Petals on the River

  In the aftermath of their lovemaking, Shemaine snuggled within her husband’s encompassing arms, unwilling to break away. Gage held her close, caressing her mouth with his own or closing her eyelids with gentle kisses as he luxuriated in the silky softness of her breasts against his chest and the gratifying feel of her warmth encompassing his manhood.

  Soon after they parted, Gage wrapped Shemaine in the sheet until it resembled an enveloping cocoon. She sat on the high stool with a foot balanced on a rung, another drawn up on the seat, and a knee tucked beneath her chin. Gage paused briefly at the washstand for a quick cleansing and then started carrying in buckets of water for their bath. Her husband seemed totally uninhibited about his nakedness, and it was so tempting for Shemaine to watch him. She yearned to appease her own curiosity and found her knowledge of the male form increasing by leaps and bounds as she observed him. Still, whenever he came her way, she cast her gaze elsewhere, unwilling to let him know of her wanton interest in his manly habits and parts.

  Finally the bath was ready, and Gage returned to the stool where his young wife perched. “Your bath is ready, m’lady,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her up from the stool. “And your husband is eager to share it with you.”

  Shemaine paused to readjust the sheet, but Gage caught her hand, halting her.

  “You’re far too comely to be kept under a tarp, madam. Besides, I want to look at you. Do you want to look at me?”

  Despite the vivid blush that swept downward nigh to her breasts, Shemaine nodded in quick answer. “Aye! I want to very much.”

  “Then I give you leave to look at me to your heart’s content,” Gage invited warmly. Taking her hand, he stroked it down his firm torso. “It pleasures me to have you do so.”

  “And it pleasures me to do so,” Shemaine breathed, feeling the drumbeat of her own heart as he instructed her in the art of fondling, as much to her awe and delight as his.

  His whisper was ragged and strained. “You see, madam? I’m naught but potter’s clay in your hands.”

  “No potter’s clay, I trow,” she sighed in admiration, “but a mighty oak.”

  “Then come, little bird, and perch upon my branch,” he coaxed, pressing his lips against her temple.

  “What about our bath?”

  “We will enjoy it to the utmost, madam, for ‘twill be there that the mighty oak will be felled by a little bird.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The jubilant trilling of birds nesting in the tall pine near the bedroom window awakened the newly wedded couple, rousing them to a delectable awareness of each other and the dawning of a new day. As her husband stirred against her back, Shemaine smiled sleepily, enjoying the feel of his hard, masculine form against her own. She lay on her side, nestled in the cradle of his naked body with his thighs tucked close beneath her own. After no more than a few moments of wear, her new nightgown had been discarded and draped over the same chair where his clothes had been left the night before. Only the bed linens covered them, and underneath, their bodies were as warm as their thoughts.

  “As much as I desire to stay here and have my way with you once more, my sweet,” Gage breathed close against her ear, “I must leave this sweet haven and attend the morning chores.”

  Shemaine snuggled back against him, reluctant to have him go. “We didn’t get much sleep.”

  “Aye, we spent too much time dallying in the tub, but what does sleep matter when we enjoyed such bliss? I can still see your wet, lovely body in the candlelight, the glistening hills and the shadowed valleys, tempting me to touch and to taste.”

  Even now the memory of his passionate fervor drew her breath out in a halting sigh. She had been no less intrigued by the sight of him. The tiny flames had bathed his glistening frame with a golden aura, highlighting the knotted sinews over his lean ribs and the long, flexing cords in his shoulders, thighs and arms, leaving her much in awe of his manly physique. “Never has a wedding gift been put to such amorous use, I think, and never again will I make the mistake of thinking that a couples’ bed is the only place where children are conceived.”

  “If we’re alone together, madam, any moment is ripe, any place convenient for making love, whether it’s fully clothed or as bare as the day we came into the world. It doesn’t matter. When two are willing, there’s always a way.”

  “I shall endeavor to look for such opportunities to challenge your statement, sir,” she teased, finding the idea of such a venture totally intriguing.

