I felt her hand move off my member for a second and could tell she was working to get herself ready for me. I gently clenched my teeth against one of her nipples causing her to momentarily lose focus below.
She quickly recovered and wrapped her soft fingers around my shaft, steering me toward her loins. She pushed my tip against her panties to shove them aside and guiding me up and inward. I felt the warmth of her soft flesh envelop me and, with my face buried into her breasts again, we rode against each other until our passions had their fill.
Chapter 11
"It's about time you two joined us," Nithia said as she scooted over in the sand to make room for Alara and me. She turned to Alara. "Glad to see you look like you're feeling better." She patted the spot next to her. "Den."
"Yes, thanks." Alara sat. "The walk did me good."
"Could you feel tired because something is draining you?" Victoria said.
"Excuse me?" Alara glared at her.
Victoria glanced around as if lost for a moment. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to sound like that. I'm not sure why I…"
"Uh huh," Alara said.
"Did any of you feel that?" Victoria asked. "A chill or something."
"Really?" Alara sounded annoyed. "Well, could be you."
"Well." I stood up. "Nice fire, huh? Don't you all think?" I walked over and warmed my hands, looking back to everyone and smiling.
I heard Victoria whisper to herself, "That's not what I meant."
I rubbed my hands together with exaggerated enthusiasm near the flames. "Nice."
We'd warmed our bodies plenty well before, but the evening chill had seeped into me as Alara and I walked back from our outing. I relished being back in the circle around the large fire. They'd grown it into a deep core of glowing crackling wood, with a healthy pile of branches around it and over it. It reminded me of that scene in Lost Boys where everyone was partying on the beach at night around the fire—minus the vampires. Succubi maybe.
Monica and Victoria sat atop a sun-bleached log, leaning toward the flames. Tara rested her head in her hands, propping herself up on her elbows, bare stomach on the sand. Flicker from the fire played over her cleavage.
After a few moments near the flames, I returned to Alara's side.
Monica scanned the area around the campfire before looking at me. "So, where's the wood?"
"What?" I glanced at the campfire, noting it only slightly fell short of a bonfire. More wood?
Alara put her hand on my knee. "We couldn't find any more. Looked really hard, but…" She shrugged.
Oh, right. That's what I said we were going to do.
Monica leaned back, as if satisfied with Alara's answer. "Oh, yeah. That's probably all there was." She nodded toward the fire. I couldn't fault her sarcasm, given we'd been making butt prints in the sand while they were getting the fire going.
Victoria glanced to each of us. She looked puzzled. "The forest isn't far, though."
"Right." Alara stretched the word long enough to make her point.
Victoria stared at Monica for a few moments, then glanced at Alara and me before averting her eyes and looking at the fire. I think she blushed, but it was hard to tell with the firelight putting a glow on all of us.
She's new around here, cut her some slack. Or not the sharpest…
We dug out some food from our packs. Jan had done us right, sending us off with well-seasoned meats—dried, and salted more than I liked, but I hadn't seen a refrigerator anywhere in Galderia. The bread probably would've chipped a tooth, but I watched Nithia pour a little mead onto her piece, which she had in a shallow wooden bowl. We'd each taken one from the kitchen at Jan's suggestion. I copied Nithia and found after a minute the bread was soft enough to eat safely. We passed around different foods we each had carried—some dried figs, a weird granola mixture which tasted like dirt and smelled like peas, some sour cousins to almonds. For the record, I never liked peas.
I glanced back to check on the horses. Pudding still had the rope tied to the thick leather piece strapped over part of her head. I'd secured the other end of the rope around a heavy log, one much too heavy for her to drag, hopefully. Either way, she seemed content like the other horses to feed on the tall grasses just beyond the beach.
They were a good distance from the edge of the forest, but in the back of my mind I held on to a little worry the giant spiders might come out of the woods. It seemed unlikely they'd venture into the open, especially with our fire going strong not far from the horses, but I kept an eye on them just the same.
