Diamonds and Toads: A Modern Fairy Tale

by Saxon, K. E.

  He washed and dried his hands, then walked the two steps over to the stove and put a big dollop of butter into a pan. It sizzled and popped and sent the most heavenly scent into the air.

  Isadora closed her eyes and filled her lungs with the nutty aroma, then sighed and took another sip of her wine. It was surprisingly good, considering the price, which was still stickered on the neck: $10.99. Her mother would shudder out of her Botox and collagen injected skin if she was ever offered such mean fare.

  It gave Isadora a guilty thrill to know she was doing something so off-goal, so outside the inner circle, so vulgar, though for the life of her, she couldn’t figure why she should feel that way. She’d been disowned and banished, after all. Her life and her actions were now utterly her own. She blinked and sat straight up. Utterly my own…. Hmm.

  * * *

  After dinner, Sam led Isadora into the living room and turned on his stereo. In a moment, the sound of smooth jazz notes rose and quivered around her. Sam walked over to her and took the glass from her hand, then set it on the end table behind her. When he met her gaze, Isadora’s heart leapt into her throat. Oh Lord. He had that same gleam in his eye he’d had in the Jacuzzi just before he’d kissed the dickens out of her.

  He took hold of her hand and pressed his mouth to her palm then placed it on his shoulder. “Dance with me,” he said. As they moved as one in the small square of space his living room afforded, her body grew ever more aware of his. Now? Were they finally going to do it? She’d never been the aggressor in the game—she’d never had to be—but she was beginning to wonder if that’s what he was waiting for: Her to jump his bones. She had to admit, with Sam, the idea had merit.

  So when he dipped his head and touched his cheek to hers, she answered the gesture with a kiss on his lips. A bit timid, but it was her first time out. She’d get better with practice.

  He didn’t take the bait.

  Instead, he lifted his head and laughed as he twirled her into a deep dip. “Remember how much fun we had dancing at all those weekend parties? ‘Course, you were a much better dancer than I was.” He brought her back up. “Still are.”

  Isadora could have sworn the palm glide over the side of her breast just then had been premeditated. Her eyes narrowed. He was definitely up to something.

  She lifted a brow and gave a mental shrug. Who cares? Maybe it’d be more fun to wait and watch the pro in action. See what he would do next—just go with the flow. After all, no matter what, he was going to give her an orgasm. He had to. He’d given her a sworn promise. Besides, after almost eight years of waiting, she figured she could take a few more hours. Especially if that ‘O’ he’d promised her really was going to go off the Richter scale.

  A slow love song began to play. He held her hand to his chest and rested his forehead against hers as they swayed back and forth to the time of the music. “You have gorgeous breasts.”

  Isadora nearly swallowed her tongue. She gaped up at him.

  He nuzzled her neck and then nibbled her earlobe. “I haven’t been able to think of much else since you shimmied out of that oversized work shirt of mine earlier.”

  A shivery shot of lightning zipped through her. Isadora swallowed hard. Then she shrugged.

  She felt him smile against the tingling skin on her neck where his moist breath and tender lips caressed her.

  “I’m going to play with them awhile now, alright?”

  Hell, yes! She nodded.

  He led her by the hand over to the sofa and lifted her sports bra over her head. Isadora watched the rise and fall of Sam’s chest. His breathing grew more fractured as he settled his hands on her shoulders and traced them down her arms then up again. He bent his head and kissed her. Not deeply, but with reverence.

  Isadora’s own breaths came in short, ragged spurts. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d lifted her hands to his chest and fisted them in his shirt.

  He pulled her against him and thrust his tongue between her teeth. Then, as if he couldn’t get a thorough enough taste of her, he gripped the back of her head and plowed her mouth with even more greed.

  Isadora was tumbling. Tumbling at full-tilt down a deep well of fire and need.

  He plunged her backwards onto the sofa and lay on top of her, cradled between her thighs. Pelvis to pelvis. And there was no doubt, none at all, that he had fallen into that exact same well.

