The Witch's Dream - A Love Letter to Paranormal Romance (Black Swan 2) (39 page)

Storm took one of the cars and drove back to the house before the party broke up. He changed into jeans and a tee shirt then set out with a flashlight. About forty yards up river he found just what he was looking for; a vacation home similar to the one Kay's family owned, lovingly attended with an expanse of short cropped, wide bladed grass sloping down to the widest part of the river. Best of all, it was evident that no one was in residence.

He returned to the screen porch to retrieve the supplies that he had stowed under his cot and had just let the screen door swing closed behind him when he heard the crunch of cars pulling onto the shell and gravel drive. He hurried away so he wouldn't be seen.

When Litha finished the bride's dance, she was disappointed that she couldn't find Storm and was even more disappointed that he wasn't at the house either. While she was wondering if she'd said something wrong, she pulled out her pretty, thin, white nightgown. It was cotton which meant it could breathe, just the right thing for a warm Hill Country night in a river house with the windows left open.

Storm unzipped the nylon sleeping bag and laid it down first to provide a barrier against the wet grass. On top of that he put two layers of new cotton blankets. When he had opened the packages earlier in the day, he thought they smelled funny, like chemicals, so he had personally run them through the washer and dryer. He didn't know how to use laundry appliances, but with the women gone into town, between himself, Kay, and Ram they figured it out by means of trial and error. He made the excuse to them that he needed more cover on the porch.

He smoothed the wrinkles out of the soft blankets and was proud that, when he put his face into the fabric, they smelled sweet like good clean soap.

He took out the bottle of wine. He'd been surprised and ecstatic to find a bottle of Cairdeas Deo brandy. It wasn't cheap. She had said it was a very good brandy. And it was fitting that a brandy she was named after be the very best. It seemed Kerrville had some well-heeled wine patrons among the wealthy who vacationed and retired there.

The wine store had told him that his best bet for really good crystal would be one of the antique traders. Storm found two matching stems of art glass there and, again, they weren't cheap, but he was set on winning a woman whose father could give her an Aston Martin on a whim.

He rearranged everything three times, then stood there staring at it, talking to himself, and wondering if the anxiety he was feeling meant that he was losing his nerve. For crap's sake, he was a Black Swan knight from Bad Company no less. Not a fifteen-year-old boy. Even though that was exactly what he felt like.

He summoned his intent and set off for the house with single-minded determination. The only thing in heaven or hell that could stop him now was the witch herself.

The six women had decided that Katrina's last night as a single woman should include a lecture on sex - the one that most mommas don't deliver - and that each one of them would contribute some really juicy tidbit. The only rule was that Katrina was forbidden from participating because the Norns said they did not want an image of their brother engaged in coitus. Ew.

They sequestered themselves in the corner bunkroom with a stash of wine coolers. As the tidbits grew progressively juicier and wilder, the volume of the collective giggling, interspersed with squeals, grew in direct proportion.

With stealth befitting Black Swan knights, Ram and Kay picked up yard chairs and long necks and took up a post in the shadows of the back lawn directly underneath the open bunkroom window. As eavesdropping vantage points go, it couldn't have been better. They could hear everything said in the room above as if they were sitting on one of the bunks. Even the whispers.

Kay was grateful for the cover of relative darkness so that Ram couldn't see his face turn red every couple of minutes in response to some new and outrageously raunchy thing one of the girls said to each other. Who knew women could be so graphic? Especially his sisters! It was just wrong.

At one point Ram was laughing so hard he had one hand over his mouth and a forearm over his ribs trying to brace his stomach and contain himself so as not to give them away. He almost blew it when his wife referred to him as "cockzilla". A mental note was filed away to whisper that back to her when he had her at his mercy, as promised, sometime later than night.

They talked at length about what they liked in men, physically and otherwise. Ram was delighted and gratified right down to his well-formed toes that what Elora described was, basically, him. She ended by saying that what is said in the bunk room stays in the bunk room. "Just as long as everybody understands that the beautiful blond is with me."

"I already told you I don't do chicks, Elora." Squoozie stroked her pale blond mane feigning indignant.

Words could never describe how much Ram and Kay were enjoying the absolute perfection of the simple pleasure of sitting in lawn chairs, each in the easy companionship of someone with whom they had stood beside and confronted mortality on many occasions. As they sat in silence, taking an occasional swig of beer, listening to the crickets, the frogs, an occasional plop of a fish in the water, and, best of all, the voices of women talking about matters of love, they were perfectly at peace.

Recognizing the moment for what it was, they were each recording a precious snapshot, knowing that change was coming, but that this would be a memory to forever keep in their hearts on the other side of the transition. There was a painful bitter-sweetness when life's journey took a turn. It made friends savor an appreciation of what might have been taken for granted.

At the same time both men became aware that someone was approaching the house. Decades of training kicked in and a sudden tension instantly robbed them of the relaxed state they had been enjoying. The alert, however, was quickly set aside because, even in the darkness, they recognized the shape and gait of the tall figure walking toward the house. They were glad they didn't have to give away their strategic position by yelling: "Halt! Who goes there?" like an ancient night watch.

Storm just nodded on his way past like there was nothing remarkable about his having disappeared earlier or about the fact that he had been out walking alone on the river at night. The screen door squeaked and then shut with the clatter everyone had come to associate as a paired sound. He stopped momentarily at the bottom of the stairs, then took them two at a time and didn't slow until he was standing outside the bunkroom door knocking.

