by Mike Smith
They didn’t budge.
“Alex,” Jessica retorted. “Leave it. I have already tried, they’re too strong. Go and get help.”
“You know, I think I preferred you comatose,” he gasped between gritted teeth, spreading his shoulders wide to try and get better leverage on the jaws.
“Alex please get help. Leave me here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“No!” he screamed, his vision darkening dangerously, as he put his entire being into prising the two jaws apart. With a loud ping, the spring snapped and the jaws came apart, releasing her leg.
“But how did you do that?” She looked first at the broken snare and then at her leg now free. She shook her head, “I must have lost even more blood than I thought.” Using her hands, she carefully pushed herself up into a sitting position, before rolling over onto her knees, and then by carefully levering herself up, she was able to stand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Alex screamed. He scrambled to his feet having regained his breath.
“I’m fine,” Jessica retorted. “I can walk back myself, it’s not as if I need you to carry—” She wavered on her feet slightly, turning a slickly shade of grey. “On second thoughts perhaps…” With that she slipped into a dead faint. Alex only managed to catch her at the last moment and stopped her falling back into the mud.
“Great,” he sighed. “Now you decide to pass out on me.” Grunting, he lifted her into his arms, making sure that Lucifer was close behind, and he turned round, heading back for home.
*****
The first thing that he did upon arriving home was to boil some water and, after carefully cleaning her injured leg, he inspected the wound, and was relieved to find that the injury wasn’t as bad as he first thought. While it had bled profusely, the lacerations were not deep, barely penetrating the layer of muscles. After making sure that the wound was thoroughly clean, he dressed it with clean bandages. Which left him with the pressing problem of what next to do with her. She hadn’t roused once during the journey back and he’d already dismissed Mary for the evening, to allow her to enjoy the celebrations. Which left him with one unconscious, and half-drowned woman, on his hands.
“Come on Alex,” he voiced aloud. “Get a grip, you can do this. This is survival, not seduction.” He blew on his freezing hands in an attempt to warm them up, before laughing nervously, realising that she wasn’t in any state to notice. He quickly and efficiently stripped her to her underwear before slipping on one of his large, oversized shirts. He was relieved to see that it almost reached down to her thighs. Turning her onto her stomach, he quickly divested her of her bra, and then decided that was more than enough, before sliding her under the blankets.
Relived to have that chore over and done with, he quickly ridded himself of his own wet clothes, drying off the excess water with a towel and made his way to her room. With the window left open and the fire long since extinguished, he’d decided to give Jessica his room and bed, again. While her room was freezing, he didn’t mind, the cold would do him some good, cooling his ardour and taking his mind off his earlier actions.
Deciding to check on her one last time, he found her lips blue and she was shivering uncontrollably. His first thought was to prepare a warm bath, but he quickly dispelled that idea. With the time it would take to heat the water, then carry it upstairs, she would have died from hyperthermia three times over.
He didn’t even need to refer to his survival training to know the next best course of action. He tiredly rubbed the palm of his hand against his eyes. He was physically exhausted from the earlier search and then having to carry her all the way back to the house. All he wanted to do was sleep, hence the likelihood of him molesting her in his slumber, was pretty remote.
Rubbing his scratchy eyes, he slid into the bed next to her and, taking a deep breath, he rolled over, pulling her close to him, so as to share his body heat before willing himself to sleep.
It was a long time coming.
*****
He noticed, with some amusement, that she woke the same as always—sliding her hands under the pillow, reaching for her pistol, that wasn’t there. “I was rather hoping that you wouldn’t need that,” he said.
She immediately rolled over to come face-to-face with him. Alex wondered how she would react if he leaned forward to give her a good morning kiss. Instead, she blinked sleepily, staring at him for several confused seconds. “What are you doing here, in my bed?”
“Actually you’re in my bed, again,” Alex shrugged. “I should point out that this seems to be becoming a regular occurrence. Perhaps I should just ask Mary to relocate your belongings to my room?” Having half scared him out of his mind last night, she was long overdue some retribution.
“But why?”
“The usual reason,” he shrugged. “You passed out on me. Again.”
“What! Why?” she sat up abruptly. “Wait. I remember now. The storm, the rain, I caught my foot in some sort of snare.”
“Not mine, I assure you. They’re prohibited on my land, but I have an ongoing problem with poachers. I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he added warningly as she was about to throw back the covers and make a quick exit. “Normally I sleep in my shirt, however it was drenched last night, and you’re currently wearing my only spare so—”
“You’re naked under there?” she asked with a horrified expression.
“As the day I was born,” Alex clarified cheerfully.
“By the Gods…” she sighed, slumping back onto the bed, her head resting on the pillow, eyes closed resignedly.
“I don’t think your father would be pleased to hear that particular prayer,” Alex said warningly. “Roll over,” he said, poking her in the side.
“Why? Am I on your side of the bed?” she demanded sarcastically.
“No,” Alex replied grimly, “but you do have a nasty leg wound. I want to check your bandage.”
