She reached the summit; a thick bank of clouds like hills surrounded the top of the beanstalk. In the distance, a castle in the sky, impossibly glittering, towers made of glass and pearl. The very tip of the stalk was crowned by a thick seed pod, secured by dozens of flowering vines.
There, miles above the earth, enclosed in the safe cradle of leaves and vines, Jackie became aware of a thick musk in the air. The warm scent of clean sweat, the odor of a male high in his heat, enclosed her. Blanketed by the sky, secure and secret, Jackie smirked, putting one hand on her hip to regard the beanstalk with a playful attitude.
“If that’s the case,” she said, “you’re the world’s largest erection. I’m flattered.” She lightly caressed the stalk, noting again its soft, rigid texture, the veins underneath throbbing with a giant heartbeat. She rested her cheek against it, then, feeling a strange attraction, a quivering between her thighs, she opened her mouth and flickered her tongue against the stalk.
The entire stalk shuddered, forcing her to wrap her arms around it, holding her balance. “Liked that, did you?”
The vines around her shifted, moving, enclosing her. Thick coils wrapped around her thighs, forming a swing, spreading her legs. Her feet left the tentative safety of the stalk, and Jackie was cradled in the air, supported only by the vines and leaves. More vines looped over her arms, encircling her wrists like manacles.
Gentle tendrils, like fingers, explored her body. She groaned, arching against the containment of the vines. A vine twined in her thick blonde hair, tugging, prickling against her scalp. More vines formed, touching her, caressing. Jackie writhed, helpless against the overwhelming sensations. Vines wrapped themselves around her breasts, tugging at the sundress until it was shredded, baring her skin. The tendrils, like fingers, rolled her nipples, teasing them firm and taut.
The vine in her hair pulled, arching her spine, drawing her head back to bare her throat. A tendril snaked up her leg, nuzzling at her soft, sensitive inner thigh. Jackie shrieked with sudden wanting, her hips bucking against the maddening, seductive caress. The tendril teased, achingly gentle, rubbing against her suddenly molten clit, drawing moans and whimpers from her mouth. It tickled around her feminine folds, exploring, teasing, withdrawing each time she felt the tension building across her shoulders and chest.
Jackie cried out, thrashing against the vines that held her mostly immobile. Her breasts ached, nipples hard, as the vines twined around the round globes, squeezing and teasing the tips to rosy peaks. She could barely move as the vines tightened, pulling her thighs apart and her arms up, stretching her to every sensation, beyond her capacity for thought, leaving only molten desire, tinged with frustration.
“Please, please,” she begged, cresting up toward relief, then pushed back again as the vine between her legs slowed its relentless torment. Slow and easy, the vine stroked her clit, plump and wet. It flicked and squeezed, rubbing, caressing. Jackie grew hot, her muscles shaking and contracting desperately. Sweat beaded across her forehead, along the column of her throat. She panted for breath, air burning in her lungs. A final spasm and she shattered into a million pieces. Cries of rapture and relief forced from her throat as she came, shuddering intensely.
Beside her, the seed pod split with an audible snap.
Jackie, limp and spent, hung in the cradle of vines, barely turned her head. Like a swimmer breaching the water’s surface, a man emerged from the seed pod. He was tall, with dark hair the very color of rich earth. His shoulders were broad; his arms well muscled, with a long, lean body. He opened a pair of wide, leaf-green eyes, astonishingly brilliant, with dark, sinfully long lashes. His mouth was lush, berry red, with full, sensual lips.
Wordless, he was drawn to her, like a bee to an open flower. Jackie twisted her arms futilely against the capturing vines, aching to touch him, feel the warmth of his skin, bring him to the same pleasures that she had just experienced. He leaned in, slow and sensual, keeping his body away from hers as he gently touched his lips to hers. Without any expectations of action from her—there was no way she could clasp her arms around his neck or mold her body to his—she was forced to absorb every nuance of the kiss, make the most of tongues and lips.
