by Sahara Kelly
He moved as she watched him warily. “Hi. I’m Jake.”
She stood, reaching for the hand he offered. “Um, hello. Yes, I’m Marianne.”
“And you’ve met my wife.” Jake strolled to the fireplace and rested an elbow on the mantel, reminding Marianne of nothing less than a Regency hero she might have written. “I hope she’s convinced you that neither of us are actually nuts.” He grinned. “Although I’m beginning to have serious doubts about the sanity of our plumber.”
Marianne sat back down and smiled, reassured by his tone as much as his words. “Well, everything seems pretty sane. Of course, I haven’t had to use your bathroom.”
Renny giggled. “That’s okay for now, thank God. It’s the hot water that seems to be the issue.” She glanced at her husband. “So, Jake? Where do we start? And I’m not talking about water heaters here…”
Jake nodded. “I know, love.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Let’s begin at the beginning. Marianne, tell us all about it.”
“Um…you got my email, right?”
“Yep. And very wonderfully written it was, too. But those were words on a screen. I need to see your face as you tell me the whole story. Tell me—tell us—everything you can remember about your dreams. Tell us…about Christian…”
As Marianne took a breath and began her tale of love and loss, nobody in the old New England home could possibly have guessed that a man, thousands of miles away, was waking at that very moment and struggling to recapture a dream.
It was not the usual kind of dream, either. This was simply a sound—a sweetly disturbing sound—the rhythm and harmonies of which he fought to recall as he reached for some paper and a pencil. It was exactly the theme he sought for the final movement of his symphony—and it had come to him in the darkness of a California night.
Even he, composer and musician though he was, did not know it was the song of a nightingale.
Chapter Three
“And then…and then…” Marianne’s story stumbled to a halt as her voice faded.
“Then what, sweetheart?” Jake was gently encouraging.
She gulped. “Then I see his body swinging from that tree.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And I wake up screaming.”
“Oh, dear God.” Renny leaned over and gripped Marianne’s hand. “You poor darling. That’s—terrible.”
Marianne sniffed and closed her eyes. She would not cry, absolutely not. Telling strangers her dream was bad enough, but crying over it? No. That wasn’t her. She was private, controlled—keeping such things to herself.
A hand nudged her elbow and she glanced down to see a box of tissues in Renny’s hand. “Here, Marianne.”
“Thanks.” She took one and blew her nose defiantly. “So, hearing all that—can you first reassure me I’m not nuts? That I haven’t sunk so deeply into what I write that it’s leaked out into some weird part of my cerebral cortex? My hypothalamus? Whatever?”
Jake shook his head and grinned. “Nope. I reckon you’re just about as sane as they come. But if it’s any comfort, Renny and I felt the same way when we first tried to figure out this dream wandering thing…”
Marianne blinked at them both. “You? You two? You had dreams this real? This vivid?”
Renny nodded. “You have no idea.”
“Wow.” Marianne sat back, stunned. “What happened?”
“That’s a long story.” Renny flashed a quick wink at Jake. “It has to do with ravens and strangely wonderful things. Maybe I’ll tell you about it some time, but right now, we’re here to focus on you, not us.”
“Marianne…” Jake paused. “Look, this isn’t going to be easy, but there’s some harder questions we need answered.”
“Okay.” Marianne looked at him, waiting.
His cell phone rang. “Shit.” He glanced at the number. “It’s that frickin’ plumber again.” Jake moved to the door. “Renny…you know what we need here. Can you take this for a while? Perhaps it would be best, anyway…”
“Sure, babe.” Renny nodded.
“I don’t get it.” Marianne watched Jake flip open his phone and start talking as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Renny stood and moved to a small cupboard from which she extracted a decanter of something golden and a small sherry glass. She poured and brought it over to Marianne. “Here. Try this.”
Marianne looked at it. “What is it?”
