She will look like that when her moment comes in my arms…
‘Oh, that is sogood!’ sighed Arielle, taking another forkful. ‘This was an inspired purchase! Thank you!’
‘You are most welcome.’ Lycos smiled, getting stuck into his own luscious portion, indulging a more immediate appetite.
Slices demolished, they both went for seconds, and it was a sadly depletedgâteauthat remained by the end of the meal. Arielle sat back with an air of repletion about her.
‘I’ll go and make some coffee,’ she announced.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Lycos offered companionably. ‘And why don’t we move to the comfy chairs?’ he nodded at the two padded cane armchairs with footstools just by the French window to the parlour. ‘If we turn off all the lights, we can look at the stars.’
That was exactly what they did and Lycos found it pleasingly relaxing. In the soft night there was no sound beyond the incessant cicadas, the occasional call of a night bird and the distant faint sound of a church clock striking from the village several kilometres away. He’d moved the two chairs next to each other. Once Arielle had placed her empty coffee cup on the stone paving, she’d rested her hands on the chair arms and relaxed back against the head rest.
Lycos did likewise. Except that his hand, adjacent to Arielle’s, did not rest on his own chair arm. He let it fold, lightly and casually, over Arielle’s. For a second he felt her tense, then it was gone. He did not move his hand. Her hand was warm beneath his covering palm. Deliberately he did not look at her. Instead, he lifted up his other hand to gesture towards the night sky, ablaze with stars.
‘Another van Gogh night,’ he said.
He let his hand go on resting over hers. Let her get used to the sensation of his innocuous touch.
‘Poor Vincent,’ she replied. ‘He had such a sad life, but I think he was happy here in Provence.’
‘It’s an easy place to be happy,’ Lycos said.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘It is.’
And then, quite distinctly, Lycos felt her hand turn beneath his, and her fingers mesh with his, easing into holding his hand. Slowly, very slowly, he let his thumb softly stroke hers. Not making a big thing of it, just letting it happen…
Peace filled him. It was good, so very good, just to lounge here holding Arielle’s soft hand, relaxed and replete, quietly and easily. Gazing up at the starry, starry night. Listening to the cicadas, wrapped in the warmth of the summer’s soft darkness.
Chapter Seven
Why had shetaken Lycos’s hand like that? The question hung for a moment in Arielle’s thoughts, then she let it go. What did reasons matter? She had done it without thinking. It seemed right to do. Natural.
His hand was warm. Warm and strong. Meshing with hers. Uniting them.
Which was strange, illogical, as there was nothing to unite her and Lycos. He was taking her home away from her. She should remember that.
But right now, somehow, beneath those golden stars glowing through the dark floor of heaven, that did not seem to matter. It seemed extremely far away. A strange, dream-like state was enveloping her, filled with the heady perfume of the jasmine, the velvet warmth of the night, the wine in her veins. With her free hand she fingered the soft folds of the lovely shawl, soft around her shoulders, his gift to her. In her head she heard his words to her, telling her she was beautiful.
She felt, at the nape of her neck, the soft brush of his mouth as he’d kissed her so lightly, so briefly. Felt too, now, the warmth of Lycos’s hand holding hers, felt her head turn towards him.
He was looking at her. His eyes, dark, unreadable, seen only by starlight, boring into hers. She could not look away. It was impossible to do so. Emotion welled up in her. Emotion she did not know, did not recognise. Emotion she could not, would not, name. She only knew that it was filling her, taking her over. Making that shimmering memory of his light, brief kiss on thenape of her neck a million times more shimmering. She felt her heart jump, her breath catch. Felt her fingers tighten in his—his tighten in hers. He leant towards her. His dark eyes boring into hers. There was a drumming in her ears, a quickening in her veins. She was breathless and motionless, just gazing into his eyes. She caught the scent of his aftershave, the scent and warmth of his body. She felt the warmth of his breath and then…
She heard her name, breathed like a wisp of air, then heard no more. Only felt, as her eyes fluttered shut, the soft, slow, languorous velvet of his mouth on hers, reaching for her. So soft, so slow. Tasting her lips, brushing them like silk.
She felt her free hand lift to where it wanted, no needed, to go. Her fingers curved around the nape of his neck and splayed out into his dark hair.
She held his mouth to hers as hers opened to his. It was impossible not to do so. Impossible to resist. Impossible not to give a low, soft moan as the wonder and the pleasure and the sweetness of it filled her so completely.
How long they kissed she did not know, for time had stopped, the world had ceased and everything had been lost in the sweet, honied pleasure he was drawing from her. The pleasure that was quickening in her. It filled her being, filled her veins, pulsed through her.
His hand tightened on hers. He drew her to her feet and she did not resist at all. Why should she resist this? Why, when it was all she wanted and it was the most wonderful thing in all the world to be kissed by Lycos in the warm velvet night, beneath the star-filled arc of the heavens.
His mouth drew away and a cry of loss broke from her, but his eyes, so dark and so drowning, were still fixed on hers. A smile was on his lips, as his long lashes dipped over his eyes. Wonder filled her, consumed her, possessed her infinitely and consumingly.
‘Come to me, Arielle,’ his voice was soft, low and filled with something she could give no name to, but knew at the deepest level of her being. Knew, recognised and shared, for it was in her as well.
‘Come to me because you are so, so beautiful. Because I am filled with desire for you. Because you are all that I want.’ His invocation was in his words. His voice. ‘Come to me.’
