The Forbidden Fruit

by S. K Munt

  ‘Oh… oh… oh….!’ The release came before I’d even realised that it was imminent and the world flipped upside down, as though we were in one of those glittery, shaken snow globes. ‘Oh...your highness!’ I crowed, raking my nails down the wall as my abdomen contracted again and again with the kind or climax I knew that I would never have been able to bring about myself. Kohl let out a slight roar of triumph and then he was lapping at my secretions- drinking deeply of me and I pressed my hands to my overheated face and gasped for breath. It was too much now- unbearable almost, but before I could cry out that he was killing me, I felt his grip shift and suddenly, I was falling and instead of feeling his mouth against my sex, it was his chest, then his abdomen and then, oh then…

  ‘Was that good screaming, or bad screaming?’ Kohl whispered, with neon blue eyes and a flushed, proud expression telling me that he already knew the answer. ‘I’ve never… well, you know… that was a first for me.’

  I chuckled breathily. ‘I can’t feel my legs,’ I said, and I knew that I was blushing like crazy. ‘So don’t put me down yet, okay? I’ll probably collapse.’

  Kohl’s eyes flashed and he hitched my legs around his hips, pressing me into the wall again and drawing my attention to the fact that something hot and silky was nuzzling my sex and straining for entry. ‘Well, I wasn’t intending to,’ he kissed me, and though I could taste myself on his lips, I was relieved that it wasn’t too bad, or as strong as his particular flavour had been. ‘In fact…’ he lifted is eyebrows in a silent question, and I swallowed hard, knowing that there was only one possible answer.

  But suddenly, there was a pounding on the door- loud enough to make me jump, and hard enough to rattle the oak in the frame. Both Kohl and I twisted to look at it, and though I couldn’t say for sure that the silhouette beyond the misted glass was Kohén’s, when he spoke, it left no doubt:

  ‘Larkin?’ Bang bang bang. ‘Larkin! Are you in there? What’s going on?’

  Oh no! How did he find us so quickly?

  ‘Oh my god!’ I turned back to Kohl, and suddenly, the ebbing aftershocks of my orgasm became an electric hiss of fear. ‘Kohl- his ring! The lock!’

  ‘Not to worry…’ Kohl released me, bent and retrieved the Yael flag from the floor. Unsuccessfully hitching his pants up a little higher, he dropped, rolled and came up against the door in one sexily fluid movement, before thrusting the pole and flag between both handles, wedging it shut. Grinning, he trotted back to me and kissed me roughly. ‘That ought to hold him!’

  I was both terrified and aroused, so though my lips trembled as I kissed him back, my fingers found the waist of his pants and began to tug them down. ‘That was pretty hot…’ I whispered. ‘If we were still going to get the chance to take the release exam- you would have kicked our asses in the athletic department!’

  ‘I know, right?’ Kohl moaned when I caressed his firm backside, tilting his face to the ceiling. ‘Mmm… I’ve been training with the intention of doing exactly that… oh god… your hands-’

  ‘So I can see…’ I ran my fingers up his back, and felt my excitement overcome my fear once more as I encountered slab after slab of solid muscle. ‘Have I ever mentioned that you’re hands down, the best-looking man on the face of the planet?’

  Kohl smirked at me. ‘Pretty big call for someone with an identical twin…’ But I shook my head.

  ‘No, I always thought you were on par too, but…’ my eyes drifted down his chest and I leaned down and kissed his golden pectoral, just above his heart before whispering: ‘There’s no competition, not now. I don’t know what it is that’s changed but…’ I tilted his face down and stroked his brow again, my eyes searching his. ‘You’ve not only got the better body, but before today- I thought that no one could look at me the way that Kohén did. Now…’ I swallowed. ‘You’re the glorious one, Kohl- there’s a light shining inside you now, and it’s going to blind me to every other man I’ll ever lay eyes on again, even him.’

  Kohl’s breathing was heavy, as were his eyelids. ‘Really?’ he whispered, and I was shocked to hear his voice catch on emotion.

  ‘Really,’ I leaned up and kissed him, and he moaned and hitched one of my knees around his hip again. ‘No one’s ever made me feel the way you’ve made me feel, since you locked the world out and took me in your arms.’

