Pyromancist

by Charmaine Pauls

  She parted her lips and he slipped the fruit inside. As she chewed, his eyes remained fixed on her mouth, his eyes warming once more to a cloudy gray. He surprised her by cupping her neck and lowering his head to trace her lips with his tongue.

  “Mmm. Strawberry tastes good on you. Let’s see how blueberry does.”

  She giggled when he scooped up a handful of berries, feeding them to her one by one. He repeated the action of tasting the juices on her lips, but this time he went further, sucking them into his mouth, nipping and urging her kiss with his tongue. Clelia felt as if she was getting drunk on the passion she felt for him. She made to get up, but Josselin held her tighter.

  “No,” he whispered in her ear. “Sit with me.”

  She shook her head lightly. When she moved again, he didn’t argue. His arms loosened enough for her to slip underneath them to her knees. The braveness she swore earlier she would adopt almost faltered as her hands went to the clasp of his pants, undoing it slowly, shyly, but with steady hands, while she held his eyes. He seemed surprised, taken aback even, watching her with hooded eyes as she unzipped his pants and took his cock in her hands.

  She tasted the tip first, swirling her tongue around it and recognizing the essence of him. Josselin grabbed the edge of his chair, his knuckles turning white as she stroked her tongue down to the base and back up. She molded her lips around him, taking as much of him into her mouth as she could while using her hands to stroke him where her tongue wasn’t reaching.

  Josselin groaned loudly, tilting his hips up to her. Her hair fell over her face as she caressed him with a steadily mounting speed and he let go of the chair to grasp it in a ponytail at the back of her head. She watched him watching her, and realized her feminine power when she saw the wild desire and need that flashed in his eyes.

  “Cle, stop,” he said.

  She moved faster.

  “Ah, God, little witch. Stop or I’m going to come in your mouth.”

  She increased her pace further, dipping her free hand into his underwear to cup his balls. Her eyes didn’t falter. She saw the joy he got from watching her, the pleasure etched in the way he flexed his jaw and the restraint he tried to exercise from how he gritted his teeth.

  His breathing was hard. She knew he was close. When she felt his hands on her shoulders, trying to move her away, she fastened her teeth over the crest and bit down gently. Josselin cursed. Hot liquid squirted into her mouth. She took it all, every last drop, relishing the taste of the man she loved. He jerked when she licked him clean and dried him with her hair, sounds of pleasure vibrating in his deep moans. With a soft kiss on the softening shaft, she pulled his underwear in place and zipped his pants up.

  Clelia smiled up at her lover as he made an effort to recompose himself. His fingers tightened on the flesh of her shoulders and in a swift movement, he pulled her up and lifted her back into his lap, crushing their lips together in a kiss that soon had her swooning. When he finally released her, his eyes were almost back to their normal color.

  He turned a lock of her hair around his finger. “Have you ever done that before?”

  “No. Why? Did I do it badly?”

  He closed his eyes briefly and squeezed her against his chest. “Good. I’m glad. I’m very possessive, Clelia. And no, you didn’t do it badly.” He let out a big puff of air. “On the contrary.” He suddenly regarded her with concern. “I think we should go inside.” He glanced at the clouds. “It’s getting colder.” His thumbs brushed over her knees. “And I’ll have to attend to these,” he said, frowning as he traced the few scrapes she had gotten from standing on her knees on the hard stone terrace.

  “That’s nothing.” She hadn’t even noticed. Her mind was too occupied elsewhere.

  “I hate to be the reason for scarring your body. You need to take better care of yourself.”

  She moved to get up but he held her back. “Clelia, you never did tell me where you got the bruises from.”

  “What bruises?”

  “The ones I treated in my old house.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.”

  “I told you, I didn’t wear the right shoes in a field and I stumbled. It wasn’t anything big.”

  “Where?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Close to where I worked.”

  “Why?”

  Clelia fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. When she didn’t answer he said, “It was in the standing stone site, wasn’t it? The night I was going to–”

  She put her finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

  He looked grim again. “I thought so.” His voice turned urgent. “Clelia, that night ... did I hurt you?”

  She frowned. “Why would you have hurt me?”

  “I was drunk and not myself. I was desperate. I cannot remember all that had happened, except for your face and your kiss. I know myself, Cle. I’m a bastard at best. Did I hurt you in any way?”

  “Oh, Josselin. You always cut yourself too short. You’re not the monster you make yourself out to be.”

  “Still, I’m sorry to have dragged you into it.”

  “You didn’t drag me into anything. I came from my own free will.”

  He blinked once, slowly. “I wish it was true. But we both know it was me who was hunting you.”

  “Maybe we were chasing each other,” she said. “Because you were definitely haunting my dreams.”

  “Giving you nightmares.”

  “Stop it, Joss. I love you. We need to move forward from here, not back into the past.”

  “Josselin,” he corrected softly.

  “Josselin,” she said, and then she kissed him deeply.

