Hearing her, Daniel paused with the axe half raised and turned to face her, smiling. He gestured to the split logs that lay at his feet, letting the axe fall in one hand and using the other to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I thought you’d appreciate a hot bath, so I needed to get some wood ready. It was also a good vent for my frustrated energy.”
“I know another way to vent,” she said, smirking as she walked out towards him, sliding her arms around his waist.
“I thought you’d be tired,” he said gently.
“I am, but there are better ways to be tired.”
He shook his head, laughing. “You never cease to amaze me,” he told her, softly, bending his face down to kiss the end of her nose.
“As long as you never cease to want me.”
“Never,” he whispered, kissing her again on her lips, searching out the secrets of her mouth with his sweet tongue. She breathed him in, all his scent, his musk, his sweat, and she opened up inside herself.
“What were those words you were saying?” he asked.
“Shakespeare, I think,” she replied. “Though they were really meant for Cleopatra. Still, I never tire of you.”
“And I am very glad to hear that,” he whispered. As he did so, he placed one strong hand beneath her knees, scooping her up as her arms fell around his shoulders and he supported her back, lifting her up easily and carrying her back to the house. “Your bath can wait, my queen,” he told her.
Chapter twenty-one
For more than two weeks they had been at Comrie. Occasionally, Daniel would drive to the nearby village, partly to collect supplies but also to make contact with the outside world. He had specifically chosen this croft because it was impossible to connect via mobile phone or internet, but while this had been a charming eccentricity for the millionaire founder of Stone Enterprises he would often now curse the fact that he had to drive some ten miles before he could even make a phone call.
For a while, Kris did not ask him any questions about what was happening back in London. In part, she simply didn’t want to know: she also realised, however, that soon enough they would have to face up to the reality they had left behind. For the time being, though, Comrie was a paradise on earth—simple and remote from everything.
He had brought her a number of drawing materials, and though much of their time was spent lovemaking as well as tending to their other, physical requirements and the needs of the cottage, she would also lose herself in hours drawing the landscape around the western isle, or capturing Daniel as he worked, repairing the roof and throwing himself into manual tasks which allowed him to forget the storms across the horizon.
Daniel Logan. It was strange, but she was almost forgetting already that he had ever been Daniel Stone—even though, of course, Daniel Stone was the man she had legally married. Important as that was, however, it had been Daniel Logan that she had first given herself to, just over a year previously in this very spot.
And he was changing, even in this short time, changing physically. It was a process she had noticed when he had left prison, and now it continued apace as he devoted more and more of his energies to physical labours. His back, shoulders and arms were becoming like wood, carved from the browning flesh that was losing more and more of the sleek fat of wealth that had accreted on his limbs. His face was becoming tougher, grimmer in expression, and while he always looked on her with warmth, when he did not think she was watching him she noticed that his look was determined, seething even, as though a great, repressed anger was building within him.
She, by contrast, was beginning to swell more and more, her belly not huge yet but visible now even beneath her clothes. She found that helping Daniel as much as she could, shifting small stones to help rebuild walls or cleaning the croft, actually made her feel less tired than when she had been waiting. As such, though her body was clearly more feminine than his, it was not as soft as it could have been.
When he chided her gently, telling her to put something down, she jokingly replied that their great, great grandmothers would have had to work in the fields right up to the moment of giving birth. More than this, however, she was preparing herself. She did not know exactly what was coming in the future, but she was aware that she had to be tougher, had to be prepared. In war, prepare for peace. In peace, prepare for war.
She could feel the child—their child—moving around inside her more and more now. One morning, as she was lifting herself out of the bath it moved particularly fiercely and she groaned. Worried, Daniel came through, watching her sit on the side of the bath, one hand resting on her luxuriant stomach tenderly.
“Are you okay?” he asked, worried.
She nodded. “I could feel it kicking.” He was dressed in jeans and a shirt, and the rough stubble of his jaw had now become a beard, almost as dark as his hair but similarly speckled with flecks of grey. “Come here,” she said, reaching out her hand towards him.
She was naked and utterly vulnerable as he knelt beside her. As she took his hands in her fingers, she could feel the callouses that were beginning to form, the rough skin that aroused her more than she would have expected.
Guiding him, she placed both of those large, masculine hands on her distending belly, letting him move his fingers around her softly as she pressed her own hands upon his, enjoying the warmth of his touch.
“There!” she gasped. “Can you feel it?”
He nodded. His eyes were shining as he knelt beside her, filled with joy, and he leaned across and kissed her neck. Kris let her head fall back slightly, arching the sinews and exposing her ear towards him to nibble. Her own body was soft and wet, the water of the bath drying upon her skin, cooling it as traces of moisture evaporated away into the summer air.
As his mouth moved across her earlobes, she turned her head, blindly seeking his mouth once more with her own, moving her jaw, eating him, devouring him. His hands were still pressed so firmly and gently upon her, caressing her, and she lifted one of those hands between her own, pushing it down between her thighs as they kissed and kissed. She had not shaved for a while, and the mound of her pubis was covered with soft curls now, his fingers moving through them and sensing them, downy as lamb’s wool.
