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By Root 435 0

her skin. I tasted the saline of her tears and softness of her lips, the delicate texture of her cheeks, hands and breasts. I tasted the musky part of her and the smoothness of her stomach and the firm muscles, rippled from dancing, under her skin. I tasted the recesses of her ears, her navel, the backs of her knees. I bathed her with my tongue and savored every inch of her. I memorized her with my mouth, hands, tip of my nose, my bare chest, my hardened nipples. I ran my hand through her hair, and clutched the back of her head in our crescendo. Again and again, over and over I went to her, needy and yearning, and always the pang of sorrow, of loss, of anguish, lay just beneath the ecstasy, the exquisite physical sensations. Somehow, our lovemaking was more passionate, more satisfying, more explosive than any other night. And when we finished, we held each other, never moving, never releasing, until pure contact aroused us again. We united, bonded, and shuddered and moaned in our joy time and again.

I fought sleep as long as I could, watched her, but at last my eyes slipped closed and I fell off.

She slept fitfully before I left that morning. I didn’t wait for deep sleep to overtake her, and wondered if it would. I showered in the claw-foot tub and dressed in the bathroom. She tossed and moaned in her sleep, the sun still behind the horizon. I knew leaving today was a gamble. I knew I might never see her again, but wanted to do whatever I could to learn her name, to say it to her before the new moon took her from me. If it did, I would never know why I had to remember, or what.

Chapter 5

I watched her for long moments. I knew she’d rise soon, but would probably be gone before I got back. I bent and touched my lips to her cheek, flower petal soft, perfume sweet. I breathed her, inhaled her essence. Part of me panicked at the thought of her leaving.

She said so many strange things I didn’t understand. She believed with all her heart I knew her, knew her name. She believed if I said her name, eternity was ours.

Eternity with her. My eyes wandered the length of her body, nude and pure, beautiful, smooth, sensual, enticing. The dimness of pre-dawn couldn’t blanket her beauty. She lay on her stomach, torso rising and falling with her breath. Her voluptuous curves, the lines of her jaw and cheek, the way her hair played over the bedding, like a master’s painting, perfect, pristine, deliberate. I was overpowered by her, the very woman of her. I leaned and kissed her shoulder, and squeezed my eyes shut against the thought of losing her for lack of a name.

A single tear fell from my eye and splashed on her shoulder. I licked it from her, and her taste bloomed in my mouth.

She aroused me even while she slept, but something more stirred too. Emotion, as powerful as an ocean storm, as crushing, as relentless, as irresistible.

I loved her. Truly. With all my being. I loved her more than the sea, more than breath, more than life. I stood. I had to find a way. There was no alternative.

She stirred, blinked open her eyes, and without their ethereal glow they turned toward me. Her smile didn’t touch them, and faded like St. Elmo’s Fire in a moment.

“Are you leaving me?”

The accusation in the query wounded me. “I’ll be back soon. I promise, I’ll be back.”

She nodded. “I know. You promised before.”

“Didn’t I come back as I said?”

She lay silent.

“When I come home we can ... I’ll ...” I didn’t know what to tell her. That I would say her name? I didn’t know if I’d find it. That we’d be together forever? I didn’t know how. That I’d remember all she wanted me to? I didn’t know what it was. I had no idea how to finish the statement, and it hung like a fog between us for a second.

“When you come home,” she murmured, voice choked with sorrow. Her hand wiped a tear from her cheek, and one elegant finger hooked a rogue lock behind her ear. “When you come home.”

“Please. I’ll come home.”

Her eyes locked on mine. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Very much. I want to be with you forever.”

She was silent.

“I won’t be gone long.