“Probably what one of your heroines would call a cordial.” Renny laughed. “It’s actually just a simple liqueur, with a few extra herbs and flavorings thrown in. It’ll help you relax a bit. Take the edge off your nerves.”
“Uhh…” Marianne sniffed the glass. “Well, it smells nice—kind of fruity?”
“Yep. It’s really harmless, Marianne. I’m not drugging you here. I need to ask you difficult questions, to get deep into your memories of your dreams. The more we know, the better we can help you. It’ll go easier and quicker if you’re relaxed.”
“Oh, what the hell.” Marianne tossed the contents of the glass into her mouth, swallowing the shot down without a blink.
“Er…well, that’s one way of doing it.” Renny huffed out a laugh. “Usually we take a few sips at a time, but as you said…what the hell.”
Marianne’s throat burned slightly, but the taste of the sweetly spiced herbs wasn’t unpleasant on the back of her tongue. She put the glass onto a side table and leaned back. “Okay. Ask away.”
A delicious sensation of warmth spread through Marianne’s belly as the drink began to work. She could almost feel her tensions draining away through her pores. This was definitely a good thing—she was calmer than she’d been in ages, ready to deal with whatever lay ahead. Ready to answer whatever questions she was asked.
This moment in time could mean so many things. It could explain what was happening to her in her dreams. It could explain Christian. Perhaps it could even explain his death—she had no idea at this point. But for once, she was ready to confront the madness and the pain.
Marianne didn’t realize she was smiling until Renny smiled back. “Good. Now we can start.”
Taking a breath and straightening her shoulders, Renny looked deep into Marianne’s eyes. “I need to know the strength of the emotional bond between Mary Anne and Christian. I need to know everything there is to know about their passion, the depth of their love—the intensity of their desires.”
“Okay, sure.” Marianne nodded.
“Did she fall in love with him over time? Or the minute she saw him?”
That was easy. “The moment she—I—saw him. Something about his eyes. They were so blue, Renny. So full of laughter and life. He smiled at me as we talked about the weather, how my horse had thrown a shoe. All commonplace stuff, but it was like I was drowning in those eyes. I barely noticed how handsome he was—I couldn’t look away from his gaze.”
“And you slept with him soon afterwards.”
“Oh, yes.” Marianne felt the desire curl deep down in her pussy. “There was no question. No hesitation. Neither of us even asked—it was inevitable.”
“When you love him—when Mary Anne lay with him—can you feel it?”
“Of course.”
“Do you climax? Orgasm with him?”
Marianne licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Tell me about your loving? What do you feel when he touches you?”
How could she describe something so unimaginable? Marianne considered the question. “I feel—I feel like there’s a star exploding inside me.”
“Go on.”
“I feel like the most loved, the most cherished woman alive. He makes me tingle, shiver and yearn for him in ways that stun me when I remember them.”
Silence fell for a few moments between the two women, then Renny continued. “Explain what you mean, Marianne. Let’s see…” She thought for a second or two. “Describe your sweetest memory of loving Christian. Share what you can with me. Please?”
Marianne closed her eyes an
d sorted through her dreams. Yes—yes, that was it. The stolen hours in the woods just beyond Lawrence Manor. The soft night air, the darkness, the sweetly soaring sound of the nightingales…
*~~*~~*
“He told me to touch him. I remember his exact words. ‘God, Mary Anne. Touch me. I need to feel you touching me more than I need air at this moment.’ He was fumbling with his boots, trying to get them off his feet.”
She paused. “I laughed. It was funny watching his struggles. I told him as soon as he’d finished undressing, I would touch him. And I really wanted to. He looked so wonderful as he stripped, his muscles were shining in the moonlight and his legs—he had this light coat of hair on his legs that always tickled my skin when he was on top of me.”
“He threw his clothes aside and I saw his cock—so hard, so ready. Just the sight of it made me drool. I knew that what I wanted to do was something he liked. He never demanded anything of me, Renny. It was all mutual, our lovemaking. One gave and the other received. “
“I understand.”
