by Anthology
“I’m asking to take you to bed.”
“The hell I’ll let you.” But her voice was weak.
“I’ll make it good for you.” The hot promise boiled her blood. “Helen.”
Trembling with desire, she looked at him. “Oh, God.”
“Say yes.” He reached up and rested his heavy hands on her shoulders. He skimmed his thumbs up the sides of her neck and tipped her head back so that she could look him in the eye.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Jim.” His voice was rough. “Say, ‘Yes, Jim.’”
Helen swallowed. “Yes, Jim.”
Nothing gentlemanly lived in his second kiss. His open lips sealed over hers, tasting and tonguing her to mad pleasure until her body, divested of its inhibitions, melted against his. He tasted of salt, cigarettes, and sweet, smoky whisky. Her body screamed for the flavor. Closing her eyes, she bent into him, her belly pressing against the rock-hard erection in his trousers. His rough stubble scraped her chin. She buried her hands in his hair and groaned as he continued to kiss her, hard and slowly, unearthing feelings she’d buried long ago.
Still locked in a kiss, they took three faltering steps to the kitchen table. Jim lifted her and set her down on its surface. He ravaged her neck with kisses and dug his fingers through her hair. Loose locks tumbled down her back and hairpins fell like raindrops to the tabletop.
“You smell good enough to eat,” he murmured in her ear. “Like violets and cakes and all sorts of sweet things.”
He reached under her skirt and slid his hand up to the bare skin underneath her garter belt. His fingers made a bold foray underneath the loose silk of her step-in.
When she felt the hot caress of his touch between her legs, she gasped and grabbed onto his shoulders, almost collapsing backwards onto the table.
“How long have you stood there wanting my hands on you?”
His roguish voice was liquid sex in her ear.
“Dripping for me?” One more kiss and he slid to his knees, drew up her skirts around her thighs, and untied the wet scrap of silk between her legs. When he looked up at her, his eyes were lucent, like two shards of sea glass.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. Shame and lust mixed like a burning cocktail in her throat.
Instead of answering her, he grabbed her hips, pulled her to the edge of the table, and pressed a hot kiss on her trembling sex. Her fists tightened on his shoulders, and her body clenched hard. She tried to sidle away, but his hands were like vises on her thighs. He began to lick and suck on her aching flesh, building up a steady rhythm that alternately relaxed and exasperated her. His beard scraped her tender skin. Pleasure swirled in her body like electricity, mysterious and powerful. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her nakedness, the wet wickedness of his muscular tongue.
Once, in the middle of their honeymoon, Peter had taken her suddenly after her bath. Her body had seized around him in a furious series of spasms, both terrible and wonderful. Afterwards, as she lay on the bed panting, she asked, “What on earth was that?”
“That?” Her husband kissed her forehead. “Why, a paroxysm, dear heart. A little fit of feminine hysteria. Nothing to worry about.”
Then Peter had gone off to war. And she’d never had a paroxysm again.
Jim worked her body, drawing lightning bolts of pleasure in the middle of a storm. Helen’s mouth fell open, jaw slack, and her eyes shut tight. He found a tight knot of nerves and began to tongue it, again and again, until she was moaning like a ghost come back from the grave, desire surging through her veins.
Then it happened—the dam of pleasure broke over her, and she lost all control. She clawed at Jim’s shoulders and shamelessly rode his lips as she convulsed, the most intimate part of her body pressed against his face as he looked up at her, his eyes bright with self-satisfaction.
When the waves subsided, Jim stood, and Helen noticed for the first time that they were both still completely dressed.
He cast a big shadow over her, and she gasped when he grabbed her and carried her up the stairs. When he kissed her, his mouth tasted like her own body, musky, salty, and sweet.
As they left the warm kitchen, the cold enveloped them, chilling the sweat on their faces. The electric light in her bedroom was dim, the radiator in the corner frozen and dead. The patter of raindrops grew louder.
“How do you stay warm in here?” Jim’s breath was visible as he asked the question.
