Next Time #6
Both fierce desire and a maddening ache filled his now glittering eyes, and she feared, greatly, that he’d deny her this one request. She couldn’t blame him, she supposed, but … to be this close, and not have the rest of what he promised … Was it wrong of her to reach, for this one final thing?
“Please,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
His expression faltered and his fingers trembled against her skin. “Abby, I … I want, more than I should. I dinnae want to hurt you, you’ve been through so much—”
She cupped his cheek, and found a smile, which grew as she gave life to it. “Go gently with me, and you won’t hurt me. I’m not so fragile as that. When you touch me, when you hold me, I feel only pleasure. Only you can give that rare gift to me. Will you, Calum?”
His eyes filled, but he nodded.
“So selfish of me,” she said, but didn’t keep him from lowering his mouth back to hers. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
“You won’t,” he said, “you canno’. This is … as you said, a gift. I am receiving one, too.”
He kissed her softly this time, almost reverently.
She wanted to sink her nails into his shoulders, and urge him to give himself over to his wants and needs, and take her as a man took a woman he fiercely desired.
But she knew she didn’t have the stamina for that, even to simply accept that, and so instead she accepted, gratefully, his care and concern for her, as he began making love to her with a simple, gentle sweetness that undid the rest of her defences entirely.
In the end, it was a more thorough claiming than any heated union could have ever been.
He undressed her slowly, and she arched to meet him as his mouth covered one tightly budded nipple, then the other.
She cried out as he carefully unbuttoned her pants and eased them down her hips, trailing kisses along the way, until he found her, warm, wet, and waiting for his touch, his tongue.
He didn’t disappoint, and Abby shoved aside any remaining shred of concern she had about what she was doing, and with whom, and simply gave herself completely over to him, and the wave upon wave of pleasure he was wringing, so perfectly, from her body.
The same body that had only let her down …
now felt like the perfect vessel, the one pathway she had to absolute bliss.
When he slipped out of his clothes and covered her body with his, opening herself to him was the most natural thing she’d ever done.
And, instantly, the most rewarding, as he slowly, surely, and deeply filled her.
She rose to meet him, but he kept her hips pinned to the bed, moving slowly inside of her, steadily, pushing her, taking her, until they both climbed towards a shattering climax.
She went first, but her cries, and her hips lifting to his, pulling him in deeper, yanked him over the edge, too, in a deep, groaning release that was almost as fulfilling an experience as her own.
Afterwards, he slid his weight off of her, but rolled her to him and kept her close. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice deeper, rougher, as he brushed her hair from her cheeks.
“I can honestly say that I’ve never, not for any moment in my life, been better.”
He smiled then, and tucked her to his side, so her cheek was once again pressed against his chest. “Good,” he said, stroking her back as their breathing steadied and his heart beat slowed beneath her cheek. “Aye, that is very, very good, indeed.”
She smiled against his chest. “Indeed.”
Seven
They must have fallen asleep, because when Calum woke, the sun had almost fully set.
He acknowledged the weight of her, the warmth of her, pressed to his side, as instantly and naturally as if he always woke to find her there.
His smile grew to a grin, and he wanted to pump his fist and roar to the skies, so primal did she make him feel.
But that feeling was swiftly replaced by the remainder of the reality that was theirs, too.
The reality that she would be taken from him.
Even if he chose to stay, he would lose her.
Forever. He watched her sleep, happy to see that her face was composed and relaxed.
He hoped she was sleeping soundly, free of any discomfort.
He didn’t know exactly what plagued her, but there were shadows under her eyes, and a wan paleness to her skin that indicated her less than optimum health.
He knew she suffered from pain, and would have done anything to take it from her.
So sweet, so gentle, but fierce in her own way.
The way she’d held his gaze as he’d taken her, proudly and boldly meeting him stroke for gentle stroke.
Giving herself over to the pleasure he took even greater delight in bringing her, then matching him as they both went over the edge.
He liked how she’d spoken her mind to him, challenging him, even though they’d just begun to know each other.
What if, he thought, what if he used the slivers and wormholes to keep coming back to her, in a time when she was still here.
Still alive. In her tower room. Would he have to reintroduce himself every time?
