Awaken Read Free Page B

thought and knew she couldn’t—not with Mam asleep in the room below! She would have to find a place where she could be by herself and know she wouldn’t be discovered, or heard.
    Suddenly breathless, she stopped on the path, lifting her head to catch the cool afternoon breeze on her heated cheeks. The woods were quiet, with only the occasional distant birdsong and rustle of leaves breaking the silence, but there was something different in the air. Myrina didn’t know what it was—a scent, perhaps, or a hint of sound too low to be truly heard—but it held her enthralled.
    Letting the basket hang at her side, Myrina realised all her clothing felt too tight or too heavy. The light cotton shift abraded her breasts, her over-blouse constricting her breathing. The wool of her cloak seemed too warm for the autumn day, and a sheen of perspiration gathered on her forehead, in her cleavage. Her petticoats dragged at her waist, emphasising the low, hard throb in her belly. And between her legs…
    Myrina groaned softly at the pulsating longing rising in her quim, making it full, tingly, needy.
    “Damn Elawen and her advice,” she whispered, believing her thoughts to be the cause of her discomfort and forcing her trembling legs to continue toward Gottreb’s cottage. Walking only made it worse, for she could feel a slick of moisture on her thighs, and each step produced another jolt to the over-sensitive place between her legs. There was a dream-like feeling to her journey now, as though her body had taken over her mind and its desires were swiftly overriding all other considerations.
    The woods were now completely silent, inviting in their solitude. She couldn’t go to Gottreb’s like this, trembling and panting, especially with what Elawen had said about showing him her breasts. Even that thought, distasteful as it truly was, made her quim quiver all the more.
    She didn’t realise she was leaving the path until the trees became so thick she was pushing her way through the low-hanging branches. Even then there was no fear, only an underlying knowledge that somewhere ahead lay the answer to her questions.
    The woods parted like a curtain drawn back from a window, and she was in a grassy hollow paved with wildflowers and ringed with old trees which seemed to stand guard against intrusion. Sunlight streamed over the lush vegetation, making everything as bright and warm as spring. At one end was a thicket with a barely visible rock entangled in brambles. Enchanted, Myrina put down her basket and walked toward it, shedding her cumbersome cloak as she went.
    Something about the place made her want to dance, to sing, to cast aside her clothing and become a wild creature of the forest.
    The thought hardly crossed her mind before her hands were at her buttons, opening her over-blouse with dreamy haste so as to shrug out of the garment. And it took hardly a moment more for the tie at the neck of her shift to be undone and her breasts to be bare. As the sun touched and the breeze caressed her naked flesh, a sense of joy and abandonment overtook her completely.
    The air seemed to tingle, come alive. Mixed in with the rustle of the leaves came a deep, entreating whispering that caused a shiver to rise along her spine. Caught in the dreamscape of her fantasy, Myrina followed its dictates, using the tips of her fingers to touch her face.
    “Smooth,” she whispered in reply to a question hardly sensed. “Soft and warm.”
    Lower drifted her hands, and Myrina shivered as they brushed the side of her neck. “Yes,” she murmured, exploring the hollows beneath her ear, the tendons of her throat pulled tight by her upturned head, finding sensitive places to heighten her pleasure. “There, and there.”
    A command, desperate, desire-filled, and Myrina cupped the undersides of her breasts, lifting them as though to encourage a lover’s kisses. Slowly, teasingly, she slipped her palms along them, gasping as heat inundated her body. Yearning