by Evelyn Hill
I can’t find my breath, and suddenly feel faint.
3
“Shhhh…shhhhh…it’s okay,” Brom soothes, and it’s only then I realize I’m screaming, as if I were the one falling. I stop and catch my breath before saying, “Oh, oh, I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Sure you can. You must, Angel.” The sound of his voice, his confidence causes me to look from the ground (far, far away) back up to him.
Brom’s eyes are confident, but his body says desperate.
I gulp again and nod at him.
I can do this. I can do it. I can do it.
He groans and reaches one hand down towards me, and I speed up, focusing on his fingers. I want to touch them. I know I will be safe if only I can touch his hand.
I am up the ladder before I know it, clutching his strong hands.
He says, “Breathe.”
I do—in gulps.
“Shhh..shhh…shit, honey. I hadn’t realized you were so afraid.”
I breathe slower, in the nose, out the mouth, like he commands and ask, “What did you think I was afraid of?”
He smiles with a twinkle in his eye. “That someone would see up your skirt.”
“Oh.” I blush and glance back toward the forest. Was someone else out there? And then I think about it, I am wearing only a tiny white thong. If someone did happen by, sees us and wants to help…
He laughs. “Don’t worry. I’ve been here a long time and you were the first person to walk by.”
I nod and breathe. “Okay. Okay. So, now that I’m up here, what do you need me to do?”
The edges of his lips lift in a grin. “First, I’ll need my hand back.”
“Of course,” I say, but I miss his hand desperately when he withdraws it. He’s sweating, which makes his skin glossy like he’s been oiled up on the beach. The sun licks his muscles like a bitch in heat. I shouldn’t be thinking like this, not when he’s exhausted trying to hold up the light fixture.
Brom says, “Okay, I’m going to need the drill and the giant screws on the left of the belt.”
His palm reaches down and I hand him the drill. He adjusts the fixture and grunts as he holds the fixture in place with one hand while pushing in with the drill on the other. I search the tool belt and I think I find what he’s asking for. His hand lowers again. “Screw.”
He sounds like a surgeon asking the nurse for his instruments, only the way he says screw makes me feel wet in certain places the sun isn’t reaching. I hand him the screw and he’s grunting again with the drill.
“Another.”
I hand him another. And another. And soon he isn’t grunting under the weight of the heavy wrought iron fixture. “Lovely. Now I need a wrench.”
I swallow and examine the pouches. I pull out something that looks kind of wrench-ish and hand it to him.
When he responds, he sounds irritated. “No, those are pliers. I need a wrench. One handle with the twisty doo dad on top.”
“Oh, sorry.” I’m embarrassed. I take back the pliers, stuff it back into the pouch, and pull out something else that looks like what he describes. He takes it. “Good. Good.”
Phew.
I am aware now of the sun beating down on our skin, the shade of the forest doesn’t touch the top of the tower. It’s hot and I think my skin is burning despite the deep tan I’ve worked up from sunbathing at the lake the last few weeks. I’m afraid my sweaty hands will slip from the iron steps, so I grip the sides tightly. I’m also feeling lightheaded again.
He hands back down the wrench. “Hammer, please.” His voice is gentler now.
I hand him the hammer. And he bangs on something for a while. “Close, close—Level?”
I am clueless now. “What?”
“The level. It’s long…”
Is he long? And then I push the thought away as he finishes.
“Like a long ruler.”
I find it quickly and hand it up to him. He hammers more.
He hands it back down and I put it away. I scan the tools, waiting for him to say something more, but he doesn’t. Finally, I look up at him and he’s staring at me, a bewildered look on his face.
“What?” I say. Did he ask me for something and I didn’t hear? I feel I might faint from the sun.
He says, “You want to go up?”
“Up?”
He smiles, a devious look in his eye. “On top of the tower.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” I say. “I’d rather be on the ground again.”
He says, “If you can make it up, I know an easier way down.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me in the first place?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You’ve got spunk, Angel. Come on.”
