So, this little plot bunny bounced around in my head last night, so I typed out a few paragraphs--that turned into three chapters. Its only going to be three chapters, and they're relatively short. I just needed a break from the Escaping storyline (for those of you following Escaping, there will be a final chapter--more of an epilogue--but the right inspiration hasn't come to me, yet. Be patient).
I intentionally left some of this vague, and the storyline never really had a backstory. Its probably the most mary-sue thing I've ever written, but we're all allowed to indulge a little. Its also the most angsty thing I've ever written, and probably a product of my mood.
Anyways, hope you enjoy it, short as it is. I'll be posting the last two chapters in the next couple of days.
Let me know what you think.
CA
He was smirking at her, she knew. There was no other word for that half-smile he sent her way from time to time—mostly when she was stumbling through the initial fog to find him. She was always searching for him, always rounding trees and ducking under low-hanging branches in order to satisfy the call he was emitting from his very being.
When she finally came upon him, he was leaning against the wide trunk of a tree so tall she almost couldn't see the canopy above. The shadow, however, was present, and his golden hair shimmered even in the dim light. Straightening, she approached him, holding out a hand for him to grasp. It never failed, the electricity coursed through her body every time their skin touched, starting in the very tips of her fingers and spreading through her limbs to pool in her torso, holding her here and forcing her gasp for breath.
"I missed you," he intoned, a statement and a warning.
She couldn't help that she didn't sleep well, given the circumstances, but she couldn't tell him that—she didn't even know if he was real. It was becoming a more and more rare thing for her to sleep deep enough that she could find him.
"I'm sorry," she replied, "But I'm here now, aren't I?" She looked up at him from beneath her lashes.
His head tilted slightly, sending his hair over his shoulder to brush against her cheek. "I suppose you are." His gaze turned tender, his hand moving to cup her chin and angle her face for a kiss. Several more kisses followed, each deeper than the last. He pulled away, breathing hard, "You must sleep more, you need the rest." He slid down the tree, keeping her steady above him on the way down.
Settling on her knees, she allowed a smile to spread over her mouth, "I am sleeping," she said with a kiss. "See, sleep."
Closing her eyes, she laid her forehead on his shoulder, sinking into his embrace. Inhaling, she savored that scent that was uniquely his—leather and rain, and leaves, all rolled into one succulent bouquet.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her neck, fingers tracing a pattern over her spine. Over and over he let his hands make the trek over her body, sliding under the fabric of her shirt to slide against her skin. She kept her hands still, for the most part, only allowing the smallest movements of her index finger, feeling the incredible softness of his skin and sighing.
When at last he grew impatient (it was becoming easier and easier to test his control), he lifted her face and pressed a soft but insistent kiss to her mouth, his tongue slipping between her lips to mingle with her own. It was a new kind of kiss for him, she remembered. The first time she'd nipped at his mouth and slid her tongue along his teeth, he'd been shocked, speechless. And then he set diligently about the task of learning all the intricacies of her mouth.
It seemed that what they did best was to teach each other—he taught her how to make a fire from nothing more than wood and a piece of string (a talents she had yet to master, but he indulged her), she taught him how loosen the guards he'd held up so hard when they'd first met. They were fairly matched; she would say, but for one area. It seemed so effortless for him to bring her to a quivering puddle of satiation, a touch, a kiss, was usually all it took to dampen her underwear. At times she wondered if she'd put up any fight at all, initially.
All so suddenly, her shirt was off and her pants opened, pulled down slightly, and her back was pressing against the cool moss of the forest floor. He leaned over her, pressing kisses down her chest, abdomen, and thighs, sliding the material of her pants down as he went. Breathing hard, her hips flexing ever so slightly in invitation, she waited for him to finish disrobing. When he pressed her thighs apart with his knees, she sucked in a breath, hoping he'd give her some mercy from the heat coiling in her stomach. But he seemed in no rush, resting against her, but not entering, pressing tiny kisses along her jaw, her cheeks, her mouth.
