The Innocent (Clan of the Woodlands Book 2)

by V. K. Ludwig

  I let my voice cut through the tension. “Clearly.”

  “He told me if I don’t spread my legs like a good girl, he would cut his way through. And he did. For seven and three-quarters of an inch. I measured.”

  “And did he —”

  “No,” she said, her voice heavy with bottled up tears. “Most people thought he did because of all the blood between my legs. But I managed to fight him off and escape for a friend’s house.”

  Disgust crawled up my spine, and rage built up inside my core. We all knew of the assault and rape reports. But they were just file numbers. Now, this number had a face to it. And a name. And it made me fucking sick to my stomach.

  I sat up and buried my face in my hands. “There are no words to tell you how sorry I am that this happened to you.”

  “Don’t be silly, it’s not your fault. It wasn’t anybody's’ fault.” She lowered herself into the water. “Besides, I am lucky to be alive. Other girls didn’t make it that far. And if they did, then their scars ran a lot deeper than mine.”

  She kicked herself off the lounger and swam to the other side of the pool. I dived into the water, following behind her.

  We met at the edge, her hair partially wet and clinging to her shoulders like a smooth curtain.

  “It’s almost like swimming toward the ocean,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I let my hand run along the pool’s edge. “They call it an infinity pool. Apparently, it was a huge thing in the old days.”

  “I can see why. It’s beautiful.”

  She turned her back toward the wall, gazing at me from eyes I thought held a certain hope or expectation, wetting her lips like an invitation too good to be true. Should I kiss her again?

  The experiment was over.

  I had said so myself.

  But the way she looked at me made my legs liquify, and my heart thump against the back of my throat.

  Fuck it. I moved over, trapping her between my arms and pushing her against the wall. She didn’t flinch and only blinked once.

  I pressed my lips onto hers, first soft and gentle, but the force increased with each tongue thrust and nibble.

  My cock grew hard, encouraged by the warm water.

  No reason to hold anything back.

  She already knew how my body felt about her. Damn it! I wanted her to feel what she did to me. And I pressed him against her stomach without the slightest doubt.

  Her legs slung around my waist, the water pushing her crotch right onto mine. He gave a jolt at the sensation and Autumn drew out my name in a sexy moan. “Mmmax!”

  Fuck, this was all too much to handle. I wrapped one arm around her back and held us in place with the other at the edge of the pool. Then I looked down.

  His head had freed itself from my swim shorts, pushing and rubbing along her blue bikini bottom. Blood pumped between my legs, and I planted kisses along her neck. It offered little distraction.

  This had nothing to do with science. Having sex with her would be all sorts of wrong. I couldn’t take from her what another tried to get with a gutting knife. Couldn’t risk getting her pregnant. Couldn’t attach myself even more to her but…

  Fuck! The way her pussy ground against me made me lose my mind.

  Made me lose what I stood for.

  Made me lose what I fought for.

  “Autumn, I can’t do this. Not after what happened to you.”

  She pulled her wet hand out of the water and caressed my face, salty droplets seasoning my lips. Then she rejected my protest, fumbling my swim shorts down with her other hand.

  The moment she grabbed my cock, all air escaped my lungs in a deep sigh I had no control over. “You are so beautiful,” were the last words I managed to mutter with the little oxygen I had left in me.

  I stared down at us, a scheme of her hand disappearing between her legs. She pushed her bikini out of the way, exposing her pussy for me.

  Not sure if he dived there all on his own or if I actually moved him there, but the tip of my cock was right between her legs, nestled at her entrance.

  I breathed the words like a confession. “I’ve never done this before. Not any of it. Not even with my hand.”

  “I know.”

  Of course, she did. Didn’t take a genius to figure out a guy from the Districts had no experience with this. But embarrassment clogged my veins regardless.

