Arrow's Wind (The Healing Touch): The Elemental Realms

by Gina Manis

  She looks down at me as she starts to rock. I only help keep her balance and guide her on me as she arches her body into mine. I didn’t think it could feel any sweeter, but her movements have me about to explode inside her. I fight the urge, knowing she hasn’t reached her climax yet. I want her to feel it with me inside her.

  Oh, Gods. She rotates herself on me as she picks up speed, having me straining to hold back. I reach between our bodies and touch her sex, needing her to come for me. I can’t let myself go until she has.

  She is losing control as she sways on me. I reach my arm around her as she almost falls back. This is what I want to see. Her discovering her pleasure so profoundly, she is just as lost as I am.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Jenna

  I can’t do this. I am becoming flustered in my movements to find that release again, but can’t move fast enough to find it. “Aaron?”

  “I got you, love,” he says as he holds me on him. His fingers are driving me mad as I become erratic in my need.

  “Help me,” I plead as I try to move faster. He arches up, and it helps, but it isn’t enough. The desire inside me is growing to almost a painful need. He grasps my hips again and moves me more demandingly on him. I feel myself spiraling as my body quakes and I explode once more.

  Every muscle in my body tightens around him. I hear his cry as he holds me so tightly to his body. He feels deeper than ever and warmer as he pulses inside me. Waves of euphoria wash over my body as the air around us blows, and I collapse on him.

  His hand comes up and brushes my hair from my face as I breathe in the scent of him. He is infused in all my senses as I listen to his rapid heartbeat. I feel so happy and fulfilled, and it is because of my Arrow.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Arrow

  She sleeps in my arms, but I can’t, not after making love to her once. It has been a good hour or more since she dozed off, and all I can think about is claiming her again. Even now, my erection is pressing into her lower back.

  I kiss at her neck and shoulder, not being able to restrain myself any longer. I need to love her again, and my hands roam her front. She stirs lazily in my arms, but I don’t think she is completely awake. I will give her something to wake up to and slide my hand down between her legs.

  She gasps, then as she arches back into me. “Open your legs for me, love.”

  She does, and I let my finger enter her opening as my thumb massages her sensitive bud. She turns her head towards me, and I kiss her soundly as I rub her wet body. She is more than ready for me, and I line up behind her and push in.

  She breaks our kiss, and I know it is because I fill her. I don’t take as much time with her this time, wanting her to feel more of my own desires this time. Knowing this is how it will be with us—me waking her up in the middle of the night just to love her again.

  This will never end. Jenna is mine now, and soon I will make her mine in every way.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Jenna

  Aaron sleeps now, and I let my eyes run over him in the dim light. Neither of us has gotten up to turn it off, and I am glad it is still on. I pull the sheet back and look at his body thoroughly. His… thing is soft and smaller now, but I know how large it can grow.

  He has put all my fears to rest. He has made love to me twice now, and I know I should be sleeping, but I can’t help thinking of how good it felt—the things he makes me feel. I don’t want to rest but play with him more.

  Raising in the bed on my knees, I adjust myself down his body and take him into my hands. It jumps at my touch as it grows to stand erect. Aaron groans as he opens his eyes and looks at me. His hands move to mine, showing me how to touch him before he leaves them again. I can see how he likes it and wonder what he will think if I kiss him there as he has kissed me.

  I watch as he closes his eyes, feeling my strokes, and lean down, taking the head of it in my mouth. He hisses as all of him tenses. His erection has grown three times his size and is now standing straight up. I slide my lips over him, bringing him deep inside my mouth, and he groans. It gives me a sense of power that I can please him.

  Suddenly, he grabs me by the waist and raises me over him. I still have him in my hands as he lowers me, and I line us up. My body is so sensitive after us making love twice already, and I have become accustomed to the rocking of them.

  As he fills me, I thrust down unto his body and let the pleasure take us away once again.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Arrow

  I don’t know how we have gotten in this position, but it feels so good as I drive into her again for the fourth time tonight. She is up against the wall, her legs resting on the bed and me between them.

  I thought this need would become less after taking her three times already, but I am as hard as ever for her. Her breasts bounce in the air as her hair hangs in waves around us. I suck one of their tips in my mouth, and Jenna leans back on the wall taking all of me.

  I should be gentler with her, but her nails digging into my back, urging me for more, is too hard to resist. I let myself go finally and take her with this driving need I have had for so long. Her signs of pleasure are the only thing that keeps me from pulling back.

  Once again, when she comes for me, it is only then I allow my release and fill her with my seed. I hope it carries my child. The thought of seeing her body swell because of us doing this makes it even better.

  I lower her back on the bed, still inside her as we kiss softly now, our passion spent once more.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jenna

  The light is creeping into the windows, but I am in no hurry to arise. What are people supposed to do when they have spent the entire night making love? Are we just supposed to rise and get on with our day? It doesn’t feel right to leave him.

  I cuddle into his arms, remembering our night together. It had been wonderful and filled with so much splendor and discovery.

