Keeper of the Flame

by Stephanie Burke

  Richard frowned, tapping his foot impatiently as he flipped back the sleeve of his suite jacked to peer in an obvious gesture at his watch.

  Flame glanced at Kendall to gage her reaction to the small kiss. On Testrios, he would have been blamed for enticing the other woman to such a display of openly touching another woman’s property, and quickly punished by his Mistress. He waited to see what Kendall’s reaction would be.

  Far from being angry, Kendall smiled at Flame’s concerned expression. Flame knew then that Kendall trusted him man fully. She had reason to. Why would he want her sister when he had a woman that could melt his bones in bed and who loved him to distraction? He wanted only Kendall. She accepted all of his faults and still loved him. Only her tarcus-brown eyes could flash and make him weak in the knees and only her words could infuse his spirit with strength and need. No other woman’s touch meant nothing to him. Kendall was his all.

  “You’ve got yourself a fine man here.” Caressa turned to her sister as she made her pronouncement.

  “The very best.” Kendall agreed as she gazed into Flame’s smoldering eyes.

  Spark, sensing that there would be no bloodshed, had finally given in to his growing body’s needs and had fallen asleep. Kendall rose to her feet and headed for the baby’s bedroom, wanting to get him tucked into bed.

  As she passed Richard, she murmured, “You had better treat her right or I will sic my Irish Wolfhound on you.” She nodded towards Flame who stood and watched his Mistress converse with the half-man, a deep scowl darkening his features. “And his bite is definitely worse than his bark!”

  “You both know the way out, I trust?” she added as she ascended the stairs with the sleeping baby cradled in her arms.

  Caressa took Richard by his hand and began to lead him to the front door. “I’ll need office space, Richard, to make a go of my agency. I’m thinking of calling it Crystal Faces. Isn’t that catchy?” She kept up a steady stream of conversation as she and Richard exited the house. “Something with lots of windows. I look best in natural light.”

  The door closed softly behind their retreating figures and Flame shook his head. Never had he met two more difficult people. Of course Caressa had introduced him to the wonders of ice cream and talk shows, but she was still a unique individual.

  By the time Kendall had returned from placing Spark into his cube in his room, Flame had retrieved the grocery bags and was staring in confusion at some of the contents. “What is Redi-Whip?” he asked as he examined the small can of whipped topping.

  An instant blush heated Kendall’s face and she refused to meet his eyes. That can represented a little fantasy she had while strolling past her grocer’s freezer. It involved the now eaten ice cream, cherries, the whipped topping of course, and a few unique containers. “Never mind about that!”

  Before he could question her further, his black bag stashed in the living room began to emit a piercing sound.

  “What’s that noise?” Kendall asked, all thoughts of her fantasy forced out of her head by the loud squeal.

  Flame’s face paled as he placed the can on the counter. He retrieved his bag and the little black computer that was making the awful sound. “It is the early warning device I programmed into the computer, Mistress. It is making this sound because the Execution Squad has entered Earth’s gravitational pull.”

  Kendall groped for a chair. “How much time?” she forced through her frozen throat.

  “Maybe two days time, My Kendall, possibly three.”

  He spoke with a shaky yet determined voice before taking the chair across from her. He flipped open the small device and began speaking into it with that strange flowing language.

  He paused at her questioning look to explain. “I am giving the coordinates to the location where they can find me. I am sending them several miles away from here to a wooded area beyond your lake. You and the children should be safe here while I deal with my sibling and the soldiers that she has brought with her.”

  “Oh God, Flame!” Kendall gasped out as she reached her trembling hand across the table for his. “I’m so frightened.”

  And then, as if her show of fear weakened her, she released his hand and rose unsteadily to her feet. With a strangled sound of confused fear and hope, she faced the bank of windows that overlooked the lake.

  After crossing her arms in a protective gesture, she stared at the beauty of the moonlight’s reflection off of the still lake waters.

  Could their time, their loving time, come to a close so quickly? Frustrated anguish settled deep within the pit of her stomach and almost caused her to be physically ill. Loving someone was hard, but the possibility of losing that person...well, that was almost intolerable.

  Just as she was ready to give into her urge to cry and scream like a baby, Flame came up behind her and enveloped her in his warm embrace, pulling her back to settle against his hard chest.

  “How can I live if something happens to you, Flame?” she choked out as she lost her battle with her tears and sagged against his great strength. “How can I go on without you?”

  “Shh, My Kendall,” he soothed as he rocked her back and forth, as if she were a small child in need of comfort. “I will come back to you, no matter what.”

  “We have a family to raise and a business to build.” Her voice broke as all the fear and anguish building up inside of her broke free in a muffled sob.

  Instantly, Flame spun her around and pulled her into his warm hard body, tucking her head underneath his chin. The feel of him was a comforting anchor in the storm, as her world spun out of control.

  “I never wanted my love to bring you such pain!” He cried out as if mortally wounded by her tears. “I wish I had stayed away from you.”

  “Never say that!” Kendall near shouted. “Never even think it!”

