by Jadyn Chase
I read the same truth in his eyes. He didn’t see me. He saw his whole life reordering itself into something unrecognizable but so much grander and more meaningful. The old way was dead. Long live the new.
He glanced around the room and came back to gazing into my eyes. “Shall we go back to Wichita tomorrow, then, Allison?”
I shrugged. None of that interested me right now. “I’ll have to change our flights, but yeah. If you don’t want to stick around to find your family, we might as well.”
“I don’t want to interfere with your investigation,” he replied. “You said you weren’t ready to give up. We can stay a little longer if you want to. I know you sacrificed a lot to bring me here. This isn’t all about me.”
Sacrifice? This was no sacrifice. This was a boon, a miracle in my life. “I might do a little more research into your family. Anything we find won’t hurt.”
He nodded, but he was a million miles away. He seemed to be looking at something through me. I acted as a lens to some other world. His eyes kept slipping in and out of focus.
I knew how he felt. He didn’t seem real even as he sat next to me on the bed where we spent last night. Did that really happen? Did that moment in the forest where he said he loved me really happen?
I didn’t doubt it. I was there, after all. It seemed to belong to some other reality, but not a less real one than this. If anything, the past became unreal while the present took on a startling clarity.
All that gazing into each other’s eyes was bound to lead somewhere, but it didn’t erupt in an explosive, wild, passionate attack—not that I ever did that kind of thing before. You wouldn’t catch Thomas on the same continent as explosive, wild, and passionate. No, that wasn’t right. He would be on the same continent. He just wouldn’t go there.
His fingers grazed my knuckles. I grasped them and snaked my grip into his. The walls crumbled and I fell against his shoulder. He hugged me to him, but this moment still didn’t erupt into blistering sex.
He pressed his lips against my hair and I slipped my arms around his ribs. If it never went any further than this, I could be happy with that. I didn’t need explosive and wild, either. I just needed something solid, something true.
All at once, he startled me by swiveling in front of me. He dropped on one knee in front of me and gazed up at me with astonishing bright eyes. He clasped my hand between both of his. “I love you, Allison. I love you with all my heart. I want nothing in the world but to continue to love you all my days. Can you find it in your heart to love me in return? Can I hope for such a thing?”
The words tumbled out of me in a rush. “I love you, too. I never thought I’d say this, but I do. I want the same thing. I….” I burst out laughing in sudden relief and exaltation. I couldn’t contain it. “I’m so happy.”
He stared up at me not blinking. Then, with the same delirious eruption of joy, he laughed, too. We fell into each other’s arms laughing until the tears flowed.
Thomas sat down next to me again, and when he put his arms around me this time, we both chuckled at the joke of it all. We clutched each other in the endless sheer happiness of finding each other at last.
15
Thomas
Allison’s skin glided over me in satin waves. Every caressing stroke showered me in glowing warmth and pleasure. How could anything ever feel so impossibly good?
Her immaculate curves matched my body in the tiniest detail. Her breasts compressed my bare chest. Her voluptuous thighs slotted over my knees. Her supple hips rotated under my hands in time to my touch.
Just when I thought nothing could be better than this, she opened her mouth and kissed me. Her lips enveloped me in delirious passion. Her scorching hot tongue flickered into my brain. She drove me out of my mind with that sensuous sweetness.
Then—calamity! She stopped. She broke away, only to leave a trail of fire down my neck to my chest—but wait! She didn’t stop there. She crawled and scooted and crept lower still. She burrowed under the duvet to….
Sweet merciful Heaven! She wasn’t! She couldn’t—not there! She didn’t dare put that… that…..in her….and then she…..with her….
My mind teetered in a dizzy cascade of bewilderment and confusion. I never underwent such an upheaval of torrential, unbearable explosion. I couldn’t contain it all, but she just kept on and on and on without stopping.
I never fathomed a woman’s mouth could feel so divine. I never dared to dream a woman would want to do that, but she did it willingly and gladly.
