The Soldier & The Spy

by Samantha Sommersby

  “That’s a beautiful fire,” said Lillian, walking over towards it and reaching out with her hands to absorb the warmth.

  Jackson walked behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders, and leaned down to savor the scent of her hair.

  “I’ve missed your scent,” he said, his voice already rough from arousal. He reached up and began to pull the pins from her hair. His breath quickened as he watched it cascade down her back. “Your hair has gotten longer.” He ran his fingers through the long silken strands.

  Lillian leaned her head back onto his chest, exposing her throat to him. He wasted no time in leaning down to rain a trail of hot open-mouthed kisses along the side of her neck. When he reached the pulse point just behind her ear, he nipped at her slightly. At the same time, he reached around her front to untie the sash of her robe.

  Lillian moaned when he slipped the robe off her shoulders, leaving her standing nude in front of the heat of the fireplace. He tilted his hips forward, grinding his erection into the round globes of her ass as he reached around and gently fondled her breasts.

  “My love,” he groaned as he ran his tongue over the outside shell of her ear. “I’ve been dreaming about this, about being with you again, for so long.”

  “Careful with my breasts. They’re still—”

  “Are they sore?” Jackson lightly ran his fingertips around the areola. “Is this okay?”

  “Yes, that’s all right. I’ve missed your touch.”

  He reached down with one hand and slid his finger between her legs, running it up and down her wet slit, separating her folds and making her impossibly wetter. “You thought about me?”

  “Every minute of every day.”

  Jackson stepped back from her. “Turn around,” he commanded. “I want to look at you.”

  Lillian slowly turned around to face him. Her stomach was slightly less taut, her hair longer, her breasts fuller, but everything still somehow felt familiar. His breath caught in his throat as she reached out and unfastened his trousers, then slipped his shirt from his shoulders.

  “You look exactly this same,” she said quietly. “My body, it’s different.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, and then led her over to the chair in front of the fireplace.

  As she sat down, Lillian reached for her robe, but Jackson took it from her. This time, he threw it out of reach.

  “I like the differences.”

  Jackson knelt before her. Reaching out, he caressed her stomach, and then he gently separated her knees, and moved between them. “You’re exquisite,” he whispered reverently running his hands over the full mounds of her breasts. He leaned back and spread her legs apart even wider. “God, you take my breath away.”

  Jackson held Lillian’s face in his hands and leaned up. Resting his forehead against hers, he slowly brought his lips up to graze her mouth, his tongue darting out to sweep across her bottom lip. She opened her mouth in invitation and he slipped his tongue inside delving deep within its wetness. He realized that he had never wanted a woman so badly, not even her, as he pulled back and took her earlobe between his teeth.

  “Tell me you’re mine.”

  “I’m yours,” said Lillian, panting.

  “Tell me you’ll be mine, forever,” demanded Jackson as he lightly teased the nipple of her right breast.

  “I’ll be yours forever, Jackson,” she said, reaching up and running her fingers through his hair.

  He cupped the bottom of her full breast in the palm of his hand and ran his tongue around the underside. Lillian was taken aback by how aroused she was by his action, how erotic it felt.

  Involuntarily, she arched her back. Jackson smiled around her nipple before latching on.

  “Oh! My God!” Lillian gasped as she writhed in the chair. “Need you!”

  He released her slowly, lapping up the remnants before crouching down before her. He possessively ran his hands up her legs. With his index finger he then teasingly traced little patterns near the center of her heat. He licked his lips in anticipation, then reaching behind her pulled her just a little closer to the edge of the chair.

  “Ask me to taste you.”

  “Oh, please, Jackson. Please, I need you.”

  “What do you need?” He was still on his knees, looking up into Lillian’s eyes.

  “You. Need you. Want you.”

