by Loki Renard
“Just sit down,” Anne said, pulling a large flat-backed hairbrush from her bag.
Sarah sat quickly, more out of reflex to protect her butt than anything.
Anne stood behind Sarah and began running the brush through her hair with slow, soothing strokes. Sarah found the tension going out of her body as the bristles lightly scratched her scalp and she realized that she was not being punished, she was being cared for.
“You think I should just trust that everything is going to be alright?”
“I think you should invest less energy into the certainty that everything will go wrong,” Anne said. “You can’t live your life on the verge of disaster.”
“John does.”
“John lives his life saving people from that verge,” Anne replied. “He is very, very careful. Do you trust him to do his job well?”
“Yes,” Sarah said after a brief moment. There really wasn’t any question as to whether John was good at his job. She had seen him in action herself. “I do.”
“Then let’s spend this evening as pleasantly as we can,” Anne suggested calmly. “Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself?”
“Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself,” Sarah challenged in return. She could see Anne’s smile reflected in the mirror on the wall opposite the couch.
“What would you like to know, dear?”
Sarah had to think about that. Now she’d challenged Anne, she had to come up with a decent question for her. What did she want to know about the woman who John seemed to trust so absolutely?
“At your house,” Sarah said. “There are pictures of you, and several men, but no family. I mean, no young family.”
“It never happened for me,” Anne said, running the brush through Sarah’s hair. “I had plenty of lovers, but never one I would have raised a family with.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, immediately feeling guilty for having asked such a personal question.
“Don’t be sorry,” Anne replied. “We all have different paths. I have never regretted my life’s choices. If one believes one has a choice at all. Free will being up for debate and that sort of thing.”
“I hope it happens for me,” Sarah confided. “I hope…”
“You hope it happens with John?”
Sarah blushed and nodded. “I’m getting ahead of myself, I know.”
“Well, perhaps a little,” Anne mused. “But I think the body and the heart know what they want in the first instant of meeting.”
“You’re a romantic!” Sarah was surprised. “I’m not… but I hope you’re right.”
“I think you might be a romantic,” Anne said with a knowing smile. “I think every woman in love becomes a romantic whether she wants to be or not.”
“I don’t know much about being in love,” Sarah admitted. “This is my first time. I think maybe I’m messing it up. I have too many feelings. Every time he goes away I’m afraid I might never see him again…”
“To love is to bear a future loss,” Anne said gently. “But if you don’t love, you live the loss anyway. Didn’t your mother teach you about love?”
“My mother died when I was two. My dad never remarried. He was alone as long as I knew him. I guess that’s what I learned about love. That it leaves you and then you’re alone forever.”
“I’m sorry,” Anne said. “That was insensitive of me.”
“I asked you why you never had any kids,” Sarah shrugged. “We’re even.”
“Fair enough.” Anne smiled and went on brushing Sarah’s hair. Sarah found herself half-closing her eyes and relaxing into a care that was gentle and undemanding. She opened them when Anne spoke again.
“You never had a mother, and I never had a daughter.” Anne’s blue eyes twinkled with warmth. “Isn’t life funny with its coincidences, matching people almost like puzzle pieces. That which someone lacks, someone else has.”
“So you think life is about fitting together?”
“In some ways.”
“John and I fit together,” Sarah said softly.
“Yes,” Anne agreed. “You do.”
*
The rest of the evening passed calmly. With Anne there to talk to, Sarah’s anxiety was not so consuming. They talked about many things, about the past and about the future. Sarah found herself actually thinking about what she wanted for herself, instead of fretting about the past. She was worried about John, of course, but the worry seemed more in proportion. Less overwhelming. Anne wouldn’t allow the TV to be on the news network but she did begrudgingly tolerate the ‘Fake Wives’ show Sarah had been watching before everything got so scary.
Eventually, Sarah fell asleep in front of the television with Odin curled up beside her. She was not aware of Anne quietly leaving, she wasn’t aware of anything until she woke up to the sound of the front door closing and Odin whining happily. She opened her eyes and there John was. Covered in soot, filthy from his labors, but strong as ever.
Sarah leaped up from the couch, burst into tears of relief, and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him as tight as she could.
