Her fingers tightened around his waist.
The smooth, echoing alto of the voices said, “Izanna, Jason is not a taste of the forbidden. You did not break our law. Razi stole what was given to you. Enjoy the gift of each other. Now we must proceed with the punishments for our new toy."
"Thank you, Ancient Ones!” Izanna's throat constricted from emotion. She wasn't going to lose Jason or their baby.
Jason leaned down and captured Izanna's lips. He took her hand and placed it on his cock. She stroked his hardening length through the denim but stopped when she spied her cat twitching her whiskers. “Miss Pussy, what are you doing?"
Miss Pussy waved a paw. Little golden pawprints twinkled beside the cat.
Fetch appeared with a deflated ball hanging from a fang.
Izanna and Jason laughed.
He pointed at his dog. “Fetch, play nice with Miss Pussy."
Izanna took his hand and led him out the door.
"Where are we going?"
"The kitchen, one of the places I mentioned in Out of This World that I wanted to ride you."
Jason grinned. “Lead on. I'm up for the occasion."
WHAT YOU DESIRE
by
Annmarie Ortega
Clara was standing on the front porch of the house she and her best friend Laney were staying at for the week. It had belonged to Laney's grandmother and when she passed away, Laney inherited it. They had just arrived the night before and spent the day cleaning away a few seasons worth of dust and airing out the little house, opening all the windows that had been sealed tight.
The house was a small white frame structure with a little front porch just big enough for two rocking chairs to fit comfortably. Inside the house were two small bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room. The house was secluded, with the nearest neighbor at least two miles away, and the closest town ten miles down the road. It was the perfect place to get away from it all, which was exactly what Clara and Laney had intended.
Clara stood leaning on the porch, elbows resting on the rail, waiting for Laney to finish her turn in the bathroom. Clara had taken her own shower, dressing in a black and white floral print dress that had short sleeves and an A-line cut. Black slip-on sandals showed off her wine-colored painted toenails and a couple silver toe rings she'd collected over the summer. She wore her long curly blonde hair in a ponytail that ran down her back almost to her waist.
It was an uncomfortable heat that day, when she didn't have to be doing anything at all to have a trail of sweat running down her back. As Clara stood looking out at the road in front of the house, she suddenly heard music playing in the distance then stop as suddenly as it had started. Behind her, she heard the screen door open, then slam hard as Laney joined Clara at the railing.
Laney wore blue denim shorts, a plain white t-shirt and baby blue flip flops. Her brown, shoulder-length bob was still wet from just getting out of the shower.
"Man, I am sweating like crazy and I haven't even done anything,” Laney said as she looked out onto the road just like Clara. “I wish Nana would have gotten at least a window air conditioner. I don't remember it being so brutal out here,” she said, fruitlessly trying to fan herself with her hand.
"It's not so bad,” Clara told her friend. “It's like being in a sweat lodge, without the lodge,” she said with a grin as she and Laney turned to look at each other, both of them smiling.
The mysterious music Clara had heard before started again, but this time it didn't stop.
"Do you hear that?” Clara asked Laney as her smile disappeared.
Laney tilted her head, listening to the tinny music coming from the distance.
"Oh ... I bet I know what that is,” Laney said as she started to remember past summers at Nana's. “The carnival must have come to town."
"The carnival?” Clara asked. “Really?"
"When I was little, we'd visit here at the end of summer and the carnival would come every year. It was a huge deal around here; the most excitement the town saw. I would always eat so much junk food every year, I'd get sick,” she explained, now smiling. “Let's go check it out,” she suggested to Clara.
Clara thought about the other option of going inside and sitting in the stifling living room or standing where they were watching a road no cars ever drove on. She suddenly understood the excitement of a traveling carnival coming to town.
She turned again to look at Laney. “Let's go check out the carnival,” she said.
* * * *
From a distance, the carnival had looked charming and quaint. As Clara and Laney got closer though, their expectations fell with each step toward the faded and rundown tents and trailers.
"I think this is actually the exact same carnival from when I was a kid,” Laney said, looking around disappointed. The carnival of her memory was different from what she saw in front of her.
The carnival grounds were still empty with only a few people from town milling around. Most people who lived there would wait until after sunset to venture outside; waiting until after the intense heat from the day would have started to fade.
There were booths with vendors selling food usually found at carnivals: popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs and lumps of fried dough sprinkled with white powdered sugar. The smell of hot grease hung in the air thick like molasses. Laney and Clara walked past booths filled with games and cheap prizes that would have throngs of people waiting for a chance to win by nightfall.
Clara and Laney were walking past a faded blue tent to their right when Laney stopped and called Clara back to read the sign leaning next to the entrance of the tent.
"Clara, check this out, you should do this,” Laney told her, gesturing toward the weathered placard.
Clara looked at the sign in front of her. Fortunes Told ... What Do You Desire? Money, Fame, Romance ... See What the Future Holds for You!
"Laney, I'm not going to have my fortune told, that's a waste of time. Besides, I can tell you what my future holds—an empty apartment and half of my CD collection missing. I should never have left the city,” she said, shaking her head. “I don't know how I let you talk me into this week."
