Score

by Shay Violet

  We meandered around, feeling the bark on her long, heavy limbs, some of which rest on the ground before curving back toward the sun.

  "Back home, we have a famous tree called Centurion," Aras explained. "It's in southern Tasmania, my home island. It's a eucalyptus tree one hundred meters tall. Tallest in the world. It's like a bloody skyscraper."

  "How does Angel Oak compare?" I asked.

  "They're both amazing," he answered, "But Centurion has some neighbors almost as tall, so it doesn't stand out, you know? Not like this one."

  "Do you remember my great-uncle?"

  "Sure, that nutter, sorry, but he came off that way to me, no offense, that nutter who insisted my knee was wrecked?"

  I laughed. "Yeah, you could call him a nutter. No offense taken. He's one of a kind, and not everybody gets him. But like we talked about yesterday, he's a healer, a root doctor. When I was younger to make a little money, my brothers and I would go out and get him the ingredients he needed for some of his tinctures and concoctions. One of the places I'd come is right here. I'd collect twigs and leaves, anything that fell from this tree. He'd burn them sometimes and mix the ashes in with other things. This tree has 'strong juju,' apparently."

  "Do you believe all that stuff?" Aras asked. "The witch doctor stuff?"

  "I don't know if I believe all of it. But I've taken some psychology courses, and the power of belief, of convincing your mind something it real and true, has tremendous power. So, if Dr. Wren tells somebody that rubbing his dust on their foot will relieve their gout or boiling and inhaling the steam from one of his potions will ease their asthma, and they believe it, I think there can be healing there, sure. And some of it I can't explain at all, but I've seen it work.

  "He can't use magic like Harry Potter or Doctor Strange, but he absolutely has gifts most people don't have."

  "So, I should expect a knee injury since he said so?"

  "No, I mean, I hope not, of course, but if he said it, I'm not gonna lie, I'd be a little nervous."

  Aras began to limber up, lifting his boots one after another behind him to stretch his quads. "We're short midfielders already. If I go down with an injury, we'll have to let Reggie play!"

  "Would that be so terrible?" I asked. "I read his Wikipedia page; he seems like a pretty good player."

  "He's as fast as a bloody tiger beetle, but he only knows one speed, full out, all the time."

  "And that's bad?"

  "Nah, not bad, he'll adjust, he just has to learn to change speeds. Slow down sometimes, then wham! Hit 'em with the speed. He's the opposite of me. I'm just slow as hell all the time, even when my brain tells me feet to move fast, they don't always listen anymore."

  "Hmm. That didn't make it to your Wikipedia page," I teased, as we sat down at a nearby picnic table beneath Angel Oak's massive canopy.

  "Eh, mine is boring. Tell me what I'd find on your page, Zaliya…" He held his hand out, palm open, and motioned for me to complete my name.

  "Sherwood," I volunteered. "Zaliya Sherwood. Of the Saint Helena Island Sherwoods."

  "Of course!" He exclaimed and slapped the table. "Why didn't I recognize you?"

  "Shh!" I warned. "I don't want to be bothered. It's so rare I get to go out in public like this without the paparazzi hassling me."

  "I'll fight 'em if they do," Aras offered. "Nobody loves to fight like an Aussie."

  "My bodyguard, The Devil," I contemplated.

  "The job doesn't pay all that well, but I get to hang out with you all the time, so that perk alone makes it worth it," he said with a grin. Fuck, his accent was killing me. "We're both from islands, then?" He observed.

  "Seems that way," but mine is teensy tiny, and yours is pretty big."

  "You know Tasmania?" He asked with surprise.

  "I didn't until last night," I confessed.

  "Alright, Sherwood, spill it. If you've been reading up on me, you've got me at a disadvantage. Tell me about your dad and mum. Any brothers or sisters?"

  "My momma crossed the water when I was young," I said, then clarified, since he looked confused. "Sorry, she died when I was in elementary school. She had breast cancer. Her name was Alannah. People say I favor her."

  "She must have been a beauty, then," Aras said, reaching across to settle his hands atop mine. "I'm sorry you lost her."

