38. Sullha
SULLHA
Tomek's asleep. Come over. Sullha pressed send before she could lose her nerve.
The reply came back so fast that Yaaf must have been holding the phone.
On my way.
Standing in the middle of her living room, she pressed both hands against her stomach to keep the butterflies from bursting out through her belly button and taking flight.
They were rioting, but she wasn't sure whether it was excitement, fear, or both. She wasn't afraid of Yaaf or what he might do to her. She trusted him completely. What she feared was the demons of her past surfacing and hijacking what she had with him.
Down the hall, light leaked from under Leehy's door, and since it wasn't shut tight, she could hear the low murmur of the television her mother was addicted to.
The houses in the village had been built for people who could hear a whisper through a wall, so when the door was closed, no sounds escaped. When Margaret had told her that, Sullha hadn't understood why the female had attached such significance to that detail, but now she did.
Sullha wanted to close that door, but that would give her away.
So what if it did?
She was an adult, a mother of a five-year-old boy, and she didn't owe anyone an explanation for who she invited to her room at night. Especially not to her mother.
Tomek was asleep in his room and wouldn't wake up until the next morning. The boy could sleep through anything. It was a gift she envied.
How many nights had she lain awake, staring at the ceiling while he slept peacefully, curled up against her?
A part of her missed those days, but a bigger part loved that he had his own room and wasn't afraid to sleep in it alone. It meant the island hadn't gotten him. That she'd saved him before it was too late.
She walked over to her mother's room and closed the door quietly without explaining a thing. Leehy might have fallen asleep in front of the television, and there was no point in waking her up.
When the soft knock came, she opened the door, and there he was, her Yaaf, in all of his freshly showered glory.
His hair was still damp, and he smelled of soap and warm skin. He had put on a clean shirt, and the care he'd put into his appearance moved her. He had gotten ready for her, made himself smell nice for her just because he wanted her to like him.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." He stood on the step with his hands in his pockets, as though he was not sure of his welcome.
She smiled. "Let's go to my room. We can watch a movie together, just the two of us for a change. It will be fun."
They had watched several movies together in the theater in the keep, but it had always been with others present. It would be nice to watch something alone with him.
Or do other things.
He nodded. "I'd like that."
"Then come." She took his hand and led him to her room.
She'd brought a pitcher of water, two glasses, and a bag of potato chips in case they got thirsty or wanted a snack, and she actually turned the television on.
"What would you like to watch?" She picked up the remote.
"Whatever you want."
"The selection is endless. They have every movie ever made on their servers."
That might have been a slight exaggeration, but she was quoting Margaret.
"I will watch whatever you like."
"Okay." She smiled at him. "Don't complain if what I like is boring."
"Never." He draped his arm over her shoulders the same way he'd done in the movie theater.
Sullha chose a film that her mother had seen and recommended.
She dimmed the lights, and they settled in to watch.
For a while they sat side by side on the couch and pretended to watch.
Or at least Sullha did, but she suspected that Yaaf wasn't paying attention either.
She rested her head on his bicep, and then he found her hand and laced his fingers through hers, and the film went on, entertaining no one.
She turned to him, expecting to see his profile, but he was looking at her, or rather her mouth, and her breath caught. She didn't want to wait anymore because it was killing her.
"Kiss me," she whispered.
He leaned in, and then his mouth was on hers, soft and gentle, and it was the first time they had kissed like this since his cell in the keep. All their other kisses had been stolen in dark corners and empty classrooms, and there hadn't been nearly enough of them.
Now they were finally alone, with no threat of someone surprising them and them having to jump apart. They didn't have to stop at kissing either.
They could go much further than that.
They could spend the night together if she had the courage and he had the drive. She still wasn't sure how far he could go given his long drug-induced celibacy.
He'd said the eight of them had transcended those kinds of urges, but she had noticed the change in him and the way he would harden when they kissed. He hadn't said anything, but those were responses a male couldn't hide.
Unbidden, the dream rose up behind her closed eyelids, and heat surged through her, but then the rest of that dream pushed to the surface, and Sullha froze.
Yaaf felt the change and drew back just far enough to look at her face.
"What happened?"
She wanted to deny that anything had, but that wouldn't get them anywhere. They were both damaged, they were both battling their demons, and if they didn't talk to each other, everything would fall apart. Yaaf needed to know how she felt, and she needed to know how he did too.
"I can't do this if they're here with us," she whispered.
"I need to know that they retreated." She felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but she faced him anyway.
"I had a dream about you. A long time ago on the island.
It was the first erotic dream I ever had, and it was about you.
The way you were looking at me in that dream made me feel special, safe, and I wanted you, but then they came and stood around the bed in the dark, watching.
The wonderful dream turned into a nightmare, and I woke up screaming, or I would have, if your hand hadn't been over my mouth. "
"I know." Yaaf closed his eyes. "I was there."
She stared at him. "What do you mean you were there? In my room? I know that you were. You stopped me from screaming my head off."
He shook his head. "I walked into your room to wake you up, and you were dreaming so loudly, and I wasn't prepared for it, so I wasn't blocking anything.
I was sucked into your dream, and before I understood what was happening and had a chance to raise my shields, the others were privy to what I saw.
We don't always notice everything each of us does or feels, but when the feelings are so strong, they have no choice but to notice, and your dream ignited a bonfire.