“I bundle up like a granny.”
“Well, ain’t no bundling up tonight, sweetheart.”
He was a stranger in her house. But when he set her down on the bed, she reached for him and kissed him with all the passion her body could summon. She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands under the cloth, feeling his hot skin and hard muscles against her palms. He pulled the shirt off his shoulders, and she stared up at him, breathing hard. A light dusting of blond hair covered his chest, and his nipples, tiny as sugar pastilles, rode on pectorals as rigid as a strongman’s. Feeling naughty, she reached up and lightly pinched a nipple. When he curled forward, all of the muscles in his lean torso flexed, gloriously, and Helen stared.
“Hey!” He laughed and pushed her backwards. The mattress springs brayed as she lay on her back, overcome by a fit of giggles.
Quickly, he stripped off his socks and belt and put a small metal box on the nightstand. His trousers were gone in the blink of an eye, and all of a sudden, Jim was standing in front of her, legs spread apart, his cock in his fist and a ravening hunger in his eyes.
Helen’s smile fled and she licked her lips. She wasn’t educated in such matters, but she knew enough to know that God had been generous with James O’Connor: long and thick and straight, his cock pointed at her like an accusation she was more than willing to accept.
“How long has it been since you’ve lain with a man?” he asked softly. An Irish accent had crept into his words.
“More than two years.”
“We’ll go slowly, then.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Together, they unbuttoned her blouse and clawed at the clasp of her skirt until she was lying before him in nothing but her stockings and an untied step-in. He reached down and ripped the silk garment from her body, dropping it on the floor next to his pants.
When he slid over her, his bare skin seared her with the heat of pleasure. He swallowed her gasp with another kiss, and she lost herself in the languorous, unhurried strokes of his tongue. Her eyes slid closed, and she seemed to melt into the bedclothes, her body overheated and her insides twisted with sexual arousal. She stroked the hard planes of his back and froze when her fingers snagged over a patch of jagged skin behind his shoulder.
Slowly, he sat upright and turned around so she could see the old scar marring his perfect back. “Bayonet,” he said softly. “I fought at Amiens.” He didn’t say anything else.
She lay still as he lowered his lips to hers again. After drinking deeply from her mouth, his kisses covered her neck and ran down the center of her chest. He grasped her naked breasts in his big hands, sliding the rough pads of his thumbs over her nipples and making her groan like an animal. His hot lips closed over her right nipple, and he suckled her tenderly, the soft sound of his mouth blending with the sound of his fingers stroking wetly between her thighs. She opened her legs wider, and he gently but firmly pushed a finger deep inside, drawing it in and out with a slow, insistent rhythm, stretching her and getting her ready.
Her whole body felt hot, a fire burning too high and too fast. She drew herself up on her elbows, and he released her nipple with a soft smack of his lips. Together they looked down at what he was doing to her. Jim stared, his lips parted as though he’d never seen anything so splendid in his entire life.
“What d’you call this part of you, Helen?” His deep voice vibrated in her bones.
She smiled. “My ma used to call it my ‘Irish fortune.’”
They laughed, almost shyly, then grew quiet. Helen sta
red at his handsome face and hot honey seemed to flow in her veins. “What do you call it, Jim?”
He slid his hand away and gave his shaft a couple of quick strokes. His cock stood up straight and proud. He reached for the tin on her nightstand and sheathed himself quickly with what Helen recognized as a prophylactic.
“What do I call it?” he said with a smirk. “I call it heaven.”
Without another word, he grabbed her hips and yanked her roughly across the bed. Kneeling down between her legs, he spread her thighs with his hands and, his blue eyes searing hers, eased the head of his big cock into her.
Helen grasped the coverlet in her fists and stared at him as he snapped his hips forward, burying himself so deep inside her that her brain couldn’t separate the pain from the pleasure.
He leaned back on his legs and pulled her hips against him, pressing even deeper than Helen thought possible.
