Cedar and Vine – the Sequel

Read Part 1 of the series here.

Not quite a month had passed, but each day had strengthened the love between Linus Galeo and his Germanic bride, Elizabeta.  Since he had been granted a leave of absence for his honeymoon, he had no duties.  He only desired to serve and pleasure and better understand his wife.  Still, he was a soldier, and Elizabeta could see that he missed the active life.  Today, she had convinced him to go and train with his cohort.  There were new recruits who needed the oversight and instruction of seasoned officers.

While he was away, she tidied the house and prepared a delicious supper, eager to do something for him.  What a tender husband he had shown himself to be!  He had been so gentle, so patient in their marriage bed.  Making love had presented them both with unexpected obstacles; she was prone to pain if they went too long, and he found that an old injury near his groin was impairing his ability to ejaculate.  Yet he greeted these difficulties with calmness, learning to pace himself and to bring her to a sweet release without exhausting her.  She wanted to show him her love and respect.

That evening, Elizabeta smiled as Linus devoured her appetizing meal.  He appreciated good food, and a wife who could preside and cook as well as the lady of the house was a prize to a Roman officer.  Remembrances of harsh campaigns abroad and the accompanying rations made him relish this spread all the more.

Then, seeing that he was quite worn out from his exertion in the hot sun, she sent him to the baths so he could ease his strained muscles.  He had the luxury of a private bath in the villa, so he could enjoy it in solitude without the presence of the men at the garrison.  Elizabeta very much enjoyed it too.  As a matter of fact, she decided that it was the perfect occasion to join her husband there.

It was night—a breezy summer night that brought some coolness, so refreshing after the humid Mediterranean heat.  She wore a loose, almost sheer gown that caressed her legs as she walked through the colonnaded passage.  Torches were placed in iron holders on every pillar; the wind made each flame flicker.  Elizabeta could hear the natural springs as they steamed and continually churned the water in the stone bath.

She rounded the corner and saw Linus.

He sat on the submerged marble bench, the water up to his pectorals, his arms outstretched in a relaxed state, and his head laid back on a towel.  His eyes were closed.

Elizabeta wondered if he had fallen asleep.  The healthful mineral water and thick steam could easily do that to a person.  She smiled softly, admiring her husband.  That strong profile, the black hair falling over his forehead, the muscles in his arms . . . he was very Roman, and very male.

With him, she felt sheltered and cherished.  He seemed completely incongruent with the nation and the culture he came from.  Perhaps it was because he had rescued her and married her, placing her in an honorable position instead of letting her go into slavery.  Or because he led her to his God, a God who showed remarkable love.  All she knew was that her life had changed in every way.

With deft hands and a twinkle in her eye, she slipped her dress down from her shoulders and let it fall around her feet.  She wore nothing beneath it.  At first, the touch of night air on her bare skin was so shockingly intimate, making her feel as if eyes were on her.  But in a moment, the discomfort was gone, and she reveled in the cool air whispering against secret parts of her body.  Then she glanced back at Linus and realized his eyes were open . . . and on her.

Her lovely, pale body filled his gaze.  He smiled, though it was a constrained, hungry smile.

“Come in with me, my love,” he invited, motioning her forward.

She smiled shyly, enjoying afresh the sensation of being naked in his presence, and descended the steps into the water.  He drew her next to him, and she settled into the soothing hot water with his arm around her.

“I couldn’t keep away from you,” she confessed.

“A man loves to hear that from his wife,” Linus declared, softly kissing her head.  “I feel the same way towards you.  That was a marvelous supper you served me.”

“It was my pleasure to make it.  You are so good to me, I want to repay you.”  She lifted adoring eyes to his face, admiring the weathered angles.

“My love, if I am at all good, it is God working in me,” he answered gently.

Elizabeta traced her finger along his collarbone.  “Do you know that it is because of you I can believe God is real?”