My flesh swelled in her mouth. It strained to bursting, but she always dallied on the brink of destroying me. She never pushed me over the edge—or maybe I changed since I met her. Something made me want not to.
I wanted to prolong the agony, as it were. I wanted to drag it out as long as possible and experience every excruciating moment of this.
Before I even finished reveling in the glorious sensations pouring through me, she lept off and rotated around. She laid her glorious self across me one more time and enveloped me in the wonderful feeling of rocking and gliding with her into an abyss of ecstasy.
Her ivory thighs sloped on either side of my manhood and she sank down on top of me. She clasped her arms around me and rotated me up on top of her.
Nothing she could do could ever diminish the delirious bliss of her body. I could never get tired of the endless intimacy of emotion and rapture that was her. I lost myself in her, but I no longer cared if I did.
I had no self left to lose but in her. When I woke up, I ceased to be whatever I was in the past. Allison would dictate whatever I would become in the future. I could live with that. I could live with nothing but this.
She undulated below me, locking her ankles behind my back and pulling me in to seal my destruction. Her inner crucible maddened me out of my mind. I had to dive into her, to get lost in her, to crawl inside her where the tight, close warmth erased all else.
The faster she moved, the more insanity gripped me. I didn’t care. Let her obliterate me. I belonged to her to make and unmake at her pleasure. She sighed into my mouth. Perfumed perspiration sprang out on her skin—or was that mine?
She moaned low. Those noises built to a rising crescendo of crashing proportions. It escalated out of all reasoning to become something gargantuan, something bigger and more terrible than the dragon itself.
The words kept cycling in my mind, I love you. I love you, Allison. I love you so much. I couldn’t say the words out loud. I traveled somewhere else. Words meant nothing there.
At some hidden epoch, the cataclysm hit. She lurched off the bed screaming in high-pitched delight. The sound shot to my guts and I erupted inside her. God, I loved her! I loved her for this longing agony and so much more.
The next instant, the convulsion died and I collapsed over her. She swayed her pelvis from side to side with me still embedded in her flesh. I didn’t want to leave—ever. I wanted to stay like this until death.
She gripped her arms around my neck. She threaded her fingers into my hair and kissed my ear. She whispered into my fevered brain, “I love you.”
Those breathy notes completed me in forgotten ways. They put right everything that went wrong when I fell asleep in the Great Armour Hall.
I faded into oblivion for a while. I may have fallen asleep inside her. I don’t rightly remember—not that it matters. She didn’t disturb me—at least, I didn’t notice it.
I woke up to daylight streaming through the window. I wasn’t on top of her anymore. I lay on my back. The sheets crisscrossed my chest, so something must have happened in the night that I wasn’t aware of.
I looked around. I was still in our Dover hotel room, so at least I hadn’t flown anywhere in the night. The sound of spray came from the other room. I slouched back on the pillow and folded my arm under my head. A chap could get used to this business of spending the nights in Allison’s arms and between her legs. I couldn’t think of a nicer way to wake up unless it involved servants bringin
g me breakfast in bed.
The spray shut off and Allison coughed from somewhere out of sight. A few seconds later, she emerged from a cloud of steam like Venus Anadyomene. She clasped a white towel around her gorgeous bosom. Another encircled her head with the folds piled on top. She resembled a goddess or perhaps a female pharaoh of Egypt.
When she saw me admiring her, she bobbed her head to one side. “What?”
“You look astounding, Allison,” I breathed. “I am indeed a lucky man.”
She hurried to her suitcase lying on the table. “Yeah, well, I changed our tickets to this afternoon and I want to get some more research done before them. Can you handle yourself while I go to the library for a little while? I won’t be long. I’ll meet you back here to catch a cab to the train station. I worked it all out so we won’t miss our flight.”
“I perfectly understand. You want to avail yourself of our proximity to the Castle while you have the chance. I can, as you say, handle myself until you return.”