Or could he perfect it so that it was just after they’d met, so she’d welcome him each time.
And they’d share a few blissful days. Over, and over.
Would she remember that they had? Would he be able to withstand the knowledge of knowing they had if she didn’t?
Couldn’t? What if she didn’t accept him as she had this time, every time?
He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut. This is why it was wrong of him to be dabbling like this, so dangerously, with things not of his time. People not of his time. With her.
And then she came quietly and beautifully awake, and he thought, as her grey eyes flickered open, that if he could wake up every morning to that instant soft smile, the moment she looked at him, that there was nothing he couldn’t conquer.
She reached up, stroked his face, his lips. “Calum,” she said, and his heart raced, just hearing his name on her lips.
There was no way he could leave her. How could he never know this bliss ever again, not know more of her, always?
“Abby, I’ve been thinking—”
“So have I,” she said.
He smiled. “You were asleep.”
“Not the whole time, I wasn’t. You’re quite handsome, you know, even when you’re sleeping.”
He thought he might have felt a bit of heat in his face. “I’m glad you think so. I was just thinking that I would never tire of seeing you smile at me like that right after you wake up.”
She held his gaze, but her smile grew almost tremulous.
“What’s wrong, Abby? Are you feeling okay? Can I do anything?”
“I – maybe you can.”
“Name it.”
She paused, then took a steadying breath, and said, “What if you didn’t have to? Never tire of this, I mean.”
“I would give anything to find out.”
“Would you?” She reached up, touched his face. “Would you take me back with you? Can you do that?”
“Abby, I told you—”
“Calum,” she said, cutting him off, then pausing, before blurting out, “If could you take me back and … in your time, maybe they could—”
“—heal you,” he finished, a look of awe on his face.
“I know you’re not supposed to alter the past, but … in this case … and if you bring me right back … or even if I just stay there … then it wouldn’t change anything here in my time. I’m going to be gone forever, soon enough. I could stay in the future. With you … or—”
He took her face in his hands, thunderstruck by the very idea. Why he hadn’t thought of it, he didn’t know … other than it was against all protocol and he simply hadn’t imagined— “I – I don’t know.”
“Don’t know if you could, or if you would?”
“I – I’ve never travelled in tandem.”
“Has anyone?”
He nodded. “Ailfrid, the man who taught me. I don’t know if I would be successful. And if I travelled back alone to learn, to perfect it, I don’t know if I could time it precisely enough to come back here before …” He trailed off.
She nodded. “It’s okay. I understand. It was horribly selfish of me to—”
“No, no, that’s not it. You’ve made me think a lot more about the moratorium we’ve set on utilizing time travel. It’s no’ something that we’d be able to change, not widespread, in any rapid time, nor should we.”
“But?”
“But … when I travel … only Ailfrid knows of it. It’s … not exactly sanctioned.”
She smiled, then. “Ah. A renegade.”
“Only in this. And, perhaps, in some of my ideas for instigating change and progress. Abby, it’s quite possible we could heal you.
There are few ailments we haven’t learned to conquer.
Life expectancy is far longer than it is in your time.
Centurians are so commonplace, it’s an expected age to reach.
But, as I said before … our time – my time – is otherwise not a good one.
You could be healed, but you’d be living in a time of great strife and danger. No’ much, if any, prosperity.”
“Living longer would be prosperity enough. You wouldn’t be responsible for me, Calum. I wouldn’t expect—”
“I’d no’ walk away from ye, Abby,” he said, the almost instantaneous fierce response to thinking of her alone, without him, bringing out the stronger brogue of this day and time, than that of his own.
“Then … why don’t you instil the changes you’re thinking about.
Utilize this gift you have, this skill you’ve learned.
Move through time, figure out how to right things in the past, so you won’t have to go through what you’re all suffering in the future.
You won’t need permission, because it won’t be happening. ”
He smiled then. “Save the world. As if it’s so simple as all that.”
“Individuals have made huge impacts in the dynamics of our world. You’ll have something of an advantage. And even if you fail, Calum, you couldn’t leave your people in worse shape. Yet you could be their great hope. I would be willing – wanting – to go with you. To help you. Would I stay healed?”