Awaken My Fire (39 page)

So close he almost touched her.

"Non pas maintenant. . . s'il vous plait..."

Not now, please, his mind translated, and yet he knew he could not honor the plea if his life depended on it. She was shaking her head. The tempo of her heart escalated; her senses filled with his nearness, more potent somehow with the exposure of her emotional fragility. His hand came to her face and her eyes lowered as cool fingertips brushed along her hairline. She turned her face into the warmth of his hand. A lone tear slipped down her cheek. His thumb tenderly caught it, banishing the sweet drop in a gentle caress across her cheek. "Roshelle, tell me."

She looked up to see the compassion in his gaze. It startled her and then she wondered why. There seemed to be no limits to the reach of his compassion.

'Twas an English duke who lifted the people's burden, who stared at her now with unmasked sympathy and concern. 'Twas an Englishman who promised her safety at last, whom she longed so desperately to believe. 'Twas an Englishman who made her heart leap and pound with a strange fluttering excitement and fear the moment she saw him. 'Twas an Englishman who appeared each night in the secret place of her dreams, who carried her so far that she was forced to question the reality of the curse…

The unnatural ivory of her skin begged his touch, its paleness accenting the red-brown plaits of hair that haloed her lovely face. "Tell me," he said, cupping her chin in the palm of his large hand, marveling at the poetry of her tear-washed eyes. "I would know this burden of your heart. Is it his torment again? Rodez?"

She could not speak. She shook her head, her lashes lowered as if to hide her secrets. He would not have her retreat, though. "You were praying, for . . . for—" His brows drew together as he guessed in a whisper, “For that man you loved. You seek him through prayer."

Her blue eyes found his. Another time she might have been surprised by his understanding, but not now. Not as her mind, her heart, her very soul remained firmly fixed on the miracle brought by her forest prayers. For sometimes when she prayed, she was graced with the miracle of love and light, and she felt Papillion's love cascade over her like a warm fountain of light, and for those precious moments she knew peace.

Peace. Her soul felt like a weary and bedraggled beggar who had traveled so far, for so long, the simple comfort of a fire and a warm cup of milk to wrap his cold hands around was only a distant memory. A very distant memory. Yet all this past week she had found a different kind of peace: as she tended the little boy, Paul, as she worried over his fever and blood loss and swelling, all the medicines and their mixtures, she barely had time to think of Vincent, or of warring countries or curses or evil threats of unspeakable torments. Aye, a different kind of peace, it was but precious...

The miracle was gone now, dissipated into the waking light of day, as if it never was. Now she felt only the longing, a terrible longing to get it back and hold it, the peace and freedom from the endless circle of her tired thoughts.

"Aye."

He stroked an errant strand of hair curling on her forehead, and she was strangely conscious of the gesture.

He saw the truth then. "You are afraid."

Her blue eyes darkened with a worry as she nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. She never knew exactly what happened next. He stood up, drawing her against him as he did, enfolding her into his great warmth. She felt the unnatural strength of him as, in a single fluid motion, he lifted her into his arms. She started to protest but he stopped her. "Roshelle, no. I'm just taking you to that oak tree there. See it? That's all."

The next thing she knew, he sat against the trunk, his long legs stretched in front and she upon his lap. Her arms were neatly folded against the wide breath of his chest, her face and tears buried against the swift, steady beat of his heart, her cloak covering them both.

He struggled without success to temper the soaring effect she had on his senses. He smoothed the crease on the side of her forehead over and over, while she cried against his chest. Cried so softly, he knew only from the small, irregular breaths that teased the skin on his chest. Each inhalation brought the sweet taste of her perfume and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply and trying to steer his thoughts from the mounting heat between them. The mere thought of her inevitably registered physically; holding her on his lap played with fire.

"Roshelle . . . look at me."

Tear-filled blue eyes lifted hesitantly.

