Shadow Haven

by AJ Schippers

  “Who do you belong to?” Alexandra’s tone was firmer this time. The demanding words settled themselves straight between Julia’s legs, and she sent a quick “thank you” into the nothingness that surrounded her for having made a compelling argument instead of adding another day of denial.

  “I’m yours.”

  “Mine.”

  Chapter 20

  Julia swallowed nervously as Alexandra crawled on top of her. Julia’s wrists were tied snugly together with a silk scarf and purposefully placed over her head. She had opted out of wearing a blindfold when offered the choice; she wanted to see Alexandra every step of the way. As Alexandra had undressed her, Julia’s excitement grew, and it didn’t take long before she squirmed and whimpered underneath soft and lingering fingertips.

  “Mine,” Alexandra whispered against slightly parted lips before capturing those very same lips in a heated kiss that left Julia breathless. “You don’t need a safe word today,” she said in between more openmouthed kisses that she left against warm skin. A small gasp escaped from Julia when Alexandra sat up straight, took off her shirt, and proceeded to let it fall to the floor. Her tongue slowly darted out, and Julia watched in fascination as it leisurely ran over Alexandra’s lower lip. Sharp fingernails languidly dragged their way down Julia’s chest until they found the rigid peaks.

  “Alexandra, please,” she croaked out. “I need you.” Her eyes narrowed when Alexandra chuckled, and the melodic sound vibrated through her entire body. Nipples were tweaked between thumbs and index fingers, and when Alexandra took one into her mouth, Julia’s back arched off the bed. Alexandra’s swift tongue lapped at the nipple. Julia cried out when teeth bit down on it roughly. “Fuck!”

  “I’m sorry… Did that hurt?” Alexandra’s thumb soothed the pain by rubbing in a slow circle. The hot breath that followed would have been enough to send Julia over the edge if it weren’t for the fact that she wasn’t ready to have her orgasm yet. She had waited patiently for five days; she could wait just a bit longer.

  Julia’s fingers grabbed onto the edge of the pillow as she wriggled her body beneath Alexandra’s. “You said…no teasing me.” Julia panted as Alexandra’s hips pushed down on her own. There was no doubt in her mind whatsoever: if Alexandra slid her fingers between Julia’s legs, she would find nothing but wetness. And Julia was more than ready for Alexandra to start exploring.

  “I have a riddle for you.” Alexandra smirked as she moved up and pressed her lips on Julia’s. “If you can solve it, I promise you that I will not tease you any longer. You can’t blame me for trying, though. There’s something about you that just makes me want to tease you over and over again.”

  “I suck at riddles,” Julia managed to say in between kisses.

  “What goes down, but never comes up?”

  Julia frowned. Alexandra’s insistence on playing these games with her, when she wanted to focus on Alexandra’s hands instead, were absolute torture. Not that she was complaining; in fact, she absolutely loved it. It thrilled and excited her, and Alexandra’s creative streak turned her on—it was as simple as that. “That could be anything,” she whined as Alexandra sucked at her pulse point. The tongue that swept over the skin felt as if it were working directly on her clit, and she hoped Alexandra would take care of that little problem soon.

  “Not really,” Alexandra said as one hand slipped in between their bodies and fingernails dragged up Julia’s thigh.

  “Please.” Julia tried to press into the hand. “I’m so ready for you.” As soon as she spoke the words, Alexandra ran a finger through the swollen lips that hid the bundle of nerves that so eagerly awaited their moment to be played with. Alexandra’s finger moved down again as she repeated the question, and Julia blushed at the silliness of it all. “Obviously, the answer is not your finger.”

  Alexandra’s free hand lightly slapped at Julia’s thigh. “Answer me.”

  “God, I don’t know.” Alexandra’s finger moved up again and rubbed slow circles around her clit. The teasing just about killed her, and she just wanted to feel the pressure on it so she could stop throbbing. “Please, can I have a hint?”

