by K D Grace
He found himself battling emotions, the wine, the cheese, they were things he and Fiori had shared when they were ravenous from love making, when they talked all night about horses and sheep and what it meant to live in Cumbria. He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and dropped into it remembering. He didn’t love her. There hadn’t been time. But he might have grown to if things had been different.
‘Tim, make yourself a sandwich and go sit by the fire.’ Lisette offered him a smile, the one that always flashed before she dazzled him with her wicked sense of humour. He found himself shocked to realise that she did have a wicked sense of humour, and he liked it, though he had missed it in his surliness toward her. ‘I would make a sandwich for you,’ she added, ‘but I’m useless in the kitchen.’ She hugged herself as though she felt the chill. ‘I’m pretty useless in any room actually, but I look nice.’
What he did next happened so fast that he could scarcely believe it himself. He reached out his hand and took hers, weaving the spell as he did so, and finding it effortless, like he had done it all his life, like he could do it in his sleep.
A little moan caught in her throat and ended softly with a sigh and a shudder, and he could already feel her fingers warming beneath his. Suddenly she stood before him as solid as he was, her pale skin glowing alabaster, her body heat deliciously inviting. He brushed her cheek and swallowed back the knot of emotion in his throat. ‘Make me a sandwich, Lisette. I don’t care what kind. And make yourself one too.’ He took one of the bottles of wine Fiori had bought and two glasses. ‘I’ll be waiting by the fire.’
For a long time he sat gazing into the flames, listening to Lisette rattling about in the kitchen, humming Gershwin, Porgy and Bess. The experience wasn’t at all unpleasant. Why had he always pushed her away? And why had he struggled so with something that was as easy as his own heartbeat?
She was breathless when she came into the lounge. Her cheeks were flushed and her china doll eyes were round with excitement. She carried a tray adorned with two enormous ham sandwiches, a bowl of neatly arranged fruit, and a small bud vase containing a single pale rose. She blushed heartily when he looked up at her. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I picked the rose from the climber by the door. It smelled so lovely, and it’s been so long since I smelled a rose.’
He was sitting on the throw cushions on the floor, his back against the sofa. It was always his favourite place to enjoy the fire. He patted the extra cushion that he’d arranged next to him, and poured them both a glass of wine. ‘Sorry. It could have used a little more time to breathe, but I’m being spontaneous.’
‘Aren’t you just,’ she said. ‘Besides it won’t matter if the wine hasn’t breathed enough. I won’t know the difference, will I?’
They ate in companionable silence, which surprised him, until he realised she was savouring every bite, every texture, every taste. He felt the tightness return to his throat as he thought about how often he ate his food without tasting it, gulped back his tea without savouring it. ‘Do you like it?’ he asked, feeling her excitement tingle over him, then down low in his belly.
‘I love it, Tim Meriwether. I’ve never tasted anything so grand.’
He found his own delight in watching her eat and drink, in seeing her excitement at the feel of the cushion, at the warmth and the scent of the fire. She was so alive. Had this been who she was before she died, this beautiful, vivacious, wickedly funny woman who sat next to him savouring her first meal in maybe 80 years.
When they were finished and she started to take away the tray, he took her hand. ‘Leave it.’
Her eyes were full of question. ‘You don’t want coffee or tea. Fiori bought chocolate too.’
‘Maybe I’ll want all those things later, maybe I’ll want to see you enjoying chocolate. But for the moment, I have everything I need right here.’ He lifted her fingers to his lips and felt her whole body shudder beneath his touch.
He turned her hand and kissed her palm, then the place where her pulse raced like a wild thing between the slender bones of her wrists. ‘I never got a chance to thank you for what you did.’