His kiss shivered along her spine. Despite the lightness of his touch, there was nothing gentle about it as he devoured her mouth. His tongue flickered along her lower lip and then lingered on the sensitive corner. She gasped, panting for breath as he teased her upper lip, planting tiny kisses. At last he relented and Jackie tasted his mouth, like raw peas fresh from the garden, warm with sunlight, full, plump and moist.
His tongue was a welcome invasion, exploring the silk heat of her mouth, her lips quivering with excitement. Jackie moaned deep in her throat as his teeth nipped at her lip. She pulled her head back, allowing him access to her throat, the vine still tangled in her hair aiding her, her scalp tingled with sensation as he laved a trail down her neck, stopping to nuzzle urgently at the dip just above her breastbone.
His large hands traced a line up her ribs, corseting her breasts. He lowered his head to the nipple, breathing warm air over the sensitive nub before finally taking it into his mouth. He lingered over one breast, then the other, before pushing them firmly together, allowing his tongue to wander from one taut bud to the other, sending twin bolts of pleasure down her chest, all the way down to her toes. Jackie uttered a screaming moan, writhing.
His mouth left a warm, wet trail between her breasts and down across her flat belly as he knelt in front of her. Strong hands gripped her hips as he gently licked and tugged on her navel ring with his teeth. Jackie clutched at the warm air, her fingers curling tight against her palms and then relaxing. The hot caress of his tongue both tickled and titillated, leaving her gasping for breath.
Jackie was frantic with need by the time his wicked mouth reached her clit. He licked and sucked at the delicate peak, driving her into delirious spirals of longing. His tongue slid along her moist folds, tasting and exploring. He flicked his tongue back and forth, lightly brushing against the quivering node.
“Oh,” Jackie gasped, her thighs straining as she tried to close her legs around his neck, “I can’t, I can’t.…” And yet, she did, a moment later, screaming as she came. He continued to suck and lick as each last, trembling shock swept through her.
Jackie hung, limp and sated, in the cradle of vines, too spent to even move her littlest finger. She concentrated, instead, on just breathing. The light sheen of sweat cooled her and she just let herself relax, splayed out in her bonds. She listened to the sound of her heartbeats thudding in her temples, swift and reckless at first, but gradually slowing. The wind shushed merrily through the leaves of the beanstalk. There was no other sound.
Gradually, Jackie came back to herself and opened her eyes. Her lover was there; somehow she’d come to be cradled in his arms—the vines couched her legs and lower back, but her arms were around his strong shoulders, her cheek laying against his warm chest. She pushed herself back and looked up at his face. He soothed her hair back from her face, the corners of his mouth turned up in a loving, playful smile.
Jackie traced a line up his jaw, exploring the contours of his ruggedly attractive features. A strong jaw gave way to a lushly sensual mouth. He had high cheekbones, a sharp blade of a nose, wide, moss-green eyes, a high, straight forehead that was slightly obscured by a tousle of rich, dark hair.
“You can’t be real,” Jackie said. “I must be dreaming.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” he responded. She hadn’t expected him to speak and she startled in his arms, surprised by both his words and the clear, musical sound of his voice. “I like to think I was just waiting for you to wake up.”
If Jackie had a response to that, she was certain she didn’t know what it was. Any coherent thought was driven right out of her head by the abrupt, trembling boom that rattled the cloud-bank beneath her and the dark shadow that blocked out the sun.
A thunderous voice, unmistakably female, echoed over
the cumulous hills:
Fee Fie Foe Fum
On the air, the stench of come
Be lovers paired or just cheap sex
I’ll drain their blood and break their necks!
The enveloping net of vines gave a final shudder and unceremoniously dumped Jackie onto the clouds. If she hadn’t been clutching her lover’s shoulders in sudden fear, she would have sprawled at his feet.
“What? Who?” Jackie craned her neck looking around frantically.
“The giantess,” her lover said. “You must go! She is hungry, and her favorite food is beautiful women.”
