by Mima
She looked at him. Good morning seemed a ridiculous thing to say, so she didn’t.
“All I have is porridge and coffee. Some supplies will come later today.”
“I’ll take some porridge and just a glass of water.” She didn’t mind the smell of coffee, but the taste of it, even sugared and creamed, was not something she enjoyed.
After she’d battled from the bed, she asked hopefully, “Bathroom?”
“Next to the carport.”
She was still wearing her red dress. She found her nice shoes and ignored the relentless steady sound of the ocean, or how close the high tide had come, and crunched down the oyster path. Stopping halfway, she turned and went back to the house.
“You’ll stay here?”
He nodded. “I won’t leave.”
Still, when she had to stop and look back before passing into his workshop, she forced herself to not to call out to him, to have him come to the door. The bathroom had been updated in the sixties. The olive fixtures were clean and worked fine. She showered, shaved with his razor—she’d have to warn him—and used his toothbrush. ’Cause ruining his life wasn’t enough.
Back through the oil scent of his machine shop, past the Rover, and again ignored the ocean’s taunts as she entered into the little room. Gram was in the corner fluffing the mattress. Adam was setting the table. Xia went to take Gram’s place and made the bed.
She sat across from Adam, uncomplaining of her simple glass of water and bowl of cinnamon porridge. They ate in calm silence, and she remembered the long-ago morning they’d sat side by side on her little couch much the same way. If only the ocean wasn’t muttering beyond the walls.
“What did Markos have to say?”
“He stayed in Vienna, met again with Robert and a small group from the meeting. Robert has declared silence on the meeting and seems to think it will hold until our plan is in place.
“Today and tomorrow I need you to write, Xia. You need to write and think and lay out both the essential experience the best you can, and how you interpret it. Markos, Robert, Nuwoe and I are lining up more participants to be part of the unveiling and commentary. Three of the members at the meeting have already agreed to join in, representing Oxford, Nuremburg and Harvard, as well as professors at St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Delhi and Tokyo.”
Xia forced the lump of oatmeal she’d swallowed to finish its path down her closed throat. “I’m not a very eloquent writer.”
“You’ll do your best.”
“Will you… I’d appreciate it, if you could, read it over and help.”
Now it was his turn to still his steadily working spoon. He looked at her, and she ached inside at how beautiful he was. “About time you asked.” He spooned the rest of the porridge from the pot to his bowl and resumed eating.
She watched, eventually managing to swallow a few more bites.
“I performed an experiment when you were asleep.”
“Oh?”
“I went and fetched our bags. You didn’t wake.”
“Oh!” Terrific. That meant there was no metaphysical reason she needed to be near him. She was just crazy and weak.
“So then I went for a quick swim in my fur. I have no problem guarding your sleep from a distance, but still your need for me didn’t trigger, even when I took my other form.”
What it must have felt like to him, to be home, with his selkie self so close, and not be able to instantly go and be who he really was.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I’m so sorry to—to be this stone around your neck.”
His eyes crinkled a bit at the corners, and his lips curled at one edge in his smile. “What else could you be when you’ve come out of a ghosting with Terra?”
She blinked. He was making jokes about it? He chuckled and drank some of his coffee. Her water tasted stale, like it had been bottled for too long. But it wasn’t salty, which was all that mattered.
When he was finished, he ate what was left of hers and put all the dishes on a gorgeous Japanese lacquer tray. From under the bed, he pulled her laptop case. He put it on the table. “Your priority today, all your focus, needs to be writing. If we can get your ideas out to them and their responses to the media, all within two or three days, we can weather the initial storm of interest in you and let this move ahead on its own.”
Xia slowly unzipped her bag. “So my notes are only going to be read by the professors, not printed in the papers?”
“I wouldn’t plan on them staying secret. In a year or so, they’ll come out.” His voice lowered to a growl. “Anonymously.”
