Authors: Lorena Dureau
Miguel followed, groping and stumbling as he tried to keep
his footing and close the door behind him against the wind and rain.
The darkness was impenetrable now as he made his way cautiously down
the hallway to where he calculated the console was, with its
candelabrum and tinderbox always ready for any emergency.
"Monica, my dear, where are you?" he called out to her in
the darkness. "Are you all right?"
She heard him call her name again, but she was so weary
she could only mumble a weak reply—a reply that the angry
storm, pounding and shrieking to be let in, completely drowned out.
Suddenly the toe of his boot brushed her leg, and she
called out a warning to him from where she lay on the floor, but before
he could catch himself, he was falling forward, hopelessly entangled in
her cloak and skirts. Impulsively she lifted her hands to protect
herself from the impact of his fall…
For a moment they lay there in a confused heap on the
floor, wet and spent, bruised and soaked to the skin, yet somehow
vibrantly alive. They had just been through hell and back and were
grateful to feel the familiar nearness of each other's bodies once
more. The darkness that enveloped them suddenly seemed friendly and
protective… warm and sensuous… Memories of the
moments they had shared together earlier under the staircase returned.
Monique reached up to him and clung to the wet velvet of his coat,
weeping with the sheer joy of being alive and knowing he was there.
For the first time, she murmured his name with no prefixes
or surnames and drew him closer. All the hostility had drained out of
her. Only the desire that had lain submerged beneath it was left now.
His body was pressing longingly against hers, and she
could feel the hard core of him throbbing wildly against her thigh. It
excited her, set her pulsating to its rhythm. His breath was warm and
rapid on her cheek as his lips found her in the darkness.
"Mona, my sweet, adorable little doll… I want
you so!" A flood of soft Castilian caressed her lips as he cupped his
mouth hungrily over hers. The scent of him invaded her nostrils,
penetrated the very pores of her being. This time their kiss was long
and lingering, yearning for fulfillment. Her tongue leaped to meet his,
and the taste of him filled her mouth.
The hurricane had burst in all its fury outside, but it
seemed distant compared to the storm raging within her, drowning out
all other impressions except those racking her being at that moment.
She locked her arms around his neck and held fast, fearful
he might pull away from her as he had done before under the staircase.
But he was on fire now, and his lips were softly tracing the soft
hollow of her neck down into the deep valley between her breasts, while
he slipped his arm under the curve of her back and arched her even
closer to the lean hardness of him.
"If you only knew… how I want you…
only you…"
He groped momentarily in the darkness, exploring the
décolletage of her gown. Eagerly he drew one of those soft firm breasts
into the moist warmth of his mouth, caressing it rapidly with his lips,
then the flutter of his tongue, again and again. She could feel the tip
begin to harden and come to life as strange new sensations began to
awaken deep within her.
Suddenly his mouth tightened over the swelling fullness of
her breast and he began to suck long and hungrily until she felt the
very essence was being drawn out of her and she was trembling wildly in
the circle of his arms. It was like nothing she had ever felt before.
Every corner of her body was throbbing with a thousand tiny pulses, all
afire for want of him!
Her fingers gripped the damp thickness of his hair as she
gave an involuntary moan of pleasure and she murmured his name again
and again. Oh, yes, he was the one. She knew at last she loved him! All
those nights of wondering… trying to imagine who it was
going to be… how it was going to feel… yet never
in her wildest dreams had she thought it could be like this! It had to
be Miguel. There could be no other man now for her but him. Wars could
rage… generations could hate… none of it mattered
anymore. It all dissolved in the heat of their passion.
Miguel could feel her breast expanding and pulsating with
mounting desire, pressing urgently upward through his fingers, eager to
meet his lips once more. His whole being was on fire now for want of
her. That gnawing knot in his loins had sprung to life and could no
longer be denied. He pressed the burning ache of it desperately against
her, and the feel of her soft and yielding beneath him set his pulse
racing. He knew she wanted him. Her whole body was pleading for him to
take her, and he could no longer deny the urgency of his own
long-denied passion.
Quickly he felt beneath the wet, clinging skirts for her
thighs and lightly stroked the smooth, firm lines of them, running his
fingers again and again over their length until they were quivering
uncontrollably to his every touch. Her lips murmured into his
kisses… her breast pulsated wildly against the palm of his
hand… slowly her trembling limbs began to part…
ready… waiting. How he had dreamed of this
moment… all those long months of aching,
despairing… He was swollen with desire for her, eager to
plunge at last into the innermost depths of her being and make her his
own at last. He eased his knee between her thighs and gently, with the
palm of his hand in the curve of her back, arched her toward
him…
A flash of lightning suddenly illumined the hallway
through the stained-glass window above the main entrance, and in that
split second he saw that childlike face with its wide, trusting eyes
bathed in ecstasy, those tiny little fists that she had so often lifted
in anger against him clinging to him now, clenched with passionate
longing. How terribly vulnerable she was at that moment… so
young… so passionate… so completely
aroused… God help him! What was he doing? Here he was about
to take her, driven only by the urgency of his own torment, his own
needs, with no thought of the consequences for her! He had nearly
killed two men to stop them from seducing her… to stop them
from doing exactly what he himself was doing at that moment! And he was
her guardian, sworn to protect her!
Qué barbaridad
!
He drew back and his loins went into a paroxysm of agony.
For a moment he knelt there on one knee above her in the
darkness, trying to calm the turmoil twisting his insides into a
thousand knots. Every fiber of his being screamed to go on to
completion, and he could feel her voluptuous little body still stirring
in his arms, begging to be taken.
