Sobbing into Matthew’s neck, Patience surrendered to the pain.
All she could feel was pain. All she could see, touch, and taste were tears. All she could hear were sobs.
But she let herself feel all of it.
And she didn’t hide.
How long she cried before she began to calm, she didn’t know.
Matthew whispered into her ear, yet all she could hear were hushed bits of words. The low rush of an angel’s wings cut his message into indecipherable fragments. But it didn’t matter because his embrace and the threads of his voice conveyed a message—you’re safe and I’ll never leave you.
“I know,” Patience breathed.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. It had been so long since she’d felt sheltered. Only her mother’s embrace had been like this one—warm, protective, and perfect.
She heaved a sigh as she felt the press of a kiss upon her brow, and she wanted to weep again because even this kiss reminded her of her mother’s kisses.
But it was Matthew’s arms around her. He pulled her closer, and she clung to him.
More broken whispers. But still he held her. She felt his lingering touch, and it filled her with comfort and peace.
Heaven was around her. She wasn’t alone. A breath of wind blew, and she felt warm.
For there were arms embracing her—strong, beautiful arms that would never leave her.
Matthew’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SHE LOVES HIM
I have found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go . . .
SONG OF SOLOMON 3:4
Matthew pressed his lips to Patience’s brow and stroked her curls back from her cheek. He didn’t know how many times he’d already done so, but it didn’t matter. He’d kiss her brow and smooth her hair for a thousand years if it comforted her—if it made her understand that his embrace, his heart, and his soul were all eternally hers.
He tightened his arms around her protectively. She rested, still and quiet now. But her collapse, her painful confession, and the tortured sobs and wracked cries that had followed it had almost broken his heart.
He closed his eyes and kissed her temple. So long as there was breath in his body, she would never again feel alone—or feel the need to hide from her own emotions. That she must
never
do.
And she must play.
He looked at the broken pieces of her cello, scattered all around them. Watching her break it had been both shocking and spectacular. But it was important that she see and feel—and remember—how to play from her heart. Now, while all her wounds were still raw and tender, so that she could play to heal herself, rather than hide from herself.
“Patience.” He whispered her name into her hair.
“Yes, Matthew.” Her whispered reply didn’t quaver.
He cupped her cheek and turned her face up to his. Her eyes and nose were red, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen, but he found her ever beautiful. “Come with me,” he said.
Patience nodded and slipped off his lap and onto the floor.
Getting to his feet, Matthew held out his hand and helped her rise. His heart ached and his cock throbbed as her long, magnificent body unfolded. One of her stockings was still above her knee. The other was around her ankle. But her state of dishabille only served to magnify her sensual beauty. In the sunshine, her skin looked like cream, her nipples like raspberries. She was food—sustenance for his soul.
Keeping hold of her hand, he drew her to the chair beside his cello. Sitting all the way against the straight back, he opened his legs and indicated the portion of open seat before him. “Sit.”
Patience’s eyes moved from him, to his cello, and back again. She stared into his gaze for a moment. Her look was soft and trusting. Then she turned and sat gingerly before him, scooting her reddened bottom snugly against his erection.
Matthew winced at the contact. Biting back his lust, he let himself kiss her shoulder before reaching for his cello. He brought it in front of her slowly, watching her legs open for it. His instrument was broader than hers, but she adjusted easily. Uncertain how she would react, he moved very carefully to lay it against her shoulder, smoothing his hand over the spot before letting the wood touch her skin. Then, caressing down her arms, he slid his hands over hers.
“Let’s touch it together,” he murmured, lifting her hands and placing them against the sides of his Montagnana. “Close your eyes,” he whispered by her ear, and saw her lashes flutter down.
Keeping his hands over hers, he guided her touch over the curves of the cello’s shoulders and into the waist. “Feel how smooth and strong it is.” He breathed the smell of her hair and kissed the lobe of her ear.
She shivered.
