by Lisa Hughey
Shasa’s hand fell away from his sleeve. Now he could concentrate on Uri.
“Umm,” Uri grabbed his hair, longer than ever, in his giant fists and then banged his hands against his skull. “I don’t know.”
Zach was reeling. Uri didn’t know who he was?
Shasa sighed breathily. “I’m sorry.” And she crumpled to the smoking ground.
Zach’s heart stopped in his chest. Shasa. Fuck, no. He dropped to his knees and clutched her in his arms.
“Fuck,” he roared. He’d been so intent on Uri that he hadn’t paid enough attention to Shasa. “Not again.”
Michael looked at him sharply.
“I’ve got to save her.” He knew he looked like a wild man. Shasa was cradled against his chest, her breath shallow as her lungs barely expanded in short labored gasps.
“What does she need?”
What did she need? Her skin was sallow, gray, tight against her bones and her hair was singed from the strain of pulling the liquid needed to extinguish the raging fire.
He pressed his forehead to hers, while his heart thundered, and he frantically searched for a remedy. Her body was clearly in a state of extreme distress.
Shasa hung limply in his arms. His feelings of inadequacy threatened to overwhelm him. His panic filled him making it hard to think.
Her pulse was high and frantic in the hollow of her throat. Completely at odds with her lifeless form.
“Think, Zach,” he muttered.
He could think of only one thing that might save her.
Water. She needed water. “Water.” The Realm pool with its healing properties. “The Realm pool.”
“I’ve got Uri.” Michael ordered, “Go.”
Thirteen
Jamaica
June 6, 1692
Shasa scurried through the palm trees that edged the sandy path. Vegetation brushed at her skirts, the fruity floral scent of mountain sweet cup perfumed the heavy, humid air as she silently slipped toward their meeting place.
She was late to their rendezvous. It was almost as if Maman had understood what Shasa intended this night. She prayed that Zach was already there.
Shasa couldn’t hear anything over the beating of her heart. The organ boomed so loudly in her chest that if someone were following her she wouldn’t know it. Her fingers shook as she pushed aside the fronds of a low growing fern. Anticipation buzzed in her bloodstream as each step brought her closer and closer to her dream.
Zach.
He was her dream. Her freedom. Zach allowed her to be herself. He treated her with respect and care. Tonight she would gift him with her virginity. She had waited so long, hiding from the patrons of her mother’s tavern when their drunken hands wandered a little too close to intimate places she had not granted permission to touch, sequestering herself when the Port’s suppliers came to deliver their goods to the tavern or when the visiting sailors leered just a little too friendly like.
She had been saving herself for one who would care for her. One who would treat her like a proper lady. One who would cherish her. And she had found him.
Shasa slid along the moonlit path, her confidence growing with each forbidden step. This was right. Zach was right.
Even the place was right. To lay with him by the ocean, her refuge with her true companions, the fish and the sea turtles and the gulls, seemed more than fitting. She wanted their joining to be perfect. To be everything she had dreamed of while cleaning the chamber pots and preparing the nightly stew and pulling drafts.
Shasa paused at the edge of the clearing. The full moon spread it’s light along the shoreline and shimmered over the gently crashing waves. The wildlife was strangely silent as Shasa stepped toward her secret cove.
He wasn’t there.
For a brief moment, disappointment curled through her. But he would come. She knew he would.
The basket of delicacies and ale she’d brought was heavy in her arms. Once she reached her secret spot, she set the basket in the sand and spread out the quilt. Nerves skittered along her spine as she waited, the surety that had propelled her through the forest faded with the waning moon, as surely as the sounds from the town had faded with each step toward the ocean.
Finally, she heard someone coming.
The furtive sounds as they moved along the path struck a chord of fear in her. What if the person approaching wasn’t Zach? What had possessed her to come out to the beach alone this late at night? She was vulnerable in this secluded cove. Shasa panicked, heart thudding in her chest. She grabbed a thick branch and swung the stick in front of her, as if she were clearing the path of snakes, ready to defend herself.
She refused to be a victim. She’d survived this long without becoming a casualty of the ready violence that plagued her town. The rustling of the plants had quieted as if the intruder were trying to be stealthy. Shasa readied for whoever came into the clearing. As soon as the man stepped out of the wooded path, she swung the branch at his ankles. He flew onto his back.
He landed with a strangled oof. “If you changed your mind, all you had to do was tell me,” Zach said wryly as he sat up and rubbed his back.
“Zach.” She dropped to her knees next to him, the branch still clutched in her tightly-clenched fingers. “I’m sorry.”
He gently removed her fingers from around the branch and tossed the weapon into the trees. “Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t know it was you.” Shasa moaned.
“I’m glad you’re finally taking my worries about your safety seriously.” Zach brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, and cupped her cheek in his palm. “I wish you would let me escort you.”
“Maman is too strict.” Shasa knew her mother only wanted to protect her but she didn’t want to be protected any more. She wanted passion. With Zach.