" He opened his eyes, and there was old shame in them.
"I pulled them out as fast as I could. I sealed it just before the good part turned bad.
But I was the reason it turned bad. I let them in. I'm sorry."
Somehow, that made it easier, not harder, because she didn't need to explain. He'd witnessed it. He knew what had happened.
She let out a breath. "So they know. They saw it."
"They saw nothing. They felt the heat, but I shut the door before the dream turned into a horror show.
" He took both her hands. "They will never see anything that you don't want them to see.
I'm much better at this now than I was then.
I can keep them out. We've been practicing, and we've all gotten better at it, so it wouldn't be just me blocking.
It would also be them retreating behind the wall.
They know how much you mean to me, and they respect that what's between us belongs to you and me alone. "
He held her gaze. "But I won't tell you they'll feel nothing.
That would be a lie. They'll know I'm happy.
They'll feel it the way you feel music through a wall.
You can be aware that someone somewhere is playing something, but you won't be able to distinguish the notes.
They won't see you, or hear you, or feel your skin, or know a single thing that happens in this room.
" He lifted their joined hands to his lips and brushed them over her knuckles.
"If anything more slips through, I will stop, and I will tell you the instant it happens.
I promised you that once, and I'm promising it again. "
Music through a wall. Echoes of feelings. Not a movie playing on a screen and showcasing every detail. She could live with that.
"Okay." She nodded. "Put your shields up and kiss me again."
"They are up already." His eyes flared, the blue turning luminous from within, and he kissed her again.
This time it didn't stay gentle, and she didn't want it to. She'd wanted this, chosen this, walked toward it with her eyes open, and the fact that she wanted him so much was its own miracle. Her body craved it instead of bracing against it.
But then his hand slid up her side and cupped her breast through her dress, and her body betrayed her.
She flinched.
She couldn't control it. It'd come from a place in her mind that had learned a long time ago that a man's hand meant a thing was about to be done to her whether she willed it or not, and it wasn't going to feel good or even tolerable. It would have to be endured.
Survived.
Yaaf stilled, then dropped his hand to her hip.
"You're in charge, Sullha," he said quietly, against her mouth.
"Nothing happens that you don't invite. If you want my hands somewhere, put them there.
If you want them gone, take them away. We have the whole night, and I could spend all of it just kissing you and count it the best night of my life. "
She believed him, and that was what broke through, the thing that dissolved the bracing. She believed that he would spend the night kissing her and be happy with that, and because she believed it, the dread loosened its grip, and what rose up underneath it was warm and getting warmer.
She rose to her feet, took his hand, and tugged him up. "We'll be more comfortable on the bed.
Where she found the courage to pull her dress over her head and toss it to the floor, she didn't know.
Perhaps it was his promise that nothing she didn't want would happen.
She wasn't wearing a bra because she didn't need one, and the way he looked at her was exactly the same as it was in the dream before it became a nightmare, as though she were something precious and improbable, a thing he could not believe he was allowed to hold.
The love in his face was so plain it hurt.
He removed his shirt, tossing it over her dress, and he laid her gently on the bed. When he came over her and braced on his arms, a part of her waited for the dark to fill with faces, for seven shapes to gather at the edges of the bed, and for the warmth to curdle, but they didn't come.
There was only him. His weight and his warmth and his glowing eyes and the low sounds he made against her throat.
Sullha felt safe.
Her body belonged to her, and for the first time in her life, she was offering herself because she wanted to and not because she was forced to surrender.
"You are so incredibly beautiful, Sullha," he whispered against her throat, and then he began to move down her body, kissing as he went, and she didn't know what he intended to do.
No one had ever done that in bed with her.
"Yaaf. What are you doing?"
"Trust me." He looked up at her and smiled. "This is going to feel wonderful." He hooked his thumbs in her panties and dragged them down her legs, kissing her belly and lower as he went.
Then he was kissing her where she'd never imagined a man would put his mouth.
She tensed, her thighs instinctively closing around his head.
"Sullha." He looked up at her from between her legs. "Let me do this for you. I promise to make it good."
No one had ever done this. In the enclosure, pleasure had run one direction only, a currency she paid but never once was given. She did not have a place in her mind to categorize what he was offering, but she looked down at his face, at the tenderness in it, and she trusted him.
She let her head fall back against the pillow and her thighs fall apart, and what happened next was better than the dream.
The pleasure climbed past anything she'd ever thought her body could feel, higher and higher still, until she stopped being afraid of how high it reached and simply let it happen.
When it crested, her hands fisted in the blanket, and she called out his name, the whole of her exploding into a million points of light.
When she became aware of herself again, she was shaking, and she was laughing, and there were tears in her eyes. "I didn't know," she said when she could speak. "I didn't know that it could be like that."
Yaaf moved back up to gather her against him, and she could feel how much he wanted her, and yet he asked for nothing in return for what he'd given.
She pressed her hand against his chest, over the heart that was beating strong and fast, and something fierce and glad rose up in her.
She knew how to give a man pleasure. It had been demanded of her, drilled into her, taken from her, but now, for the first time, she wanted to give it to Yaaf, the one she loved, and who'd just given her the first climax.
She pushed gently until he rolled onto his back, and she rose over him.