Coming Together: At Last, Volume Two

by Alessia Brio, L. A. Banks, Bridget Midway

  * * * *

  He couldn't explain why. All he knew was that in that moment when he had thought this woman might die, he had needed to save her life. Even at the cost of his own life. The mere thought of Marty's death had made his blood run cold.

  "You are beautiful,” Cameron told her, and her eyes widened in surprise. A smile toyed at the edges of her mouth. “I love you, Marty. I thought he was going to kill you. I had to keep you safe no matter the cost and that is how I know I do love you. Very much."

  She bent down to kiss him where he lay on the hard floor of his kitchen. “I love you too, Cameron. More than anything in this world, I love you."

  Cameron stood shakily to his feet, trying to accustom himself to everything he was sensing, to everything he was feeling. He saw the corpse still sitting at his kitchen table and felt only satisfaction that the man was dead.

  Marty stood and faced him, “I'll take care of him. You might want to take a warm shower. You've been through a lot tonight.” She reached up to caress his cheek, and he smiled.

  "I could use a shower. Should it bother me that I can't mourn his death?” he asked her.

  "No, this man was once what we Guardians term a zombie, a human that is enslaved by a demon or vampire to do their bidding. He has taken lives and brought misery to many. He will not be missed,” she answered and took the man into her arms. Cameron watched as she disappeared and shook his head.

  There were many things he wanted to ask her, but for now, he craved a shower and clean clothes. Besides, they had plenty of time now, didn't they?

  * * * *

  Four months later

  Cameron and Marty left the recording studio and walked back to their new house hand in hand. The CD was finished, and Lily was ready to send them out. Adam was still unaware that all his band mates and his manager were vampires. They all thought it was for the best that Adam remained in the dark for the time being.

  Cameron had become a Guardian, taking an Oath to protect mankind from demons and other beings that sought to harm. The knowledge that he served the God and Goddess still stunned him, As had learning there was a race of Guardians, the Fae and the Familiar, that were created by the Gods to protect mankind from the demons. Not to mention that the Isle of Atlantis was no myth. It was home to the Fae folk and the shape-shifting Familiars.

  Once inside their home, Cameron spun Marty into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers. She sighed as his tongue teased her lips.

  "Alone at last,” Cameron murmured against her lips as he unzipped her jeans.

  Clothes flew this way and that as Marty and Cameron raced to the bedroom. Marty was lifted into Cameron's strong, tattooed arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She laughed as he fell with her onto the bed and rolled her underneath his large body.

  Marty's laughter faded into wordless, breathy exclamations as his hands and lips trailed over her sensitive flesh. She shivered violently as his warm breath raised gooseflesh on her skin. The hard ridge of Cameron's erection fit snugly between her legs, and Marty moved against him, chuckling playfully as she heard his rough intake of breath.

  Cameron slipped into her damp heat, and his tongue sparred with her own. Marty's hips surged to meet his powerful thrusts, and she cried out as his teeth broke the skin on her neck. Cameron lovingly suckled her throat as he rode her, bringing her closer and closer to a climax.

  Marty screamed as the force of her orgasm slammed into her, and Cameron came in short, hot bursts. Her tight muscles clenched around him, taking every last drop. Cameron rolled onto his back, pulling her with him until Marty lay sprawled on top. She dropped her glamour and when her dark, leathery wings enfolded them, she knew Cameron didn't think her any less beautiful.

  Finally, after all these years, both Cameron and Marty were free from the chains that had bound their hearts, and they had an eternity to love.

  * * * *

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  Synchronized

  © Allison Wonderland

  Lips latched onto cinnamon skin, my nails scrape the teeth of the zipper, eliciting a faint grating sound.

  I locate the silver tab, seizing, easing.

  Peppermint lip gloss fuses with tangerine. Moans expelled, consumed by concave caverns, dark and slippery.

  Mouths detach.

  Distended pupils seek one another.

  Piercing, probing, penetrating.