A glad look lit Linus’s eyes.  “Praise Him for that.  It means more to me than I can put into words that you know and love Him, darling wife.”  He drew her even closer, and she threw her arm across his chest.

“I do love Him.  Knowing I have a Savior and an eternal Friend . . . the peace is almost unspeakable,” she murmured.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he mused.  “Many a time in the last three years, His presence has been my only stay.  His words have comforted me, and His promises sustained me.  The Psalms were the dearest to me. ‘The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him.’”  He paused, stroking his wife’s hair.  “‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.’” He paused again, then laughed softly. “That one is actually from the book of Proverbs.”

A soft sigh escaped Elizabeta.  “They’re beautiful.  How did you learn these words?”

“I purchased scrolls of the Scriptures, written in Greek, from a Christian merchant.”  Linus’s brows furrowed with sadness.  “How grievous that the words which would bring freedom and salvation to all people are outlawed in this land!”

“I would hear more of them,” Elizabeta said earnestly.

Linus smiled at her.  “You may read them for yourself all you wish.”

She glanced down, a flush of embarrassment on her cheek.  “I . . . I cannot read,” she admitted.

Tenderly, Linus raised her chin with his finger.  “Then I will teach you.  It is no shame to not know something.  Many people cannot read, and it is not their fault.  I should not have laid that expectation on you.”

“You are very understanding,” Elizabeta declared.  “I would love to learn to read.  But do you have many of the Scriptures memorized?  Can you speak more of them to me?”

Linus nodded modestly.  “Often in my tent, or alone keeping a night watch, I had ample time to fill my mind with the words of Jesus and the prophets.”

“What did they write?”

Linus ruminated over his knowledge of the Torah.  “There is the account of how God created everything, and then how man sinned.  There is the history of Israel, who are God’s people.  Through them, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come into the world in human form.  Then there are the Psalms of King David and a few other authors, the Proverbs and the Song of his son Solomon, and the warnings of many prophets to the nation when they strayed from God.”

“And the Psalms are your favorite?” Elizabeta inquired with an interested smile.

“Indeed.  Although . . .” Linus paused, a jesting look creeping over his face. “I deeply appreciate the words of Solomon as well.  Especially his Song of Songs.”

Elizabeta was curious.  “And why do you like it so much?”

With deliberation, Linus drew a wet hand up her arm and across her breast.  “Because it says things like, ‘Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies’.”  He bent close and touched his lips to hers.  “‘Thy lips, oh my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue.’”

Slightly startled, yet feeling the flicker of arousal, Elizabeta asked shyly, “Such words are in the Scriptures?”

Linus nodded slowly, meaningfully.  “God established marriage, and He inspired Solomon to write about the bliss and passion of a man and a woman bound together.  It is good in His sight.”

Eagerly, Elizabeta dared to place her leg over her husband’s thigh, so that she was partly straddling him.  “Go on,” she encouraged.

He smiled, his hand sliding along her smooth buttocks and towards her most sensual place.  “In the Song, the man and the woman speak their desire to each other.  I have quoted some of the man’s part.  ‘A garden enclosed is my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed’.  You would say this as the woman: ‘My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.’”

At the same instant, Linus drove a finger into her hot tightness.  Elizabeta gasped and gripped his shoulders.

“And you could say, ‘Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves’,” he finished hoarsely, his finger a delightful stimulant to her depths.

“Oh Linus . . .” she breathed, her hips writhing.

He squeezed and caressed her round, firm breasts, kissing and lapping at them with constrained but obvious hunger.  She was now fully astride him, moving with his fingers as they played with her womanhood.  That alert spot just above her cleft sent shots of fire through her as he passed over it with his thumb.

“‘Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits,” Linus continued to quote.  With a little groan of satisfaction, he kissed her collarbone, then below her ear, while his fingers plunged deeper and drew forth more wet arousal.

“Linus. . .” she could only breathe.