He moved her hands over the f-holes. “Yet, it will only give as much as you put into it.” He brushed kisses along her shoulder.
She sighed and tipped her head against his.
He slid her hands lower, over the belly of his instrument. “Which is why you must give it your whole self.” Pressing against her hands, he pulled his cello, and her, tighter. His blood coursed at the sound of her gasp and the feel of her body. “Then you’ll know the full measure of joy that it’s capable of bringing you.” He drew her left hand up the strings to the fingerboard. “Do you believe me, Patience?”
“Yes, Matthew.” Her answer was a breathy sigh, expelled through parted lips. He felt her body tremble. Her hips pressed back against him.
Matthew shuddered as he reached for his bow. He slid the horsehair along her leg and then over her thigh. Her eyes opened. “Take it,” he said, softly.
The moment she took the bow, Matthew drew his hands along her arms. “The Montagnana is not easy,” he murmured. “She requires strong articulation and vibrato from the left hand. But the more you demand of her, the more she will give, so hold nothing back.” He stroked his hands over her shoulders, then down her sides and around her waist. “Now play, Patience; and think of nothing but this moment.” He kissed the sweet-smelling spot behind her ear. “I am with you.”
She paused. He felt her inhale and exhale. Then, without any preliminaries, the prelude of Bach’s Cello Suite Number One—the piece they’d played together at the musicale—began to pour forth, full and potent.
Matthew closed his eyes. She was playing it a count slower than it was typically played. He brushed his lips against her shoulder as he listened. Each note was expressed with depth. She slowed even more in places and quickened in others. He felt the movement of her body, and could anticipate by it the character of the next measure—so beautiful, so full of feeling. He leaned with her into the final notes as they faded.
Then a shiver trembled through him as the low opening notes of Handel’s
Sarabande
softly filled the silence. He opened his eyes. Quiet and tentative she began, but then the music grew. It was both strong and fragile—fragile in its strength, and strong in its fragility. It was both things at once, each somehow magnifying the other. It was Patience.
Matthew closed his eyes, for he need no longer look at her to see her. She was in every note, in every rest. She was before him, pressing back against him. But she was also around him. In all her power and vulnerability—in all her beauty and sublimity—in all her perfect imperfection.
As her music filled him—as he held her close, slowly thrusting to meet the gentle rocking of her hips—his love for her overflowed his heart and poured over her in a deluge of want and desire that was as strong, fragile, and palpable as her music.
When had she stopped? When had she turned to look at him, and when had he opened his eyes? Rapt, he stared into her shining green gaze. Tears were on her cheeks. But there was no sorrow in her eyes, only a bright, glistening joy.
“I want to lay with you, Matthew.”
His blood surged and his nerves leapt in crawling desire over his body. But he bit back his love and his lust—he bit them back so hard that the effort left him light-headed. He shook his head and his words seemed to blur. “You’ve been through much today. I want no regrets tomorrow.”
She gently set his Montagnana and his bow in the cello stand. Then she turned, her hip pressing his aching erection. He shuddered at the blissful torture.
“It’s not like that, Matthew.” Her voice was soft and low. “I’m not surrendering because I feel vulnerable. I’m surrendering because I feel strong.” She laid her hands against his cheeks and her eyes looked brilliant. “I’m surrendering because I’m in love.”
Matthew’s mouth went dry and his heart began to pound—too hard and too fast.
Patience leaned toward him. “I love you, Matthew.” She pressed her tender lips to his. “I always have.” She kissed him again. “And I always will. So have no worries about tomorrow”—she kissed him again—“because I love you forever.”
Had his heart stopped beating? He couldn’t feel it.
Heaven—every word heaven.
She drew back and smiled—such a smile. “Matthew, I love you.”
He drew a gasping breath as he stared into her loving gaze. His heart hadn’t stopped. Rather, his heart, his body, and his soul had all become one pulse—one joy.
Love! Elusive love . . .
Patience’s love—bestowed upon me.
