by Alexa Silver
His eyes widened at her gentle touch. He trapped her fingers against his face with one of his big, rough hands. Narrow scars showed at his wrists, too, probably from ropes that bound him, while lighter marks covered most of the backs and fingers. His hand closed around hers and lifted it gently away from his face, then held it in front of him so he could study it.
“Ye be one o’ ’em tavern ladies?”
She wasn’t sure what “tavern ladies” were, but she could take a guess. “No. I’m just Kelly.” When he freed her hand, she raised it and laid it against the side of his face. The wary expression didn’t change but he didn’t pull away either.
He started when she laid her other hand on the other cheek, but gasped and tried to pull back again as she leaned forward to kiss him. Once her lips touched his, though, he stopped struggling. For a moment, he did nothing else, letting her explore the surface of his mouth. But when she pushed her tongue against his lips, he seemed to catch fire.
After a quick, sobbing breath, he opened, letting her enter the warm depths of his mouth, and his arms went around her, pulling her body into his. His cock filled and pressed into her belly. He drew his mouth away to press a line of kisses along her throat and up to her ear. “I know not wha’ this be, but I’ll not be denying ye,” he said.
“It’s for your benefit.”
“I do be in heaven then. Praises be.”
“No. Though I’m not exactly sure where this is, in truth.” Kelly put her hands on his shoulders, mindful of the scars on his back, but if they bothered him, he showed no sign of it.
“Ye wish this?” he asked, sounding puzzled that she would.
“Yes.”
“Then it shall be.” He tugged at her blouse, showing little comprehension of buttons. “These hold it together?” He twirled one and watched it slip through the slit. A twitch of his lips didn’t quite make it to a smile as he stared at the slice of skin that showed. The rest of the buttons were undone rapidly and he all but tore the blouse from her shoulders. “What manner of garment be this?” he asked, sliding a finger under the strap of her bra and tugging on it.
“Whoa, slow down.” She put a hand over his when he appeared ready to tear the elastic away. “This isn’t a race.”
He looked puzzled.
“I mean, we have no need for haste.”
“Ah.” A real grin flashed across his face and disappeared as quickly as it came. “But I doubt me I can contain myself o’erlong. My need is great.” A worried frown showed. “Unless this be hell and I be condemned to the torment of desiring with no release?”
“This isn’t hell. And I won’t condemn you to torment unless you prove deserving of it.”
Again a small grin flashed and disappeared, almost as if he were afraid to allow himself any amusement. “I’ll try to be worthy.”
Kelly glanced around the chamber, trying to decide where to lie down and seeing for the first time the bed almost directly behind her. She’d been so focused on her companion she hadn’t noticed anything else until then. Thoughtful of whoever those guys were to supply a comfortable accommodation for their activities.
It was quite a spectacular bed, too, a king-sized affair with four posts, railings across the tops of the posts and drapes hung from the railings, pushed back to the corners. Nice to provide for their privacy, though why it was necessary in a chamber hidden underground for more years than she could imagine was a mystery. Still it also featured a number of pillows and sumptuous looking covers.
“Come.” She reached down and found the cord that held up his loose, shapeless trousers. Instead of undoing it, though, she tugged on it, dragging him with her when she crossed the room to the bed. She sat on the mattress, sinking into the cushiony top. Robert stepped between her open legs and leaned down to kiss her again. Her blood bubbled as his lips brushed over hers, sending an arrow of pleasure and longing straight to her core.
She looked into his eyes. The light blue was no longer icy, but had sparks of warmth dancing in their depths. A connection that echoed what she’d experienced with the more urbane ghost Robert jumped between them, linking them.
She could feel his yielding to her in the draining of resistance from his tense body, before a sudden, shocking set of visual images from a time and place far outside her own experience assaulted her.
Even as the heat of arousal began to surge through her in response to his touch and his kiss, flashes of memory rushed into her mind as well.
*****
A group of people resolved into a woman and several children, all huddled near the fireplace in a tiny room. The children jockeyed for position, the biggest elbowing the smaller ones aside to get closer to the meager warmth. The woman sat in a rickety chair, bent over, her body shaking with sobs.
One of the smallest of the children crept over to her and laid his head against her shoulder. “Mama, don’t cry. Are ye missing Papa?”
“Aye,” she whispered. The woman straightened and wiped her eyes. “I need to tell all of ye.” She spoke louder now. “Yer papa willna be coming home again. I’ve had word he died aboard ship and has been buried at sea.”
A shocked silence ensued. None of them knew their papa well since he spent most of his time away at sea, but from Mama’s reaction they knew it wasn’t a good thing. A few sobs broke out as they all huddled around their mother. “I fear this bodes ill for us all,” she muttered. “I know not how I’ll feed so many.”
As memories do, time then skipped over weeks with only a small bit of bread for food and months of hardship, until the day his mother came home from the market with her basket surprisingly full but tears running down her cheeks. She came over and hugged and kissed him, which surprised him even more than the full basket.
