by Betty Hanawa
Call simply chuckled and continued his sweet torment. When his mouth left her breasts, he nibbled his way down her stomach. Her cream trickled down her butt. Nita closed her eyes to savor the sensation and not be distracted by anything but the exquisite wetness of his mouth.
Then she felt it. His open mouth rolled across the soft folds between her legs and sucked up her moisture. Her eyes snapped open to see his dark head between her thighs. He lapped again then looked up at her.
Call's eyes danced with enjoyment like light through brown topaz. His mouth, lips, and chin glistened with her cream.
Then he lowered his head and gently probed the tip of his tongue through her sensitive crotch. Gradually, he used more and more of his tongue. When he took her clitoris into his mouth and became to suckle it, she started to come apart. She thrust her hips forward, urging him to take her deeper, harder. He nipped her just the slightest. At the pleasure so intense it was almost painful, her breath caught in the back of her throat.
First one finger, then the second joined his tongue. They pushed in and pulled out with the same rhythm his cock would pulse inside her. They didn't reach as far, but his tongue and mouth triggered sensations that began to overwhelm her. He pressed a thumb against her anus, giving her additional pressure, adding to the spiraling heat.
She pushed his face deeper into her clit, her fists tangled in his hair. She clamped her thighs against the sides of his face. Her muscles began to shake. Her breathing grew more frantic, more labored, and echoed in the small cavern.
This time she buried her screams against her forearm. God forbid Diego should hear her come.
Of course, by now Diego probably didn't have any illusions left about his little sister and his younger brother fucking. Besides, Angela would probably have Diego doing some shouting of his own if he hadn't already. Still, she didn't really want to echo across the caverns.
Her shudders gradually slowed with only the aftershocks of Call lapping across her clitoris. Greedy to continue, she had to have more of him. She had to have him fully, deep inside her.
His lips worked their way up her body and covered hers, filling her mouth with the taste of her own cream. His jeans rasped between her thighs.
"I've decided,” Nita gasped when she could get enough air to speak, “that it's cruel of me to demand you suffer from death-by-almost-orgasm. I've got condoms in my jeans’ pocket."
Call grinned at her and pulled packets from his pocket. “Boy Scout."
Nita leaned against the blanket and watched him unzip his jeans and discard them. A bit of puzzlement slid through her. She thought he had a button fly. What was wrong with that picture?
Not a damn thing, her cunt said happily. Look at that.
Nita sat up straight. “Gimme."
Call grinned and handed her the condom. She tossed it over her shoulder and grabbed his penis.
"Gimme this, big boy."
"Ah,” Call hissed in obviously pleasure. “Nita, may I introduce you to Og, my caveman personality. Og, you're going to enjoy Nita one hell of a lot more than Bella."
Nita paused just before she fastened her mouth on Og. She clutched his sac.
"Ah!"
"Who the fuck is Bella?” She tightened her fingers on his balls.
"My hand,” he managed to gasp and wiggled his fingers in front of her face.
"You named your hand!” Nita released his balls. “Men name their cocks, not their hands."
"Bella seemed to be a better name with Og than Madame Thumb and her four maidens.” Call massaged his balls. Og drooped in sympathy. “You hurt me."
"I meant to."
"Kiss it and make it better."
"Well, I don't know. After all, you hurt my feelings talking about another woman when I'm naked in front of you.” Almost idly, she reached forward and began to slide her fingers and thumb around his shaft.
"And is my Bella as much fun as yours?"
Call gave a sigh of pleasure. “Much better."
Nita leaned down and took his head into her mouth. She swirled her tongue around him then backed off. “Is that nicer than Bella?"
"Og likes it wet. Maybe you can make all of him wet?"
A smile quirked Nita's mouth at Call's little boy type begging. “Ah. Hmm. I don't know. Og seems awfully big. Oh, my goodness. Did Og just grow bigger? Maybe Og needs a bit more encouragement to reach his full potential."