“At least let me follow home.” He leaned toward her and brushed his lips against hers. The contact sizzled through her body, fizzing in her blood like the champagne the French sailors brought with them, making her fingers and toes buzz with anticipation. She pressed into him gripping his shoulders through the fine lawn shirt, wishing he would ravish her here and now.
She bumped his nose with hers in her haste to get closer.
“Shh,” he whispered. He leapt to his feet and away from her. “You brought a picnic?”
Butterflies fluttered in her tummy now that the moment had arrived. What if she were wrong? What if he wasn’t the one? What if that slight distance between them was what he really wanted? Except, why spend time with her then?
Zach eased her down onto the blanket and flipped open the basket. He pulled out the cheese, a fine French brie, she had pilfered from her mother’s pantry and bread she’d baked this morning. Zach asked her questions about her day as he spread the soft cheese over the bread and then gently nudged her lips with the delicacy.
Shasa savored the expensive treat. The sweet cream melted in her mouth and she hummed with the simple pleasure. Zach carried the other piece to his lips and tasted, his white teeth bit in the exact spot she had put her mouth.
“Mmm. This is quite good.” Zach smiled, but it was wistful. “You cannot fathom how much this pleases me.”
She wanted to wipe that melancholy from him, to have him leave behind whatever was troubling him. Shasa tugged several grapes from the bunch and beckoned with an arched brow for him to lean closer. She put a purple grape in her mouth but didn’t swallow. Instead, she leaned forward until their mouths met. Zach hesitated, his actions tentative. Then as if he broke, he sucked the grape from between her lips and licked the juice from her chin.
A happier smile spread over his face and he seemed to finally completely relax. They laughed and giggled, teasing like intimate lovers, with bread and cheese and ale until their midnight repast was merely crumbs.
The anxiety that had caused her to fumble and to take up the branch had blown away like an insubstantial skiff caught in the tropical trade winds.
With a slow wicked smile
, Zach brushed away imaginary crumbs, his thumb sweeping back and forth slowly over her cheekbone then swooping to slide against her lips. With every lazy caress of his thumb over her mouth, expectation sizzled in her blood, setting the nerves in her body ablaze with a sensual heat.
He seduced her with gentle touches and subtle caresses until she was near to begging for his touch. He would take care with her. She knew this with every fiber of her being. For every bawdy innuendo and impudent squeeze she’d endured in the pub, he wiped away the taint with his reverent touch.
“You are so sweet,” he murmured against the shell of her ear.
The puff of his breath tickled her insides, and she turned her head flirtatiously. “You are too kind.”
Moonlight shifted over the planes of his serious face, a sinister expression in his gaze as his mouth firmed. “Do not ascribe a finer, more gentlemanly code to me.”
“But—”
“I do not wish to hurt you,” he said near desperately. “You will only be disappointed.”
“Never.”
“I should go.”
Go? His words weren’t leading where she wanted.
“Don’t.” She couldn’t stand it, she begged, “Please, Stay with me, take the gift I am giving to you. Take this for me.”
“I am not good for you.”
“What nonsense is this?”
“I will hurt you.” Shadows darkened his eyes, concealed his gentler nature, and she knew a moment’s fear. The sadness from earlier was back. But she brushed the worry aside. He would not hurt her.
Hadn’t he done everything he could to protect her?
“I—”
She shushed him the only manner left to her. Shasa pressed her lips to his, wanting to stop his torment and end this evening tryst with the only outcome that mattered to her.
With a renewed purpose, she placed her palm against the hard curve of his shoulder and pressed him down into the sand. Like a hoyden, she crawled atop him near moaning at the evidence of how much he wanted her.
His cock strained proud and thick against her stomach.
Zach lifted his hands and she worried that he would push her away. Instead he cupped her buttocks in his large palms, and rolled them both over, so they lay on the blanket, side by side.
Her relief at his action pricked tears in her eyes. She’d thought for a moment that he would push her away and she couldn’t bear it. She had waited a lifetime for this very moment.
Shasa loosed the string of his breeches as his mouth devoured hers. With every light brush of her fingers against him, his hips rocked into her hand.
She thrilled at his obvious arousal. But she wanted him to touch her. Really touch her.
Shasa arched her back, begging for his lover’s touch. Needing some affirmation that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She’d heard enough from her mother to know that some men just wanted for themselves, rather than wanting to please their partner. But she knew Zach wouldn’t be that selfish. She needed to convince him that she wanted to be touched.
“Please, Zach.” she murmured against his lips. “Touch me.”
The moonlight limned the aristocratic lines of his cheek and nose, shimmering on the rueful curve of his mouth. “I cannot hold back any longer.”
With infinite delicacy he circled her ankle with his strong masterful fingers. The deliciously inappropriate touch was more arousing than she would have guessed. Heat, love shimmied through her body, the moonlight like wine and his lover’s touch like the finest rum. She was drunk on him.
Shasa lifted her leg as his fingers dragged firmly up her calf, lingering with soft swirls along the back of her knee. As her mouth sought his again, his fingers began another leisurely foray, edging closer to her mons.
He traced patterns across the inside of her thighs, firm from her toil in the pub, as his fingers crept ever nearer to her sex. She held suspended afraid to move, lest he stop his skillful strumming of her leg, until finally, finally he brushed his fingers against the curls of her sex.
