With Heart to Hear Read Online Free PDF Page A

convulsing, consuming reflection of paradise.
    When awareness returned, Garth was holding her. She floated awhile outside herself, awash in the aftermath of torrential ecstasy. Then he teased her nipple, sending a sharp aftershock of pleasure rippling through her. She batted his hand away.
    “No more. I can’t take it.”
    “No?” Garth kissed her, then pushed the damp tendrils of her hair away from her face. His hand moved to her breast again, and he pressed a thigh between hers. Her body answered and she pressed back. He chuckled, and she laughed too. Apparently she wasn’t as sated as she thought.
    He kissed her again, more urgently this time, and she returned his ardor. Her skin felt each kiss like a brand. His hands were everywhere, setting her aflame a second time. When he moved between her legs, she opened eagerly for him.
    He slid into her with a powerful thrust, but she was so wet, so hungry for him she felt like she could swallow him whole. Grunting with each urgent stroke, his body hammered into hers. She arched, tilting her hips to welcome him still deeper.
    Delight colored her rising passion. He wanted her. It was for her that his passion rose, for her that his hunger flared. Then all thought was lost as his pace quickened and he carried her toward heaven.
     
    *
     
    As the sky darkened, the clouds that had been building finally let go of their gathered treasure, a little at a time at first, a merest spattering. Elise smiled as the small drops whispered their promise on and around them. Larger drops followed the little ones, with bolder, stronger voices, until suddenly, the cloud released its full-throated song. Garth grasped her hand and they moved deeper into the forest while the earth sang its gratitude for the cloud’s gift.
    The dense canopy sheltered them from the worst of the storm. They moved surely, even though they could barely see in the dim light. The wood was theirs now, entwining its melody with their own. No unexpected rock or root would trip them. Elise smiled. Some folk might think the grove gloomy and forbidding on such a day, but she knew this dark aspect was only one of its many faces, and she loved them all.
    “These were my lands once,” Garth said. “Though I hardly knew them so well when I owned them, as I do now that they own me.”
    “I thought this was Crandall’s land.” Elise’s memory itched with something she couldn’t quite remember.
    “Only up to the stream. Your tent sits on his land, but you are in my domain.” Garth pulled her closer. “As you shall remain.”
    She hesitated a moment, tweaked by his possessive assumption. Then his warm lips covered hers, and her twinge of resentment melted in the onslaught of desire.
     
    *
     
    Elise’s laughter combined with birdsong as she dodged around a tree and took off running again. She knew Garth could catch her at any time, but he played the game well and waited until she was ready to be caught. He didn’t have to wait long. The sun dappling through the leaves played over her skin like a caress, increasing her anticipation of Garth’s touch. The new pattern of her life—play, rest, love, sleep—supplanted all her old ways. No thought of yesterday or tomorrow intruded. Nothing existed beyond today’s joy.
    Elise paused and allowed Garth to pull her down into a carpet of blue flowers. They were rather like bluebells, only she couldn’t quite think how they differed from her old favorite.
    She lay in Garth’s arms for a time listening to the sounds of life going on around them as each creature sang its own little melody. Each plant had its own voice, and Elise found she need do little more than concentrate and touch each one to know intuitively its personality and use. For the first time in days, she thought of her sketchbook.
    “Where are my pencils and paper?” she asked, sitting up.
    Garth smiled lazily. “Where you left them, I expect.”
    Where had she left them? Her brow furrowed as she struggled to