“C’mere,” he muttered, laughing, advancing to offer his assistance, removing his hat and setting it aside. Without another word he stepped behind me and tucked my long braid over my right shoulder. I was afraid I might pass out – or my heart would just plain burst – as he gathered the sheet and neatly, efficiently, tied it between my shoulder blades, creating what amounted to a threadbare strapless dress, complete with soggy hem. Once finished he murmured, “There,” and turned me gently around.
I tried to thank him but I couldn’t speak past the force field in my chest. His dark hair was damp, curling along the nape of his neck, his shirt undone past two buttons at the collar.
His smile vanished; his hands remained on my bare shoulders. He whispered hoarsely, “You are so beautiful, I can’t hardly breathe.”
“Malcolm…” His name scraped my throat, at the crest of a merciless storm of emotion, a storm from which we could no longer run or hide. The press of Cora’s memories, her desperate longing for this man, were at once intertwined with my own; no separating the two.
The time had come.
I dove into his arms, seeking refuge, seeking something for which no words existed. He crushed me to his chest as I sobbed in huge, messy gulps; I feared I would never stop, that the grief, at long last given release, would never fully abate.
“I’m so sorry, Malcolm…I’m so sorry…” The words burst from all the shadowy, boarded-over chambers in my soul, places where no light had ever shattered the darkness. “Oh God, please forgive Cora. Forgive me…”
He spoke in my ear, rough with tears. “I have prayed for so many years for your forgiveness, my love, my sweet love, and to beg forgiveness of Cora. And of you. I would turn my soul inside out to be returned to that night in the foothills, when I left you behind. I thought you were safe, I would never have left if I thought otherwise…” Pain throttled him to silence; his chest heaved.
I took his face between my palms, desperate to see his eyes; to look upon one another in this moment was both an exquisite gift and excruciating punishment. “I know, Malcolm, I truly know. Don’t be sorry anymore, promise me, sweetheart. If I could grant you one wish, it would be absolution from your pain.” My breath caught on a sharp sob. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I first knew who you were. I’ve loved you through all of time, even the times we never found each other.”
His eyes cut straight to my soul. “I have never loved anyone more than you. I never will. Nothing can change what you mean to me, not time or separation, not even death. You are the reason I live.”
Holding each other close was no longer close enough and we both knew it.
Slow, deliberate, never removing the heat of his gaze from mine, he lifted my braid and unraveled it, next burying his hands in the wild length of my loose hair. His face grew almost stern with the depth of emotion I’d tapped and I made a small, inadvertent sound, pleading for more, and only more. For everything. He stroked my curls with slow, sensual movements, spreading them over my shoulders, letting his knuckles softly brush my nipples in passing.
I let the sheet fall to the floor.
He inhaled deeply, eyes darkening with overpowering arousal as he claimed my mouth, parting my lips and tasting me with deep strokes of his tongue. I moaned, knees buckling, and he swept me into his arms with an effortless motion, carrying me straight to the little brass bed which, for this one night, would become our heaven on earth; the fulfillment of over a century of waiting. He took me backward with a fluid, predatory grace as we kissed open-mouthed, gliding his warm hands in a path down my ribs, circling to cup my breasts, my hips.
Desire slammed me against jagged rocks, shook me in its teeth, until I was trembling and gasping, lifting into his touch with a violence of need. He broke the contact of our mouths to kiss my neck, opening his lips over my nipples, gently latching my right knee around his waist to stroke between my thighs, exploring each soft fold, inside and out.
“Your shirt…” I yanked at it, wanting it gone. No further barriers between us.
He grinned at my demand and I shivered hard, feverish with heat and slippery-wet at the sight of that grin. He drew back to tug the shirt over his head, his chest with its hard, wiry muscles and clear demarcations where clothing protected him from the sun.
“Pants,” I ordered breathlessly and he obeyed at once, exposing his lean hips and the huge, swollen evidence of his desire. I begged, “Oh God, come here, come here now…”
He lunged and I shrieked, giggling, as he growled against my neck, pinning my shoulder blades to the mattress. And then the flood came on, stamping out all amusement as rampant hunger flared anew between us. I took him firmly in hand, my bare thighs gliding around his waist, and he convulsed with a shuddering gasp as I guided him straight to the tight, wet cleft between my legs. He groaned as if I’d torn out his heart, thrusting deeply as I clutched his shoulders. My hair spilled all over us when I rolled on top, riding him until we hung off the