  I burrow my face in your neck, imbibing the aroma of apricots and chamomile. My hand sweeps the ebony ripples aside. Mouth cleaves to your bare shoulder. Tulip petals traipsing along honey-brown skin. Lush, plush, the texture of velvet.

  Goose bumps sprout in the wake of each kiss.

  Miniscule, raised, like Braille.

  In between kisses, we discard the remaining articles of clothing, fold back the violet coverlet, reunite in the center of the bed.

  Eyes embark on a visual expedition.

  Hands conduct a corporeal navigation, traversing unveiled skin, caressing curves and contours, crests and canyons.

  Minds compose identical thoughts: At last.

  In tandem, two vertical bodies incline toward one another.

  Arms encircle torsos, legs engird waists.

  Te amo, you whisper, the words infused with tenderness and sincerity.

  My mouth seeks yours: I love you, too.

  The relentless whump-thump of heartbeats fuse into one.

  A complete and total immersion, nothing separating us but flesh and bone.

  It is a symbiotic moment, like when the tide merges with the shore, and the boundaries between the two are no longer discernible.

  I feel you tighten your hold, constricting the flow of oxygen from lungs to brain.

  We can't get any closer, I murmur.

  I know. Frustration. I just want to try. Determination. Desperation.

  Entangled limbs.

  Synchronized movements.

  Stifled screams.

  Fractured utterances.

  Fingers threaded through tousled tresses.

  Our bodies generate a heat that is at once sweltering and hypnotic, inducing a kaleidoscopic trance behind clench-closed eyes.

  Beads of perspiration trickle from our foreheads, like raindrops on a windowpane.

  A throbbing, inebriating feeling of rapture.

  Te amo, you whisper, the words infused with tenderness and sincerity.

  My mouth seeks yours: I love you, too.

  * * * *

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  Shorn

  © Selena Kitt

  Several pictures of her were tucked into the sides of the mirror over his dresser. Most were school pictures, and one was of the two of them together, their arms wrapped around each other, both of them smiling at the camera. My hand, holding the brush that I had picked up from amidst the clutter on his dresser, stopped in mid-air as I peered at those pictures.

  I glanced from her to my own reflection in the mirror, unable to prevent the mental comparisons. She looked so young, her skin lighter than his, like a sweet latte to his dark, black—no cream, only sugar. She was beautiful in a fresh, natural way that made me blink with envy. For me, that time in my life was gone—it had passed away somewhere between college frat parties and establishing my first IRA.

  A heavy, sodden dullness settled somewhere in the pit of my stomach as I glanced from her picture to my naked reflection in the mirror and then to Del, who was behind me, hauling up his jeans and cramming in the tails of his shirt.

  "I've gotta shave.” He moved to look over my shoulder. The mirror revealed him rubbing the top of his head. There was a fine stubble there he inspected, his eyes like smoky gray glass. He had a durably boyish face, but he was only twenty-one. His features would change by the time he was my age—but his eyes, those incredible eyes—they wouldn't change. His eyes were the thing that attracted me the most; there was some sort of reserve the
re I still couldn't place.

  "What do you think?” He pushed his bottom lip forward in thought and studied his face in the mirror. “Should I grow a beard?"

  "If you want.” I found my voice—I thought I couldn't speak through whatever seemed congealed in my throat.

  "I could leave the stubble.” He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and rubbed his cheek against my neck. I shrank away a little from the feeling, smiling indulgently. I loved the feel of his clothed body against my bare skin.

  "Yuck.” I wrinkled my nose, turning in his arms, away from the mirror and the pictures of his girlfriend.

  "Okay.” He smiled. “Want to come watch me shave?"

  "Do we have time?” I put my arms around his neck and massaged the back of his head. He was right, he did need to shave.

  "My mom won't be home ‘til after three.” He glanced at the clock over the bed we'd just vacated.

  "Okay.” I pulled out of his arms and reached for my T-shirt. “Let me put something on."

  "Nuh uh.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me in to him, kissing my shoulder, my neck, nibbling on my earlobe. “Stay like this."

