Chapter Twelve #3
‘For me, with Helen, it was…rather like drinking a good whisky,’ he said, trying not to feel so terrible nor stupid for making such an analogy.
Others compared it to great things, and he compared love to alcohol.
Telling, perhaps, of many things. ‘It was exciting, sparked my senses, then surprised me, and finally, filled me with a warmth and disconnection from the world but for that warmth. When it ended, quite a while after the betrayal I will add, it felt as if it had reshaped parts of me. I don’t know if it was the manner in which it ended, or the price paid for such a thing as love, for my father, good and kind and loving as he was, he was destroyed by my mother’s loss.
Almost as if love, when taken away, highlights the worst parts of yourself.
It made me angrier. More solitary, more…
resentful. Then again, some find they can remain the people they became through love.
So maybe it is not so very dismal. It’s not very romantic a view on the whole, I know, but that’s the best I can do. ’
‘Thank you, Thorn.’
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, rather than ask the question he wished to: do you want to fall in love someday?
Primarily for he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
He didn’t want to ask himself if he was ready to love and lose again; if he wanted to.
For he did believe in the stuff—love—he’d seen too much of it, felt it, to be a non-believer, yet perhaps that was why he was warier of it than a younger man might be.
‘The sun’s nearly set now, and I am well-pruned. ’
‘I could eat,’ she nodded, a dangerous grin he didn’t know yet on her lips. ‘You get out first. ’Tis only fair considering you watched me submerge, that I should be allowed to watch you emerge.’
‘Whatever my lady commands,’ he said, enjoying her bluntness, and this new…was it a game?
If so, he was surely enjoying it.
So he rose, ensuring he got proper footing before doing so lest he fall back into the water and make a complete fool of himself, rising as slowly and seductively as he could manage, giving his wife time to appreciate—he hoped—to her heart’s content, all his mortal coil was.
Her grin widened, and so did his, and he stood, imagining himself Poseidon emerging from the great waves of the sea for a moment, before turning, and making his way back to the bank and their belongings; again, ensuring his lady had as good a show as she wished for.
When he reached the bank, and turned back to her, hands on his hips because why not, especially since he felt absurdly tall and proud, as her hot eyes devoured every inch of his dripping self, he wondered again what great fortune had seen him have Hypatia for a wife, and not solely because of her sensual interest in him, and forthright manner.
He might’ve thought more, pondered his luck more profoundly, had she herself not risen from the stream just then, a siren herself; or perhaps something older, more dangerous.
She was something…a phoenix, afire in the last rays before dusk; a rainbow, shimmering and glistening with a thousand hues.
She was also herself, breathtaking and resplendent, and confident, and alive with that light inside her that put the sun’s rays to shame.
Dumbfounded, his arms dropped, and the only coherent thought in his head was that at least she was able to see him at his full height—the cold stream perhaps not showing off his assets to their full extent—and that if he was going to watch this tantalising show she was treating him to—and there was no doubt she was using her body to tease him now—he might as well sit.
Besides, in truth, his legs felt shaky, and he couldn’t imagine standing on them much longer.
As slowly as he had, she approached the bank, and he leaned back, elbows on the ground behind him to appreciate every glint, glimmer, and spark; every curve, every bump, every hair and every bounce of delectable flesh.
Until finally she stood at his feet, and he was just about to move, to take her hand, and pull her down to him so he could feel all his eyes had just devoured, when she raised a brow.
He quirked his head, trying to understand the silent command, and then she moved again, touching his feet with her own, gently tempting them apart, and so he parted his legs, and he waited, his breath shallowing, anticipating… whatever came next.
If there had been any coherent thought left in him, it surely departed, and all he saw were curls the colour of a thousand of the brightest sunsets coming towards him, because Hypatia stepped between his legs, then dropped to her knees, and his body knew, and reached towards her, even as his seemingly leisurely position didn’t quite change.
Until his head fell back, and his toes curled when his wife took him both in hand, and in her mouth, without hesitation, and then all he felt was the wet heat of her mouth, and her tight grip, and the bumps of her tongue, and the slightest whisper of a scrape of teeth every now and then, and her other hand, clutching and caressing his thigh, and the softest place where it met his groin.
As he’d learned her, she learned him, as he moaned, and made noises he thought resembled approbation—hoped, really, for his mind was just full of mind-bending pleasure, the sort which came after hours, or days, or centuries of anticipation—and an occasional shift or buck, as gentle as he could.
Another man might’ve seen it as some sort of mark of a lack of manhood, how quickly she had him spilling himself inside her mouth, hands clutching the blanket beneath, teeth biting into his bottom lip, toes curling, and incomprehensible noises escaping him as he saw beautiful, white blankness behind his eyes; however, Thorn knew even if it were an acceptable measure of manhood—which it wasn’t—his expediency was solely down to his wife’s talented mouth and fingers.
He let himself fall, and drift, and it wasn’t until he could lift his head again, and peek open his eyes, that Hypatia released him, dropping back on her haunches, licking her lips as he had his fingers, and he thought that truly, he’d been right from the first, this woman commanded him.
Somewhat—entirely—overwhelmed by precisely how that felt, and all she’d made him feel till then, he encircled her loosely with his legs, and leaned forward, and captured her lips with his own, and kissed her far longer than he would ever know.
All he knew, was that it was dark by the time they made it to the food; though luckily he’d had the forethought to call it a candlelight dinner.