Page 86 of Across Time

He is walking up from the field as I approach, with a smile so sweet I can feel it in my blood. He draws me against him, his hands on my face, his mouth seeking mine. He smells like him—soap and skin and freshly cut grass. God, I’ve missed that smell and I’m so grateful it’s now mine to keep.

“How were things in there?” he asks, nodding at the house.

I tip my head. “You say that as if you expected them to be bad.”

He grabs my hand and starts leading me toward the orchard. “If I know my sister at all, she’s already rung Father Edouard about dates for our wedding and has begun suggesting names for our children.”

I sigh. “Both topics were raised, yes.” When we reach the orchard, he sits and begins pulling me to the grass, but I hesitate. “We don’t need to worry about snakes?”

He laughs. “Snakes? There are no snakes here. I was just trying to get you on my blanket.”

Ah, to have known these things at the time. “But you didn’t even like me then. Why would you try to get me on your blanket?”

His back rests against the tree as he regards me, a small smile on his mouth. “I liked you then too, believe me.” His hand slides out, and he twines a lock of my hair around his finger. “You looked troubled just now, when I asked about Marie. Did something happen?”

He wraps an arm around me and I rest my head on his shoulder. “Do you remember when we were in Paris and you asked me what I would do if I had to stay in your time?”

A laugh comes from low in his chest. “If I recall correctly, you were going to live in Paris with a legion of staff and find struggling artists to support.” That laugh of his does not bode well. He makes it sound like I’d planned to breed unicorns. When I’m quiet he pulls away so he can see my face. “What is it?”

I sigh. “It wasn’t a joke for me,” I say quietly. “I mean, no, I didn’t think at the time it was a serious possibility, but—”

“But you don’t think you want to be the wife of a poor farmer,” he concludes.

I glance up at him. He’s saying what I couldn’t bring myself to say, but hearing the words from his mouth, I’m no longer sure they’re true. “If I have to choose between being with you and the future I’d planned for myself, I choose you,” I tell him. “But in an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to choose.”

He searches my eyes. “What will it take to keep you, Sarah? Name it, and if it’s in my power it’s yours.”

He is willing to give me anything. Give up anything. For the first time in my life, I realize, I am not alone. He will follow me no matter how far I fall, no matter what I need to do or become. That small part of me that was holding back, scared and uncertain, flutters away. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him, breathing in and out.

“I love you,” I whisper, kissing the corners of his mouth, his jaw. “I love you so much.”

His breathing sharpens as my mouth moves to his neck. “If you keep doing that, this conversation might need to take place at another time.”

I’m not sure who he’s turned me into, but the mere suggestion of sex with him has my entire body primed and ready. My nerve endings seem to rest on the very surface of my skin, a thousand tiny points of need. I climb into his lap, my knees on either side of his hips. My teeth go to the lobe of his ear.

“Oh?” I ask. “Why’s that?”

He inhales. “Because in about thirty seconds you will have me promising to buy Versailles for you.”

I pull my dress out of the way, let my weight rest on his. He’s already swelling against me and I feel stupid, blind with want for it. “It would be fun to live in a palace,” I tell him. My hand goes to his belt.

“It’s yours.” His voice is rough and low, wanting. “We’ll leave tonight.”

His hand slips inside my dress, cupping a breast, flicking at it with his thumb in a way that makes me gasp. I reach into his boxers. He is thick and heavy in my hand, my thumb spreading over the tip until he is slick there.

“Dieu,” he groans. “You’re not sore?” His eyes are closed and he sounds breathless, desperate.

“I’m fine,” I say, rubbing against him. In truth, I’m sore. But it doesn’t stop the want in any way, shape or form. If anything, it makes it worse.

He reaches between us and pushes my panties aside, lining his cock up with my entrance – swollen with need, and raw. I sink into him, head thrown back. It is pleasure and pain at once, exquisite in a way I can’t begin to explain to him. It hurts like hunger, like something that won’t go away until it’s been sated.

I ride him slowly, drawing it out though I’ve felt close since the moment I grabbed his belt. His mouth is on my neck, fingers flicking open the buttons of my dress to go lower. My nipple draws tight in his mouth while he seems to grow inside me, stretching me further than I imagined possible.

His lids are heavy, eyes dazed beneath them. “You’re going to get tired of me,” he says. His hands go to my waist and he pulls me down on him hard, jerking upward to meet me. “I will want this every day. Every hour. You’ll get tired of it.”

I can no longer keep my eyes open. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder, moving faster. “I’m not ever going to be tired of you,” I say, gasping as he thrusts upward again. “Oh God, I’m close.”

He increases the intensity of the thrusts. His fingers dig into my back. “It’s so hard not to let go,” he hisses. His index finger trails down my ass, brushing lightly against the puckered ring there, and I gasp.