by Drea Damara
A short silence followed, and Sarah looked over to find her brother holding back a grin. He sputtered out a laugh, which continued to grow with intensity.
“I hate you,” she muttered. A few moments later she found herself smirking, and the desire to knock Richard off his stroomphblutel began to gradually subside.
Not two days later, Vasimus and Deronda arrived at Allister Hall. Both apologized for the brevity between their last parting, inquiring if they had come too soon and were imposing upon the Allisters.
Netta seemed happy to have more mouths to feed. The house was probably lonely during their long absences. The old woman seemed overjoyed by how well the young couples got on together.
For the next two weeks, Sarah, Richard, and the Daundecorts rode out together each day from Oedher Village in a new direction. They were happy times, the four of them laughing at Richard’s jokes, old stories of their youth, and tales of Farwin and the North.
Sarah found several moments to steal off behind a tree or bush to enjoy more of Vasimus’s wonderful kisses. She noticed how happy Deronda also seemed, as her friend often rode close alongside Richard. Sarah truly started to feel happy for them and felt some guilt for how she’d scolded Richard when he’d first professed his feelings for Deronda. Now she didn’t disagree that she could get very used to a life in Farwin Wood, even if she too didn’t know what would happen. She was only grateful their bodies, back on Blinney Lane, never seemed to deteriorate no matter how long their stay inside of a weeping book. Could she stay asleep forever? Had Sleeping Beauty been as lucky to travel to a beautiful place with a man she cared for while she slept?
The third week, Vasimus seemed to have forgotten about his sister and Richard, as had Sarah. Each couple eagerly agreed to their own sets of plans for the day and the next. And so it went for the next week. The days grew more intimate between Sarah and Vasimus with their rides becoming much shorter and their time basking in the shade of a glen much longer. By the end of that week, the Daundecorts knew they needed to return home before their father grew too lonely. They departed, but a few days later, Deronda wrote and invited Sarah to come stay at the hall. She added in her letter how eager her brother was to see Sarah.
“You don’t mind if I go?” Sarah felt bad now for leaving her brother after she’d put up such an initial fuss over his accusations about her and Vasimus.
“No. No, not at all,” Richard said, assuring her.
“But what will you do now that Deronda’s back home? I suppose it might start to look a little too intrusive if we both went, and I’m spending more time with Vasimus than you are in front of their father. How does that work anyway? Would you have to ask his permission to court her or something?” She laughed at the thought of Richard having to do something so proper.
“Maybe I have to slay a wickrit or something. No, I’ll come along a little later. I need to win some troogies back from the Wortwart brothers after that last bout of Knick Knack.” Richard referred to the means of exchange used for purchases in Farwin Wood. “Just invite me for dinner or something after a while so I have an excuse to show up there without imposing.”
Sarah hugged her brother. She was glad he’d planned this trip into Farwin Wood. It had given them a chance to grow closer together as young adults. She enjoyed being able to talk to someone who knew about their peculiar past, who she could unabashedly tell whatever she wanted. As she rode out from Allister Hall and waved goodbye to Richard and Netta, she felt guilty for Richard staying behind out of propriety when she knew he longed to see Deronda, but also gleeful in anticipation of reaching Daundecort Hall to see Vasimus. She urged her stroomphblutel on as quickly as it could muster and promised herself that she would talk about her brother as much as she could to her dear friend.
Once at Daundecort Hall, Sarah actually saw little of Deronda. They spent the mornings together, but Deronda always seemed to excuse herself to tend to some task—designing new draperies for the hall, planning the evening meal, visiting sick villagers. Vasimus always quickly volunteered to find some occupation for Sarah when his sister was called away, although she knew he did so as an excuse to spend time with her. She was grateful that Deronda made excuses to give them privacy and that she seemed genuinely ecstatic about how smitten Sarah was.
“We could finally be sisters someday,” Deronda said to her one morning.
Sarah, blushing, couldn’t deny the truth to her response. “Nothing could make me happier.”
A week into her stay, Richard arrived to spend the day with her and the Daundecorts. Sarah and Vasimus had little opportunity to speak to each other amongst the added company, and they both did their best to avoid showing their affection in front of anyone else.
Lord Clennon joined them for lunch and then took Richard and Vasimus out on a hunt, leaving the girls behind. Deronda and Sarah both bounded out of the garden smiling and holding hands as they heard the men return that evening. Sarah tried to linger at the dinner table after Deronda and Richard left, but she felt awkward in the presence of a nobleman visiting with Lord Clennon. She cast a longing glance at Vasimus and then retired to her room.
VASIMUS REGRETFULLY watched her ascend the stairs and then excused himself to his occupied father and the nobleman. Once he was sure they could no longer see him, he bounded up the steps two at a time. In the darkness of the hallway, he glimpsed the green skirt of Sarah’s dress just as she opened the door to her room. “Psst!” he whispered through the darkness. He knew he would dream about her while he slept, as he had each night since the day she’d first arrived at the feast, but if he had the opportunity to just speak to her in the flesh for a few more seconds, he would steal them. Sarah turned her head and flashed him a radiant smile. She paused by her open doorway and waited as he hurried toward her.
