The Innocents

by Riley LaShea

  Realizing she didn’t actually expect Delaney to respond in the affirmative only as she came around the door frame, Haydn watched dark brown hair slip over her shoulder, her brown eyes unreadable as they took in the library she only had a chance to glimpse before.

  “I just…” she faltered, fingers white where they clutched the door frame. “I just wanted to thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you,” Haydn said. Brooks’ accusation left unanswered, she didn’t want Delaney thinking it was some grand gesture.

  “I didn’t think you did,” Delaney snapped, but her expression turned near apologetic as she at last looked Haydn’s way. “I know you didn’t. I know you did it for Kiara. I just… I’m not entirely sure why.”

  “You’re not sure why?” Haydn felt the prickle of irritation down her neck. “Why? Because, by my very nature, I should be fine with a grown man doing whatever his proclivities incline him to do to a little girl?”

  “Well, isn’t that your very nature?” Delaney returned, and the ferocity that clashed with curiosity in her dark eyes heaved Haydn to the edge of restraint. If Delaney knew her nature so well, she would know it was dangerous to be there with her. She would know, ever since they’d been forced to share space, Haydn was like a bow string pulled tight, trembling with constrained energy that could only be released in one of two ways - by firing or snapping. “I mean, you don’t have anything tempering your lusts, do you?”

  Delaney had no idea.

  “I have a brain,” Haydn replied. “And, believe it or not, it does have the capacity to comprehend the kind of damage it will do if something happens to Kiara while she’s here. Just because I’m not predisposed to concern myself with humanity’s moral spectrum doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. I told you that you would be safe here. I intend to keep my word.”

  She expected it to take more, for Delaney to demand endless illumination on the subject. She expected, at the very least, more doubt on Delaney’s part, which seemed as unceasing as her curiosity. What Haydn didn’t expect was for Delaney to push off the door frame, for measured strides to carry her forward, or for her own heart to go into overdrive to match the pace of Delaney’s.

  Scent of Delaney’s desire engulfing her senses as she came to a stop before her, Haydn tried to think, struggled to tame the beast within as it clawed at her insides. She could take what she wanted - had known she could - but she didn’t want that. She wanted to be wanted. She wanted to be met halfway.

  When Delaney pushed onto her toes to press a kiss nearly as innocent as she was to Haydn’s lips, Haydn felt as if she might be.

  “What are you doing?” She stiffened, body wound so tight she knew any control she had was only temporary. Snap or fire, something had to give.

  “You said to let you know when I wanted to show my appreciation.” Delaney’s breaths fell uneven from her lips, and, in opposition to what they wanted to do, Haydn’s hands pressed away.

  “You don’t want this,” she said, though she could see, smell, taste, hear and feel that Delaney did.

  “Don’t tell me what I want.” The fire in the response stunned Haydn long enough for Delaney’s arms to slide around her neck, and Haydn fought the urge to take control as Delaney’s lips latched onto her own, tongue flicking out to taste her.

  Delaney didn’t get it, couldn’t begin to understand. She could read everything she could get her hands on, and could still never fathom how Haydn felt with Delaney pressed against her. Haydn couldn’t even comprehend it. A millennium of lustful, unrestrained sex behind her, no logic explained the near giddy euphoria that swept through her body. Knowing it would be impossible to stop herself if she started, Haydn realized, as Delaney’s tongue brushed against hers, she had already started, the whole of her giving into the urgency of life Delaney carried into the room with her.

  Hands burying in dark brown hair, its softness felt unreal, like spun silk. Meeting Delaney stroke for stroke, Haydn allowed herself a moment of dominance when she couldn’t get enough, tongue probing Delaney’s mouth to taste every part of her, and, when Delaney pulled away, Haydn worried for a moment she would fall back on her morality, which, until the moment she walked into the library, seemed rather solidly against fraternization with deraphs.

  Eyes bordering black, hair wild from Haydn’s fingers moving through it, Delaney pulled the black shirt over her head, expressly inviting Haydn into a world she hadn’t known existed for her until a few weeks ago and had been fervent to get into ever since.

  “Wait.” Much to her surprise, she was the one who stopped the natural progression. “Not here.”