  * * * *

  After finishing their breakfast, Josselin made a fresh pot of coffee, and despite her protests, put an ointment on Clelia’s knees. It was almost noon when they drove out to Larmor-Baden. From there they took the bridge to the Island of Berder. The nearer they got, the more nervous Clelia became. She felt Josselin’s hand on hers as he steered the car down the dirt track over the hill.

  He squeezed her fingers. “I’m sorry that you had to run, Cle.”

  She glanced at him. “It’s not your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t chased you, you wouldn’t have had to give all of this up.”

  “You know that’s not true,” she said sternly. “I had to run. Erwan told me to. And that was before we knew you were going to come after me.”

  “If it had made you hate me, it would have killed me.”

  “I’ve never hated you, Josselin.”

  “I know.” He glanced at her, his expression pained. “That made it worse.”

  Before the cottage came into view, Josselin stopped the car and booted up his ePad. After several seconds he said, “It’s safe. I’ve connected to our satellite tracking.”

  Barely able to wait now, Clelia moved forward on the seat. As soon as they rounded the hill, she saw the figure of a white canine in the distance.

  “Snow!”

  The wolfdog lifted his head and twitched his ears when the vehicle approached. Even before Josselin had parked the car, he was at the house, standing guard with Thunder, Cloud, and Rain.

  What used to be her normal life now felt like a dream. Clelia exited the car in a haze, looking around with nostalgia. Snow approached her immediately, his bark loud and his tail wagging furiously.

  Clelia went down on her haunches. The big animal jumped and almost knocked her off her feet. She laughed as he licked her face, nudging her with his snout while she scratched his ears.

  Tears mixed with her laughter as she hugged one after the other of her dogs. Aware of Josselin watching them with his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets, she blinked her tears away and glanced up at him.

  “I missed them so much. Thank you for bringing me here.”

  He dropped his gaze to the ground. “I’m going to check around. I need to make sure everything’s all right. Don’t go inside until I tell you it’s clear.”


  He didn’t wait for her response. Clelia looked at him with a small frown. She couldn’t decide if he was still blaming himself for her separation from her home, or if he was already contemplating her sadness at the second separation they both knew had to follow, when they would leave for New York. Clelia turned her attention back to the wolf hybrids. Tomorrow was another day. Right now, she was here. Cuddling Snow, she waited impatiently outside until Josselin put his head around the door.

  “You can come in now, Mrs. de Arradon.”

  She got up and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “No monsters or dragons lurking inside?”

  His eyes remained serious. “Don’t joke.”

  She slipped past him and felt his hand brush over her buttocks. Before, Josselin had always touched her, but in stolen moments, as if he had tried hard to hold himself back. Now, he often caressed her freely, and she loved it.

  Inside, she looked around the kitchen. It didn’t look like a house that had been abandoned for six months.

  Josselin hugged her from behind. As if reading her mind, he said, “I had it cleaned on a weekly basis.”

  She leaned into him. “Why?”

  “I knew it would be important to you. I didn’t want you to come home and find it neglected. Besides, Erwan could have returned at any time. At least he would have found it in a livable state.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He placed a kiss on her head. “I know this was your home once.”

  Clelia stilled. “You know I want to be with you more than anything.”

  He turned her to face him. “But?”

  “But I’ll have a hard time leaving my animals.”

  “We’ll take them,” he said quickly. “I’ll have them all flown in. I’ll organize everything. Don’t worry, angel.”

  There was something else that bothered her. “What about Erwan?”

  He took her hands, intertwining their fingers. “We’ll find him. If he wants to come with us, we’ll take him. Your family is mine now.”

  She touched his cheek, moved by his kindness. “I so badly need for Erwan to know that I’m safe, to share our news. I can’t stand thinking that he’s worried for me, or suffering.”

  “You don’t know where he went?”

  “No. He only said he’d go into hiding, live on some of the abandoned islands, but he could be anywhere.”

  Josselin nodded his gaze pensive. “There are a million and one places out here to hide. We need to show you off around the village, spread the word of your return, but not before you’re ready to face Lupien.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  He kissed her hand. “I promise to do everything in my power to find him.”

  “He sacrificed so much for me, for trying to protect me.”

  “You never told me how you managed after jumping from the yacht.”

  He sounded tense and Clelia knew that he was contemplating the ‘what if’s’.

  “It’s a long story. Let’s not talk about it now,” she said.

  “I have time. And now is as good a time as any.”

  Clelia saw the obstinate set of his jaw. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

  “How did it happen?” he urged gently.

  “Do you really need to know?”

  “Yes.”

  His voice had that uncompromising tone, the one she knew by now.

  “Harping on things we can’t change isn’t accomplishing anything.”

  “Humor me,” he said with narrowed eyes.

  Josselin wasn’t going to give up.

  “All right,” she said slowly. “When Erwan asked me to go into hiding, he had already buried a box on Île aux Moines with a false passport and money. He must have always known that the day would come that my mother’s past and mine would catch up with us, that danger would come. When the yacht you kept me on passed near a clearing in the reef, I jumped and swam to the island. I’ve been diving for oysters there with Erwan, so I knew where it was safe to jump. The box was buried where Erwan said it would be.