“Is this what you’ve been looking for, Helen of Half Moon Bay?” Now there was no hiding his immigrant’s brogue.
He began to move his hips back and forth, drawing his cock in and out of her in slow, sensual thrusts that built up a madness inside that she’d never felt before. Smiling, he reached forward and stroked her face and her breasts. Her nipples hardened under his touch, and she squirmed against the inexorable rhythm and strength of his body. His chest grew slick with a thin sheen of sweat but still he didn’t rush, content with giving her a slow, long, deep fucking that left her whole body throbbing with hunger.
And the whole time he spoke to her in his deep, quiet voice, “You opened that door and I got hard in my trousers. I thought I’d gone delirious with cold. I thought I was dreaming you. A red-haired angel with eyes like the Pacific Ocean in a storm. A face from heaven. And God forgive me, tits and a sweet, tight quim to tempt the devil. You don’t even know how beautiful you are, do you? Ah, Helen. You daft little rabbit, you’ve no idea.”
Suddenly, he climbed over her and kissed her mouth. He entangled his tongue with hers as he thrust harder and faster. The bedsprings screamed. He kissed her neck, and she grasped his solid buttocks. His cock hammered into her, jarring her senses and scrambling her brain.
He grunted for breath like a beast. “I’m not going to love you like a wife. Or a widow. Or a whore. I’m loving you the way you deserve it, Helen.”
“And how’s that?” she gasped, running her hands through his damp hair.
“Like a woman who needs it.”
He pulled out of her immediately and yanked her to her feet. He stood behind her, put one hand on her hip, and with his other hand, pressed his cock into her from behind. Bending his knees, he began to thrust hard, bashing her ass with his rigid abs and drawing strangled sounds of pleasure from her throat.
Holding her hip firmly with his left hand, he reached forward and strummed her tender, aching flesh with his fingertips.
Helen spread her legs wider and grabbed the iron bedframe to steady herself. She could hear Jim’s cock working in and out as her body grew even more slippery around him. The unchaste sound filled her ears. She was trembling, her nerves pulled tight.
A whisper in her ear pushed her over the edge. “Cuisle mo chroí.”
Pulse of my heart. Irish words. Old words.
At once, her body tightened around him, and she clung to the precipice, unable to breathe. Jim sensed the change and worked his fingers furiously between her legs.
“Yes,” he whispered, kissing her neck. “Yes, mo chroí.”
She flew apart like he’d pulled the pin on a grenade. Her screams echoed in the empty rooms of her house as though Jim had performed an exorcism and set her ghost free. Pleasure, white-hot, poured through her veins from the flashpoint where their bodies were joined.
A half-second later, Jim gave her three brutal thrusts and froze. His cock jerked inside her, and he exploded with a broken cry, his grip biting into her hip and his breath hot and fast against her skin.
They came down together. He clung to her through the final drops of his release and kneaded her tender breasts in his hands. He kissed the back of her neck, again and again, and continued to whisper to her in a voice that could lull her deep into sin, “Helen, you sweet girl. You bright angel. How could you go so long without loving?”
Their lovemaking outlasted the rainstorm. When Jim’s tin was empty, they lay down together, tangled in the bedclothes, panting and naked in the sweltering little bedroom. He kissed her softly and stroked her long hair.
She tucked herself under his arm and rested her cheek on his slick chest, breathing in the spicy, clean scent that rose off his skin. She yawned and closed her eyes. “You’ll leave me in the morning.” Not an incrimination, but a statement of fact.
He kissed the top of her head. “Before first light.”
Sleep rose up to get her before the melancholy did. She dreamed of the silk dress she wore at her wedding, of dancing the waltz and the foxtrot and the Baltimore with a handsome stranger, of her mother’s dressing table with its violet toilette water and cut-glass rosary.
When Helen awoke, sunlight streamed in through the windows. She sat up and felt the sweet soreness between her legs. She was still naked, but the bed was empty. As promised, Jim was gone.