"Maybe you can kiss him and coax him along?"
"I could do that."
Nita licked up and down his length until he twitched with need. She massaged his butt then pulled him closer to suckle his balls. She'd hurt the poor things. She needed to make them feel better.
By the time she consoled Call's balls, his shaft surged in her hands. Slowly, she began to take him into her mouth.
His hands fisted in her hair as she suckled him and took him deeper down her throat. She grabbed his butt with both hands and tightened her fingers into his firm muscles as he surged and groaned.
She tasted the first bit of his cum—warm, salty and delicious. She sucked harder. She wanted him, every essence of him. She eased a finger into his anus.
Shuddering, he jerked and started to pull himself out, but she held him tight and continued to eat him. His cum sprayed into her mouth. His groans sounded muffled as though he had his mouth clamped tight. She kept sucking and swallowing until he was drained and his groans became quiet, satisfied grunts.
When he finished, she released the tired Og from her mouth and Call sank to the floor. He leaned his head against her legs. “I didn't expect that. Thank you."
Nita kissed the top of his hair. “I've never swallowed before."
"Thank you doubly then.” Call ran a hand across her bare foot.
Now that the excitement had died, the cave's chill began to leech into her skin.
"We should go to the hot spring pool to clean and get warm.” Call's voice rumbled in the cavern.
"Hot spring pool?"
Call's head shot up, and his body straightened. “Pool. I said ‘pool,’ didn't I?"
Nita eyed him warily. “Is there a pool?"
Some part of her wanted to believe in the hot spring pool. Some part of her had been there, had made love there, just like she'd made love on this boulder before.
"I don't know why I said a pool, but...” Call edged away from her, stood, and started tossing clothes to her. “I just got the weirdest flash. Like your curandera grandmother's visions. I've never seen a hot spring pool in these caves, but I know how to find it. Get dressed. Let's go find the pool."
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Chapter Ten
Nita slowly pulled on her clothes. She watched Call nearly fall over his feet when he jerked on his blue jeans. He didn't even bother to pull on his briefs. His hands shook while he pulled on socks and boots, fumbled with his shirt buttons.
By the time she'd buttoned her flannel shirt, Call practically stamped his feet with impatience. “Let's go. Come on."
Curving a hand around Call's arm, she stopped him from bolting from the alcove. “I dreamed about a hot spring pool on the hike up here."
"It's a small pool,” Call said, his eyes distant. His features changed subtly, not in shape or substance. He still had the same jaw line, the same flat planes beneath his cheekbones, the same generous mouth, but his face softened.
He looked ... not younger, although Nita did get that impression, but something else shone through.
This face didn't know the angst Call dealt with daily when he worked for the safety of the community. It didn't have the carefully controlled professional mask developed to cover the pain suffered while helping the innocent who were battered by malicious, selfish criminals with the occasional pure evil mixed in. It didn't know the strain of keeping the professional mask in place when current rules insisted on treatment of criminals with the dignity and reserve they did not grant their victims. This face hadn't agonized over the slim doubt that perhaps the wrong person was
being convicted.
Innocence, that's what she saw in Call's face. Not the innocence of youth, but the open-faced innocence of someone who spent his life on the open range where every decision was black or white, cut and dried. Life experiences simply happened, were dealt with, and didn't get agonized over.
The face that looked at her gave a shy, embarrassed smile. A smile she'd never gotten from the Call she grew up with and loved.
"When you sit in the pool, the water just covers your boobs. Magnifies your tits."
"Call,” Nita said carefully, “I've never been in a hot spring pool in these caves."
The face looked puzzled a minute, then Call came back.
He looked around the cavern. “What happened?"
Nita studied him, his brows knit in puzzlement, his mouth twisted with worry. “What do you remember? Do you remember the pool?"
"Yeah. I can get to the pool. I don't know how I know, but I know. It feels weird. Like somebody else is trying to take over my body and give me directions. Let's go. I've got a feeling we need to find it soon."
