Saved Between the Sheets: An Anthology of Stories that Get to the Point

by R. M. Walker

  A low growl escaped him as he attacked my mouth with renewed vigor. Behind me, James' hands skirted my thighs as he undid the buckles strapping the daggers to my body. I upped the pace of my strokes as Éloi started to jerk in my grip. He was close. It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge now.

  My daggers hit the floor with a thud as James reached under my skirt and pulled down my panties. Massaging Éloi's balls, I took up short fast strokes to his head, an unsolicited groan dragging from his throat.

  I moaned as James laid his mouth to my sex, his tongue delving into my folds. Éloi's jerks came faster as he tore his mouth away from mine, pushing his face into my neck as his hands tightened on my waist. He bit down to muffle the groan as he jerked twice more into my fist and released spurt after short spurt of milky cum. I slowed my strokes, but continued to pump, pulling out every ounce he had to release as he shook and moaned in my arms.

  When his shaking settled, I moved my hands to his waist and placed a small kiss on his neck. Below me, James doubled his efforts, not comfortable with being ignored. I moaned as I moved back from Éloi to look down between us. James was on his knees, his entire head under my skirt.

  That just wouldn't do. I wouldn't be losing today.

  Moving away from them both was painful, but necessary. Jame's tracked my movement across the room as Éloi kept his back against the door, eyes closed as he fought to regain his breath. I stopped when I reached the bed, grabbed the hem of my dress, and lifted it over my head, tearing it off of me.

  James' jaw dropped as I reached behind me to undo the clasp of my bra. He stood as I toed off my shoes, and launched himself at me as I cupped my breasts. Together, we tumbled onto the bed. I fought to hold in the childlike giggle that wanted to escape. This couldn't be fun for me. I wasn't doing this for fun. I was doing this to save lives. Or so I continued to tell myself.

  As his lips found mine, his tongue pushing past their barrier, forcing me to taste myself on him, I repeated my mantra mentally. This wasn't for fun; this was for the lives of all the humans he would no longer kill. As he lifted himself up to tear off his pants, exposing himself to me for the first time, I continued my mantra. This was for the humans.

  Was that a piercing, or a trick of the light?

  As he slowly slid himself into me without a condom, and I did nothing to stop him, I finally had to stop my mantra.

  This was no longer about the humans, not entirely. I gasped as he slid himself in to the hilt, my legs wrapping around his waist instinctively, forcing him deeper. I could no longer deny that I was enjoying myself. And what able bodied woman wouldn't?

  Two handsome men vying to bring you to orgasm first. What woman wouldn't want that? And while it wasn't what I originally set out to do, I was enjoying it. The attention. The expert way James stroked my body with his hands as he thrust into me continuously, low moans escaping him against his will.

  I was a woman after all. But there was no reason why I couldn't enjoy myself and still ensure the safety of all those precious lives.

  Gritting my teeth, I grabbed his muscular arms and rolled us, much to his surprise. I used our new position to take back control, placing my hands on his chest I rolled my hips. His hands came to my waist as he threw his head back on a moan.

  "You won't win," he managed to grit out.

  With labored breath I responded, "But I will."

  Steadying my knees on the bed, I used my hands on his chest as leverage and began to bounce. My breasts jumped with each motion, catching his attention. One hand left my waist to palm my breast, kneading the supple flesh as I tightened my inner walls and sped up. I moaned at the deeper penetration, my own head falling back as I continued to ride him hard.

  His hand on my waist tightened as he bucked his hips, feverishly meeting me thrust for thrust. I lowered myself to meet him in an open-mouthed kiss, his fingers moving to roll and pinch my nipple. I moaned into him as I climbed higher, his thrusts becoming erratic as I continued to squeeze him for all he was worth.

  "Let it be a tie," he moaned.

  "No one wins in a tie," I managed to say.

  "You'll win," he broke off on a moan. "I'll stop. Dear God, I'll stop."

  He thrust hard once more as he pinched my nipple, setting off my detonation as he came to his own.

  I may have left the club that night with my conscious clear, knowing that I was solely responsible for so many lives saved, but my mind was full of confusion. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy myself with them, and yet I did. The sex was supposed to be meaningless, but it felt as if it were anything but. This was supposed to be a job—one where I thankfully hadn’t had to kill anyone—but why did it feel like the beginning of so much more?

  7

  James

  Bright blue eyes flashed behind my closed eyelids, drawing another low groan to rumble from my chest.

  “Relax,” Éloi huffed. “We’re almost there.”

  Were we?

  I opened my eyes to gaze out of the tinted window of the black taxi cab we’d managed to snag in front of the airport. Not the world’s best decision, but we were here on a whim. I’d never stepped foot outside of Louisiana, and here I was hundreds of miles away from my home, looking for one woman. And in another damn country at that!

  It had been ten years since I’d last seen those shiny blue eyes blazing heat into mine and I still couldn’t get them out of my head. Or those dark raven locks, her slim toned frame arched under me in pleasure.

  I shook my head as the cab rolled down a narrow driveway bracketed by a dense forest. Large iron gates loomed ahead of us, halting the cabs procession. We were expected. And as we waited for the gates to open, I contemplated what brought us here.