  Kendall lifted one trembling hand to caress his beloved face. Her tearstained eyes bored deeply into his. “I don’t regret loving you. You brought sunshine into my life. I’d still be lost without you, Flame. Lost and alone!”

  Tears welled up and ran down his masculine face, enhancing his beauty and showing her how deeply he cared about her. He bracketed her face, shiny and shaking with the force of her emotions, and began to visually memorize each and every feature.

  “You are my air,” he whispered between small sipping kisses, tasting of her tears. Each salty tear held the essence of her spirit and was shed for the love of him. He savored the salty sweet taste of each one.

  “You are the most important part of me, you are my strength,” he continued. “Without you, my existence is meaningless.”

  Kendall let out a small wailing cry as she pulled her face from his hands and burrowed as close as she could get to him. The pain that they shared was unbelievable, but it was bittersweet for each would bear this pain a thousand times over to experience the sweetness of their love.

  “We have to pack a lifetime into the days that we have left,” Kendall decided as she sobbed into his chest.

  “A lifetime,” he agreed as a warm golden glow began to circle the two star-crossed lovers. His emotions were expressing his love more eloquently than his words.

  Together, they stood and watched the small waves build and ebb with the tide. There was no further need for words.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Look at that smile, Flame,” Kendall exclaimed she blew raspberries on the squirming baby’s belly. “I think Spark is going to look just like you.” It took some doing for Spark seemed a little taciturn, like his father, but when you got him smiling, he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  Kendall and Flame both sat on the floor in the living room playing with Ember and Spark after the two children had their baths. Flame seemed determined to spend as much time as he could with his babies, just in case the unthinkable happened.

  “I think that Ember is going to be a man-killer when she grows up,” Kendall added, reaching over to stroke the little girl’s red-streaked hair. “But in a goo
d way,” she added as she watched his eyes widen in shock! Be careful with idiom, she reminded himself. At least until he saw more of that Killerman show.

  Flame contemplated the sight of his Kendall and the unconditional love she poured out to both Ember and Spark. The sight of this woman, his woman, mothering his children reminded him of all the things that he had missed while growing up on Testrios.

  While he had a mother, the powerful house leader spent very little time in the presence of her disappointment of a son. As a result, he had never known a tender touch or a warm embrace from Tessla. Did she even have the right to claim to be his mother? What made a mother anyway? He had the distant kind of motherly attention, and now he craved more for his children.

  “I think that if something happens to me you would be a great mother for Ember and Spark.” Flame stopped his playful dressing of Ember to seriously look at Kendall. “If something should happen to me, I will ensure your safety and that of my children. Will you be a mother to them on this world?”

  Kendall sat up and away from the squirming baby and eyed his father. Flame was dressed in another pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt that matched her own, but the common clothing did nothing to disguise the uncommonness of his being.

  After their emotional outpouring the other night, Flame carried Kendall in to bed and they just held each other close. Kendall lay spoon position with Flame, and savored the feel of his hair-roughened body snuggled so closely to hers as if she would never know that sensation again. She categorized little things about his body in her memory, the way his breathing pattern seemed to always match hers, that the softest skin on his body was just behind his ankles, and how his body heat always carried his scent and totally warmed her body from the inside out.

  Flame stroked her soft skin as if his very hands would remember the feel of her. He inhaled her special scent and buried his face into her thick black hair. He memorized the feel of her warm breath against his chest as well as the feel of her soft toes trailing down his legs, before she settled her foot on top on his. He found joy in all of her gestures and movements, and was again thankful that he had found the other half of his being.

  Just the physical act of touching bare flesh to bare flesh fed their spirits and gave solace to both of their weary and troubled souls.

  Flame had awakened Kendall at dawn so that they could watch the sun explode the dark night over the lake with its colorful entrance, and usher in a new day.

  “Have you ever beheld such beauty?” Kendall whispered, almost afraid to destroy the majesty and magic of the moment with the coarse sound of her voice.

  They stood on the deck at the rear of her house naked and wrapped only in a shared blanket to protect them from the chill air of the early morning. Together they leaned against the wooden railing and watched the glorious hues of red, gold, and pink meld together to chase away the darkness and become dawn.

  “Never,” Flame softly replied as he watched the colors of the new day wash gently over her face, highlighting her features in a way that made her seem more beautiful and exotic to his loving eyes.

  He pulled her naked body closer to his warmth and relished the feel of her firm body, her heat, and her special smell trapped in the confines of the soft warm blanket with him.

  “There is no one like you,” he murmured as he bent his head and began to nibble and kiss at the side of her neck.

  Kendall threw her head back and moaned out loud her enjoyment of his gentle caresses. His teeth seemed to instinctively find her every erogenous zone on her neck and bathe them with his inner fire and heat. Her arms reached back and pulled his head closer to her, so that he would not miss a single one.

  As the blanket slid down with their motions, his hands reached around to cup and mold her soft breasts with firm unyielding hands. Instantly her nipples hardened into sharp points of desire that begged for his loving touch.

  A hard knot of tension tightened in Kendall’s stomach as her body clenched with excitement. The banked fires of her passion exploded into life, fanned by her tender handling of her lover.