In the passage, he turned away from the Kitchen Cave path. Nita pulled him to a stop. “Hey, Boy Scout. First rule."
Call blinked in the beam of Nita's flashlight. “Be prepared?"
"We're going spelunking in an area neither of us knows. Do we look like we're prepared?"
In Kitchen Cave, Call looped a thin, strong climber's rope around his shoulders and attached pinions to his belt. He took out some bottles of white shoe polish and tossed one to Nita who added it to her belt pack where she stuffed food and hung water bottles.
"Isn't the GPS working?” Nita knew the new tracking unit was efficient, but sometimes the geocentric satellite couldn't pick up a position through certain kinds of rock.
"Yeah, but I still feel better about marking the walls with shoe polish. The old basic training is still the best. Plus Diego will be able to follow the shoe polish trail if something happens to us."
"Just where the hell do you two think you're off to?” Diego entered the cave from another of the sleeping alcoves, Angela close beside him.
"To find the hot spring pool,” Call said quietly, ignoring his brother's disbelief.
"Isn't that rather like a snipe hunt?” asked Angela. “I thought it didn't exist."
"No,” Nita said flatly. “It's here. We're going to find it."
"Oh, you think so?” Diego stood in front of Call obviously prepared to be the immovable object in his path.
"We know so."
"And just where is it?"
Call clamped his mouth in a straight line.
"You're not leaving here to hare off on some weird search,” Diego said stubbornly. “People have gotten lost, hurt and died in these caves for millenniums. I'm not going to explain to my mama why I let my sister disappear into the darkness with my brother."
"You want to come?"
"What makes you so positive you're going to find it?"
"The Calverton boy is trying to show him.” Nita injected her suspicions into the testosterone-laden battle. She steeled herself for Diego and Angela's skepticism, but Call's jaw dropped in disbelief, too.
Angela raised her eyebrows and pushed her glasses back up her nose. Calmly, she surveyed the men staring at Nita.
Call's eyes had widened with shock. Diego had the beginnings of the mulish look he got when he didn't want to acknowledge something.
Angela turned to Nita. “Possession or reincarnation?"
"I think...” Nita couldn't figure out how to phrase it so she didn't sound like some New Age flake. It didn't matter what she said. She would end up sounding like some lousy actor in an even lousier so-called scary movie. “I think it's possession. For a few moments, I thought I saw someone else looking at me through Call's eyes. I think it's Billy Calverton."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Nita winced. Damn, Diego always thought if he yelled loud enough things would be the way he wanted them. Just like his dad, Patrick. And their mom, Consuelo, she reminded herself sourly.
"That would explain the dreams.” Call's face cleared in comprehension. “We need to go. Now. We need to find the hot spring pool. We need to find out what happened between Magdalena Ramirez and Billy Calverton. There are some lost avenues. Nita and I are going to find them."
"Goddamn it. You're not going to search the unmapped areas by yourselves. We're coming with you."
"Then get some food and water and supplies and come on. Nita and I aren't a couple of kids. We've been spelunking and mapping these caves for years. We're not fools, but we're leaving. If you're coming, then come on."
The four of them slowly wended through the labyrinth of passageways. In the lead, Call marked a white arrow in the direction behind them, keeping the previous mark in view. Diego, as last person, marked the opposite wall when he reached each of Call's marks. It made for slow going, but the arrows would ease their return path better than Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs and didn't run out of length like Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher's ball of string.
Nita's uterus ached with a sharp twinge. It felt like the beginning of heavy cramping, but her period wasn't due for another week. She plodded behind Call, concerned that, if she let go of him, she'd fall down. She found great comfort in the texture of his belt loop wrapped around her fingers. Right now, she hurt too much to try to remember markers or count steps and turns.
Twice Call led them into dead ends, but in the end, they stood at the pool's edge, watching the water steam.
Dubiously, Diego looked at the pool. “How did you know it was here?"