She tried to pull her hand away. ‘I did what any decent person would do, Tim, I didn’t do it for –’
He stopped her words with a kiss, just a brush of his lips, but enough to silence her. ‘I know that, Lisette, and I know that I’ve been a fool, and I’m sorry. You’re the best of people and you deserve good things, Lisette, you deserve good things.’ One kiss dissolved seamlessly into another and another interspersed with the little bird sounds escaping the throat of the woman in his arms. And she was exquisite, tiny compared to the other women he had been with, like a fairy, so delicate he feared he would break her if he held her too tightly.
As he lowered her onto the floor in front of the fire and pushed the top of her dress down to caress small breasts with enormous flower bud nipples, she arched up into his hands and whispered, ‘I could die a happy woman now, Tim Meriwether, if I wasn’t already dead.’ Then she added, ‘That tool of yours, the one you’re always playing with in front of me, does it work as well on a woman as it does in your hand.’
‘Shall we find out?’ He shoved up her skirt and slid silk panties down over her hips, feeling her grind her bottom against the floor as he ran his fingers through her tightly trimmed pubic curls and then slid them down into her open pout, which was slick and dewy and grasping at him with little shudders.
‘Tim,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had 80 years of foreplay. Please, don’t keep me waiting.’
As he reached to undo his fly, she pushed his hands away. ‘Let me. It’s like unwrapping a present at Christmas.’
He liked that image. He lay back on the cushions, feeling the weight of his own need as the little ghost undid his fly and eased his trousers down over his hips with a moan of appreciation for what she saw.
Then she stood and lifted the flapper dress off over her head. From his angle on the floor the view of her vulva, flared and dark with arousal, was exquisite. Her large clit was marbled hard at the apex of her pussy, and the sheen of her need was slick and heavy between her folds.
His cock jerked and his balls clenched as she straddled him still standing, offering him one last enticing view before she opened her pussy with two fingers and squatted onto him with the grace of a ballerina and the tight fit of a surgical glove.
He gasped in sudden shock at the burn, the burn the presence of ghosts always brought on, but as she began to thrust and undulate, the burn was transmuted to fire like he’d never felt before, fire that threatened to incinerate him to nothing but ashes and he didn’t care. He grabbed her hips and thrust up to meet her writhing and grinding, feeling as though molten lead filled his balls, feeling as though his whole world had been reduced to the delicious tight wet grip of Lisette’s pussy.
He didn’t know when she had actually started orgasming. Her grip, her spasming, her cries of passion were all blended together. He knew that she only stopped shuddering and fell forward onto his chest after he had emptied what had felt like an ocean of semen into her tight hole. As she lay gasping and sweating against his chest, she breathed, ‘Don’t you dare fall asleep. I’m not nearly done with you yet.’
And she wasn’t lying.
The women Serina was staying with were supposed to be witches. There was supposed to be some kind of protective force field cast around their flat. They had given her some kind of herbal concoction that was supposed to take the edge off, but she couldn’t lie still, she couldn’t concentrate, she couldn’t focus, and worst of all she couldn’t satisfy herself no matter how hard she tried. She felt like someone had kindled a fire between her legs and every time she tried to quench it, they added more fuel.
The witches, they gave her stuff to help her sleep. She suspected it was strong magic. And she did sleep, but she always dreamed of him and of the relief he would give her when he found her. Sometimes she’d wake terrified from dreaming that he had found her. She could no longer quite re
member why that was. He was so good to her. Hadn’t he only ever wanted to serve her, to please her? These two crazy women pretending to be witches were just jealous, that’s all. They were trying to keep him away from her because they wanted him for themselves.
Without the herbs, she couldn’t sleep. With the herbs she had bad dreams. And no matter what she tried, she couldn’t come, even though she was certain she would die if she didn’t get some relief soon.
Stupid women! They said it was just his spell on her. They said she had to be strong, that even now the Elementals were working to help her. The Elementals! Tara Stone hated her, probably was envious of her, probably wanted Deacon for herself.