  Thoughts encumbered with craving, it was all Haydn could do to stop Delaney’s hands as they moved to the button of her pants, clutching them together to keep her from revealing more than she already had. Stepping forward, she felt the soft skin of Delaney’s stomach against the backs of her knuckles as she kissed her, getting all the certainty she needed in Delaney’s frantic response, before she swept down to lift Delaney into her arms.

  When Delaney’s lips returned to hers, Haydn didn’t want to contemplate how it happened, how she had gotten Delaney to come to her without any type of pressure, reveling instead in the immediacy of what she felt - so rare in her world - as she carried them out the library door.

  Incapable as her lips were of leaving Haydn’s, Delaney swore they were made of something otherworldly. In a way, she guessed, they were, whatever it was that made a deraph a deraph, so seductive and so impossible to resist.

  She should fight it, she thought, when she heard the sound of the door closing, continue to battle within, rage against her own desire. Feeling the softness of the bed beneath her back, though, Haydn’s hands moving up her sides, lips on Delaney’s pacifying her need just enough to get them through to what came next, Delaney needed to know what those lips and hands were capable of doing to the rest of her body.

  It was wrong. She knew it was wrong, but it was wrong in an overreaching, socially acceptable kind of way, not in any tangible way. They were both old enough to know what they were doing. There were no secrets - each knew exactly what the other was - and no powers of persuasion. What Delaney felt, she knew she couldn’t blame on anyone else. Not even Haydn. No one was being coerced. No one was being abused. No one was getting hurt. Indeed, if the feel of Haydn’s hands brushing her skin as they unbuttoned her pants and slid them down her legs was any indication, they were both about to get exactly what they wanted.

  Unevenly undressed, what little patience Delaney had when she entered the library withered to nothing. Ripping at Haydn’s dark clothes, she got help along the way, and, notching up with each cloaking fabric that fell to the floor, her desperation for Haydn hit its apex as Haydn hovered naked above her, the curves of her hips and breasts utterly, perfectly human, yet somehow more at the same time.

  Knees pressed on either side of her almost confinement, the warmth that oozed from Haydn to mix with her own was pure freedom, everything Delaney had been denying herself since she first suffered Haydn’s presence in the graveyard of the abbey. And when Haydn leaned down to kiss her, Delaney gasped against lips, red from the brutal intensity of their previous exchanges, at the feel of Haydn’s breasts pressing against her own.

  In the tease of Haydn’s tongue, the subtle contractions of Haydn’s body as she stretched down the length of her own, Delaney felt her own desire reflected inch for inch. Haydn’s touch, however, was reserved. Moving from her collarbone to trail slowly between her breasts, Delaney could sense it, how much Haydn was holding back.

  That tempered touch alone radiating to every part of her and beyond, she wanted Haydn to stop being so cautious, to do with her as she wanted, to lose all restraint. Hands spreading over the soft, strong terrain of Haydn’s back, Delaney pulled her closer, and Haydn’s lips at last broke from hers to suckle softly at her neck.

  Fingertips brushing her nipple at the same time, Delaney murmured a stream of expletives that joined with cries to the
gods in one long blasphemous prayer. She thought she knew how much she wanted Haydn. When her feet carried her up the stairs and to the door of the library, she thought she understood what it was she sought, but each of Haydn’s caresses - from the flick of her tongue against her nipple to the sweep of Haydn’s hair against her over-sensitized skin - a thousand times any touch she’d ever felt, Delaney didn’t realize what all there was to find.

  In her frenzy to feel more, more quickly, she didn’t recognize her own hand pushing Haydn’s down her abdomen, until she felt the first caress of Haydn’s fingers against her slick, swollen flesh and the hand flailed for something to hold onto, finding it in the strong curve of Haydn’s shoulder.

  At the first thrust of Haydn inside of her, Delaney’s fingernails dug into skin. Body losing form, turning into countless, unrelenting shivers, it was so much and so not enough that Delaney strained into Haydn’s hand, silently asking for more. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t silent. Perhaps, her plea was loud, because Haydn gave her exactly what she wanted - more, deeper - though still not enough to satisfy the part of Delaney that wanted Haydn to just crawl inside of her and inhabit her very being.