She held her one hand still over his as his fingers sought the wet slit of her sex, sliding beneath her unfurling clitoris and finding a new, hotter moisture. She gasped slightly then bit down, hard on his lip, making him groan as she did not let his hand move while he masturbated her, so gently and loving.
She reached across and moved her other free hand across the crotch of his jeans, feeling the incredible stiffness of him, almost fit to bursting. His body was like wood in more ways than one, and it was her turn to groan now. She could never have enough of this man—never. Her appetite grew ever more the more hungrily she fed upon him.
He shifted his head now, bending forward to her breasts. These had swollen more than her belly, and were larger than at any other time in her life—and also more sensitive. Frequently they caused her pain, but that pain could also be erotic. With his eyes fixed on hers, he moved his mouth down over one nipple, his lips wet with his own saliva, coating the hard, delicate flesh of her breast. He took the teat between his teeth, holding it gently and applying ever firmer pressure, making her stifle a cry when he sucked it into his mouth, she still rubbing his erection through his jeans. When he bit down upon her, so sweetly cruel, he knew that this was what she wanted—and her orgasm made her flood upon his fingers.
They did not even move to the bed. Instead, trembling, she turned her back to him, presented her delicious rump in his direction, bending over the bath, resting her elbows on its cool, ceramic edge. He pulled his shirt over his head and slid out of his jeans, his body hard for her. As she looked behind herself, she caught sight of his erection, so thick and enormous, and she trembled again, unable to stifle a groan as he bent his head forward, kissing and licking around her buttocks, his tongue flickering over her anus, her sweetly scented vulva.
When he pushed inside her, she climaxed again. He was dominant but sweet, as he had been every time he had taken her since they had returned to Comrie. Her mind was full of half-remembered scenes, of how he had first broken her here a year previously, taken her more brutally, forced apart the armour that covered her limbs and desires. Now there was no need for such brutality: in her absolute vulnerability, she trusted him completely. She was no doll, ready to fragment at a single touch: though her body was soft, her need for him was as hard as diamond. He filled her completely, his cock stretching her utterly, touching the neck of her womb that was so sensitive now that each loving blow made her cry out with passion.
“How long can we stay here?” she asked him. They had moved to the bedroom to continue their lovemaking, and now she lay in his arms, listening to his heart as his chest rose and fell.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“But not forever,” she said after a pause.
He sighed. “No, not forever.”
Kris was thoughtful for a moment. “You don’t know how long you have with me, do you?”
He looked down at her, and there was incredible sadness in his eyes. “I thought... I didn’t...” He could not find the words to say to her.
She lifted a finger to his lips. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I worked that out some time ago. When we leave here, you don’t know what’s going to happen, do you?”
He shook his head, and as he turned his face away from her to hide the bitterness that scorched it as deeply as his old scars, her heart yearned for him.
“No,” he said at last, his voice breaking with grief. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just wanted to be with you in peace for as long as possible.”
“And we can’t stay here, can we.” It was more a statement than a question.
“I... I don’t know. No.” He was struggling with himself, but it was foolish to lie. “Comrie may be a primitive paradise in Summer, but it would become a hell in Winter. We can’t stay here, not when you give birth.”
She was quiet for a few moments. “What will they do to you? What will you do?”
He said nothing for a while. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last, then he laughed, grimly. “I’m not much good for conversation, today. All I seem to be able to say is ‘I don’t know’. Unfortunately, it’s true. I could perhaps make a deal with Felix, with Max even. But Francis is out to get me.”
Kris felt a surge of anger and hatred as that name was mentioned, but she held her peace and instead lifted up her arm, touching his beard and stroking his face, feeling his scars across his cheek.
“Those scars,” she said. “They never completely healed, did they?”
He looked down at her, his eyes shining brightly, the hint of tears forming within them. For a while, neither of them said anything.
“You know,” he told her at last, “one of the most terrifying experiences recently was being behind the wheel when you were beside me. My wife, pregnant. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but see flashes of the... last time.”
Kris nodded her head, looking up at him calmly now, not saying anything that would interrupt him.
“We’d been to a party, and I’d been drinking,” he began at last. “I shouldn’t have, but I did it all too frequently in those days. Karen didn’t like it, but I thought I knew better—I always did. I was so fucking arrogant.”
For a while he said nothing and Kris continued to stroke his beard.
“My reactions were slow, far too slow. When we saw the headlights coming at us, on the wrong side of the road, Karen screamed and threw her arms up in front of her face. I can still see it now, the look of horror as she tried to defend herself against what was coming, so vulnerable and helpless.
“I was spinning the wheel, trying to turn us out of the way, to get off the road. If... if I’d have had my wits more about me, I would have turned the other way. Not to... not to get us away from the vehicle, but... but so that it would have hit on my side. I wouldn’t have stood a chance, but at least she might have been alive.”