Suddenly, he withdrew his fingers, grasped her wet body to lift her, and stood.  He turned and set her on the edge of the bath.  In a second, he was kneeling on the bench before her, his hands opening her thighs and his mouth falling greedily on her glistening petals.

“Oh my . . . oh Linus . . . yes . . . yes, eat the fruit I give you,” Elizabeta gasped.  Her head fell back as she welcomed her husband’s feasting.

“Sweeter than any fruit,” Linus muttered, his words muffled as he licked and sucked and nibbled.

The combination of steamy air, wafted by the touch of night wind, and the hot, honeyed fragrance streaming from his wife’s core made him feel drunk with lust.  He devoured her, and she moaned and encouraged him.

His fingers joined his mouth in its erotic labor.  A breathy cry burst from Elizabeta’s throat as he gently stroked and impaled her.  That wonderful boiling sensation deep within her was becoming overwhelming.

“Wait . . . wait, my love,” she finally pleaded, pushing weakly at his head.

He met her gaze at once.  “What is it?  Are you in pain?”

“No,” she assured him.  “But you are tired from the day’s exertions, and I want to pleasure you tonight.  Please, let me.”  She raised herself to kiss him tenderly.  “Let me eat of your fruit,” she added shyly.

Delight, mingled with hunger, lit his eyes, and he acquiesced, taking her place on the edge of the bath.  She knelt between his thighs.  His manhood was already firm, filled with hot blood from the excitement of the last minutes.  Elizabeta loved to look at this part of him; there was a magnetism about his raw virility that she could never tire of.  Even the black hair around the base of his shaft pulled her into action.  She had to touch it, stroke her fingers through it, over that heavy sack, down the bursting veins along his length, to the shiny helmeted tip, on which glimmered a pearl of arousal.

Eagerly, she bent forward and licked it away.  Linus gasped.  It was always new when she put her mouth on him.  Then she proceeded to devour him with hungry sucking, her hands busily teasing his sack and the creases where thighs met hips.  He melted into a squirming, groaning mess.

“My God!” he exclaimed as a prayer.  “Oh yes, take me in your mouth!  Swallow me!” he moaned, watching her with blurred vision.

“I love your taste,” she whispered, pausing briefly.  “So strong and virile.  Mmm, I love you, my Linus.”

“Elizabeta . . . my name and my cock both between your lips . . . ahh, it undoes me!”

She smiled, thrilled to see him fall apart as she pleasured him.  It would never get old, this incredible sight of a powerful soldier writhing beneath her hands and lips.  She sucked each time she pulled her head back, employing one hand to stroke and squeeze the root of his shaft.  With the other, she fondled the warm twin pouches so full of potent seed.  She wanted him to share that seed with her again, let her taste it, rub it into her skin.

“Oh God . . . oh . . . my . . . God . . . so good . . . so hot . . . just like your sweet cunt . . . Little wife, you are sending me over . . .” Linus gasped, his hips thrusting excitedly.

“Mmm!” she encouraged, rubbing and sucking a little faster.

With a deep roar, punctuated with chokes of pleasure, he tensed and began to pulse.  Elizabeta felt the spasming of his sack and the little jerks of his penis as it jetted streams of hot liquid into her mouth.  She moaned around him, enjoying his release.  He could only gasp and watch her with glazed eyes as she sucked him dry and swallowed every drop.  When he at last calmed down, she let his softening meat go and looked up at him.

“It is sweet to share with you the intimacies that Solomon spoke of,” she said tenderly, rising to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him.

“You make them come to life, my sweet bride,” he rejoined, his eyes roaming her face.  Then he smiled wickedly.  “But we have only just started.  I am hungry for your fruit still, and more than that, I want to see you ravished with ecstasy, your heart wakened, your pomegranate flowing.”

She blushed but smiled back at him.  “Take me, my husband.”

“Then come away, my love.”  And he picked her up in his strong arms and carried her to the house.