  One hand dragging up Haydn’s back, the other buried in Haydn’s hair as Haydn’s mouth closed around her nipple, Delaney bucked, rewarded with such force and fullness, it was almost enough to satisfy. Feeling something give way, the pain was so entwined with the good, her resultant cry was more ecstasy than anguish, and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t let Haydn tear her in two if it meant more of the wonders taking place inside of her.

  The sound enough to stop Haydn, the glorious onslaught that promised to take Delaney to places she’d never dreamed came to a sudden, excruciating halt.

  “Don’t, please.” She forced her eyes to open, hand gripping Haydn’s shoulder to keep her from disengaging. “God, please don’t stop.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Haydn said, and, glancing down at the blood that circled Haydn’s forearm like some sort of tribal bracelet, the pain only mattered when Haydn began to withdraw.

  “I don’t care.” Arms wrapping around her shoulders, Delaney tried to keep her from taking away her touch, which it felt as if she’d been waiting, not just the weeks they had been together, but her entire life to feel.

  “I’m usually…” Delaney couldn’t withhold her pained groan as Haydn extracted her hand. “I’m used to those who can take more.”

  “I can take more,” Delaney argued.

  “No.” Haydn’s harsh reply cut off any further assertions of her indestructability. “I should have been gentler with you.” Not exactly guilt, there was something undeniably regretful in the statement, despite Haydn’s assertion she was unconcerned with human morality.

  “I didn’t ask you to be gentle,” Delaney said. Little concerned with the blood, and absolutely no patience for conversation, she still didn’t want Haydn gentle. She wanted Haydn in an absolutely consuming way, in whatever form she came.

  When Haydn still refused to meet her gaze, Delaney slid her hands beneath her chin, knowing it would take both to pull Haydn’s head up if she resisted. Requiring only minor coaxing to get Haydn to look at her, Delaney withheld a gasp at the red eyes that met her own, clutching harder to Haydn when the unexpected sight nearly made her let go.

  It was the blood, she realized, the sight, the smell of it more potent on the air. Taking over Haydn’s senses, it warped her hunger, and Haydn struggled to control it, fingers gripping the duvet at Delaney’s side, heart pounding against Delaney’s breast.

  She should have been terrified, knowing what Haydn must be thinking, what she had to want. Instead, Delaney felt the perverse thrill of knowing what Haydn wanted to do to her, at the multiple ways in which Haydn craved her.

  Blood warm and sticky beneath her fingers where they grasped Haydn’s wrist, Delaney led Haydn’s hand to her lips, but Haydn hesitated to taste. Prodding harder, Delaney didn’t let up until the tip of Haydn’s tongue at last slipped out to run across her fingertips. Her eyes fluttering, she sucked her middle finger into her mouth, lips closing hot and wet around it, and it sent a jolt of pleasure so unlike the others through Delaney, she realized she should have let Haydn be gentle with her. She should have let Haydn take her through all the levels and tempos, ease her into the more she needed. She didn’t know why she didn’t think Haydn had it in her, why she thought she knew how fast and hard it had to be.

  Each coated finger that vanished between Haydn’s lips licked clean, Delaney watched Haydn’s eyes darken to wine, just a trace of red lingering, and hands going to Haydn’s shoulders, her encouragement became less about Haydn’s needs and more about her own.

  Submitting to the offering, or the request, Haydn moved down her body. Trepidation dissolving at the first brush of Haydn’s tongue against her most delicate flesh, made even more sensitive by new wounds, Delaney reached for the rails of the headboard, and, as Haydn’s tongue explored the velvet terrain before dipping inside of her, Delaney felt everything flow out of her for Haydn’s consumption.

  Leg wrapping around her, what little pain remained seemed to transfer between them, Haydn’s soft moan vibrating her flesh and elevating Delaney to some ethereal plane as she took full possession of her body. Everything Haydn wanted her to feel, Delaney felt. Anything Haydn wanted her to do, Delaney was willing.

