The wine store had told him that his best bet for really good crystal would be one of the antique traders. Storm found two matching stems of art glass there and, again, they weren't cheap, but he was set on winning a woman whose father could give her an Aston Martin on a whim.
He rearranged everything three times, then stood there staring at it, talking to himself, and wondering if the anxiety he was feeling meant that he was losing his nerve. For crap's sake, he was a Black Swan knight from Bad Company no less. Not a fifteen-year-old boy. Even though that's exactly what he felt like.
He summoned his intent and set off for the house with single-minded determination. The only thing in heaven or hell that could stop him now was the witch, herself.
The six women had decided that Katrina's last night as a single woman should include a lecture on sex - the one that most mommas don't deliver - and that each one of them would contribute some really juicy tidbit. The only rule was that Katrina was forbidden from participating because the Norns said they did not want an image of their brother engaged in coitus. Ew.
They sequestered themselves in the corner bunkroom with a stash of wine coolers. As the tidbits grew progressively juicier and wilder, the volume of the collective giggling, interspersed with squeals, grew in direct proportion.
With stealth befitting Black Swan knights, Ram and Kay picked up yard chairs and long necks and took up a post in the shadows of the back lawn directly underneath the open bunkroom window. As eavesdropping vantage points go, it couldn't have been better. They could hear everything said in the room above as if they were sitting on one of the bunks. Even the whispers.
Kay was grateful for the cover of relative darkness so that Ram couldn't see his face turn red every couple of minutes in response to some new and outrageously raunchy thing one of the girls said to each other. Who knew women could be so graphic? Especially his sisters! It was just wrong.
At one point Ram was laughing so hard he had one hand over his mouth and a forearm over his ribs trying to brace his stomach and contain himself so as not to give them away. He almost blew it when his wife referred to him as "cockzilla". A mental note was filed away to whisper that back to her when he had her at his mercy, as promised, sometime later than night.
They talked at length about what they liked in men, physically and otherwise. Ram was delighted and gratified right down to his well-formed toes that what Elora described was, basically, him. She ended by saying that what is said in the bunk room stays in the bunk room. "Just as long as everybody understands that the beautiful blond is with me."
"I already told you I don't do chicks, Elora." Squoozie stroked her pale blond mane feigning indignant.
Words could never describe how much Ram and Kay were enjoying the absolute perfection of the simple pleasure of sitting in lawn chairs, each in the easy companionship of someone with whom they had stood beside and confronted mortality on many occasions. As they sat in silence, taking an occasional swig of beer, listening to the crickets, the frogs, an occasion plop of a fish on the water, and, best of all, the voices of women talking about matters of love, they were perfectly at peace.
Recognizing the moment for what it was, they were each recording a precious snapshot, knowing that change was coming, but that this would be a memory to forever keep in their hearts on the other side of the transition. There's a painful bitter-sweetness when life's journey takes a turn. It makes friends savor an appreciation of what may have been taken for granted.
At the same time both men became aware that someone was approaching the house. Decades of training kicked in and a sudden tension instantly robbed them of the relaxed state they had been enjoying. The alert, however, was quickly set aside because, even in the darkness, they recognized the shape and gait of the tall figure walking toward the house. They were glad they didn't have to give away their strategic position by yelling, "Halt! Who goes there?" like an ancient night watch.
Storm just nodded on his way past like there was nothing remarkable about his having disappeared earlier or about the fact that he had been out walking alone on the river at night. The screen door squeaked and then shut with the clatter everyone had come to associate as a paired sound. He stopped momentarily at the bottom of the stairs, then took them two at a time and didn't slow until he was standing outside the bunkroom door knocking.
From the lawn chairs below Ram and Kay could hear the knock and subsequent silence and each could easily imagine the women looking at each other, wondering who it might be. Elora was closest to the door so she got up and opened it.
Storm eyes lit on her and quickly slid past searching for... "I need that woman." He nodded toward the witch sitting cross-legged on one of the top bunks.
Elora regarded Storm affectionately. Yes. You do. Seeing that he wanted entry she stepped aside and opened the door wider.
As every head turned toward her, Litha unfolded her legs and started to climb down from the bunk. She was so stunned it almost felt like an out-of-the-body experience to hear her knight publicly deliver four simple words that, so far as she was concerned, formed the most exciting sentence ever spoken. I need that woman.
Before Litha got to the second step of the little ladder designed for children, Storm had gripped her by the waist, turned her around, and let gravity pull her forward so that she was bent over his shoulder. She gasped as he carried her away with one arm locked behind her knees and one hand alternately bracing and covering her finely upturned tush.
"Where are you taking…?" In that position she didn't have enough breath to get out the whole question.
"To finish what we started."
When Storm pushed through the screen door and carried Litha past Ram and Kay, they looked at each other and grinned as the door slammed behind him. He had toted her all the way to the river's edge before she got enough breath to get out a whole sentence.
"Hey, cave man. Put me down." It wasn't just that her lungs were being squeezed in that position. It was all the fondling taking place between Storm's free hand and her derriere that caused a near nonstop series of gasps.