  "Me too," I replied. "I miss her every day."

  He squeezed my hands. "I can't imagine," he said. His eyes warmed me.

  "My daddy still on Saint Helena Island, he's a shrimper, oysterman, and fisherman. If it can be pulled from the rivers or oceans around and somebody will pay him for it, he'll go out and catch it."

  "Brilliant," Aras replied. "I've always thought if I hadn't been a sportsman, I'd have earned my living with my hands. Maybe when my feet stop earning me a paycheck, I'll go out and join your dad on his boat."

  "You'd …stick out like a kangaroo," I said, laughing. "There aren't too many, um, European-Americans out there on the shrimp boats where he works." As far as I knew, my daddy had never worked alongside a white man. Sold his catch to them, sure, but not pulled up crab traps or shrimp nets.

  "No problem," Aras assured me. "I'm not European or American. Where do I sign up?"

  I laughed. "Well, since you put it that way, maybe you'd have a chance. My daddy and brothers have chased away every guy I've ever brought home, and the one common denominator has been that they've all been American. Maybe they've been holding out for me to meet an Australian' bloke'."

  "I don't care how big and bad the men in your family are if a guy let himself get scared off a Sheila like you, he didn't deserve you anyway."

  He held onto my hands, and we looked up as a fresh gust of wind blew through the leaves left on Angel Oak's branches.

  "What do your brothers do?" He asked. I considered leaving Jerriah and Steffon out of the conversation since Jerriah was currently incarcerated, and none of us had heard from Steffon since before Thanksgiving except for him sending me a "Merry Christmas" text two days late. I decided it was better to be upfront from the get go.

  "I have three," I began. "Jovan is the oldest, he's a Marine. He has a really tough assignment, he's a recruiter in Hawaii."

  "Probably is tough, trying to convince people to leave paradise to go do pushups and drag yourself through the mud," Aras observed.

  "Still," I replied. "Not a bad place to be. He's traveled a lot during his career. Years ago, he visited Australia, but I think he only got to Melbourne."

  "That's where my brother lives," Aras said. "He plays rugby. Complete and utter maniac."

  "And I have two other brothers, both older, but they haven't been as… successful as Jovan. They've both had issues. Legal problems."

  "Are either one of them doing a life sentence?" Aras asked.

  I scrunched up my face. "No…" I said, letting the O hang in the air.

  "Well, that's where my father is. My mum has people who make sure that stays scrubbed from Wikipedia, her page, my brother's, and mine."

  I did a poor job hiding the shock on my face, but I couldn't find the right words to reply.

  "My mum was is in politics. She's just wrapping up a term in the Tasmanian House of Assembly. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in the States. She was a nurse before she changed gears on her career. She started small, in local school stuff, but she loved it and moved up and up. She was in an election and my old man was in a pub and some blokes started arguing politics, not knowing that the husband of one of the candidates was sitting right there.

  "He'd had a few. Probably more than a few. And one of these guys started running my mum down, calling her a daffy cunt and heaps of awful stuff."

  He squeezed my hands. "Sorry, back home, we use cunt every fourth word. I know it's not like that here. I apologize. Bad habit."

  I nodded.

  "So, yeah, my dad had his fill of it, and he beat the bugger to death with his bare hands. He was a boxer in his younger days, so has hands that hit like concre
te. He jumped on the bloke and then when his mate got involved, he did the same to him. Two of them. When the coppers arrived, he was sitting there sipping his beer. Two dead guys on the floor, and there's my old man, bloody knuckles, having a pint." Aras shook his head.

  "He never hit any of us. It just wasn't in him. But he had a temper. And that guy just pushed him too far. The funny thing is my mum still won that election. Couldn't have happened anywhere in the world but Australia."

  "That's… wow." I had no idea how to respond, even though Aras had told the entire story very matter-of-factly. "My brother Jerriah is doing four years in state prison on drug charges. Steffon, nobody really knows. He got out of his latest stretch inside back in October, and he disappeared a little while later. Texted me Merry Christmas. Otherwise, I wouldn't be sure if he was alive or dead."

