The Lion's Surprise Baby

by White, Jade

  She caressed his face, his hypnotically beautiful face. “You’re incredible,” she told him. “What are the odds that after going across half the world and back again, I’d end up in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to meet you?”

  “Hell of a lottery you hit there, isn’t it?”

  Tara chuckled. “You’re definitely the jackpot.”

  He kissed her, a kiss more steamy than the water in which they sat. “Powerball,” he said. “Or power balls.” And with a wicked look, he moved one of her hands under the water to fondle the part of him to which he had so sexily referred. And she laughed a little louder. “See?” said Brenton. “That’s the way you ought to be. Not sad about thinking it’s going to end; glad that what’s still coming up will be so good. And it is coming up. Feel that?”

  He moved her hand a little higher to stroke the erect lividness above his sac, and kissed her with his tongue slipping into her mouth. At length, at the end of the kiss, he said, “Don’t be sad, baby. Not while we’re still together and we both want me in you so much. As a matter of fact, how about we climb out of the water and towel off, and lie down on the deck? I’m good and hard and we could both use some more humping.”

  Brenton took her mouth in another lingering kiss and stood up in the hot tub, bringing her up with him. He crushed her in his arms, kneaded her bottom, and started to hump her abdomen, pressing his slippery erection against her soaked skin and making her as wet inside as she was outside. He bombarded Tara’s mouth with kisses, groaning at her, “Come on, baby, towel off with me and let’s have another lay. You get me so damn horny…”

  “Oh, Brenton,” she breathed back at him, as helpless against him now as she had been all week. “You make me think you’re more than just a man. You’re like something that someone made up; like this walking fantasy. You’re like…a man and a beast. This big, stalking beast that came out of some jungle. And I’m like your prey that you hunted down and carried off and…and…”

  Suddenly, everything changed. They were standing in and soaked with hot water, but suddenly it felt cold. Brenton actually froze in place. He stopped kissing her, stopped fondling and groping at her. He drew himself away and held her at arm’s length. Bewildered and unnerved, she looked him up and down and for the first time saw his member starting to hang soft and flaccid without his having come inside her.

  And on his face was an expression she had never seen him wear in all the hours and days they’d spent together. It was a look as frozen as his body had suddenly become, a cold look that Tara could only describe as dread. Taking his hands from her, Brenton backed off to one side of the hot tub, fixing her with that wide-eyed and unnervingly dread-filled look.

  For a moment Tara could not speak. She could only watch him watching her with that expression she did not understand. She made herself ask him, “Brenton, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  His voice sounded as suddenly cold as the rest of him. “Why did you say that?” he asked grimly. “What made you say that?”

  “What?” she wondered aloud, starting to feel frightened. “What did I say?”

  “That thing just now—that thing about me being like…like a beast, from the jungle. Like…like I was an animal and you were my prey. Why did you say that?”

  “Brenton, I was just talking. I was just trying to find the words to say how you’ve made me feel. I was trying to tell you how much you excite me. That’s how I feel, Brenton. You’re exciting. I didn’t know it was even possible for a man to be as exciting as you; that’s all I meant to say. The way you have sex, the way you can do it all the time and not get tired of it and be so…so incredible every single time… Brenton, there are nineteen-year-old kids who aren’t as good as you. That’s all I meant. Why are you so upset? I was saying how wonderful you are.”

  “That’s all it is?”

  “Yes! That’s all it is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Brenton, I’m sure. Please…will you please tell me what’s wrong?”

  Gulping, scratching his fingers through the locks of his hair, Brenton sat down on the edge of the tub. Looking up at her with a worried expression, he said, “So, then…I’ve never hurt you. Or scared you. Never, right?”

  “Brenton, no, you’ve never hurt me or scared me. My God, I never thought it was even possible to feel as good as you make me feel. Please tell me why you're acting this way.”

  “I never want you to be hurt or scared with me, Tara. Because I’d never, ever do anything to hurt you. Tara, I’ve been like this with every woman I’ve ever met. Aggressive, demanding, dominating, taking what I want when I want it. And I want it a lot. A hell of a lot. You’ve seen that.”

  Tentatively, she stepped through the water and sat down on the edge of the tub beside him, and put one arm around his shoulder. “Yes, I’ve seen that. And it doesn’t scare me. Brenton, I told you it excites me. It thrills me. You’re like this…adventure, this ride that doesn’t stop. And I don’t want it to. Brenton, if I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Is it because I compared you to an animal?”

  Brenton hung his head and took on another expression she could not read. “The truth is, Tara, I am like an animal inside.” And he shut his eyes tightly, regretting the choice of words and needing to walk it back. She mustn’t have even the slightest glimmer of suspicion, not now, not ever. “I mean, I feel like an animal inside. When I’m naked with someone, when I’m screwing—God, especially when I’m screwing—that’s how I feel. Like a wild animal, like something out of control.