  With her cheeks held firmly in his warm, strong hands, he ran open-mouthed kisses over her brow, her cheeks, her jaw, before returning to her mouth. She felt her pulse pounding in her vaginal walls and an unfamiliar craving to have him fill her up grew there as well. She rotated her pelvis so that his erection pressed more firmly against her center. She heard herself moan.

  He sprang up and straddled her hips, resting his weight on his knees. Breath hissed from his lungs as if from a bellows. “Enough of that,” he said, then he grinned. “At least for now.” Then he trailed his fingers over her collarbone and down her chest to her breasts. He cupped them in his hands, as if weighing them, and then used the pad of his thumbs to tease the taut nipples into tighter and tighter nubs. He did this to the point that they began to sting and then—did he know?—he soothed them with his tongue and finally with his mouth, in the most delicious, soft suction Isadora had ever experienced.

  With unsteady hands she went for the button of Sam’s pants.

  * * *

  Sam came real close to letting Isadora have her way with him. Real close. But firm purpose of mind prevailed. He removed her hands and lifted them above her head. Then he leaned down and gave her a quick, last kiss on the lips before he let her go and dragged himself to his feet.

  “Not on the couch. And not now.” Did his voice sound as strained to her ears as it did to his? Then, because he couldn’t fight the urge, he bent over her and kissed that gorgeous gaping mouth another time.

  “Want some ice cream?” he asked her a second later. He didn’t wait for her answering shrug. But he did toss her top in her direction as he sidled around the couch on his way to the kitchen.

  * * *

  Okay, this wasn’t fun anymore. Isadora dragged her top on and sent a venomous look in the direction Sam had just gone. I want sex!

  Beginning to feel like a toy mouse batted about by a playful kitten, she hopped up and fisted her hands on her hips. Well, no more. He was going to have sex with her and he was going to do it RIGHT NOW!

  She ripped her top back off and shimmied out of her shorts. The thong, she left on for the time being. Then she stormed into the kitchen, the fire of newfound determination flowing through her veins.

  * * *

  She found Sam at the kitchen counter, scooping out vanilla ice cream into two banana split bowls. The thought that she was going to gain fifty pounds before she figured out how to get this curse lifted flitted through her mind as she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She melded herself to him and splayed her hands on his chest.

  He lifted his head, but didn’t turn to look at her. “Izzy. It’ll be much better for you if you’ll let me do things my way.”

  But his chest was already rising and falling at a faster meter. And his skin was growing hotter with every second she remained plastered against him. The trick was to get him out of his clothes. If she could get him naked, he’d be too vulnerable to keep this game up.

  Her eye dropped to the counter, and so did her hand—directly into the last rounded scoop of ice cream he’d placed in the bowl. She didn’t think, she just acted, cramming it inside his shirt and squishing the sticky, cold stuff all over his chest.

  “AhhHH!” Sam swung around and pushed her away. “What the hell—? What the hell’dyou do that for?”

  Isadora shrugged. Then she snorted a little when she tried to hold back a laugh.

  Sam laughed a little then, too, even though she could tell he was still pretty torqued at her. “You little demon,” he said and lifted the sticky shirt away from his chest. “So that’s how it�
��s going to be, is it?” He looked up then, and his breathing stopped. She knew, because when his eyes scanned her mostly-naked body, his chest stopped moving. Then his cheeks flushed.

  Then, in the most powerful moment of inspiration she’d ever had, she reached over and took a glob of dripping ice cream off his chest with her index finger and painted both her nipples with it. She shivered. And truth be told, she didn’t know for sure if it was the chill from the cream or the heat in his eyes that had done it to her.

  The buttons on Sam’s shirt pinged in every direction when he ripped it off. “Okay,” he said as he took a step toward her. “You win.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sam got a satisfying squeal out of Izzy when he hoisted her up so her breasts were at his mouth level. He gorged on the ice cream—gorged on her—in strong, sucking swallows until she was a hot, trembling mass of luscious female flesh in his hands.