Patience’s pure, passionate love—mine, at last.
“I—” His voice cracked. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear you say those words.” His hands trembled as he lifted them to her face. “And now that you’ve said them, I find they mean even more to me than I had thought.” He touched her lips. “Say them again.”
Her gaze, eager and earnest, held him. “I love you, Matthew.”
He smiled and laughed, only to smile again. Finally, he gave voice to the words he’d spoken over and over in his mind. “I love you, Patience. I love you.”
His eyes stung, so he closed them. He closed them and kissed her with all the hungry, fevered passion of love unleashed.
Then, mouths touching, inhaling her love and exhaling his own, he breathed the other words he’d been longing to say. “Marry me.”
Marry him!
Patience squeezed her eyes shut against elated tears.
“Marry me, Patience.” His forehead still pressed to hers, Matthew clasped her hand and pressed it to his heart. “Give me heart
and
hand. I must have both, even as I must
give
both.” He pulled back, and she looked, through her tears, into his shining eyes. “Say yes, Patience. My love for you is too large to live in secret.”
Her heart soaring to the Heavens, Patience smiled and cried. “Yes, Matthew. Yes, and yes again!” She threw her arms around him.
His arms clamped around her. “You’re mine,” he breathed, his fingers clenching in her hair. “You’re mine.”
“Yes, and you’re mine.” Patience pressed fervent kisses all over his face. “Forever mine!”
Then his mouth was covering hers.
Patience held him to her and gave him back kiss for hungry kiss. Her heart felt full and whole, and there was so much passion and joy pouring out from her that she tightened her arms around him in the hope of containing all its beautiful bounty within their embrace.
She kissed him and clung to him, even as she felt him stand. Her legs slid down his body. Her arms held him tight, and she balanced on her toes as she grasped his nape and drank desire from his mouth.
She heard him moan, then his hand was on her sore bottom, gripping it and squeezing it hard. Her head spun and she gasped against his lips as he ground his magnificent erection against her. She thrust her hips in answer. Her cunt clenched and her clitoris throbbed.
“I love you,” she breathed between kisses. “I love you.”
Matthew tore his mouth from hers. His eyes were like black fire. “Never stop saying those words to me,” he rasped. “Never believe you’ve said them enough. Never believe you’ve said them too much.” His hand slipped along her jaw. He touched her lower lip with his thumb. “For those three words, spoken from your lips, mean more to me than anything that will ever be said to me again. So you must say them over and over—for all our lives. And when I am a very old man and can no longer hear, you must keep saying them, so that I can watch your lips and know that you love me still.” He was trembling, and his eyes looked like dark glass. “In return, my love, I shall make you weary with my declarations. Morning, noon, and night shall I advise you of my heart’s adoration. And should the day come when I can no longer speak, I shall mouth the words so that you may know, even then, that I love you.”
Patience felt tears on her cheeks again, and her heart hurt—not from an excess of pain, but from an excess of love and happiness. “I love you, Matthew. I love you.” She smiled into his dark eyes.
“And so shall I tell you every day—at both daybreak and night-fall, and a thousand times in between.”
His arms swept around her and he took her mouth in a kiss that left her shaking and breathless. Then he drew back and took her hand. “Come,” he urged.
Patience followed without pause.
Leaving the parlor, he turned them toward his room. His strides were long and fast. Patience hurried to keep up with him. How different this moment was from the first night Matthew had taken her to his room. How different
she
was.
Without slowing, he looked at her. “I love you.”
Patience’s smile deepened and her heart pounded. “I love you.”
A few more steps and he looked at her again, his gaze skimming her body. “Ours will
not
be a long engagement.”
“Very well, my love.” Exuberant, she almost skipped at his side.
Matthew barely paused as he reached for his chamber door. Swinging it open, he pulled her in with him, and then swung it shut all in one fluid motion. Pulling her across the huge room, his long strides brought them directly to his bedside. Only then did he stop and face her.