  “Don’t be surprised if they come upon you unexpectedly,” Gage warmly advised, pressing himself against her buttocks to illustrate his statement.

  Shemaine lifted a bare foot and stroked it along his hard calf. “As long as I can hear your footsteps, you’ll find me waiting in anticipation.”

  His hand slid over the tantalizing curve of her hip and wandered downward along the side of her thigh as he leaned forward to caress her cheek with the gentle brush of his lips. “Will you wait for me here until I get back?”

  Shemaine cast him a look of surprise over her shoulder. “Would you not rather have me cook you the morning meal? We hardly touched the food that Hannah sent home with us. She’ll be disappointed to learn how little we ate of it.”

  Gage chuckled softly. “I’m sure Hannah would understand if we were to tell her, but I see no need of that, madam, do you?”

  A sigh of delight slipped from her as his mouth slid down her throat and across her shoulder. “ ‘Twould only make Hannah wonder what we were doing.”

  His laughing breath warmed her skin. “Considering the number of children she has given birth to, I’m sure she’ll be able to guess.”

  Shemaine wondered if all couples were as active on their wedding night as they had been, but she immediately remembered that a few of her friends in England, after becoming brides, had voiced their aversion “to everything that went on in a marriage bed.” She, on the other hand, had been immensely thrilled and pleasured by Gage’s passion. “ ‘Tis best to be discreet,” she reasoned. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think we spent the whole night in a private orgy.”

  “Ahh, but we did, madam,” Gage replied, his voice imbued with humor.

  Smiling, Shemaine nestled in cozy contentment against him. “I know, Gage, but no one else need know that. They’d really be inclined to think you married a wanton.”

  Her husband sighed, as if in rueful reflection. “It seems there’s no help for it. Truth has a way of coming out.”

  Shemaine gasped in a feigned display of temper. “Oh, you cad! You English rogue! You use me and then abuse me! What a contemptible knave you are!”

  Laughing in glee, she would have scrambled from the bed, but Gage flung out an arm and pulled her back. For a moment, they wrestled in playful abandon until he threw a thigh over her thrashing limbs. Spreading her arms out wide, he pinned her wrists to the mattress and rose above her.

  “Did I not tell you how much I relish having a beautiful wanton in my bed?” he whispered, plying her soft mouth with sultry kisses.

  “If I’m a wanton, sir,” she rejoined, readily adjusting herself to accommodate his encroaching weight, “then you’re the one who has made me insatiable for the delights to be had between a husband and a wife.” She spoke partly in jest, but mostly in truth, for he had aroused her ardor provocatively, sweeping her to heights of unimaginable ecstasy, making her eager for more of his attention.

  Gage braced on his elbows above her, and his brown eyes burned with a consuming fire as they caressed her face. “Think of what we can learn together, my sweet.”

  “You mean there is still that which you do not know?” Shemaine asked in amazement.

  Gage was amused and yet a bit staggered by the idea that his bride thought him completely knowledgeable about women. “There is much I have to learn, my sweet, especially about you. If we’re fortunate enough to live out our lives together, then I’m sure you’ll come to read me like an old book that you’ve memorized over the years. I hope you w
on’t become too bored with me.”

  Shemaine scoffed in light-hearted skepticism. “Hardly that, Mr. Thornton! Truly, I fear the reverse may prove true.”

  “Never!”

  “The morning sun is rising,” she reminded him softly.

  “Aye, I know, and I suppose I must let you go, but only if you promise not to get dressed,” Gage bargained. “That first morning you were here, when you were scurrying around in the kitchen, trying to cook us a meal, I have memorized the way you looked then, all soft and unfettered beneath your nightclothes. I tell you truly, madam, my senses were besotted with the way your garments clung to your backside and breasts. Your nipples seemed eager for attention, and I was even more eager to give it.”

  Shemaine moaned, recalling her own disquiet that morning. “So that’s why you were looking at me so hard.”

  Gage slid his hands from her wrists inward along her arms and then downward over her breasts. “You were so alluring, I wanted to have my way with you then and there.” He grinned as he added, “And many times thereafter.”