  She grabbed my cock once more, running her tight fist along his shaft and twirling her fingertips across his head. Like a reflex, my hips jerked up whenever her fist ran down as if I needed more. But how much more could I possibly need? This was bad enough already and dangerously close to an invisible border between having control and losing it all.

  “I don’t know how,” I protested again. Mostly out of decency.

  “Neither do I.” She grabbed my cheeks between her hands and placed the softest kiss on my mouth. “But I want it. And I want it with you.”

  Her words melted whatever was left of that control. I allowed my hips to thrust against her pussy, the tip of my cock inching itself between her warm folds. Slathered in her heat and a slippery kind of wetness, convulsions rocked through me, asking me to go deeper.

  “Let me do it.” Her legs wrapped around me even tighter and pulled me deeper inside her with each breath. “That way I can control the pain.”

  “Pain?” I tried pulling out, but her legs wouldn’t let me.

  “Only in the beginning.” Her legs pulled me back inside of her, her face turning into a grimace of pain and pleasure at the same time. “It will be fine once you are all the way in.”

  I looked down at us. That’s still a long way to go.

  But I kept my hips from moving and watched, fascinated by how my penis invaded her in a painfully slow attack. How long does it take from penetration to ejaculation? My heart rate kicked up a notch.

  “What if I get you pregnant?”

  There. It was out.

  My biggest fear because — let’s face it — I had already failed at all the other excuses.

  But a child… that couldn’t happen.

  Not from someone like me, anyway.

  Her brows slid into a frown. “Can you really knock me up?”

  “Excuse me?” I gave a little thrust as if proving a point and punishing her question at the same time. Her eyes grew wide, and she pulled herself deeper underneath parted, trembling lips, her desire too big to let a moan escape. “Oh, I guarantee you that I could knock you up, as you called it. Put a little baby inside you and…”

  God damn it what is wrong with me?

  My words made me grow even harder. I couldn’t get her pregnant. It would break every single law of this fucked up place and put us all at risk. Put her at risk. But shit the thought of putting my seed inside of her, as inferior as it might be, made my blood pump.

  “Let me know once you come and I will help you to pull out.”

  “But what if I can’t?” I grabbed her hair, placing nibbles and kisses along her jawline. “What if I can’t control myself?”

  “I trust you,” she said, pulling me all the way inside of her under a deep and shaky moan. She swallowed all of me right up, the walls of her tight pussy rubbing and teasing my cockhead.

  She gave herself another moment to adjust and gave me a little nod. I took it as permission granted and began pumping in and out of her. Slow at first, each thrust bringing me closer to an overwhelming sensation which made me clench my fists. I had never done this before, yet it came to me like breathing. A skill so essential, not even I could get that one wrong.

  “Oh god, Max… you feel so good!” Lust dripped from her voice like the salt water dripped from her hair. I pulled her closer, making our skin rub against each other. Exchanging the heat from our bodies. Tasting her salty, pebbled skin. Having her all to myself.

  I whispered in her ear, “I want this to last forever.”

  “Mmh.” She shoved her hand into my hair and grabbed a fistful. “That’s overly ambitious, Max. I doubt
you’ll last that long.”

  She was right. My oncoming release swept closer with each wave, breaking at the crumbling wall of self-regulation. My brain yelled at me that this was a terrible mistake. It was wrong. But Jesus Christ if being wrong felt this good then I didn’t want to be right.

  In a tight knot of arms, legs, and insatiable desire, we thrashed against each others body.

  Her moans now came from deep inside her, carrying an undertone of something primal.

  Something banned from within these walls.

  Something that wanted to surface.

  And it did, in quick trembles and convulsions.

  It began inside her pussy and squeezed my cock so hard I had to stare into the night for a moment to give her more time. “I can’t hold it.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Wait…”

  A shiver radiated from her loins toward her breasts, where her nipples turned into tiny, hard beads. Her collarbone and neck were covered in goosebumps. She threw her arms to the side and her head back, her body plopping in and out of the water with each push I gave. “Autumn, I…”

  “Sh!” She released me from her legs and pushed me out of her, and I ended up humping the water for a couple of thrusts in pure desperation.