“Shhh,” he comforted her. “It’s alright. I’m alright. You’re alright.”
Sarah buried her face in his chest. He smelled like smoke and sweat, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel his body against hers, his hard, vital presence comforting her as she drew in deep breath after deep breath.
“I need to take a shower,” he murmured against the top of her head. “Do you want to come with me?”
She couldn’t have been peeled from him by a hundred men. John had some difficulty moving with her wrapped around him so closely, so he ended up picking her up and carrying her to the bathroom like a husband carrying his bride over the threshold of their new home.
“I need to take my clothes off,” he said almost apologetically, setting her on her feet.
“Let me do it.”
She put her fingers to his buttons and set about the task of pulling the dirty clothes from his body. His powerful torso was covered in a sheen of sweat. She could imagine how hot it must have been underneath his firefighting gear. He smelled like a man who had been exerting himself for hours, a salty musk that drew her to him all over again. She peeled his trousers down and found his underwear soaked in the same sweat. Soon all of his dirty clothes were discarded on the floor, and her clothing followed in short order.
They stepped into the hot, steaming embrace of the shower. Sarah took the body wash and cloth and began to clean him, her delicate hands tracing every ripple of his muscular body, suds washing away the work and the care of the day. It was good just to feel him under her hands, to know that he was there, he was real, he was back.
“Hey.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry tonight was so hard on you,” he said. “It will get easier. The more you see I come back from these things, the less you’ll worry.”
“You called Anne on me,” she said as his other hand slid around her waist and his palm found her bottom to draw her into the shower’s flow.
“I didn’t want you to be alone. Are you mad, my brat?” He asked the question in a deep drawl, running his hand over the curve of her hip.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not mad at all. I learned something tonight. I learned… that I can do this.”
He cocked his head to the side, looking more handsome than ever as the water dripped from his dark flattened curls. “What can you do?”
“I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved, but I love you anyway. I don’t have a choice, and I don’t want one.” Tears welled in her eyes and mingled with the water flowing over her body. “I’ve wasted too much time being scared and I’m not scared anymore. I mean, I am, but I’m not going to let it stop me loving you. And I’m not going to let it make me useless anymore. Mrs. Derringer and I were talking about a lot of things tonight. I’m going to train as a nurse, so I can help people.”
His proud smi
le made her feel as though a hundred butterflies had burst into flight in her stomach and his lips met hers in a kiss that was tender and sweet and soft before becoming more passionate and full of need. Their tongues entwined along with their limbs as the hot water dashed against them. John’s long, hard cock was pressed against her soft belly, its imposing girth warm against her skin.
When they broke the kiss, it was John who spoke. “You’re one of the bravest women I’ve ever known,” he said. “And I’m going to do my best to make sure we have a very long life together, Sarah. I promise you that.”
A long life together was all Sarah could have hoped for. And though she wished that moment could last forever, that she could stay wrapped in John’s embrace with the water pounding around them driving out the sound and cares of the rest of the world, she was eager to see what the future held as well. John was eager too, not for the future, but for her naked form.
He shifted and his cock found the hot core between her thighs. Sarah moaned happily and he captured her in another kiss as he lifted her aloft, her back against the shower wall as he slid inside her, her wetness welcoming him with a slippery embrace as she locked herself around him, taking him deep, making him a part of her. They made love with a slow rhythm, John’s hips pumping against hers over and over, massaging the depths of her body with the length of his cock.
“I love you,” she whispered against his ear, her arms wrapped around his neck. “I love you more than anything.”
“I love you too…” He pulled his head back and looked deep into her eyes. “Sarah…”
“Yes?” She sensed there was some weight behind what he was hesitating to say, but then the expression on his face changed and he smiled and kissed her thoroughly again.
“This isn’t how I pictured doing this,” he murmured against her mouth as steam rose around them and the spray of the water filled the air around them with little droplets as he kept his cock in constant motion, a slow grind that made her senses spiral. “But I can’t wait anymore.”
“Can’t wait for what?” She squirmed on his cock and clenched her inner muscles, giggling as the sensation registered on his face in a rush of animal lust. “You already have me in every way that counts.”