  “I was going to board a trawler, but it wouldn’t pass for another two days, so I walked to the tourist area on the harbor and bought a change of clothes. Because it was peak season, I was able to blend into the hordes of holidaymakers on the quay and not attract attention with my attire and bare feet.

  “The first night, I slept in a boat that was anchored on the beach. I used public restrooms to clean up early in the morning, and for the rest of the day, I hid in the woods, watching the boats to see which ones were not being used. The trick was to get to the mainland to catch the trawler without being spotted. The second night, I stole one of the boats at the harbor that wouldn’t be missed and took it out into the open sea. I spent the night there.”

  Josselin’s eyes were wide, his voice dark. “You navigated a boat in the dark and spent the night on the open sea?”

  “Josselin,” she placed her hand on his arm, “you forget what a good skipper I am.”

  He seemed to control himself with much difficulty. “Carry on.”

  “At first light, I anchored in a hidden bay on the mainland and followed an unused path through the forest to the harbor. The trawler was already there. The captain is a friend of Erwan. These fishermen share a sacred bond. I knew he’d help. He agreed to take me to South Africa.”

  She smiled grimly, remembering the hard days that had followed. “After going ashore in Hout Bay, I got a ride with a truck driver who robbed me of my money. It wasn’t always smooth sailing from there, but I managed to find a job at a bar and an affordable room.” She shrugged. “The rest you know.”

  His silver gaze became gray. “Did you suffer?”

  “I was fine, Josselin.”

  His eyes pierced hers. “Did you ever go hungry?”

  She didn’t want to upset him, but she also never wanted to lie to this man who she loved more than herself. “Only at first, until I got a job.”

  His fingers tightened on hers. “How many days did you go without food?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t count,” she said evasively.

  His expression became darker by the minute. “That many, eh?”

  “I hardly remember it now.”

  “Were you ever cold?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “When?”

  Clelia sighed at Josselin’s relentless interrogation. “When I went ashore after jumping from the yacht, it was almost dark. I was wet, so naturally I was cold. When I arrived in South Africa, it was winter. It was raining. I was cold then. But I had bought a jacket before the truck driver robbed me.”

  She watched him process the information and saw hurt and pain reflect in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said gently.

  Ignoring her attempt at soothing him, he said, “Did anyone ever hurt you?”

  She looked away. “Please, Josselin. It’s over. It’s in the past.”

  He turned her back to him. “Did anyone ever hurt you?”

  She lowered her eyes. “The owner of the bar where I worked. It wasn’t serious, though.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  The coldness of his voice pulled her gaze back to his. His expression was calculated, murderous.

  “Please, Josselin, what does it matter now?”

  “It matters to me. What did he do to you?”

  “He slapped me. It wasn’t even very hard.”

  His eyes narrowed. They were pure ice. “Where did he slap you?”

  “Josselin...”

  “Clelia, don’t make me repeat every question. Where did he touch you?”

  “Across the face. I dropped a tray of glasses and he was very upset.”

  “I should have stayed longer to kill the fucking bastard.”

  She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Please don’t get upset about things you can’t change. Let’s just focus on the things we can do something about—focus on the now. We’ve both suffered, but it’s over
now. I don’t want to think about—”

  Before the last syllable had left her mouth, he grabbed her to him, lifted her legs around his waist and claimed her lips while he moved forward. He pushed her against the wall. He kept one hand on her buttocks while his other went to her hair, pulling her head to the side to expose her neck. His tongue and mouth were all over her throat and shoulder. She could feel him suck and nip at her skin as if he had an urgent desire to mark her, to show the world who she belonged to. With his teeth in the soft flesh of her shoulder, she had no choice but to remain still, sensing his need to reassure himself of her presence, that she was safe with him.

  Clelia gasped as his hands left her body to rip at the front of her dress. His knee moved between her legs, holding her up while his body pressed her to the wall. With frantic movements, he pushed the sleeves over her shoulders and the neckline down to expose her breasts. He didn’t give her any time to react. Clelia’s breath was chasing. He flipped her bra up, exposing her skin, and immediately her nipples puckered for him. He sucked her breast into his mouth with an urgency she had never seen in him, working her into a frenzy with his mouth. Balancing her on his bent knee, he pushed her body down gently, letting her ride him while his hand slipped underneath her dress and into her underwear. He stroked her folds and cupped her sex, but he didn’t touch her clit. Almost at the point of release, Clelia wanted to beg him to take her, but as abruptly as his caresses had started, they stopped.

  Josselin lowered her to her feet and adjusted her clothes, his expression unreadable.

  He brushed his thumb over her lips, looking repentant. “All right?”

  “No,” she said, frowning. “This is torture.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s too soon to claim your tight little pussy again. Even with my finger.” She felt herself flush furiously. He kissed her nose. “Did you enjoy that?”

  She swallowed. Did he really have to ask? She was so wet her underwear was soaked.

  He only smiled. “I promise to make you ride me soon.”

  Her tummy contracted at the image that came to mind, and she was glad to see that she wasn’t the only one affected. Josselin’s eyes had gone very dark again.

  “You’d better look around,” he said. “We can’t stay long.”