Wicked Game 02 - Something Wicked

by Olivia Fuller

  “No. I suppose it doesn’t. Time now is too precious for us to be sorry…” He shook his head and dropped his hands to his sides. “God. Mary. You are absolutely—just—stunning.”

  Mary looked down at her dress as she smiled dolefully. “Oh. My. Why thank you. Though I must admit that I don’t feel very stunning right now.” And then she added softly, “I’m not sure if I ever will again…”

  “Don’t say that, Mary…”

  “You weren’t supposed to hear that. I—I’m sorry. I don’t know why I even said it…”

  “It doesn’t matter why you said it, only that you did and that I was around to hear it.”

  “What do you mean?” She hadn’t even realized that he moved, but when she looked up again he’d closed the distance between them.

  “Promise me something, Mary. Will you do that?” His warm breath passed over her left ear causing the tiny hairs on her neck to stand up.

  “I suppose that depends on what you want me to promise you…”

  “Would I ever lead you astray, my girl?”

  Mary closed her eyes and smiled, shaking her head from side to side. “I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘astray.’”

  “I assure you, my girl, that any way I might lead you ‘astray’ is not one you would need to fear… But I swear, as much as it may pain me, I don’t intend on leading you ‘astray.’ I assure you, my intentions are much less selfish.”

  She thought she heard a slight tease in his speech as he said this, but his voice was too tired for her to tell for sure.

  Her finger twitched, longing desperately to touch him, and when she looked at his hands in the mirror she thought she could see them twitching as well.

  “Sometimes, being selfish is a good thing…” she said, only to immediately regret saying it.

  “Oh, Mary—” He cleared his throat. “All I want is for you to promise me that you won’t let this break you. You must promise me that you won’t let this take your spirit and your spark from you. I would never forgive myself if that were to happen…”

  Mary felt her eyes begin to water. Her lip trembled and she felt a warm tear leave her eye and run down to her chin. “I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss,” she gestured her hands between the two of them this, “this. Whatever this is… Talk about missing the boat, huh?” She forced out a small laugh through the tears.

  “Who would have thought? After all of these years, things never did line up for us…”

  He reached out to her and wiped away a tear with his thumb. She caught his hand in hers and sighed.

  “Alright. I’ll promise you.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her face against his hand, clutching it for dear life. “But only if you promise me something as well.”

  “Anything, my girl.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to know before you agree? ‘Anything’ may be a dangerous answer.”

  “You won’t lead me wrong, my girl.” He traced the outline of her face with his thumb, from her forehead down to her chin, and then let his hand rest where it stopped. Storms were brewing in his eyes. “And I wouldn’t care if you did. I’ll make you any promise that you ask.”

  She sighed slowly. “I fear I will not be able to keep my spirit intact as you wish—and as I wish—unless I have a grand memory to linger on for the rest of my days. I want you to give me that memory.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply, tears from both of their faces mixed together as one. “I will give you any memory you want. All you have to do is tell me what it is you desire.”

  Once again she took his hand in hers, clutching to it with all her might.

  “I want to be able to look back on this moment between us and never wonder ‘what if?’ I want to feel wrapped up in warmth. I want to remember us as we were in another life and as we should have been in this one. I asked you once what you thought real love was and what you thought it felt like. Make love to me, Greg. I don’t want to live the rest of my life without ever knowing.”

  ***

  The sun woke up Greg that morning. Streaks of soft light crept through the gaps in the curtains and fell across his face where they danced on his cheeks and tried to pry his eyelids open. He squinted, resistant at first to the interruption of his slumber, but soon enough the rays warmed him all the way through and he opened his eyes to a new day and a new resolve.

  He lay there, still and calm, collecting both his thoughts and the events of the past week into manageable mental lists. Mary’s engagement party was today. It was supposed to be a day of celebration and joy but all it made Greg feel like doing was hitting something… or someone.

  And he knew that he was not alone in his feelings.

  Despite what she may do or say, Greg did not accept that Mary was in love with Brad. He did not accept that this was the best path for her or that she would be happy in the marriage. And he thought, that deep down, she did not accept this either. He just had to make her see the truth of it; prove it to her in some way that she could not deny.

  They could figure out what to do about her impending marriage later. But first he just had to make her see.

  He brimmed with determination. He was done with being a coward and a fool who was too afraid to follow his own heart. After all of these long years he was finally going to do what he should have done in the first place. On this day and for as many days as it took after, his only task would be to fight for her. He would not give her up so easily.

  And so it was that on this day, bright and early, he sought her out ready to take her in his arms and give her everything he had. He expected resistance, yelling even—his spitfire of a woman was not one to bend easily once she set her mind to something—and he readied his resolve for the offensive. But he found none of that. Instead, he found her crumbling, soon to be only a silhouette of the woman that once was.

  He hadn’t been sure what to do at first. Comfort her? Console her? How best to mend her broken bits and make her whole again? He approached her tentatively at first, as he racked his brain for a solution, but before he even had a chance to fully form a plan in his mind, she spoke and surprised him.