  “Not yet.”

  The smirk on Alexandra’s face drove Julia wild with desire, but it wasn’t until Alexandra brought a finger to her own mouth and started sucking it that Julia thought she would explode. Never before had such a simple gesture made such a great impact on her, and Julia wished with all her might that it was Alexandra’s wetness being placed into her mouth. Her head fell back into the pillow as Alexandra moved her hand south again and now wasted no time on silly games. Her finger rubbed over the hardened knob in a tormenting, slow pace.

  “Tell me what it is, and I’ll show you exactly how skilled my hands are.” Alexandra arched a brow.

  Julia groaned. “I don’t like your riddles!”

  “I’ll give you a hint… It’s wet.”

  If it weren’t for their conversation about the importance of safe words and how they shouldn’t be used as a joke, she would’ve screamed hers in order for Alexandra to stop and focus on Julia’s pleasure instead. There hadn’t been a single day so far where Julia had truly wanted to use it, and it made her feel giddy with excitement and proud of herself for finally allowing herself to open up to this journey.

  And what a journey it had been thus far, from those early days where Julia had fought Alexandra, only to have all her walls slowly crumble now as she gave in to her unknown desires. A small smile spread on her lips as the answer came to her. “Rain!”

  “Good girl.” Alexandra rewarded her with a small peck on the cheek. “I’m going to stay right here with you,” she softly whispered into Julia’s ear. She settled her body against Julia’s, their legs entwined as her finger moved faster over the clit. “You don’t need my permission, mine.”

  “Good God, I will never tire of hearing that.” Julia ground into the finger. The combination of Alexandra’s mouth against her neck and the finger that rubbed over her clit was heavenly, and she knew that her days of denial would soon come to an end.

  “You’re mine,” Alexandra whispered as she clenched her own thighs together. “You are my girl, Julia.”

  Julia no longer cared how long she would have to wait for her orgasm. She would wait months if Alexandra ordered her to. It was the words that she needed to hear, the words that filled a hole in her heart, the words that felt like the warm flick of fire on her skin, the words that made her stomach go funny as if actual butterflies were fluttering about. The words that made her feel so loved, but above all—so worthy.

  “Please,” she whispered, “say it again.”

  “You’re my girl, Julia.”

  Her orgasm started in her legs; they tensed up as her nails dug into Alexandra’s shoulders. Her back squared off the bed as she felt herself throb harder with each stroke of Alexandra’s finger. She gasped for air as her walls clenched, and days of pent-up frustration flowed from her body as her orgasm hit, the tension in her shoulders disappearing. The sensation was short-lived, but she had never come harder in her life. As she clung to Alexandra, she made a silent vow to never forget this.

  Her head moved to the side, and when she saw the smile on Alexandra’s face, she knew she was completely and utterly in love with her. She leaned in closer and kissed her with all the passion in the world—hoping it would convey the one message she was not ready to put into words just yet.

  “You were such a good girl over the last few days,” Alexandra smiled. She kissed Julia once more, fervently, before pulling Julia tightly against her in a hug.

  There was no need for words anymore. They were exactly where they needed to be, Julia thought, and it couldn’t be more perfect.

  “What’s your favorite book?”

  Julia hummed as she dug her feet further into the sand. Over the last two days, it had done nothing but rain, and she had grown more and more anxious, needing the fresh air like she needed oxygen to breathe. She had almost gotten into a fight with
Alexandra when she had snapped at her, but one glare had her corrected her behavior. And when the rain had finally subsided, she had dragged Alexandra outside for a day on the little patch of sand that sort of resembled a beach.

  “We never really had a lot of books in the group homes. They would get ripped apart as we’d all fight over them. Since I moved around a lot, I’ve never really gotten into the whole book storage thing. I have a few, but the ones I really like you would probably think are too childish,” she shyly admitted.

  Alexandra intertwined her fingers with Julia’s. “Tell me.”