He stopped abruptly, bent, and gently lowered her until her feet touched the ground. He was so strong that he wasn't showing any sign of exertion at all. "Are you going to come peaceably?"
There was enough moonlight for him to appreciate seeing her mouth slowly spread into a beguiling smile that was partly due to the fact that Litha's shapely ass was still tingling from the pleasure of being thoroughly explored by Storm's big, warm and highly curious hand. "Absolutely."
The bunkroom was quiet for a long time. Ram and Kay looked at each other wondering what was going on in there. They were agreeing silently, semi-telepathically, that it just isn't in the nature of women to be quiet for a long time.
Finally, Squoozie pulled a pillow in front of her midsection and hugged it tight. "Ugh. Was that not just the most romantic thing you ever saw? Or even heard of? Seriously?"
All the pretty heads nodded at once and everyone murmured their agreement.
Elora glanced at her watch surreptitiously while thinking that she was more than ready for the others to go to sleep. She had a hot date waiting in the room across the hall.
Katrina was thinking that separating bride and groom the night before their wedding was a stupid custom that should by no means be tolerated by a modern woman. She glanced at her watch surreptitiously wondering how much longer before the others went to sleep.
Two of the Norns were wishing they had stayed with their boyfriends in one of the river cabins and surreptitiously looked at their phones under the covers thinking they might send a test text to see if a lover was still awake. The last was wondering if everybody in the house would hear the buzz of a vibrator.
Litha slipped her hand in Storm's. They were barefoot, but there was nothing but manicured lawn where they were walking and the wide bladed grass felt cool and soft beneath their feet. When they came to a stop in front of the pallet, Litha felt every cell stand up and look around.
The intention was unmistakable. She looked over the world’s best surprise before turning her face up to Storm. "You've been busy," she said softly.
He knelt down on the pallet and held up the bottle of wine. "Guess what I found."
It was dark but she had her intuition to rely on. "Is that...?"
"...Cairdeas Deo brandy." To her the gesture was as moving as if the knight had laid the Golden Fleece at her feet and he looked just that proud to have procured it. She knelt down in front of him as he gestured with the bottle. "Want some?"
She shook her head and reached for him instead. "Just you, Storm," she said. "You're..." She never got the chance to finish that sentence. The words were drowned in a kiss that was at once demanding, compelling, and possessive. It was fierce. It was ruthless. It was relentless. She could see that, once Storm made up his mind about something, he committed to it and came for it head on, holding nothing back. She hoped to the gods she was going to be that thing he had made up his mind about.
Storm gave Litha exactly what she wanted. Not tepid touches. Not lukewarm timidity. What she wanted from him was the full commitment of unflinching passion, the kind that burns like demon fire. Not the kind that seeks mere orgasm. The kind that aspires to a roaring triumph over lust that's so consuming it's excruciating. However impermanent it might be.
His kisses engulfed her so completely that she knew nothing, cared about nothing, but the moment they were sharing. She was transported to a world every bit as unique as those she had visited with the incubus, a world where nothing existed other than the muscled body and battle hardened soul of the knight she clung to; the one who was urging her to lie back while not yielding her mouth for an instant.
He settled himself gingerly on top of the witch's luscious body as if he was taking great care to be gentle with her and, at the same time, savoring the raw experience of sex in real time with real touches and scents and sounds.
He slowly ran a hand up and down the skin of her bare arm. She was perfection to the touch and he couldn't get enough. The nightgown was so thin he could feel every rise and swell of her as if there was no fabric barrier, but he needed more. He wanted skin on skin and he wanted it right then. Enough time had been wasted while he played the fool. Everything he wanted was moving her sweet, warm body beneath him and, by gods, he was grabbing his chance for love with both hands.
Storm had the neckline of the pretty cotton gown clutched in both fists and was about to jerk his hands in opposite directions when he flashed on an image of little pearl buttons flying all around. He drew himself up short. If he ripped her clothes, she would have to return to the house wrapped in a blanket and a blush because he would be the ham handed lover she'd once implied he was. He didn't want that for her. He didn't want her to be embarrassed because he was too eager and he didn't want to be inept at lovemaking.
He looked down at the red ribbon sash at the waist of her gown. Something about that streak of soft, satiny red against the palette of pure white was arresting in its subconscious promise of raw, unvarnished, uninhibited sex. He took hold of one end of the ribbon tie. "Can I help get you out of this?" He pulled on the ribbon trying to free the knot with big, masculine fingers.
"Here. Let me do that." She said it softly, wondering if he would remember that she had once said that to him in a dream.
He surrendered the red ribbon to her expertise with every intention of undressing while she did. He took hold of the hem of his tee shirt and started to pull upward, but his eyes caught and locked on her fingers undoing little mother of pearl buttons, such an effortless thing for her that would have made him look and feel clumsy. Still as a statue, he watched as she undid buttons to her navel, enough buttons to free the gown so that it would fall past the swell of her hips in a maddeningly soft swish of fabric. The loosened front closure gaped open with temptation causing Storm to silently beg to see and touch the secrets still hidden beneath the gown. He was holding his breath in anticipation. Another minute and he would have forgotten all about his honorable intentions of preserving the integrity of the garment.
