7. Souling-Day Comes Once A Year—That’s The Reason We Come Here
SOULING-DAY COMES ONCE A YEAR—THAT’S THE REASON WE COME HERE
Bea gripped her husband’s bare shoulders as they landed somewhere entirely new. She looked around at a breezy room with sheer curtains billowing before an intricately carved wooden window frame that opened to the purple evening sky.
“Jack—Sahar,” she corrected. “Where have you taken us?”
“Mm? Oh, my home,” he said, clearly more interested in her than the question as he pulled her in closer. “I believe you owe me a kiss, madam.”
“Your home?” She pressed her hands to his chest to keep him back so she could look around. “You forever gave me the impression that you just lived in that old tree! Have you had a home all this time? Is it in the East Indies?”
“It is parallel with it, in a sense, but we have plenty of time—”
“Is that the seaside?!”
Bea broke away from his embrace to run toward the window where she could smell salt on the breeze and there, glittering in spectacular colors that mirrored the setting sun, was an ocean that shushed and lapped against a pebbled shore below.
“One of them, yes. Now come here, girl—are you crying?” Sahar froze, a knife of fear poking into his ribs. “Oh no no, please don’t do that. I can take you back…”
“No, don’t you dare.” Bea hiccuped, staring out at the water and reaching behind her blindly for the man who had shown it to her. “It’s breathtaking. Thank you.”
Sahar was instantly humbled. He pressed her hand wrapped in its little pink glove to his lips. “You don’t owe me any thanks,” he said. “This is your home, if you’ll have it.”
She turned toward him, wiping her eyes. This was her home, but more than that, he was her home. Winding her arms around his neck, she pulled him down to her height, and standing on the tips of her toes, met his lips at last.
Sahar groaned, clutching her around the waist. Slow down, he told himself, Do not be an animal. But there was a beast inside him that had been asleep too long, and her sweet scent and soft sighs against his lips made it impossible to keep such a beast on the chain.
She pulled back enough to speak, her lips brushing against his with each word.
“That thing you did.” She paused. “On Hallowe’en.”
“Mmm?” The sound was half acknowledgement, half warning.
“Could you… do it again?”
He took the honeypot from Bea’s hand and set it on a table by the window before snatching her up in his arms. He carried her to the large bed against one wall that was laid with half a dozen plush pillows and silky bedclothes.
“Forgive me, wife. I have not the patience for an hour’s worth of unlacing this contraption,” he said as he laid her on the bed and clapped his hands. With a rustle of fabric, her clothes were gone. She was bare on his bed, pink and practically glowing with her blush.
For a moment, all he could do was stare. It felt, just then, as if he’d never seen a naked woman before in his life. All his centuries of experience and confidence were blown away, leaving him frozen with desire and awe.
“Surely I can’t be that poor-looking,” Bea said with a nervous laugh, tugging the edge of a soft blanket over herself.
Sahar knelt over her and gently pulled the blanket away.
“You are breathtaking,” he said, trailing his fingers down her neck and over the curve of a breast, watching her shift and wriggle under his touch. “And I adore you.”
Bea opened her mouth, no doubt ready with some biting remark, but all speech stopped in her throat as he pinched the rosy tip of her breast. He leaned down with his eyes still locked on hers before flicking out his tongue, tasting what his fingers had captured.
She practically jumped beneath him, a soft cry escaping her before she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“You needn’t be quiet here, my love. This is our home,” he said, sucking her nipple between his lips and grazing his teeth against her gently. “I implore you to be as loud as you please.”
His hand slid up to squeeze her other breast, tugging and pinching while watching her face all the while to map out each reaction. They had time, even if his body was shouting at him to rush.
He could feel the heat between her legs pressing against his stomach where he lay against her, like a small sun burning so close to where he needed her. His tongue ached for more, to create more of those soft sounds she was trying her best to keep hushed.
“Stay right there,” he said, kissing his way down her soft stomach.
“Mercy, Sahar, where else would I even think to g—”
She gasped, cutting herself off as Sahar parted her thighs and kissed his way between them with groans of a starving man being offered a cake.
