Some Enchanted Waltz by Lily Silver Page B

that challenged and pleased her.
    Tara kissed him back, meeting his challenge with determination. Their tongues met, and mated. His tongue artfully teased and caressed her own, sliding, gliding, twining and embracing it, making her insides expand and her heart soar to the beamed ceiling. She slid her hands along his back to his neck to caress the long tendrils of deep ebony imprisoned there. Her fingers fumbled and twisted until she released his soft hair from the retraining queue, allowing his glorious mane to flow unhindered into her waiting hands. His hair was a beautiful, living thing. She’d yearned to touch it, to caress it and feel the weight of it between her fingers.
    At last, he drew away, leaving her lips moist and aching from his caress. He was panting, a little. His eyes had that hooded look she knew well, a look that betrayed his own potent arousal. Would he leave her this night, or beguile her further until she was lying beneath him on the bed beyond?
    “Good night, sweet lady. Pleasant dreams.” He whispered in a roughened timbre.
    “Good night.” Tara murmured, gazing up at him with longing as he stood.
    His footsteps echoed on the flagstones as he reached the edge of the carpet. The sound of the door closing behind him signaled his retreat.
    Tara sat gripping the arms of the chair with tense fingers. She was panting, more than a little now that he was gone and there was no need to conceal her own arousal. She gazed into the crackling, flickering flames, imagining the the kiss had not ended. Imagining where it would take them. Imagining him, naked and magnificent in her arms. There were muscles beneath those fancy clothes. Hard muscles. Adrian Dillon was no lazy, indulged, paunchy aristocrat. He was solid man beneath his dove grey velvet suit.
    “Damn.”  Tara swore aloud as she just thought of one more device they didn’t have in this realm; a vibrator .  
     
     
    Tara watched the firelight as it cast eerie shadows around her new room. The day after the wedding, Adrian insisted on moving her into a more luxurious suite befitting her station as Lady Dillon. Her prior room had been a guest room, he explained, and thus, it was rather austere and Spartan in furnishings. She hadn’t minded the simplicity, before she saw the ornate luxury that was to be gained in the exchange.  
    It was a tad overly feminine, as taste went, yet, as the days progressed she was coming to appreciate the lovely rose and ivory furnishings amid the rosewood paneling. She also liked the fact that all she had to do was pull the bell pull near the bed and a servant would appear to do her bidding. She could order food, a bath, or just summon a maid to keep her company. It was cozy sitting by the warm fire with a writing kit on her lap as she wrote down her impressions of this new life and lingering questions about her old one.
    Tara asked the housekeeper for some writing implements. She wanted to keep a record of her thoughts and hopefully put together the missing pieces of her past life. The kindly housekeeper surprised Tara by giving her not plain paper but a rather fancy hand tooled leather bound journal with blank, gilded parchment pages. The quill and inkwell had been a shock. Through trial and error Tara was able to figure out how to use the awkward writing instrument. Geez, hadn’t anyone heard of a fountain pen?   
    So far, she recorded random thoughts and names that came to her mind. She  looked at the list: Arwen and Legolias , were at the top. She knew who they were--fairies or elves-- she wasn’t sure of the precise label they went by, and yet, their names conjured images of beautiful beings with arched brows and pointed ears. Beings that were intrinsically familiar to her.  She also remembered a handsome, rugged fellow with a cloak and a sword, Stryder , also known as Lord Aragorn , a human who visited their realm often and was in love with Arwen. There was also a bearded man known only as The Gnome , and a