Crickets thrummed in the reeds and a night hawk called.
“If your heart wasn’t so noisy the silence would be deafening,” Stephen joked softly.
Despite herself, Sybil felt the corners of her mouth tug into a smile. A smile for
Stephen’s attempt at levity in the bleak aftermath of such joy.
Transitory joy, for before dawn she must drag herself from his arms and return to her gilded prison. Stephen would be a brief flame of happiness she’d forever treasure.
“Did you hear that?” His breath tickled her ear. She smiled, thinking he referred to his own heart upon which he’d placed her hand. “Voices,” he whispered, tensing.
She heard them too. A sensuous giggle, a faint hiccup. Female, though not one of her daughters, she noted with relief, relaxing until Edgar’s unmistakable braying cut the air.
Sybil sat up, staring at Stephen, whose face reflected her own horror at discovery. “Climb in, Lady Julia,” Edgar drawled over the sound of the other boat being dragged from its mooring. “Round two in the rotunda, eh wot?”
Lady Julia’s drunken giggle issued through the thin walls of the boathouse. “And three and four, my soon-to-be Lordship. You can impress me with your sausage anytime.” She
laughed coarsely and Stephen and Sybil exchanged horrified glances, relieved when the thump of limbs and oars suggested both thought Edgar’s idea a good one.
“We must go.” It was Sybil who broke the silence with a strained whisper when they gathered that Lady Julia and Edgar had made it to the island. Stephen and Sybil dared not remain where they were.
Stephen helped her to her feet, towering above her, before bending to drape her shawl about her shoulders, arranging it with tender care. Gently he ran his finger down the side of her face, kissing the path it made, lightly contouring her curves before pressing a final kiss to her collarbone.
In the moonlight the sincerity of his expression clutched at her heart. “No one has ever been more important to me, Sybil.” His voice was taut with emotion. Full of longing.
Like Sybil, who put her lips to his warm chest, breathing in the healthy, familiar scent of him. “And no one has ever been as loved as you, Stephen.”
He helped her out of the boat, holding her hand, leading the way to the entrance. The sounds of grunting and squeals from the rotunda in the middle of the small island made it clear they were unlikely to be observed, so together they took the path that had brought them to the boathouse, silent as they navigated their way deeper into the forest until it was safe to speak.
But they did not speak. Actions spoke for them. The trailing caress of Sybil’s shawl as it slithered coolly across her chest. Quickly followed by Stephen’s burning kisses as he went to his knees, his hands cupping her breasts as his warm mouth blazed a trail across her belly.
With her back against the tree trunk, she fisted her hands in his hair as he pleasured her until she was teetering on the edge and moaning his name, begging to feel him inside her.
One last time. One last time.
Except it would never be the last time. She would remember and she would treasure this time, and all those others, forever. Again and again.
Swiftly he rose to his feet, clasping her round her still slender waist to hoist her onto his rigid shaft, its hard, slippery length sliding into her depths while her breath left her in a gasp of pleasure and her heart thundered while her nipples and the whorls of hair at the back of her head seemed conduits of exquisite sensation.
“Come, my darling, come!” he urged, between a croon and a gasp. “Come!”
And in that earth-shattering second seemingly between self-destruction and ecstasy, they climaxed simultaneously, their cries of rapture calling to one another as they sank to the damp moss beneath the spreading beech.
Sybil curled into his side and Stephen cocooned her in his warmth. She felt safe. Happy. Satisfied.
For now...for a brief moment while she basked in the glory of their oneness. Gently she skimmed the palm of her hand across his belly.
He broke the silence. “I love you, Sybil.”
His words spread joy slowly through her veins, gently warming her from within. “I shall always love you, Stephen.”
“And remember me? Always?”
Pain seared her. She touched his lips, raised her head and saw that he shared her pain. “I shall carry you in my heart. Forever.”
“Perhaps you’re carrying a piece of me...in your womb, right now.”
She nodded slowly. “If I am, it’s not why I have loved you. Given you my body. It came with my heart, you know.”