  I am a beast, Tara. I’m a horny, rutting, screwing, coming beast.” He looked up soulfully at her, seeming as if he would melt into tears and making her want to cry as well. “This is how I am,” he said, touching his fingertips to her face. “It’s how I am and it’s what I do. I can’t change it. But I only wanted both of us to feel good. I swear, Tara, that’s all I wanted.”

  “I know, Brenton,” she answered softly. “And I have felt good, every time. I do feel good with you. I’m sorry if calling you an animal upset you.”

  “Don’t you be sorry,” he said, finding it in himself to pull her close again and put her head on his shoulder. “Don’t you ever be sorry for anything. You’re too good and too beautiful to be sorry. And I want you so much.”

  “Brenton,” she said, “instead of staying out here on the deck, what if we go back up to the bedroom and be by the fire again tonight?”

  “That sounds perfect,” he said. “As perfect as you.”

  Brenton kissed her once more, the sweetest, tenderest kiss he had yet given her in the days they had known each other. He helped her up out of the hot tub, and they went to the deck chair nearby on which they had draped their towels. They toweled each other off, then carried the towels back into the house and upstairs.

  From that time on and for the rest of their time together, there was a subtle but definite change in their relationship. It was still all sex, all the time, and it was still just as intense, but the character of their sex was different. It started by the fireplace in the master suite. After building the fire and closing the damper, Brenton lay down on the quilts before her, majestically erect, and offered himself to her.

  Without his saying a word, Tara sensed what he wanted, and lowered her face to the junction of his massively muscled thighs for a long and sensuous sucking. As Tara took his wooden length into her mouth, the most wondrous and remarkable thing happened: she sensed him submitting to her. She could tell from the way he responded to her. He still uttered his passionate and intoxicated-sounding F-words, but there was something in the flexing, clenching, and relaxing of his body that told her he was entering a new zone of sensuality that was unfamiliar to him.

  She could hear in the way he called out her name in a delirium of pleasure that something had changed for him. And it made her want to pleasure him all the more, for his rapture became hers. She now thrilled not just to the act and the perfection of his body and his
totally carnal nature, but to the sensation that she was giving him a kind of pleasure that was new to him. She wanted to give him as much of this transforming joy as she could, and she could tell from the feverish tone he took as she sucked him on and on that she was doing just that.

  Much as he wanted her to go on forever, there was still the ultimate ecstasy that they both desired. Brenton dragged himself up on one elbow and drunkenly said, “Sweetheart, lie down, please.” Tara climbed out from between his legs and put herself down next to the fire, holding out her arms to him. He moved atop her and kissed the mouth that had sucked him with such sweet tenderness, and moved his piece into her.

  The coupling that followed felt magical for both of them. His every move in and out of her, their every breath and every pulsation of delight that rippled through their bodies felt synchronized. Between kisses and curses, he moaned tenderly at her, “Tara, sweetheart…you feel so good. You feel so good, I’ll never get enough of you. I’ll never do it enough, baby. I’ll never get enough…”

  And Tara caressed him up and down and ran her fingers through the cascade of his hair, and grabbed handfuls of his heaving buttocks, filling up her senses with their rising and falling and with the slowly quickening stroke of his tool deep inside her. She wished for him never to take it out, just to hump her and come in her again and again, forever and ever. Their sex was bonding them in a way that was beyond words and beyond bodies.

  The pace of his thrusting quickened; they both felt the time getting nearer. He got up on his knees while keeping himself inside her and began to buck back and forth that way, driving himself on and on through her petals and into her passage. He tossed back his head and made sounds as if he were dying and coming to life at the same time, and used his thumb on her passion bud to bring her along with him.

  She responded, her ecstasy rising with his, until they were consumed together from the inside out in a glowing nimbus of joy. His seed surged forth and he held his crotch tight against her mound, keeping his full length sheathed in her until he had given her every last drop of his offering. Then, still moaning and still lodged inside Tara’s quivering tunnel, Brenton dropped to all-fours and kissed her deeply, pouring all his affection through the kiss and into her soul.

  They curled up together on the quilts, saying everything they needed to say to one another without words, but with looks and touches and kisses. It was a communication of bodies and spirits in which no voices were needed. The feelings passing between them through fingers and lips and flesh said everything.

  With the ebbing of the fire in the hearth, the light of the moon through the windows illuminated the suite in an ethereal glow. Brenton picked Tara up from the quilts and pillow by the fireplace and carried her over to the bed, which they had not bothered to make since they arrived at the house. They slipped under the rumpled sheets together. All through the night they continued to talk in touches and caresses and kisses, and Brenton mounted and entered her repeatedly, filling her with his maleness and his seed, and with them his deepening sense that their bodies were perfect together. His every plunge and stroke into Tara’s tight, wet depths told them both that by joining in sex they were truly joining in being.