  Shemaine lifted a hand and threaded slender fingers through his black, rumpled hair. “If I had known what awaited me, I would have been eager to wed soon after we left the London Pride. You do have a way about you, Mr. Thornton. Truly, when I think of what I’ve been missing, I wonder if I should feel envious of all the women you’ve made love to over the years.”

  A dark brow twisted upward dubiously. “What do you think me, madam? A rapacious libertine? Have I not assured you that I’ve been selective with the women I bed down with?” Lifting himself off her, he snuggled alongside and braced up on an elbow to grin down at her. “Besides, when I first started searching for a mate, you were not old enough to catch my eye. Why, you’re no more than a babe now.”

  “Do I look like a babe?” Shemaine queried, feigning a pout. Stretching sensuously for his consideration, she won his unswerving attention.

  “Nay, madam, and that’s a plain fact.” The amber-lit brown eyes blazed with fiery warmth as he watched her pale body writhe invitingly upon the bed. “Has anyone ever told you how perfectly beautiful you are without your clothes? Especially this delectable portion here.” He was caressing her breasts and was struck by the sharp contrast between their fairness and his sun-bronzed hand. The morning light streaming in through the pine boughs outside the window gave the luscious globes the look of alabaster. The lure of such perfection was irresistible, and he leaned down to savor the delectable sweetness of a pale peak, branding her with the white-hot heat of his mouth and halting her breath with the warm caress of his tongue.

  “If you continue along this path, sir,” she whispered tremblingly, “be assured that I’ll be unwilling to let you go until you finish what you start.”

  Gage was also having second thoughts about leaving and would have proceeded with his manly bent except that his wife’s stomach growled, making him cognizant of her lengthy fast. “I suppose you’re hungry for food.”

  “I’m famished,” Shemaine admitted, and then giggled as he growled in mock anger and threatened to take a playful nip out of her breast. “I can’t help it! You’re a slave driver.”

  “Slave driver, eh?” His laughing breath brushed her ear. “And here I thought I was being lenient with you. Should I show you what demands I’d make if you were not still tender?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  Her enthusiasm made him laugh with hearty mirth. Thus far, he had found no hindrance to his incessant demands. Nor would he, it seemed. “I will, my sweet, but you’ll need nourishment to give you strength. So, my little bird, it must be after you’re fed. Now get you up, wife, and cook a meal fit for your husband.”

  Shemaine gasped in surprise as he whipped the covers back, leaving them without a stitch. Laughing, she scrambled across the mattress, only to find him moving quickly after her. As she came to her feet, she realized he was already rising behind her. Catching hold of the corner post, she sought to swing herself around it, but she could not escape his reaching arm and was promptly swept backward to that wonderfully exciting form.

  “You shan’t escape me, vixen,” Gage rasped near her ear as his hands moved over her body in slow, provocative caresses. He turned her, and his descending mouth snared hers as he clasped her tightly to him. Shemaine answered him with quickening passion, eagerly pressing her soft curves to the steely hardness of his, but it soon became evident to them both that if they did not desist posthaste, the chores would never get done. Reluctantly Gage set her from him.

  “Alas, I must milk the poor cow ere she bursts.” Yet his hands came up to leisurely stroke her bosom while his eyes caressed and admired the tempting roundness. “Though I’d much rather stay here and milk the sweet nectar from these pale breasts.”

  Sitting back upon the bed, Gage pulled her close between his thighs and hungrily mouthed the luscious fullness until Shemaine’s strength waned. She melted against him with no more resistance than a rag doll. His own driving need began to goad Gage, and he gave up trying to resist, becoming more purposeful as he pulled her silken thighs across his.

  “Did you always ride sidesaddle when you raced your stallion across the fields?” he whispered huskily.

  Somewhat confused, Shemaine searched his face. “Not always.”

  Gage’s lips curved with seductive enticement. “I know you’ve ridden astride. Does it pleasure you to do so?”