She flipped open the suitcase. “Good. Just don’t go flying off anywhere. Make sure you’re back here by two o’clock. Understand?”
I closed my eyes and bowed as well as I could without getting out of bed. “Perfectly. You can rely on me.”
She made a face over her shoulder. Then she tossed off the towel and her luxurious hair tumbled out. I spent the next few minutes in a dreamy daze watching her dress and do her hair. Every move she made only exaggerated to my notice how incredibly fortunate I was to come to this juncture in my life. I never could have orchestrated an outcome so fortuitous if I had arranged it myself.
Whenever she spotted me watching her, she turned away as if my attention gave her discomfort. I couldn’t explain it to myself. Still, she never fully removed herself from my scrutiny when she could easily have dressed in the other room. Neither did she protest my staring at her for so long and so intently.
At last, she tucked her computer under her arm and approached the bed. “I’ll see you later.”
She deposited a kiss on my cheek and hastened away. I relaxed back into my reverie. Where were my family members? I could hang around Dover until the end of time and never find them. I could spend my years chasing after every phantom dragon sighting and every bizarre news story in the daily papers.
Another alternative presented itself for my consideration. I could go home to Wichita with Allison and live happily ever after. I never had to see my family again.
Even if, by some distant chance, I found them—what then? Assuming we fell into each other’s arms sobbing and embracing, all happy and together again—what then? Then I would have to build a life in this strange new time. I would have to get on with the tedious drudgery of daily life. What better way to do that than with Allison? Why should I waste another moment?
I experienced not the slightest apprehension about leaving England for America. Not the slightest twinge of regret dogged my heels at running out on the mystery and leaving my beloved relatives to their fate. They would find their own ways to build new lives. They would meet people and discover new homes for themselves like so many lost kittens.
Whatever they decided to do, I had a life to lead and an exquisite woman to lead it with. She was out there researching my family at this exact moment. That said a lot about her.
Meanwhile, I lounged in bed like a sated tomcat. Shelton, you rascal! You don’t deserve a woman like Allison. I resolved to mend my ways and forced myself out of bed.
I dressed and ate breakfast downstairs. I enjoyed some witty repartee with the landlady. It was good to chat to a real old English housewife for a change. It made for a pleasant alternative to Allison’s Americanisms. I needed to slake my thirst for real English before I immersed myself in America again. I had no idea when I would ever get back to the old motherland, if ever.
After I finished my tea, I went for another walk. This time, I made sure to check very carefully for whizzing cars before I crossed the street. I took another tour of the docks, but the noise and commotion left me feeling hollow inside.
I now found it difficult to remember Dover the way it was in my time. By a strenuous leap of concentration, I could summon images of coaches, newsboys, and porters loading trunks onto the tall ships. I could remember dock workmen wheeling barrels into the holds and sailors scampering up the rigging.
Now all those memories faded to mere phantoms. Old Dover no longer existed. Even the old Prince of Wales Pier no longer graced the quay. The fools relocated the famous clocktower but destroyed the Pier for their hideous ships.
Against my will, my mind rewrote history. It scrawled me into this new scene as though I never had lived back then in the first place.
I turned away and betook myself to the Cliffs. As Allison so succinctly put it, the Cliffs never changed. They would always abide, but they didn’t erase the transformation that reordered my life. They couldn’t. Nothing could.
I breathed a heavy sigh of the sea air and sauntered back to town deep in thought. I passed the clock tower on my way back to the hotel. I checked the time. 11:45. I had plenty of time. Allison wouldn’t back for hours.
She was most likely at this moment stuck deep in a book or, more probably, her computer. She wasn’t thinking about me at all except secondarily when considering my family. So long as I remained out of her immediate sight, her historical penchant consigned me to the pages of antiquity.
I smiled to myself about her. I almost forgot to check the traffic again, but I halted in time to let some cars scream past.