“Robby,” she said, “Ye must be strong for all of us.” She cried even harder as she embraced him. A little while later a man came to the door. Robby screamed as the man picked him and began to take him away. He reached for his mama and yelled for her to stop the stranger, but she didn’t. He never saw his mother again.
*****
Shocked and saddened by the tragic events, Kelly pulled back but didn’t release her hold on him. And then she was back in the dungeon room. Robert stood in front of her as she sat on the bed, giving her a puzzled look.
Despite the tragic memories fading now, her body still prickled all over with arousal. She offered a smile and pulled him closer.
Compassion for the boy he was mingled with love for the man she knew and delight in being able to touch him, rub his shoulders, stroke his hair and feel the prickle of beard when he kissed along her neck. She brushed her hands up and down his chest, marveling at the feel of the hard muscle, the sprinkle of hair, the remarkable solidity of him. For so long she’d wanted to do this.
He reached up to run gentle fingers down the side of her face, seeming almost as bemused as she at the turn of events that put him here with her. Fire trailed behind his hands wherever he touched, setting off little explosions just beneath the surface. Her blood heated and rushed faster. Kelly leaned into him and put her lips against his throat, tasting, teasing, nipping at him, learning the warm, musky scent of his skin, the sweet salty tang of his flesh.
He felt good. He even smelled good, like a man should somehow, which was surprising considering his rough appearance. Kelly leaned back on the bed and pulled him down with her. Robert had been her only lover for the last few years, so his solid weight against her was another small shock. He still had the consideration to prop himself up on an arm to avoid squashing her.
She reached for the drawstring cord holding his rough pants up. A quick tug removed it from the casing. She had to shimmy down to get to the fabric and push it off his hips. He kicked them off.
Thrills surged up and down her spine when she laid a hand on his belly and smoothed downward with her palm, sliding it under the swelling shaft until she reached the root of his cock. It jutted from a cushion of pale, curly hair. His breath caught in a sob when she
put her fingers around it and slid them up and down a couple of times.
“Kel-lee! I be too full. I can’t…” She felt the quiver shake his body, showing how close he was to spilling.
She released his cock and slid back up, rolling to her side to meet his gaze directly. His eyes were wide, the light blue irises glinting with emotion and effort. When she looked at him directly, she felt drawn into him, almost like falling into his mind.
*****
A prolonged nightmare lasted for a year after he was taken from his mother. The man who’d bought him was a chimney sweep. He needed a new assistant, his previous one having outgrown the job. Robert’s task was to climb up inside the chimneys to scrub away the soot and crusted knots that accumulated on the stone or brick. He dreaded going into that contained space. He hated the smell of charred wood or coal, the feel of ash all over him, the darkness, but most of all he hated that he could barely move without scraping himself on the bricks. Every day he fought the terror of getting trapped in those narrow stacks. But whenever he complained or balked the man beat him.
Twice he ran away and twice he was dragged back to the man, to face being locked in a small dark room with just a crust of bread and cup of water a day for a week until he cooperated again. By his third try he knew what places to avoid to prevent recapture. Though he wanted to get back home, he didn’t know exactly where home was and had very little sense of the geography of the huge city he was in. He found shelter of a sort with a group of beggars and pickpockets who welcomed him when he proved quite adept at both begging and theft.
By the time he worked his way back to his old home, his family was gone. His mother had died, a neighbor said. She had no idea where her body had been buried, nor did she know what had become of his brothers and sisters. “Scattered,” was the best guess she could offer.
He went back to his band of thieves and beggars and made a decent living removing the burden of heavy purses from the belts of well-to-do citizens. But after a couple more years of it, he hit a growth spurt that made his formerly slick moves awkward. Caught in an attempt to pick a pocket, he got off with a flogging and a warning that he’d lose a hand the next time. That terrified him into rethinking his life. When someone told him about opportunities in a new land over the ocean, he decided he had nothing to lose. He signed a seven-year indenture in return for his passage.
The sea voyage he preferred to forget. Stuffed in a dark, smelly hold with just barely enough to eat and drink and the constant rocking of the ship making people sick, the only comfort lay in knowing there would be an end to it and the promise of better things on the other side.
Once they landed, his indenture was sold to a Virginia tobacco grower. The work was hard and the hours long, but for the first time in his life he had enough to eat and he made a few friends among the other servants.
It wasn’t ideal. His muscles and joints ached all the time, he got sunburnt regularly and was chilly all winter, but the biggest problem was another servant who seemed to delight in finding ways to get Robert in trouble. But on the whole it was a good time.
The day he finished out his indenture felt like the day of his birth as a man, and he set out for a free life with spirits full to bursting, one of the few times of real joy in his life.
*****
This was another one of those times.
Kelly felt the thrill of his pleasure at her touch, the electric jolts that tore through him when she put her hand around his balls and began to knead them. It added to the tactile joys she already experienced. His fingers explored her breasts, rubbing them with more enthusiasm than expertise and then moving down to her slit.
After just a couple of minutes, though, he moaned, “Kel-lee!” in a pleading voice.
“Yes, love.”
“I can’t…”
“I know. Wait here a moment.” She got up, found her bag and slipped the packet out of it. He watched intently as she opened it and extracted the condom.