His tongue trailed along her opening, politely at first, but just as she had caught her breath it dipped between her petals and wove figures against her hot skin, focusing on the delicious little pearl that made her cry out each time he flicked his tongue against it.
“What—what in the—” Bea choked out, reaching down to grasp a handful of Sahar’s thick hair.
“Shh, trust me,” he said, lips right there, brushing against sensitive places no one had ever seen.
She did trust him, though it made no sense to do so. She had only just learned his true name, only recently seen his true face, and yet no one in her life had been closer to her.
Bea tilted back her head as her breath stalled in her throat, her whole body clenching. His sizzling hot tongue melted its way through her every dip and curve.
“By the stars, Beatrix, you taste like a delicacy,” he mumbled between her thighs, slipping his fingers beneath his tongue to slide into her heat.
Bea cried out into the palm of her hand, torn between wanting to scold him for such scandalous talk and begging him to say more at once.
As his fingers slipped their way inside her, she struggled to breathe, to think—could he really make her do that again?
That explosion that had happened on Hallowe’en night?
As he drew his fingers in and out, pressing upward each time he dragged them out of her, Bea’s wonder turned to shock as that feeling crept back up her spine, locking her hips and forcing a shout from her that even her hand couldn’t quiet.
“Ohh that’s it, my wife,” Sahar growled between her thighs, plunging his tongue within her to taste what he had earned. “My beautiful wife.”
Dizzy and half melted, Bea felt that word land upon her tingling skin like a warm blanket. Wife. She was the wife of not just a man, but her dearest friend.
“My handsome husband,” she said through panting breaths.
Sahar propped his head on one hand, grinning up at her, dark eyebrows raised.
“Handsome? Am I? You never said so before.”
“I never saw you before,” she said, reaching down to stroke his hair. “I always pictured you looking like some great, hairy, wolfish beast.”
“I am sorry to be letting you down in that way.” He peppered her body with kisses while making his way back up to her lips. “I may still be a beast.”
Bea kept her eyes locked onto his as he reached down to undo his belt. She had no idea what to expect when she saw him unclothed. Though she was fairly sure he wouldn’t look the same as the family’s stallion the day she’d glimpsed his male attributes and ran screaming to her mother.
Then again… She looked down and her heart skittered to a halt. Actually, there was quite a resemblance.
“What. Good heav—you can’t possibly.” Bea had, at one time, thought herself rather good with words. The sight of this gigantic purple appendage standing between them like another person had entered the room seemed to have knocked the English language right out of her mind.
Sahar laughed, but there was a flutter of nerves edging it.
“Well, I’ve never had complaints in the past, but then… You are a strange and persnickety young woman.”
“Now see here—”
“Don’t let us get all tense again after all my hard work,” he said, leaning down to kiss her, letting his hands wander along her sides and over her breasts as he hovered above her.
“I can take on any shape you like. Would you prefer that wolfish beast you thought I was? Shall I soothe you with soft fur?”
With those words, Bea felt the featherlight brush of fur against her skin, softer than any rabbit, and she couldn’t help a peal of giddy laughter.
“Distracting, yes. Also ticklish.” She squirmed under this new sensation. She looked again and the fur was gone, but she suddenly realized he was floating slightly above her. “How long have you been doing that?”
“Oh.” He looked down and slowly lowered himself to lay beside her. “I was afraid to crush you. But.” Perhaps this was the trick he needed to calm his bride’s fluttery nerves. A taste of adventure. “Would you like to give it a go?”
The expression of her wide, excited eyes told Sahar all he needed to know. He raised his closed hand and flicked his fingers open, buffeting her gently off the bedclothes on a cushion of tingly warm air.
Bea gasped and another giggle bubbled up, melting away her anxiety. The giggles tapered off when she felt her body floating closer to where Sahar lay, guiding her with his hands and drawing her down to meet his lips.
“Don’t be afraid, Little Bea. I’m with you,” he whispered against their kiss.
“I have never been afraid of you,” she answered, reaching down to stroke the sides of his face, his throat, then his toned purple chest. “No matter how you have tried.”
Sahar found himself far more shaky than she seemed to be.
Her touch was something he hadn’t dared want since she had returned to him.
Her body, now before him so beautiful and curvaceous, was something he had forced himself not to notice since she’d grown.