Tara stood and dusted sand from her ass—okay, from her pants, technically. Everyone had gotten fully dressed shortly after our swim, since the evening brought a chill. "Who's up for some campfire stories?" She joined Monica and Victoria on the log, after the two of them made room for her.
"What kind of stories?" Monica asked.
Tara leaned forward a little, so she could see past Victoria. "I don't know. About you. Something you've heard?" She leaned back and shrugged. "Den?"
I thought about my life before coming to Galderia and quickly decided the last week and a half had been the most interesting I'd had. "I'm not really much of a storyteller."
Alara turned to me and gave me a kiss on my cheek. "Man of action. I have no problem with that."
Works for me. She looked so much more full of energy compared to how she had been before I gave her some sexual healing. Maybe I should put up a sign, I thought. The doctor is now in.
"I have one." Nithia adjusted how she was sitting, dropping both knees to one side and propping herself a little as she tucked her feet under her rear. She looked to each of us before saying more, evidently waiting until she had our attention.
She told us a story about a young woman leaving her village to fight alongside other such new recruits in a fledgling army. They had been called to arms to stand against Thautus Kurg, and waged war against his forces in many battles in the land across the Sea of Ronak.
I thought of my destiny to face Kurg too. Let me guess. They all died.
My eyes wandered from her as she gave details of the many clashes between the Kurg's forces and the resistance the young woman had joined. As my gaze floated, I noticed Monica's eyes fixed on me. When she saw me looking back at her, I expected her to avert her eyes, but she didn't. Maybe out of curiosity or, perhaps, something more, I didn't either. I heard Nithia continue her story, but I paid little attention to what she said. Monica's mouth curled upward slightly at the edges. Her pupils dilated as she continued to look at me. Was I reading her right, I wondered. She took a deep breath, then let it out with a long faint sigh. She shook her head slowly.
Laughter broke my attention from her. I looked to the others. Were they laughing at us? I hoped they weren't—that they hadn't noticed.
"That's great," Tara said to Nithia, who looked proud of the tale she'd evidently just finished.
"Yeah," Alara said. "Though I seriously doubt Thautus Kurg would end up groveling for any young woman's affections."
"No." Tara sat up straight. "It's absolutely true." She grinned. "He gave up conquering the world and spent the rest of his days begging her for more sexy time."
They all laughed some more. I chuckled. It was a funny twist, though unrealistic. But I was glad the laughter was about the story. I glanced at Monica. She appeared to be playing along, as if she'd heard the whole story, but I knew better.
Victoria stood up. "Well, I'd like to think we women have that kind of power over men." She looked at me. "But I'm not sure. Den, what do you think?"
"Uh." I wasn't sure what the safe answer was. "I'm just glad Kurg is out of the picture now."
They laughed some more, and Monica chuckled too.
"Yeah," Victoria said. "Sometimes a woman can change who you think you are."
"You ought to know," Monica said. "Right?"
Victoria flashed a look at Monica which wasn't friendly, but she didn't respond. I glanced back and forth at the two of them, trying to
discern what Monica meant, but she shrugged and looked away.
"Den," Tara said. "Anyone do that to you? Before Galderia, I mean."
I shook my head.
"What about that teacher?" Monica said.
I looked at her, wondering who she was talking about. I hadn't been with anyone back home. I noticed she glanced to Victoria and smirked for a split second, before turning back to me.
"Who was that?" Alara asked.
"Oh," Monica said. "He had the major hots for one of our teachers, Ms. Thompson. Can't blame him, though. She had everything done right. All the guys had a thing for her."
I felt my face getting warm. "Pff." That was the best rebuttal I could manage. She was right, though. I would've taken Ms. Thompson's class even if she was teaching five hours at a time on knitting techniques. I avoided making eye contact with Alara, Tara, or Nithia.
"Hey," Tara said. "He's got good taste in women." She chuckled.
She'd rescued me, whether she meant to or not.
I got up and walked toward one of our packs. "I'm going to get a little something more to snack on."