“I told him to wait—he was going to take me in his arms and I wanted him to, but not at that moment. There was something I wanted more.” She chuckled. “I remember he froze when I got onto my knees in front of him, took him into my hand and started stroking him. I think I said something about it being a surprise to me, how hard and yet how silky I always found his cock.”
Marianne glanced at Renny. “I had no inhibitions with Christian. From the first, he’d encouraged me to talk to him, to tell him what I liked—what I wanted. He loved to hear me use blunt words as we loved, honest words that meant so much more when we whispered them between us. I loved when he spoke them too. They…aroused me. They were erotic, hot—they made my blood fire up as much as his kisses and his touches. Just knowing a man wanted me that much—well, it was beyond description.”
She swallowed. “It was late, the moon was high and the air so soft against my body. I knelt in front of Christian, stroking his cock first with my hands and then leaning forward, breathing in that special fragrance that always filled me with the knowledge I was with the man I loved. I put my mouth on him, Renny. My lips just around the tip of his cock at first, tickling it with my tongue then sliding him deeper until I couldn’t hold any more.”
“It was good?”
“Oh, it was wonderful. I adored the feel of him getting all slick and slippery in my mouth, then pulling away from him and teasing him with a few quick swipes of my tongue. A tiny spot underneath the head of his cock always made him moan—I’d make sure I spent quite a bit of time there, just to hear those soft sounds of pleasure. I got so turned on myself just knowing what I was doing to him. Does that make sense?”
“Oh, yes. All the sense in the world.”
“I’d never imagined doing this, or enjoying it so much. Christian almost purred for me this time. ‘Damn, Mary Anne,’ he said. ‘You’re going to suck my heart out, aren’t you?’ I asked him if there was any heart left he hadn’t given me yet. He got quiet then, and reached out to me. I felt his fingers running through my hair. ‘No, my love. You have it all. Everything I have to give, I have given to you.’ His exact words, Renny. Those were his exact words.”
Marianne paused, but Renny was silent.
“It was at that moment I knew how much I loved him. Like something inside me finally fell into place and the pattern became whole. It was almost as if he knew it too. He tugged my head away. ‘No more, Mary Anne,’ he whispered. ‘No more or I shall come too soon. I would rather do that buried in your sweet body.’ Then he got down beside me and pushed me onto my back. ‘Let me play too. Then we shall play together.’ That wickedly sweet smile on his face at that moment is branded in my mind. I won’t ever forget it.”
After a deep breath, she continued. “We played. Oh God, did we play. He touched my breasts—he knew just how to suckle them—not too hard or too softly. He knew how to stroke between my legs, how to make me so wet for him I wanted to scream. He was so aware of me, of how the things he did excited me. ‘Don’t scream, love.’ He’d say that a lot, always when I was on the very brink of doing just that. ‘You’ll scare the nightingales.’”
“Nightingales? You heard nightingales?” Renny sat up a little straighter.
“Always. We were in the forest, a special place we called our own. The grass was soft—so soft—with his cloak or a blanket it felt like a real bed.”
Marianne chuckled. “I never screamed, though. Even then I knew that there might be somebody around. Some passer-by or a rider journeying through those woods. But, by God, it was hard keeping that scream quiet.”
“It must have been.” The sympathy in Renny’s voice encouraged Marianne to continue her story.
“It was even harder when he settled himself between my legs. Lord, that moment? Those few seconds before he pushed his cock into me? They seemed like eons, Renny. Like time itself stopped and watched him—watched us. ‘I can’t wait, love.’ That’s what he said. ‘I can’t wait.’ And his face, so full of desire and need, his eyes hungry, wandering all over my body like he could devour me with just the heat of his gaze. I truly believe he probably could have if he’d set his mind to it.”
She closed her eyes. “Then he took me. Deep strokes, slowly at first, sort of testing the waters to see how much of him I could take. He’d always ask if I was all right, making sure he wasn’t being too rough.” Marianne knew she was smiling. “As if he ever could be.”