She saw his answer to her doubt and fear in the warm caress of his gaze and, mon Dieu, how she wanted to believe him! He withdrew the pins that held her plaits around her head, yet she did not know it until first one, then the other swung free and his gentle fingers began unwinding the braids and still their gazes were locked, the key tossed away. The desire in his darkly intelligent eyes charged the air around them, like the air before a lightning storm. She swallowed, abruptly conscious of the rising tempo of her overworked heart and pulse, and even more when he said, "I want you, Roshelle." His fingers combed through the long unbound hair that spilled over his arm to curl on the forest floor. He traced a line around her ear and neck. Shivers rushed from the spots. "With each and every breath I take, I want you." He leaned over and gently kissed her lips once, withdrawing a bit but keeping his own dangerously close.

She felt a tremor of fear, her thoughts begging the question for the millionth time: what if he was wrong and the curse was as real as a sharp-edged sword? What if he had not died simply because Rodez's wicked intentions had stopped it, as if Papillion's magic would not work for Rodez's gain? What if—

"Don't, Roshelle," was all he said, all he had to say. "I mean to kiss you.” His large strong hand went to the laces at the bodice of her gown. He let his lips gently caress the spot on her neck where the shivers raced.

Tiny spark like shivers rushed from the spot where his lips teased her, and her racing heart sped blood through her now feeble veins. Her small fist curled against his shoulder, she felt but a hairsbreadth from panic. "Vincent, what if, if you are wrong—"

He laid a finger over her lips. "Enough of this. I have no mind to hear of it ever again. I will lay your every last doubt to rest on this sunlit forest floor beneath the arch of trees above…" He caught her curled fist and gently pried her fingers open before stroking her anxious fingertips with his parted lips. "Tear your mind from the curse and tell me, what of you, Roshelle? What do you feel when I kiss you?"

What did she feel? What did she feel?

And then she named the fear she lived with, the fear she had lived with all these past long years of her life: "I feel 'tis an impossible dream too beautiful to be real ... Do you not see, or can you not see, how I am not blessed with happiness?" Then with tears, she cried, "Vincent, this was not meant to be!"

The words landed like a blow to his head. He stared at her tear-filled blue eyes, eyes that held the haunting sadness he saw so many times in his terrible vision of the white tower. He tried to deny it. He knew she lived the whole of her youthful existence burdened by her compassion, compassion that separated her from others and made her know the suffering caused by the cruelty of their world: all the wars and bloodletting, the suffering of the impoverished masses, death, especially Papillion's death, and always the shadow of the Duke of Burgundy's hand—but it did not mean, it could not mean she was forever separated by happiness. "Roshelle, my dear, sweet Roshelle, fate is bent by will, our will, nothing more."

She started to shake her head but he stopped her. "We have this moment, Roshelle. This one moment now. Kiss me, Roshelle. Kiss me now and let the world fall away as if it never was."

His splayed fingers held her head still and he watched the sadness disappear beneath her closed lids as his mouth came over hers. A kiss made of these promises, promises of things that could never be. She felt and remembered, felt and remembered the sensual promise of his lips and, dear Lord, how she wanted to believe! Promises manifesting in an enticing taste of warmth, a gathering heat deep inside herself, like a small ball of flame, waiting for his touch.

Her lips became soft and pliant, as if to shyly greet the sweeping pleasure of it, and without realizing it, she answered the question. He deepened the kiss more to reward her. His arm cradled her head like a child's, which was absolutely necessary to steady the spinning sensations of his kiss. He broke the kiss, allowing her to draw quick gasps of air as she felt the melting heat of his lips on her cheek. "Your mouth is a sweeter intoxication than every promise made of heaven."

With an effort, he tried to slow the pace demanded of his desire, a thing that, until Roshelle, had always been as natural for him as breathing. Until Roshelle…

Desire softened the delicate lines of her face where he ran his fingers. Gasping for breath and her head spinning, she produced his name and uttered it like a secret wish spoken to the first shining star in the night. "Vincent. . ."

