Twice Loved

  “Laura-love,” he said gruffly as his hands started moving, caressing, relearning, while hers lingered on them, absorbing the very feel of his touch. “Am I dreaming or are y’ really here at last?”

  “I’m here, Rye, I’m here.”

  As they shared this first caress, the faraway notes of the bell in the church tower drifted across the meadow, chiming out the musical prelude to the hour, then the hour itself. ... one! ... two! They had grown up to the chiming of that bell, had often gauged their waning time to it, and knew its message well.

  “Two o’clock. How much time do we have?”

  “Until four.”

  One hand left her breast and tipped her chin up. Twisting half-around, she met his lips at last over her shoulder. And as they kissed, each wished the bell had not rung. He dropped his hands to her waist and spun her around almost viciously. She looped one of her arms around his neck, the other around his ribs, while he held her so demandingly, the whalebones bit' into her skin. His mouth blended with hers as their tongues possessed one another, thrusting and tasting, hungry for full intimacy. He grasped the sides of her head and slanted his mouth across hers in one direction, then another, low sounds coming from his throat, as if he were in pain. All pretense of nonchalance had disappeared with the ringing of the church bell, but it had left its reverberations within their bodies, which moved rhythmically against each other when he pulled the length of her against him.

  He dropped to the earth, taking her with him, and fell across her lap in a billow of white dimity. Reaching an arm up, he hooked the back of her neck and bent her to him while she pressed kisses on his closed eyelids, his temple, the hollow beneath his nose, the corner of his mouth, and his throat. “Oh, Rye, I would know the smell of you if I were blindfolded. I could pick you out from all the men of this world with my nose alone.” Without opening his eyes, he chuckled, letting her go on nuzzling and kissing her way around his face and hair.

  “Mmm ...” She made a humming sound of delight with her nose buried in the soft waves above his ear.

  “What do I smell like?” he asked.

  “Like cedar and smoke and salt.”

  He laughed again, then returned his mouth to hers for a long, ardent intermingling of tongues. She ran her hands along the firm muscles of his chest while he pressed his palm along the side of her breast, exploring with a long thumb until the nipple ached sweetly for release from its tight restraints.

  She slipped her hand within his shirt. The chain was warm, the hairs silken, his nipple tiny-hard as her fingertips fluttered across it. His chest muscles tensed beneath her hand, then with a groan he turned his face toward her breasts, opening his mouth greedily against the dress front, forcing his warm breath through it before catching the fabric between his teeth and tugging it as he made inarticulate sounds deep in his throat.

  “Are y’ wearin’ it?” He backed away, freeing his lips from the white dimity.

  Their eyes met as with a single fingertip she traced the outline of a swooping sideburn, from the pulsebeat that rapped at his temple to the curve beneath his firm cheekbone. “Yes, I’m wearing it.”

  “I thought so. I could feel it.”

  “I’ve worn it every day since you gave it to me.”

  “Let me see.” But he remained across her lap for a minute, studying her delicately pink cheeks and the brown eyes, heavy-lidded with anticipation. He braced up, resting a palm beside her hip, his eyes now on a level with hers. “Turn around,” he ordered gently.

  He moved back off her skirts to kneel behind her as the fabric rustled and puffed high, totally covering his thighs. Her hair was gathered in a cascade of ringlets, which she moved aside, presenting the nape of her neck. He touched it with his fingertips, sending shivers preceding his touch along the line of hooks down her vertebrae. She pictured his hands, tough and capable, hands that knew well how to control both oak and a woman’s flesh. The contrasting pictures unleashed a rush of sensuality within Laura while he parted the dress down to her waist, then beyond.

  The dress fell forward and she pushed it past her wrists, then, still sitting, reached for the button at the waistband of her petticoat. Watching, he pressed a hand to her shoulder blade, just above the corset, and stroked the soft hollow up the center of her back with his thumb. Dress and petticoats lay now like a newly blossomed lily, with Laura its pistil. Like a bee gathering nectar, he dipped his head to kiss her soft shoulder before straightening once more to free the laces along her back. Inch by inch they separated, revealing a wrinkled chemise. With a touch he urged her to stand, and she rose on shaky knees, resting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she stepped out of the cylinder of whalebone and buckram.

