CHAPTER TEN: THE CAVE
"So you survived the trip! Getting here was the most difficult part, I promise," the Captain greeted her with a smile in his voice.
Maria was surprised to see him still wearing the open-necked shirt and trousers he'd worn at supper, although now he was barefoot. What had she expected? She shook away the image of him standing under the waterfall.
"I'm not late, am I? I'm sorry, but I wanted to be sure they-" Maria flustered. "Did you think I'd changed my mind?"
"No, no. It's fine. I knew you'd come," he said, with an odd little smirk she couldn't quite make sense of.
"So this is where you've been hiding every night?"
"M-hm." He rubbed his hands together. "Come see my quarters."
"Your lair, you mean," she said, rolling her eyes. But she followed him, ducking low beneath a stone outcropping and edging through a dark, damp-smelling channel worn through the rock.
The channel opened into a small area, just high enough to allow him to stand upright, and just wide enough for a pallet of piled quilts and a small bench that held a flickering lantern. Within its circle of light, the space was warm and cozy, as though any doubts and worries could be chased into the cave's shadowy corners. The bench also held a bottle, and the carved wooden box she'd brought to Italy for him. Maria thought of her wedding ring, resting within, barely worn.
"Well, then," she heard the Captain's voice close behind her, and her heart leapt, to have him so near. He hadn't even laid a hand on her, and already Maria felt dizzy and short of breath. The butterfly wings in her chest beat frantically now, with apprehension and longing both. When she felt his fingertips brush her shoulders, she promptly turned toward him and lifted her face for a kiss, one that could quiet the thoughts that raged like wildfire in her mind.
But he didn't kiss her; instead, he grasped her shoulders, held her away from him, at arms' length, and looked her over hungrily, fixing her with a smoldering blue gaze as tangible and powerful as the most bruising kiss could ever be. Her lips burned and tingled, as though he had kissed her,. When she lifted her fingers to her mouth, he raised his eyebrows in a silent rebuke and she dropped them to her side, chastened like a naughty child.
Smiling, he lifted his thumb to stroke her lower lip, sliding it into her open mouth and waiting, patiently, until she understood what was required of her and closed her lips around it. When he withdrew his thumb, he gave her lower lip a gentle pinch, a gesture she found at once unnerving and extremely thrilling.
"Like that." he whispered knowingly, a statement not a question.
"But you said not to."
"I have my own rules," he chuckled, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her close.
Despite herself, Maria went stiff in his arms, and instantly, his expression changed.
"Maria?"
He kept his arms loosely linked around her waist, but backed up a step. His eyes still searched her face, but all the fire was gone from them now, leaving them warm with concern.
"Are you all right? Do you still want to be here? Because if you're afraid, it's perfectly all right to-"
"I am not afraid," she said weakly.
And she wasn't afraid of lying with him, not exactly. It was more that she dreaded making a fool of herself. Not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to please him.
"Oh, yes you are, Fraulein - ehrm- Maria. When you're afraid, you do that thing with your chin," and he tilted his to demonstrate. "Now tell me, what exactly are you so nervous about?"
"I don't know," Maria said miserably. "I mean I do know. It's that don't know what to do," she confessed. "I don't know how to-" a wave of excruciating shyness broke over her. Helpless against it, she covered her face with her hands and prayed that he wouldn't send her away.
"Oh, but I do," he said. "I know exactly what to do. I've given it considerable thought, as it happens."
His voice was deep and rich, like dark velvet. Full of promise. Under the circumstances, what might have sounded like arrogance or boasting was, in a funny way, almost comforting.
"It was very brave of you to come, Maria, and I swear you won't regret it. And speaking of bravery," he reached for the bottle, pulled the cork and took a long swallow from it, the muscles in his throat working, before extending it to her. "Brandy?" he offered.
"Ehrm-"
"Just a sip, for your nerves," he advised with a little wink, and she took a cautious sip, feeling the burn in her throat and the warmth in her unsettled belly.
"If it's for nerves, why do you need it, then?"
"Me?" The Captain gave her a skeptical look. "You think I'm not nervous? It might put you at ease to know that I've wanted you for a long time. A very long time. His eyes flicked over her body, as though he was already familiar with it, as though he'd already seen her naked, not the other way around.
