by Moriah Jovan
The door slammed and all was quiet. Knox’s blond head dropped down on Justice’s chest.
“Knox,” she whispered desperately. “Don’t stop, please. I’m almost there.”
His head snapped up again to look her in the eye, and his mouth twitched. She sucked in a deep breath when his cock twitched inside her, responding to her request.
“Are you going to howl like you do at home?” he asked breathlessly as he slowly worked up to his previous rhythm.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Do you want me to?”
“It would be nice of you to throw a bone to the dogs on the other side of the door.”
“You’re such a perv.”
“Yes, and I’ve trained you well.”
She laughed and opened her eyes, staring down at his gorgeous face. “We need to have angry sex more often.”
“I agree. Can you manage to be pissed off before we get home?”
“Doubt—” and she gasped as she felt herself opening and clenching, sensation blossoming between her legs and spreading up through her belly.
She moaned instead of howled—couldn’t help it—but she was pretty sure it was heard through the door because the laughter of several men echoed back at her.
“You,” he whispered into her mouth as he kissed her long, slow, and deep after he had emptied himself into her with a hoarse groan, “make me feel like a randy teenager messing around in the back seat of a car.”
“The captain of the football team messing around with a freshman under the bleachers after the game, you mean?”
“Oh, I like that.”
“Richard gets the credit for that.”
Knox set her down and they worked on finding napkins and such to clean themselves up. In the middle of this effort, Justice started to giggle. Then Knox began to chuckle.
“Well, Iustitia, you got me in a black suit at work. Happy now?”
“Yes. And I got caught fucking my boss.” He glanced at her, a question in his face. “Well, okay, I liked it. Arrest me.”
“You know I don’t like kink.”
“You left the door unlocked. I’m thinking I could get you in handcuffs yet.”
BELTANE
The bonfire blazed, the flames licking high up into the starlit night through the wide ring of the treetops.
The carefully tended acreage around them bloomed with colorful life, strategically lit to emphasize the way the master gardener had designed them for nighttime pleasure, for the nighttime pleasure she took with her lover.
The creek rippled and whooshed arrogantly just past the bonfire as if to tell Fire that Water was its master, and Fire better not forget it.
May 1.
Beltane.
The festival of flowers, sensuality, fertility, and delight.
The perfect night for a wedding.
Eilis heard the faint strains of Mendelssohn coming from the hidden speakers all around her property, closed her eyes and sniffed at the fragrance coming from the honeysuckle that climbed the stone walls and iron fence surrounding her swimming pool, felt the slight breeze on her near-naked body, faintly tasted a hint of talc that drifted off her sleeping baby.
She opened her eyes when she felt Sebastian’s big hand encase one of hers, his big warm body pressed next to hers. He smiled at his son, his eyes reflecting the firelight. He looked to her then, held her gaze as he lifted her fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss into them.
Suddenly shy, she smiled and felt the blush creep up her cheeks.
“I need to paint you like this,” Sebastian murmured as he inspected her, head to toe. Played with the baby’s curls. “Giselle and your tailor make a good team.”
“I guess,” she whispered, still self-conscious about having her not-yet-recovered-and-newly-pregnant-again belly bared, her breasts and hips vaguely covered with flower-and-leaf-studded lingerie. With her hair caught up in a tiara made of fresh cosmos, she looked like the Green Man’s bride and indeed, she was.
The Green Man himself had a green-dyed leather loincloth, heavily embroidered in a leaf pattern, that barely covered his butt and probably wouldn’t cover his front if he got an erection. He would have gone naked and insisted she do the same had not the officiator balked at performing the ceremony amongst nakedness.
A good portion of her enormous family wandered around the park Eilis had built of her back yard, laughing, eating, drinking (some of them drinking alcohol, even), kissing their spouses, engaged in overt foreplay in the shadows, practically making love—
—which was as Sebastian had intended, as this, he had explained to her, was what Beltane was all about.
Technically, what it’s really about is throwing away the wedding ring for a night without recriminations.
So tonight . . . ?