“Oh,” she replied quietly. “I’d forgotten about that.” The last came out as a high-pitched squeak as he tossed the covers back. “I thought you said you were naked?”
“I am,” he replied calmly. “So if you don’t want to peek, I suggest you just keep your eyes closed.”
“Right,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. “How does it look?”
“From where I’m sitting, pretty damn good,” Alex whistled, observing the curve of her spine, his shirt having ridden up during the night, until it barely covered her bottom.
“Ow, I’m stiff all over,” she exclaimed, arching her back like a kitten.
“Tell me about it,” he muttered, but helpless to her request, he reached out with his hands, probing gently with his fingers, until he found the tight bundle of nerves, before pressing, firmly.
“Oh, that feels so good,” she hummed.
He nibbled at her shoulder. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Oh…that’s unfair.”
He smiled. His body, completely unconcerned with tact or patience, was already tightening, thickening. It was fruitless, he knew. But he couldn’t help hoping he was making some headway. She arched her neck, just a little, as if at war with her own body.
“Relax,” he instructed.
Instead of sitting back though, he let his hand drift gently across the lovely swell of her breasts, watching his fingers rise and dip. He could hear the rasp of her breathing; he saw her nipples tighten and press against his shirt. He wanted his mouth on them, his tongue. He wanted to suckle until she shrieked. He settled for just brushing his fingers back and forth, back and forth, so lightly he knew she couldn’t complain, so slowly he couldn’t frighten her.
Her eyes were drifting shut, her head drooping back against the pillow.
Her fingers were opening and closing on her lap. Alex hadn’t meant to become even this intimate. He wasn’t certain how far she would allow him to progress. His heart had begun to thud in his chest, and his groin was a giant ache. He was going to be in for a long cold bath later.
&n
bsp; Bending over, not even breathing for fear he would startle her, he laid his lips against the swell of her breast. Her reaction was instantaneous. She gasped, twisting and pushing at him. It didn’t take Alex a second to understand. But instead of backing off, he held her. He could hear the rasp of her breathing and saw the wild look in her eyes and realised that he wasn’t frightening her. He knew he could do only one thing. Freeing one hand, he pushed her sleeve down. She flinched, not breathing, staring at anything but him, with eyes as big as saucers. He leaned over and laid his lips back down on her.
She froze. He moved to the other breast and repeated his action. He felt a sob catch in her chest.
“You have never been more beautiful,” he reassured her. “It’s a wonder I can keep my hands off you.”
She said not a word, but he felt her stiffen. He kissed her again, at the juncture of her throat. She softened a bit. Reaching down, he clasped her hand in his and protected it as he tasted her exposed skin. One kiss, then another. A quick brush of the tongue that left him rigid and painful. Her breasts were so firm, so high, her nipple clearly outlined against the thin cotton of his shirt. He licked across her breast and then, gently, blew until he saw goose bumps. He felt her pulse begin to race and her breath grow shallow, until her eyes fluttered completely closed and she trusted him enough to rest against his arm.
He was shaking with the effort of trying to control his body. He was dying with hope. He wanted to span her waist with his hands and taste her, taunt her and stoke the passion he knew flowed through her.
But he couldn’t. Not yet.
Not if he wanted her to ever trust him again, because suddenly that was more important than the hot arousal she was unleashing. It was more imperative than pleasure, or peace. Suddenly he knew that he wasn’t finished with his responsibilities. This might well kill him, but it would be worth it if he could set her free, to choose her own destiny.
Lifting his head, he gazed down on the lush beauty of her face, now flushed and softened with arousal. He bent close to her, breathing softly to enable her to feel it on her cheek. Gently, so gently, she might think it her imagination, he met her lips with his.
“Open for me,” he commanded softly.
Her eyes flew open. Her pupils were huge, almost drowning the clear blue of her eyes. He saw a flash of fear; but he also saw hunger. He knew she was fighting him and decided to help. Bending back to her, he dropped a kiss along the very corner of her mouth. She instinctively turned to him. He deepened the kiss, searching her lips with his own, pressing, savouring the luxury of her mouth. He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and sucked at it.
Her heart was thundering now; he wasn’t sure whether in fright or passion. He prayed for passion. He decided to chance it and slid his tongue along her lips, wetting them, relishing their taste, gently, insistently, begging for entry. And just when he thought he would never breathe again, she opened.
His body all but seized in excitement. His own heart was matching and outdistancing hers. By the High-Lords, it was just a kiss. He couldn’t remember when last he’d spent so much time simply exploring a mouth. But this mouth was special. Breaching these defences was a triumph.
Slowly, he leaned back, bringing her with him so that she half lay on top of him. He turned his head to fit her mouth better, moved his hand so that he could winnow his fingers through the silk of her hair, cupped her face with his other hand and, as gently as possible, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and plundered it.
He felt her hands come up as if to push away. He refused to stop, searching out the hot, slick recesses of her mouth. He tasted wine and cinnamon and something smoky. He inhaled her surprised little gasps. He fought to control himself, in case she truly meant to stop him. But her hands, hovering just a moment between them, settled on his chest as if seeking balance. Her arms curled around his neck. Her body began to melt against his, even when he could almost hear her instincts crying out for caution.