Every touch from hundreds of years past—every body, every voice, every flirtation—had become dust in his memory.
With the palms of his hands pushing her to float upright above him, he kept his eyes on hers as he reached between her thighs to gather her slick honey on his fingertips.
“Sahar,” she gasped, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Ohh, it’s pretty when you say it, do it again,” he said, pushing her thighs apart to position her over his cock.
Bea was far too occupied with the torrent of feelings rising to smack her in the face, the thrill and the embarrassment and the love and the newness of it all.
Just when she thought she might be able to go as far as taking a breath, she felt his cock that she’d only caught a glimpse of nudging between her folds.
“Breathe, Beatrix, I’ve got you.” He kept his eyes on her flushed face even though he ached to watch himself disappear inside her.
“D-don’t drop me,” she choked out from between her hands.
Sahar clucked his tongue and ran his palms along her thighs slowly.
“Never, my beloved,” he said, keeping her hovering there above him, biting back the torture of being barely inside. “I’m holding you. I will not let you go.”
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
With a slow glide of his hands, he brought her down and himself upward, inch by inch, until their hips met and foreheads touched. They took a moment to breathe in each other’s orbit, two astronomical objects now floating feet above the bed.
Tears gathered at the corners of Bea’s eyes as their bodies locked together. She’d never felt so much like she belonged, like she fit exactly where she was.
“Are you all right?” Sahar nudged the side of her face with his long nose.
“Perfect,” she answered, little breaths hitching around the word.
Sahar smiled, pressing a kiss to her neck while holding her hips.
“Then hang onto me,” he said.
Bea was about to ask why—after all, what more was there to do—when he pulled back and plunged into her again, sending off sparks between her hips that she could see from behind closed eyes.
Instantly, she was ravenous for another.
Another came, rocking her body in a rhythm that grew smooth even while picking up in tempo.
Bea gripped huge purple shoulders in mid air, gasping for breath with each ribcage-shaking thrust.
Above Sahar, Bea looked like something out of a painting too scandalous to display and so beautiful that half the world would try to steal it.
At last, he could see her generous figure with nothing to hide her—delectable thick thighs and soft stomach, luscious breasts bouncing with each upward thrust of his hips.
He felt half starved, mouth watering even as he buried himself as deep within her as it was possible to go.
Could a hundred years with her possibly satiate his hunger? A thousand? He hoped he never found out.
“Oh—oh my, that’s—” Bea dug her fingernails into his shoulder. He could feel that it would leave marks.
“Shall I stop?” he asked, though the mere question felt like agony.
“Don’t you dare!”
He laughed through labored breaths. It took more concentration to not come inside his beautiful wife than it took to keep them suspended in the air, but he felt he could spare a bit more magic if he focused right where his touch would help her the most.
“Sahar!” She cried out when she felt it, a tingling warm pressure against her clit that made her jump and shiver like she had a fever.
“Give me another one, my darling, won’t you?” he begged, rocking them harder with each thrust until his vision blurred.
Oh she couldn’t possibly. What a notion, how could he—Bea had no warning this time, only a gigantic hand clenching around her from between her hips when suddenly she was screaming at the ceiling tiles.
Praise for his beautiful wife was almost out of his mouth when he felt her body clenching around him so hard it stole away his breath. He buried his face between her breasts as he roared, draining himself nearly to the point of pain.
Only after they were both spent did they fall back onto the bed with a delicate thump and a spray of exhausted laughter.
“Gorgeous wife,” he sighed, stroking her always messy hair away from her face as she looked up at him. “Ask me for anything. Make any wish of me.”
He’d never had anything so precious as her, never granted anyone else anything so precious either. How he wanted to spoil her, to give her palaces and fine clothes and orgasms that lasted days on end and tables that spilled over with cakes.
Bea reached up to trail her fingers across his jaw, down the line of his neck to his collarbone. He was real, her mysterious friend who had kept her company for so many lonely years—not only real, but hers. And she was his. What had she ever wished for but this?
“I wish for you to love me always,” she said.
Sahar smiled, leaning forward for a kiss. He did not need his magic for this one.
“Granted.”
“And a puppy.”
“… Fine.”
END