He takes a few steps up the ladder, plants his hands on the ledge of the building and pulls himself up to the smooth stone.
I follow, slowly, hesitatingly, not wanting to slip or drop his tool belt. While waiting, he watches me. “Mr. Wolfe is out of town today. We can get down the stairs inside the tower to the door that will let us out, but it’s locked from the outside.”
When I get close to the top, I start to panic. I’m not strong enough to pull myself over the ledge. Surely, I will fall to my death!
I’m about to tell Brom I can’t do it, that I’ll take my chances going down the ladder, when he reaches down and wraps his large, strong hands around my rib cage. He doesn’t ask, but with a grunt, lifts me straight up into the air and over the ledge of the tower.
“OH!” I say. For a moment, I feel like I’m flying. I bend my knees as they come up over the edge, but my foot catches and we go sprawling across the tower stones.
He wraps his arms about me protectively, and I land on top of him. The tool belt flies off me, and lands beside us. Tools scatter everywhere. My legs and arms wrap about him for dear life. I press my face into his chest. “Oh god. Oh god.” But he’s laughing, his hands spanning down the length of my back, and gripping my hips.
The scent of his sweaty skin makes me moan. My heart is beating a hundred miles an hour from the adrenaline rush. I say into his chest. “I could have died. You could have dropped me.”
His face is in my hair, breathing deeply. “I wouldn’t have let my Angel fall. No way.”
I pull my face out of his chest and look up at him. He tenderly brushes tendrils of red hair out of my face.
Our mouths are close. We are breathing heavy, in sync, and I can feel something harden between my spread-eagle thighs.
He grins.
I grin back and sit myself up on his hips. His hands fall to my buttocks casually, then back up to my waist.
I say, “Well, that was an adventure.”
He doesn’t respond. His eyes are trained on my chest. His mouth is open in a ravenous O. I glance down. My tube top has fallen to my waist. My breasts are full and pert, nipples standing out to say hello.
4
“Oh my god.” I snatch up my top and stand.
His hand lingers on my thighs before letting me go. He stands too, without looking at me, and starts to collect tools and put them back in his belt.
I pick up his hammer and when I glance at him, his eyes are back on me. I offer the hammer and he takes it. “Two hammers, huh?”
“Never know when I’ll need a spare.” The look on his face is serious. Sexy. He continues to pick up tools and says, “I promised Mr. Wolfe I’d install the fixture up in my spare time. He’s had problems with kids coming out here at night. Graffiti and what not.”
“So, he contracted it out to you?”
“No. He couldn’t afford a contractor, so I offered to do it for free.”
I wander over to the giant brick chimney. It is nostalgic, beautiful against the blue sky. “You risked your life for nothing?”
He laughs and shrugs. “No, no…I get rabbit stew out of the deal.”
I look at him suspiciously. “So, you’re a hunter?”
“I’m not, but he is. An excellent one at that. Whic
h is why I’m a fan of his stew.”
I say, “That’s very kind of you to help him out. How do you know Mr. Wolfe? Is he an elderly gentleman?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You know, I’ve never actually seen him.”
“No?”
“I came out here to camp by the stream one night and stumbled onto his camp. It was dark out, too dark to see. I saw a pot over the fire, and I heard his voice from the trees, inviting me to eat. We chatted for a while, and I decided I liked him.”
“Don’t you feel like it was weird you didn’t see him?”
“He was sitting in a tree, looking at the stars. That didn’t seem strange to me. There was something otherworldly about him, sad and lonely. I don’t know what to say, I liked the guy.”
“How does he contact you to do the work?”
Brom raised his eyebrow at me. “Phone, silly.”
“Oh,” I blush. “Of course.” But still, this Mr. Wolfe seemed suspicious to me. Brom had never actually seen him. Could he be the Rose Beast?
I said, “Have you heard the rumors about this place?”
“Rumors?” he asked.
I grinned at him. “The Rose Beast?”
