Trapped at the Altar

“Me,” she said softly, smiling up at him. “Just me, husband.”

“Dear God,” he muttered, putting a knee on the bed. A necklace of emeralds circled her pale white throat, and the great Daunt emerald ring glowed on her finger as she moved her hand seductively over her breasts in a gesture of offering. It was not an offer Ivor could refuse. No man on God’s green earth could refuse it.

He bent to kiss her breasts, his tongue flicking at the pink nipples that lifted to the moist caress. He drew his tongue between the small mounds and then painted a trail down her belly, dipping into her navel, down between her thighs. Her skin carried the scent that had so struck him earlier, delicate, flowery, fresh, and so seductive.

He lifted his head. “No, I cannot.”

Shock filled the gray eyes as they gazed up at him, and he shook his head. “No . . . no, I cannot touch you until I have the washed the day’s dirt from me. You are as fresh as morning dew on a snowdrop, and I cannot bear to sully that.” He stepped back from the bed, his eyes never leaving her body. “Do not move an inch.”

She lay still, watching him as he threw off his clothes. He poured water into the basin. It was warm water, all part of the elaborate preparations she had made for this little scene, he thought with wonder. There was even a piece of soap. He washed the sweat from his skin, aware of her hungry gaze.

“Hurry,” she murmured, shifting slightly on her fur bed, feeling the soft silkiness of sable and ermine caress her already tingling skin.

He smiled at her, his old mischievous smile, except that it was now filled with a deep sensuality. “Has no one told you of the pleasures of anticipation, my sweet?”

The endearment sent waves of delight through her, and her eyes fixed on the pulsing erection that gave ample evidence of his own pleasure in anticipation. He came to kneel at the foot of the bed, taking her feet in his hands, lifting them in turn to kiss the toes, taking each one in his mouth before stroking his tongue down the soles of her feet, making her wriggle against the furs, which did even more to stimulate her sensitized skin. His hands grasped her ankles lightly as he lifted her legs onto his shoulders, running his hands down the backs of her thighs, his fingers creeping ever closer to her moist and opened core.

She heard her own gasp of wanting escape from her lips as the tantalizing touch came close but never quite close enough. He held her legs apart and dropped his head, his mouth finding her sex, his tongue licking, stroking, his teeth lightly grazing the little nub of flesh as it rose hard with longing. His tongue entered her, and she gave another gasp of surprise and delight, feeling his breath cool on her heated flesh, the wicked, tantalizing twist of his tongue inside her. When he lifted his head and moved up her body, his mouth taking hers, she could taste the essence of herself. Her hands grasped his buttocks, kneading the hard muscle, trying to drive him into her, but he held himself back as his tongue danced with hers, stroked the insides of her cheeks.

Finally, he took her legs again onto his shoulders and knelt back between her thighs. He lifted her bottom on his palms and drove hard inside her in one swift thrust that made her cry out in surprise. He moved hard and fast within her, his eyes never leaving hers, watching as she rose up and up with him. Suddenly, he slapped her flank, and she bucked like an unschooled pony as her climax rushed over her, her fingers knotted into the taut flesh of his buttocks. His head fell back, the corded muscles in his throat standing out as he was swept with his own wave. And then only the most delicious release as, still joined, they fell together into the furs.

Ari lay beneath him, one hand still resting on his backside, her other thrown to the pillow behind her. Ivor released his hold on her ankles and let her legs fall to either side of him. After a moment, he raised his head and looked down into her face.

“You are a very wicked woman, wife of mine.”

“Merely fulfilling my conjugal duties,” she returned with a weak smile.

“Indeed.” He moved sideways, disengaging from her body, and lay with his hands flung above his head, gazing up at the tester as his breathing returned to normal.

Ari rolled onto her side, placing a hand on his still fast-beating heart. “Ivor, we must make this a beginning. I love you in the only way I can, the only way I know. It is as it is. Can we not build on what we have?”

Ivor said nothing for a moment. He had in truth been unhappier these last weeks than he could ever have imagined being. And she had done this for him . . . for them. This elaborate play was meant to give them a springboard. From this platform of sublime joy, they could move up, beyond the sour taste of the past weeks to an acceptance of what they had.

Gabriel Fawcett was in the past, in Ariadne’s past. So she held some lingering feelings for him, but this was now, and there was no denying that in this now he and Ari had a bond that transcended most others. It wasn’t possible to make love like that without there being some real feeling beneath. He knew it in his blood.

“Love,” he mused, placing a hand over hers as it rested on his heart. “Such a complicated feeling.” He smiled, stroking with his free hand through the glossy, fragrant curls scattered across his chest. “I think I have loved you, Ariadne, in some way or another, since I first knew you . . . a small child with a determined chin, a vocabulary to make a stable hand blush, and the most accurate eye for a knife throw of any grown man.”

“I was only three,” she protested, kissing the hollow of his shoulder.

“Well, maybe it took a couple of years,” he conceded, drawing black curls through his fingers. “But you are somehow a part of me, of my life, and I cannot bear to be at odds with you. These last weeks have been worse than any I could have imagined.”

“For me, too,” she murmured, nestling her head into his shoulder. “Can we put them behind us now?”

He twisted a curl around his finger. “We must,” he said, hitching himself onto an elbow to look into her eyes. His gaze was deep and penetrating, yet still a shadow lingered. He touched her lips with a forefinger.

And Ari felt Gabriel in the room with them. She could see in his eyes that Ivor could not forget the man she had sworn she loved, the man who held her heart, and Ariadne knew that she could not forswear Gabriel. It was not in her nature.

They were silent for a moment, and then Ivor seemed to shake himself out of the shadows. He kissed her lips and declared, “I was hungry when I came home, and now I am as ravenous as a wolf.” He reached down and patted her bottom. “Don’t tell me you have not organized supper, wife of mine.”

“Oh, it’s organized,” Ari responded, thankfully accepting that the moment of darkness had passed without comment. “You’ll find everything in the parlor by now.” Tilly would have played her part, and supper would be set by the fire next door. Smoked oysters, a roast chicken, a dish of sweetbreads and salsify, and buttered parsnips. There would be macaroons and Canary wine, and afterwards, well . . . that would take care of itself. Gabriel’s shadow had to fade eventually.

She rolled off the bed, drawing a thick sable around her, and went barefoot into the parlor. Ivor followed, shrugging into a dressing robe. “Smells good,” he said, pouring wine into the goblets on the table. He gave her a glass and raised his own. “What shall we drink to?”

Her eyes met his over the rim of her goblet. “To the next step.”