Renny moved beside her, a shifting of her legs—no more than that—but Marianne sensed her presence and drew courage from the companionship it offered. It was a huge relief to be able to share this madness, this passion, especially with a woman who might possibly understand the overwhelming emotions Marianne experienced in her dreams.
“This particular night he stopped—just stopped his movements—buried so far inside me I swear I could feel his heartbeat where his cock touched my soul. He just stared into my eyes. ‘This is where I belong, Mary Anne. This is where I’ll always belong. Where I’ve always known I should be.’”
Marianne fought the tears now. “I can’t forget the expression in those amazing eyes of his. So hot, so passionate and so full of love I thought I’d come right there and then, just from that look. ‘This is right, Mary Anne. Righter than anything else in this world.’”
She sighed. “I didn’t understand what he meant by that. I still don’t. I thought afterwards that perhaps he was talking about us loving each other. But then again, he had an odd look on his face…something that told me it was more than just the sex. It was a fleeting moment, though, because he started moving again and when his cock started that particular movement inside me—well, I was lost. He knew exactly where to stroke, how to thrust to hit some amazing places—I climaxed very soon afterwards with his mouth on mine, kissing away my screams. His cock shuddered inside me and I felt him come, too, something uniquely special. It was like we rode the same horse, the same wild ocean—each body pulsing in sync with the other.”
“Wow.” Renny breathed the word low.
“Yeah, wow.” Marianne leaned back and rubbed her hand over her face. “Just thinking about it gets me hot.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then we just held each other, you know…those wonderful moments afterwards when your heart slows back down to normal and your body starts to relax. All exhausted and tingly and content.”
“Yes. I know.”
“And then I drifted again, sort of sleeping and not sleeping—that odd dream state of affairs that I really can’t describe.” She looked at Renny. “It became less real and more of a dream at that point. Suddenly I was dressed, it was almost dawn and I was on my way to meet Christian. Was it the same day or a different day? I have no clue. There was nothing to tell me anything like that.”
Renny nodded silently.
“I knew I had to get to Christian. It was important and I was late for some reason. I could feel the tension in the back of my throat. I w
as afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Don’t know.” Marianne frowned. “It’s frickin’ aggravating, too. Something was driving me, pushing me onward through the forest. I had to get to Christian before…before…”
“Before…?”
Marianne shook her head. “It was too late. He was dead when I reached the crossroads.”
Tears were pouring over her cheeks, but she made little attempt to wipe them away. “At that point, my dream ends—always there. The last thing I see before I wake is his lifeless body swinging from the noose. I scream…and scream and scream…”
Renny moved quickly to Marianne’s side, reached out and took her into her arms, holding her while the grief poured through her in great shuddering waves of agony.
“Cry it out, babe.” Renny stroked Marianne’s shoulder. “Cry it out.”
Marianne did as she was told.
She wept.
Chapter Four
“She’s not going to like it.” Jake finished off his beer.
“I’m not sure.” Renny stared into the fire as she snuggled next to him. “She’s in pain, Jake. Real agony. I could see it, I could hear it in her voice—shit, I could almost feel it radiating off her in waves.”
“Agreed. And after what you’ve told me, this emotion certainly can’t go on. It’ll drive her insane, trying to live with that kind of hurting.” He stared at his empty bottle. “Oh, dear. I appear to have finished this delightful beverage.”
Renny snorted. “What a shame. You want another, you’re on your own. There’s plenty in the fridge, but I’m too damn comfortable to haul ass out there and fetch you one. You married a wife, honey, not a slave.”
Jake sighed deeply. “There is something to be said for the old days.”
Given that the old days for both of them were anywhere from several thousand years ago to a few centuries ago, Renny knew what he was talking about. “Slavery belongs in the past. We’re equal partners in this marriage. Twenty-first century all the way.”
“Which means I have to get my own beer, I suppose.”