You won’t see that tonight. You’re dealing with a bunch of Mormons who think this is strange enough, but they’re willing to go along for the ride to indulge an eccentric relative. Even the most maverick draw the line somewhere and adultery’s one of those lines. Look at ’em. Do any of them look like they’d rather be with someone other than their spouse?
No.
The ones who are active in the church are as invested in their demonstrations of obedience to the Lord as they are in their spouses. A little light exhibitionism with your spouse isn’t exactly excommunicable, so don’t worry about them. They know their limits. Everybody else here tonight does too.
A good half of the women were as bare as Eilis, and most of the men wore similar ragged leather, green-dyed and leaf-embroidered loincloths as skimpy as Sebastian’s.
Justice had gone to a costume shop and found iridescent wings she could wear laced to the tiny green velvet harem vest that matched her tiny velvet skirt. Her face and pregnant body glimmered and glistened in the firelight from the iridescent makeup she’d applied to her skin. Eilis didn’t think she’d ever seen Knox’s attention so fully riveted on one thing and for so long. His expression betrayed his wonder that this Faery Queen had chosen to stay with him, to bring him his dreams. Knox couldn’t keep his mouth off her neck nor his hands off her breasts, and Eilis expected that at any moment he would drop to his knees at his young wife’s feet to worship her with his mouth, as was her due.
Giselle wore a green merrywidow, her breasts pushed up high enough to emphasize the slim platinum diamond-and-emerald choker she wore around her neck. A ground-length skirt consisting only of hundreds of long pastel ribbons and ropes of white beads hung from the hem of her merrywidow. Every time she took a step, the ribbons and beads all fluttered and flew, exposing the fact that she wore nothing underneath. Bryce made no effort to hide the strokes of his fingers between her legs, that he was deliberately keeping her on the edge of an orgasm without letting her go over.
It’s Beltane, Eilis, Giselle had said when Eilis questioned her outfit and plans for the night. I want to make love with my husband by the bonfire or in the woods.
But you aren’t pagan, Giselle.
I don’t separate my sexuality and my spirituality. I think it’s a gift from our Creators, just like nature is a gift, and I feel closer to them when I’m in nature. Plus, I think there’s truth in everything. Just because I’m more invested in one truth than another doesn’t mean there isn’t value in the others. And lemme tell you something else. Sebastian isn’t as much of a spiritual renegade as he likes to think he is. Mormons do believe there’s a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father, we just don’t assign her an active role in our lives. Sebastian’s problem is with the need for a savior and he doesn’t accept that Christ is a savior. He believes the God and Goddess love us because we belong to them and wouldn’t create us and put us here just to make us jump through those kinds of hoops. There’s a great inequity in Christianity Sebastian doesn’t like.
What do you think, believe, about the Goddess?
I love her, Eilis. I pray to both the Father and the Mother. But don’t tell my mom or my aunts that or I’ll be forced into a weekend of
remedial doctrine.
Well, Eilis didn’t really understand enough about Christianity—or any other religion—to grasp the depth of significance of all that, but the rest of her family did. And it didn’t matter; wherever Sebastian led her, she would go because he had proven time and again that his philosophies worked.
Giselle, I don’t understand why a Mormon bishop would consent to marry us in a pagan ritual.
Eilis, you’ve met Mitch. You know how much he and Sebastian depend on each other. He wouldn’t not do it. His only condition was that we didn’t go completely naked.
And then it was time.
Bishop Mitch Hollander wore khakis and a green rugby shirt, but he was definitely overdressed. He stared pointedly at the men’s attire, then cast both Bryce and Sebastian a glare. Sebastian smirked. Bryce coughed to cover a chuckle. Morgan rolled his eyes. Étienne snapped something in French, which made Mitch scowl and snap back. In French. Whatever he said made Sebastian laugh and add his own two francs. A couple of other similarly dressed cousins apparently understood the blatant chastisement and got out of the line of fire.
“Mitch is gonna kick my ass,” Sebastian muttered to Eilis with a crooked grin.
“What was that about?” Eilis whispered.
“Mormon thing. I’ll explain it later.”
