Catherine Archer - Winter's Bride

The moment his mouth touched hers, Lily felt herself sinking, drowning in the rise of feelings and emotions inside her, that odd heaviness spreading to her belly. From somewhere inside her, in a place she had not known existed, came an acceptance, even a welcoming of these feelings, a joyous reveling. Without conscious thought she opened her own lips, her tongue flicking out to connect with his. She found herself kissing him, plying his mouth even as he did hers with a passion that was as scorching as it was shocking. It was as if some strange woman inside her knew what to do, how to react to his caresses.

When his hand closed over her breast, she turned more fully to him. One part of her mind was appalled at her behavior, the other, the one that seemed to have taken control of her, celebrated her actions, prodded her to wrap her arms around him and draw him to her.

His mouth left hers to trace a line of heat across her throat as he whispered, “Say it—say my name. Say Tristan.” His thumb raked across the tip of her breast.

Her eyes closed on the spiral of hot desire that raced through her to settle in her lower belly.

He whispered again, “Oh God, say it, Lily, say it.”

Why this was so important to him she did not know, only that it was. She was past thought, past caring about anything but the rage of sensation he was creating with his touch. “Tristan, Tristan, Tristan.” Even to her ears it was a caress as it escaped her lips, lips that seemed to rejoice in making the very sound of it.

Her uttering of his name seemed to end any hold he had over himself as he shifted, groaned and laid them both upon the bed. His hands grazed her every curve, tracing over her from head to toe as if memorizing every inch of her form.

Far from being frightened by his lack of restraint, Lily felt her body respond with even more ardor. It was as if each and every bit of her welcomed and delighted in this man’s touch—his unbridled passion. As if her body was privy to some knowledge of him that her mind was not. Even the fine hairs on her flesh tingled at the stroking of his hands, the heat of his breath as he pressed his face to the low neckline of her night rail.

He drew the garment down, and she did not demur, but reached to hold the back of his head. Her eager hands tangled in his thick dark hair as his hot mouth found the aching tip of her breast.

Her hips rose up of their own accord, and she sobbed with unrestrained delight. Urgently she pressed her body to him as he continued to ply first that tip and then the other with his tongue.

He whispered hoarsely against her, “I have wanted you so long. I have fought the memory of this, the way we are together, without surcease.”

She had no thought of telling him that he was wrong, that she was not the woman he remembered. Her body would not allow such words to fall from her lips. Her hands tugged at his garments of their own accord, wanting to touch. Her lips murmured soft sounds of encouragement and desire.

When he reached to pull her gown up over her, Lily still had no thought of halting him, but shifted to aid him. As he drew away briefly to divest himself of his own clothing, she found herself reaching eagerly for him, drawing his hard warm body back to hers.

She, Lily, and her powers of choice and reason, seemed to exist somewhere outside her powerful and uncontrollable reactions to this man. She wanted only to be closer to him, close enough to ease this throbbing ache that consumed her. Lily sobbed his name again, unable to give voice to the need that drove her except by murmuring, “Tristan.”

He rose up over her, and without even knowing what she did, she opened her knees to admit him. And then he was inside her, gliding smoothly into the warmth of her body. Her hands found his narrow hips, clasping him to her. He rested there for a long moment, breathing raggedly above her, his lips pressed to her perspiration-dampened forehead. Only when she wriggled restlessly beneath him, knowing that somehow the relief to her frustration would come from the moving of their heated flesh, did he proceed. He started slowly, then quickened to a rhythm that Lily herself set. As the pleasure increased in the place where their bodies met, she became a mindless creature, lost in the rising waves of rapture that made her moan and toss her head from side to side.

The sensations built to a peak of unutterable ecstasy. She rose up time after time to meet the thrusting of his body, until she feared she could sustain no more pleasure and survive. And then she was awash in a shower of bright sparks and rapture that streamed through and over her, making her cry out in mindless abandon, her words an unintelligible chant of exultation.

Then slowly, as the storm quieted inside herself, for what seemed the first time since he had touched her, Lily began to realize just what had taken place. Her eyes flew open and met those of the man above her. Shock at her own behavior quickly turned to despair.

She had given herself to this stranger, when even now her own husband-to-be was very certainly wondering what could have befallen her. She felt the blood drain from her face as she raised shaking hands to cover herself.

As Tristan watched her expression change from rapture to chagrin, he felt his own face register frustration. He frowned as she pressed her hands to her face, crying, “Oh dear heaven, what have I done? I don’t even know you. How could I…have let you…myself…?”

Stung to the core, Tristan rolled away, unable to face her for another moment. How could she react thus after what had just passed between them? How could she bring herself to continue to deny…? How could she…unless…?

Tristan stood up, looking down at her as she pulled the coverlet over her now visibly quaking form. He felt a wave of uncertainty, immediately followed by the painful ache that he had lived with each and every day since being told of her death. He did not want to acknowledge what he was beginning to realize, but his own feelings made him see that this was not some act that she was perpetrating. There was no way Lily would react to him as she just had and still pretend that she did not know him—unless she did not know him.

This revelation was more devastating than thinking she had betrayed him. When he had thought she had betrayed him he could feed on his anger, his desire to make her admit that she had wronged him. The connection between them was strong and clear; their feelings, though changed, were still alive. Yet if she did not remember him, was he not as good as dead to her, Lily, the woman he had known and loved?

He closed his eyes, wishing he could make it all go away, hoping that somehow when he opened them again it would not be true. That he would see that everything that had happened after the birth of their baby in the carriage had all been a terrible nightmare.

But when he did lift his lids, there Lily was, staring up at him without any hint of recognition. The misery apparent in her expression was equally difficult to behold. He found himself wanting to reach out, to comfort her, but after what had just happened that could only be a mistake.

Swinging away abruptly, Tristan gathered his scattered clothing from beside the bed, then hastily dragged on his burgundy-colored houppelande and black leggings. He wanted to go from this room, forget that the past day and his own mad actions had ever occurred.

Instead, Tristan sat down on the end of the bed, being careful not to put himself within easy reach of her, while at the same time making eye contact with Lily. It was important to him that she understand that he had not meant to harm her, that he had believed she did know him.

He spoke carefully. “I have only just realized that you are not deliberately lying to me.” He tried to keep the pain from his voice, but feared he failed as he went on hoarsely, “You do not know me. You actually have no memory of me or what we have been to one another.”