"That sounds good," Monica said as she rose and went with me.
As we walked outside the rest of the group, I heard them moving on to other topics of conversation, which was a relief to me.
I rummaged through the pack and Monica stood beside me, waiting to see what I'd pull out. "Why'd you bring her up?" I asked, glancing at her.
She shrugged. "Don't know. Just thought it was funny."
"You know I'm with Alara, Nithia, and Tara."
"Yeah. I know. All three of them." She sounded annoyed.
"Hey, what's with that?"
When she didn't answer, I stopped digging through the pack and looked at her. I wondered if I should bring up how she was looking at me before. She opened her mouth slightly, then she glanced away for a second before returned her eyes to mine.
"I've been thinking about Austin," she said. "I miss home."
I nodded. "Yeah. I understand." I looked around. "It's so different here. I don't blame you."
"So, you miss it too?"
Did I?
"I'm not sure," I said. "I guess I should."
"Would you go back, if you could?"
"As far as I know, I can't."
She appeared disappointed. "I've thought about your offer, to send me home."
"And?"
"And I don't think I want to go back without you."
Oh, wow. I suspected there was something there, at least for her…okay, maybe for me too, I thought. But I didn't know she felt so strongly about me.
"What about Brad?" I asked.
She looked like she had forgotten him until I mentioned his name. "Yes," she said. "He's a nice guy." She paused for a moment. "No. Actually, he's not that nice. He wasn't loyal to me."
I realized the irony in her saying that about him and her telling me she was into me, when I was committed to three women twenty feet away from us. I glanced over to them. They were still talking, not paying us any attention.
"I'm probably the last guy you should expect to be loyal to you," I said.
She shook her head. "I see how you are with them."
"Yeah, but three. I mean, I'm not complaining, but it's an adjustment in thinking, even for me." I chuckled. "Who am I kidding. It's not like I had a girlfriend before, but you get what I mean."
She shrugged and tilted her head slightly for a second. "You don't think Sydney and I ever shared?"
"Oh, right. Well…" I was in bed with both of them when this whole thing started, I thought.
She looked sad. "When she went back to Earth," she said, looking downward, "I felt like I lost something."
"I can relate." I almost mentioned my parents, but I held back, knowing it'd get me choked up.
"No." She looked up at me. "I don't mean emotionally, though that's true too. I mean I felt a little drained, like energy drained."
"That's normal. Emotions can do that to you."
"I suppose. It just felt like we were connected." She put her hand on mine. "I feel that way with you too."
I moved my hand down to my side and glanced over to Alara and the others. They weren't looking our way.
"Listen," I said. "I think you're great. And if I'm the only way for you to get home, my offer stands. But I think we should go back over there."
I smiled at her.
"Okay." She sighed. "But your offer stands. Right?"
"I'm going to be here for you, whatever you decide."
I felt affection for her, but I wanted to avoid complicating my life more than it already was. I didn't know how to handle being with one woman, and now I had three.
She sniffed and wiped the corner of her eye. "Come on." She gestured toward the others. "I'm sure we're missing a good story, or something."
Chapter 12
We rode steady for probably three hours, taking our horses onto a vast grassy plain. The beach had narrowed but the sand became deeper, and the horses had a harder time walking in it. We kept the sea in view as long as we could, but the contours of the land eased it out of view. We kept a good distance from the forest on the opposite side of our path, just to be safe. Maybe we'd long since passed the domain of the giant spiders, but we had no way of knowing.
"If it's like this the rest of the way there," Monica said, "that'll be fine with me."
"Don't say that." I shot her a grin. She returned a confused look. "I just don't want you to jinx us."
"Jinx?" Alara asked. She rode beside me, as she did most of the time.
I was surprised she didn't know the word, since the summoning magic put everything I spoke into Galderian and vice versa—same for all of us who came from Earth. "Make things go wrong by pointing out how right everything is."
She nodded.
Weird that didn't translate.