She heard a soft hiss. Confused, she looked at the long-dead radiator next to the window. A series of soft clicks resonated from its metallic guts. For the first time since summer, the air in the bedroom was deliciously warm.
“I’ll be damned,” she whispered with a smile. “He fixed it.”
Down in the basement, the furnace roared with vitality. Smiling to herself, Helen climbed the stairs to her kitchen to make coffee. The Victrola had been moved to its original spot in the sitting room. She peeked out of her front window. At the base of her driveway was nothing—no stuck car, no cases of whisky, and no Jim.
Helen brought her coffee into the sitting room. Still wearing her silk dressing gown, she lifted the lid of the phonograph and began to wind it up when she saw a note pinned to the turntable.
Until next month, mo chroí. Enjoy the heat.
Helen threw open the curtains. Music played softly in her ears as she looked out at the endless ocean.
In a few weeks, Jim would be back for his next shipment—and she would be waiting.
The Highwayman Came Riding
Erzabet Bishop
Marissa hugged the well-worn book to her chest and walked along the dirt path toward the inn. The setting sun edged behind the bevy of trees in the distance, the only sounds to be heard were the chirping crickets and an occasional barking dog. The sharp tang of a wood fire tickled her nose, and she wondered if it was close to dinner time.
She’d been reading on a bench under a tree when she noticed the gradual absence of light. And the silence. The English countryside had its charms and it was easy to imagine striding through time, herself embedded in the landscape that inspired her favorite story. So far, the adventurous English romp her roomie had promised had yet to materialize. At least for Marissa. All of her sighing had been between the pages of her book.
She caressed the familiar cover, the worn leather binding as much a part of her as the black skirt and fitted tee with the logo of last year’s Romantic Book Con. The aged tome went with her everywhere. But here more than anywhere else, she sensed a stirring that hadn’t been there before.
The Highwayman. One of her all-time favorites and a serious object of her lust. His haunting presence had been a fixture in her dreams for as long as she could remember. The rest of her English major friends had obsessed about the illustrious Mr. Darcy or the brooding Mr. Rochester. Not her. Her desire was all about the danger. The thrill of what might be hiding just over the next horizon. Hell, that was probably what got her out here in the first place.
She fumbled with her ear buds and began to sing along to the tune from Loreena McKennitt’s version, the words tumbling from her lips. It didn’t matter if she got it right. She just wanted to experience the music and let the words cares
s her skin.
“The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed about on a cloud of seas. The road was ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor and the highwayman came riding…riding…The highwayman came riding up to the old inn door.” She hummed the accompanying melody and sighed. No one out here but her and her dog-eared book.
Just the way she liked it.
Alice was inside, no doubt allowing herself to be seduced by the innkeeper’s handsome son while she made do with her own company. The vacation had seemed like a good plan. Initially.
“Come on, Mar. You love this crap. Of course, you’ll have a good time.” Alice batted her eyes and wrapped a strand of long blond hair around her finger. A coquettish smile curving her lips into a pout, she looped her arm into the crook of Marissa’s, dragging her away from her position behind the register.
The bookstore was quiet. Early Sunday mornings were up until about one-thirty, then all hell broke loose. But she didn’t want to think of that here. Not now. Not when the music rolled over her like a spell, drawing her back to the swashbuckling days when men were men and the thing between their thighs was either the pounding force of a horse or a good woman.
Damn, but she was ready to volunteer for that last bit.
Marissa trudged toward the inn, loath for her time alone to end. She loved Alice, but she didn’t want to watch her fawning all over the innkeeper’s son’s muscle-bound arms and six-pack abs. The trees stood around her like silent sentinels dotted along the grassy landscape.
That she’d be spending her vacation alone was a shame. But then she glanced down at the book in her grasp. The volume had been her companion for more years than she could remember, and when she fell between its pages, she came alive. If only guys in reality measured up.
With a frown, she continued until she came upon something resting in the grass. A few footsteps more, and she peered at the object, considering its familiar shape.