  “I once got my hands on an old copy of Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s probably my most valued possession. The book is completely falling apart, but whenever I need to, I’ll read it. It’s a small thing that makes me really happy.”

  “You make the most adorable faces,” Alexandra and squeezed the fingers in hers. “I like Winnie-the-Pooh. Maybe if you keep up your good behavior, I’ll read it to you as a bedtime story.”

  Julia laughed. “Very funny. You know, we never got the bedtime stories. We’d just have a bedtime curfew, and if you weren’t in bed once that happened, you’d be in deep shit.”

  “How often were you in ‘deep shit’?”

  Julia humorlessly laughed. “Quite often, really. Especially as I got older. Having to go to bed at eight when you’re fifteen is sheer torture. I suppose it helped me with my night schedule, though. I have no problem whatsoever falling asleep early and getting up at a decent hour.”

  “I was the worst when it came to bedtime as a child,” Alexandra said. “I think I used to have a lot of nightmares once my parents passed away, and my grandfather wasn’t the strictest man. I would be up all night, and we’d play card games.”

  Julia’s right hand played with a small twig that she’d found in the sand. Alexandra had mentioned her parents before but had never actually delved into what had happened to them. Julia was curious, though thinking about them put a lump in her throat. “What happened to your parents?”

  “We used to spend our summers on the island,” Alexandra said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve told you that before.”

  Julia nodded as she squeezed the hand that lay in hers, encouraging Alexandra to continue. The hurt in Alexandra’s eyes reminded her of the ache she would find in her own if she would give in to her feelings toward her parents.

  “Movies and books are such fantasy stories,” Alexandra said, her voice thick with spite. “I remember watching movies where children would lose a parent, and they would always have a meaningful conversation before one of them passed away. It’s nothing like that. I turned nine that summer, and we just went about our usual routines. Samuel and I played on the island, and my parents were doing…well, whatever it was that they did. There were no meaningful conversations, no parting hugs, and no last ‘I love you’ statements,” Alexandra scoffed.

  She was quiet for a few moments. “One morning, near the end of the summer vacation, my grandfather made us breakfast. He told us that our parents had to leave for a work emergency. I loved my parents dearly, but their work emergency shouldn’t have taken precedence over our vacation. From what I’ve learned, their urgent matter could have easily been dealt with by one of the many managers. But my mother… She was a hard-ass. If you think I’m controlling, you would have loathed her. Wherever she went, she’d drag my father along with her.”

  “Were they in a BDSM relationship?” Julia interjected.

  Alexandra chuckled at the random question. “No. My mother was just the one in charge, and my father followed like a lost puppy. I suppose, in some terms, it could be classified as a relationship with a hierarchy, but if they were kinky in the bedroom, I’d rather not know about it.”

  “I suppose there are some benefits to not knowing who your parents are. You don’t have to worry about their activities in the bedroom!”

  Alexandra’s lips curled up in a small smile, and her eyes narrowed as she briefly cupped Julia’s chin. “You know, one day we will have a talk about your parents. Your whole act about not caring may have worked when you first got here, but that won’t work forever. You have to understand that my mother was an efficient woman,” she continued. “She got what she wanted, and she got it fast. So when they still had not returned after three days, my grandfather grew more and more anxious. He started making phone calls and found out that they had never even made it to the mainland,” Alexandra croaked out. Her eyes began to water.

  “The National Guard immediately set up a search party for the crash site, and safety investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board searched for the black box. It took two and a half months for them to find the airplane. It had crashed on one of the uninhabitable islands about an hour away from here. They got caught in a bad storm, and the plane went down—simple as that.” Alexandra swallowed thickly as a tear spilled from her eye, and she took a shaky breath.

  “They were dead on impact, or so we were told. My mother, father, and the pilot.”

  “God, Alexandra… I am so sorry,” Julia said as she pulled Alexandra into a hug. “That’s absolutely horrible.”