  “I need you, right now!” she demanded on a groan as one of his clever hands traced a path down her gently rounded tummy to the thatch of dark wet hair that shielded her desire.

  “Flame!” she cried out as his knowing fingers found her cleft and sought out the small pearl of her pleasure. He stroked and teased her with a steady dizzying pressure, driving her higher into the arms of passion.

  His hair whipped around them, awakened by the morning breeze and his own ardor, caressing and singeing her nerve endings and wrapping her in its living fire. A soft golden glow surrounded both of them as she felt his manhood rise against the sensitive skin of her bottom.

  The beauty of his beloved’s face bathed in the colors of the new day only heightened the deep sensual feeling that he experienced in her presence. He wanted to see that same face explode in desire as he brought about her completion.

  He pressed and rotated the palm of his hand against her wet heat and brought her to another level so painfully high that she had to grip the wooden railing to keep from toppling right off of the dock.

  Her low groan of pleasure caused a slow build up of delicious pressure in his stiff manhood and fire to spread a slow burn over his nether regions. He felt not the chill of the new day, nor the urgency of their present situation; all he felt was the throbbing need for this woman, his true lifemate, and the joy she could bring with her seductive body and her tender loving heart.

  “I have to come to you now, my Kendall,” Flame moaned as this body’s needs took precedence over all other thoughts racing through his mind. “I need to be one with you.”

  “Yes, Flame. Please now!”

  Hearing her inflamed words caused a low roar to mount in his ears and his body to arch uncontrollably against her warm skin. Sliding his fingers, still wet with her desire, up to her waist, he lifted and drew her hips back, closer towards him. He lowered his mouth to her shoulder and delicately nipped the soft skin there as he pressed his strong chest against her back to cause her to bend over the railing. It was her hands that reached back and guided his invading love staff to her quivering cleft.

  Flame fought the urge to thrust unrestrained into her hot welcoming sheath, but instead rested the ruby crested head of his magnificence against her wet slit and began to slide himself against her, creating a breathtaking friction that set her senses ablaze.

  “Please,” Kendall whispered, as her body clenched in want of what he was with holding from her, teasing her with, making her need.

  “You are mine, Kendall,” Flame fairly growled as spears of passion radiated from where they strained against each other, making his head spin and his body to perspire. “You were meant for me.”

  Before she could form an answer, Flame reared back, and without his usual gentleness, slammed himself home.

  Kendall’s body arched back at the lighting strikes she felt as his full thrust slammed into her. Her body fought to adjust it self to his large size by clenching and quivering around his hard length. Animal sounds of pleasure and pain mixed and mingled in her throat as rose up on her toes and pushed closer to his heat, her body accepting all that was he.

  Flame closed his eyes as her body took in the full measure of him. Never had he felt this full before, never this wild. He had to fight back the animal instinct to drive himself into her until he spilled his seed deep within her and marked her as his. He laid his head against her trembling back and fought to control the urges racing through his body.

  “What you do to me.” He whispered as his body once again began to override his mind as his hips began to move.

  With almost painful slowness, Flame pulled his entire length from her body, leaving only the very tip of him inside to taunt and tease her. Her breathing suspended in anticipation of his next powerful jolt, but again he surprised her by lingering at her opening.

  “Tell me!” he growled.

  “Flame?” she squeaked.<
br />
  “Tell me!” he demanded.

  The feeling of him just penetrating her, just lying there was threatening to drive Kendall insane with her need. What did he want from her? She braced her hands on the railing and tried to shove him deep inside her again, where he belonged, but his strong hands forced to stay in that position, dominated and cherished at the same time.

  “Tell me!” he demanded again, both hands, now shaking with his fight for control, tightly gripping her waist. “Please, I have to hear it from your sweet lips, my Heart.”

  Finally, understanding blossomed in her head. She knew what Flame needed to hear from her.

  “I love you!” she cried and shrieked it and with a loud groan, he again slammed himself inside of her, finally home.

  It was a wild and tumultuous mating. Like a stallion in heat, Flame reared back his head and pumped inside her with unrestrained joy. Her cries of pleasure were only matched by his shouts of passion as they both very vocally expressed their delight.

  Kendall forced her body back against him, desperate to feel him deep inside while Flame fought to hold on long enough to drive her to climax.

  While thrusting powerfully into Kendall’s heat, Flame eased one hand down her taut stomach and let his fingers softly part the flesh and seek out her tiny nubbin of pleasure.

  Kendall let out a small shriek as his clever fingers began to manipulate her hot wet flesh. She arched her heat into his hand as her nails dug gouges into the wood of the railing. It was too much, it wasn’t enough, and it was undeniably...Flame.

  “I love you, Kendall,” he groaned, losing himself in her reactions and with his final thrust, they both exploded with extreme carnal bliss, shouting their joy to the heavens, as the golden aura surrounding them exploded over the lake along with the first rays of the sun.

  Kendall felt a curious moisture on her back as she fought to keep to her feet and regain her breath. Never had the beauty of a morning affected her like this. She felt Flame’s strong body and warmth surround her as they both struggled to regain their composure.