  Rye raised his eyes, but she stood partially turned away from him, clad now in pantaloons and chemise. Strong, tan hands squeezed her hipbones, turning her slowly to face him while he gazed up, then reached for the ribbon between her breasts. But his hands stopped, then captured the backs of hers as he spoke into her eyes.

  “You take it off. I want to watch y’. Out at sea, the picture of you undressing was the thing I remembered best.” He turned one soft palm upward, then the other, leaving a lingering kiss in each before placing them at her laces. Then he sat back on his haunches, watching, remembering first times with her.

  Slowly, Laura loosened the ribbons, and along with them a series of ricocheting feelings that made her feel wanton and shy, sinful and glorified, while his gaze remained steadily on her. She grasped the hem of the waist-length garment and worked it over her head, then dropped her arms to her sides, leaving the chemise dangling, forgotten, from her fingertips.

  His eyes scanned her bare breasts, their dusky nipples exposed to the sun, then the criss-cross tracery of red lines on her skin. She watched, standing perfectly still, as his Adam’s apple glided up and down before he rose to his knees, placing warm palms gently over her ribs to pull her near and kiss the imprint made by the busk along the center of her stomach and chest. Other impressions had been left by the whalebone stays on either side, and he treated them likewise, tracing each with the tip of his tongue, starting at the warm hollow beneath her breast, gliding down to her waist. His palms caressed her warm back, gathering her close against him as his lips at last covered a dark, sweet nipple.

  Laura closed her eyes, adrift upon a liquid rush of desire, one hand seeking his hair, the other his shoulder, taking a fistful of shirt and twisting it tightly as he moved to her other breast, where he tugged and sucked, sending spasms of desire knifing through her limbs.

  Rye clamped a strong arm about her hips, pulling her against his chest as he took his fill of this woman he’d wanted for five yearning years. Long, delighted minutes later, he leaned away to look up at Laura. She dropped her gaze to see him framed by her naked breasts, and smiled at the sight of his dark fingers stroking her white, soft flesh, shaping and reshaping it, a wonderous expression on his face. Unashamed, she watched and thrilled, letting the tide of emotions build.

  “I thought I remembered perfectly, but y’ were never this good in my memories. Aw, love, your skin is so soft.” His tongue circled the outer circumference of one orb, then its crest, wetting a wide circle of skin. Then he sat back and watched as, the air touching it, evaporating, cooling, the nipple drew up tightly into a ripe, ready berry of arousal, which he again teased with tongue and teeth.

  She reached over his shoulder to tug his shirttail free of his pants, needing to touch more than just his clothing. He sat back and obediently raised his arms while the shirt skimmed past ribs and wrists. Holding the garment, she plunged her face into the soft cloth to breathe deeply of his scent, which lingered there.

  An impatient hand stole the shirt and flung it aside.

  “Sit down,” he ordered, the words rough-textured.

  Immediately, Laura complied, dropping back onto ruffled pantaloons, bracing her palms on the grass behind. She watched in fascination while he lifted one foot and started removing her shoe. Over his
shoulder it went before he peeled away her stocking and reached for her other foot.

  He managed the second shoe without taking his eyes from her face, while she watched every movement of the arousing process, each shifting muscle of his hands undressing her. The second shoe and stocking joined their mates, then he held her foot in both hands, running a thumb over the sensitive instep. While he fondled the foot, his eyes traveled her disheveled hair, bare breasts, and pantaloons.

  “Y’re beautiful.”

  “I have wrinkles on my belly.”

  “Even y’r wrinkles are beautiful. I love every one of ’em.”