  "We all have demons," Aras commiserated.

  "And some of us are devils," I teased.

  "And others are angels," he responded and squeezed my hands again.

  "I'm no angel," I insisted.

  "I hope not," Aras grinned. "What fun would that be, being good all the time? But you definitely look like one."

  I scrunched my nose and shook my head.

  "Have you ever been kissed under this tree?" Aras asked out of the blue.

  I was taken aback and stammered my way through a half-hearted reply. The fact was that I had not, and I shook my head.

  "I've never kissed anybody under this tree either!" Aras declared. "What a coincidence! What are the chances?"

  He stood up and walked around to my side of the table, never letting go of my hands. When he arrived next to me, he pulled me to my feet.

  Once I was upright, he pulled me in close. "I just realized another thing – I've never kissed an American before. Have you kissed an Aussie?"

  I shook my head and smiled.

  "Do you think we should rectify that?" He asked.

  I'd have been profoundly disappointed if we didn't.

  He placed a hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes, tilting my face slightly to my left as he did the same, lining up his delicious mouth with mine.

  The kiss began cautiously, our lips playing hide and seek, grazing each other and moving away, pulling back. We kissed quickly, small, exploratory pecks from different angles, trying to find the perfect fit. Once we did, it was on.

  We kissed deeply, a soft moan in his throat as I matched his passion rather than surrendering and letting him lead.

  My hands found his arms and confirmed my suspicion that he was solid muscle. My nails dug into the thick ropes of steel that passed for his upper extremities.

  I had no interest in breaking the kiss, and it soon became evident that he had the same idea. Our tongues joined the fray, and we were in full make-out mode right there among the branches of Angel Oak.

  Only a laughing call of "Get a room, you two!" from what sounded like a Sullivan's Island frat boy broke our heated embrace.

  We looked toward a small crowd nearer the trunk. Nobody acknowledged being the one who took offense to our very public display of lusty affection.

  Aras inhaled deeply through his flared nostrils. "I guess as an Aussie, I'm supposed to be the whole 'That's not a knife, this is a knife' thing at some point," he said once he'd regained his composure. "But I can't. That was one hell of a kiss, Zaliya. And I don't think I can credit the tree for it. You kiss like you've got a bloody PhD in it." His expression revealed that he was at least as impressed as his words indicated. He was marveling at me.

  "Just a Master's," I joked quietly. "But with your recommendation, who knows? I might get that doctorate after all."

  "I can't sign my name to that sort of paperwork on the basis of a one-off," Aras pleaded. "I'll need either testimony to corroborate my experience - which I don't want - or I'll need to go back in for fifths or sixths or however many it takes to convince me."

  I initiated the kiss this time, holding the back of his head and giving it everything I had. On instinct, our bodies pressed forward, grinding together. If it's possible to have sex standing up, fully clothed, we were doing it.

  His arousal pressed insistently against me, making me twitch and tingle inside. When I felt him throb powerfully, I whimpered and clutched at his shoulders frantically.

  He pulled back and wiped his bottom lip with the back of his hand. There was a fury in his eyes, overwhelming a desire his rational mind couldn't process.

  "Zee…" he gasped, as he struggled for words.

  I smiled and touched his face. "Do you want to go back to the hotel?" I asked. I'd never in my life been so forward, but Aras ignited something deep inside me that was rapidly becoming a raging inferno. I wanted him badly. I needed him. I had a space inside me that could only be filled by him.

  "Yeah, sure," he stammered as his eyes darted up and down my body and searched my face. They came to rest finally on my mouth, and he took my face in both hands and kissed me again.

  When the kiss ended, he took me by the hand and led me back in the direction of the parking lot. I couldn't help but glance over toward where most of the people were congregated, and a few were staring at us. A girl wearing a Clemson hoodie grinned and flashed me a thumbs up.

  Aras turned for one last look at the tree, and he shook his head in continued disbelief. He opened the door to the visitor's center and stepped aside. "My queen," he said with a flourish of his hand and ushered me through. He opened the door to the car for me, and we were off.