He eyed it dubiously. “What be this?”
“Protection,” she said. “I’ll put it on for you.” His sandy eyebrows rose almost to his hairline as she put the condom on him.
“Ah, so ye won’t conceive,” he said, his expression clearing.
“And to protect us both from disease, though I have a clean bill of health. Now,” she said once the condom was in place, spreading her legs for him. He climbed awkwardly between her knees, then fumbled to get his cock positioned. She reached down and helped direct him.
It had been so long since her last solid lover, she was tight. When he realized it was uncomfortable for her, he tried to restrain himself from plunging all the way in at once. Instead he did a few tentative pumps, going in a little way and pulling back, giving her time to adjust to the way it stretched her.
His labored breaths picked up into furious pants, but when he finally pushed all the way in, he stopped there and looked down at her. The joyful lights couldn’t totally dim the shadows of his past that showed there.
*****
The patch of land he’d been granted as part of his indenture agreement was heavily wooded and rough for agriculture, but it had a stream running through it and was near enough to a decent-sized town that he could walk there. Eventually he could build a life on the patch, but he’d need a job for a while. After spending a few days building a rough hut for shelter, fishing for meals and gathering berries and fruit, he headed into town to look for work.
It took two days of inquiries before he got hired as an assistant cook by one of the two small, rough taverns. He knew nothing of cooking but under the guidance of the elderly head cook, he learned and even discovered he enjoyed it.
He made a few friends, including the sadly slow young man who assisted at the livery stable next door. Unfortunately that put him at odds with a couple of the town bullies whose main sport was teasing the boy and playing nasty pranks on him. No one else seemed to care about the boy or the bullies’ increasingly stupid and dangerous tricks.
Robert often stood between them, defending his friend, which meant the occasional fight. Mostly Robert won those, through a combination of being bigger, tougher, smarter and meaner. His years of thievery had made him quick. Years spent in the fields working off his indenture left him strong. His entire life had made him ruthless.
When an especially nasty prank left his friend and a horse injured, with it set up to look as though his friend had been responsible for the accident, Robert had had enough. He sought out the pair and told them the next time they did anything to the stable boy, Robert would beat them into the ground. As expected, the leader of the pair of bullies couldn’t let the challenge pass. The fight that ensued was long, vicious and recognized no rules. Robert threw punch after punch and took a few as well. They traded kicks. The bully grabbed his hair and tried to jerk his neck around. Robert reached for the other man’s eyes, attempting to scratch at them. When his opponent bit into his arm, Robert yelped, twisted and tossed him to the ground. The bully grabbed him around the ankle, tripping him. The two rolled around the stable yard, trading punches and gouging at each other. His opponent tried to kick him in the groin, fortunately missing by inches and digging the toes of his boot into Robert’s thigh instead. That was it for him.
Robert grabbed the other’s arm and spun him around to face him, then drove his right fist into the bully’s jaw. His adversary went down on his side. Robert jumped on top of him, but backed away when the bully screamed in agony. He rolled over to show a mangled hand that had caught beneath him and taken the brunt of his weight when he fell. Two fingers were obviously broken.
Robert straightened and stared down at him. “Ye ever bother Sammy again, it’ll be both yer arms I break.”
*****
Kelly pulled her gaze away from his with an effort. The violence of the fight disturbed her, but not enough to make her let go of him or push him out. His breath picked up speed again as he struggled to keep from moving too fast.
She matched her rhy
thm to his as he pumped in and out. After a few plunges, his cock slid smoothly and dug deep, finding that sensitive spot inside her that thrilled with each touch. It made her gasp and buck.
Amazing sensations engulfed her, the largest being the tension of need pulling her tighter with each push of his cock into her, but his balls slapping against her cunt added to the raw pleasure of it, along with the press of his strong thighs against hers, the tingle of his chest hair tickling her breasts and the incredible resilience of the skin of his back where her fingers dug in.
A tide of need rose inside, filling her, threatening to burst out of her skin as it swelled.
She realized just how much she’d missed in not being able to share the pleasure. Touching him, kissing him added to arousal. His soft, sighing moans delighted her. The warm scent of his arousal and the solid weight of his body on hers contributed their own thrills. She’d never tire of watching his face screw up in tense lines as the pleasure grew nearly unbearable.
She loved this man. Even with his violent past, she loved him. Part of her wished she could wipe away all the horrible memories, the unbearable pain and ugly treatment he’d endured. That couldn’t happen, but she could give him a better future.
He opened his eyes to stare at her again, apparently checking to be sure she was all right, because he quickly lowered his gaze. His rhythm got faster and his breaths shorter and quicker. He plunged hard, deep.
The tide inside grew with each until it drew every muscle and sinew in her body tight. She felt the same growing tension in him and said, “Yes, please. Now.”
He sobbed in response, but he drew back, paused at the top of his withdrawal for a moment, then rammed himself home and came with a shout. It set the spark to the powder keg inside her and she blew apart as well, jerking with a series of harsh spasms. It wasn’t just release and relief but pleasure beyond words, beyond any description.