Nita's throat clutched with a knot so big it hurt to swallow. Grief overwhelmed her with the heartbreaking certainty that everything was just about to end.
Call shrugged, his arm tight around Nita. “I don't know. It just seemed like the path was there, lit in my mind. I knew how many paces, the markers, the turns. I don't have an explanation, other than what Nita suggested. That Billy Calverton is trying to help me find him or something here in the caves."
"There's no such thing as ghosts or possession!"
Nita flinched at Diego's shout. Call held her close, protecting her. She wanted to put her face into his shirt and howl her sorrow. His heart beat with the swift staccato of panic.
"I've been having dreams for a year. All of them involving these caves and Nita, but she's not really Nita in my dreams. And I'm not me. Nita?"
Through the roar of Mourner's wails in her ears, Nita heard his voice gentle when he said her name, no longer the harsh tone he used with his brother. “Nita? You've been having the dreams, too, haven't you?"
Numbly, Nita nodded. The cramping hurt worse.
"Nita and I both know things about these caves nobody alive now knows, but we don't know how we know. That panic attack I had in the tube?"
"Even the most experienced spelunkers can have a sudden panic attack.” Diego's voice filled with pity and also the complacency of someone who'd never had a panic attack and didn't understand how it could happen.
Nita wanted to smack him. She'd been frightened for Call in the tube. It had been a horrible time. She'd never again think of sex as something just fun for the moment again. She'd been blasé and matter-of-fact in the tube, but she blessed Mother Earth for giving her this gift that eased her man's pain.
"That panic attack wasn't a panic attack. I think I picked up Billy Calverton's panic. We know Calverton's don't desert people they love. I think he's here. I think he got killed in a rockslide."
"Magdalena died in the cave, too.” Nita wrapped an arm around her lower belly, almost shocked that she wasn't heavy with a child. The cramping intensified. “The baby she carried died."
"You couldn't possibly know that.” Diego's shout echoed in the small cavern.
"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Hamlet. Act One, Scene Five,” Angela said. She wiped her glasses clean of the muddy grit. “Where did you die, Magdalena?"
<
br /> From a distance, Nita heard a voice, not her voice. This voice spoke the hesitant accented English of someone whose first language was Spanish. “My baby died. He rolled and kicked, but two days ago, I had bad pains. Something tore inside me, and he stopped moving."
Nita doubled up in pain. Call's arm steadied her and braced against her belly.
"The bleeding won't stop. I hear Billy calling me. The baby and I are going to Billy."
"Where is Billy?” Angela asked softly.
"My brothers said he went away. He would not do that to me. He wants to marry me, to say the words in front of the priest. My brothers ... my brothers..."
Nita didn't think she could bear the pain. The physical pain sliced through her, but even worse the psyche pain of reliving the months after Billy disappeared as it thundered through her in waves.
"What about your brothers?” Diego asked.
At the touch of Diego's hand on her arms, Nita lost control of her own body. From one corner of her mind, she saw her body launch itself at Diego. She became a wildcat—biting, scratching, punching and swearing in Spanish.
Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her away from Diego.
Dimly through her screams and sobbing, through the roar of pain from her belly, she heard a woman's voice chant, “Magdalena, go in peace. Let Nita return. Magdalena, it's over. You've been dead many years. Your brothers are dead. Rest, Magdalena, let Nita return. Nita. Nita, come back."
Gradually, the pain eased, and Nita withdrew into herself. Call wrapped his arms like steel bands around her. Diego's face bled from her scratches. He sucked a bite on his hand. A beauty of a shiner already formed under one eye.
"Nita?"
Nita took a deep breath, then a second. She laid her head wearily against Call's shoulder. He soothed a hand through her hair.
"Okay now, babe?"
"Yeah. I think so. Magdalena's still with me, but I'm in control again. I think, from the information I've read and the pain I was in, the placenta tore loose early and that killed the baby. Even today, it can be touch and go if it happens in a pregnancy. Back then, it was a death sentence."