"Please," she breathed, lifting her hips and arching her back.
Groaning, he reached down and guided himself inside, pushing with agonizing slowness until he rested at the hilt. His rhythm was slow, his crystalline eyes closing with concentration. Dear God, she thought, he's determined to go slow. She was too eager for him, slow just wouldn't do. She wanted release, and she wanted him to bring her there quickly. Tightly, she flexed her inner muscles, timing the squeeze so that he felt the pulse along each thrust. As expected, he moaned lowly, hips losing their beat for the breast of moments, before leaping forward hard.
He gripped her knee pulling her thigh around his waist and lifting her hips, creating a new, deeper angle that sent tingles up and down her spine in time with his movements. She was barreling towards orgasm and, from the sounds issuing forth from his throat, so was he. A few more, well-timed, squeezes, and her womb was trembling with her release, and exhalation of her stress and a deepening of her feelings for him. He followed swiftly behind, his teeth catching her lip and pulling her up for a hard kiss.
There was barely enough time to bask in the afterglow before she was being pulled back through the fog, her arms unable to hold to his form long enough for her to tell him she loved him. There was never enough time, never enough moments between the beginning and the end for her to tell him anything. Her heart broke from it every time
Opening her eyes to the dull gray morning, Marie rolled over in her cot, the blanket scratching at her cheek, so thin that it barely kept the cold from seeping into her bones. She rolled to her back and exhaled loudly, looking up to the barred windows and wondering, not for the first time, if she was going crazy. It was entirely possible. For six months she'd been dreaming of him, ever since she'd been dropped into this hell hole they called Rohan.
At first, it had been easy to blend in; the women here were not subordinated as she had heard practiced in other countries. But she had no protection, and, after a night trying to work her way through waiting tables at what she guessed was the town's version of a bar, she'd had to use a blade (small, but sharp nonetheless) on a man who got just a little too frisky.
The trial, if it could be called one, was swift; barely an hour passing before she was sentenced to hard labor. But it couldn't have stopped there—no, the guards had to be just as underhanded and malicious as the guy at the bar, and once again her self-defense had earned her a trial before a group of her so-called peers. This one took even less time. A life for a life, they said, and then she'd been sentenced to hang a few weeks later at the spring festival. The people, she guessed, were waiting anxiously for that day, and probably as bloodthirsty as her judges.
Tears leaked from her eyes, she missed home. Home, where there was satellite TV, and cell phones, and fucking lawyers to defend her. Wiping angrily at her eyes, Marie stood, stretching her aching muscles against the bars of her cell, her eyes taking in the other sleeping prisoners, gathered together in a cell opposite her.
She had been put in a cell all her own, they thought her too much a threat. She scoffed; did people not defend themselves here? Was violence such an accepted practice that the citizens had become desensitized to the bloodshed? No, that couldn't be right, they had been decidedly shocked at her little incident—she was a woman, they'd said. Did women actually have it in them to kill? Apparently, they did—her brows furrowed, women were soldiers here, and how could they have been so shocked?
Marie shook her head, it was all a conspiracy, and it had to be. Someone had it out for her, though she had no idea who. She'd kept a low profile the whole time, not uttering one word about her home, or, if she did, giving vague details and deflecting questions until they lost interest.
She was going to die; there was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She was going to hang like some centuries-old felon. Slamming her hands against the bars, Marie let out a groan of frustration—she just wanted to go home, and to forget everything that had happened in the last six months. Well, maybe not everything. The dreams were nice, when she was able to sleep deeply enough to have them. He, whoever he was, was like some guardian angel that kept her sane—and aroused, it seemed—when her entire world was crumbling beneath her.
The Spring festival was a week away, she had heard. Leaning against the bars, and threading her arms through them so that they hung into the center aisle, Marie made the decision to try to sleep through the next week.