  It saddens me he wasn’t my first experience. How if he had been, I never would have become so fearful of men. I don’t want to think of the past, but it sneaks up on me.

  I can’t move, but I can feel the pain in my body. I am barely breathing and don’t know why I continue to do so when I just want to die.

  “What should we do with the body, Papa?”

  “Cover her with the dress,” the man says. “Someone will find her at daybreak. There will be an uproar once they find her dead, so we can’t leave right off, or they could suspect us. As soon as I think it is safe, we will.”

  “Did we have to kill her?” One of them asks, but see, I don’t move as I feel the dress is placed over me.

  “You don’t leave prey alive, son,” The man says. “If you want to fuck one like that, you never leave them alive. Now let’s get out of here and keep your heads down. It wouldn’t do for someone to see us.”

  I laid there on the cold dirt ground, feeling the bugs crawl over my body and how they reminded me of being touched by them. I couldn’t move to get them off until finally, I passed out.

  “I can’t believe this has happened to her,” Beth cries into Thomas’s chest in our living room as I watch them in the crack of my door. “She won’t even speak, Thomas. She has given up on life.”

  “She will live again, Beth, I swear,” he says, pulling back and looking into her eyes. “I’m not going to let her fire burn out because of this. No matter what they did to her.”

  “You can’t force her to live, Thomas,” Beth tells him. “I know you love her as your own, but she is just a child and has gone through something that breaks women. I’m afraid she will never be the same again.”

  Thomas sighs and takes Beth back into his arms. “I know, but we have to try. She is your sister, but you know I see her as my kid. I can’t let this destroy her.”

  Thomas looks up, and he sees me at the door. I close the door and leave them alone and go to my bed to cry. Because I know they both love and want me to come through this. Bec
ause I know I will never be the same.

  I was so lucky to have them care so much for me. If it weren’t for my sister and Thomas, I would have gone insane. Living with the dreams was bad enough for all these cycles. Bran has taken them away, but I still have my memories of them. They invade my mind now.

  I see Jared and how he attacked me in that alley at Star Kingdom. If it weren’t for Aaron, he would have hurt me too. He almost did here in my home. Flashes of us fighting come to me, and I shake my head. I don’t want to think of this. Not after what Aaron and I had shared tonight.

  The memories keep coming and become mixed up. I see Cole and then his brother and father. There is Jared at Star Kingdom and here. The scene changes and I get up, not being able to lie there anymore.

  I’m not that child anymore, but a woman. I have a good life now with a good man who loves me. I don’t want to remember their faces or the pain, but I can’t stop the visions.

  I see Jared more than the others. I see us here and in the woods, but I also see him in a blur back in Star Kingdom in the alley and the markets where Cole and his family left me for dead. I see Jared hovering above me like he was there, too. He wasn’t, though, or else I would have remembered. But I see him.

  “Show me some of that fight, girl,” he says as he breathes over me. I feel pain in my lower body as my back scrapes against the ground. I close my eyes hoping death will take me soon. That this will all be over.

  “Wake up, slut!” he shouts as he pulls me up by my arms. I fall back down, not able to hold my head or body up. “Dammit! They used you all up.”

  He blurs in my sight once more as he shoves me away from him. I see him touch himself and close my eyes, not wanting to watch. I feel something warm hit my face, but I ignore it.

  “One day, bitch, I am going to have you. I promise you that. You will show me that fight in you and even more.”

  I slam against the door and open it, needing to get out for air. The walls feel like they are closing in around me. Why do I see this? Did this happen? Was Jared there that night?

  I fall on the porch, trying to bring air into my lungs. It can’t be true.

  “Jenna? What is it?” Aaron is there beside me and wraps me in his arms. I turn into him, holding on tight to my lifeline as I come to realize it was all real. Jared had been there that night. He had raped me too, but I was so close to death, I didn’t respond to him. He had made a promise that he would come after me again. How did I not remember this for all these cycles? This has to be why I felt such a strong dislike for him and how he always made my skin crawl. How he always reminded me of the bugs.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No…” I cry out as I hold onto him. He rocks me in his arms as I am overwhelmed by this painful discovery.

  “Jenna, please. Tell me what is wrong.” Aaron pleads with me.

  I have to say it, but I still can't find my voice. It is locked in me, just as the memories have been for so long. Arrow holds me tight and doesn’t let go. I couldn’t bear the memories if he weren’t with me. I feel so ashamed once more of my past.

  Will I ever truly make peace with it?

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Jenna

  All I want is to have sex with Aaron, but he refuses me. It has been four days now, and he walks around me like I am glass. I am so flustered at him that he won’t touch me because I refuse to tell him what I remembered. I can’t bring myself to, and I don’t want him to know that another man raped me and made me feel like shit.

  I just want to forget it and for us to move on. I want his hand on me to show me all the good things, but he refuses. I have told him it wasn’t him, but he will not touch me.

  He won’t touch me with pleasure in mind, but he will as we spar in the front yard. He has started me learning to defend myself by hand to hand in the last few days, and it is driving me crazy when he wraps me in his arms and tells me to escape. I don’t want to escape him. What I want is him to take my clothes off and love me!