  Sitting back on his haunches with knees widespread, he lifted her foot and kissed its arch, then the small hollow beneath her anklebone, while he watched her beguiling mouth drift open and her tongue catch between her teeth. He pressed the sole of her foot against the high, hard center of his chest, moving it in small circles while her eyes followed ... silky-soft hair, hard muscle, the chain, and whale’s tooth trailing on her bare toes.

  Senses that had lain dormant for five years sprang to life in Laura while Rye gradually lowered her foot down the center of his chest to his hard belly, then to his waistline, settling it finally against the hot, hard hills of his tumescence. A shuddering breath fell from him and his eyes closed. She pressed her heel against him and he rocked forward on his knees while her fingers clutched handfuls of grass behind her. When he opened his eyes again, they were fraught with passion.

  “I want y’ more right now than I did in Hardesty’s loft when we were sixteen.” The heat of his body burned through his breeches while he soothed a hand over her ankle.

  Elbows locked, she let her head drop backward, and her eyes drifted shut as she said chokily, “I thought I’d never feel your hands on me again. I’ve wanted this since ... since the day you sailed away from me. What’s happening inside me now has never happened since that day ... only with you.”

  “Tell me what’s happening.” He moved sharply up beside her, bracing one hand on the grass, the other at last cupping the ripe readiness between her legs as he leaned over her, kissing her exposed throat.

  But her only answer was an impassioned sound more expressive than any words she might have chosen as, with head slung back, palms braced firmly on the earth, she thrust her hips upward in invitation. He explored her through cotton pantaloons as he’d first done years ago, dipping his head to kiss the tip of her chin while she moved rhythmically against his hand.

  “Let me see the rest of you,” he begged against her throat.

  She drew her heavy head up. “In a minute.” She pressed a palm against his breast until he went backward onto the grass, catching himself on his elbows, Laura’s and his positions now reversed. “Your boots.”

  Unceremoniously, she took up his left foot, working assiduously at tugging the boot off. But her efforts proved futile. He couldn’t help smiling as her face contorted with a grimace.

  “Why do you wear ... your ... boots ... so ... tight?” She grunted. “They never ... used to be.”

  “They’re new.” He enjoyed every minute of her struggle, then she changed positions and his smile grew broader at the sight of her pink soles facing him, one on each side of his long leg.

  “Laura, y’ should see y’rself, sittin’ there in nothin’ but those ruffly pantaloons, pullin’ at my boot like some hoyden.”

  “It ... won’t ... come ...” But just then the boot slipped off, nearly tumbling her backward. She laughed into his eyes and threw the boot over her shoulder, then ran her hands up inside the leg of his breeches to peel away his woolen sock.

  “Did I make this?” she asked, holding the stocking aloft.

  “No, another woman did.”

  “Another woman?” Her eyebrows puckered.

  His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “Aye, m’ mother. An old pair I found in a chest at home.”

  “Oh.” Laura’s smile was reborn as the sock sailed away, and she made quick work of the second boot and sock, which soon joined the others.

  In a swift movement, Rye came up off the ground, tackling Laura with an arm around her waist, rolling her over and over on the grass until her hair was tumbled and her breasts heaved. Sprawled across the length of her body, he looked down into brown, eager eyes and a mouth across which a strand of hair had fallen during their tussle. His mouth slammed down across hers, heedless of the lock of hair, opening fully in a wild, voluptuous exchange of tongues while his left hand clamped the back of her head and his right kneaded a breast almost hurtfully. His knee came up hard between her legs and their bodies writhed together in reckless thrusts while they rolled to their sides, kissing with an unleashed ardor in which gentleness, for the moment, had no part.

  Her fingers twisted in his hair and her eyelids shut out the blue sky background as he tore his mouth from hers and opened it on the breast, which he cupped high and hard, sending a sweet pain through her as she rejoiced, “Oh, Rye, Rye, is it really you at last?”