  “Wrap your legs around me.”

  When she did, he reached for one of the bowls and then laid her out on top of the kitchen table.

  She went for the button of his jeans again, but he stayed her hand. “Nuh-uh. First you.” She pouted a little—so cute—and then shuddered when he balanced the cold bowl on her abdomen, but she didn’t protest. Nor did she when he rolled the thong off her and tossed it over his shoulder.

  He hooked a foot around the leg of a kitchen chair, dragged it in place and sat down. Then he lifted her dangling calves just under the knees and spread her thighs wide.

  “God how I love pussy.” He looked up, met her hot gaze. “Seriously. Never get tired of looking at ‘em.” He leaned forward, his mouth just inches from her lush, pink sex. “Or tasting ‘em.” He took in a deep breath and the scent of her jetted a firebolt of pure desire, painful, straight to his dick. He gritted his teeth and bit back a groan.

  After a moment, he was able to breathe again and he leaned back. “Here’s what I want you to do for me, Izzy: See where my hands are? On your knees? I want you to put your own there and, no matter what,”—the black centers of her eyes dilated—“keep them there. Keep your thighs just this open for me. Think you can do that?”

  The nod she gave him was a bit jerky.

  “Good,” Sam said. This could work—better even than his original plan. He scooped out some ice cream with two fingers and painted a trail of it from her belly button down to the top of the shaved red stripe of hair on the rise of her pubic bone. Her flesh quivered. Goosebumps formed on her limbs and breasts, tightening their aureoles by another fraction.

  Sam’s hand shook. God. Could he do this? He’d never felt this intense of a craving to fuck someone before. He could actually imagine himself standing up, ripping down his zipper and ramming himself into her up to the hilt without any further preparation—or notice of intent. Get hold of yourself, man, before you ruin everything.

  He took a deep, steadying breath and manfully dipped his finger into the cream again. This time, he slid it from the side of each labia lip over to where each of her hands gripped the inside of her knees.

  He looked into her eyes. “Now, I kiss it off you.”

  A puff of breath bounded from between her lips, then she wetted them with her tongue.

  The heat of her flesh was warming the ice cream, he noticed, dripping down in sweet-milk rivulets. Sam opened his mouth over first her abdomen and then her thighs, polishing clean all but the tender area next to her labia with his tongue and lips. He turned his attention then to those delectable junctures and, as he did so, he lightly ran the pad of his finger over the scalloped edge of her inner lips.

  Her belly, already drawn tight, began to tremble. He lifted his head. “Try not to spill it, Iz.”

  He dipped his head and suckled the last of the ice cream off her. As he did so, he slid his middle finger up into her. She arched and gasped. He barely saved the bowl before it could clatter onto the table and spill. He didn’t return it to its prior position.

  “You’re really wet, Iz,” he said and then caressed her inner walls until her body tensed and her vagina thrummed. It was a revelation watching her. She gripped her knees and thrashed her head. Seriously sexy short, staccato gasps burst from her every time he pumped his finger into her. So he did it several more times.

  But it wasn’t until he brought her to the very edge—her muscles stretching so taut that their contours came into harsh relief and her eyes flying open in a look he could only call surprise—that he realized she’d never reached heaven before.

  And that’s when he decided she wouldn’t until he was part of her, inside her.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue what she’d started.

  So he slid his finger out of her and picked up the half-melted bowl of ice cream, then he dribbled it down over her sex.

  * * *

  The room started to spin. Or maybe it was just Isadora’s brain. Lack of oxygen. She hadn’t been able to get air into her lungs by any satisfying degree since Sam sucked the first traces of ice cream off her nipples a few minutes ago—or, was it hours? She had no idea.

  Cold damp met the hot flesh of her sex. She dragged her eyelids open and tried to focus, but before she could do so hot, moist breath and the deliriously delicious silken glide of Sam’s tongue swept over her labia. An empty, cavernous aching need, centered in her vagina, gripped her and made her cry out.