  “Sit up here,” she said and patted the water puddle we had left behind at the edge of the pool. I climbed up, and so did she, only to sit back down on my cock.

  I slid right in, her pussy dripping wet from her own climax. She held on to my shoulders and worked herself up and down my shaft, giving me a prime spot at watching it all unfold.

  She made my cock glide in and out of her, the juice of our lovemaking clinging to our sex in clear and milky-white threads. “Say when.”

  It took less than three seconds, and I felt a foreboding twitch in my ballsack. “When… when, when, when, oh shit…”

  She detached from where we had been one and plopped herself onto my lap. With her fist rubbing up and down my shaft, my cum shot from my cock in several huge loads — one could have thought it had bottled up for twenty-six years.

  Her body marked with my semen, she pushed the head of my cock across her stomach and spread it all over. Several small jerks followed, but all I could do was stare at her how she stared at my seed on her soiled body.

  She gave me a toying grin. “I hate to say it Dr. Max, but your experiment failed.”

  “Who would have thought sucking at science would make me so happy.” I pulled her into my embrace, her heart beating fast against mine. “I don’t care about the fucking experiment. But I care a whole lot about you.”

  Chapter 17

  Autumn

  “Fill me in.” Max cupped my face and placed a tender kiss on my forehead, a flutter once more growing inside my stomach. “I’ve got no idea what I am supposed to do now. Guess there’s a status quo or something? Do I clean you up?”

  I checked the time. “It’s almost five, so it won’t be long until the others wake up. Depending on what all this meant to you, you’ve got two options: you could leave.”

  “What’s option number two?” he asked, his eyes still locked with mine, sending my heart jolting against my ribs. He asked for option two because he cared, right? Because it meant something to him.

  “Stay for breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” He gazed over the beach house, the windows still dark from the inside. “Does coffee count? Because I happen to have a coffee maker in my room.”

  He stood up for the both of us, my legs still wrapped around his waist. After he struggled his soaked swim short up, he draped my bikini bottom back over my exposed pussy and carried me to the loungers.

  He grabbed the towel from the floor and wiped it over my stomach, his huge load of cum still clinging to every pore of my skin. “Don’t think I can get you any cleaner than this.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Really, I didn’t.

  If anything, the way he spread his semen across my body made my thighs tingle. Again. Thrilled by how we had fused. Excited about his left behind mark.

  He carried me inside and upstairs into his bedroom, his steps slow and certain. As if our lovemaking had made him grow stronger.

  Just as it had me. Except for in his arms. In his arms I was weak — and I loved it.

  Our skin chilly and our bodies exhausted, we undressed and climbed underneath the sheets, nestling our bodies against each other.

  “What if they see me coming from your room? You know, naked and all,” I asked.

  He pointed at the door across from his bed. “That’s a connection door which leads to your room. Once we hear they are up, you can just leave from there.”

  I pressed myself against him, letting my lips glide over his muscular chest like pioneers on unclaimed land. “Are you in trouble now?”

  He rolled me on my back, pushing his hips between my legs and resting his almost-hard-again cock against my pubic bone. “Only if anybody found out, or I got you pregnant. Obviously, that would be the biggest proof that something happened. But I guess we’re safe since I pulled out in time.”

  “Well, technically, your pre-cum could get me pregnant. Besides, what if you already came a little inside me without noticing?”

  The way his brows furrowed made something heavy settle at the bottom of my stomach. Nothing about what we did was right. But even if the consequence would be a lasting one, I wouldn’t regret it one bit.

  He kissed the mound of my breasts, caressing their folds with his warm tongue. I enjoyed the warm sensation which spread across my body. But the thoughts that followed I battled for life and death.