  He pins me to the ground with one hand as he comes over me. “Even in this position, you are not defenseless. You have your head, if not anything more, you can ram into your attackers. If you can get your leg between his, use your knee into his groin.”

  Instead of doing as he says, I wrap my legs around his waist and arch into him, and he groans. “Focus, Jenna.”

  I can’t sign to him as he has my arms pinned, but I bite my lip and raise my head closer to his, offering him my lips.

  He groans again as he lets me go and rolls off me into the grass. I take the chance to crawl on top of him, but he grabs me by the waist and pushes me back, “I told you we are not doing that again until you tell me what happened.”

  “No!” I sign and get up, leaving him on the ground. I’m not going back there! Never again. He can’t make me, and if he thinks to hold himself away from me because of it, then so be it.

  “Jenna.” He shouts at me. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  He grabs my arm and turns me to him. I look away in shame that I can’t say it. That I won’t say it.

  “You say it wasn’t me, but how can I not think it was,” he says. “That last time, I wasn’t… as gentle with you.”

  “Stop!” I sign as I shrug his hand off me. “You did nothing. Please drop it.”

  “I can’t!” he shouts. “You left our bed crying, and I have to know why.”

  “We don’t share a bed anymore. You sleep in the barn!” I sign to him.

  “You think I can lie in bed, make love to you, and wake to see you leaving me? You were in tears on the porch, and it scares the hell out of me that I did something wrong.”

  “It wasn’t you!” I sign again.

  “Then tell me what it is. Tell me so we can move past this,” he demands, and my resolve to not tell him crumbles. I want to move past this, but if I tell him, he might look at me once more with pity. I shake my head. “If you love me, you will tell me.”

  I do love him and need Aaron to stop holding us apart from each other. I need him to wipe the memory that has haunted me for days away. He can do so easily just by loving me again.

  “It was Jared,” I sign and step back. “I remember… things.”

  There, I told him. I don’t know the right sign for rape, and even if I did, he surely wouldn’t know. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want to see pity on his face again. Not from him. His expression softens, but he still looks concerned.

  “You remember him…” I see him struggling to finish as he looks away and then back at me. “When he raped you?”

  I can’t believe it. He knows? How?

  “He told me before I killed him,” Aaron says. “He said you didn’t remember.”

  “Stop.” I shake my head and back away from him. How could he have not told me?

  “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.” He steps toward me, and I back away. “I wasn’t sure if I should even bring it up. If you didn’t remember, I didn’t want you to.”

  “Stop!” I sign and turn to run away. I didn’t want to hear anymore, but he grabs me by the arms, and I struggle to get away from him, but he doesn’t let go.

  “Jenna, I can’t let you run into the woods. The mountain lion is still out there,” he says, holding me. I fight back, needing to escape and punch him in the nose. He lets go then, and I run into the house and slam the door.

  I crumble to the floor and cry. Why does Aaron have to know? All this time, he has known and has said nothing to me.

  Remembering what Jared did hurt, but he didn’t scare me like the others. I don’t recall but a few details of him. The feelings I have about it is that he was just one more. I know I broke down remembering it for the first time, but it didn’t change my past. I was raped. They made me feel dirty and unclean for so long, but I don’t feel that way anymore.

  It is because of Aaron. I wanted to shield him from that one last repulsive memory of my past. To just bury it down and
forget. But he knows. He knew before I even did.

  I lie down on the floor and cry, not for myself, but for Aaron. I feel sorry for him for loving me. Someone who is so broken inside that I can’t even talk anymore. That he hides my past from me so as not to cause me more pain. How he protects and shields me, and all I can do is cry.

  I don’t deserve him or his love. I am weak, and he is strong even with the soft side he reserves just for me. I think of him as Aaron now because he has changed me. He is so much more to me than just an object. He is blood to me, the air I breathe, and I have infused Aaron into my soul.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Bran

  Jenna has more pain than any other I have ever known. She thinks she is weak, but she is a survivor, and that makes her strong. I have tried to show her this, but I fear I have failed. I don’t think I did enough that night we were together. I missed that last memory she had locked away and overlooked it. If I hadn’t, I could have drawn it out, taken some of the pain and the way she feels about it away.

  She has been with Arrow now and has found the joys of being with someone the right way. I wanted to show her that, but it wasn’t to be. She chose to learn it with him after a time. I am happy for them both, but Jenna is the one I need, unlike all the others I have helped.

  She picks a beautiful spot in the mountains for us to dream this time. There is a lake to overlook and a pier for us to sit on. We have been swimming and now rest on it. I always like the places she chooses. This one reminds me of my home growing up in the mountains. I know she lives in them now, and it makes me the hunger to return grow in me.

  I promised her we would one day meet again. I don’t know if I can hold to that promise. Arrow loves her so much, and I don’t see him welcoming me back into their lives. Seeing her again and not being able to touch her would be too much. I could always steal her away from him, but that would just cause problems. It is not in me to be that selfish, even if I hurt for her.