Mendelssohn faded away and the only music left was that of the park: the bonfire’s crackle, the creek’s merry burbles, the whisper of the breeze in the treetops, the calls of the hoot owls.
The baby shuddered sleepily against Eilis’s shoulder, rearranged himself, sighed, smacked his lips and settled again, all without opening his eyes.
The family gathered silently to stand and watch and listen to Mitch’s short remarks, which, though apropos, didn’t really seem too different from what Sebastian believed.
He directed Eilis to face Sebastian.
“Will you be my Goddess, Eilis?” Sebastian whispered.
“Always and forever. Will you be my Artist, Sebastian?”
“Always and forever.”
“Amen,” said Bishop Hollander.
The soft answer of fifty amens echoed through the trees as Sebastian wrapped his arms around Eilis and kissed her, the child they had made together—both children, really—between them.
So lost in her husband’s kiss for so long, Eilis didn’t notice that half the family had started back toward the house and the rest had drifted off in their rightful pairs, into the woods or down into the dales or up on the hills, until she and Sebastian slowly parted.
Sebastian looked at Mitch. Mitch looked back at him and then Sebastian grasped Mitch to him in a bear hug.
“Elder,” Sebastian said, “you need a vacation. You look exhausted.”
“Elder,” Mitch returned, “I am, but I can’t right now.” Indeed, Eilis could see his fatigue even in the firelight.
“Tell you what. Send Trevor out for the summer. We’ll take care of him and you can take care of Nina with one less thing to worry about.”
Mitch chuckled then and said, “I fear for the boy’s salvation in your hands, Sebastian, but I’ll take you up on that. Trev’s feelings won’t be hurt at all.” He looked at Eilis then and suddenly, her heart hurt for him. He’d sacrificed a great deal to officiate his best friend’s wedding. “Please take care of him, Eilis.”
She smiled and nodded.
Mitch looked around him and said, his voice wry, “Glad I’m not staying. This isn’t exactly the kind of wedding reception I’m used to.”
“Well, Mitch, there’s the house,” Sebastian said, gesturing to the grand Tudor revival far off behind them. “The rest of the True Believing Mormons are in there having cake and lime-sherbet-and-7-Up punch, keeping away from us philistines in case they see something they might be tempted to try.”
Mitch laughed a hearty laugh. “No can do. My pilot’s waiting for me. See you two next month?” Once both Eilis and Sebastian had nodded, he turned and trotted across the lawn to the driveway.
“Eilis. Sebastian,” said a woman, low, seeming to appear out of the darkness. Dianne, a joyous expression on her face, took the baby gently from Eilis. She cast a soft smile at both Eilis and Sebastian, then left with the boy to head for the G-rated shelter of the house, where the other, more orthodox members of the family would spend the night, waiting for the heathens to join them in the morning after a night of fire- and starlit debauchery with their respective spouses.
Sebastian untied his loincloth and dropped to the ground to laze in the grass and stare up at Eilis. She pulled off the flowered bra and wriggled out of her flower-bedecked maternity boyshorts. He offered her his hand and tugged at her until she knelt beside him and simply stared at him, at his naked body glowing in the light of the bonfire.
She languidly straddled Sebastian’s hips, wrapped her hand around Sebastian’s cock, guided him into her. He laid one hand over her pregnant belly, his fingers splayed out, and wrapped the other around her hip so far his finger caressed the sensitive spot just behind where their bodies joined. She closed her eyes and released a long, shuddering breath at the ecstasy of how his hands felt on her, how he felt inside her.
“My Goddess,” Sebastian murmured as he raised his hips, just a little. “Let me love you in the light of the Beltane fire.”
The faint sounds of a dozen other pairs of lovers taking their pleasure in each other wafted to them on the breeze, Eilis’s cry and Sebastian’s roar echoing, answering the rest.
MISSA SOLEMNIS
December 29, 2008
“‘ . . . personal estate to be divided equally between my daughter, Eilis Hilliard Logan Taight and my nephew, Fort Knox Oliver Hilliard, both of whom I deprived of what was rightfully theirs.
“‘To Celia Giselle Cox Kenard, I leave this box.