Xia powered up the laptop. Adam opened the thick plank door. “I’m leaving this open. I’m going to the washbasin at the garage. You can see me if you move a little to the left.”
He went out, and she tried to hold her seat, to believe he was right there. He was coming back, just like he had from the grocery store. She was safe, he was safe, Terra could not reclaim her. By the time her desktop image, a picture of Tony’s current volcano gleaming with lava in the evening, came up, she was panting softly, but determined to hold her place.
She opened up the word-processing program, and when that was set, she had to give in and lift her feet off the floor, propping them on the opposite bench. At the top of the page she typed A Morphi’s Subsumation Into Terra. She’d done this once before. It had been her first therapist’s suggestion when she’d come out of Ignis with Markos. She had typed it all out, and it had helped, settling something inside her. Not that she had ever read it again. It had come up with her trip into water, also. But putting that journey on paper would have made it too real, too permanent. She’d never had the courage.
Just the thought of how the ritual had begun, with her on the plaid bed and Adam holding her feet, her symbolic anchor, had her hyperventilating. She had to turn on the bench, put her feet on the floor and bend her head between her knees. Footsteps crunched on the walk. She shook from the will it took not to turn and watch for him. Her head pounded. The door kicked closed, and the small chink of dishes came.
He said, “Try not to puke inside.”
Abruptly, a laugh startled from her. In a moment she could sit up. Ease settled into her shoulders knowing he was here again. Coming around the table, he squatted on his haunches in front of her and took her hands. “This is not weakness, Xia. It’s not something that you can face down and toughen yourself up for. It’s a wound you must heal from. Stop picking at the scab, and let yourself heal.”
She wanted to fling herself onto his strong shoulders, be caught by his black depths. She wouldn’t though. She had to stop being deadweight and start pulling her own.
His hand came up cradled her face. The touch of his calloused skin exploded through her, a softening in her belly. Her lips parted for him without her permission.
“Little warrior, not everything has to be a battle, and certainly not fought alone.”
She gave him the truth. “I hate not being an equal partner. I don’t want to be a burden you carry to finish an obligation.” She licked her lips and his darkening gaze dropped to them, which made it easier to finish. “I want to be a woman you’re proud to stand next to.”
Holding her breath, she waited. It was such a blatant attempt at reassurance. Where did she stand with him? Was she anything more than duty at all?
His hand slid away from her cheek, which stung from the chill of his absence. His dark eyes captured hers again. “I want you to be that woman. Life is in our way. Duty is very much present, for now. Did you think it was a casual thing when I agreed to be your anchor? I am your anchor for more than the short span of the ceremony. I’m also still your rampart, responsible for your safety. When I failed and fell asleep last night, you had a nightmare.”
She gasped. “You still haven’t slept?”
His brow furrowed. “I am to watch over you in your sleep, Morphi.”
“I’ve seen a lot of scary things in my life. I’m never not going to have nightmares, Adam. Markos won’t order me int
o the dreamtime again. Or if he does, I’ll refuse. I’m too unsteady right now. You should be officially released as my rampart.”
“That order isn’t yours to make.”
“So…when you are no longer assigned to me, and when I’ve recovered from this neurosis I’ve picked up, you’d still be willing to see me?” Her heart banged off her ribs. She couldn’t believe she was daring to ask Adam if he’d date her in some far future.
“You have to go back in the water.”
“What?” She reared away from him.
He stood, staring down at her, and winked. “You heard me. Any woman I’m with has to at least tolerate the sea.”
She was on her feet, head tipped back, chin jutting. “Are you giving me an ultimatum I have to pass to be your girlfriend?” Her mouth flapped with outrage. “That’s—that’s so arrogant.”
“You love a challenge. Come now, you’re up to it.” He crossed his arms.
“I’ll go in the water when I’m good and ready, not because some sexy boy wants me to.”
“You’ll go in the water to finish getting healthy, because it’s long overdue.”
“You’re not my therapist.” She crossed her arms in return.