  The first rays of morning found Tara and Brenton curled up together again in a tangle of linens and limbs that spoke of an entwining of both bodies and hearts. For these next few days, the last that they would spend together, the two of them would reach one another on a level that neither of them had ever reached with another person in all their lives, and they would be grateful.

  In Brenton’s dreams, a lion roared with pride and passion at his most perfect mating. Meanwhile, in the innermost reaches of Tara’s body, something was happening. Another transformation was occurring, a transformation as profound and powerful as what had taken place all night long between the lion man and his lover.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sunday afternoon could not be avoided. It found Tara and Brenton sitting in the airport near the metal detector, squeezing out the last few minutes of their time together—after everything they’d spent the morning squeezing and rolling and thrashing out at his house. Brenton held her hand and felt more than capable of doing plenty more of the same, and Tara knew it and wished there were time.

  Slumping those wonderful shoulders that Tara had clutched in ecstasy so many times, Brenton said, “It’s a good thing they don’t have a wood detector. I’d start a panic in here.”

  The remark caught Tara off guard and she broke into a spasm of embarrassingly raucous laughter. Futilely covering her mouth and glancing around for other people’s reactions, she choked, “Don’t make me laugh like that! It’s too embarrassing!”

  “Yeah?” he said with a cocked eyebrow. “I could make you do some other things a lot more embarrassing.”

  Her laughter carrying over, she gave him a mock slap on the arm. “Stop it!”

  Brenton smiled, pleased at having momentarily relieved her melancholy and his. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I like your laugh. I'm going to miss it.”

  Recovering her calm, Tara sighed, “I’m going to miss everything about you.”

  Brenton watched her calming down, hoping the please don’t go in his eyes was not too obvious.

  Wistfully, she told him, “When we met, I was at the end of a long trip and feeling that letdown you feel when the trip is over. You made me forget about all that—and missing George, and everything else. Now I really do have to go back to my life, and I feel like I’m leaving a part of my life here with you. A really good, really wonderful part. Thank you, Brenton, for this week—for everything. I’ve never had a time like this. It was so special, like a long dream. I hate waking up from this.”

  He replied, “Yeah. Goodbyes have never bothered me—‘til now. This is the first time in my life I hate saying goodbye. When you get back to Chicago, do me a favor, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t get so busy that you forget to enjoy your life. I think you learned that this year, with all your traveling, and this week we did everything we did: Life is meant to be lived. It is. You’ve got to live while you’re alive. You’ve got business and responsibilities, but you’re important too. So live.”

  “I will,” said Tara, taking his hand. He held on tight, his grip again saying without words, please don’t go.

  For a moment they looked down at the armrest where his hand held hers. Then Tara looked back up at him and asked, “What will you do now?”

  Shrugging with his eyes, Brenton said, “Go back home and relive every hour we spent together and everything we did in bed. And everyplace else.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Tara, giving his hand an admonishing squeeze. “What are you going to do? What’s next for your life? I think you should follow up on your idea about running for office. I really think you should.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll bet a lot of these middle-aged status quo types would love that.”

  “You could teach them a thing or two,” Tara said firmly.

  Brenton did not respond to that at first. He looked out into space very thoughtfully, as if he were pondering something very profound. Oh, I could definitely teach some of these old goats a thing or two. I could especially teach them about some things out there that love to have old goats for dinner. What would they think if they knew who—and what—was really running against them?

  He snapped back to attention at her call of, “Hello? Still with me?”

  “Yeah, still with you,” he said.

  “Well? A younger man with a younger mind and younger ideas—I think you’d have more than a chance out there. I think you could win some people away from those ‘status quo types.’ I think you could get people on your side. And even if you didn’t win—which I think you would—you’d get valuable experience for the next election. Brenton, I remember how I felt listening to you talk about what made you want to do this.

  Remember back at the cafe at the hotel, when you told me about how y
ou saw California being ‘in trouble’ and that you thought the whole country was in the same kind of ‘trouble,’ and how you didn’t want to see a time when there’d be ‘no more Californias’? I believed in what you were saying. I believed in how important you knew it was. And it made me want to see you up there, giving your acceptance speech and ready to get to work for everyone. If I could have voted for you then and there, I would have done it on the spot.”

  Touched as deeply as it was possible for him to feel, Brenton said, “You would?”

  “Yes, Brenton, I would.” And she held his hand a little more tightly. “And to tell you the truth…I think it was part of what changed my mind that night. Remember when I said no at first and I was ready to walk out, but I didn’t? I think part of the reason I didn’t was that I couldn’t just walk away from this incredible-looking man who seemed to care so much about the world. If you were that passionate about the environment and your political ideas…”