  Kohl moaned: ‘I love you so much!’ and then we were kissing again and the world was falling away. But-

  Bang, bang bang! ‘Larkin, answer me already! Is my brother in there with you? If he is, he’s a dead man, you hear me mate? DEAD!’

  My heart was going to fracture my ribs, but Kohl turned my face back to him and cupped my profile, shielding my peripheral vision and demanding my attention with his eyes. ‘Tell me that this is definitely what you want,’ he whispered fiercely, and I saw the uncertainty in his eyes- the fear that I was going to hate him for this tomorrow. ‘I’ll do anything to win your heart Larkin- and getting in trouble doesn’t phase me at all, okay? But this is your future that we’re talking about too, and your decision to make.’ He leaned in and kissed me. ‘I know that you’ve had moments of doubt concerning your feelings for us both, and I know that you feel guilty over the way you have strayed- but tell me now, in this moment that this connection between us is enough for you- that you’re ready to be bound to my side, regardless of where that leads us- and I swear on my life that you’ll never know a day of feeling neglected or unloved or as anything less than a diamond again-’

  Bang, bang, bang! ‘Open this door if you can hear me Larkin, NOW!’

  I sobbed and this time, I was the one who steered Kohl’s face back to mine. ‘Make love to me, and seal our fate,’ I whispered, swallowing hard as the guilt of betraying Kohén while he was right there threatened to undo me. I brushed my lips against Kohl’s. ‘Show him what happens, when you leave a woman no choice! And when you come…?’ I parted his lips with the tip of my tongue and then nibbled on his lush lower lip: ‘Come hard, and loud and inside me, please!’

  Kohl’s nostrils flared in tandem with his eyes, and then he lunged at me while emitting a noise that was more animalistic than angelic. He caught a fistful of my hair and then yanked my mouth to his for a deep kiss and I shivered again. We both groaned and then he reached between us with his other hand, and taunted my dripping, impatient sex by nudging the soft tip of his erection between my folds. A full-body shudder rocked me as I felt him part me and then press into me just enough so that I could feel his foreskin roll back.

  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…

  ‘You’re so wet- and hot!’ he gasped. ‘And your submission… you’re killing me, Larkin!’ He rested his forehead against mine, looking mournful. ‘I won’t last long inside you…’

  ‘We don’t have long!’ I was hyperventilating with trepidation and excitement. ‘Besides, you’ve been inside me since you slipped your perfect tongue into my mouth- and if you make me go more than a few heartbeats without pumping your hot, royal seed inside me, I will surely die anyway!’

  I only meant to tease him in an attempt to make light of my own all-consuming panic, but his eyes went black at my words, and I realised that I’d poured fuel onto some fireworks a heartbeat before he lit the match- and thrust forward into me with one violently hard strike.

  Ahhhhh!!!

  ‘I love you!’ Kohl slid up and into me with shocking force- enough to lift my supporting foot off the ground, and had a brief glimpse of the ecstasy on his face before my vision blurred with blackness. ‘God, yes!’ he roared to the ceiling in exultation, but despite all of my years of coaching, I couldn’t have swallowed back my blood-curling scream if I’d tried. He was so thick and long and I was so aroused, that instead of him having to work his way into me- he’d slid in and slammed into my hymen hard enough for me to feel exactly where it was inside me as it perforated. Kohl jerked at the sound that I’d made but that only made him bounce forward with his startle reflex and then throb inside me- expanding.

&nbs
p; ‘Larkin?’ There was more banging, but everything sounded like it was underwater. ‘Did you just scream? What is he doing to you?!’

  I attempted to twist away from Kohl before I could scream again, but there was no escaping my impalement and I thrust my fist into my mouth and bit down hard, trying to cause more pain somewhere else in the hope of being distracted by it, but that was an impossible feat.

  Oh heaven help me I’m DYING aren’t I? How could anyone survive this?!

  ‘Argh!’ Kohl grunted, and I felt him catch on something inside me and then smash through it and I could have thrown up from the pain. A second later, my brain shut down in an attempt to disassociate itself from the agony, and when I realised that I could not, I immediately went into shock, then straight from there to despair when I heard Kohl moan then felt him pull back in an attempt to retreat from my body- which betrayed me by constricting around him and refusing to release the source of my agony.