  I raised my eyebrows at him but just smiled when I followed his lead out of his room and down the long hallway to the bathroom. He moved with a slim, languid, muscled grace that still made me turn to watch him as he walked away.

  I loved his bathroom and the bathtub most of all, a marble sunken thing that I'd been dying to soak in since I'd seen it three months ago—when Del and I had first started coming to his house on Saturdays when no one was home. I still hadn't had the chance, and I didn't know if I would. Maybe there would be time this summer, if his parents went out of town for some reason before I went back to teaching in Japan in the fall.

  I slid up on the counter and watched him take out his razor, the shaving cream, and a towel. I loved to watch him shave, to see him leaning over the sink to look into the wall-to-wall mirror, long-legged and slender, razor poised in mid-air. It was such a masculine thing, shaving, something that made me feel more a part of him.

  I watched him lather the top of his head and thought of the picture in his bedroom of him and Tracy. I remembered her arm around him in such a casual air of ownership. That bothered me. The picture itself bothered me, and what bothered me more was the absence of my own picture in that mirror. It was crazy, I knew—impossible.

  It wasn't the first time that I'd been back to his room, or the first time I'd seen those pictures, but I think it was the first time I realized what they meant. They held the sweet promise of a future, something he and I didn't have. He said he loved me, and I believed him, but it was a foregone conclusion that the relationship would be over when I went back to Japan and he started college.

  So, what did I expect? I knew, when we'd started seeing each other, I was going to be the “other woman.” I knew it all along. He didn't lie to me. There was no future for us. There was only right now. I realized that he was looking at me, half-shaved, razor poised, giving my face a long and interested search.

  "Should I ask?” He raised one eyebrow in my direction. I loved that.

  "Ask what?"

  "What you're so lost in thought about.” He raked the razor over his scalp, looking back in the mirror. “You're usually chatting a mile a minute when you watch me shave."

  I just shrugged, planting an elbow on my knee and resting my chin on my cupped hand, my eyes following the razor's path, my mind wandering. I hadn't planned on getting involved. I was home to take care of some things with my parents’ estate, just a few months, and hadn't planned on meeting Del—or falling in love. It just wasn't the right time or place. Still, things had happened as naturally as breathing, his seeping into my life, filling the cracks, dulling the cutting edge of my loneliness. I hadn't planned on any of it, but how could you plan to fill a void that you didn't even know existed?

  "Are you going to see her tomorrow?” I slanted him the question.

  He hesitated, and I wondered if he was going to play dumb. He didn't, but—as usual—he didn't give me a straight answer either. “You have a beautiful cunt, you know that?” His eyes fell to the triangle between my legs.

  "Thank you.” I smiled, knowing he was trying to distract me, and I let him. I put my feet up on the counter, opening my thighs, giving him a better view. “So, are you going to see her?"

  "Samantha.” He said my name with a sigh. I didn't reply but just watched him instead.

  "I might.” He used the razor over the few spots he'd missed. I waited. “Probably.” I just gave him more silence as he wiped his face clean with a towel. “Yeah, I guess."

  "I figured."

  He put some shaving cream on the tip of his finger and touched my nose with it.

  I rolled my eyes. “Jerk!” I wiped it off with my hand, dabbing it onto the tuft of my pubic hair with a grin.

  His eyes lit up, and he reached over and opened the top drawer under where I was sitting, pulling out a pair of manicure scissors.

  "I was kidding!” I grabbed his towel and wiped off the shaving cream.

  "I'm not.” He snapped the scissors open and closed, his dark eyes flashing, his grin devious.

  "I thought you liked it!” I cried. He had often said how much he liked that I was a natural redhead, the hair between my legs just a shade darker than the strawberry-blonde hair on my head. Our physical differences, the natural contrast, the strawberry cream and black coffee of our skin together, only served to drive our passion to further heights.

  "Mmm, I do.” He knelt on the floor so he was eye-level between my legs, leaning in and kissing all around my pubic hair. “But I'd love to lick your pussy when it was shaved."

  I touched the curly, wiry mass of hair. I had never trimmed or shaved there. “I wonder what it would feel like..."

