A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Bridget Essex

  To put it succinctly, I look like hell.

  I turn on the water, let the coldness rush over my fingers, and then I splash a little of it onto my face, allowing the water to drip off of my chin. I wipe my face with my wet fingers and pat myself dry with a hand towel before I step out of the bathroom.

  “Are you all right?” asks Charaxus immediately, and I glance in her direction…and I stop.

  The metal parts of her armor are all piled neatly at the foot of the bed, and she’s sitting on the side of the bed, on top of the tapestry woven in bright hues of orange, purple, red and gold.

  She looks out of place.

  She’s so pale in the soft light of my bedroom, as pale as a ghost. And with her armor removed, she’s wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather shirt, all in black.

  The effect is…striking.

  The leather clings to her curves, molded to her body like a glove. I stand there, my hands open at my sides, my chest rising and falling as I gaze at her.

  She’s lounging back on her hands on the mattress, a small smile turning her mouth up at the corners. She watches me with carefully hooded blue eyes, and my own gaze follows the contours of her body: over her breasts, high and round, and her abs, and the gorgeous swell of her hips and thighs. She leans back languidly, her right leg tapping the bed, and she shifts her head to the side, inky black hair falling over her shoulder with a soft whisper, trailing to her wrists because it’s so long.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I got comfortable. It’s been a long day.” Her voice sounds almost teasing, but there’s a genuine question hanging in the syllables.

  “Yeah,” I tell her, licking my lips. “That’s…fine. So, where do you want to sleep? I can… I can sleep downstairs on the couch, if you’d rather sleep in a bed. You must be very tired after, you know, nearly dying in another world.” Wow, Mara. That sounded so very, very stupid.

  She raises her brows, and she stands easily, the muscles of her thighs flexing; I can’t help but notice them. She is as lean and languid as a panther as she prowls across the floor to me, her blue eyes searching mine.

  “I was hoping that we might sleep together,” she says softly, the words unfolding in front of us.

  I look at her, and the pain from a moment ago bursts through my heart again. I try to stifle it, shove it down, but it’s hard. I’m used to shoving all of my pain away, pushing it deeply inside of myself. This pain is new, though, still raw, and I’m not quite certain how to soothe it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, and there’s tension in her shoulders as she leans toward me, raising her hand—but she doesn’t touch me. She lets her hand drop beside her hip again, her jaw working.

  “We’ve dreamed about each other all of our lives.” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to shield my heart, but it’s already been hurt. It’s already been wounded. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it.

  I’m already broken, broken before she, the woman of my dreams, ever even met me.

  She's come too late.

  “Yes,” says Charaxus gruffly, and she finds my gaze, drawing it up from the floor and holding it in place, staring down at me with soft blue eyes. “I’ve dreamed of you my whole life. And we are finally together. And do you know what I think?”

  I shake my head, watching her.

  “I think we’ve wasted enough time.”

  And then she’s stepping forward, and she’s kissing me.

  It’s a soft kiss, a kiss of wonder. Wondering if I want this, too. If I want her to be kissing me. And I do. God, I do. I wrap my arms around her neck, and she’s wrapping her arms around my waist, drawing me toward her. She lifts me up to my toes, and I’m in the air, being held by her tightly as she kisses me. She tastes of cinnamon; her mouth is so hot now, and so soft against my own, but urgent.

  Effortlessly, she takes me in her arms and carries me to the bed.

  “Wait, wait,” I say, and she stiffens against me, her arms softening, letting me drop down to my tiptoes again as she takes a step back, as she searches my face.

  “What is it?” she asks, her voice soft, gruff, questioning.

  “You’re… Charaxus, you’re in love with your queen.” My voice sounds miserable, even to me.

  Charaxus stares down at me, perplexed, her brow furrowed. Then she shakes her head. “I have served my queen for many years,” she says with a soft shrug. “And, yes, I loved her. But,” she sighs, “she does not love me, and she will never love me. I knew my feelings could never be requited.

