Velvet Song (Montgomery/Taggert 4)

“Mary,” he said. “Mary, I’ll find you.”

With one leap she was beside him. He must stay quiet and not let the people in the camp know he was unwell. The idiots had some idea that Raine secreted jewels and gold inside his tent, and Alyx had no doubt they would love the opportunity to search.

“Mary,” Raine called louder, one big arm waving, just missing Alyx’s head.

“Raine, wake up,” she whispered loudly. “You are having a bad dream.” As she caught his arm and touched his skin, she realized immediately that he was feverish. His skin was hot to her touch.

“No,” she gasped and cursed Rosamund for leaving the camp when Raine needed her. A fever! What could she do? Feeling totally useless, she dipped a cloth in one of the buckets of water and went to place it on his forehead, but one of Raine’s arms hit her and sent the cloth flying. At the rate he was flailing his arms, he’d hit a tent pole and the whole canvas would come crashing down on their heads.

“Raine,” she said fiercely, commandingly. “You must be still.” She grabbed both his hands in hers and found herself lifted from the floor, pulled half across him.

“I must find Mary,” he said, much louder, slurring his words, and as he moved, so did Alyx.

“You overgrown ox,” she hissed. “Keep still!”

That seemed to register with him, for he opened his eyes and she could see the feverish glint even in the dark tent.

For just a moment he looked at her, unseeing, and then his eyes seemed to focus and he put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her mouth down to his.

Protest, even if Alyx had thought of such a thing, was not possible. The moment her lips touched Raine’s all was lost. She was a woman of great passion, great feeling and, always, she’d spent that passion on music. At the first touch of Raine, music exploded throughout every pore of her body, angels singing, devils humming, choruses reaching new notes, happy songs, sad songs.

He turned her head as he nuzzled her lips apart, seeking the inner sweetness of her mouth, his tongue touching the tip of hers. It didn’t take Alyx but a moment to learn how to kiss him back. One foot on the floor, the other waving about, in heaven, her body half across his, she put her arms around his head and pulled him closer to her, her tongue plunging deeper and deeper into his mouth. This was what she’d wanted ever since she’d first seen him, not to be treated as a boy but as the woman she was.

Raine reacted enthusiastically to her aggressiveness, his lips sucking at hers, biting them, pulling them between his teeth, running his tongue over the sweet swell of them.

When his hand slipped downward and touched the top of her calf, she drew her breath in sharply and began to kiss his cheek, her lips trailing down to his neck, that powerful, strong neck she’d looked at so many times, had watched with interest as sweat trickled down it.

His skin, so hot, broiling, left seared places on her legs as he moved to his side and began to run both hands up the sides of her legs, his fingers digging into the firm muscles at the backs of her thighs. When he reached her buttocks and cupped them, he gave a little chuckle of satisfaction. “Sweet wench,” he murmured, moving his head so he again captured her lips, and the kiss strengthened as his fiery hands stroked her legs, kneading the flesh, exploring the curves and contours of her body.

But Alyx was not content to be a passive participant and her hands also began to explore him, pulling up his shirt, touching his feverish skin with her ardent, inquisitive hands. The hair on his chest, great curling piles of it, was as soft as she had imagined, and the muscles on his chest, undulating, curving, were exciting beyond her wildest imagination.

“Raine,” she murmured, her lips following her hands, detesting the linen shirt. His hands stilled as he gave all his attention to what she was doing with her mouth. When the shirt would allow her to go no lower, she moved so that she could start at the bottom and work up.

Her lips touched the line of hair as it disappeared into his loincloth and Raine’s breath quickened, his hands still as they clutched her firm, hard thighs. As her lips moved upward, so did her hands, taking the shirt with her until she reached his neck and, miraculously, the confining piece of cloth slipped off his body, exposing all of that sun-bronzed, hot skin to Alyx’s view, and touch.

Raine, slow to move, slower to realize what was happening to him, that this nymphet from heaven was making love to him, easily, with a practiced gesture, divested the vision of her shirt, and in the same motion put an arm around the specter’s tiny waist and pulled her to lie beside him.

It was Alyx’s turn to gasp as her nude body touched Raine’s flaming skin and his hot hands began exploring her body, stopping at her waist, loosely encircled by the gold Lyon belt. He seemed to think it was natural that she wore no clothes but this golden belt of her ancestors. As his hand moved upward toward her free breasts, she held her breath, afraid he’d reject her as too small for his taste, but as his hand encircled her and his lips nuzzled her neck, she forgot any imagined deformities. And when Raine’s mouth burned a path down to her breast and touched the rosy tip with his tongue, she gasped and arched against him, her hips ungracefully banging against his.

A low, deep sensuous chuckle welled out of Raine’s throat as his teeth nipped too hard on her nipple, causing her to squeal and move away from him. Raine quickly slipped a hand under her waist and easily pulled her back to him and all in one gesture caught her earlobe in his teeth. “You are mine, my sweet woodland fairy,” he said between his teeth, and his breath, as hot as his skin, seemed to enter her ear and travel directly to the pit of her belly.

“No,” she giggled in a tone that no one could mistake for a negative answer, her hands on his stomach, pushing against him. He let her move a few inches from him, but his hand pulled her back, treating her as if she were a child’s toy on a string.

Caught up in the game, not liking his toying with her, Alyx brought her knees up to her chest and pushed out at him. She was pleased to see that at least it took two arms to hold her against the strength of her legs.

Seeming to enjoy her curled position, he held her and ran his hands down the back side of her, caressing her back and legs, curving around her buttocks, stroking and stroking, leaving a trail of heat until Alyx knew her body was as hot as his, and suddenly he turned serious again as his lips found hers and crushed her to him, hard, hard, his passion rising, a tangible thing, something she sensed in the air about them as well as felt through the crushing of his body on hers.

Impatiently, he pushed her legs down so they lay on their sides, facing each other and his hands were no longer gentle but demanding, pulling her slight body in to his larger one, seeming to attempt to fuse their skins.

Blinded, music, magnificent music, roaring in her head, Alyx tried to get closer to him, throwing one leg over his, wrapping it about his thighs, hooking her foot behind his knee.

Raine’s hand descended down her back, slowly, feeling every nook and crevice until he reached the center of her being. Gasping, eyes wide, Alyx pulled back from him, saw his eyes were closed as he concentrated on feeling. When his finger entered her, she began to tremble, scared of this new experience, frightened of what was happening to her, of what her mind and body were feeling.

His hand moved, stroking her inner thighs, touching her ever so lightly, making her part her legs more and more widely, as she wrapped them about his hips, holding him so tightly she threatened to crush him.

When his hand left her she whimpered, but his mouth captured hers as he attempted to swallow her and Alyx, nearly in tears, pushed her body closer and closer to his. His loincloth disappeared and as his maleness touched her womanliness, she fairly jumped atop him. He held her back, entering her slowly, slowly, slowly, inch by inch by inch.

He held still, filling her, resting, allowing the sensations to flow from one body to the other until Alyx, eager, inexperienced, began to move, jerkily, ineptly. Raine’s hands cupped her buttocks and guided her, moving her in a fluid, slow motion, rhythmically, easily and with each stroke, pushing her higher and higher in her pain-pleasure.