They glanced up and down the hallway in silence, and then Vasimus encircled her waist with his sinewy arms and pulled her in for a hungry kiss. Sarah clasped her hands on his face and stroked the soft bristle of his whiskers against her palms. His hand came up her back, and she leaned further into him, yearning to alleviate the gap his absence during the day had filled her with. They both froze at the sound of footsteps on the stairwell, and she grasped Vasimus’s hand. Without a second thought, she pulled him through her open doorway.
Vasimus steadied the door with one hand and slowly shut it with the other. He carefully set the latch down in place and listened as the steps faded down the hallway. Still breathing heavily from Sarah’s kisses and the excitement of being discovered, he turned to find her standing behind him. The bright gray moonlight flooded through her open balcony window and laid a soft glow on everything it touched within her room—the floor, the top of her head, her light skin. She looked radiant and majestic in the light.
Realizing he was now locked in her room, in the place where his captivating Sarah slept, he knew he should go. She had a pull on him that was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He liked beetleburry ale but could stop drinking it. He loved to ride through the woods on stroomphblutels but would walk the rest of his life if he had to. But to stop thinking about, talking to, looking at, or touching Sarah whenever she was near—well, these were things he didn’t think possible. “I’m sorry. I only meant to say good night,” he whispered.
Sarah’s gray eyes sparkled in the light as she smiled up at him. “Then say good night,” she murmured and took a step closer to him.
She brought her hands up and gently placed them on his chest. He could feel the edge of her leather bracelet against him, and his heart beat at the knowledge that she’d worn it each day since he gave it to her. He clasped the side of her face and reveled in the feel of her soft hair on his fingertips. They leaned into each other, and he gave his best effort to say good night with his lips against hers. Her fingers gripped small handfuls of his shirtfront, and her mouth opened, welcoming him for more. Her drew her closer and held her to him, his fingers splayed across her back.
Sarah felt her skin tingle al
l the way to her toes. She didn’t know if she was being too eager or not eager enough, or who was thirstier for the kisses. She tugged at the front of his shirt, and the laced portion across his chest loosened to reveal his velvety warm skin. When their lips parted for a breath, she inhaled his intoxicating aroma and found herself gazing longingly at the sight of his bare chest. His breath was heavy against her temple as he nestled her to him. She thought she would be dizzy if she looked at the thick cords in his neck any longer without touching them. She brought her lips to the skin there and brushed it with slow kisses.
As Sarah tortured him with her new discovery of his body, Vasimus stood happily alarmed. He tried not to knead his fingers too deeply into her back as she awakened more and more desire in him. Her hands began to explore the exposed skin of his chest and then crept underneath his shirt. He found his own hand sliding down her back. Pulling her backside closer to him, he let out a low groan. As soon as the sound escaped his throat he regretted it in fear that he sounded like a starving beast. He brought his head back to see her reaction and found that her eyes seemed as glazed with wanting as he was.
“Sarah…” His voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I should go. I haven’t even had a chance to ask your father for you,” he said painfully. “I would ride to the North tomorrow if I knew he would accept.”
Sarah felt like her heart stopped upon hearing his decree. She brought her fingers to his jaw and traced it lovingly. “There’s no need for that.” She smiled at the delight of looking into his eyes. “In Blinney, a woman doesn’t need permission. She can choose for herself.”
“Sarah, would you…would you ever choose me?”
Sarah wanted to laugh at the question. Where was this formality back in the real world? The control? The attractiveness of self-denial? As he looked at her in hope, she realized she needed to reply.
“Vasimus, I already have.”
She felt his arms crush around her. He hoisted her up in the air against him, spun them around several times, and let out a laugh.
When he brought her back down he grasped her face with both hands and peppered it with kiss after kiss. If she’d known the words would have given him so much joy, she would have said them sooner. She knew they came with so many complicated consequences, but she didn’t want to think about them now. As his kisses softened and directed back to her lips, she pushed the unknown of the future from her mind and focused on the very real present.
She ran her fingers through his silky black hair, delighting in the reality of him. He was real. He felt real. He and everything else in Farwin Wood had been real. All she wanted in that moment was to prove how every inch of him existed and how everything that had passed between them that summer had not been just a dream.
Vasimus struggled to hold back his excitement. He was concerned that because of his overwhelming joy he might crush her without realizing. She was kind and compassionate. She made him laugh. She was afraid of nothing. She loved to discover every sight and sound of Farwin Wood and took interest in things ladies never seemed to care about. He didn’t know such a person could exist, nor one that wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He groaned again as Sarah pulled his gaping shirt open farther and slid her fingers across his ribs. She couldn’t possibly know what she was doing to him. Without thinking, he brought his hand to the laces on the front of her bodice—their mouths still united. With a light tug on the silky strings, he paused for a moment to look at her. She’d chosen him, but was she ready for what they were well on their way to doing if they didn’t stop this pawing?
She looked at him as though she were questioning why he had stopped and then she pulled him back for another kiss. He felt her hand wrap over the top of his, gently urging him to pull on the laces. She had chosen him—in every way. He slowly tugged the strings loose, worried that any haste would frighten her.
