Science Fiction Romance: Biomechanical Hearts (Space Sci-Fi Love Triangle) (New Adult Paranormal Fantasy)
Page 73
With the help of one of the Barasana guards who had decided to assist Jebá in the rescue mission, Felicity was finally able to pull Carol out from the pit. Carol was looking less pale than she had been when they had first seen her, but she was still out of it.
Their leader gone and most of the gang dead, the Selvagens Verdes surrendered to the police as they began to swarm the area. A few ran, but they were quickly brought down with arrows from Basarana archers. With a final nod to Jebá, the Barasana disappeared into the brush. He himself stayed as long as he could before the paramedics loaded both girls into an ambulance.
***
The bust had gone smoothly afterward, and they had recovered many of the missing women. One of them had even been Lupita’s sister, Juliana.
Felicity had been lucky to survive, though she had lost a good amount of blood. Unfortunately, Professor Johnson made it clear that she still needed to finish her project. As she was stuck in a hospital with nothing else to do, putting together a final report was rather easy.
Carol had been fine for the most part, but the girl was understandably traumatized by the incident. She had opted to go home early, and in her eyes Felicity could see the experience had sobered her. The two parted rather well, with Carol thanking her for helping to rescue her.
On the last day of the semester, Felicity was finally released for a short reprieve in order to say last goodbyes. Though still weak, there was nothing else she would rather do than see Jebá one last time. Felicity didn’t want to leave, but knew she had no other choice. Sadly, she went back up to the old facility towards the same room where she had first met him.
“I am glad to see you are all right, my Felicidade,” he said as he kissed her.
“I wish I could stay with you,” Felicity said, embracing him tighter.
“We will see each other again.”
“I wish I could be sure of that.”
“Perhaps there is a way.”
Leading her out the door, they traveled out to the village once again. She was surprised to see a crowd already there. They were in a circle surrounding a large fire pit. A gap opened and Jebá led Felicity down the center, toward the billowing flames. As they walked, tribe members threw flowers and feathers at their feet.
The tribe’s spiritual leader struck her staff on the ground, shouting at the sky. She looked back down, and surprisingly smiled at them both. She then commanded something at Jebá.
Holding Felicity’s hands and looking into her eyes, Jebá spoke three words. “Beca, yage, mene.”
After a nod from him, Felicity repeated them herself, “Beca, yage, mene.”
At that moment, the fire raged upwards, turning an intense white-blue. The crowd around them began to yell and sing. Even though Felicity may not have known their language, she knew one thing: she was married now. Her new husband carried her back to his house. As they undressed so they could become one once again, she made a solemn vow to return. She would finish her degree and come back to her husband, no matter what it took. Felicity knew in her soul she could never remain confined by the life she had once lived. Her place was here and it was with him.
THE END
Nailed
Rachel felt her body twitch a little when the judge banged his gavel. And just like that, she thought, it’s all over.
She rose from the table with her attorney to walk out of the courtroom, only to run right into John as he was leaving his table. He flashed one of his classic smirks of satisfaction as he brushed past her and out of the courtroom. As she watched her now ex-husband and his attorney leave, she breathed a sigh of relief. The divorce proceedings had been tough.
It was clear to Rachel that while there was no love lost between them, it was hard to face the reality of her failed marriage. Eight years ago, she was certain that there was no couple happier than the two of them. They met in their senior year of college, when Rachel was just realizing that her soft brown curls, green eyes and curvy body made her a knockout. John was bold enough to ask her out within the first five minutes of meeting, and was the only man that had ever brought her to orgasm with his expert stroke. All this screamed “Mr. Right” to Rachel, so she jumped in headfirst and married John 6 months after their first date.
While the first few years together were blissful enough, it wasn’t before long that John began to spend less time with Rachel. His rise up the corporate ladder took him on business trips more and more often, and left her alone to try to find happiness. She put her degree in marketing to work for her and ran a consulting firm for small businesses out of the other half of the duplex that she and John bought after their first anniversary. The longer John stayed away, the more she fell in love with her work. But she knew that he was slipping from her; the time they did spend together became less about just being happy with one another’s company and more about playing the routine of husband and wife. The fire between them cooled in the bedroom as well. By their final year together Rachel felt nothing when John entered her, and went through a script of moans while her mind drifted to her client list or what she planned to wear the next day, just waiting for him to finish. Fortunately for Rachel, by then those “intimate” moments were few and far between.
Even when he wasn’t traveling for work, John was never home much, opting to spend countless hours at his office. Rachel always assumed that he was busy working on another big deal until six months ago, when an unclosed email window on their home computer revealed the truth: John hadn’t lost his passion. He’d just been saving it for his new assistant, and the pictures of him inside her mouth were the deathblow to a relationship between two people who never really knew one another.
Rachel mourned the loss of her marriage; there were very few tearless days between serving John with papers and this final day of court. But as her heels clicked along the marble floor of the courthouse, her sadness began to melt away, and the future began to come into focus. She was without a husband, but she certainly wasn’t without assets. Her business was going to get even more of her attention, and she had given John an option: he could pay alimony or surrender their duplex. He graciously opted for the latter scenario and moved himself into a condo closer to his office.