  It should be a one-time thing, she would think after. She had appeased her desire, as much as it could ever be appeased, and some of her curiosity, discovering, for her own intents and purposes, Haydn’s body was the same as hers in its wants and likes.

  Now that she had done it, she should be over it. It should be out of her system.

  Blaming her weakness on the paradoxical sensation of Haydn’s arms around her, both snare and solace, Delaney realized Haydn was far from out of her system. She was more deeply embedded than before, and, now that she had allowed herself to give into her once, she would be helpless not to do it again.

  26

  Waking with a body pressed against her, it was familiar, but not the same one Delaney remembered from before she fell asleep. Recognizing the incongruity as her eyes opened to find Haydn’s room still softly illuminated by the firelight and candles that burned on the sconce on the far wall, Delaney tugged the duvet higher on her chest, looking to the small body curled against her, wondering how Kiara had found her and how confused she must have been when she did.

  Haydn gone, it was the one thing for which she could be grateful. Explaining what she was doing in bed with Haydn to Kiara about the last thing she wanted to do, Delaney carefully disentangled herself from the covers, locating her clothes, somehow folded neatly on the bedside table, and pulled them on. Fully dressed, she scooped Kiara into her arms, hopeful that, if she woke up where she belonged, Kiara would have no recollection of either of their adventures in the night.

  Blessed by a clear path as they left the third floor, Delaney winced at the sound of her name as she made it to the landing of the second.

  “Oh, thank God,” Vicar Bryce uttered upon seeing Kiara in her arms. “She was right next to me when I fell asleep, but when I woke up she was gone.”

  Kiara’s tendency to roam getting slightly out of hand, Delaney considered they might have to start tying the girl down at night.

  “How did you…?” Vicar Bryce started to question, but, glancing to the stairs they’d just come down and Delaney’s rushed state of dress, he didn’t bother to finish.

  “We’re going back to bed,” Delaney diverted further questions. “Thank you for watching her.”

  Taking Kiara down the hall, Delaney shut the door of their bedroom behind them, not sure if the shame she felt was from how she’d spent her night or being caught doing it.

  It was a few short hours later when Delaney woke again. Body too tired not to, she had fallen into an unexpectedly sound sleep, and was relieved to find Kiara hadn’t slipped away.

  No reason to rush out of bed, she studied the girl’s face - white-blonde e
yebrows, near invisible against her pale complexion, same light lashes resting against her cheeks - lamenting how fleeting innocence was in the world, until at last green eyes blinked open, traces of sleep lingering in them as Kiara focused on her.

  “Good morning,” Delaney whispered.

  “Good morning.” Kiara yawned in return.

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Okay.”

  “You left Vicar Bryce,” Delaney reminded her, somewhat reassured by the confusion that passed through Kiara’s eyes.

  “I didn’t know where you went,” she uttered, and, guilt seeping in, Delaney reached across the pillow to tug at a springy curl.

  “You found me.”

  “Why’d you go up there to sleep?”

  Question coming as a monumental relief, Delaney trusted it meant Kiara hadn’t seen anything, or anyone, to lead her to believe she was doing anything else.

  “I didn’t,” she could honestly say. “I just fell asleep.” And it was more than foolish, despite everything they had done, to feel safe enough to do so in Haydn’s presence. Even after decades of training, a tamer knew better than to sleep in a lion’s cage.

  “Like Alice?” Kiara questioned.

  “Yes.” Delaney smiled softly. “Like Alice. Are you hungry?”

  Thankful when Kiara nodded, Delaney wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait to put something calorie-laden in her stomach, and, it was with relief, and a voracious appetite, that she took the small hand to head to the kitchen.

  Smell of eggs and bacon floating down the hall as they made their way, Delaney realized they were in luck. Though, the sound of voices coming from the dining room were lesser fortune.

  She was going to have to face them eventually. Whether they wanted it or not, their close companionship would continue for some time. Delaney would have just preferred a little time to get her bearings back in her own world. Remembering the jolting surprise of Kiara’s presence at her side that morning, it occurred to her she had to accept that living in such close proximity to other people was like being part of a family. She couldn’t hide her warts forever, no matter how hard she tried to keep them covered.