When her overskirt and bodice dropped to the floor, his breath caught, afraid to touch her for reasons unknown. Never in his life had he been nervous around a woman. But Sarah, having just recently blossomed into womanhood, standing so angelically in front of him, somehow terrified him. He worried if he touched her again she might disappear. He saw a hint of self-consciousness cross her face and it pulled on him. How long had he been staring while she stood there, baring herself to him in only her thin chemise?
He shed his shirt to make himself as vulnerable as she and then pulled her to him. Soon her fingers were grazing across his body again. They traveled farther this time, tracing the muscles over the expanse of his back. Entangled in each other’s arms, they moved toward the bed. He threw back the bulky bedcover and picked her up. As their lips continued to explore, he lowered her onto the soft blankets and lay down on his stomach next to her.
Sarah watched as Vasimus let the weight of his chest settle onto hers. It created a comforting pressure. Her skin turned to gooseflesh when she felt one of his hands clasp her hip. Instinctively, she brought her leg up, bent at the knee, and leaned it against his hip where it felt like it belonged. She tried to concentrate on a path for her kisses and her hands, but the feel of his warm breath against her neck was maddening. Her palms started to sweat at the thought of anatomy. She’d never done this before, and although she had an idea of what men on television and in magazines looked like, she wondered if Durley Allister had penned his Farwin peoples in the same manner. Was it so simplistic that the stroke of a pen had cast them as equals to the humans in her world? And would Vasimus find everything under what remained of her clothing to be what he was expecting?
With bated breath, she slid her hand down his stomach to where his formfitting pants fastened. She skirted her hand around the laces and met the bulge that had pressed against her earlier. As soon as she did, he moaned in her ear and slid his hand down the back of her thigh into her chemise. He clasped her backside, pulling her against him. The feel of his fingers on her bare skin there sent a tingling sensation through her.
Everything seemed normal. She remembered the brief make out session she’d had with a kid named Joey Warner behind the bleachers during her last semester of high school. Vasimus’s fingers slid up to her stomach, pulling her shift up with them. She breathed wistfully between deep kisses at the sensations it gave her. Joey Warner hadn’t made her feel like that!
Vasimus did his best to be gentle and fight the urge to devour Sarah with his passion. He caught her hand on one of its circling passes near the laces of his pants and guided it back to the place that would free him. As he slowly nibbled and teased her lips, he used his free hand to trace the curves of her breasts. Each moan and whimper he expelled from her delighted him further, encouraging him to take his time, and he soon felt a tug as she pulled at his pant laces. When her hand freed the constricting strings and slid through the open flap to touch him, he could bear it no longer.
Vasimus shifted his weight over her and pressed the firmness she’d caused against her own place of wanting. He kissed her deeply as she moaned. He tugged her shift over her arms and tossed it to the side. As he gazed down upon her nakedness, he whispered, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Vasimus’s words warmed Sarah’s heart and dispelled her fears about finding her inadequate. She watched him lower his head and begin to kiss her bare breasts. She clawed her fingers through his hair and found herself nudging his pants down with her legs, surprising herself with her uncontrollable boldness. The skin of his buttocks was silky against her calves. Why was her heart hammering? Each kiss he scattered across her stomach and each soft caress of her breasts drove her crazy. She didn’t know what she was doing or if what she was doing was right, but she didn’t want it to stop. One thing was certain: she had to keep kissing him or she would burst. She urged him back up toward her to stop the delicious torment his lips inflicted on her body.
He slid back up her body slowly with a hesitant look in his eyes and stroked a strand of hair away from her face. She traced his cheekbone and could feel the skin
of his thighs against her own. She'd never known that flesh touching flesh could cause such an intimate sensation. She welcomed the slow deep kiss he offered and grasped his hips. He was so gentle as he joined them. It let her know how much he cared for her. When her initial pain was replaced by pleasure, she lost herself in the awe of being fulfilled and loved by a man.
After the waves of their urgencies had rippled through them, she lay content with Vasimus’s arms around her. Whatever pretense of insecurity she had felt before was completely gone now. As she lay with her naked back pressed against his chest, their hands clasped together against her breasts, she realized nothing seemed more natural than what she was feeling. If she had to die while asleep on Blinney Lane, hopefully, it would feel like this.
ALLISTER’S BOOKS
PRESENT DAY
RICKY PEERED nervously around the computer screen as Sarah inched dangerously closer to that enclosed bookshelf at the back of the shop. His mouth felt dry, and he swallowed to urge some salivation. What the hell did she need to be doing back there? There’s no one even in the store right now. Sarah’s head whipped back around, and her eyes fixed on him. He averted his eyes back to the solitaire game on the computer.
The sound of the steady footsteps on the wood floor grew louder. He heard the creak of the balcony steps, and the next thing he knew, his aunt was standing with hands on hips at the end of the counter. He felt her eyes on him but maintained his ruse of ignorance.
Her tone was interrogatory as she called his name. “Ricky?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you take my book?”
“Hmm?”
“Ricky!” He thought he heard her stomp a foot, which made him jump.
Great. Here we go. He looked up and forced himself not to swallow a lump in his throat at the sight of her wild eyes. “What? What book?”