“‘To Celia Gertrude Dunham Hilliard, I leave nothing because I have nothing left to give you. I gave you everything I had and, ultimately, I sacrificed my life and my salvation to make you happy. And I failed.’”
Fifty adults sat or stood in a conference room meant for thirty, shocked into silence, the only sound the soft swish of a box across the conference table and the weeping of two women.
Mr. Jerome Larkin looked around the table at the beneficiaries of James Fenimore Hilliard’s largesse, unable to understand the exact nature of their distress. The beautiful blonde to his left, Eilis Taight, had turned into her husband’s chest to cry softly. King Midas urged her to sit onto his lap so he could hold her close and whisper in her ear. Of all the people in the room, only Sebastian seemed unconcerned—perhaps even pleased—with Fen’s death, which Jerome could understand, all things considered.
Eilis’s half-brother, Knox Hilliard, sat to Jerome’s right, his hands clenching the arms of the fine wooden chair so tightly it would probably break. He stared down at the floor, an expression of rage on his face so intense, Jerome now believed every rumor he’d ever heard about the man. Hilliard’s young wife slid one hand across his back and reached up with the other to caress his cheek. She watched him with great concern, then she leaned in to him to press her lips against his cheek.
The diminutive strawberry blonde who sat just beyond Sebastian took possession of the box she had been bequeathed with great reluctance, as if it were laced with poison and she didn’t want to touch it. She studied it carefully. The size of a large dictionary, it was an elaborate affair; ancient, cracked tooled leather, gold leaf, and utterly masculine. Jerome had wanted one for himself, but when he’d inquired of Fen as to its acquisition, Fen had said something like “brukka.” Jerome had had no idea where or what “brukka” was and Fen had not elaborated. The only word left marginally legible looked like it might spell “BRUGES,” but the leather was mostly smoothed over and the gold had long worn away.
Not only did Jerome not know where the box came from, he had no idea what was in it. Fen’s niece folded her arms on the table and ducked her head into them to sob, obviously heartbroken. Her husband buried his fingers in her hai
r to play with her curls, his scarred face betraying anger and worry.
Jerome looked around at the rest of the gathered: All eight of Fen’s sisters-in-law were present, some with spouses, some not. A goodly number of Fen’s other nieces and nephews and their spouses were present, including inventor Étienne LaMontagne and economist Morgan Ashworth. Another of Fen’s favored nieces, Victoria LaMontagne Bautista, sat at the table next to her husband, Emilio, clutching his hand. They had flown from Spain to attend the funerals and reading of the will. Victoria, in shock at what had transpired in her family, simply stared at something far beyond the room.
There were children present, the infants all asleep in carriers scattered around the room or in their grandmothers’ arms. The older children were the most well behaved Jerome had ever seen and obviously knew better than to disrupt the proceedings. Granted, from the looks on their faces, they were frightened by the extreme emotion their parents displayed and whispered amongst themselves, trying to make heads and tails of the level of vulnerability that must be foreign in this family.
Truth be told, Jerome was as shocked as the children at the grief and anger in the room; he had never presided at such a meeting where the rage did not involve money and what had been left to whom. No, here, the rage and grief had nothing to do with money and everything to do with the sick and twisted relationships Fen had had with some of his nieces and nephews, part love, part hate, one warring with the other every minute of every day. And it seemed most of these people returned that lovehate, unable to decide which.
Jerome knew why: Trudy, Fen’s wife.
Jerome had despised Trudy and, he was not ashamed to admit, he was very happy not to have to deal with her. Her suicide had relieved him of a task he had not wanted to face. Naturally, Fen would have never guessed she would take her own life, nor would Jerome. Narcissistic to her core, Trudy had loved the vicarious attention; bad or good, she didn’t care, as long as she controlled the strings and made every one of these people jump at the twitch of her hand without appearing to do so. While it was possible Trudy had wanted her suicide to be a legacy of everlasting control, Jerome didn’t think so. A narcissist’s death was transient in survivors’ lives so he couldn’t deduce what she’d thought to accomplish, unless . . .