  7

  We arrived back at Wentworth Mansion in record time, and I was happily surprised we didn’t get pulled over en route. We traveled at speeds that could only be forgiven by law enforcement if we were bound for the emergency room with me deep in labor.

  Which come to think of it…

  Stop, girl, don’t put the cart twenty miles ahead of the horse!

  Aras left the car the curb for the valet to park, and we bounded up the steps and into the lobby, hand in hand.

  I’d never been inside, but it was as stately and genteel as I would have suspected. “Welcome back, Mister Ca…” the woman at reception called after us, but we were already gone.

  We reached the elevator, and alone at last, he pushed me against the wall and began kissing me hungrily. His hands roamed across my clothed body as I did the same.

  Before we were ready to break, we’d reached his floor. We practically fell into the lap of an older gentleman wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase when we sidestepped through the elevator doors, mouths still pressed together.

  “Sorry,” we said in unison, and the older gentleman made a “Harumph!” as he stepped reluctantly into the elevator, shaking his head.

  Aras fumbled with the key but finally got us inside. It was a beautiful room that looked like it must have looked well over a century ago when it was built.

  I shuddered when I wickedly considered how forbidden it would have been back then for a handsome white man to sneak me up here to his room. He would have risked his social status, his fame, possibly everything in his desperate need to have me.

  Gauzy curtains made the sunlight soft and hazy. An antique desk sat along one wall next to a massive armoire, everything in the room was elegant.

  His sweater came off first, revealing at last the muscular chest and arms I’d been exploring through his clothing at Angel Oak and in the elevator. He had the lightest scattering of dark hair across his pecs and a trail leading down from his belly button across the flat, hard expanse of his lower abdomen, and disappearing into his pants.

  I kissed his chest and shoulders and then his intoxicating mouth once more.

  “Zaliya, are you sure?” He whispered as I nibbled across his collarbone and up to his throat.

  In reply, I stepped back and pulled off my own sweater, letting it fall to the floor, leaving me in just my lacy black bra.

  He grinned appreciatively and then bent down to scoop me up into his arms.

  I’m not some frail, little thing, but he lif
ted me effortlessly, like one of the stuffed animals that covered my bed when I was a girl.

  He lay me down gently on the huge, pillow-soft bed, covered in a pretty flowered comforter.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said as he moved to the end of the bed where my feet, still in boots rested just off the edge.

  He lifted one, then the other, and slipped the boots off, kissing my soles of each foot while its opposite number rested on his impressive chest.

  I writhed a bit on the bed, his mouth on my feet equal parts erotic and ticklish.

  My hands undid the clasp on my jeans, and he reached up to tug them over the expanse of my hips and down my legs. I honestly had no hope that anybody but me would be seeing them when I got dressed this morning. But thankfully, I’d worn my best matching bra and panty set, and he seemed impressed.

  As the jeans joined my sweater on the floor, Aras reached down to adjust his dick through his pants. It stretched the material awkwardly, tenting it outward with his arousal.

  He abandoned my feet with a pair of tender kisses on my big toes and straddled me on the bed, kissing his way up my thighs. As he did so, his fingertips strummed behind my knees, which sent little shocks into my sex. He advanced up to my tummy and then between my breasts.

  He advanced to my neck, lingered there, kissing its sides and across the front of my throat. He guided my hands above my head and kissed my arms, finding hidden places that had never before drawn attention from a man. He even kissed around and across my armpits, making me moan softly as an erogenous zone I never knew existed was stimulated.

  I was soaked and aching for him.

  “Aras… please…” I gasped. I moved my arms down and tried to remove my panties, but his strong hands captured my wrists and moved them back to where he’d put them.

  “There’s no rush, luv,” he reminded me, and he began to kiss his way back down my body as I squirmed in frustration.

  No man had made me boil like this.

  He kissed the top of my breasts, everywhere that was visible above my bra, before he tugged the cups down so that my nipples sprang free.