"Oh, come on, Clara, just go ahead and see what they say. You've been dwelling on the past so much and what happened with Lucas; you need to stop thinking about the past and start looking to the future,” Laney explained.
"Right and having some old gypsy lady tell me my future is going to make me forget everything that happened,” Clara snapped at her friend, regretting her words as soon as she'd said them. Just because Lucas had been such an asshole to her, it was no reason for her to take it out on Laney.
"No, it's not gonna make you forget the past, but maybe it'll help you look forward to the future. Here,” Laney said, shoving a few five dollar bills into Clara's empty hand. “It's even my treat."
Clara felt even worse for having snapped at Laney just moments before. She looked at the rumpled money in her hand and back at her best friend.
"All right, all right, I'll go listen to what they have to say, but I'm going under protest,” Clara said as she walked to the entrance of the tent and parted the faded blue curtains then stepped into the darkness.
She stood blinking, her eyes adjusting to the darkness inside the tent.
There were places where the tent had holes and the bright sunshine from outside cut into the darkness like a knife. She could make out a round table in the middle of the tent covered with a colorful cloth and two straight-backed chairs, one on each side that faced each other.
Clara walked to the table and chairs and took a seat so she faced the entrance. She crossed her legs at her ankles and she waited to see if the fortune teller would appear. She glanced at her wristwatch and told herself she'd wait for five minutes. If no one came, she'd go back outside to Laney and give her back her money. She thought she might have to keep five dollars to buy herself a snow cone to rub all over her body though, it was so freaking hot. As she started to lose herself in her tho
ughts of herself totally naked with a brightly colored cone of shaved ice, she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
Instantly brought back to reality, Clara turned around. A man stood at an entrance of the tent she hadn't noticed before. As he walked toward her, Clara felt herself somehow get even hotter than she felt before.
The man was tall and wore a skintight plain white t-shirt that showed off his bulging muscles and wide chest. The crisp white of the shirt accented his tanned skin even more, telling Clara he spent quite a bit of time outside. He had on jeans that hugged his body in all the right places and as Clara's gaze traveled down the long length of him, she saw he was barefoot. His walk was silent and he moved toward her as graceful as a great cat. His hair was just as curly as Clara's, ending just above his chin, except where her hair was blonde, his was as black as a starless night.
"I hope you didn't have to wait long,” the man said to her, finally speaking as he walked around the table to the empty chair across from Clara. “It's really stifling in here, I'm sorry. It makes me want to go get a snow cone or something...” He trailed off, giving Clara a lopsided smile showing off his perfect white teeth.
Clara raised her hand to her mouth as she started to cough, startled at what he had just said to her. It was as if he had read the thoughts she'd been thinking when he had entered the tent. She found herself blushing and embarrassed at the idea of him knowing what she had been thinking about.
"No ... not long,” Clara mumbled feebly. She found herself blatantly staring at him as he sat across from her, feeling overwhelmed by his arrival. She had been expecting a little old gypsy lady and somehow she had gotten this hot gypsy man instead. Clara wished he would have come in through the front entrance so Laney could have seen him. She was never going to believe this.
"My name is Tano. Let me get started with your fortune,” he said, not even bothering with niceties or chitchat.
"Um, okay ... my name is Clara,” she told him.
When she spoke, he looked directly into her eyes and she couldn't help but notice how intense his gaze was. She felt as if he was looking into her, reading her thoughts. Somehow he'd done just that when he'd known about her wanting a snow cone, and Clara felt herself start to blush yet again.
"Can I hold your hand?” he asked Clara, his question coming to her out of nowhere.
"What?” she asked back, confused. “You want to hold my hand?"
He smiled at her. “Yes, to see your future, I need to have a connection to you,” he explained.
"Oh, okay, right,” Clara said, embarrassed. For a moment, she had been totally confused when Tano had asked to hold her hand. She noticed her hand trembled slightly as she put it in his, and she tried to calm her nerves.
Tano wrapped his fingers around her hand and closed his eyes. Clara watched him, enthralled. She felt electricity that seemed to originate from his hand and pass through hers. His electrifying touch ran through her whole body.
Tano stroked his thumb over the top of Clara's hand. His eyes still closed, and his eyebrows furrowed together.
Clara's breathing became shallow as his hand suddenly tightened around hers.
"What is it?” she whispered, not wanting to break the silence but needing to know what was happening. His hold on her was so tight it started to hurt her hand.
Tano opened his eyes and looked right through Clara as if she wasn't even there. His facial expression turned angry, as if he were seeing something in front of him he didn't approve. His gaze finally focused back on Clara but his hand stayed tight around hers.
"You didn't deserve to be treated like that,” he told her now with a sad look in his eyes.
Clara was confused at what he'd just said. He was supposed to be telling her about her future but he sounded like he was referring to her past, one she had left the city for a week to try and forget. Her stomach started to hurt and she knew she didn't want to talk to Tano about what had happened. It had been humiliating enough telling Laney everything and Laney was her best friend. There was no way she was going to experience that humiliation again with a gorgeous stranger. A gorgeous male stranger who was looking at her with pity.