I stepped off the curb, trotted to my destination, and hopped back up. I continued toward the hotel with a jauntier spring in my stride. I made for the hotel entrance, but when I arrived at the building’s western corner, a bloke materialized in my path.
I glanced around trying to establish where he came from. He could only have come from the alley between the hotel and the next building, which just happened to be a haberdashers.
He lunged in front of me. For an instant, we each examined the other trying to figure out what the other fellow wanted. Perhaps only I was trying to figure out what he wanted, but he certainly examined me as though he was trying to figure out the same thing.
He didn’t appear particularly menacing. His battered hat slumped over one eye in the manner of one who wanted to make himself dapper or nonchalant. Other than that, he struck me as a perfectly innocent bystander in this bizarre landscape.
I woke from the encounter first. It never once crossed my mind he could mean me harm. I dipped him a nod and went to sidestep around him. At that moment, three more identical fellows sidled out of the same alley. Of course, they weren’t exactly identical to him. I merely mean they behaved as he did. They regarded me with empty expressions devoid of all implication or subtext.
I checked my advance for a moment. Then, when I tried to continue my trek to the hotel, they shifted their positions to array themselves in front of me. I could never misread that for nonchalance or innocence. No, sir. They blockaded me.
The first one, the supposed bystander, aimed a grimy forefinger at me. He poked me in the chest and jabbed an infinitesimal shove into my ribs as though pretending to push me over. “Where’s ye off te so fast, eh? Ye’s naw goin’ nowheres until ye hand us over a nicka, mate.”
I shook my head while blinking fast. “What on Earth did you just say? I have absolutely no idea what you mean. Now, if you would be so kind, my good man, I really must be getting on my way.”
I did my best to look properly offended. When I made one last attempt to circumvent these queer specimens of urban fauna, the fellow veered in front of me so fast my chest bumped into him.
He certainly took on a startling solidity all of a sudden. I bounced off him and stumbled back. When I roused myself to stare at them, creeping dread snuck into my bones. These…. these brutes! They intended to do me mischief. I couldn’t speak their grotesque language, but their motives counted for exactly nothing at this moment.
I had to esca
pe. I had to fly…..The dragon! The dragon would put paid to these louts in no time flat. I straightened up and squared my shoulders. Let them do their worst. They would come out the losers in the end.
I chortled to myself imagining the expressions on their faces when I burst out of my skin and unleashed my newfound power on them. I strutted up to my new friend in all my bristling peacock confidence.
“Now, you listen to me, you little sniveling ruffian,” I boomed. “I have better things to do than give you a lesson in manners. If you don’t step out of my way this instant, I shall….”
Before I summoned up a consequence sufficiently drastic to put the fear of God into anyone, a blinding rush of motion flickered to one side. The next instant, an iron fist smashed into my head.
Stars exploded in my skull and I went down like a ton of bricks. I crashed to the pavement spinning in nauseous peril. Any second now….
Blows rained around my head and torso. Boots pummeled my legs. Splintering pain rocked through me again and again. I cowered under the assault, but nothing happened. I didn’t rupture to monstrous, foaming fury. I didn’t take wing over Dover and I certainly didn’t frighten these cretins with my almighty dragon presence.
I huddled on the footpath, but the longer I waited, the more glaringly obvious it became that no dragon would burst out to save me. The horrible truth entered my head—or should I say these thugs pounded it into my head. I was on my own. If anyone would save me from…..whatever fate they had in mind for me, that anyone would have to be…..me!
I revolted against the thought. Resort to violence—me? I couldn’t possibly. Still, that prospect appealed more than lying here getting beaten within an inch of my life. For all I knew, they planned to go all the way and flay me completely to death.
I had to do something. Come on, Shelton, old boy! You’re not finished yet. I stole a peek under my arms, only to receive another shower of blows for my trouble. If I so much as opened my eyes, I lived to regret it.