“You’re coming with me, right?” Jackie clutched his hand. She couldn’t help but stare over her shoulder as the creeping shadow covered her, blocking out the sun and nearly the sky itself. She peered toward the heart of the darkness, straining her eyes to see the face of her predator.
“I’ll keep her from following,” he promised, not quite meeting Jackie’s earnest, terrified gaze.
“No, no,” she tugged at his arm, trying to pull him toward the beanstalk. “I can’t leave you behind.”
“Look, Jackie,” he pulled her close, prying her hand from his arm and clutching her fingers in a bruising grasp. “If we both go, she’ll only shake us from the stalk. I can delay her. Who knows, with you earthside, she may go back to the castle.”
“Go!” He kissed her then, his warm sun mouth hard and urgent on hers. Jackie harbored no hope of escape for her lover. He would not kiss her so desperately, so much like saying good-bye, if he thought to ever see her again. “I’ll come for you.”
He thrust her away from him and ran into the depth of the giantess’s shadow.
I’ll wait for you, she thought, unable to speak. Tears prickled her eyes and she blinked them frantically away. Promise.
Jackie threw herself onto the vine, climbing down with much less grace and more speed than she’d ascended. She wouldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she scrambled over the smooth vines, twisting and turning her body lower and lower.
Above her, the sounds of the giantess’s thundering footsteps faded. The booming, terrible voice stilled.
Jackie reached the ground.
With a groaning cry, the beanstalk shuddered all over and toppled slowly and gracelessly to the ground. Jackie stared horrified at the coils of vines, the leaves already curling up, the dying seed pods.
“No, oh no.”
Exhaustion, horror, grief, overwhelmed her. Jackie fell to her knees, lost all sense of the world among the green smell of withering plants.
“Miss?” A strong hand shook her shoulder a few times. “Miss, are you all right?”
“Of course I’m not,” Jackie pushed away from the unknown, keeping her eyes firmly closed. “Why would…”
“Did you hit your head?”
“Huh?”
Jackie opened her eyes. She peered around. Her hands were filthy, covered with smears of green and dirt. Most of her patio garden had been cleared and cleaned. Broken pots were neatly in boxes, the potting soil had been picked clean of debris and was heaped on the lawn, awaiting new flower beds.
“I think you fainted,” a musical voice scolded her. “It’s awfully warm out here for you to be working so hard.”
“Who are you?” Jackie turned, squinting up at the figure before her. He was standing directly in the warm summer sun and she could see nothing but shadow.
“I’m with Garden Variety. You called this morning, for some new plants? Mr. Andrews sent me to deliver them?”
“I did?” Jackie blinked.
“Yes, miss,” he got one hand under her elbow. “Here, let’s get you up.”
He pulled her to her feet and Jackie barely saw the crisp nursery uniform he wore, the breast pocket stitched neatly with green letters, “Thorn G.” She was more concerned with a pair of intensely familiar leaf-green eyes and a sensual, smiling mouth.
“They were very special runner beans,” Jackie murmured.
“I’ve always thought the magic lay with the gardener,” Thorn replied.
STEADFAST
Andrea Dale
Want. Want want want.
It wasn’t fair, she told herself, to want for anything more. For one thing, she already had what she wanted. Her soldier had come home alive from Afghanistan, and he wasn’t going back. They had enough money, a decent house, and although she couldn’t dance professionally anymore, she loved being a choreographer.
Wanting…
For another thing, what she wanted was selfish. This wasn’t about her.
Her soldier had changed.
Always he had been steadfast, stern, and—once he’d gotten past the idea that women were to be handled like spun-glass ballerina figurines—a devoted but firm lover in the bedroom.
He had been the man she needed, to give her balance when she teetered, near to falling, to show her joy and ecstasy and fulfillment again.
In other words, her dream man.
But since her soldier had returned to her, her dreams had been uneasy, and he had been distant. She knew he loved her deeply still, but his emotions were secured away in a foot locker left behind and buried in the desert sands.