"I know. I mean, we discussed it, Captain, and we agreed-"
He flinched.
"Georg," he corrected her, "and I'm not sure you do understand it. How every little thing you do is enough to drive a man mad. Sometimes I would look at you and wonder if you were even real. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that you're one of those mythical sirens that lure men, entice them, seduce them into- You have had me under some kind of spell all summer. The truth-"
He paused for another drink.
"The truth, Maria, is that I want you every possible way a man could possibly want a woman, in ways that would shock you."
Maria's bones turned to water.
"Oh, please," she burst out.
"Please what?" his lips quirked a smile.
"Please don't talk about it that way," she begged.
"All right, then. We'll stop talking and do something instead. Now. Let's start at the very beginning. We've got to get you out of that awful dress."
"Do I have to?"
His eyes danced with merriment.
"That's usually how it's done, yes, but – hm. Let me see if I can make it easier for you."
He circled behind her again and wrapped his arms securely around her waist. In this position, away from the treacherous threat in those blue eyes, she was able to relax against him. As he had on the porch, he pressed his lips firmly against her nape and held them there, until warmth slid through her veins.
"I had no idea," she whispered.
"Idea?"
"The extent of your – ehrm – lustful feelings for me."
He chuckled softly and let his mouth drift across her neck. When his tongue began to trace the outline of her ear, she felt herself drift away on a sea of sensation.
"Better?"
He had rendered her nearly speechless, but Maria managed a strangled little sound that seemed to suffice.
"So many things I want to do to you," he murmured.
He slid his big hands upward to cover her breasts, squeezing firmly and then dragging his fingertips, hard, back toward the tips, a touch that burned all the way through the thick material of her dress.
Her breath came out on a long, shuddering moan.
"So you like a firm hand, do you? I suspected as much. Or is this better?"
She shifted restlessly in his arms, seeking more of that solid, delicious pressure. But he denied her: as his fingers drifted lower over her belly and hips, his touch became playfully, frustratingly, feather-light.
Maria couldn't hold back a little whimper as she followed those fingers with her entire body, yearning for more.
"All right, then. You'd rather have this, would you?"
He slipped his hand between her legs and cupped her there, tightly, right there, and the friction of the roughly made dress rubbing against her sent a lightning bolt of pleasure everywhere.
"Oh, please," she cried out.
"What is it, love?"
Please touch me that way everywhere. Please I wish my dress weren't in the way. Please don't stop.
"Please."
"Please what?"
"Please Captain."
"It's Georg. And that's please who. I'm asking please what."
"Please I don't know."
He laughed and withdrew his hand.
"I don't know," Maria swallowed. "I don't know! You've done this before, and I haven't. You know what to do, so why can't you just take charge of things?"
He was silent for so long she thought she'd said something wrong.
"Captain?"
"It's Georg," he said in a thick voice. "And that's a very dangerous thing to say to a man."
"Would you mind?" she said.
"No," he said, still in that soft, deep voice, unsettling and promising all at once. "I'd like that very much. You wouldn't be here if you didn't trust me, and that's the only thing you've got to do. Leave the rest to me."
Maria didn't want to believe it, but after a lifetime of disobedience in matters large and small, and months of rebellion against this man's authority in particular, his confidence, his talk of rules and taking charge of things, was strangely reassuring. It was a relief of sorts to have handed things over to him, and her doubts and worries along with it. She wouldn't make a fool of herself, because he would tell her what to do, how to please him. Somewhere within, there was also a flicker of excitement at the knowledge that, although she wasn't quite sure how, he was going to please her as well.
By now, he had lifted her dress over her head and peeled away her undergarments. She shivered as his finger burned a trail down her spine and felt her cheeks turn pink when he briefly fondled her bottom. When he turned her around, she went into his arms, eager to surrender her mouth to his. But before she knew it, he was urging her toward the quilts piled on the floor. She let him settle her there, fighting a wave of embarrassment as he pulled her crossed arms from her breasts.
"No, no. Let me see you. It's only fair, after all. You've already seen me."
There was something disturbing about the contrast between her bare skin, glowing in the dimly lit cave, and his rough clothing. But she found it impossible to disobey that voice.