  "Want to find out?” He showed me the scissors again. Seeing him eyeing my bits with a sharp implement in his hands was quite a shock.

  "I don't know.” I bit my lip. “Do we have time?"

  "Plenty.” His lips brushed my thigh as he breathed my scent. The sight of his dark, smooth, newly shaved head between my legs elicited an immediate response, and I felt myself opening to him. “Don't you trust me?"

  I sighed. “Should I?"

  "Yes.” His fingers probed my slit, spreading it open. He kissed my clit, his lips soft against my flesh.

  "Okay,” I breathed, leaning back against the mirror as his tongue moved through my wetness.

  "I want to kiss her goodbye.” He eased his way through, making his tongue into a sharp little point to probe inside of me. I moaned when his fingers replaced his tongue, sliding deep into my flesh as his mouth moved over my clit. I was still surprised at how skilled he was at this, how attentive, how eager to please.

  I moaned as he gently sucked and nibbled my clit, his fingers moving in a slow, steady rhythm. I cupped my breasts in my hands, tweaking my nipples as I watched him lick me, his eyes on mine, watching my response. I lifted my breast, reaching my tongue out for my nipple, a fat, pink bud. He watched me lick at it, making it wet with my saliva, and he groaned, the vibration sending a quick jolt through my pussy.

  I closed my eyes, my head going back, shifting my hips forward toward his mouth, letting the sensation build, like the spark of a flame starting a wildfire between my legs. I loved the wet noises he made as he urged me on with his tongue, the squelch of his fingers pistoning in and out of me. I grabbed the back of his head, calling his name, rocking my hips with him now.

  He murmured something, but I couldn't hear the words as I pressed him harder against me, using his mouth now, moving my hips in easy circles. I was close, my thighs trembling with the effort. Del pulled his head back, shaking off the hand at the nape of his neck, his face glistening with my juices. I looked down at him, surprised, bewildered, and he grinned at me.

  He lifted the scissors again, and I gasped, my pussy swollen and throbbing and aching for release.

  "Now?” I panted, reaching for
him, longing to press his face between my legs again.

  "Yes. Now.” He started to trim the hair between my legs. “I want to taste you when you're all smooth."

  I groaned, watching him pull the hair taut with his fingers and snip it, bit by bit, working his way up one side of my labia and down the other. The pulse between my legs was an incessant reminder, and feeling him pushing and pulling at my lips, watching his tongue sneak out of his mouth as he concentrated, was making it worse. I rubbed my fingers over my nipples, feeling it immediately in my clit, and shivered.

  "Hurry,” I whispered, looking at him through half-closed eyes, and he smiled, watching me pull and twist my nipples, his eyes darkening with lust.

  "God, you make me so hard.” He reached down to adjust himself in his jeans.

  I studied what he'd done so far. There were light red pubic hairs all over the counter, and my mound looked like it had undergone a military buzz cut. “What if your mom finds red pubic hair in the bathroom?” I brushed it off my thighs. “Wouldn't that kind of be a tell-tale sign that a white girl had been in her bathroom?"

  He chuckled. “I'll clean it all up.” He was changing the blade on the razor and running it under water. Then he put some shaving cream on his hands and started lathering me up between my legs. I wondered for a moment if it would sting or burn and was relieved to find it didn't.

  My lips still felt so swollen, my clit throbbing. He was being much more careful with me than I'd ever seen him be with himself. He shaved downward at first, rinsing the razor under warm running water after each pass, and then he shaved upward, clearing every last hair away with the sharp, double-edged blade.

  The air on the wet skin of my vulva was cool, and I shivered. It was a strange sensation. He rinsed the razor again, and then got the towel wet, wringing it out before beginning to wipe me down with it. I whimpered as he rubbed it over my pussy, again and again, making a few passes over my thighs and down my ass. Then he used the towel to wipe down the counter and the floor beneath my feet before tossing it into the sink.

  He stood back, his dark, muscular arms crossed, admiring his handiwork. I could see the bulge in his jeans and knew he was just as excited as I was.