  A week ago, one of the patrons at the club made a comment about Éloi and I appearing to never age. That’s when we knew we’d stayed in one place for too long. That had been my first time experiencing something like that, but Éloi was much older than I and knew that it was time to relocate. The very next night he’d caught me playing with the business card Illaria had left for us. I knew that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get that night out of his mind, but the look in Éloi’s eyes when he saw that card was much different from mine. Not for the first time in our relationship, I had no idea what he was thinking.

  Little did I know that he was planning our next move. He’d somehow contacted Illaria without my knowledge and before I knew what was going on, we were packing up our life to move to the cold wilds of Quebec, Canada.

  Slowly, the daunting gates rolled open, allowing the car to continue forward. After a few more feet, the trees cleared to reveal a mansion fit for a king...or queen, if the woman standing on the giant stone steps were any indication.

  The car turned into the roundabout that circled a marble fountain shaped like a fairy. All long limbs and elegant wings. Stopping when my door faced the steps, the driver killed the engine and left the cab to retrieve our bags from the trunk. At least, that’s what I assumed he was doing. My eyes hadn’t left the woman on the steps since she first entered my view, much like that first night we met so long ago. Her hair was shorter now than it’d been back then. Cut into a sleek bob that framed her smooth jaw beautifully.

  “Well?” Éloi grunted. “Are you just going to sit there and stare at her all day, or are you going to go out there and speak to her?”

  I looked back at him with a raised brow, concerned about his tone of voice, but the purse of his lips told me to drop it. I let him have his small victory and opened the car door.

  Faster than I knew what was happening, there she was in front of me. The woman I’d dreamed about for years, finally within my reach. Her neutral expression was the same as that night she sat beside me in my booth at Club Brume so long ago.

  “Illaria,” I whispered.

  A small smile tilted her lips. “Hello, James.” Her gaze shifted to look behind me. “Éloi. Aren’t you getting out?”

  I turned as shock widened my eyes. Éloi was i
ndeed still in the car, the door closed with the window rolled down. The driver was back in his seat, the only bags on the ground near the exhaust belonging to me. Confusion and anger replaced shock as my gaze narrowed and demanded he explain himself.

  “Sorry, Illaria,” he answered her verbalized question instead of my silent fuming one. “But this isn’t my stop. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, but for the time being, you two enjoy each other.”

  Without another word, the window rolled up seconds before the engine turned over and the driver rolled the car around the driveway.

  “Wha—” my voice broke off as my heart gave a painful thud. “What the hell just happened?”

  A soft hand landed on my shoulder while her smoky voice drifted to my ears. “He saw your potential. He isn’t ready yet, but he will be.”

  A strange wave of calm washed over me as I looked down at her. Illaria gave me a small smile as she tilted her head to the entrance behind her.

  “Come on, let’s not stand out here in the cold.”

  I grabbed my bag from the ground and dutifully followed behind her. We climbed the steps and entered a grand foyer where a young man stood in tactical gear.

  “Evan will show you to your room. We’ll begin your training tomorrow.” With that, she turned and walked towards a doorway on the left. “Oh, and James? Welcome to the Underground.”

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this short, be on the lookout for the first book in the series in 2020. In the meantime, to check out my other works, and get info on upcoming releases, head to the following links.

  Stalker Links:

  Website: www.raetinasworld.com

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  Hearts in the Sand

  Allyson Lindt

  Chapter One

  Even the gods weren’t meant to fight one war after another, in a string of unending battles, for eternity.

  Gwydion watched the water run over his hands. It wouldn’t rinse away blood that wasn’t there. He couldn’t erase the centuries of memories. Of death. Of the soldiers who had died on his operating table.

  Hide hands were red from the heat and scrubbing. Unlike the men he treated who lived out their final hours attached to a morphine drip, Gwydion would heal the instant he shut off the water.

  Immortality wasn’t always the gift people expected. While he was never grateful for war, he was glad this one had a much lower mortality rate than most.

  He turned off the faucet. He should call it a night. The second shift surgeons were in, and he needed to cleanse his mind. As much as that was an option.

  He headed toward the exit of the hospital tent he worked in.

  His blood ran hot and cold at the same time—a woman’s voice, irritated but familiar. A voice he hadn’t heard in nearly half a century.

  The woman at the front desk bed wore the same BDU’s that everyone on base wore. Captain bars and a black cross graced her collar, and a purple band circled her arm—she was clergy.

  “I was told an evening appointment wouldn’t be a problem.” The thread of tension running through her voice betrayed her otherwise calm tone.

  The flustered private at the front desk flipped through a stack of papers that had nothing to do with appointments. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have a record of that, and we don’t do evening physicals.”

  “Who did you make the appointment with?” Gwydion tucked away his reaction. Maybe it wasn’t her. He was tired. It was late.

  She turned, and Gwydion’s heart paused when he saw her face. He should have expected it. He’d know it was her the instant he heard her. But seeing the confirmation.

  Kirby. He’d found her.

  The irritation in her face faded to a light smile. Either way, she was stunning. But no recognition flashed in her clear blue eyes. “A Private Johnston. He told me they could make an exception for my schedule.”

