Notes: Taking chances here. Argh! I've completely written this chapter three times in an effort to keep it a little into character (thanks Fran for the great insight!).

Thanks so much for the support. I don't know how to thank you all for taking the time and patience to follow this to its conclusion, and also for the incredibly kind reviews. Please let me know your thoughts on the last chapter, they do help to improve. I may upload a last page with some random comments tomorrow. :)

13 -- Passion

"Always?" Georg's expression was one of utmost wonder. He had wanted to know for how long she had felt the same he did. Was she really saying that it was…?

"I've felt like this since the first day we met. Ever since you used that silly whistle…." She smiled. "I felt challenged, oddly complemented. I couldn't take my mind off those moments. It was almost preposterous, yet my heart beat faster when I thought of them, the look I saw in your eyes sometimes kept me awake for hours at night."

He saw her eyes directed to the small patch of skin that showed from his open shirt. Tenderness invaded him to a painful level.

"Maria, please, don't torture me this way. If you had the slightest idea of what you're doing to me…"

He stood up and walked away from her.

"I don't. Tell me. I know nothing," she said with shame.

"If I had an ounce of common sense I'd leave your room at this moment."

"Please don't. I feel…naked. At least tell me that what I said is not wrong or unnatural! I've never…"

He walked next to her and extended his hand to lead her to sit over the bed, with him. "No! It's beautiful and correct. I told you earlier, nothing between you and I could be wrong or shameful. God made these feelings to exist between man and woman. They're right. More than right."

"Do you feel like that too?"

He nodded and smiled. "I adore you." He started to sing softly in her ear:

I want to learn by heart

With my mouth your body

Girl of April

Maria's eyes were huge and smiling; she caressed his cheek with hers, enjoying the power of the moment, wondering if it'd live in her mind forever as her most precious memory.

And traverse your entrails

In search of the child

That isn't to be

But it was sad, it was a sad song, she thought. She pressed her eyes tight and shook her head, denying.

I want to part with my singing

Your body of girl

And sink to live

"Georg! Please!" she murmured wanting him to stop, because his words were disturbing her exceedingly. But she had asked. She had wanted to open the Pandora box.

He kissed her softly, barely moving his lips before continuing.

How to explain that I want you

That I smile and die

When I see you pass

How to explain that I love you

If you weren't mine

And will never be

"Please," she interposed with tears in her eyes.

"I am sorry I didn't mean to make you cry." He put up a hand to her cheek to dry a solitary drop.

"I've been so stupid," she said.

"No, you are just innocent. I wouldn't change a hair in your head." They joined now their faces, kissing, both feeling a silky string that joined both their hearts and that pulled them together with no escape.

Maria felt weak, her joints failed and as the kiss got them into a fog of confused senses, her head touched the bed and he followed her without breaking the caress, pressing her to the mattress.

Maria's breath was a raspy sound. She wanted… she didn't know what she wanted, but she knew she needed him closer, the closest that the barriers of clothes and flesh could allow.

"I need you. In my arms, in my bed, in my heart. I can hardly say anymore," Georg said, breaking the contact. "But you don't know. How could you possibly know? I just wished I could tell you and show you, so you would understand and know. What it'd be like."

"I want to know, Georg. Show me what it'd be like." Her eyes pleaded earnestly.

"We can't."

"You said it wasn't wrong."

"I don't think it is, but you'd grow to regret it. You haven't accepted to marry me, Maria." He tried to sit back again, but she grabbed his shirt.

"Georg, I love you. If you know me at all you should know that!" she said, not being able to contain herself anymore.

Simply losing all common sense at her words, he embraced her. "Oh, my love!" He could believe that after all her resistance…but it must be true, he read it in her transparent gaze.

There was no containing or caution, at least not for Maria. Having his weight so close, partly over her own, was so exciting that she was shaking. She felt him powerful and aroused. It was all new, but her instinct knew what her senses wanted, that rapture that was starting to enfold her.

Their hands moved, hers roved over his back sensuously, his encircled her tiny waist. His face lay on her silky hair.