  “It was a love that was pure and true and good…and that prevented me from connecting with other women. I knew that I would never be able to love her. All of my life,” she says with certainty, holding my gaze, “I have been waiting for you.”

  It’s everything that I wanted to hear, but my throat is tight as I stare up at her. “We don’t know anything about each other,” I remind her.

  “We can learn,” she whispers, reaching across the space between us and stroking my cheek softly. Her leather gloves and their metal cuffs are laid neatly on top of the pile of armor, so this is the first time that I’ve felt her hand against my skin.

  And, God, it feels so good, so right. Her skin is soft, warm, and she smells like the leather of her gloves, the good earthiness of it filling me with lust, need roaring through me whether I welcome it or not.

  “You want to go back home, Charaxus. To your world,” I say, and my voice is thick with want as she takes another step closer, the heat of her body emanating through the leather of her shirt, through the thin fabric of my tank top, our bodies so close, so close, with so little separating them.

  “I must go back home,” she whispers, and I gaze up at her, pain evident in my expression. Again, she shakes her head. “But I am not going back at this moment. At this moment,” she murmurs, locking her gaze on mine, “we are here. Together.”

  “But—”

  “Mara,” she says, and the sound of my name is like a caress.

  I shiver against her touch, and I breathe out, closing my eyes, listening to her speak. “Mara,” she repeats, and then our bodies are melting together as she wraps her arms around my waist, drawing me against her.

  “Mara,” she whispers again, and she leans close, her breath hot against my ear. “We have dreamed for too long. This is real—here, now. Let us think tomorrow.”

  “Hmm.” I wrap my arms around her neck. “And what are you going to do tonight?”

  Her eyes are as dark as a starlit night as she stares down at me, mouth parted, wet. “You,” she growls, her head tilted to the side, the shock of that single word moving through me. “If you will have me,” she adds, but I hardly hear her, because my panties are already on the other side of the room (metaphorically speaking—I’m not that fast), and I’m standing on my tiptoes, drawing her down to me for a kiss.

  The woman of my dreams is in my arms, is real, is leaning into the kiss, literally sweeping me off of my feet as she wraps her arms around me again and lifts me up from the floor. She kisses me fiercely, the cinnamon of her kiss burning me up until all I am is fire, fire, fire, a roaring need that must be quenched, or it might burn me to cinders.

  Charaxus knows this, because my kiss is desperate, longing, and she turns, carrying me to my bed.

  The backs of my calves brush against the mattress, and then I’m tumbling backward as she lets me go. I bounce on the mattress as she slides easily between my open legs, going down into a kneel between them. I rest back on my hands, panting.

  “This is all right?” asks Charaxus, her brow furrowed as she pushes me down, her fingers on my shoulders first, then tracing patterns to the hem of my t-shirt and shoving it over my stomach, revealing bare skin.

  “God, yes, hurry,” I mutter, rocking my head back as she shoves the t-shirt over my breasts, her fingers at the wire of my bra before she stops, gazing down with a perplexed look on her face.

  “There is metal in this cloth?” she asks curiously, but I have my h
ands on top of her hands, pushing her fingers up under the cups.

  “Yeah, it’s a bra. They don’t have those on your world?”

  She pushes the cups up over my breasts. “No,” she says with a small smile as she leans over me, her inky black hair falling over her shoulder and trailing over my sides.

  “I’ll…get you up to speed on them later,” I whisper, shivering as she bends down, her warm breath causing my nipples to ache, already hard and peaked.

  I twist my fingers into her hair, over her scalp, and I arch my back beneath her, trying to pull her head down, down, trying to make her mouth meet my breast. But she’s not having any of it. She reaches up, and she takes my hands, and then my wrists are pinned to the bed as she towers over me, blue eyes flashing.

  “Still all right?” she growls, and I nod, my breath coming so fast I’m almost hyperventilating.

  “God, yes, whatever you want, yes, yes,” I say in one big rush of syllables, and that’s when she pins my hands above my head hard and bends down for a kiss.

