‘As who would not be?’ he said, bending to kiss the tip of her nose.
‘Oh John, I miss you all the time …’
‘Then miss me no more.’
The kiss drew them both into different worlds, a temporary resurrection for him, a return to age-old passion for her. So much more than a kiss – a communion and a transformation.
Evie felt it as strongly as she ever had done, through all the bodies that had replicated her soul and spirit down the years. His lips on hers brought her home to that battle-scarred land where they had first kissed. It had felt then, as it did now, like a resolution, the end of all unhappiness. In fact, it had only been the beginning of it.
But that wasn’t on her mind now, while John’s tongue probed in her mouth and his hands slid under the cardigan. Her mind blanked, overlaid with frantic desire. She fisted great handfuls of his hair and burrowed her way inside his jacket, rubbing at the cambric beneath, wondering at the heat of his body.
‘You have kept me strong,’ he murmured, laying her down on the ground. ‘I feel stronger than ever tonight. How many did you take this week?’
‘I’ve done it at least 20 times,’ she said, grinning up at him, writhing on the grassy verge while he unbuckled his sword belt on his knees beside her. ‘We did the fertility ritual and that helped.’
‘Of course. All the power coming into your body from that has given me a new lease.’
‘I can see it in you.’ She put up a hand, stroking his forearm. ‘You’re almost your old self.’
‘And I would do what my old self did, my girl,’ he growled. The belt was off, discarded in a hedgerow.
‘Be gentle,’ she said, arching her legs so her skirt fell in a bunch around her waist, revealing an absence of underwear. ‘Like I said, love, it’s been a hard week.’
‘It will not be long now,’ vowed John, ‘before you no longer have to do this work for me. Our time is near.’
Evie sighed as John’s fingers dipped deep into her overexcited juices. He spoke on, playing with her clit, getting her wetter than she thought was possible.
‘That time will come soon,’ he said, crooking a finger inside her cunt. ‘The time when no man’s fingers but mine will gain access here. The time when my prick alone grants you your satisfaction, each night and many times in succession. Oh Evie, I will have you until you cannot walk or speak, my girl. I will have you for my own.’
‘Do it, John. Please take me.’
She lifted her halter top and put a hand on her breasts, plucking at her nipples while John worked his fingers further inside, stretching her in preparation.
‘Am I still the best?’ he whispered, flexing them, finding her G-spot.
‘Always, oh always, there’s no one, oh John.’
A torrential orgasm threatened to drown her senses, then John’s face loomed above her, his eyes glinting. He had torn off his jacket and the breeches were gone as well, only a long cambric shirt covering his broad chest and tight stomach.
‘Thou and I, my village Eve, thou and I,’ he said. ‘It shall be so.’
She flung her arms around his neck and lifted her legs into the air, opening her cunt to him with instinctive urgency. She needed to feel his cock inside her, a part of her, bringing her to him.
The hard length pushed in, and it was as if the sting left by earlier invaders melted away in the face of this great and final conqueror. This was her true act of union.
‘Now you are where you should be.’ John’s voice strained above her. ‘My woman, on her back with her cunny filled. You shall feel this always, when we are together.’
‘I long for it.’ She dug her fingernails into his back and jolted her pelvis up, greedy for every inch of him.
‘I shall wipe out all traces of what has gone before, placing my mark over them. You are mine, Evangeline.’
‘And you are mine, John.’
He could speak no more, his throat taken up with the effort of controlling breath.
Evie settled into him, bereft in advance, knowing that this coupling could only be brief when she wanted it to be eternal. She wanted to be under him, on top of him, filled with him, at all times, in all seasons. Their bodies, like their spirits, were built to merge, her softness and his hardness complementing each other.