THE HEALING HEART

by Zelda Clemens

  Her world narrowed down to the places where his callused fingers caressed. The fabric bunch beneath his touch, gliding over her body.

  A second pair of lips touched to her neck, and her legs went weak. Travis lifted the weight of her golden hair and let his mouth tease along the skin of her back. His clever hand traced the line of her spine, skimming over the roundness of her backside before gliding between her thighs. She moaned into Angus' mouth and he swallowed it.

  Her husband had never touched her like this, never offered her this kind of pleasure. She was pinned between the bodies of two men and had never felt more free. The hard press of their shafts pressed against her body. She trembled as her mind dreamed of lurid thoughts of how she was going to enjoy the pair of them.

  Genevieve reached behind herself and found the root of Travis' pleasure. He made a low sound against her neck as she ran her fingers along his length. Her thumb swept along his tip and his fingers clenched her hip.

  “If you continue to do that,” he whispered. “I will not last long.”

  “Shame,” Argus muttered, freeing her mouth for the first time. “I feel as if I could last forever.”

  “Gentlemen,” she offered, “no need to fight. I'm happy to make sure everyone is well satisfied.”

  Genevieve meant it. Never in her entire marriage had she felt as if her husband was completely satisfied by her. A small part of her had always wondered if it was because nothing could satisfy him, or if she was incapable as a partner.

  She took Angus' length in her free hand. She could feel the differences between the two of them, Argus had length where Travis had girth and she wanted to learn what pleased them both. Her wet hands slid over their firmness, stroking slowly at first, feeling them pulse against her palms.

  She felt a charge of empowerment as their tips turned shiny with their enjoyment. She knelt between them, the water splashing around her hips, and took Angus' tip into her mouth. She felt his hand against the back of her head as she slid him over her tongue. Genevieve idled over the sensation of it gliding in her mouth before she turned her head and offered Travis the same pleasure. Back and forth she went until the pair of them where making low sounds.

  “Come here,” Angus commanded. He gripped her upper arm and hauled her back into a standing position. She barely found her footing before Travis' mouth descended on her breast. He wasn't gentle this time, as he had been with her back. He sucked and nibbled at her flesh, turning the steadily growing need between her thighs into a throb, an ache.

  Angus did not bother with her breasts. He dipped to his knees and pressed his mouth to the crux of her own pleasure. He grabbed her thigh and wrapped her leg around his golden back. Her toes curled against his flesh as their mouths devoured her. The slick sense of self-indulgence swam through her body, making her forget herself. Angus' tongue mapped out her cleft in wild felicitations.

  She forgot how to think. Her body was nothing but sensation. The moment that her pleasure was nearly upon her they switched places. The change in rhythm, in the shift from one to the other broke the build of her high, but not the continuation of her pleasure. When she was sure she couldn't take anymore, they carried her to the living room and the makeshift bed she had been sleeping on.

  Argus laid out and pulled her down to his golden form.

  “Do it, Genevieve,” he whispered. “Do it.”

  She spread her legs, cupping his body with hers. She felt the blunt press of his swollen tip against her entrance. She splayed her fingers against his chest and thrust herself back on him. One moment she was empty and the next she was full. She rode him with a near mindless vigor.

  Travis knelt behind her. She felt the press of his swollen length against the cleft of her backside. His hands swept around and cupped her breasts, his fingers flicked across her nipples.

  “Ride,” he whispered in her ear. “Ride the way you want.”

  “Hmm?” she asked.

  “Ride him how you want to, do what feels good.”

  Angus' hands came to her hips, and she fell forward. She stopped moving up and down and started to slide herself back and forth. Her hands moved lower.

  “There you go,” Travis said. “There you go.”

  She moved faster, Angus' hands availed the movement. “You feel so good,” he groaned

  The weight of her passion was building once more. It was a heavy thing, almost alive in its own right. Every movement, every thrust of her body fed it.