Brom grinned and waved his hand. “Sure, I’ve heard. Hasn’t everybody?”
“Aren’t you curious if Mr. Wolfe is…”
“Seriously? The Rose Beast is just an old fairy tale… Mr. Wolfe told me this place was built a long, long time ago by an old man with an obsession with castles.”
I bite my lip and glance down. “My aunts told stories of the Rose Beast—that he had a dungeon.”
“Where he cherry-popped maidens.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what he did?”
Brom grinned like a wolf. “That’s not all he did.”
I glance away quickly, but couldn’t help but grin back. I change the subject. “Why do you think he’s called the Rose Beast?”
“Are you kidding me?” Brom nods towards the clearing, and from the top of the tower, I can see them. Hundreds of pink wild roses climb each other like a fence, bordering the castle like a moat.
“Wow,” I say, “they’re beautiful.”
“Apparently, the beast has a thing for roses, literally and…” He gazed at me. “Metaphorically.”
He notices me standing against a chimney that rises into the middle of the tower, a serious look takes over Brom’s playful one.
He drops the tool belt.
I feel a firefly race up my chest, then down to my stomach. Why is he looking at me that way?
He takes off his grungy white shirt and I can’t breathe. His chest is chiseled like smooth stone. He wipes the shirt against his face. “It gets hot as fuck out here.”
I gulp and touch my collarbone as he approaches.
He tilts his head to the side. “Do you know what I mean?”
I am breathing heavy again. “Oh yeah.”
He steps close to me, closer.
He grips my chin gently, oh so gently. Our eyes meet. I see fire in his. Feel fire in mine.
He doesn’t even need to ask, his lips do the speaking as they dip to mine. Sunshine liquid dips between my lips as his hands grip my hips and lifts me. I respond by pressing my body into him. Delicious flames lick up and down my skin, and he lifts me until I feel his hard erection pressing into me through his dirty jeans.
I eagerly kiss him back, and moan when his lips leave mine and he nibbles down my jaw line, lingering at my collarbone, before pressing me up against the brick chimney, and used his free hand to softly draw down my tube top.
My breasts heave at his touch. My nipples are engorged and sensitive as hell.
He ducks his head, his lips brushing my right nipple. A groan leaves his mouth as his tongue encircles me, before slowly lapping. Harder. Harder. And then he nips, and I cry out with pleasure as he sucks on my nipple while grasping and fondling the other. He then moves to my left breast, his tongue whirls on my nipple and his teeth gently tug. It sends vibrations through my body; fire flows through my veins ending in the wet hot valley between my legs. He gently lowers me until my bare feet touches the tower top. He kneels, pulling my tube top down over my stomach, hips, thighs…licking my skin the whole time. He drops it at my ankles over my hips, then lifts my legs and wraps them over his shoulders as he kisses the triangle of my tiny white thongs. His tongue flicks in and out, rubbing over the silk of the fabric, teasing me.
Oh, god, I’m cumming…and then he pushes the fabric aside and eats me like I’ve never been before.
He’s a licker and a biter.
Neither the baker nor the pirate has anything on the skills of this handy man.
My whole body convulses and I squeeze my thighs as he eats me like it’s his last. I gush into his mouth and I feel his Adam’s apple swallow against my thighs. He slowly lowers my legs, still pressing, no…nailing…me against the chimney bricks.
He yanks down my thong panties as I undo his belt and jeans, letting the snap off. His pants and boxers fall to the ground.
And hello sunshine, is his tool ever waiting to be put to work.
He kisses me again, a ravenous hungry wolf. He dips to my breast squeezing, grazing them with his tongue before flipping me over against the chimney wall. He draws up both my arms and pushes them above my head. I feel him place something between them. It’s the hammer, I had handed him.
“Hold that for me, Angel.”
He presses his hands against my stomach down to the inside of my thighs, his forefinger finding the hot throbbing bead of me.