He crawled over her like a powerful, predatory animal. His mouth slid against her throat, licking and nipping gently at her skin, making his way lower. The hot tug of his mouth at her breast pulled at a cord that seemed anchored between her legs, and forced a cry from her mouth. She pressed a fist to her mouth to stop the sound.
He took one last nip of her skin before rising up on his knees and yanking her hand away.
"I want to hear you scream for me."
"I wasn't screaming," Maria made a feeble protest.
"You will," he said with a humorless grin. "Much sooner than you think. And there's no one to hear you, anyway."
He peered down at her, his dark blue eyes gleaming against his flushed face.
"Now. My rules, remember? Don't take your eyes from me, Maria. If you close them, I'll stop. And the more noise you make, the better."
He swept his hands up and down her arms, across her breasts and past her belly. Pleasure blossomed under his fingertips with every stroke, firm and knowing, and she felt herself tighten against the exquisite sensations. Soon, he would want to touch her between her legs, and she would die of embarrassment if he did that. At the same time, she was certain she would die of disappointment if he didn't. Surely he intended to. He would have to, wouldn't he? If they were going to -
She kept her eyes glued to his face, so she didn't miss the impish sparkle there when he bypassed her midsection entirely, sat back on his heels and lifted her foot into his lap, massaging it gently, rolling her toes in his fingers, pressing the arch of her foot into his lap. Her toes curled against a firm bar of flesh she felt there. Maria, pondering this development, thinking back to the afternoon at the waterfall, watched his eyes glaze over and his mouth go slack. But then he shook his head and sent an imperious glare her way.
"Don't try to distract me," he ordered. "Another rule."
"I wasn't, I was just-"
Whatever it was she'd been figuring out fled from her brain entirely when he lifted her foot into the air, kissed the inside of her ankle, and then, with exquisite, torturous care, began to work his way up the inside of her leg, painting a path with his tongue, stopping every few moments to bite at her skin, harder now, until she flinched, only to very quickly wish he'd do it again. The dance continued higher and higher, the nip of his teeth and then the soothing stroke of his tongue and his freshly shaven cheek, again and again. She closed her eyes against the welling rapture.
"Eyes open, Maria."
Despite the blissful feelings, when she looked down and saw his dark head bent against her skin, her legs tried to clamp shut in protest, but he pushed against her other leg with surprising strength.
"Legs too. Open them for me."
He pressed her legs wide open, until they trembled from the strain, and cupped his whole big palm against her center, pushing the heel of his hand right against a place made of fire. She felt hot and achy and needy, and it was embarrassing, the way her body arched against his caress. But the warm admiration in his voice was reassuring.
"You see? Feel how wet you are."
Wet?
"It's all right, love. Your body wants to be touched, just like this. You are so lovely, Maria. Every perfect inch of you. You are so soft here, so soft and perfect. Like a rare and beautiful flower, just about to open."
He stroked her delicately until she did feel herself opening to his caress, sighing with pleasure at the gentle intrusion of a finger. It felt strange. It felt wonderful.
He began to feather kisses up the inside of her legs, first one side and then the other.
"Open wider, love. I'm going to kiss you now."
Maria couldn't quite make sense of his meaning until he touched her with the pointed tip of his tongue.
When she screamed, his head popped up between her knees, eyes sparkling with glee. She was so far past breathless her voice trembled with effort.
"That's got to be a sin," she gasped.
"Why?"
"Because it feels like one."
"No sins here, darling. We're married, remember?" he said darkly. "Scream away," and he began to search her with his mouth, dragging his tongue across her flesh, setting off bursts of blinding pleasure with every flicker and swipe, again and again. When he found a place that made her cry out, he would linger there until the rasp of his tongue grew too intense to bear. She tried to squirm away from his clever mouth, but he only grabbed her firmly by the hips, so she couldn't move, and sealed his lips more firmly against her.
Her blood sang in her ears, nearly drowning out the fierce cries that burst from her lips and echoed against walls of stone. The way he went at her, the frenzied passion of it, released her from shame for those cries, and forgave her for the way she twined her hands in his soft hair and held him to her.
There was nothing in the world but that wicked tongue, seeking out the next place to torment her. It would have sent her soaring straight into the sky if it weren't for his fingers digging into her skin, anchoring her against his hot mouth.
From far away, she heard someone shreiking. The pleasure swelled, pulsing red and purple behind her eyelids. And then it burst, taking her body over in wrenching spasms, wave after wave of them, until the shadowy cave exploded with stars.