  “Oh God,” she gasped. “I want more, I need more.”

  Travis pushed the tip of himself against the depths of her buttocks.

  “Can I?” he asked, “Genevieve, can I?”

  “Yes!”

  He pushed hard and suddenly Genevieve was filled. The glory of being pinned between their two bodies swept through her. She couldn't move, but she no longer had to. Angus held her hips while he thrust into her from beneath, and Travis held her shoulders while pushing from behind.

  “More,” she begged, “don't stop now.”

  The feeling thrilled through her, and the ball of pleasure broke. Her skin felt too tight, and then it seemed to disappear altogether. The hard edge of ecstasy rolled through her as they rocked in and out of her body. Hands gripped her, held her in place, fed that wild high until she went blind with it.

  “Yes!” she cried, “Now! Please, now!”

  When she hit the very height of her ecstasy they filled her.

  *****

  Two weeks later, she turned them in to the marshal at Silver Creek. He was an older man, well versed in the world of justice. He took custody of The Dust Devil and The Gentleman and he handed her a suitcase with the funds inside.

  “Ma'am,” he plucked the cigar from his lip and gave her a smile filled with tobacco coated teeth. “I don't know how you managed this, but you've done a great thing for the good citizens of Silver Creek. Do you know they took a stagecoach around two months back?”

  “Did they?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, killed everyone on board. Wife, stagecoach. Bodies were all torn up by coyotes and then the rain took a good deal of everything with it.”

  “That's terrible,” she gasped, placing a hand on her chest in mock surprise. “Well, at least they are in good hands.”

  The trick to lifting someone’s keys, Travis had explained to her, was that you had to make it all seem natural. One quick easy movement that had the person not thinking about what was going on, or they would know. Make it natural, and they wouldn't even realize what was going on.

  She linked her arm through his as if they were old friends.

  “You'll be taking them far from here?” she asked. “Soon, I hope?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning, Ma'am.” He puffed out his chest, his mutton-chop style beard flapping with his pride at having a pretty woman on his arm. His hand was far away from his weapon. Instead it rested on her hand, where it lay on his arm. “You won’t have to worry anymore.”

  “Well, I managed.”

  “That you did!” He gave her a wink. “If you want to come work for me...”

  “Oh no, this adventure was plenty enough for me. I plan on settling down, finding a husband, running a farm.”

  “A lady like you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I've had enough of comfortable society, Marshal. All I want is to have a home and children.”

  He patted her hand. “Of course, of course. Well, you take care out there on that big ol' farm all by yourself.”

  “Oh you.” She chuckled and placed a kiss on his bearded cheek.

  Completely charmed and cherry red, he waved her of and went on his way. When he walked away from her, all she had to do is keep the keys from jingling as they pulled out of his pocket. It was surprisingly easy.

  She let them see her leave town on the back of her newly purchased horse, a thick bodied creature with a slow gait that would help plow the fields. She tied him up outside of town, munching on the contents of a feed bag. There were two more wit
h him, older but more fleet of foot.

  A distraction, according to Angus, would be the easiest way to get anyway out of the jail. A fire was best.

  She chose an empty building. It had been the outhouse for the church, it was small and located on the further side of town. But no one would want it to go up in flames, as the church could be next.

  The fire was surprisingly easy. The outhouse was old and small enough that it took to the flame easily. She screamed out for others to come. They ran to the outhouse as she snuck away. No one would think to look for a lady when they began to piece together what had happened. They'd be looking for a young man.

  The jail was empty when she arrived, save for her two men.

  Hers, she thought with a smile, they were all hers.

  “Did it work?” Angus asked, direct as always.

  “Of course it did,” Travis explained, coming up to the bars with his particular elegant swagger. “She's here. Though I don't think that this disguise suits you.”

  She did a little turn before putting the key in the lock. “Don't like me dressed as a boy?” she teased.

  “I am a delightful sinner,” Travis smirked. “Little boys are not on that list.”