But Deacon belonged to her, and she needed him, desperately needed him. She checked in the bathroom again. A silver wedge of the waning moon was just now peeking around the edge of the open bathroom window. Her heart raced in her throat. Down the hallway in the lounge, she could hear the telly. They were watching Casablanca. That’s all they ever watched, old films. She’d had dinner, tried to be sociable, but had finally feigned tiredness so she could prepare. She told them it was the herbs that made her so sleepy. They wouldn’t bother her, she was sure.
She shut the light off in the bathroom as the moon moved more into the frame of the window, but it quickly became evident the angle was all wrong. With trembling hands, she started to fill the sink, hoping the moonlight would reflect in the water, but the angle was still wrong. In the end it was the reflection off the old porcelain tub that drew her attention. Practically crying with relief, she filled the tub, hoping they wouldn’t hear her, but then again, she’d just tell them she thought a hot bath would help her sleep.
It didn’t take much, a couple of inches of water and the moonlight reflected just enough off the surface to allow her to work the magic. She settled next to the tub on her haunches so she could see her own reflection. When she felt like her skin would crawl off at any minute, it took every ounce of concentration she had to remember the spell he’d taught her.
The strain of it drenched her in sweat, and she stared so hard into the water for so long that dark spots swam like fish on the surface interfering with a clear view. But she didn’t need a clear view. She just needed him to find her. Dear goddess, she needed him to find her and relieve her suffering.
She didn’t know how long she had been in the trance. The moon had moved beyond the frame of the window and the stars were overlaid with thick cloud. It was an icy chill blowing over the water that brought her back to herself, naked and shivering. But beneath the ripples of the water, she was certain she could make out his image.
‘Oh my poor darling, such a tremendous need you have for me. I can feel the ache of your womanhood across the miles.’ His voice was not just inside her head but inside her whole body. ‘I cannot bear your suffering, my love, take your ease.’ Her nipples tensed hard, her sex convulsed and soaked itself, and she uttered a muted cry.
‘There, there, my darling, hush my little bird. You feel better now, don’t you, my love? Go to your bed now and rest. I shall come for you shortly.’
Trembling and sobbing with relief, and with something else she couldn’t quite remember, Serina Ravenmoor found her way to her bed, closed her eyes and slept like the dead.
Chapter 18
The fire had died back to embers, and Tim was struggling to stay awake. His cock was still buried inside Lisette’s tight pussy, and she was wrapped around him almost like a second skin, her lovely taut nipples gouging deliciously into his chest.
‘You’ll sleep soon,’ she whispered, brushing a kiss across his lips. ‘And you’ve earned it. I’d love to wake up next to you in the morning and feel that wonderful soreness that one only gets from a night of long, hard lovemaking. But the memory, Tim Meriwether, the memory will keep me going for a long time.’
‘There’ll be other times, Lisette,’ he said cupping the mound of her arse and pulling her still closer.
‘I’ll look forward to it, but I won’t count on it. A full-fledged rider’s very busy. I’m not the only ghost on the farm, after all.’
She spoke as though there would be a future, as though at some point life would be normal again. He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he took comfort in the thought.
‘Have good dreams, Tim.’ Her last words drifted off into the soft, even breathing of sleep. He figured even sleep must be numbered among the pleasures of the flesh. He stroked her short, soft hair and ran a hand down her ribcage and along her flank. He was now a full-fledged rider, he supposed. There had been none of the tawdriness he had pictured in his mind. It hadn’t even been an act of mercy or kindness, really. In the end it had been two people giving each other pleasure because it was what they both wanted. A man could do worse than that, he thought. He stroked the face of the woman lying in his arms one last time. Her cheek twitched softly at his touch and she offered a half smile from the dream world. He could stay awake no longer, and he knew when he awoke, his arms would be empty. He could live with that. He could happily live with what he felt about being a rider right now. As he drifted into unconsciousness, on the distant periphery of his last waking breath, a shadow stirred and paced. He would have been disturbed if he could have stayed awake long enough to witness.