  He’d make an exception for her schedule. He’d be happy to pull her into an exam room right now and give her a full-body whatever she wanted.

  Gwydion mentally winced at the tacky proposal. He’d loved her across several lifetimes, but she didn’t know that yet.

  As far as she knew, this was her only reality. At least until her memory came back.

  “Private, put Captain…” He paused for her last name.

  “Pastor Kirby is fine. Rank only matters in the appropriate situations.” Her smile grew.

  “Pastor Kirby on the schedule with Dr. Gregory first thing tomorrow morning. I’m sorry,” he said to her. “We don’t do evening physicals.”

  Her sigh was exaggerated, and it took a great deal of willpower to not watch her chest rise and fall. BDU’s had never looked sexier. “All right. I guess I’ll have to play by the rules. I just wish someone had explained that to me the first time around. Thank you, Captain…”

  “Gibbons. But Gwydion is fine.” He’d love to shrug off rank the way she had, but some things were ingrained in him.

  “Gideon? How biblical.” She never quite got his name right when they were re-introduced.

  “Real close. Put a faint W after the G. And it’s Welsh.”

  She furrowed her brow, and mouthed the name a few times.

  He did love watching her lips move. And he wasn’t going to stare. Instead he turned to the private, who watched them silently. “Is she all set?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fantastic. He should send Kirby on her way, and head to his cot. “Can I walk you back to your chapel?” The question came out without his permission. He wasn’t interested in taking it back. He’d seen the tent several times, but never gone in. Like most gods, he preferred not to pay tribute to other deities.

  “That does seem safest.” Her smile had turned almost playful.

  How did she undo him every single time they met? The desire that pulsed through his veins was hotter than the sand outside on a scorching day.

  She fell into step beside him, and they strolled into the warm night. She was almost his height, and her blond hair was just long enough to pull into a ponytail at the base of her neck.

  He couldn’t keep from glancing at her every few seconds. It was really her. Moving with the grace of a panther. Looking up at him with a gaze that stole his breath.

  “You haven’t stopped staring at me since we met,” she said. “Do I have spinach in my teeth?”

  “You’ve got stunning blue eyes.” It was the first response that came to mind. “Like the sunlight hitting a frozen lake on a winter morning.”

  Pink dotted her cheeks. “I bet you say that to all the pastors you walk home at night.”

  “I don’t. It’s decades since I met a woman as beautiful as you.” Which was a half-truth. The last time it had been her, in a previous incarnation. No one ever caught his eye the way Kirby did.

  “It’s a good line, but I’m not that easy.”

  “It’s not a line, and I’d never dare to assume.”

  They strolled in silence for a few minutes. Shouts echoed in the background, mingling with the roar of engines. Sand kicked up around their feet. Now that the sun was down, the heat wasn’t so stifling, but it was still too much for him. Nights like these, he missed the weather of Wales.

  “Why clergy?” Gwydion asked. He’d tell her anything she wanted to know, but he had to be careful with the way he framed it. He didn’t want to lie to her, but some things wouldn’t make much sense until she got her memory back. In the meantime, he wanted to learn where she’d been in this life.

  Like most of the troops deployed to Iraq and Kuwait, she looked to be in her twenties. The few times he’d seen her start to become a Valkyrie, she’d been about this age. Given he was almost two-thousand—and the youngest of the men who had loved her past lives—that made him quite the cradle robber.

  She let out a long breath. “It’s complicated? Or rather, it’s hard to explain without sounding wacko.”

&n
bsp; “No judgment from me.”

  Her laugh was hesitant, but still an amazing sound. “My father is a pastor. Unitarian. The whole worship thing never really spoke to me. I was JROTC in high school, majored in anthropology in college, and when it looked like we were heading to war… You don’t want to hear my life story.”

  “I don’t mind. I’d bet you listen to people all day every day. Let me return the favor.”

  She gave a tiny shake of her head. “War is its own religion. Suddenly I understood where Dad’s faith came from, and I’d found my own. Warriors riding into battle on metal steads. Defending the things they love. The things they believe in. It called to me. Like I said, it sounds wacko if you can’t feel it for yourself.”

  “No it doesn’t. I get it.” And he wouldn’t expect any less from a Valkyrie. “What’s your least favorite part of the job? Besides the celibacy.” He didn’t know if her current faith required it, but this was an easy way to find out. Being this close to her after too much time, walking near enough their arms brushed, sang to his senses.

  “Oh, I’m not celibate.” Her chuckle was lighter this time. More carefree. “I love fucking way too much to serve a god who doesn’t approve of it.”

  He couldn’t fight his grin. “That’s a hard stance to argue.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people see the cross on my collar and try to do exactly that. But to answer your question, the hardest part is probably…” Another long sigh. “Seeing the people this breaks. Soldiers who become lost souls. Wandering. Looking for peace they’ll never find.”

  He knew that feeling. She might as well be describing him.

  “If it was in my power, I’d given them their own kind of rites. Not a prayer to see them to the afterlife, but one that carried them through the rest of this one. A blessing for them to have more.”