  “Hurry up,” Angus muttered.

  Moments later they were off.

  The horses were still there when they arrived, unwilling to leave the comfort of the patch of grass and a tree to lean against. They mounted up and moments later were on the road.

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked, reaching a hand out to either of them.

  “Not long,” Angus promised.

  “They will look for us. They will come here and look for us. They may even ask if you were involved. There is a chance they will tear the house apart.”

  “I know,” Genevieve said. “I know. I will worry.”

  Travis guided his horse towards her and laid his lips against her cheek. Moments later Angus did the same.

  “We will return.” Angus placed her head against his. “Before the year is out.”

  As she watched them disappear into the darkness, she knew she believed them.

  THE END

  Another bonus story is on the next page.

  Bonus Story 19 of 44

  Her Highland Love

  Description

  Beautiful, resourceful Aila lives in blatant distrust of men and road travel, a legacy from a devastating highway attack many years ago that claimed the lives of her family and left her severely injured.

  Now she lives alone on the outskirts of the quiet sleepy village of Reay, visited occasionally by obsessive Ross, a gusty laird with the highland regiments.

  One quiet morning, a Scottish mercenary turns up at her doorstep with terrifying news surrounding the murder of her family and a looming threat to her peaceful and uneventful life.

  It is a visit that forces Aila to confront years of suppressed, embittered emotions - and underneath it all, the grudging stirrings of unbridled sensuality.

  The fierce Scot in her won't go down without a fight, but she wonders about this ruggedly imposing stranger and the vulnerabilities he awakens in her.

  She wonders about the help he offers.

  Can she really trust him?

  *****

  Ye' knowin'

  Aila hurried homeward from the farm, her long skirt scooped up by the hem, as the first drops of moisture began pelting the earth. She imagined the despairing sigh of the whole village at her scandalous display of bare skin. But the whole village wasn’t there. She was virtually lost in her own world on the uninhabited outskirts of Reay, which was at least three miles from any semblance of civilization.

  By the time she got to her door, panting and laughing breathlessly, her jet-black hair was sleeked back with rain and her tartan shawl soaked. An avid onlooker at that moment would be struck by how her deep green eyes turned a radiant shade when she was excited, complementing the startling ruby redness of her full lips.

  She did not mind getting wet in the rain much. A girly fantasy of hers was dancing in ghillies in the rain to the shrill frantic wail of bagpipes.

  The smell of rain always stirred an old longing for her mother’s Arbroath smokie and colcannon, savored with a pint of dark ale out in the open overlooking Reay. Because highland air was a quintessential flavor itself, her father would explain.

  But tonight, the rain only brought an unfamiliar scent, not quite hidden under the mustiness of dampened yew leaves and rotted wood. If a person were to ask her to describe that scent, she wouldn’t be able to describe it with anything that her nose had ever experienced.

  Her mother, who would wake some nights to a stench akin to rancid flaxseed oil and then discover the mangled carcass of some stray animal the next morning, called it “ye’ knowin’.”

  But that night her family journeyed to Edinburgh, when English border reivers had swooped on their family carriage like ravenous hawks drawn to carrion, neither she nor her mother had smelled anything. Oh death, where was your stink?

  It was one of those cruel ironies of life she had made an uneasy peace with.

  When the MacLeans were robbed of cattle by—supposedly—the MacDonalds and the resulting conflict cascaded like a wild fire across the highlands, she smelled little but burning farms, burning houses and burning corpses on a daily basis. It was about this period she moved to the outskirts of Reay accompanied by a maternal uncle.

  Sebastian was a retired Scottish warrior who had fought in the Hundred Years’ War as both a soldier and a mercenary and her mom once hinted that he was sort of a swick as well. His living with her was an arrangement that afforded her some protection from the occasional local marauders and persistent suitors while providing lodgings and food for him.