Rising to her feet with the grace of a dancer, almost as if she was performing an ancient ritual of seduction, she pulled the gown open, exposing her breasts, and let it slide from her shoulders so that it drifted down and pooled at her feet in front of where Storm was frozen in place, on his knees.
He was looking up at Litha's gloriously naked body, his lips parted, his hands still clutching the hem of his shirt. With eyes riveted on her nipples, his tongue absently poked out to wet his bottom lip and he swallowed so that she could see his throat work even in the moonlight.
The celebrated knight who was known for decisiveness, envied by others for his ability to think quickly in dubitable situations, was mesmerized, lost in indecision. He didn't know where to start. There were too many things he wanted all at once. One of those was to tell Litha that she was, without question, the most magnificent woman ever created. That was what he wanted to say, but his brain wasn't cooperating well enough to allow his mouth form words.
Seeing that Storm was paralyzed and essentially struck mute by the sight of her nakedness was the sexiest and most flattering tribute Litha could have been paid. She would have been charmed right down to her socks, had she been wearing any. His rapt attention made her feel like nothing less than a goddess. One would think that a guy living in modern times, when there's no shortage of nudity to view, would be indifferent, even bored. But, looking at Litha in the moonlight, her secrets bared to his view, she might as well have been the first unclothed woman he'd ever seen.
The eroticism of being so graphically and intensely admired by the man she loved heightened the excitement of every nerve ending and cell fiber to the point of needing touch like breath. Not to mention that her clitoris had bloomed into a deliciously demanding swell.
Litha returned to the nest her would-be lover had made on the ground, took the hem of Storm's shirt from him, lifted it away and flung it aside. The sight of his bared upper body was as exciting to her as hers was to him. Knowing that she was going to be in his arms momentarily, skin on skin, made her breath come even faster. She urged him to his knees and reached for the waistband of his jeans.
When the backs of her fingers smoothed across his stomach, he jerked out of inaction, quickly getting himself out of his own pants. Unable to wait for another second, Litha threw her arms around Storm's neck and arched into him. The velvet smooth sensation of bodies meeting made Storm groan out loud. It was a sound that Litha cut short by a decidedly needy kiss and a throaty moan of her own, inviting and imploring at the same time.
Storm explored every inch of her that could be reached with his hands without relinquishing the kiss. As he eased her down he cupped one breast and took its nipple under advisement, first visually and then with his tongue, relishing the way it grew harder and more demanding under his agonizingly slow ministration. When he slid his hand down her body toward her core, Litha first tensed in anticipation then jerked her pelvis toward him pleading for touch. His fingers eased up her inner thigh until he made contact with the heat between her folds, so wet and ready for him. She started to cry out, but he quickly put a large hand over her mouth.
"Litha," he said quietly and breathlessly into her ear causing a shiver to travel the length of her spine while her nipples drew up even tighter. "Sound travels on the river at night. We have to try to be quiet unless we want to put on a show."
She nodded.
"Are you ready for me?"
She shook her head.
"Do you want me to take my hand away from your mouth?"
She said something into his hand that he couldn’t understand. He lifted his palm from her lips.
“You're welcome to smother my screams, but only if you're wearing a condom.”
He grabbed his discarded jeans, reached into a front pocket and produced several.
“Right here.”
She chuckled and whispered. “That’s a lot of condoms. Are you brag
ging?”
“Let’s find out.”
The way she fitted him for protection was as much a turn on as everything else she did. He nestled into the cradle of her thighs and settled there, feeling like a perfect fit, as if the moment had been preordained at the conception of creation. She pulled her knees up and caressed him by rubbing her smooth calf against his back, urging him on. When he entered her, she cried out a pleasure that was complete and completely unexpected since she had never been particularly vocal, but, thanks to Storm's warm and capable hand, only the two of them knew it. In a strange way the necessity of secrecy added a heightened excitement to their lovemaking and punctuated the intimacy that only they two shared.
Litha's glowing skin was evidence that she was hot as a pressure cooker, on the verge of coming right away which was a merciful blessing for Storm. He wanted it to be good for her, but couldn't have held out long. His arousal had been desperate even before the tip of her tongue had peeked out to touch the center of his palm where he held it against her mouth, but that tiny touch of moisture threatened to send him spiraling out of control.
He reached between them with his free hand and slid the tip of a finger between her folds to gently tease the swollen bud. Her response was instant and fervent. When her walls began to grip and milk his cock he tightened his hand just a little so that her screams didn't go farther than the little world of their pallet on the ground. When he realized he was going to lose his own battle with a need to shout, he shoved his forearm so far into his mouth that he left teeth marks.
After a few seconds he realized he had forgotten how big he was and let his full weight rest on the curvy body supporting him. Thinking he might be crushing her, he pulled up quickly saying, "Sorry. Carried away," in a husky voice.
She gave him a languid smile as her hand drifted down his spine in slow, satisfied, affectionate strokes. "S'okay. Felt good."
The Witch's Dream - A Paranormal Romance (The Order of the Black Swan, BOOK TWO) Page 28