Tara, who'd been riding ahead of us for the last good while—still full of adventurous zeal, despite her near-fatal mishap in the forest—pulled her horse by the reins to a stop. She said something I couldn't quite make out, then she turned back toward us. "There's a group ahead!"
Alara and I glanced at each other. "How many?" I asked Tara, riding up to meet her, but then I saw for myself—a half dozen men on horseback.
They were coming toward us, up the sloping plain. We sat on our horses at the top of the slope, with no trees or anything else around us. We surely stood out in the middle of the grassy plain. They must have spotted us, I thought. Maybe they are friendly.
Monica rode up behind me to my right. "What are the chances they're just passing through and don't want any trouble?"
"I have no idea," I said.
Victoria, sitting behind Monica, looked around her. "Maybe we should try to lose them. We could ride off that way." She nodded to the distant woods to our left. We'd been staying clear of them on purpose since the giant spider encounter.
I watched the riders approaching, still not able to make out their details. "No."
"Den?" Alara waited for me to say more.
"If they're friendly," I said, "we have nothing to worry about."
"And if they aren't friendly?" Tara asked, reaching back and touching her bow slung over her back.
I nodded to her. "If they aren't friendly, they'd chase us down if we ran." I looked to each of the others. "So, we don't run."
Alara guided her horse closer to me. She leaned over and spoke quietly. "I should have said something before."
"What is it?"
"It's like before," she said. "Not as bad. But I'm feeling tired, like before."
I knew what she meant, but I couldn't help but tease her. I wanted to lighten the mood. I thought I was doing it for her, but I probably needed it too. I glanced to the still distant riders, then looked her in the eyes. "Okay. But we'll have to make it a quickie."
She punched me in the arm. "That's not funny!"
"Ouch. You don't feel weak to me." I rubbed my arm, exaggerating how much it hurt.
"Sorry," I said. "I know what you mean." I glanced at her staff strapped to the side of her horse. "Maybe too drained for that. Right?"
She looked deflated. "Sorry."
"It's alright." I winked at her. "I'll take care of it, if it comes to that." I tipped my head backward diagonally. "Why don't you ride in back? Better yet, stay here. I'll ride down to see what we're dealing with."
"I'm coming with you." I looked at Tara. She had her bow in hand. "It'd be foolish to ride down there by yourself."
I gave her a look of incredulity. "You’re saying this?"
She shrugged. "Maybe I learned from my mistake."
"Good," I said.
"She's right, though." Monica rode up between Alara and Tara. "Alara, could Victoria stay with you? On your horse, I mean? In case, something happens and they come up here."
Alara turned to Victoria. "Of course."
Victoria looked to each of us. "Is this a good plan?"
"I don't think we have much time to make a better one," I said.
Victoria dismounted and got onto Alara's horse behind her.
I twisted around so I could see Nithia behind me. "You're staying up here too."
She nodded. "Be careful, Den. Please."
"Don't worry." I glanced to Tara and Monica. They nodded to me. Monica got her bow ready. "They're probably innocent travelers, like us. What could go wrong?"
"Are we?" Tara said. "Innocent travelers?"
"Yeah. Why not?" I heeled the sides of Pudding to get her moving. Unless they're murderous cutthroats ready to slaughter the lot of us. Okay. I had my doubts about the wisdom of my… plan.
I only glanced back once as we rode down the slope. I had to make sure Alara, Nithia, and Victoria were moving farther back. They did. When we were a third of the way down toward the strangers, I couldn't see the three beauties.
I road in the middle. Tara had come around to my left. Monica stayed to my right.
"I'm surprised at your bravery," Tara said across me to Monica. "I mean, I'm impressed."
Yeah. Me too. I glanced at Monica. She wasn't a magically endowed barbarian warrior. She was just Monica. True, she was magically endowed, but not in a your-now-a-Galderian-super-badass way. Good genes. Probably drank lots of milk growing up, or something.
Swing and Thrust: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 2) Page 7