He spoke between kisses, his voice tense and low. “Oh, my dear, dear Ellen. How could this be happening?”

“I need you. I need you now like I have never needed a man. Oh, Newland, dearest. Do not deny me, my love.”

He drew her tightly into his arms and continued to kiss her more passionately, their breathing steamy and quivering. “I need you,” he said when he broke from the kiss, repeating her words.

She glanced over her shoulder toward a quiet courtyard. “In the shadows,” she said.

“It’s too cold.”

“Our passion will keep us warm. Come.” She grasped his arm and led him through the entrance, which was veiled in vines. She stopped in a corner up against the side of the building. “Here,” she said, and then opened her full-length cape, casting it over his shoulders to surround him. She pulled her hood up and used it to cover their faces.

His hands moved quickly to her bosoms, his lips returned to hers. He massaged her supple breast through the fabric of her dress, but did not try to unbutton the bodice. She wrapped a leg around his and pulled him closer, and soon their bodies warmed inside the shelter of her cloak.

“How?” he asked.

“Like this.” She quickly unfastened his trouser and found his rampant, throbbing member. She began stroking the length of it, circling the crown with her slender fingers.

He eased up her skirts only to discover she wore no undergarment—she was often naked under her dress—and with her leg raised, his hands soon migrated to the warmth and wetness of her impassioned feminine folds.

“Oh, yes, Newland. There,” she said as soon as he circled her pearl.

He caressed her gently at first, but soon hastened the pace. “I need you, now,” he said, and then quickly secured her skirts in one of her arms before placing her free hand on his shoulder. He lifted her leg so that his member touched her intimate folds and he slowly slid his crown to the entrance of her sheath. They stood face to face, coupled in mutual lust.

“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse with desire.

He sunk his staff into her inflamed passion and probed gently, both of them sighing.

“Now . . . now . . . Newland.”

He pushed, and his erect member entered her velvety vessel, drowning him in her pool of passion. When he had filled her sheath to its depths, he stopped, kissed her gently, and then began moving in and out of her. She tightened her leg around his body and encouraged his thrusts.

She sighed as he continued to make love to her. “Oh Newland. Yes. Yes, my dearest, sweetest man. Faster.” She tossed her head back, clearly lost in the throes of ecstasy.

He hastened his pace, and she ground her hips to keep beat with his rhythm, meeting each stroke, until her body tightened. Knowing her all too well, Newland spilled his seed in the one last thrust that she claimed her climax. Her body trembled and quaked as she glided through the stages of her orgasmic release. Once they came to a rest, she did not allow him to uncouple, but kept her leg wrapped around him, holding him close.