  Oh no! This is supposed to be a special, sensual moment and I just ruined it for him!

  I couldn’t help my reaction though, and I couldn’t hide the fact that I was dying from my murderer. And that was exactly what I’d just endured- the complete execution of my innocence.

  ‘Oh my God… oh my God!’ Kohl sounded anguished and my heart crumpled like balled paper in a guilty fist. ‘You’re in agony!’

  ‘I’m sorry- it’ll be okay though!’ I panted, lying through my teeth, hair follicles and eyelashes. ‘Just… go on!’ I tossed my head to the other side and sobbed, curling my fingers into the hard flesh of his back so he knew that I meant for him to do exactly that. ‘I’ll adjust! The guidelines said-’

  ‘Forget the guidelines!’ Kohl stilled inside me and cupped my face, looking anguished. ‘Larkin! You were still a virgin?!’

  I half-sobbed, half-laughed. ‘Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if I weren’t?’ there was more breath in my tone than pitch, so I gulped in more air. ‘Or that I’d be wearing your brother’s gold…?’

  But Kohl’s face crumpled, and my brain popped like a burst vessel as a swift, obscenely- hideous thought occurred to me- and then I saw his suddenly bright blue eyes well, and I immediately understood that the world was a more hideous place than I’d ever considered before.

  No! No, no, no, NO!

  In one heartbeat, I realised that his skin was a few shades lighter then it ought to have been, and his scent more lux- more like a midnight garden in full bloom in spring, than the sea. In the next, I moved my hand to brush his hair away from his ear and withered on the inside when I saw confirmation of my idiocy- in the form of a small golden stud blinking where my golden belly ring should have been.

  On the third beat, my heart failed me- leaving me dead in his arms; dead to the world… dead to everything I’d ever thought I’d known about my evil, conniving best friend.

  36.

  ‘No…’ I gulped, I curled my fingers into the prince’s shoulders, hard enough to break the skin, then gripped him and shook him with one hard, angry thrash. ‘NO! Oh my GOD!’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Kohén was Kohén that quickly, and the fact that he’d deceived me for even a second into believing that he was anyone else was so ridiculous that if there’d been a gun nearby, I would have pressed it to my temple and pulled the trigger to spare the world one more fool. ‘You have to know that I didn’t plan any of this-’

  ‘You switched clothes to deceive me!’ I wailed. ‘How is that not a plan?!’

  But Kohén shook his head, looking mournful. ‘No, I switched clothes with him while in a fraternal spirit, to give him a chance to wear the crown for once- to deceive my parents and do him a good turn.’ He looked anguished. ‘But then Kelia threw those letters at me, and so I came after him in a panic, and got kicked out of the family portrait… and I knew that I needed a minute to think things through before I committed regicide anyway, so I waited there. But-’

  ‘LARKIN? KOHÉN?!’ The glass in the door rattled as the entire thing was shaken furiously. ‘Open this NOW or-’

  ‘Or what?!’ Kohén pulled me off him, bundled me up in his arms and bent over, retrieving my dress and the pillowcase from the floor. A small black velvet bag fell out of his pocket so he cursed, ducked and collected that too, and then suddenly, we were on the move again and I was crying too hard into my hands to fight it. ‘Get out of here, you third-born sack of shit and let me finish making love to my girl, or I’ll show you the true meaning of: “Or else!”

  I sobbed, twisting back to look towards the door, but I only caught a fleeting glimpse of Kohl’s silhouette shrinking back from the still misted glass before another door swung open in front of my face and then closed again. The smell of coconuts, chlorine and the peach pool scent filled my head on my next inhalation, and though I wanted to do nothing more than dive out of Kohén’s arms and make a run for it, I heard the lock click again and knew that he was willing to go to far greater lengths to keep me in his grip than I was willing to go to, to escape him. I sagged, beaten, and he kissed my forehead and moved forward, resuming his soliloquy while I half-listened and half wondered what I’d have to endure before the chance to kill myself arose again.

  I’m done for! I am over! I was not hatching an escape plan with my dear friend Kohl, I was talking to myself exactly like a bird in a cage being fooled by a reflection!