  Greg could not believe the words she spoke. Had his ears betrayed him? Had she really just asked him to make love to her? His brain raced, his heart pounded, and he began to feel as if he might lose consciousness. His vision was closing in around him and he knew that if he did not do something quickly it would be too late.

  He rubbed his thumbs on her cheeks, felt her skin, wiped her tears, and smelled her hair. She was the only thing in this world that was real; she was the only thing keeping him grounded to this earth. He studied her eyes, watched the tears that fell from them.

  This is a mistake. This cannot happen.

  Some part of him chanted these words resoundingly in his brain. This part of his mind was afraid of how he would go on living his life afterwards if he gave into her request. The other part of him was afraid of how he would go on living his life if he did not honor her request. His heart told him one thing but his mind told him another until in one split second the two converging sides became one.

  This was not a mistake at all, he suddenly realized. This was about love.

  This was his chance he’d been waiting for. This was the way he could prove to her his feelings and her own. If he could not tell her with his words he would show her with his body.

  And he felt that some part of her knew that making love would force her feelings to the surface. He felt that she didn’t realize this thought, that she didn’t realize exactly why she was making this request. But it was alright that she didn’t understand because he did. He understood her now as he always had. He knew what she needed even when she did not know.

  She had never needed love more.

  And by God, he was going to give it to her.

  ***

  An eternity passed by in silence. Mary’s words hung in the air like a dark cloud. She watched him as his eyes changed, as he proc
essed her question, and as he went through all of the possible outcomes. He was far away and distant, lost in some deep struggle in his mind.

  For a moment she thought that she’d made a mistake and that she shouldn’t have said anything at all. But that wasn’t really an option either. Not after yesterday. She’d been furious with him for what happened. Spitting mad and confused and heartbroken all at once.

  But then she realized the reason she was so upset was because she needed this.

  She finally knew what love felt like, but only in retrospect. And that was not enough. She’d never experienced love in the moment and understood the feeling as it was happening. She needed to feel love in the present. She needed to feel love as it was happening to her and know what she was feeling.

  She needed to feel it in one last moment together. One last, brilliant, wonderful, moment before they lost each other forever.

  He would forgive her for this, in time, and he would forget and move on with his life.

  She would never forget or move on unless she had this memory to cherish.

  When she looked back to him with hopeful eyes, he was still staring off into nowhere.

  I’ve lost him, she thought as her heart sank, but then at she saw a spark ignite. It started in his eyes and then slowly spread out to his face, where she finally saw it wash over his whole body.

  “Are you sure?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

  She turned toward him, facing him full on for the first time since he entered the room, and this time she took his face in her hands. Her fingers felt his face with tenderness, wiped his hair off of his forehead and tucked it behind his ear.

  “Yes,” she said purely. And then, “I haven’t changed my mind about the wedding.” As much as she wanted this she needed him to know this detail before he made his decision.

  Greg nodded his head but he didn’t make a move.

  “I need you,” she choked out.

  And he reached out for her.

  He put his hand behind her head and brought her to him. His lips covered hers and for an instant he just let them stay there, unmoving, completely still. She felt his breath on her face as he breathed through his nose. She felt his eye-lashes flutter against her cheeks. His skin was soft and fragrant, a mix of fresh linen and soap. She felt tears fall from his eyes, wet and full of pain, and mix together with her own tears. Their lips wetted with salt.

  Unable to stay still any longer he hungrily coaxed her mouth open with his tongue. His will of purpose was powerful and she wouldn’t have been able to resist him even if she wanted to. But she did not want to. She wanted him to know her inside and out. She wanted him to feel her, every part of her. She wanted him to touch her, explore her deep inside, in places that she never knew existed before right now and in places that she wished she discovered long before this moment.

  In a time when things could have been different. In another world, another life, if only she knew then what was so clear now.

  But she had not known and neither had he and so those places were uncharted, still begging to be discovered. She wanted him to be the first to find these places and chart a path through the unfamiliar territory until it was tamed and disciplined by his hand. And in the end she wanted him to be the only one who knew the way through the wilds of her heart, the only one who would understand the path he left behind etched on her soul.

  Willingly, she surrendered to him, opening up wide and letting him in. With each sweep of his tongue he passed some new found sensation on to her, sending shivers through her that were much more than skin deep. He ran his lips down her face and her jaw. He circled his tongue in wide, cool sweeps across the skin of her neck. His fingers grabbed onto her hair, using it as leverage as he manipulated her head to and fro to gain new angles, and explore her more thoroughly. Her heart pounded in her chest and she whimpered.

  He turned her around, pressing her back to his front as his mouth continued its journey around her body. She could feel the warmth of his body behind her, radiating though his clothes and hers, and wrapping her in a soft blanket of desire and need. She pressed herself against him, savoring in the way his tongue felt on her and the way his breath fluttered cool across her skin. His hands circled around the front of her, taking advantage of her eagerness, and pulling her fast against him. He pressed his hips into her as he nibbled at her ear and she felt the hardness of his sex press up against her. She felt herself pressing back against him, hips tilted, eager to feel him upon her.