There were bright flashes of dreams weaving their way through Serina Ravenmoor’s deep sleep, and they always involved her dark angel, her Deacon. Strange how dreams are. She dreamed of a long taxi ride, and such a deliciously nasty dream it was with her and Deacon making love, endlessly making love in the back seat, the driver oblivious. Or maybe he wasn’t. That thought made Serina’s orgasms all the more yummy. And Deacon, sweet Deacon, was holding nothing back from her now. It was as though his whole purpose was to satisfy her over and over again. How could she have ever doubted him?
Then there was another long stretch of deep oblivion. No doubt her exhausted body needed it after her scrying efforts. Besides, she hadn’t eaten. Why hadn’t she eaten?
And then they were at her house in Keswick. Strange how so many dreams are house dreams. And this one was so vivid. She could see her tools shining on her altar. The fresh flowers she had put there before Tara Stone had whisked her away were now wilted and dying. She made a note to cut new ones in the morning. She could see her unmade bed where she and Deacon had had sex so often that she stopped bothering to make it up. She could see one stocking still partially bound to the headboard of the bed. The marks on her wrists had faded. Other bruises had not.
But tonight in the dream his touch was gentle. He undressed her so tenderly and kissed her bruises and abrasions, wounds he said she’d gotten on Raven Crag when she had taken a tumble. But she didn’t remember any tumble. And then he watched, stroking his cock, while she dressed in a wisp of a white negligée he’d picked out for her. He said it made her look angelic. Though she reckoned gowns for angels would have been made up of considerably more fabric. The material was soft and sheer and clung to her so deliciously. Then he asked her to take her scrying mirror. He said there was some very important magic he wanted her to do for him. He had held her so close in the dream, and it had been so real. He told her that this was why he had come, that this was why he had been sent to her. He told her that at long last she was ready to fulfil her purpose, what she had lived her whole life for. She had been so excited. Dear goddess, such a dream! The sort of dream one never wants to wake up from.
And then she was driving her car with Deacon sat next to her endlessly stroking her. Surely he must have kept her safe because she couldn’t possibly concentrate on driving with what he was doing to her. In her little white negligee, she was driving, and he was fondling her while he told her things, stories of his past lives, stories of how he died, of his terrible murder, stories of power that she could barely imagine, power that made her tremble at the very thought, power that he said now dwelt in him. And she wondered how he could contain such a frightening thing without going mad. She would have asked if she had been able to focus on an
ything other than his hand between her legs.
Then the dream became more chaotic, like the dreams one has in the throes of a fever when one is very ill.
Her feet hurt. They were bleeding, and she was cold. Were they on Raven Crag? And where were her shoes?
He told her yes, they were indeed on Raven Crag because it was there she must perform her great magic. He told her she had such strong magic within her that the pain of the walk and the cold were as nothing to her now. Perhaps that was true, but she wondered why she was crying? She would have thought strong magic could have kept emotions at bay, and yet every once in a while, just for the tiniest of moments, she felt as though she were drowning in a deep well of emotions.
She didn’t know how long they walked. Dreams are like that. In the dream, she was in a deep trance, one in which time truly seemed to disappear. Perhaps she really had reached a level of magic that she’d only ever fantasised about until now.
And Deacon kept reassuring her that magic is only ever limited by our doubts and our fears. He promised her that she could heal, that she could commune with spirits, that she could even fly if she believed strongly enough. And Deacon said that Raven Crag was a place to test just how strong her magic was. And when the magic was done and she had fulfilled her destiny, the world would be changed in ways she could scarcely imagine. And Deacon said she would open doors to realms of power she couldn’t come close to comprehending. And Deacon said that she had served a power so great that her life and her death would be celebrated.
But her feet hurt; they were bloody. And she was cold.
And Deacon said it didn’t matter. Deacon said she had no need of feet when she would soon fly.
He guided her with the gentlest of touches until the very tips of her toes curled over the edge of the precipice and the breeze of coming dawn was so sweet she couldn’t get enough of it.