As if something deep had been injured when his leg had been, but as his leg healed, the deeper wound festered.
She didn’t know how to treat the wound, find the foot locker, bring her soldier truly, wholly home.
Since he would not initiate, she tried to set the stage. Like a choreographed ballet it would be, she thought, if only she could position the set pieces in the right places, the necessary props where they needed to be.
Silvery clamps that shone and glittered (she shivered, needing to have them adorn her small teacup breasts), pale pink ribbons (their bonds of choice), a pair of worn toe shoes (to effectively hobble her).
A wooden paddle, worn smooth to the touch. A pinwheel with nasty, witch-sharp teeth. Her favorite, the whip, coiled snakelike and wicked.
She knelt before him, a tutu around her waist and a blue spangled sash between her breasts, her hair wound up in an elaborate bun. She raised her wrists to him, where she’d wrapped the pink ribbons; they needed only to be tied together.
He shook his head.
“Please,” she said in a voice that shook with need.
He lifted her, unlooped the ribbons, slipped off the sash and tutu. His hands were gentle as he guided her to the bed, his leg not strong enough to support him if he picked her up. His tenderness brought tears to her eyes, but they were also tears of frustration.
He stripped then, except for the bandages he still wore around his leg. She knew he didn’t need them anymore, had seen the puckered scars when he showered and didn’t know she watched. She also knew he needed to feel whole, needed to be whole for her, no matter how she insisted that no, he was just as strong and brave as he’d always been.
Come back to me, she wanted to say, but the words always died on her selfish lips.
She rolled on her front, rose up, presenting herself for a spanking, but instead he planted a line of kisses along her spine, over her curves. His tongue flicked against her, into her, tasting her. Where once, though, he had devoured her, now he seemed more intent on her pleasure.
Another woman might have been grateful.
But when she wanted hard, he gave her soft; where she wanted rough, he gave her affection. She wanted passion, he gave her restraint. Although not the restraints she asked for…
Her limbs trembled. Want, need, desire. Please. Arousal built, but needed pain to peak, to give her the release she craved.
When he guided her down atop him, she pinched her own nipples as viciously as she could, and it helped, but not enough.
His hands pinning her wrists, an order from his lips (whether to come or to hold off), the touch of a needle or candle wax or wicked wheel: any of things would have broken through, broken the spell. Woken her half-slumbering desire into crisis and climax.
Instead, she cu
rled around him, silent in the night, stifling tears. She felt as thin as paper, as if a strong gust of wind would snatch her heart up and blow it away, tumbling forever out of reach.
As tightly bound as his emotions were—locked away in that desert as untouchable as if they were in the Ice Queen’s palace or the Troll King’s crypt—he was not unkind and not unaware that she was in distress. So she tried again to tell him what she desired most: that he punish her, and through punishment, reward her.
His jaw clenched tight, as tight as the iron grip of control he maintained on himself. That was what he feared losing, she knew.
She trusted, as she always had and ever would, that he wouldn’t.
Now her desire, fragrant and moist, pooled between her legs, legs that felt weak with lust. After so long, after so much arousal and denial, she would finally get what she needed.
She stood before him, eyes downcast even though this time he hadn’t ordered it, wrists crossed behind her back. Nipples hard, breath short, stomach fluttering. Clit aching.
He ran the length of the whip through his hands, and she didn’t dare raise her gaze to his face even for an instant. Not allowed, for one thing. For another, she wanted to see the lust in his eyes and feared she wouldn’t.
She turned away, gripped the post of the bed, waited.
The crack of the whip, like the crackshot of a gun. For an instant out of time, they both froze. Then the strike reached her, and she shrieked and shuddered in equal measure, pain and pleasure.
But still silence from him. She chanced a glance over her shoulder. He stood straight and unbending like a tin soldier, his expression as faraway and blank.
She whispered his name. And again, a tiny bit louder.
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