Past and Present - A Modern Day Romance of North & South

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - IN SUNLIGHT AND IN SHADOW

It seemed to Margaret that she had never felt such closeness with another person. He had told her everything, his voice choked with long held suppression, and she had done as she had always promised him and had listened, feeling his pain as if it were her own, that invisible cord that seemed to connect them tugging at her heart to such an extent that she found her own eyes fill with tears as he’d recounted the events of a decade before with such sobriety and regret.

When, at last, he had finished, his blue eyes blazing with a lifetime of unshed tears, they had fused together, each one instinctively needing the other’s touch, silent now, but content with the silence, needing nothing more than the presence of the other.

I love you.

Emotion flowered inside her like a rose, even though no words passed her lips. She turned her head to where he lay beside her on the grass, the side of his head resting against one arm, his eyelids closed, denying her his beautiful eyes. His face, darkened by the stubble that poked through his skin, was totally peaceful, the tension dissipated, a serene, relaxed smile settled upon his lips. His other arm was slung across her waist, embracing her lightly, not at all possessively, although she knew that if she moved even slightly his hand would stiffen to restrain her. Not that she wanted to move. She was with him; they were together. She glanced beyond him to see people filing past their perfect oasis beneath the tree, seeing children playing merrily, shouting jubilantly. The delicate sigh of the breeze made the leaves dance above them, scattering the light that spilled through the prolific foliage.

As though he sensed her watching him, his eyes flickered open to reveal their blue depths to her at last, his smile deepening at the sight of her.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his tone striking that irresistibly intimate chord that had become so familiar to her. Sparks of pure desire burnt their way down every vertebrae of her spine. He propped his head up on his hand, his elbow rigid against the grass to support him, his eyes devouring her with a mixture of both candid ardour and sheer wonder, as though he couldn’t quite believe that she was lying beside him.

His eyes were threatening to drown her, the spell they bound all-encompassing. “Am I?”

“Yes.” He moved his free hand from her waist to her cheek, stroking it with the lightest of caresses, running his index finger along the line of her jaw before tracing the outline of her incredibly mobile lips.

She closed her eyes, letting herself feel his touch as it charted the contours of her face and neck, before moving towards her shoulders and travelling over their creamy nubs. She could feel her heart starting to jump, his touch all it took. Her breath caught in aching anticipation of what he might do next. She heard him shift closer. His hand slid the length of her from her shoulder to her waist, following the graceful lines of her body. She felt the somewhat perfunctory brush of his lips on the tip of her shoulder before his lips suddenly parted, allowing his tongue, within the closed boundary of his mouth, access to circle luxuriantly against the bare skin exposed to him by her strappy top.

“John…”

His lips moved, barely even touching her, up the side of her neck to her ear. “I love you,” he rasped, his voice like a fervent flame that reached out to engulf her in its pure, molten heat. “I love you so much!”

Her eyes opened as his words washed over her, their warmth all-encompassing; and yet for an evanescent moment she was convinced that she was dreaming. The look on his face, however, blew away the clouds of doubt from her mind. “I love you too,” she whispered, her own voice barely even audible through the haze of emotion. She threw him a radiant, diffident smile. “I have done since the first day I saw you.”