  She bites my lower lip, a bright sharpness of teeth that makes me moan into her mouth, and then her tongue is questing past my lips, and all I taste is cinnamon, is her smile as she grins against me. She holds my wrists now with one hand and traces the fingers of her right hand down, over the side of my face, my neck, my bunched-up bra and t-shirt, and, God, yes, they finally reach my left breast.

  She pulls my nipple gently at first, twisting it with a soft caress that’s absolutely maddening. She chuckles against me, a low growl of a laugh, and then she’s tracing kisses down my jaw, my neck, and she’s capturing my left nipple in her mouth.

  “Yes,” I mutter, bucking my hips, trying to find some sort of friction, anything, but she remains crouched over me, still pinning my hands above my head but now trailing her fingers down over my stomach as she bites on my nipple, the bright pain so pleasurable that I mutter, “Fuck, yes,” into the darkness of the room. Her fingers are over my skirt, then on my thigh, her skin hot against mine.

  Now Charaxus lowers herself, lowers her hips against my hips, and I cry out from the weight of her against my center, the ache that blossoms between my legs something that fills every part of me with a need so acute I can hardly breathe. I’m pulsing my hips against her own leather-clad hips. She lets go of my hands, and then she’s gripping my hips with strong fingers, so hard that I’m probably going to have bruises tomorrow, but it’s a delicious sensation now, so perfect; I reach up with my legs, wrapping them around her middle, asking with every inch of my body for more.

  Her hands release my hips, and then she’s grasping the edges of my skirt and panties, tugging them over my bottom and down my thighs, pulling them off before tossing them aside. She lowers her head, takes my right nipple into her mouth, flicking her tongue across it before scraping her teeth so gently against it that I groan, arching my back, pushing my breast further into her mouth. I need her to bite it; I can’t take the want building through me. Her teeth surround my nipple again, biting down, making me hiss out, making me grind my head against the mattress as I twine my fingers through her hair again, scratching her scalp. And she lets me: she lets me push, and she moves her teeth against my nipple now, gently enough that the pain is exquisite pleasure. I moan as she reaches up, pulling the other nipple with her hand, twisting it, plumping it, before tracing a path of kisses across my skin.

  Then she takes my other nipple in her mouth, biting down with no warning.

  I moan, and she rests her leather-clad hips on my naked center. My clit aches as she pulses her hips against mine, my center throbbing with such intensity that I think I’m going to come from some simple nipple play. Am I really that turned on?

  She traces her fingers over my thigh, brushing the pad of her thumb against my clit just once, just for a second, and a shudder of an orgasm moves through me. But I don’t actually come. Her fingers trail a line down into my center, moving through my wetness.

  What is she doing that makes my body respond so instantly?

  There’s something about the way that Charaxus looks at me as she pushes her fingers inside of me; I'm open and wanting, my mouth open, too, as I moan out and pull her down for another kiss. But Charaxus hovers over my open mouth, and she watches me carefully, her brow furrowed, her bright blue eyes flashing with such a deep, abiding fire that the simple act of holding her gaze is enough for my core to pulse around her fingers.

  That’s when she reaches up and gently brushes the pad of her thumb against my clit again. Once, twice, and then in soft, practiced circles as she slowly pumps her fingers in and out of me. The heat of her hips and her thigh against my skin, the muscles of her stomach sliding against mine, her gaze locked on me, and suddenly my body is pulsing like a supernova, and I’m coming quickly, quickly, the orgasm moving through me as fast and as bright as a shooting star.

  “Yes,” I whisper, the syllable sliding through me with the ecstasy. The rhythm of the waves of pleasure merges with the movements of the woman over me, inside of me, and my own body moves with her, and I have no idea where I end and she begins, and it’s good, so good, as she presses her mouth to my own, as she captures me with a kiss and we merge as if we were always meant to be one, not two.