  “Aye, it’s me, with five years t’ make up for.” But his breath wheezed like a high wind and his chest heaved torturously as his blue eyes burned into her brown ones. Then suddenly she was released, and he sat up abruptly, straddling her hips as his hands roughly began jerking open the buttons of his breeches while his eyes blazed with the unmistakable fire of intent. Her own blazed an answer as she freed the single button at her side. Their eyes did not waver while he sat her straight and tall, like a rider in a saddle, then a moment later dismounted, swinging a knee back and pulling her to her feet all in one fluid motion.

  Trousers and pantaloons drifted to the ground and a moment later they faced each other with but the distance of a glance between them, nature’s children, dressed in no more than a whale’s tooth and a criss-crossing of red lines, which even now were fading from her skin. Their eyes feasted for a brief time as they stood naked beneath a blue bowl of sunshine, surrounded by salt-scented grass and a wreath of grapevines.

  When Laura and Rye’s arms went about each other, the force nearly knocked the breath from their bodies. She felt her toes leaving the ground while he held her aloft, kissing her mouth, turning in a circle of ecstasy. Then she was struggling, squirming.

  “Rye, put me down so I can touch you.”

  “You touch me, and I’m gone,” he declared roughly. “Christ, it’s been five years.”

  “Aye, love, I know. For me, too.” His eyes pierced hers with a question, and she immediately realized she should not have admitted it. “Rye—” Her voice trembled, “—put me down ... love me ... love me ...”

  The trees tipped sideways as his hard brown arm slipped behind her knees to lift her, and a moment later Laura’s shoulders were pressed to the grass. She looked at his face, framed by blue sky, then at his nodding tumescence, for which she immediately reached, then guided home .... He was solid velvet, she liquid, and his first thrust brought to Laura a bursting sensation of desire which this act had not brought since she’d last celebrated it with Rye. And then the beat began, rhythmic and fluent. And they ceased to be him and her and became simply them—one.

  They arched together beneath the summer sun, which rained on his back as he moved, sending hovering shadow across her face and shoulders. The whale’s tooth dangled across her breastbone to the hollow of her throat, then took up a pendulous tapping on her chin.

  She lifted herself in reception to each thrust, watching Rye’s pleasured face while he bared his teeth and sucked in great shuddering gulps of air. He hung his head to watch their bodies mingling, and her eyes followed. When his beat accelerated, the grass bit into her shoulders and her head was pressed back harder onto the earth. She closed her eyes and rode the swells with him, while his body beckoned her response. It built and it burned until the inward embraces began, forcing a throaty cry from her lips. He grunted as his climax neared, coming against her so hard she skittered beneath him along the earth, then unknowingly closed her fingers around the grass for a handhold.


  She welcomed every inch of the force as her body quivered to its completion. His cry carried over the meadow as he spilled into her, and the final shudder sent sparkling beads of perspiration glinting on his shoulder.

  He fell across her breasts, exhausted, and lay there panting until he felt silent laughter lifting her chest. He raised his weary head to meet her eyes. “Look what we’ve done.” She rolled her head to peer past his shoulder and along her hip.

  He craned around to find in her hand a fistful of turf, pulled up by its roots. He smiled and checked her other hand. It, too, was clasping a clump of grass. Suddenly, she lifted both hands high off the ground and let the clods tumble from her fingers in a kind of jubilation, then flung her arms tightly about his shoulders. He rolled them to their sides, one hand reaching to brush off her palm.

  “Was I too rough with y’?”

  She smiled tenderly into his eyes. “No, oh no, love. I needed it just as it was.”

  “Laura ..." He cradled her gently, closing his eyelids against her hair. “I love y’, woman, I love y’.”

  “I love you, Rye Dalton, just as I’ve loved you since I first knew what the word meant.”

  They lay together with their heartbeats joined, letting the sun dry their skin. After several minutes, he rolled back his shoulder and flung an arm out, palm up. She did likewise, and they closed their eyes as they basked and rested. She lay on his left and with her right hand reached lazily to idle through the hair on his chest. Blindly, he reached for it and brought the fingertips to his lips before replacing it on his chest.

  “Laura?”

  “Hm?”

  “What did y’ mean before when y’ said it’d been five years for y’?”