  And then he was suckling that same flesh, then licking it, then suckling. He was moaning now, too, and murmuring things she couldn’t decipher. She felt his tongue move closer to her clit and she arched. Her palms were clammy where they gripped her knees. He stroked his tongue rapidly over her inner lips and then she felt it shoot up into her and out again. He repeated this several more times before he took her outer lips between his thumbs and forefingers and spread them. He licked her from bottom to top and then concentrated his full attention on her clitoris, rolling his tongue around it, flicking it, and finally taking it between his lips and gently sucking it while he continued the swift, tickling caress.

  The muscles of her vagina grew taut. Grasping Sam’s head in her hands, she pressed him closer and lifted her pelvis. She felt out of control of her body. The same as before—only more concentrated. As if her body were reaching for something, as if, if she just remained still, concentrated hard enough, remained taut, she would reach the peak, the resolution, to the acute pleasure he was giving her.

  And just as her vision blurred, just as she felt close to touching it, Sam pulled back and closed her legs.

  “Ready for a shower?”

  * * *

  I hate you, Sam Slade! She didn’t dare attempt words, even though she would dearly love to give him a piece of her mind. With her luck, she’d only give him more ammunition to taunt her with.

  So, instead of speaking, instead of shoving ice cream in his face as he deserved, Isadora allowed Sam to lift her off the table and carry her into his bathroom. Her muscles were mush, anyway, so she doubted she could walk right now in any case.

  Okay. Remember: he’s going to give you an orgasm. At some point, please God, he’s going to give you an orgasm. Just go with the flow.

  The shower was not the erotic bit of foreplay she’d thought it was going to be. And by the size of his ginormous erection, she figured he must be ready to get down to the real business of intercourse, just as she was.

  His size was rather daunting, she had to admit. But, he’d been a pro—he’d been with lots of women and they’d all survived. Geez, if his memoirs were to be believed, those women had been regulars. She’d just have to trust that he knew what he was doing when it came to getting that thing inside a lady.

  When he swiveled around and grabbed the soap off its cradle, her eyes scanned his muscular shoulders then stopped short on the frogman tattoo he’d gotten on their scuba trip to Hawaii. Sexy. Her vision clouded with unwanted tears. Gritting her teeth, she blinked them away. Water under the bridge. She felt for the birth control patch on her bottom then. Good. St
ill there.

  “Do you want me to scrub your back?” he asked.

  Better not. Shaking her head, she took the soap and sponge from him.

  “How about down here?” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he massaged soap over her swollen sex with the fingers of one hand. “Or here?” he said, using the other to do the same to her breast. He dipped his head and nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. Then he drove his tongue into her mouth and pressed her up against the ceramic tile wall of the shower.

  Well, maybe this would be an erotic interlude after all.

  * * *

  After toweling them both dry, Sam swept Izzy into his arms again and carried her over to his bed. The time had come—finally—to do what he’d fantasized about doing since the first day he’d met her. Then, once he’d done it, he’d close this chapter of his life for good.

  He settled her on the mattress and lay down on his side next to her. He lifted a curly lock of her hair off her breast and brushed the silken ends over his lips. The fresh scent of it made his head swim.

  She stroked his cheek with her fingertips and he lowered his head and kissed her. After a minute he swung around and pulled a condom from the drawer of his nightstand.

  “How long’s it been for you? Since you last had sex?” he asked.

  A blush traveled over her cheeks. She held up one index finger.

  “A week?”

  She shook her head.

  “A month?”

  She shook her head again.

  “A—a year?”

  She nodded and looked away.

  He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Well, it’s been quite a while for me, too—more like two years.” She blinked at him and he nodded. Then he showed her the condom. “Do we need this?”

  She shook her head and rolled to her side, showing him the b.c. patch on her rear.

  “Ahh. Got it. And no pesky STDs, right?”