Now that she was single, Rachel could consolidate her living and working area into the same apartment of her duplex, and rent the other apartment for some extra income. By the time she made it out of the courthouse and into her car, she had the ad written on her smartphone and posted to the online bulletin board for rental properties. As she drove home, she smiled with every ding from her phone’s email alerts. By the time she pulled into a space in front of her building, she had twenty emails in her inbox.
That following Saturday afternoon, Rachel closed the door on her next to last applicant interview and sighed into her favorite wingback chair in her living room. Fuck me, she thought. This search is way harder than I thought it would be. Now in her early thirties, she had become much more discerning, and there was nothing appealing to her about living next to any of the stoner college kids, uptight spinsters, and creepy older men that arrived on her doorstep throughout the day. The rent was attractive enough to cater to a wide range of applicants, but Rachel knew what she wanted: A calm, collected tenant that paid their bills on time.
The doorbell rang, signaling her final appointment of the day, and she was certain that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted. Well, let’s get this one over with, she said to herself as she opened the door.
“Hello,” the young man on her stoop said. “I’m here about the apartment.”
Rachel blinked a couple of times to make sure her eyes weren’t playing some evil trick on her. In front of her was a good-looking, articulate person who clearly stated what he wanted.
Well, this guy’s one up on the competition so far. “Hello,” she said. “Let me show you the place.”
She opened the screen door a little and he took the handle, holding it open for her as she stepped outside.
“I’m Conner,
” he said, smiling and extending his hand. Conner had those looks that most guys see in magazines and spend hours and money trying to harness. He was a head taller than Rachel, with a perfectly tousled head of black hair, which was only complimented by a set of piercing blue eyes. His smile was kind, and was punctuated with a pair of dimples that probably won him sweets as a child, and most likely acted as a flawless lure for the ladies.
Rachel slipped her hand into his to greet him, and the gentle but firm squeeze gave her a jolt that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“You must be Rachel.”
“Yes,” Rachel responded, silently recovering from her unexpected response. “I’m glad you could make it out.”
“Absolutely,” Conner said excitedly. He nearly jumped off the stairs of Rachel’s stoop and walked across the lawn to the empty apartment. “I’m just amazed that it’s still available.” He stepped further back on the lawn, to take in the whole building in one glance. “It’s a great property in a really cool neighborhood. I’d love to live here.” He strode back across the lawn to the empty apartment, stepping right up to the front door and peering through the small window into the front room. “It looks like the place has been occupied recently.”
Rachel laughed as she pulled the keys out of her pocket. “Yes, it was.” Her answer couldn’t pull Conner’s face from the window. She jingled the keys and said coyly, “Um, you know, Conner, I can give you a better look with these.”
He turned his head with a puzzled look that faded into embarrassment when he realized what she meant. He chuckled and stepped away from the door. “Sorry, I just get so excited about places like this. I’m a contractor, and I fall in love every time I run into a place like yours.”
“Oh really,” Rachel said as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “My ex always talked about getting this place fixed up, but I never knew of any problems.”
“Well, there are lots of problems that you probably can’t see,” Conner replied. “A building this age is bound to need an upgrade on its electrical and plumbing – the city is changing some codes on what’s acceptable.” He planted his feet where he stood, and rocked back and forth on the hardwood floor, listening to it creak. “And these floors could use some work too.”
Now Rachel felt full of embarrassment. “Oh wow,” she said. “I had no idea. I just thought the place was old and charming. I didn’t know it was a death trap.”
Conner laughed and shook his head. “It’s not that critical, but yes, the place does need some work.” Rachel thought that he was going to say his goodbyes and leave, but instead he continued to follow her around the space, taking a full tour. When they returned to the front room, he looked at Rachel and said, “Look, Rachel. I can’t walk away from this place. So let me make you a deal.”
Rachel was wary, but intrigued. “Okay,” she said. “What are you offering?”
“I’ll take the place if you let me work on improvements. I’m starting my own contracting business, and I would love a showpiece for clients, to show them what I can do. I’ll take care of the labor, and you deduct the materials costs from my rent.”
“Seriously?” Rachel asked. She grabbed his hand and shook it quickly, as if Conner and his offer would fade away. “You got it!”
Conner smiled, and Rachel almost fell into his dimples. “Excellent. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
Somehow, Rachel was certain of that.
***
For the first two months, Rachel saw very little of Conner, but heard more from him than she bargained for. True to his word, he worked on the building like a man possessed, laying new floors and pipe whenever he wasn’t out working on paying gigs, sleeping, or eating – which all ran distant places on his priority list. It meant a lot of sleepless nights and early mornings for Rachel, as the constant hammering and sawing didn’t make for a peaceful environment. But Conner didn’t hear a word from her; Rachel was far too thrilled to get the work done than to concern herself with complaining.