"You are perfect, so perfect," he said. His body moved of his own accord and covered hers completely.

"You are too."

Their kisses became deeper, both their breathings ragged. Her legs moved in senseless desperation. Georg felt Maria so intensely that he knew that only a little more petting would probably take her over the edge. There was nothing he wanted more than to drift in the current. It had been too long and the ardor coursed in his veins.

His mouth moved down her neck, he adored it passionately and she squirmed at the intoxicating sensations she hadn't dreamed of. She really liked that, her feelings pooled in her with bittersweet intensity. She wanted to cry out.

"Are you Ok?" he asked out of breath.

She moaned as a response, and grabbed his hair pulling his mouth to hers. His hand started to go up until his fingertips outlined the roundness of the womanly mound of her chest. She cried out this time.

"Shhhh…" he tried to lull her.

She bit her lips when the burning damp feeling of his gentle mouth barely moving, replaced his hand, sending a bolting lighting down her spine.

The pleasure went in crescendo, but Maria wanted to give him as much as she received. Her hands explored his chest. The buttons of his shirt opened victims of her inquisitive curiosity. Then her hands lied flat, savoring the feeling of warm skin.

"I never thought…" she started and didn't know how to end.

He kissed her again to stop the sound of their moaning. The caress prolonged for long minutes. Maria thought she had reached a place so sweet she wouldn't ever leave it. How would it be possible that someone survived without this? she wondered.

She wanted to get out of her nightgown, all thought of shame gone now by more compelling and pressing desires. Her hand went down and raised a hem up. Georg's reached it and stopped her.

"What…why?"

"Maria. I don't know if I will be able to stop if we take off our clothes. I love you, darling; however, I don't think it's the moment." She would never know how much those words cost him.

"But I need…" she mumbled confused. "I thought you said…"

He kissed her forehead. "There are other things… other ways." He smiled looking into her eyes. "I promise when the time arrives, it'll be the most extraordinary moment of both our lives."

Her clear blue eyes shone with sorrow and frustration. She turned her head to the side, and he felt his heart break, seeing that he had hurt her.

"Maria."

She turned her eyes to him. They were filled with so many emotions that he felt she could break like a light that was that deflected by a crystal.

"You don't understand," she said at last. "I need you!"

He trembled. God, he needed her too! He just couldn't take her virginity at that moment. It meant too much and he knew just how easily she could get pregnant. The last minutes had been physically and emotionally a test to him.

He hugged her tightly trying to quiet them both but her hips moved of her own accord enticing his virility. He jumped and she heard a groan escape him.

The stranger that her body was, made her feel like a bird whose wings got caught in a net. Moving and fighting it only ensnared her further. She felt Georg's hand moving down and touch her bare thigh.

Maria shook in the beginning of something stronger, elusive, which trembled as a response to his hand. Inch by inch, she felt the fingers slip up and down underneath the fabric of the nightgown. Her leg felt sensitive to the point it was a painful fever.

When his fingers actually reached the secret place that hurt most, Maria had to bite her own hand to avoid crying out. However, some moans escaped, while he caressed her lovingly and explored, trying to bring her to highest possible place with bold, shameless caresses that shocked her by the scandalous intimacy, and torn her apart.

"Georg!" She felt him shudder too, as if she was transmitting him with the fever. "Please! I want to touch you as well."

He couldn't stand the supplication and with his other hand guided her, carefully watching her eyes, not wanting to scare her away. But Maria was too far too gone, and everything while intense and passionate, would only add to the fever.

Her fingers discovered him.

Georg couldn't dream that Maria could with all her innocence create that havoc in his body. They kissed with a deep hunger while they touched each other. When the storm of pleasure couldn't be more violent she cried out, shaking like if she was to break. Georg held her and guided her for seconds that seemed to never end. While this happened, she felt him move madly against her and curse under his breath as he also trembled into intense oblivion, crashing together into the wave that drowned them.

They lay there, in their now sticky rumpled clothes for a few minutes.