He answered by returning his lips to hers again, more insistently now. His free hand had slipped beneath the loosen bodice of her gown, sliding from her breast to her waist, testing its narrow curve before riding the sensuous flare of her hips back to the soft, voluptuous mound of her breast. He felt the wild gallop of her heart before testing its softness in the whole of his hand, sliding back and forth, his thumb teasing the tender peak to a tiny hard knot of fire beneath the thin cloth of her gown.

Deftly his fingers finished working the laces.

A small involuntary whimper escaped her as his large warm hand slipped beneath the bodice of her gown and his warm, firm lips broke his kiss to find her neck. "So soft, like moonlight on a summer's eve."

Shivers rushed, gathered, exploded and she cried softly, her next breath pressing her fullness into the enticing warmth of his hand, which he expertly used to advantage. Then his lips gently kneaded hers, his warm breath sending sparks like fire through her before he was kissing her again. The kiss answering her desire, stroking it, soothing it, only to spark its flames to greater heights.

Unlike before, he was so gentle now. There was no threat or cruelty between them. Unrestrained by fear and free of thoughts of death, for one wild moment she began to believe in the miracle and gift of their passion.

Breaking the kiss, he lowered her backside to the cushion of bluebells, his arm still cradling her head. A beam of sunlight caught the long auburn hair spread put in ripples of silken color from her plaits. Her blue eyes opened to him, darkening with newly awakened passions.

He closed his eyes for a moment, desperate to find some measure of control. The magnitude of his struggle surprised him, for while her innocence called to all the gentleness he owned and then some, his desire felt like an unbridled, unrestrained force, dangerous for her and absolutely the last thing he would let her know. An untried virgin still, he reminded himself, drawing on all the tenderness of which he was capable and more as he kissed her neck and ear and closed lids.

He needn't have feared. A quivering restlessness pulsated through her, so powerful and urgent she could hardly think. The blood pounding in her head drove away the lingering remnant of any last doubt. "Vincent…" And her hands curled around his neck as she brought her trembling lips to his mouth and she was kissing him, wanting him ...

Deft fingers unclasped her cloak, spreading it out behind her. A strong, firm hand gently lowered her back and the kiss was without end. The molding of his mouth on hers and the sweep and taste of his tongue felt like a savage, primitive power descending on her mind, body, soul, claiming all as his own. A sea of bright, shimmering colors exploded in her mind, shimmering into the heat sweeping through her, then more as he let her feel some of his weight and his hand came over the small arch of her backside, gathering her tightly against his length.

He wore breeches, belted at the waist, and a shirt like a-sailor's garb, but the cloth was cotton and she felt the hard outline of his body beneath the press of his belt. Each spot tingled beneath the pressureless play of his warm breath, changing with the gentle caresses of his lips.

She twisted intimately against his warmth. The small writhing body made him bury his face between the gentle swell of her breasts as he released a husky groan. He set his mouth to hers, the kiss fueled the thick, hot pleasure spilling into her, drowning any last thought beneath the roar of her blood pounding in her ears.

He was saying her name, whispering, stopping only to caress her lips as his hand brushed over her side, discovering and exploring her most sensitive spots and she braced, dizzy with anticipation as his hand stopped beneath her breast. He skillfully let it build until the tension made her twist and she uttered a soft cry as if for help, answered at last with his gentle massage of the voluptuous rise.

The pounding of her heart pulsated through her. He lifted partially up and she felt his gaze on her, as warm as a caress. A changed tempo of his hand made her gasp, a gasp he caught in his mouth. His mouth rocked over hers with beguiling eroticism. He took her hands in one of his and held them back to the ground before he heightened the hot spinning sensations in her breasts by taking her mouth again. She melted helplessly beneath the driving agony of the kiss, a kiss that did not stop as his free hand drifted over her side and down her flank and up again where his palm traveled in a slow, hot circle over one breast, then the other, letting the pleasure slowly penetrate her dazed senses.