From the lawn chairs below Ram and Kay could hear the knock and subsequent silence and each could easily imagine the women looking at each other, wondering who it might be. Elora was closest to the door so she got up and opened it.

Storm eyes lit on her and quickly slid past searching for... "I need that woman." He nodded toward the witch sitting cross-legged on one of the top bunks.

Elora regarded Storm affectionately.
Yes. You do.
Seeing that he wanted entry she stepped aside and opened the door wider.

As every head turned toward her, Litha unfolded her legs and started to climb down from the bunk. She was so stunned it almost felt like an out-of-the-body experience to hear her knight publicly deliver four simple words that, so far as she was concerned, formed the most exciting sentence ever spoken.
I need that woman.

Before Litha got to the second step of the little ladder designed for children, Storm had gripped her by the waist, turned her around, and let gravity pull her forward so that she was bent over his shoulder. She gasped as he carried her away with one arm locked behind her knees and one hand alternately bracing and covering her finely upturned tush.

"Where are you taking…?" In that position she didn't have enough breath to get out the whole question.

"To finish what we started."

When Storm pushed through the screen door and carried Litha past Ram and Kay, they looked at each other and grinned as the door slammed behind him. He had toted her all the way to the river's edge before she got enough breath to get out a whole sentence.

"Hey, cave man. Put me down." It wasn't just that her lungs were being squeezed in that position. It was all the fondling taking place between Storm's free hand and her derriere that caused a near nonstop series of gasps.

He stopped abruptly, bent, and gently lowered her until her feet touched the ground. He was so strong that he wasn't showing any sign of exertion at all. "Are you going to come peaceably?"

There was enough moonlight for him to appreciate seeing her mouth slowly spread into a beguiling smile that was partly due to the fact that Litha's shapely ass was still tingling from the pleasure of being thoroughly explored by Storm's big, warm and highly curious hand. "Absolutely."

The bunkroom was quiet for a long time. Ram and Kay looked at each other wondering what was going on in there. They were agreeing silently, semi-telepathically, that it just wasn't in the nature of women to be perfectly quiet for such a long time. Certainly not
these
particular women.

Finally, Squoozie pulled a pillow in front of her midsection and hugged it tight. "Ugh. Was that
not
just
the
most romantic thing you
ever
saw? Or even heard of? Seriously?"

All the pretty heads nodded at once and everyone murmured their agreement.

Elora glanced at her watch surreptitiously while thinking that she was more than ready for the others to go to sleep. She had a hot date waiting in the room across the hall.

Katrina was thinking that separating bride and groom the night before their wedding was a stupid custom that should by no means be tolerated by a modern woman. She glanced at her watch surreptitiously wondering how much longer before the others went to sleep.

Two of the Norns were wishing they had stayed with their boyfriends in one of the river cabins and surreptitiously looked at their phones under the covers thinking they might send a test text to see if a lover was still awake. The last was wondering if everybody in the house would hear the buzz of a vibrator.

Litha slipped her hand in Storm's. They were barefoot, but there was nothing but manicured lawn where they were walking and the wide bladed grass felt cool and soft beneath their feet. When they came to a stop in front of the pallet, Litha felt every cell stand up and look around. The intention was unmistakable. She looked over the world’s best surprise before turning her face up to Storm. "You've been busy," she said softly.

He knelt down on the pallet and held up the bottle of wine. "Guess what I found."

It was dark but she had her intuition to rely on. "Is that...?"

"...Cairdeas Deo brandy." To her the gesture was as moving as if the knight had laid the Golden Fleece at her feet and he looked just that proud to have procured it. She knelt down in front of him as he gestured with the bottle. "Want some?"

She shook her head and reached for him instead. "Just you, Storm," she said. "You're..." She never got the chance to finish that sentence. The words were drowned in a kiss that was at once demanding, compelling, and possessive. It was fierce. It was ruthless. It was relentless. She could see that, once Storm made up his mind about something, he committed to it and came for it head on, holding nothing back. She hoped to the gods she was going to be that thing he had made up his mind about.

Storm gave Litha exactly what she wanted. Not tepid touches. Not lukewarm timidity. What she wanted from him was the full commitment of unflinching passion, the kind that burned like demon fire. Not the kind that sought mere orgasm. The kind that aspired to a roaring triumph over lust that was so consuming it was excruciating. However impermanent it might have been.

His kisses engulfed her so completely that she knew nothing, cared about nothing, but the moment they were sharing. She was transported to a world every bit as unique as those she had visited with the incubus, a world where nothing existed other than the muscled body and battle hardened soul of the knight she clung to; the one who was urging her to lie back while not yielding her mouth for an instant.

He settled himself gingerly on top of the witch's luscious body as if he was taking great care to be gentle with her and, at the same time, savoring the raw experience of sex in real time with real touches and scents and sounds.

He slowly ran a hand up and down the skin of her bare arm. She was perfection to the touch and he couldn't get enough. The nightgown was so thin he could feel every rise and swell of her as if there was no fabric barrier, but he needed more. He wanted skin on skin and he wanted it right then. Enough time had been wasted while he played the fool. Everything he wanted was moving her sweet, warm body beneath him and, by gods, he was grabbing his chance for love with both hands.

Storm had the neckline of the pretty cotton gown clutched in both fists and was about to jerk his hands in opposite directions when he flashed on an image of little pearl buttons flying all around. He drew himself up short. If he ripped her clothes, she would have to return to the house wrapped in a blanket and a blush because he would be the ham-handed lover she'd once implied he was. He didn't want that for her. He didn't want her to be embarrassed because he was too eager and he didn't want to be inept at lovemaking.