Before Theodosia had time to realize what he was doing, she felt him thrust into her, his thick masculinity impaling her fully. So smooth were his actions that her climax never faltered, but rose to such an incredible height that when the final burst of rapture shot through her, she screamed Roman’s name with all the fervent passion his magic had drawn forth from her.
“Again,” Roman whispered hotly into her ear. “Again.”
She barely heard him, barely understood him until he began pumping wildly. The thick hair between his hips brushed against her slick femininity as he ground into her. Immediately, she felt herself spiraling into a second encounter with sweet all-consuming bliss.
Her climax gripped him tightly, luring and beckoning him toward his own fiery release. Hot spasms exploded through his body, rippling through his muscled frame like thunderbolts through the sky.
Exhausted but fully sated, Theodosia stilled upon his chest, her cheek pressed against his moist shoulder. She could not move, didn’t want to.
And neither did Roman.
Morning sunshine drifting over them, they lay quietly, their bodies still joined in sensual union, the beats of their hearts meshed as one.
As the dayswandered intoweeks, Theodosia discovered she could no longer recall what date of the month it was. She tried to keep count, but time eluded her and soon ceased to hold any meaning for her at all.
Only Roman mattered. In the wonderful world he’d introduced to her, she played with him. Beneath trees and open skies. She danced with him, and he swirled her across ballrooms of forest floors and flower-strewn meadows. She sang with him, nature’s music the hauntingly beautiful symphony that accompanied them.
She loved with him. Sheltered within tall emerald grass, upon soft beds of leaves, or in sparkling streams, she surrendered to him at dawn, in the sultry heat of noon, and lying under the twinkling stars of cool nights.
She was never without him. By day he was at her side, by night he filled her every dream.
And her happiness knew no bounds.
“I’m sorry you’re in such a bad mood, Theodosia,” Roman teased one evening. Standing with his back against a tree, he cleaned his knife with a soft rag and listened to Theodosia’s bright laughter fill the air as she played with the baby possum he’d managed to catch for her. She laughed all the time now, he mused. Any silly little thing set her off.
Sitting beside the fire upon a stack of folded blankets, Theodosia laughed harder when the tiny animal wrapped its long tail around her bare back and began pulling her hair with its small grappling paws. “I cannot believe there was a time in my life when I refused to sleep without a nightgown on,” she said, stroking the possum’s back and smiling when it hissed with pleasure. “Now I walk through woods and fields as naked as—”
“As naked as I like you to be,” Roman finished for her. His body was as bare as hers, as they hadn’t bothered to dress after their bath in the nearby pond. “You have to admit, though, it feels good not having to wear clothes all the time.”
She touched the possum’s pink nose. “It does,” she agreed with a smile. “Indeed, I think perhaps that I will find my garments exceedingly uncomfortable the next time I am forced to wear them for any length of time.”
Roman finished with his knife and returned it to its leather sheath. “Then don’t wear them for any length of time. Now there’s an idea. How about if we stay here for a while and live naked?”
“We’ll be Adam and Eve, and this will be our Eden.”
“Want to read for a while, Eve?” Grinning the crooked smile she so loved to see, he retrieved two books from one of her bags in the bed of the buckboard. “Spleens or sex-treats?” he asked, holding up the two volumes.
“Spleens, please.”
He studied the covers of the books. “I’m not in the mood for spleens tonight.”
“All right. Sex-treats.”
He threw the medical textbook back into the wagon, ambled toward the fire, and sat down beside her. “Your friend is too young to be around while we read this, Eve.”
She caressed the possum’s soft fur for a short while longer, placed it on the ground, then watched it waddle into the forest shadows.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Roman asked, watching the fireshine shimmer over her pale body and through her long gold hair.
His compliment brought her a rush of emotion. She leaned toward him, drawn to him by more than desire, more than passion. “I am seized by an unfamiliar feeling,” she whispered.
She explained no further.
She didn’t have to. Roman knew the same odd, yet powerful feeling. But if Theodosia had no name for it, he wouldn’t try to name it, either.
All he knew was that the profound emotion made him want to possess her body and soul.
“The book,” she murmured, her lips a breath away from his. “We were going to read the book.”