"What?” was all Clara could get herself to say to Tano. She dreaded hearing his response. Somehow he knew about Lucas and what had happened between them.
Tano licked his lips before he spoke again and Clara's gaze focused there. For a quick moment, she wondered what they would feel like against her own. They were sensuous and full and Clara was willing to bet they would be soft and gentle against hers.
"I know what happened when you went home from work that day because you felt sick. I saw it all now in front of me just like I was there,” Tano explained to her. As he described what Clara already knew, she felt all the pain and humiliation she had experienced a few weeks ago. It hurt just as much while Tano described the events as when they actually happened to her. “You went home because you thought you were coming down with something. When you first got to your apartment, you didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until you got to the kitchen. While you were taking off your coat, you first noticed the sounds. I could see you standing in the kitchen listening, trying to figure out what you were hearing and then the look on your face when you realized what you heard...” he said, his voice trailing off.
Clara swallowed trying to keep away the tears she felt building up in her eyes as her mind raced, remembering every second Tano had just described. Clara tried to pull her hand away from his to break their connection but he wouldn't let her go.
"Don't,” Clara whispered to him, barely audible. “Please don't.” She didn't want to relive the experience again. It was all she could do to try to forget the images branded into her memory.
"As you walked to the bedroom door, you held your breath not knowing exactly what you were going to see, but you knew it wouldn't be good. When you pushed the door open, they didn't even notice you standing in the doorway watching them. The woman was facing you on all fours, her head down so you couldn't see her face. He was on his knees behind her with his hands on her waist as he fucked her from behind. He didn't even notice you were there until the moment he came inside her. That moment he looked up and saw you standing there.
"I could hear the woman's moans over the sound of you crying. I can see the excruciating look of pain on your face, the tears running down your cheeks ... and I swear I even heard the sound of your heart breaking...” he said, trailing off again as he looked at Clara. “You really loved him. You had no idea he had been cheating on you for months."
"Let go of my hand,” Clara said softly, as new tears ran silently down her cheeks and dripped off her chin.
She had told herself she wasn't going to think about what had happened this weekend, but Tano's description of it brought it all back. He had described everything with such accuracy and detail, as if he had actually been there next to her. He had also been right about her heart breaking that day. She had felt it come apart as she watched her boyfriend having sex with a woman she'd never seen before on the bed they'd once shared.
Clara had barely been able to grab her bag and keys to leave the apartment, while Lucas yelled after her to come back so he could explain. He yelled at her to wait, but all she wanted to do was leave. As she had walked down the front stairs to her car, she couldn't figure out what exactly he had to explain to her. She had caught him with some bitch, fucking like animals on her bed. She didn't really think there was anything else that needed to be explained.
Clara didn't even remember driving herself to Laney's apartment that day. When she had rung the bell and discovered Laney wasn't home, she simply sat on the carpet in front of the apartment door waiting for her friend. She had ended up with such an intense headache that night she had vomited until there was nothing left inside her.
Clara blinked and brought herself back to the present. She was still in the hot tent with Tano sitting across from her with a look of pity in his eyes. She had to leave, get away from hi
m and the memories he had conjured in her head. She pulled her hand free from his grip.
"I have to go,” Clara mumbled as she took the crumpled bills in front of her and pushed them toward Tano. “This should cover it, I think,” she told him as she stood up from her chair. She felt as if she were suffocating and had to leave the confines of the tent as soon as she could. She needed air.
As she stood behind her chair and pushed it in closer to the table, Tano stood up and went to stand beside her.
"Wait. Don't go. I'm sorry I upset you,” he apologized. “I can't control what I'm going to see; images just come to me. I know you wanted to know your future and all I did was bring up the past you so obviously want to forget."
Clara inhaled before she spoke, her tears slowing their descent down her cheeks as she turned to face him.
"Look, you're right. I left the city to try and forget what happened and you just made me relive the whole thing again,” she explained to him. “He's moving out of our apartment this week."
"I'm sorry,” Tano said as he touched Clara's hair with his open palm. “But let me tell you this, I believe everything happens for a reason. You were meant to go there and find them together because he wasn't the man for you. I know you loved him with your whole heart; I heard it break when you saw him with that woman. He didn't love you the way you loved him, or the way you deserve to be loved..."
Tano touched Clara's cheek with his fingertips and she closed her eyes. His fingers moved down her cheek to her lips, tracing them softly with the pads of his fingertips. Clara opened her lips slightly before she felt Tano's lips gently touching her own.
The tiniest of moans escaped her as his tongue brushed past her lips, finding hers. As his tongue explored hers, her seriously wounded heart pounded faster in her chest until she was breathless. She felt herself sway, then felt Tano's hands hold her firmly at her waist.
Clara tilted her head back a little more as Tano towered over her. His hands slid from her waist to her buttocks so he could pull her closer to him. Pressed against each other, she could feel his body's desire through his jeans and it made her ache.
Summer Solstice Scorchers Page 10