  A glimmer of understanding dawned, provoking a responding smile from Shemaine’ s lips. “Aye, when I have a fine stallion beneath me.”

  “What think you of me, madam?”

  “The very best, I trow,” she sighed, sweeping her hands admiringly over his chest as he leaned back upon the bed. He moved effortlessly, carrying their weight to the center of the bed, and smiled up at her with glowing eyes as he joined himself to her.

  “Ride to your heart’s content, my lady fair.”

  No other stallion had ever served her as well as this muscular, bronzed-skin Hercules who raced beneath her. Sweeping her ever onward, he drew her breath out in panting gasps with his thrilling boldness, surging upward to meet her and touching her in ways that made her shiver with delight. Scintillating excitement washed over her, as if she raced through the breakers crashing upon a beach. She could almost feel the wind swirling through her hair, the salt spray snatching her breath and misting her naked body with tiny droplets as her hips stroked with quickening intensity the sleek, sturdy loins rising up beneath her own. The ride became more dedicated until the billowing spasms swept over them, bathing them in joyful rapture and sweeping them out into a sea of ecstasy.

  Time ceased to be as they drifted ever so slowly back to shore, where they lay locked together in sweet repose. It was some moments later when Gage finally left his bride. Curled languidly upon the bed, Shemaine watched with curious interest and pleasure as her husband took buckskin britches from the armoire and yanked them on. He fastened them, pulled on a pair of soft hide boots, and then came back to the bed. Smiling down into her glowing green eyes, he spread a sheet over her lovely body.

  “You were right, my sweet.”

  A slight twisting of her brow conveyed her confusion.

  “You do ride well.”

  The corners of Shemaine’s lips turned upward enticingly. “I had an excellent steed, the finest I’ve ever ridden.”

  Gage dipped his head in acknowledgment of her compliment and then asked, “Would you care for a dip in the stream after we eat?”

  His wife shivered at the thought. “Too cold.”

  “I’ll keep you warm,” Gage coaxed.

  Shemaine raised a wondering brow at him, realizing he was serious. “The sun is up. Anybody who happened by could see us.”

  “I warned my men to stay away. They wouldn’t dare intrude upon us.”

  “And Potts? What of him?”

  “Until his wound heals, ‘tis unlikely he’ll have the endurance to come this far from the hamlet, even if he’s there.” Gage canted his head
and gave her a beguiling smile. “I can teach you some things we haven’t done yet.”

  Shemaine pursed her lips in a coy pout. “ ‘Tis unfair the way you bribe me.”

  “Aye, I know,” he replied with a chuckle.

  “Go get your chores done, my handsome husband,” she urged with sudden enthusiasm. “And be quick about it. As for me, I’ll see what I can cook up for us in a hurry.”

  His laughter accompanied his exit, and Shemaine found herself smiling dreamily at the ceiling as she recalled the night of passion they had shared together. She was now convinced that Gage Thornton was far more clever at making love than he was at building furniture, and that profession, to be sure, he excelled at.

  The moments passed swiftly as they completed their separate tasks, and an hour aged into two while they broke the morning fast together. Seated on the same bench, they shared their food as willingly as they shared each other, feeding and being fed, kissing and caressing, fondling and stroking as if they couldn’t get enough of each other.

  Shemaine was garbed in nothing more than a dressing gown when she followed Gage across the front porch and accepted his helping hand in descending the stairs. At the water’s edge, she was timid about discarding the robe and exposing herself to the uncertainty of her surroundings, but after watching Gage strip to the buff and plunge into the water, she finally relented.

  “Oh, it’s cold!” she complained, wading through the shallows.

  “Refreshing and invigorating!” Gage corrected with a chuckle, feasting his gaze upon her soft curves as he ran his fingers through his wet hair.

  “Chilling and frigid!” Shemaine insisted, shivering as the water came up around her thighs.

  “Come, love, I’ll warm you.” Spreading his arms invitingly, her husband beckoned to her with a luminous smile. “Only a little bit more and you’ll be in my embrace.”