“You know what? I’m not. I’m your lover. I should carry more weight.”
“Adam!”
“Xia.”
Her blood was boiling and that smile curled on his lips. It was like some taunting smirk and the light flared white. She leaped on him, one arm tight across his shoulder, the other wrapping over his head. Her mouth hit his hard, lips jamming. She worked her jaw to get into his mouth as he grabbed her hips. Winning the cavern of his mouth thrilled her. She rolled her tongue through his, his taste warm and sweet and faintly of toothpaste. Massive palms gathered her ass and pressed her in tight to him, her dress sliding silkily in his grip. He swirled his hips in her belly. That pressure loosened her legs and he let her stand on her own. Cradling his head, now she forced him to turn at the angle she wanted, sealing their mouths. She drank him down.
One of his hands skated up her spine, electrifying her scalp, while the other grabbed her breast, fingers sinking into the flesh, owning it, claiming her. His other hand settled on her nape, while his touch burned up her breast to her throat. The dangerous sensation of her neck trapped between his two palms weakened her knees. Listing against him, she mewed into his mouth. His fingers pressed and stroked along the lines of her throat. So good.
The kiss went on. Air grew thin. Her brain spun, drunk with him. He left her throat and ripped at his pants on his hips. They stumbled together as he turned them in place. Frantic to be close to him, to feed the need exploding inside her, she clung to him, her hands under his tee, desperate for his skin. Falling backward onto the bench, he sat, taking the brief moment their mouths separated to pull his shirt over his head. Astonished at the view in front of her, the muscles and tight skin, she didn’t resist when he tossed her skirt up to her waist and pulled her forward to straddle his knees.
His mouth found hers again, and the heat cascaded, so lovely, so free. Her fingers flew over his shoulders and chest. His grabbed her ass and lifted her. Squeaking she clutched his shoulders, but her knees soon found the bench and then she was over him. He pulled her underwear aside and his erection lodged between her legs. Two moans, low and tight, twined through the room. His palms burned into her ass as she trembled, her whole body balanced on the tip of him. He nipped, hard, at her lip, and the sting of salt rocked her head back. Her body softened, opened, and she slid down the thick pole of him.
Her kiss turned frantic as the pain and pleasure twined, in her lip, in her stretched center. He jerked her closer, sealing her down a final inch. A sound left her throat and he paused. She clenched around him with her inner muscles, then he went wild. His shoulders rolled and bunched as his palms lifted her beneath her bum. His fingers sank brutally into her skin as he pulled her down, grunting into her still-desperate mouth.
The two sensations above and below kept distracting her, as she split her attention between them. Each time her attention returned to her lips, they felt huge and sore and sensitive. When his rough movement drew her awareness to her vagina, the burn of him stretching her, lodged so deep, would spin her mind away. It sped faster, harder, deeper, wilder, and then his arms banded around her, crushing her ribs, as he shook, holding her tight to him, hips straining against hers. He made no sound, but the fact that he was utterly taut and still finally lured her away from his mouth.
His face was so beautiful in orgasm. A ray of light came through the small window, dust motes hanging in the air like fairy magic. Her chest was flattened in his tight grip, and his jaw hung open. His cheekbones were stark below the slash of his brows, his lids squeezed tightly closed. The pleasure clamping deep inside her body tightened one degree and sharp sensation radiated from her clit. He opened his glowing purple eyes and she let her orgasm wash through her face as he held her close, held her safe.
She did not close her eyes, but let him see. It was all there for him to find, if he would. A high, thin cry wrenched from her throat when the pleasure strung out. Her short nails sunk into the meat of his chest. His eyes narrowed, and he jerked her down as he tilted his hips up, grinding her clit against his belly. The pleasure flattened the light, and her voice wailed as another orgasm bloomed behind the first.