  Jackson spread her legs, used his fingers to separate her folds, and then he slowly dragged his tongue up the length of her slit. She was already wet and he gratefully lapped up her juices. He explored her inner folds, applying pressure with his tongue. Then using just the tip he flicked his tongue across her clit for a few seconds before taking it lightly between his teeth, pulling on it gently. Jackson could feel Lillian’s excitement growing as her juices flowed exquisitely into his mouth.

  He took two of his fingers and slipped them inside of her, moving them in and out in time to her now thrusting hips while his mouth continued to pull on her sensitive bundle of nerves.

  “More!”

  Jackson grinned with pride, as he kept up his ministrations, but added an additional finger. He gently curled the fingers of the hand moving inside of her forward, searching for the spot that would ensure her release.

  He could hear Lillian’s breathing becoming more and more ragged. One hand desperately holding onto the arm of the chair, the other entwined in his hair. Her upper torso arched forward and her head was thrown back as she approached the edge. Her legs and thighs were quivering, then trembling, and she came screaming his name. He’d never heard a more satisfying sound.

  Jackson rolled back onto his heels, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and gazed up at Lillian. She was glistening with a sheer layer of perspiration. Her hair was tousled, her breathing winded, her skin flush and she looked wanton as she gazed at him through dazed eyes. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

  He slowly licked his fingers. Then, he kissed her, softly and deeply on the mouth allowing her to taste herself. As he broke the kiss he stood up, pulling her with him. He swept her up in his strong arms and carried her to the bed. Their bed.

  “Don’t move.”

  “Can’t,” she responded, smiling contentedly. “I don’t think my legs are working anymore.”

  “Good!” He removed the tray of food from the bed and set it on the floor. “All part of my plan to make you my personal sex slave. I figure paralysis will decrease your odds of escape.” He climbed up towards her from the bottom of the bed, smiling seductively.

  “Oh! You have a plan?”

  “Uh huh! I’m gonna make love to you,” Jackson said as he began to kiss her stomach, “all night long.”

  Lillian giggled. “All night long? That’s your plan?”

  “God, I’m sorry I missed seeing you pregnant.” He looked up at her and gazed into her eyes.

  “Well, I was quite the sight at the end there.”

  Jackson hovered above her before settling himself between her legs. “We made a beautiful baby.”

  Lillian wrapped her arms around him. “Yes, we did.” She lifted her knees slightly off the bed and hooked her legs around the back of his. The head of his cock poised at her entrance.

  “Let’s make another one,” he whispered, kissing her softly and entering her slowly.

  “Welcome home, Jackson.” Lillian lifted her legs higher and wrapped them around his hips, returning his thrusts.

  “I can’t hold on, love. It’s been too long,” he said.

  “Come for me, Jackson. Come for me, baby. I love you!” she wept as their bodies melded together, making them one. “I love you.”

  Lillian felt his body shudder as he spilled his seed deep inside of her.

  He looked up at her, his piercing blue eyes meeting hers. He reached up and brushed her hair away from her face then brushed his lips across hers.

  “I love you too, Lillian. I love you, too,” he murmured over and over again.

  Epilogue

  July 5, 1922 Provincetow
n, Massachusetts

  Lillian sat in a simple rocking chair on the front porch of the quaint three-bedroom cottage. She glanced up briefly from the book she was reading to look out at the ocean. It was still early morning. She loved this time of day—after the sun was up but before the beaches became crowded. She took a sip of her morning coffee, set the cup back on the side table adjacent to her rocker, and returned to reading.

  A few minutes later, she was startled from her reverie by the feel of her husband’s lips grazing her cheek.

  “I didn’t hear you come back. Where are the kids? You didn’t lose them did you?”

  “Down at the tide-pools with Janna and Ahmed. Hope managed to find a sand-dollar right off, she’s pretty proud of herself.” Jackson walked into the cottage. “Finally gotten around to finishing Eugene’s book, I see?”

  When Jackson emerged with a glass of water, Lillian held up the copy of Anna Christie that she had been reading. “I’m almost through. I admit it’s a fabulous piece of work. But I still say that The Redemption of a Soul should have taken this year’s Pulitzer for drama. It was brilliant. Hey, the daisies are pretty.”