  He came toting a cache of most of his old weapons, more out of sentimental attachment than necessity. He would leave his room at dawn to go and practice dagger thrusts under the huge yew tree leading up to the house. Aila would join him, admiring the grace with which his arthritic fingers still wielded the dagger. One day he held out the dagger to her, smiling. “A yoong quine main learn tae protect herself.”

  That was when her dagger thrusting lessons began. She remembered his early morning cries of “Get aff yer erse, yer lyin' aroond the hoose like a store dug" to wake her. He never said much during practice but she came to recognize his grunts of approval or disapproval. In a few months, she had not only mastered the use of the biodag, but also a halbard effectively.

  One morning, she smelled something similar to crushed common myrtle. Later that day, Sebastian passed away during his mid-day sleep. It was then she not only got back “Ye knowin’”, but she deduced that the odd smells had a relationship with the events that happened afterwards. Later, she placed a bunch of myrtle flowers on his chest, as was the custom for the dead, and erected a cairn over him.

  The muffled clatter of hooves and the neigh of a horse outside scudded away her thoughts. Her fingers tightened around the grip of an old biodag above the fireplace, its warm coarseness comforting to her blistered palms, as a set of impatient knocks landed on the door.

  ‘Who is that, I pray?’

  Perhaps it was because of the rain but the visitor didn’t respond. The knocking intensified. She approached the door. Ross was the only male who had ever come up to the house, a lone stranger who had lost his way to Kinlochleven. It might be Ross, but by the sound of their hooves and if she wasn’t mistaken there were at least half a dozen horses out there. So this was what the “knowin’” was about this time.

  She opened the door with her left hand so her knife hand was hidden behind the door.

  It was indeed Ross. He stood soaking wet in a hooded bearskin coat with a poke slung over his left shoulder, his hulk filling the door way. A certain wild animal scent suddenly filled the room. His tiny pink lips parted in a fierce grin. The edge of his lips met a diagonal badly healed scar across his cheek so when he smiled it created a rather disconcerting appearance. This appearance was not softe
ned by his grey slate eyes which no laughter or humor ever seemed to touch. “Awrite mah hen!”

  Behind him were about seven armed men waiting on their horses, which were laden with huge rope pokes and one wooden chest. The lightning flashed briefly and she noted a hostile looking fellow with lank hair framing a bald crown.

  ‘What in Saint Andrew’s name are you doing out here in the rain, Ross?’

  The man grinned fiercely. “Jist returnin' frae some wark ower at thurso.” He held out the poke. “An' thes is fur ye, mah hen.”

  “I thank you, Ross.” She peered at the poke dubiously. “But I’m hardly done with the last portion of cow you brought the last time. It will all go bad.”

  His work may have comprised robbing families of their cattle and by the look of the wooden chest, their gold. He was a laird who stood to inherit more land with the demise of his uncle so it may have all been done in reckless fun. The thought sickened her to the very depths of her belly.

  He chuckled, stretching the poke to her. “Weel hae a swatch first. thes is nae meat.”

  She said thank you and dropped it in one corner of the room without looking into it. Her movement revealed the biodag.

  “Plannin' tae stab me wi' 'at.” He sounded amused.

  “I’m still considering it.” She tossed the weapon on an oak stool. “You came all the way out here in this storm to give me a present?”

  “Yes, ye can pretend it was fur thes wee present.” He grinned. “Weel willnae ye swatch intae th' poke?”

  “Not until your shadow leaves my door,” she smiled, crossing her arms.

  “Willnae ye at leest invite me in?”

  “No, Ross.” She shook her head. “And I won’t leave your men in the rain even if I did invite you in.”

  He turned around as though surprised that indeed some people were waiting on horseback in the rain. “They ur loch rain an' fields ay corn in sprin', these ones,” he cackled. “Dornt fash yerse.”

  The Ross’ of this world took a mile when you gave them an inch, The last time she had let him take off his fur coat at her fireplace, he had wanted to undress her as well. Occasionally she longed for company but there was no companion in Ross.