His head was bowed now and his eyes closed. Kris said nothing. There was nothing she could say, no words at this moment. He needed forgiveness, but she had forgiven him a long time ago, just as he had forgiven her mistakes when she had betrayed him. Now absolution had to come from within himself.
Her own resolve had begun to crystallise inside her, to clarify. She could not yet see everything completely clearly, but she knew that both of them were preparing for a war that, eventually, they had to go out and fight, together. She turned around, placing her head on his chest and looking up at him.
“What will you do, about Francis? About Felix?” she asked. This was not to dismiss his loss, but instead to remind him that he was alive, and that other pressures faced him.
In turn, Daniel seemed to realise this, that if nothing could ever bring back his first wife, he would do everything in his power to defend his second.
“I shall have to face them. I think they hope that by forcing me into ruin, by threatening culpability on so many levels, they won’t even have to buy me out, that they can just take whatever they want.” Suddenly, his eyes went hard. “They won’t find things that easy, however. And I promise this: if ever that cocksucker lays another finger on you, I’ll break him limb from fucking limb.”
Nodding, Kris bent her lips and kissed his belly, feeling the iron hard muscles in his abdomen as their own child kicked and shifted inside her.
“No man is an island,” she told him. “Remember that.”
He frowned, looking down at her.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Just something I was told, once. You might have more allies than you realise.”
Chapter twenty-two
Daniel was asleep on the bed, the sheets across his lower half. Kris smiled to herself as she slipped out from beside him and, without waking him, went to the bathroom.
The morning was beautiful, with the sun just beginning to rise and cast its golden glow across the mountains and moors. As she entered the bathroom, the tiles beneath her bare feet felt cold and she danced towards the basin, pouring out fresh water. The range had gone out and so the water was even colder than the tiles but that didn’t matter: for now, she simply wished to splash it across her face and, using a flannel, wiped beneath her arms and between her legs, refreshing herself.
Her abdomen was clearly swollen now, though still not excessively large. The smooth curve, however, was becoming a source of wonder to her now, especially in the light of Daniel’s reaction to it. While she often glowered at the thickening of her ankles and wrists, and was sometimes discouraged by the pains she felt in her back, the sensation of bloating in her body, her belly seemed smooth and firm, a dark line now clearly visible reaching from her navel to her pubis. At least the nausea had ceased, though the darkened aureoles around her nipples and her swelling breasts were so sensitive that they would have been a source of irritation to her had not Daniel taken them so tenderly into his mouth, turned her pain into pleasure.
With one hand resting on her belly, she thought back to the last time she had been here, in Comrie. Then she had needed a safe word, her only protection against Daniel’s dark desires as she explored them with him—discovered which desires were also her own. “Braganza,” she said aloud, to no one in particular, and laughed at her own folly. When was the last time she had invoked that word? She couldn’t remember. She trusted Daniel so completely now that even in her most vulnerable condition she could give herself up to him utterly, let him do anything for her in the safe knowledge that it was her desires that he sought to fulfil.
That recognition made her stir down below and she rolled her eyes: damn! She would need to start the range soon so that she could have a bath, otherwise she would spend the entire day in a state of heightened, erotic tension.
Suddenly she felt sad. They had been at Comrie for more than three weeks now, and it had indeed become a haven for t
he two of them—an idyll secluded away from the outside world. But it couldn’t last. Both of them knew that soon they would have to return to the depredations of that world.
Perhaps they could stay away from London, or any of the other places where Daniel’s enemies were waiting for him. She could visit a doctor in Glasgow, perhaps. For a second, her heart beat more quickly at the promise contained in that thought—then she dismissed it for the fantasy it was.
Making her way quietly back to the bedroom so as not to disturb Daniel, she sat down silently on a chair and picked up a drawing pad that she had left in the room. He looked so peaceful as he continued in his dreams that she simply wished to capture him now. Now was the quiet before the storm, the peace before the inevitable war, and she wanted her own memory of this forever.
Barely looking at the charcoal in her hands, the white sheet of paper on her lap, she fixed her eyes on his sleeping body. She had seen him so many times with her fingers, blindly tracing the contours of his skin, searching his body with tactile emotions as he penetrated her—she knew every inch of his flesh. Now, however, she looked more coolly with her eyes, the calm, professional gaze of an artist testing the flows of light and shade, form and colour across her subject, capturing him with her charcoal. The tensed energy of his muscles contrasted with the relaxed figure, and she could see whorls and knots of flesh: as his wife, Kris wanted to reach across, massage away his troubles, take him and let him take her, but for the moment she captured this sleeping giant in her art.
She looked down at the figure she had drawn, smiling to herself at her own work. Her fingers had moved almost unconsciously, but she had indeed captured him, pinned his soul for a few, brief moments in the sketch that lay beneath her hands.
Lifting her head to compare her work to the man before her, she noticed at last that his eyes were open.
Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire Page 20