  His left hand remained wrapped around her waist, holding her to him, rocking with her motion, while he moved his right hand up her body to a new destination. He took one of her breasts in his hand, kneading the soft flesh deftly between his fingers and sending tiny shock waves through her. She turned her head so her lips touched his lowered face and whimpered a soft cry into his ear. He silenced her cries with his mouth, covering her completely, leaving them both breathless and wanton.

  She breathed deeply of the moment as she desperately tried to take it all in. For the rest of her life if she could just remember this—all of this, all of him—then she had a chance of making it through to the other side of this great divide. Every detail was important to her. The way he smelled, sweet and musky like the earth after a summer rain—his vocal inflections, throaty and purring each time he touched her. It was magical and mesmerizing. And the way his hands felt on her skin… That was her favorite part.

  Her skin burned where he touched her.

  And as his hands moved over her with paradoxical motion—light and rough, heavy and delicate, all at the same time—they left tiny, but definite imprints. These imprints touched her deeply and left more than a physical mark. Like scars they might change and fade with time, but like scars she would never be rid of them.

  She didn’t need any more scars from Greg. His took a long time to fade. But she wanted more and now she had them. Like the old marks, these new ones were ingrained into her psyche and written on her soul. No matter what she did from this day forward those marks would forever remain as a reminder of his touch and how he made her feel.

  This moment, this time, this sensation was her life raft. And she clung to it with all of her might.

  “I won’t tell you, ‘I love you’, Greg.” Her voiced quivered, and she was afraid that this would cause him to change his mind. But she suddenly felt that she must make this absolutely clear, no matter what the outcome.

  “I won’t tell you either, my girl. As I told you before, for some things words do more harm than good. They do an injustice to the matter because they’re so lacking.”

  He ran the tip of his nose up her neck and along her chin as he exhaled, awakening something secret inside of her. At last when he reached her face, with burning flesh, he gently coaxed her head around to look at him.

  He held her face, his eyes smoldering and firmly locked with hers, and added, “But I don’t need words to know how you feel, and by the time I’m done you will not need words to know how I feel either…”

  And with that he placed a firm hand on her back and leaned her over in front of him. Her hands took a firm hold on the wash stand in front of her, grasping it with tense fingers, nails biting into the rich rosewood, as each wave of pleasure swept over her. The pins fell out of her hair and it was now pooling around her shoulders. He wiped it away with one hand and began tasting her exposed skin.

  He kissed her neck and her shoulders, the soft crease at the base of her head, and her back. She felt her body once again, reacting, reaching for him in every way possible. She leaned back against him, arching her back, hips titled toward him in invitation. Small droplets of water coated his skin making him smell earthy and spicy. She wanted to lick them off.

  He collected the skirts of her dress and threw them up around her hips. His hands went to work on the fastenings of her drawers until he loosened them completely and they fell around her ankles. She lay bare to him now, in every way, and her heart leapt with the feeling.

  His
hands were moving behind her as he undid the ties of his breeches and soon enough they too were off his body, pooled at the floor and leaving him exposed. She felt his hands come down on her hips, gripping her tightly, leaving searing lines of fire where they fell. He dug his fingers into her flesh and pulled her back against him and then… he just waited.

  She could feel him up against her, shaking, throbbing, and with each passing second her own desired increased. Drops of sweat fell from him to her, making her shiver each time his breath flew over her. Then at last, when she thought she could take no more, he took his length in his hand and began caressing her slickened femininity with his tip. He teased her as he circled round and round, against her cleft and her sensitive bud, before delving into unbelievable wetness.

  With a hand on her shoulder he began to pull her to him, just slightly breaching her threshold and then, pulling back when he felt her tense up and shudder. He did this, again and again, through spasm and shudder, until she knew she could not take much more. She turned her head to look behind her and tell him take her, but her forced her head back forward and then with one final drive he entered her, filling her completely. She let out a cry of delight, accepting his breach and welcoming it with muscles clenching around him.

  He thrust into her slowly, extending her pleasure while tempering his own. She could feel him hardening and throbbing inside of her, filling her with delight and sending her body and mind into a frenzy of emotions. She allowed him to slide in and out, over and over, awakening some deep desire in her soul and setting it free. She pressed back against him, arching into his touch, ready to accept him all but then she decided that this would not do. Even in the thralls of ecstasy there was still something weighing on her mind. She needed to speak it but not in this way.

  “I want—” she sputtered breathlessly through each shudder, “I want to see your face. I need to see your face. I need to look into your eyes.”

  For a moment he did just the opposite; delving further inside of her, touching the edges of her desires, holding her there entranced. But then he too submitted to her wishes, flipping her over and laying her down on the floor beneath him. She felt the loss of his presence inside of her as her muscles clenched together around nothing. He pressed against her, producing more wetness but he did not enter her again just yet. Like her, he was also shaking, she could see it, but he still did not fill her again, waiting for words he knew she wanted to say.