He fell forward onto her neck, his teeth closing hard on the front of her throat, his tongue pressed tight to her pulse. He sucked, and she gasped. He lifted her a tiny bit, pulling her ass cheeks wide, and stuffed her down on him again, and the tiny bit of spread allowed him to go that much deeper, her clit against him that much harder. He sucked on her throat and it hurt and the pleasure spiked. Her back arched as the light took her. Her whole torso lunged backwards, her body whipped by too much feeling. His hands laced in the small of her spine caught her, and she hung from their joined hips, her arms outflung, as she shook and screamed and thrashed and died on the spike of him.
When it passed, he gathered her forward again, and she lay shuddering on his chest, slumped, dazed. He stroked her hips and ass. He kissed her temple, smoothed her crown with his jaw. A whimper came from her as little stings of pleasure cascaded from where they were enmeshed, echoes. He rocked her. Eventually both their hearts steadied, and their breath smoothed.
One big palm on the back of her neck, he tipped her head back and took her mouth, slow, deep, completely. When she blinked up into his royal gaze, she felt reborn.
“I adore sending a woman into the rapture.” He kissed one eye gently.
“The rapture? You use such sweet sayings. Calling it sharing and rapture.”
He grinned, wide and adorable. His hair tumbled over his forehead and she had to push it back. “Sharing is good sex with equal partners. The rapture is more. The rapture is when a woman goes out of herself and becomes pleasure bound in flesh. It’s been a very long time for me, Xia. Thank you. You were magnificent.”
“You were pretty splendid yourself.” Xia tugged the ends of hair. “You said it had been a long time since you’d taken a lover. I fear what you would be like with practice.” She cuddled into his neck, ignoring the ache in her splayed hips and the wetness coating her thighs.
“I haven’t driven a woman into rapture since my second wife, Haki. You are only the third woman to gift me with such trust.”
Xia frowned. “Meg?”
Adam sighed, his fingers thrilling over her tailbone. “Yes. Once, I shared that with her, but she was afraid of it. We never went there again.”
Xia considered what it was like to be in company with his dead wives. “Afraid? I can see how that would be possible. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I don’t think I’m up for it often, but I’m not saying never again. It’s like…you can’t have Godiva’s triple chocolate cheesecake every day, and it’s an effort one must gird oneself up for and get in the right state of mind, but you know you’re going to go back and do it again sometime. You won’t be ab
le to withstand the allure.”
Adam stilled beneath her weight. “Are you comparing me to cheesecake?”
“Raindrop, it was just a metaphor. Do me again like that anytime soon, and I may end up gibbering and catatonic after all.”
“I don’t think you can be both gibbering and catatonic.” She heard the grin in his voice.
“Pffft. Details, details.” Heaving a sigh, she considered the fact that the bench was cutting into her knees in a very painful way. “I have to get up, sorry.”
He drew her up, and they both caught their breath when he fell from the clutch of her warmth. She got her knees under her, but he kept his grip on her ribs while she firmed her stance. Her rumpled dress fell down around her calves.
“’Kay, got it.”
“Just a moment.” He pulled the scoop neckline down and pushed her nipple above the fabric. His lips closed over her, soft and hot, while his tongue laved her. The tremors this caused in her belly spread through her body.
“Adam, too much!”
He hummed, licking across her once more, before letting her breast settle back into her bra. He stood, and stretched. The blatant display worked for her and she fell on his tan nipple, teeth dragging across the bitty nub. His arms cradled around her, holding her loosely until she was done tasting the salt of him. With her forehead pressed to his collarbone, she got her breath back.
They both sighed at the same time. Smiling, she stepped away from him, and he let her. It was impossible, at first, not to touch him, as he pulled his pants up from ankles, picked up his tee and pulled it back on.
“Your bags are under the bed.”
“All right.” She nestled into him, and he held her. Surrounded by his shoulders, with his head bowed over hers, he stood solid, like he would let her stay there all day. There was no sense of waiting to disengage, of wanting to get moving. He was around her, and he wanted to be there. Tears pricked her eyes. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his throat and stepped back.