---------------------------------------------

Georg felt Maria's arms lax around his neck, exhausted. He bathed her in little comforting kisses. He saw her eyelids clenched closed, she didn't want to open her eyes.

"That was… that was…" Maria gasped unable to articulate anything else.

Many minutes passed by and Georg didn't want to say a word, ashamed of his lack of control as slowly both their breathings started to calm. He wanted to reassure Maria. She would need, as much as he did, that nearness and tenderness.

He could hardly comprehend that at his age he had allowed things to get out of control that way. And with a simple caress. He should have known she could very well react like that… it was in her and he knew it. It was a little something that lurked underneath at every moment, that provoked him.

Maria sneezed.

"My love."

"Yes?" her reply was barely inaudible.

"Let me." He started discarding lovingly the nightgown that now was damp with sweat and clung to her, wanting to get her under the fresh comforter. He tried not to see the white soft skin that he uncovered, fearing himself even after that feverish and reckless, yet incomplete satisfaction.

She covered her breasts and crawled beneath the protecting cover. He sat over the bed looking at her.

"You get in here too?" she said blushing.

"I should better get going." At saying that, he saw her face go down.

But knowing that from now on it'd be almost impossible for him to deny her something, instead of leaving, he shouldered off his shirt, and then he raised the cover and slid under it.

They ran towards each other's arms, as if they had been apart forever. Maria cuddled tightly, hiding her face into the crook of his shoulder.

The extreme intimacy of their skins felt heavenly to Maria. He was so warm and the curves and planes of his body were so different from hers, she could feel muscles move in his arms and chest. His pants covered legs intertwined with her naked ones. All she wanted was to sleep in his arms for days.

Georg raised a hand to her face and Maria took it, kissing it softly.

"Darling."

She felt too self-conscious to talk about what had happened, at least not for the moment.

"I cannot be here with you for long. I'll wait for you to fall asleep and then will go." He looked at her while he spoke.

"I want you to stay," she said, her throat made a big effort to emit any sound.

"That is not possible, you know that." He kissed her hair, smiling.

"I suppose I do. But this is wonderful," she murmured.

"Yes it is. I love you Maria." His reassuring heartbeat throbbed under her ear.

Georg didn't need her to reply or say anything at the moment. He was happy telling her… no… showing her, what he felt. Life was now what it could be and was meant to be if there was indeed a merciful God out there. Georg elevated a prayer to thank for blessings he didn't know how he could deserve…

"Yes," she said.

His curious eyes made her explain what was obvious.

"Yes, I'll marry you."

He laughed. "Well, you better do. I'd have to keep you as my prisoner if you didn't. I don't think I can live without you, without this, for a single day."

She looked at him intensely.

"Has anybody told you that it's exhausting trying to contradict you?"

"Yes, a few times," he answered.

"I am sorry for making it so difficult for you. For the both of us. It was real childish."

"I am not sorry. You were right, you needed to know me better, to understand and I had to listen to you and overall we needed to talk."

"Talk!" she made a sign with her hand showing the position they were into at the moment.

"Yes, talking can have its perks sometimes," he joked.

"Fighting seems to have some too, captain," she joined him.

"Only with you," he said. "And I am sure we will have our share of problems and misunderstandings in the future. I'll just be happy if they all happen to end this way. Another perk of marriage."

With a smile she punched him mockingly. He held her hand and brought her to his chest to stop her.

"Now, sleep, darling. The night is over. It's starting to dawn."

"We should do this more often," she said.

"If you want. But we will get a prolonged honeymoon in that case. At least a month. That way you will be able to sleep all day."

"Oh, I am not tired…," she said.

She snuggled in his warmth, her lips against his shoulder, until her eyelids felt heavy and she couldn't talk anymore.

Through the window the first sun ray entered the room and touched the bed.

Georg rose; with a crooked smile he left a soft kiss over the cheek of a deeply slept Maria. He crossed the room to close the curtains. It was very cold. He blew his breath over the window crystal and with his finger drew a heart. He laughed softly.

Then he got dressed and unlocked the bolt. After a last look at her and a deep sigh, he left, closing the door behind him.

The end