His erection pokes between my ass cheeks and I almost scream from pleasure. I want him inside me, need him inside me.
It’s as if he’s read my mind again. His hands slip up to my hips, and his cock is thrusting between my thighs, rubbing on my clit before entering me fully. And that’s when I scream, not as if I were losing my life, but finding it.
He thrusts slowly at first, filling me, his balls gently slapping my cheeks. I hold his hammer high above my head, squirming against the rough stone that feels like one giant rough tongue.
His hands wander up my body, cupping my breasts, he thrusts into me—hard.
I groan. “Harder.”
He gyrates his powerful hips, nailing my whole body against the chimney wall as his hands squeeze my nipples.
He pushes harder and harder, and I feel helpless as I grip his “tool” above my head, I lean my hips, smacking into his as he glides in and out, smooth as a locomotive. The crown of him is engorged, huge, and it rubs against my clit every time he moves.
I’m riding him, higher, higher, the feel of his balls slapping against me harder, harder. I look up to the white clouds riding the blue atmosphere like Psyche riding Cupid into the twilight and suddenly I’m screaming, falling…falling down that ladder supported only by pleasure pulsing through every limb of my body.
I feel him groan and he bursts into me.
He slows and I ride him back down to the chimney. He takes the hammer from my hands and rubs it over my breasts…down to my sex.
“What are you—” But I don’t need to finish. He’s rubbing the round iron head inside me. Our blended juices making it slip-slidey all over my clit, back and forth, round and round in circles. I feel pleasure mounting again inside.
He slips two fingers inside me, while titillating my sex with the hammer’s iron knob. He moves gently, confidently, and soon I am riding the clouds again, my hips bucking. I’m grabbing his hair, his broad shoulders, he’s licking my breasts as if they were strawberry ice cream and I explode.
He lets me fall against him, and drops the hammer off to the side. He picks me up, cradling my naked body in his huge arms. He kisses my forehead.
I say, “Do you give all the girls the hammer treatment.”
He laughs and says, “No. Only angels.”
I giggle back and say, “I’ll never look at tools the same again.” I glance up at the sky. “Or heights.”
He smiles. “Both are good
in the right circumstance.”
I put my finger on his lower lip. “Very, very good.”
He says, “What’s your name, Angel?”
I smile. “Iris.”
“Nice to meet you, Iris.” He sets me down gently and hands me my dress, which I squirm into quickly.
I hear a wolf howl in the distance and I touch Brom’s arm. “Do you hear that?”
He picked up his white t-shirt and shimmied into it. “Sure. It’s that old black wolf that lives out here. Last of his kind is what I heard.”
I was relieved Brom told me that. The creature I saw at the stream earlier was real…it wasn’t my imagination. “I saw it earlier at the stream.”
“What? The wolf?”
“Yes. It growled at me.”
“Hmm…” Brom frowns. “You need protection when you are in the woods alone.”
Chills crawl down my spine.
When I look at him, he’s finished dressing. He’s holding my panties in his mouth. Around them he says, “I’ve got a mind to keep these.”
I laugh and snatch them away. “I don’t think so.”
He slips his tool belt over his shoulder. The hammer he gives to me, in case I ever need a tool. I blush and accept.
He says, “On a brighter note, how about accompanying me to town and I buy ice cream for the angel who saved me?”
5
When we get to town, his truck is parked at the edge of the woods, near the path I like to take. I shake my head hardly believing that hours before I was looking for a little bakery.
He says, “Hop in. I know this great little place right outside Blush.”
I hop in and we drive through town. I roll down the window and enjoy the cool wind on my face.
Brom pulls into the parking lot of a little shop. It looks busy and happy faces bop between windows. Children race in and out, waving melting ice cream cones around.
I am startled when I see the sign. The shop is called, “Enchanted Evenings ~ Bakery, Chocolates, and Ice cream.”
My stomach flutters with butterflies. The sign is made of dark wood with gold scroll, mysterious, romantic…like Antonio.