  It was of no use, and the truth settled down on my chest like an elephant on a chair, squishing my top-security fortress.

  I showed all the signs of being in love.

  A tingling in my guts when he was close. Check.

  A pulse going ninety when he touched me. Check.

  A ram tearing down the wall I had built around me. Double check.

  “I guess there is nothing we can do about that now.” He let out a sigh that seemed to carry the burdens of the world and propped one arm underneath his head. “Do you want children, Autumn?”

  “Always did,” I said, and his chest froze in place. There was no rising. No falling. Just a silence in his lungs and all around us, making worry creep up on me, turning me into its prey. Did that mean he didn’t care for children?

  I had a dozen question for Max, all boiling down to one: would he come back to the Clan with me? I didn’t dare to ask it now, fearing his answer might burn.

  He began kissing my stomach all the way down to my triangle, caressing my hip bones with his lips and tongue. Then he spread my legs apart, leaving me open and vulnerable.

  His head disappeared between my legs, tossing, turning, backing up and coming closer once more.

  I placed my hand on his, resting on my pubic bone. “What the hell are you doing?”

  His head popped up with that boyish grin of his. “Research!”

  Curious like a group of adventurers, his fingers pulled my lips, circled my entrance and prodded my clit. I moaned and spread my legs wider, the heat radiating from my core extending a silent invitation.

  He turned it down with a single kiss on my little nub, jumped up from bed and wrestled his erection into a fresh pair of briefs.

  “One of them is awake,” he said. “You better get dressed, and we can meet downstairs for that breakfast you mentioned.”

  Disappointed that his research was interrupted, I left through the connecting door, jumped into the hygiene pod and let my hands rediscover my body. Unchanged from the outside. But inside, I felt as if I had been turned inside out and upside down both at the same time. Not in a bad way. Just… different.

  By the time I stepped onto the patio, Ruth and Max sat over a cup of coffee and a plate filled with fresh fruits and grilled asparagus.

  “I am so sorry for what happened yesterday,” Ruth said, her usually radiant skin covered i
n a veil of sheer gray. “And I know Max is, too. We wouldn’t want you to think we had anything to do with this.”

  “No worries.” I grabbed my plate from the kitchen bot and sat down at the head of the table. “It was my own stupidity that got me into this mess. I shouldn’t have trusted them. And by them, I mean everyone but you.”

  “I will confront Kenya about this tomorrow,” Max said. “Ruth and I are supposed to show you around at one of the fertility clinics, and I am pretty sure she will be there as well. She has her office upstairs. It’s unacceptable.”

  I looked around the kitchen where the bot had stepped back into its charging station. “Where is Svea?”

  “Still asleep, I guess.” Ruth hid a devious grin behind her palm. “Probably a teenager thing. You think she knew?”

  Max put his fork down and leaned back, the rising sun behind him making his brown hair sparkle in specks of gold. “She said something weird yesterday when I asked her if she knew. She kinda mocked what Ruth said on the train, that the council knows what’s best and all that.”

  “She is weird,” I said, goosebumps rising on my arm, triggered my both, the morning chills and my own words. “How can she be so young and serve on the council. Certainly, even her world record IQ can’t make up for her lack of maturity?”

  “The thing is…” Max pushed his chair back, went inside and came back with a blanket which he draped across my lap. “The thing is, I tried to look her up in the databank once.”

  Ruth leaned closer to the table in a posture that screamed conspiracy. “And? Who was her mother, and who on earth was her donor?”

  “Gosh, I hate when you say that word… donor,” I said.

  Max shot me an earnest glance and shook his head ever so slightly as if brooding over a heated question. I had no clue why, but it somehow made my shoulders tense, overshadowing the lightness our sex had left behind.

  “There’s no data as to who her mother was,” he said. “And the donor line is blank as well. It’s almost like the council doesn’t want anybody to know where she came from. Guess we will never find out because I’m sure that information is on the classified server.”