“Not every way.” Her pussy pulsed around him as he thrust all the way in and locked himself deep inside her by pressing his hips hard against hers, his pubic bone grinding against her clit. “You’re going to marry me, Sarah,” he growled. It was not a request, it was a command, perhaps the one command of his she had never thought about disobeying. “You’re going to be my wife and you’re going to be mine forever. Understand?”
His palms slid from her waist to her bottom as he held her up against the wall, impaled on his manhood in the most vulnerable, primal way possible. She felt him moving deep inside her with strokes that gathered speed and strength, tearing the words he wanted from her over and over again:
“Yes! Yess! Yes!”
The End
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More Stormy Night Books by Loki Renard
The Lord’s Bride
When Mary de Vere’s closest companion Martin de Stafford—whom she secretly loves—is stolen from her by his long-promised marriage to another woman, eighteen-year-old Mary believes things can get no worse… until an assassin’s blade takes her father’s life. The laws of the land place her under the authority of her heartless uncle, but even as her world falls apart around her, Mary vows to one day reclaim her rights and her title.
Years later, Martin, now the Sheriff of Staffordshire and a widower since illness claimed his wife, encounters his childhood friend in the unlikeliest of places: a convent. Though Mary plays the part of a simple woman who dreams of becoming a nun, Martin is far from convinced. He knows the feisty girl far too well to believe that she aspires to a life of service in the church, and in any case, he has another future to offer her—a future as his wife.
When she spurns his affections, Martin only grows more determined to unravel her plot, and at last Mary is caught red-handed in an act of banditry. To save herself from the dungeon, she is left with no choice but to submit to the very thing she once longed for: marriage to Martin de Stafford. Mary soon learns that her new husband is more than her match and that from now on her bare bottom will pay the price for her scheming. In spite of her pride, Martin’s firm chastisement enflames her lust for him, but can she truly force herself to put aside the wrongs of the past and lay claim to a life at the side of the man she always wanted?
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The Brat, the Bodyguard, and the Bounty Hunter
When runaway heiress Fiona Fayrefield hires bodyguard Harris Kingsley to protect her from her meddlesome father, Harris decides that his job includes putting the spoiled twenty-four-year-old brat over his knee for a long, hard spanking when he feels it necessary. For the first time in her life, Fiona discovers that doing whatever she wants, whenever she wants, is no longer an option.
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Mail Order Brat
Soon after leaving her native Russia to marry an American, Annika discovers that her husband-to-be is a liar and a cheat. Rather than return home, she runs away and begins living on the streets. When she is caught by Pastor Steven Soames while breaking into his car looking for a place to sleep, she expects the worst—arrest and deportation—but instead the handsome preacher invites her to his house for a warm meal.
Steven’s kindness impresses Annika and she is excited when he offers to let her stay in the guestroom at the parsonage in the little town of Sweetville, even after he informs her that while under his roof proper behavior will be expected and defiance will earn her a sound spanking.
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The Barbarian’s Bride
After she is kidnapped by her father’s enemies and sold to the barbarian chief Rikiar, Princess Aisling finds that life as a barbarian’s bride is quite different than the one to which she was previously accustomed. To her dismay, the once pampered princess soon learns that the barbarian chief is not to be trifled with and any disobedience will earn her a sound spanking on her bare bottom.
Her days are certainly less boring than when she was cooped up behind castle walls, and since her warrior husband’s fierce lovemaking is beyond anything the virgin princess ever imagined, her nights are far more exciting as well. Though much is expected of her—she must both satisfy Rikiar’s voracious appetites in the bedroom and train to wiel
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Sentenced to spend the rest of her life in a prison colony as punishment for daring to stand up against oppression, twenty-eight-year-old Eden Wells has only one goal: to escape before she can be delivered to her fate. Unfortunately for Eden, two firm-handed men stand in her way.
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The Hunter’s Pet
Sarah has lived her life in the wild lands, far from the city-dwellers who regard her as little more than an animal. Making use of her quick wits and the natural camouflage provided by a rare mutation, she has avoided being claimed as some hunter’s pet… until now.
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