Occasionally she stopped for conversation, to let him calm down and prolong the pleasure. “Do you like this, Viking?”
“Ja. I like it.” He was breathless. Good.
“Do Saxon women do this to you?”
He shook his head. “Would you like more?”
“Ja, Lucy. More is good.”
And she began again.
Before he went beyond the point of no return she scooted up and straddled him, grasping his cock and angling it so she could settle onto it. She’d never done it this way before. It felt free and a little dirty/sexy to know he could watch her as she moved on that thick shaft.
“Ahhh,” she sighed as she was filled. That’s what she’d been waiting for.
He broke his hold on the brass rail to reach for her. “Uh-uh,” she warned. “You said I could do what I wanted with your body. I want you to hold that rail.”
His lips were mobile with an incipient smile as he nodded acquiescence and gripped the brass again. She was glad for all that walking as she raised and lowered herself, reaching forward to thumb his nipples. Strong legs came in handy. His hips bucked under her in counterpoint. She was not going to come until he did. She wasn’t. But he’d better come soon, because she could feel the underwater volcano building to an explosion. She’d never been this responsive before. Orgasms had always been elusive, and she’d faked more than a few in her time. Now they seemed inevitable, and the fact that she and Galen had made love several times in the last twenty-four hours didn’t seem to dull her appetite. Or his.
He wanted it faster. He was practically bouncing her on his hips.
And then he stilled, groaning, and she felt his cock inside her throb and spurt.
A sense of fulfillment washed over her as he twisted his body, arching, trying to get deeper inside her. It was long moments until he lay back, gasping.
“There,” she panted. “I hope you feel plundered.”
In answer he swung up to sitting and rolled her over onto her side, withdrawing. He kissed her, tenderly, first on her mouth and then on her neck. She arched to meet him. He kissed his way down to her left breast and suckled there as his hand found her mound and delved into it to spread their mingled cream across her clitoris, starved for release. He swabbed it expertly as she arched toward his hand, all the while suckling and licking at her nipple. Lucy thought she might come apart, the sensation was so great. It seemed unrelated to any sex she’d ever had. And the volcano was building, and building. . . .
Galen rubbed and teased until Lucy was begging for release. He watched her come apart under his hands and his mouth and was very proud of himself.
He had never let a woman have her way with him before. To submit to a man was a woman’s place, and while he had always rewarded them for their submission, he had never experienced what they felt. It was strangely . . . erotic, to give yourself over to another, to trust that you would be treated as important and valued. There was no question he had felt valued. And mad with sensation, and bound by lust and love. To think that she would do that for him. To him. This opened up whole new possibilities he wanted to explore.
She turned into him, gasping, and he cradled her against his chest.
Yes, this new time had possibilities. He closed his eyes as Lucy’s breathing steadied. Her breathing was part of the natural order of things. And that was something he was beginning to understand, down in his very bones.
“It will storm again tonight,” Galen said as they walked out over the marshes late Monday afternoon.
“How do you know?” Lucy asked, looking around. Vandal was only a black speck in the distance as he splashed after some poor ducks. The day was blue as only March days could be. The salt wind off the bay was so brisk she tied her hair in an unwieldy knot.
“I . . . I know these things. Like your wise-in-weather men.” He bent to pick up a broken Styrofoam cup. In his leather jacket over a sky blue Henley and jeans as yet un-faded over boots, he looked like any other stunning guy who might grace the cover of GQ. Except hunkier. Okay, maybe the cover of Men’s Health. Without a shirt on. Yummm. How lucky was she?
“Ahhh. The sailor in you. Or do you have a knee that predicts the weather?” She was feeling lighthearted as well as entirely sated. Or maybe she’d never be sated again. Maybe that was what was making her feel lighthearted.
“No. Not the same. Since last night . . . A thing happened, Lucy.”
He sounded very serious. He’d stopped, so she turned to face him. “What thing?” She didn’t like his tone.
“I am not certain. But I hear the land.” He seemed to be listening now, head turned into the damp salt wind. “I hear wind and water, ice and steam.” He turned to her, his brow furrowed. “I know when the air hurts from too much smoke.” He looked down at the ruined cup. “Too much of this.” He took a breath as though gathering his courage. “I . . . I think it may be the drcraeft my mother wanted for me. It came with the equal night.” He examined Lucy’s face. “It came with you.”
Oh, dear. He wanted to be magic so badly—to fulfill his parents’ expectations of him, to be the dead brother to whom they always compared him, to be the hope of his people, their protector—that he was making the fulfillment he and Lucy had found together into something that would transform him. She understood completely. But it wasn’t true. And that way lay madness.
She put a hand on his arm. “Sometimes we want something so much we think it true. But it’s not, and to believe it is to lose our way in life.” She paused, thinking. “Maybe Jake is like that. He has lost his way.”
A flash of pain crossed Galen’s face, then vanished. He looked away, across the marshes to where a heron stood, one legged. “You are right, Lucy. I will not speak of it more.”
She sat on the bench they’d sat on before. For the first time she noticed a small brass plate on the side. In loving memory of Miriam Bostick, from her beloved Ernest.
Some other couple had sat here, connected over years, looking out on the birds and the marsh grass and the bay beyond, but not as many years as stood between Lucy and Galen. Her hair escaped its knot and blew across her face.
“Here,” Galen said, coming to stand behind her. “I will make you like Danish woman.”
He divided her hair in half, separated that half into three parts and deftly braided it. Then he did the same with the other half and pulled each braid across the top of her head and tucked them securely in, even braiding the ends into the base of the other braid.
She felt her head tentatively, smiling.
He came to sit beside her, nodding seriously. “Now you look like a Danir queen.”
She felt like a queen. And he was a man she wanted to stay with over many years. The thought slapped her. Then an overwhelming sense of loss washed through her in its wake.
She couldn’t stay with him. He belonged in his own time. She couldn’t go back with him without changing the world’s destiny. She had proved that already. And if he didn’t get back, who knew what would happen?
Maybe something had already happened. It had occurred to her, belatedly, as she cleaned herself up after their lovemaking and a very satisfying nap, that she had used no protection during four sessions of wild, abandoned sex. She was probably safe. As far as she could figure, she wasn’t ovulating. But it was stupid to take such chances.
So she would have nothing left of him when they were parted. They had to part. And she had to find a way to get them parted. They needed the time machine. She felt sick. Her eyes were full. She turned into the wind. Let him think they were just watering. She looked down and cleared her throat. She must have courage. He wanted to go back. He might have feelings for her, but he must miss his own time terribly. So it was up to her to make him okay with leaving, if and when they could find a way to do that.