It was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done before, but he held his passion in check. Still as his own body screamed for more, his fingers ached for her breasts, her belly, her sleek, strong legs, as his heart thundered in anticipation of climax, even as he savoured the lightning unleashed by the flicker of her tongue against his, he began to gentle his movements. He drew back from her, stroking her lush hair, dropping kisses along her forehead, her closed eyes, her ear, her throat.
She whimpered in protest when he drew her head down to his shoulder and just held her. He could feel her body tremble with the passion he’d stirred.
“We need, no must, stop Jessica. For if we go further I’ll be breaking my promise to you, and one I intend for your father, that you’ll be released, unharmed. You need to be given the chance to decide your own fate. If I take that from you, I’ll be no better than Stanton.”
Removing himself from her embrace was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he knew if he didn’t now, while he was still strong, he would never be able to walk away from her. Therefore, paying no heed to his own nudity, he stepped from their bed, reaching for his trousers. He had only just finished fastening them, and was reaching for his still damp shirt, when a gasp from behind had him turning around. He only had a glimpse of her, a vision in white, with the sheet wrapped tight around her, when he felt her light touch on his shoulder.
“Your back,” she breathed in horror. “What happened?”
He cursed softly, having long forgotten about the scars, not used to being unclothed, at least not during the day. They no longer bothered him, not like the injury to his side, which still hurt like the devil in the cold and damp.
“A faint reminder of my time spent in prison, nothing more,” he replied casually, raising his arms to slip on his shirt and hide the wounds, but Jessica would have none of it. Pushing his arms aside, she ran her fingertips along the length of the wounds. There were exactly seventeen of them and he had counted them, one at a time. Hard not to really, when each lash landing on him felt like his very soul being shredded.
“What sort of prison were you in, where they whipped their inmates?” she demanded, with such outrage on his behalf that Alex couldn’t help but smile.
“It wasn’t a regular occurrence, or even an officially sanctioned one, I can assure you. Instead it was done by my fellow convicts, to convey a message to me, from somebody on the outside.”
“Why? What was the message?”
“That even there he could still reach me, that nowhere was safe from his retribution.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t appreciate being their whipping boy and tried to fight them off. I broke at least one of their noses, which didn’t go down well. As a reward they stuck a shank in my side, to subdue me, while they finished delivering the rest of the message.”
“A shank?”
“The name for a knife in prison, in this case, a three inch shard of broken glass.” Alex pointed to the jagged scar on his waist, just above his hip, but below the ribs. “Fortunately its shape meant that once they’d speared me in the side, it got trapped and they couldn’t withdraw it.”
“You call that, fortunate?”
Alex turned to face her, touched by the concern and anger, in her expression. “Yes, fortunate,” he continued on quietly. “As unable to retrieve it, they simply abandoned it there. While I couldn’t pull it out either, I was able to break off a substantial piece that was still sticking out of me.”
“And then what?” she asked, holding his gaze.
“Then I stuck it into the throat of the man holding me down. He suffocated to death, drowning in his own blood. I then, forcibly, took the whip from the other and strangled him with it. It took a dozen guards to finally subdue me, but by then it was too late, he was already dead. They charged me with murder for both of the deaths. Fortunately, capital punishment wasn’t permitted and having already been sentenced to life imprisonment, all they could do was put me in that dark, six-foot-by-four cell, all al
one and, as you so eloquently put it, threw away the key.”
“I threatened to have you thrown back, where they did this…” Jessica ran her fingers along the puckered skin, which demarked the very edge of the injury. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Which pleases me more than you could possibly imagine, as I wouldn’t wish such a fate on anybody.”
“Not even the one that sent you that message?”
“No. For that would make me just as vile as him. Instead, I will kill him with my own two hands, as I have no need to send another. Now, I will leave you to get dressed. Mary will be up shortly if you need any help, but I would suggest you first return to your own room. Trust me when I say, I’ll never hear the end of it if she finds out that you slept here last night. I’ll see you at breakfast and then we will depart.”
“Depart? Where?”
“You’ve a long overdue call with your father. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
She shook her head, this time refusing to look him in the eye.
“No, I didn’t think so,” he said softly, closing the door behind him.
Chapter Fourteen
Elysium Fields.
Homer’s final resting place for the souls of the heroic and the virtuous Greeks. Ironic really, that along with being home to the worst cesspool of humanity, it was also where I grew up.
—From the journal of Lord Alexander Greystone.
Location - Unknown.
Lady Jessica Hadley, betrothed of High-Lord Stanton, heiress to at least a dozen star-systems, stared outside in complete and utter rapture. Surely, this was the closest that one could get to Heaven? The stars seemed so bright, so close at hand that she could almost reach out and touch them. She actually tried doing so, but was blocked by the aluminium silicate glass, a thin partition between her and the universe at large. Her father’s ship of choice for Faster-Than-Light travel was a sleek frigate, almost two hundred meters long, with a crew of two hundred and a top speed of one-point-two light-years per hour.