
á
sharp tug. "For shame, to shock the sisters so!"

"I'd have given 'em a far ruder shock if you'd persisted in the game—" He broke off.

Catherine followed his gaze to a small table decorated with white damask, lighted tapers, and a bowl of marguerites. Steaming
pilaf
and Messier's best champagne stood ready.. "How thoughtful of them," Catherine said softly.

"These nuns of yours are like leprechauns," Sean muttered as he reluctantly set his bride down. "One never sees them. Things just appear."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Starved.'' He stared wistfully at the bed.

She laughed and tugged at his hand. "Come. You'll need your strength! I'm not likely to let you sleep the night away!"

"Oh, it's sure you are I can satisfy your demands?" With a wicked grin, he seated her and bit her neck.

She gave a little yelp. He slid languidly into his chair and with a drowsy look poured wine. Her eyes widened with chagrin. "You aren't that tired, are you?"

He lifted his glass, his eyes sleepy 8lits. "I shall do my utmost not to doze off at an inopportune moment, ma- dame."

Biting her lip, she frowned at him, then caught the tawny glint to his eyes and broke into soft laughter. "You liar! Desire turns your eyes exactly the shade they are
now . . ."

"I see I'll have to be wary of you, lady. If I hide my passions so poorly, I'll be helpless against your wiles." His voice turned husky and his eyes clouded as he touched his glass to hers. "Yet I would be lost, for I do desire you, even unto madness."

Twilight faded into darkness, candlelight playing on their still, waiting faces and the last drops of liquor in the wineglasses. Sean carried a candle to a wall niche by the bed, then tugged off his boots. When he turned, Catherine was waiting. She unfastened his shirt to kiss warm skin until he went taut with desire. She slipped off the shirt, then unfastened his breeches and eased them down over the slim hips and flat belly to bare the hard beauty of his body.

When he was naked, Sean removed Catherine's veil and garland, then tugged loose the dark, heavy mass of her hair until it fell in a stream through his fingers to her waist. Tugging a marguerite from the garland, he tucked it in her hair. The perfume of her skin filled his nostrils as he slipped her gown from her shoulders, then sought her throat with his lips, and the proud rise of her breasts. Catherine's head fell back and she sighed, filled with longing. The robe slid to the floor and the sweetness of her flesh sent Sean's senses reeling in joy and craving. " Jesu, I've dreamed of you unit I thought no woman could be as beautiful as the dream. What poor things dreams are!"

Then
over her
 
shoulder, he saw the lights and led her to the
window.
The night garden was abloom with candles,
haloes radiating
from luminous clouds of flowers. Seeing
tears
glisten in Catherine's eyes, Sean enfolded her in his
arms as
he said huskily, "I think I understand now what
your
life here meant to you. Are you sorry?"

She looked up at him. "I weep for happiness, beloved, and because I have more love than I can bear."

With lips and hands, she made love to him, moving down his lean body, rediscovering each smooth, dark hollow and plane until she knelt before him and paid tender tribute to the proud maleness of him. Sean's chest rose and fell more quickly as the burning, sweet ache in his core became pure, raging flame. With a muted groan, he swayed and lifted her hair to bathe his loins in silk. "Kit. . . Sweet God." He felt as if he were lost in an impossible dream that drained him of all his nights of frustrated longing. Catherine pressed her cheek against the graceful curve of his long body and entwined her arms about his hips, the softness of her hair a warm cloud. Silently, he stroked her hair and lifted it, letting the pounding pulse of blood in his body slow, letting the rise and fall of his breathing ease.

How still it was, his own heartbeat the only sound in the darkness. He felt blood surge through his veins and the powerful promise of his own life force. He was alive and a man. Sean slipped downward in Catherine's embrace and enfolded her like a flower, tasted his own potency on her mouth.

As if her limbs were weighted, Catherine was hardly aware when Sean carried her to the bed and lay beside her, but when his lips and hands began their sweet, slow exploration of her body, she opened to him like lush, ripening fruit. Desire focused in a solar glow between her thighs, and when his mouth sought her there, her hips undulated in mute, primitive need until she cried out,, burning, begging.

At last, Sean covered her body with his own. With
a soft
moan, she buried her face against his neck. He poised for a heartbeat; then, without urgency, he consummated their
union,
slowly giving himself to her. He receded and surged into her
likè
the sea in a rising storm, endlessly arching and curling over her to pound her downward to inky depths, only to lift her up on rising crests of passion until she became irrevocably part of him, part of the spume and savagery of him. Then she felt herself hurtled into the sun in sheets of glistening spray, to fall back in a million droplets of shattered fire through cushioning ether to the enclosing sea. Deep, dark, and silent, its tawny green softened to
gold-flécked
sunlight like Sean's eyes, so close their heavy lashes nearly brushed hers. Dazed, she felt as if her heart would burst of love for him.

"Wife," he murmured wonderingly. "Mother of my son." His lips brushed hers. "Little love."

She touched his lips. "My husband. My heart's life."

They lay, his head on her breast as she stroked his hair. In moments, he fell asleep, worn out from his long journey. After the last candle in the garden had burned away, Catherine lay awake, listening to the beat of Sean's heart and echoing it with a prayer in her own.

The sun was high overhead when Sean opened one eye, threw a long leg over his wife, and without a word, proceeded to make love to her languidly and thoroughly. She Was flushed with both satisfaction and embarrassment when he finally grinned down at her, his green eyes slits of sleepy amusement, but she was too happy to make her scowl convincing. "Pleased with yourself, aren't you, bucko? Couldn't you wait until we were away from here to make me sound like a cat caught in a briar?"

His grin widened wickedly. "Afraid the good sisters will realize what they're missing and defect?" He nipped her stomach and she squealed and tugged his hair.

"Your conceit boggles the imagination! Why, I suppose you even fancy they'd form a line at the door for your favors!"

"Why not, when you're so obviously and loudly uncomplaining?"

"Oh!" Her eyes sparked and she fought to clamber free of him. Laughing, he twisted her easily back under him and with amusement, then a distinct leer, watched her frustrated wriggling. Her lips parted in
a soft
O
as he parted her thighs. "You . . . cheated."

He slid into her like a sword sheathing in silk, his lips hovering in a whisper just above hers. "Anytime you've had enough, I'm yours to command."

His strokes possessively deepened, sweeping her will away, and she groaned in pleasure and vexation. Then, with a sweet, vengeful smile, she retaliated with a special skill of her own until his control disintegrated.

Wide awake now, he stared at her. "Where did you learn that?"

She twirled a curl of his chest fur. "From your little Flower of the East. Did you think we talked of nothing but diapers in Paris, your mistresses and I?" Her voice lowered to a silky purr. "Rare is the man who can leave three women cooped up in a house for months with nothing in common but his lovemaking and have them refrain from carving each other into mincemeat. Not that you deserve any credit for it, bucko." She tapped his nose and rolled away from him, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "The women in your life are just marvelously tolerant, that's all." She was nearly up when he dragged her back down again, laughing as she fought him half playfully, half in earnest, then dissolved in helpless giggles. "Sean, I have to bathe. I smell like a she-goat!"

"The perfume suits a haughty nanny that keeps her nose"—he nipped a buttock—"and her tail in the air."

She shrieked and pummeled, but inevitably found herself back where it had all begun, flat on her back with hiifc coaxing her thighs apart with a devilish gleam of white teeth and an ease that both infuriated and beguiled her.