But that momentary flash of lightning had brought him to
his senses. This was Monique, his sweet, innocent little Monique whom
he loved more than life itself. Also, this was his unpredictable little
Monique who, up until less than an hour ago, had hated him with the
same intensity as she was responding to his caresses now. No, even
though he knew he could take her then and there, he didn't want it to
be that way—not with her lying on the floor, wet and
confused, worked into an emotional frenzy by the events of the night
and his imprudent lovemaking. This was the woman he hoped to marry. He
wanted their first time to be so different. Most of all, he wanted her love. He wanted her to be as
certain of her feelings for him as he was of his for her.
Clumsily he smoothed the damp curls back from her forehead
with trembling fingers and tried to calm her, despite the fact that he
was far from calm himself. Desperately he tried to ignore the raging
furnace consuming him from within… the shrieking protests of
his tormented loins.
"It… it's so dark," he mumbled huskily as he
labored to catch enough breath to get past the constriction in his
throat. In despair he kissed the outstretched hand that tried to detain
him and moved back from her, momentarily fumbling in the dark with the
yards of muslin tangled around his limbs. "Let me find the candle."
He rose carefully and groped for the table that he knew
had to be nearby. He had to have light! In the light everything would
take on more sensible proportions. He nearly knocked over the
candleholder as he felt about blindly for it. His fingers were
trembling uncontrollably as they struggled with the tinderbox.
The
four-stemmed candelabrum seemed startlingly bright as it
illumined the blackness of the hallway. Monique blinked bewilderedly as
she rose from the floor and self-consciously tried to arrange her
disheveled clothing.
Miguel seemed his usual cool, collected self once more as
he walked on into the parlor and continued to light every candelabrum
in sight. Then, mumbling something about going to find Old Meggie to
get them some fresh clothing and a good meal, he hurried off.
Monique sat down on the sofa, feeling strangely
exhilarated despite the physical weariness of her battered body. The
storm was still raging outside, and the shutters rattled behind the
drawn curtains as the house vibrated in the demanding embrace of the
lusty wind.
The brightly lit room seemed familiar, yet she knew that
somehow things would never be quite the same again for her after that
night. The taste of him was still on her lips… the feel of
his body still imprinted on her own. Every part of her seemed to be
tingling with a pulse of its own. Even as she sat there vibrating to
the familiar timbre of his voice as he spoke to Old Meggie off in the
rear of the house, she longed to feel his caresses again, to yield to
him at last the very core of her being. She wasn't certain what had
been expected of her… what else she should have done. She
wasn't even certain exactly how that passionate moment between them
should have ended, but her instincts told her that he had brought his
lovemaking to an abrupt halt… that he had drawn away from
her again at the crucial moment, just when every fiber of her being had
wanted to go on to fulfillment… to experience at last the
very essence of him.
She felt a sense of incompleteness, as though she had
opened her portals to him and been rejected. Had he been disappointed
in her? Perhaps he had compared her to Azema and other women he had
known and found her wanting. He had drawn away from her under the
staircase, too, after their first kiss…
Azema was so beautiful, so experienced in pleasing a man.
How could she possibly expect to compete with such a woman? But no
matter how perfect Azema Ducole was, one thing was certain. That horrid
woman could never love Miguel the way she did. And she knew now that
she loved him… loved him with every particle of her being.
If only she could learn to please him so he'd never want Azema or any
woman again but her! Now that she had known the feel of his hands
coursing over her body, his lips suckling at her breast, his tongue
seeking out the hidden recesses of her body, she could never bear the
thought of him doing those things to any other woman. She had to let
him know how much she loved and wanted him… that no one
could possibly love him as much as she did!
But as the night wore on and her guardian returned with
Old Meggie, he seemed to be avoiding her. They bathed and changed to
some of the spare summer clothing stored in the massive bedroom
armoires, and then sat down to an impromptu repast of chicken broth and
cold venison that left her physical appetite satisfied but did little
to assuage the deeper hunger still unslaked within her.
As soon as they had finished their meal, he suggested they
retire immediately, pointing out that it was after four o'clock in the
morning and time to get a few hours of much-needed sleep.
The storm had subsided now to a dismal drizzle, so just
before going to his bedchamber, Miguel left orders for a messenger to
be dispatched to the town house to tell Grandmother Chausson that he
and Monique were all right and would be returning later that following
day. He wanted to check first, however, on whatever damage the storm
might have done there at the plantation, especially to the recently
planted cuttings. If the soil wasn't well packed around them, they
wouldn't be adequately protected when the cold weather set in. The
planters had warned him that, hot as it was there in the summers, it
sometimes got down to freezing temperatures during the colder months.
Although Monique realized her guardian was not only tired
but worried about saving the crops, as well, she still couldn't
understand why he hadn't at least made an effort to say a few words
aside to her before retiring. True, he had been busy with Old Meggie
and Roselle most of the time, but aside from his usual polite good
night—which on this occasion he had said rather incongruously
at five o'clock in the morning—there had been no hint in his
manner that he even recalled the emotional experiences they had shared
together earlier that night.
After tossing and turning for over an hour, her tingling,
pulsating body still too vibrantly awake to let her relax long enough
to sleep, Monique finally slipped into her light sacque of pink cotton
and went down the gallery to her guardian's room. It was a dismal, wet
dawn, but she knew she wouldn't be able to rest until she'd at least
seen him alone again for a few minutes.
When he opened the door, somewhat groggy from his own
first hour of fitful sleep, it was obvious he had expected to see the
overseer or Meggie and not his restless ward staring up questioningly
at him with wide, confused eyes.
"Monica! In heaven's name, what are you doing here? And in
the damp morning air? Do you want to catch your death of cold?" he
exclaimed in amazement, grabbing his wine silk dressing gown and
quickly throwing it over his white linen nightshirt. He pushed back the
dark waves of his tousled hair as he returned to the door where she
still stood waiting. "What's the matter, child? Why are you here?" he
asked again.