When she came back to earth at last, weak and gasping for air, he was stretched out next to her, propped on one elbow, wearing a boyishly proud smile.
"Well?"
"Well," she struggled for breath, "what?"
"Did you like it?"
"I never-"
"Never? You can do that yourself, you know," and when her forehead wrinkled in confusion, he laughed. "Well, not with your mouth, but with your fingers. You never-?"
Maria felt her face split into an elated grin before she launched herself at him.
"That was marvelous!"
But then he was gently untwining her arms from his neck and pulling away from her. Her damp skin begin to cool in the chilly air of the cave, and she was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that he was still fully clothed while she was –
"Don't you want to –ehrm- undress?"
"No, I don't think I will, Maria."
"But then how will we-" she gestured awkwardly, "Aren't you going to-"-
"I thought I just did," he teased gently.
"That is not what I mean, and you know it."
In the ensuing long, uncomfortable silence, it was possible to hear the distant rumble of the waterfall.
"You asked me to show you what a woman could experience, and I did as you asked. I was honored that you put your trust in me that way, and I found it extremely rewarding. You are magnificent, Maria. But the other - I can't do that, love. I thought you understood."
A tingle of panic gathered at the base of her spine.
"I understood no such thing! Do you mean to say that you don't want me?"
"Of course I do. I've admitted as much to you, on numerous occasions. And now that I've seen you, and touched you, and tasted you? I'll probably die wanting you. But I promised to leave you untouched."
"But that was when you believed I had pledged my life to God!"
"It's not only that, Maria. For us to be together that way - it would make it impossible to end our marriage."
"But I told you, that doesn't matter! I don't intend to marry again, any more than you do. And I'm probably going to go with some man eventually," she argued, feeling brave and humiliated at the same time.
Now the shadows, dark and forbidding, seemed to press in on them from every corner of the cave. She began trembling uncontrollably, yet he did nothing to comfort her.
"It's not going to happen, Maria. I'm long past denying that there is something between us, but if I – if we do that, it's just going to make things more difficult. You're going to want more. You deserve more. And more is not possible. Not with me. You should wait for someone who can love you properly. Believe me, after a while, you'll forget about me."
"The way you've forgotten about her?"
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and Maria took exactly one second to curse her outspokenness before she let the rest of them fly, knowing they would cause her and her Captain more harm than good.
"It didn't stop you with all of those other women. Why them and not me? You gave yourself to them with no trouble, but you're too good for me?"
He deflected her easily enough, at least at first.
"No," he shook his head, "you're too good for me. You are different from the others."
"Because I'm untouched?"
She hated the way she sounded, shrill and pitiful.
"You're just not that kind of girl. Woman," he amended.
"The kind that men like you make love to?"
"Make love?"
In the space of a moment, his face was instantly and shockingly transformed, twisted with rage in a way she recognized from their argument by the lake, but had never seen since. A spot of color flared high on his cheekbones.
"I did not make love to those women," he shouted, pointing a finger at her.
"Then what do you call it?'
"What do I call it? What do I call it?" he raged. "I tupped them. I swived them. I fu-"
"Please. No, please, don't," she begged, putting her hands to her ears.
Her tender, gallant Captain had vanished into the night like a ghost, leaving behind a fearsome stranger glowering in the flickering lantern light.
"You want to be one of them, Maria? Are you ready to service me the way they did? You want to know what kind of man I am?" In one smooth, predatory movement, he rose to his feet, towering over her. "On your knees, then, Fraulein. Open your mouth. You can't imagine how a man like me might use it. You can't begin to understand what a man like me is capable of."
Now Maria was on her feet as well, stumbling about the cave, pulling the dress over her head.
"I hate you," she hissed.
"You have only yourself to blame, Fraulein. You haven't heard a thing I've been trying to tell you."
Shoes in her hand, she ducked down to exit the cave, but at the last moment, she turned back toward him, tears sliding down her face.
"You, Captain - you have broken me."
Before he had the chance to cause her any greater pain, Maria turned and fled into the night.
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Thank you for reading my story. Please enjoy the review holiday that comes with it, but know that I treasure the reviews many of you have left. I don't own TSOM or anything about it, it's all for love.