Conner’s rate was the best she was ever going to get, and it felt good to see the building go through changes. It felt as if Conner was gutting not only building materials, but also the remnants of Rachel and John’s failed experiment at marriage. Not many people get a fresh start without having to move, Rachel thought to herself. Conner’s efforts were as amazing as they were relentless; his apartment gleamed with dark wood floors, new lighting fixtures and appliances, and windows that actually kept the room comfortable. Thanks to the sale of some mutually owned stock of hers and John’s, she was able to bankroll the costs with ease, and at the end of his second month they were making plans to renovate her place.
By the third month, things had settled down at Conner’s, and Rachel was free to sleep soundly for the first couple of weeks. The silence was new again, and since the renovations happened so soon after the divorce, she was just becoming used to the idea that she would always be able to sleep alone; John wasn’t coming home after a long trip anymore. She certainly didn’t mind the solitude; after eight years of thinking of someone else before bed, she was glad to turn off the lights and drift off to sleep without wondering if her husband was coming home or if he was safe.
One Saturday night later in the month, Rachel slipped into bed after another one of her now-patented single girl nights with her favorite new friends: a bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, her couch, and the sappiest movie she could find on her streaming TV account. She was drifting off to sleep when she was jostled awake by a vibration from the wall behind her bed. At first she felt a big bump, and then a rhythmic thump, thump, thump. It took her a minute to orient herself, but soon she knew what was going on: the wall was the one that she shared with Conner’s bedroom. The few times Rachel saw him during the construction process, he didn’t fail at delivering on the stereotype of the sexy construction worker. Whether her neighbor worked in jeans and a sweaty white t-shirt that clung to his chest, or whether he opted to go without a shirt at all, Rachel wasn’t immune to his natural wiles.
Now, as she sat upright in her bed, listening to the thump, thump, thump of Conner’s headboard against their wall, she carved those images out of her mind and pasted them on his bed, where he was pounding a woman into oblivion.
Rachel’s breath quickened as her imagination picked up steam, imagining Conner’s face looking into hers as he leaned in to plant a soft, wet kiss upon her lips. Mmmm, she moaned to herself, as her thighs began to rub against each other, almost involuntarily. There was something about Conner that made Rachel react without thought; from the moment she met him, it seemed as if her body wanted to do things to him, regardless of whether or not she was thinking about him. Their few exchanges were always riddled with teenager-like giggles from her, and now as she had the audible proof of his sexual prowess, she couldn’t stop the wetness between her legs from happening if she wanted to.
And then she heard him.
“Oh God, baby, you feel that,” Conner’s muffled voice said from the other side of the wall. Thump, thump thump, thump. “You love that cock, don’t you baby?”
“Oh fuck,” a nearly breathless voice responded. “Fuck me, Conner! Give me that big dick! Please!” Her pleads began to synchronize with the headboard crashing against the wall. Thump “Yes!” Thump “Fuck!” Thump “Fuck me!”
Rachel pulled her hair away from the side of her face and pressed her ear against the wall. Her hands moved in opposite directions – one slid up her body to alternate caresses between her round, naked breasts, and the other travelled down her stomach, floating over her mons and pulling her panties to the side, to work her clit in the circular fashion that her recent lonely nights had allowed her to perfect. The slit between her legs continued to flood with her juices, and her finger alternated between delivering slow and quick orbits around her pink button and darts of pleasure into her aching pussy. It didn’t take too much brainpower to imagine Conner with her in that bed; after all, he was only inches away from her, and
she could feel his passion as if she was in that bed with both of them.
“Take that dick, baby,” Conner commanded, his voice full of a toe-curling deepness that forced Rachel to slip another finger inside of herself. She took her free hand and forearm and firmly stroked it across both of her breasts, brushing her nipples hard enough to squeeze miniature moans of pleasure from her throat.
“Oh, shit,” Conner’s muffled voice bellowed. “I’m going to come. You want it, baby? Huh?”
“Fuck yes,” the voice screamed. It was louder than anything else up to that point. “Give it to me, sexy! Fill me up.”
If Conner hadn’t been coming at the same time as Rachel at that moment, he would have heard the greatest moan of the night from her throat, as she plunged three fingers inside herself, filling her tight pussy with ecstasy. Her orgasm overcame her in waves of passion; she could feel her clit twitch and pulse against the palm. She slipped into sleep quickly, and had several mini-dreams of Conner’s cock inside her, and the saturated bed linens underneath her body.
***
A pattern formed over the next two weeks. Rachel would go to bed, and nearly every other night Conner would bring her to orgasm and a hard sleep with his headboard pounding and woman pleasing on the other side of the wall.
After a few days she was able to figure out his rhythm: Conner went on a date every other night, so Rachel was able to plan her week so that she could take herself out on a “date” before he arrived home with his latest sexual conquest. A well-prepared meal and bottle of wine were followed by a delightful fingering and a role playing scenario. Rachel would sometimes pretend to be the girl Conner was fucking, moving her mouth to lip-sync with her moans and cries. Other times she would imagine that Conner was with her in her room, bursting in to give her the lay that she’d needed ever since her divorce. And still other times her mind was flooded with images of sexy threesomes with Conner and whatever woman he chose to bring home that week; they would have her please them both as they brought each other to one screaming orgasm after another.