  “I appreciate the praise, but you might be a tad biased.” Jackson dropped the daisies he’d collected into the glass.

  “Nope, not me. I can sleep with the author and still totally maintain my objectivity.”

  “You’re sleeping with Eugene?”

  Lillian rolled her eyes. “Right, like I would have time. What, with taking care of four children.”

  “Three children,” he said absently as he put his spectacles on and picked up the newspaper from the adjacent table.

  After a moment he looked back up at her and removed his glasses. “Unless… Are you?”

  Lillian looked up. “No! And you stay away from me. I was including you in the count. You, Hope, Joy, and Noel are plenty. You have your boy, so back-off, buster!”

  Jackson smiled seductively at her. “But the trying is so much fun.”

  He lifted a few of the daisies from the water glass, walked over to her and crouched down. From his position he looked up, wearing an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “Maybe we could just practice?”

  Lillian laid her book aside. “Practice?”

  “It’s just a thought.” Jackson kissed her on the tip of her nose. Then stood up and walked behind her. Looking out at the ocean, he sighed. “I love it here.”

  “Me too.” She leaned back in her chair. “Is it important to you? Having a fourth?”

  “No.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “I know that the last pregnancy was hard on you. The truth is that I’m so bloody relieved that you and Noel made it through… I don’t ever want to feel that afraid again. I love the children, but I don’t want to risk having another if it means I could lose you. You, Hope, Joy, and Noel are everything to me. You’re my world.”

  “You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” Lillian teased.

  “Oi! What are you going on about?” Jackson huffed as he separated her hair into sections. “I’m not old! I’ll have you know—”

  Lillian started laughing. “You’re so easy to tease! What on earth are you doing back there anyways?”

  “Braiding some of the daisies in your hair, like you do with the girls.”

  Lillian smiled. “Happy Birthday, Jackson.”

  “Well, technically it’s not until tomorrow! But if you want to give me an early present, you could come take a nap with me?”

  “Nap? It’s still early morning!”

  Jackson released her hair and threw his hands up in the air. “It was bloody code! You used to be a spy, woman!”

  Lillian turned around in her seat so she could look at him. “So, when you said nap you meant…”

  Jackson wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Nuh uh! Not enough time. The kids will be back soon.”

  “I can be quick.”

  Lillian frowned. “That’s suppose to be an incentive? And, just for the record, you are never quick, Mr. Crawford.”

  “Speaking of the devils…I mean angels.” Jackson nodded down the shoreline.

  Janna and Ahmed were walking with the children back towards the cottage. Janna was carrying Noel in her arms. Ahmed had Joy resting on his hip, and Sasha and Hope were walking alongside them.

  “Janna looks happy with Noel in her arms. They’re trying again, you know.” Lillian shielded her eyes and looked out at them.

  “Yeah? I hope things work out for them. Despite my grumbling, I’m glad that you insisted on inviting them for the weekend. We’ve all been so busy this past year it seems as if we’ve hardly seen them!”

  “Speak for yourself, dear. Janna and I see each other every day. It’s you and Ahmed who have been so wrapped up in work. Between his new assignment at Mass General and you spending so much time in Chicago this year.”

  “I’m sorry, love. But when you’re an investigative journalist you need to go where the story is, and since the passing of prohibition, well, that is more and more looking like Chicago.”

  “I know.”

  “But for the next week I’m all yours. We could talk again about moving there. It doesn’t have to be permanent. We could always come back to New England. I still have that offer pending with the Chicago Daily News.”

  “Take it.”

  “Really? You mean that?”

  “Yes. Take it. I’ve been stubborn, not wanting to move. I’ll miss our friends and I’ll miss Boston, but this past year, with you traveling back and forth? Well, I’ve missed you more.”

  “Yeah?” he asked searching out her eyes. “I miss you too, when I’m away. I hate leaving you.”