“Ah sweet, you are wet for me.” His fingers lingered against her sensitive button.
She had no idea what he meant, but she prayed he wouldn’t stop whatever he was doing to her. Her breasts were tight with need, aching for the press of his hands or even more wishful, his mouth. The music of the birds in the trees was a background song for the breathy moans and soft sighs he plucked from her.
“Zach.” She pushed into his fingers but he retreated, teasing her with the light contact.
“What do you want, sweet?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly, do I?” she replied crossly.
A soft laugh rumbled from deep inside his belly, vibrating against her most sensitive breasts and arousing her further.
With a slick move, he parted her skirts and rolled her onto her back.
His breeches were undone and his rod sprung from a nest of curls, proud and thick and....
“You’re very big.” A hint of fear lingered in her voice. How would that ever fit?
“It is your first time?”
She nodded her gaze still trapped by the bobbing bulbous head of his cock. A drop of liquid pearled on the tip and instinctively she licked her lips.
Zach groaned. “Gods, you are responsive.”
With gentle fingers he unhooked the buttons of her bodice, while his other hand played with her sex, stroking and fondling her. Preparing her for his entry. Preparing her for his engorged staff.
When her dress and shift were splayed open and her skirts parted, Zach rolled over her onto his elbows. Their bodies aligned just as she’d imagined while frolicking in the ocean.
Except the reality was so much...more. A hint of a hibiscus floated on the breeze that cooled the sweat from her skin. Waves lapped against the shore, advancing and retreating, somewhat like his fingers.
“I should not do this.”
“Please, Zach,” she begged.
“I cannot deny you.” He groaned and then murmured against his lips, “I will try not to hurt you.”
And then he was there. At the entrance, that slick place that had welcomed his fingers, softened and readied for his cock. She marveled at the strange heat of him as his cock rubbed against her button.
Then he slid partway inside.
“Oh,” the feeling of fullness, of stretching as he inserted himself inside her was uncomfortable. It burned. What was this?
“Hold on sweet.” He panted. “It will get better.”
But she wanted the burning to go away. He rocked his hips away from her and the burning, stretching sensation eased, but then he was invading her body again. This time further. It still hurt but that painful feeling lessened as he held still above her.
“Is that it then?” She asked breathless and yet still wanting something. Still feeling curiously empty.
“Not quite yet.” He slid back out of her. Her heart filled with joy and love as he left her body, but then he rocked back inside. This time even further and the burning was back.
“I don’t quite know what all the fuss is about,” she groused. This was not pleasurable at all.
“Give me a minute or two.” The slide of his cock in and out of her body continued. Each time he eased in just a little further, until all at once his staff was all the way inside her channel. He held there, letting her body adjust.
“So this is it then,” she said again, unaccountably disappointed. His thick cock pulsed inside her, throbbing with a restrained energy.
Then he started to move. His cock touched some secret place deep inside her body. Her womb contracted around him and the tingle and sizzle and excitement her body had experienced before he entered her began to build again. His chest rubbed against her breasts, abrading her nipples and the contact shot bolts of lust to her suddenly buzzing sex.
It was as if her body was being sensually pulled in many conflicting directions. The press of his mouth against hers, the slick slide of his thick muscled chest against her nipples, the giv
e and take of his sex sliding in and out of her, his hairy legs against her softer inner thighs.
The heavy thickness of his cock split her wide. Arousal and love welled up inside her like a tidal wave and overwhelmed her as he murmured endearments in her ear. His muscled arms caged her in a protective embrace against the soft blanket.
Noise rushed in her ears, lights sparked behind her eyes, and all the new wondrous feelings rushed to her core. She strained against his body, as her channel contracted around him and she catapulted into an explosion that struck her deaf and dumb. She was one vibrant splatter of sensation. His cock swelled impossibly larger until he curled into her, his cock pulsed against her walls. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, and his arms cradled her as they found completion together.
As she plunged from the precipice and tumbled into the abyss, she fell in love with her first lover with everything in her heart.
***
Present day
Angelic Realm
Zach translocated straight to the Realm pool. He adjusted the temperature from his usual frigid cold to a therapeutic warmth. Scented steam rose from the water as he carefully walked down the steps, until both he and Shasa were completely surrounded by the healing water. He transformed her clothing away, believing that the more skin to liquid contact she had the faster she would heal.
He needed to submerge as much of her body as possible. He let her limbs fall beneath the surface careful to keep her head from going under and held her in his arms. Her head lolled in the crook of his neck, her breath puffed against his skin.
Every small exhale filled him with profound gratitude.
Zach wasn’t sure what to do and he absolutely hated the feeling. Hated it. The wrong choice could propel Shasa toward a crueler illness, sicken her further. He thought submersing her was the right choice. The restorative water should infuse her with strength and reinforce her Vis viva energy.
Her nudity was seriously messing with his concentration. He hadn’t thought about the consequences of having her naked in the pool. Naked. Zach tried to ignore her sleek, supple body as the water caressed her brown skin like a lover.