  Alexandra pulled back from the hug, but the expression on her face turned lighthearted. “Thank you. Those first months were terrifying. My grandfather moved in with us on the mainland while we waited for news. I think I knew from day one that we would never see them again, and it devastated me. Samuel was a mess, and I think, in some weird way, I took over my mother’s role in his life. I controlled his every movement—not that he minded, but it definitely wasn’t healthy.”

  “Maybe that’s where your need to be in control stems from,” Julia suggested.

  “It could very well be.”

  The smile that reappeared on Alexandra’s face was one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and Julia wanted to kiss the hurt away.

  “I’ve always wondered if that is the reason he got into drugs. To have an escape from reality—an escape from me.” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “I don’t question his motives anymore; it won’t do either of us any good.”

  “I’m sure that’s not the reason. It’s hard for any child to lose a parent, let alone two. I would think that would be the reason,” Julia softly said. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry for your loss. I can’t believe you still go to the island by plane after all of that.”

  “I think in some ways…it’s cathartic for me. The first few years, the flight over here scared me to death, but as time went by, it became easier. In a way, it’s my homage to my parents. I can’t quite explain it.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  Alexandra took a deep breath. “So, there. Now you know all of my secrets.”

  “All of them?” Julia asked with a raised brow.

  “Well,” Alexandra said, “those that I’m willing to share for now. I may still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  “Thank you for telling me. Was it hard growing up without parents?”

  “Sometimes. I couldn’t really talk to my grandfather about womanly issues, you know? He had one of the school nurses sit me down to give me ‘the talk.’ It was horrible. I learned about sex and periods from this matronly woman, and she was very methodical about it. I think that’s a big part of why I started experimenting with both men and women. I needed to see what it was really like, instead of the PG version of the birds and the bees.”

  “I can imagine that.”

  “I miss them, but it’s been so many years. Do you know what I mean? I don’t think about them as much as I once did, but it still hurts when I do. My grandfather passed away when I was twenty-one, so after that, Samuel and I had no family left. I think we both like it better that way. We don’t have to keep in touch with everyone, and there are no sob stories during Thanksgiving dinners. We talk to each other occasionally, and he sometimes visits, but we’re both loners.”

  “You have me now,” Julia quietly said. She pressed her lips on Alexandra’s. “I don’t know how long I’ll be stay
ing here, but for now…you have me. All of me.”

  Alexandra smiled. “That I do. We will figure out the details later. I’m not letting you go without a fight, just so you know. If I have to come to the mainland every weekend, I will. You are worth that, and so much more.”

  It was the first time Alexandra had acknowledged that they would continue their relationship after Julia left the island. Julia herself wasn’t quite ready to think that far ahead yet. There was still so much to discover about each other, and the thought of leaving was only depressing her. “I can’t even imagine what things will be like after I return to the mainland. You have changed my life in so many ways. I don’t know what it was like before I met you. Empty—that’s all I can think of. Without you, I was empty, and I don’t ever want to have to go back to that.”

  “You won’t have to. We will figure it all out, I promise. For now, though, I just want to enjoy our time here together. We still have so much time to spend with one another, so many things to learn about each other. You’ve brought quite the adventure into my world. I’m not even talking kinkwise. You’ve enriched my life in ways you couldn’t possibly understand. I hope you know that what we have goes way beyond the lifestyle for me. If you were to tell me today that you didn’t want to do BDSM anymore, I would find it hard, but I would still keep you in any way that I could.”

  No one had ever said such loving things to her, and for a lack of better wording, they made her feel fuzzy inside. Whatever was going to happen between the two of them, Julia had no doubt in her mind that they would be fine. She took a deep breath, pushed Alexandra onto her back, and crawled on top of her. “I want it all,” she said. “Call me selfish, but I want you, and I want you to tie me up some more. I want to find out what my limits are, and I want to explore with you. And one day…when you are ready for it, I want to explore you.” She felt her cheeks flush.