  It’s profound, as I feel that completion flower inside of me. I lie open beneath her, our bodies moving together. Everything feels right in this moment; nothing can be wrong. I pump my hips against her hand, and I whisper her name into the stillness as the last strains of melody fade away from my laptop and silence descends into the room, silence apart from our movements, from the slick slide of her fingers inside of me, the soft quiet of her breath, coming fast from her lungs. She kisses me again, and there's the shush of my fingers in her hair, the gentle creak of the leather on her hips, the hush of our bodies moving together.

  I reach up, and I trail my nails down the back of her neck, over the leather. My fingers are at the hem of her shirt now as she draws wet, shining streaks with her fingertips over my thigh.

  I push my hand beneath her shirt, under the waistband of her leather pants, but suddenly—surprisingly—Charaxus’ hand is gripping my wrist.

  It’s gentle but firm, the pressure of her fingers on my skin.

  “No,” she whispers, and I gaze up at her in concern as I realize that she doesn’t want me to touch her.

  “But…” I lick my lips, trail off. I’m still wobbly from the orgasm, good feelings cresting through me, but this sudden refusal... I don’t understand it. “Can’t I… Don’t you want me to?” I ask her, my voice soft.

  Charaxus gazes down at me, and there’s a gentleness in her expression, her bright blue eyes satisfied. “Yes,” she says, and she leans down, brushing her soft mouth against my own. “I want you to. But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to touch you.”

  I exhale, nodding. Though I want to make her feel good, just as good as she made me feel, she said no, and I really don’t need to understand why. I just need to listen.

  Charaxus’ mouth curls up at the corners again as she rises over me.

  “I want you to say my name,” she breathes into my ear, and as she trails kisses down my stomach, her lips hot against my skin, I curl my fingers into her hair, gasping out into the stillness as I arch my back, my hips rising to meet her.

  “Charaxus,” I cry out into the dark. And I can feel her smile against me as the pleasure rises, potent and powerful.

  The night moves around us as she tastes me.

  Chapter 7: Her Body’s Art

  Last night was…

  Wow.

  I’m lying in bed, breathing evenly as I stare at my blue-painted ceiling, remembering everything that happened between Charaxus and me last night. Everything. I’m blushing as I reach up, brushing fingertips over my swollen lips. Our kissing got pretty...intense.

  Hell, everything got pretty intense.

  I hear Charaxus in the bathroom: she’s whistling something, a tune I don’t recognize. It’s pretty, with a lot of trills
; it sounds a little like a folk song. The shower is running. I guess she catches on quickly... Someone from another world figured out how to turn on the faucets. Fast learner.

  I rest on my pillow, listening to the water, to the whistling, and the sound does something to me.

  It makes me happy.

  I’m highly aware that this moment won’t last. I’m highly aware that last night passed by much too quickly, that I already wish I could go back in time and relive it, relive her kisses, her body rising over mine in the dark, her inky black mane sweeping over my shoulders...

  I take a deep breath as my insides clench, as I close my eyes, rest my hand on my chest.

  The memories will have to be enough.

  I turn over, lying on my side now as I twist my fingers into my hair idly and listen to Charaxus whistle. I’m naked beneath the sheets, and my body is deliciously sore all over. Charaxus tasted every inch of me, and she did things, made me feel things, that no other woman has ever done before.

  Is this what it’s supposed to be like? Every single second of our lovemaking was perfect. Exquisite.

  It was almost…too good to be true.

  But the one frustrating thing that kept happening, throughout all of it, was that Charaxus stopped me if I tried to initiate physical contact with her. It was always a polite halting: if I attempted anything more than kissing her or embracing her, she’d check me gently. I have to be honest... It was kind of nice to just lie there and be ravished, but I also ached to touch her, taste her…

  I don’t know if I'll ever have that opportunity. I don't know what’s going to happen today. Charaxus is determined to search for the shard and for her brother. And, obviously, the fate of the universe is a bit more important than my love life. From the brief conversation that we shared about her brother last night, he sounds like a sociopath—at best—and he's running loose in Buffalo with his crazy cohorts.