  Lillian looked away shyly and began to nervously play with a button on her dress. “I have a tiny confession to make. My inviting Janna and Ahmed for the weekend? It wasn’t just about me wanting to spend time with them. I had a bit of an ulterior motive.”

  “Ulterior motive?”

  Lillian stood up and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned up, and whispered into his ear. “You. Happy Birthday, darling.”

  Jackson’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Not sure I followed you ‘round that last bend.”

  “Tonight they are taking the children back with them. Noel’s weaned now. Janna and Ahmed agreed to watch them. We get to spend the rest of the week here. Alone. Just the two of us.”

  Jackson pulled away. “No!”

  “Yes!” Lillian nodded enthusiastically.

  “Now, you do realize how bloody cruel it would be for you to tease me about this, don’t you?”

  “No teasing,” Lillian said. “Scout’s honor!”

  “You mean I have five entire days with you? Only you? Your undivided attention?”

  “And five nights, too.”

  Jackson wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist. “Five entire nights, alone, just you and me. Whatever will I do?”

  “You can do anything…” Lillian trailed off coyly as she pulled away from him and twirled an errant strand of her chestnut brown hair around one finger.

  “Anything?” Jackson leaned back and pointedly looked down at the now-prominent bulge evident in his pants.

  “Anything you want.” Lillian leaned up to whisper into his ear. “There’s just one…little…catch.”

  Jackson’s eyes grew wide with anticipation. “And that would be?”

  She backed away from him towards the stairs. Lillian looked over her shoulder out towards the ocean, and glanced back towards Jackson, a playful smile forming on her lips and a glint of mischief in her eye.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to catch me first!” she shouted, bolting from the porch with a squeal.

  “Bloody Hell!” Jackson leapt off the steps into the soft sand. Lillian was already about fifty feet ahead of him. The skirt of the simple white cotton dress she wore was almost translucent in the sunlight. The long braid of her hair, entwined with daisies, flew out behind her as she ran, her f
eet kicking up sand.

  He paused for a second, wanting to commit the vision to memory. Her melodious laughter traveled back to him on the morning’s ocean breeze. “If you can catch me…you can have me!” she shouted back over her shoulder as she continued to run, taunting him just as she had done one night years ago, in a land far away.

  “Oh, I can catch you, love” he said, confidently before taking off at a full run. “Help me catch Mum, kids!” he shouted.

  Hope who was a little over four years old immediately joined in the fray.

  “Come help catch Mummy, Sash!” she squealed to her little friend before beginning to chase Lillian down towards the water’s edge.

  “Hope, you close in on the right! Sasha, move in on the left!” shouted Jackson. “Come on, girls, don’t let her get away now!”

  Joy let go of Ahmed’s hand and she immediately tried to chase after her older sister, but her little three-year-old feet were a bit clumsy and she stumbled as she struggled to run in the loose sand. Jackson noticed her plight as he caught up with them and without breaking pace he scooped her up in his arms, ran four or five steps closer to the water, and set her down on the firmer sand.

  Lillian was now wading up to her ankles in the water, gingerly lifting up the skirt of her dress to prevent it from getting wet.

  “Looks like I’ve got you cornered, pet.” Jackson stalked towards his prey.

  She was winded and flushed from the running.

  “You cheated!” she yelled, nodding in the direction of his accomplices.

  “And you’re what? Shocked and disappointed? You know I’m ruthless!” Jackson teased as he continued to walk towards her. “You knew that when you married me, pet. Do you give?”

  “No!” she shouted, defiantly.

  “Stubborn!” He reached down, scooped up a handful of the cold ocean water and splashed her.

  Lillian spontaneously shrieked as the cold water began to hit her face. Without thought, she dropped her skirt and brought her hands up to shield herself from the continued onslaught. The fabric fell into the water immediately becoming heavier. As she took another step back, she could feel her skirt begin to twist around her legs. She looked down and began to gather it up again. Just then, a medium size wave approached and pushed her unsteadily forward, into Jackson’s waiting arms.