  ‘... But then you came along, and you assumed that I was him just as my parents had, and… I’m sorry,’ he whispered again, adjusting my weight in his arms. ‘But… it was the only way I had of hearing your side of the story, without having to question if you were being honest or not after. And when you said that you belonged to Kohén and handed back that ring, I could have died from happiness!’

  ‘And yet you robbed me of my freedom anyway?’ I wept. ‘I haven’t even KISSED him, Kohén!’ I lifted my head from behind my hands and stared daggers into his eyes. ‘We ‘made love’ by touching a flower to one another’s mouths and chests, and that’s it! It was an inside joke!’

  ‘B-but, you said I was bigger than the last time!’ he pointed out, not even slightly winded from the task of running with an armful of whore and personal belongings. ‘And when I asked to make love to you again, you didn’t correct me! What the fuck was I supposed to think?’

  ‘I don’t care what you thought- it’s what you didn’t say that is killing me!’ I sobbed, pounding my fist against his chest. ‘I hate you! I have always, ALWAYS been faithful to you and yet, you scared me out of confronting you openly or running and now-’

  ‘I thought you had slept with him!’ Kohén retorted hotly. ‘And when I believed that, I very well would have punished you by taking what was mine back by force! In fact, it took every ounce of self-control I had not to turn around and knock you out for being a whore when I saw you in that hall Larkin!’ he raged, shaking me a little. ‘I could have killed you- and it sure felt like you’d ripped my heart out of my chest!’

  I remembered then- that hard, hateful look on his face when I’d run into him in the corridor and suddenly understood- I thought he’d been trying to hold in anger with his brother, but that anger had been for me! How he must have laughed on the inside, to hear me address him as Kohl- to reveal my hand and thrust the evidence of our affair right into his!

  ‘But I didn’t! I am innocent of breaking any laws and ended things with him when I realised that I was being untrue to myself, not just you! What do you THINK I wanted to explain to you today?’ I dropped my face into my hands again and sobbed, and I heard Kohén clear what sounded like a lump of dismay from his own throat. ‘I didn’t cheat on you. I loved you too much…’ I gulped back a sob and choked on it. ‘And so did he.’

  ‘I already said that I’m sorry!’ Kohén whispered huskily. ‘Please, don’t use the word ‘love’ in the past tense again! You cannot possibly hate me more than I hate myself right now!’

  ‘Don’t fucking count on it-’

  ‘No! I won’t hear of that!’ he bent and suddenly I was tu
mbling out of his arms and onto something soft while he was working his pants- Kohl’s pants- down his muscular thighs. I twisted my neck to look around, my heart skipping a beat when I realised that he’d taken me to the day bed that we used to lie on as kids. He intended on finishing this! Though I shouldn’t have been shocked, I was, but before I could move, he was tossing our things to the side and grasping my shoulders. ‘Love isn’t something you fall in and out of Larkin, it is a part of you that you surrender to someone else that you never get back!’ he sounded broken but I only wanted to shatter him more for it. How DARE he try and get poetic and wise now? ‘I know that what I did was wrong and yet, I don’t hear you apologising for writing love letters to him in the first place!’

  I glowered hatefully up into his perfect face. ‘Is the blood on your cock and the end of my freedom not PENANCE ENOUGH FOR YOU YOUR HIGHNESS?!’ I slapped him hard and then tried to pry his hands off my shoulders. ‘Let me go, now!’

  ‘No! You are mine!’ Kohén rested one knee on the edge of the bed, and pressed his hand to his heart. ‘I am sorry that I deceived you but I have saved you from an inspection and public humiliation all the same, and I did it because I know that I can save you! Because I know that I can make right all that we have done wrong! Because I love you- and because you love me!’ I tried to wriggle back, but he caught my ankles and dragged me toward him, until my backside was on the edge of the chaise and then pushed me down again, so that I was looking up at the constellations painted on the ceiling through the gauzy net over the day bed with a sinking heart. ‘You said that I was the most beautiful…’ he pressed kisses to the throbbing pulse in my throat, and though I writhed to escape his lips, he merely kissed whatever part of me was presented after- my shoulder, my hip, my elbow- the palm of my hand when I tried to push his face away. ‘The most athletic… that our connection in those few minutes overshadowed-’