Sacred Revelations (8 page)

I scoot farther away from him when he climbs into the very wide bed, wider than a king, actually longer than a normal bed as well. It dawns on me that there is room in this bed for a lot of people.

“I didn’t mean scoot off the bed entirely,” he says, lying flat on his back, arms to his sides, eyes closed.

“I know that you told George that you’re afraid of me, afraid tonight that I was going to have sex with you.”

“Oh God,” I moan, thoroughly and completely embarrassed, hiding my face behind my hands. “So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Don’t fear me,” he mumbles softly and I realize that he is already asleep. It is most anti-climactic after

being so terribly embarrassed. Well, embarrassed, but in a way that this is something I need him to force me into talking about embarrassed. How am I ever going to get this dialogue started again?

I close my eyes but reopen them, realizing the lights are on still. I wonder if he left them on because I had such a problem with the dark before. Closing my eyes becomes easier, knowing that it will be light when I open them.

I move closer to him, allowing my face to rest on his shoulder, happy for the touch of skin on skin in a purely human, non-sexual way after so long being caged. His heartbeat becomes a comforting rhythm in my ear. He smells of exotic incense-fragranced shower gel, cinnamon, and leather. It is a heady, comforting combination that I know I could get used to and that scares me. I try to remember the cool citrusy scent of Garrett, but the warm fragrance of Lord Fyre overwhelms my memory.

Lethargic muscles refuse to move, even my eyelids seem too heavy to lift. I am annoyed that I am awake, so tired, I want only to sleep. The thought goes through my mind that perhaps Lord Fyre has awakened me, ready for more sadistic games. My body isn’t ready, I am not ready. I crack open my eye, finding the room pitch black, confused because the lights were on when I fell asleep. Fear assails me for no other reason than it is dark, and not it’s going to be okay, my eyes will adjust to the light dark, but pitch-black dark. A searing flash of light fills the room, followed by a crash.

“Aaaah!” I scream, scooting into the farthest corner of the bed, away from the window, knowing suddenly that it was the storm that woke me. Another flash, crashing thunder, screaming.

I pounded the floor of the bell tower, screaming. Rain slammed into me through the bell tower’s graceful arches, lightning so close that the hair on my arms stood up with each strike, thunder so loud, so close, it was like gunfire, ripping through my eardrums. I covered my ears with my hands, curling into a ball, crying, over and over again, “Mommy, mommy, mommy.”

My mother wasn’t coming. That was the reason I’d gone to the bell tower, my hiding place, my secret place, the one place she always knew to find me when she’d looked everywhere else. I wanted her to find me; I wanted her to take me with her.

Lightning hit the large iron rod on top of the steeple the same moment my father pushed open the trap door, but he didn’t pull me into his arms as mother would have done, he grabbed me by the hair on top of my head, and dragged me down the spiral staircase, screaming at me to stop screaming. Screaming, “You stupid girl! You could have been killed up there! Do you want to be stuck under the dirt like your mother?”

Hands grab me and pull me into solid warmth and still I scream. “It’s okay, sweetheart, the power went out, but you’re okay, I’m here with you.”

The storm seems to go on for eternity, lightning, thunder, rain pounding into the glass of the French doors leading to the balcony. Lord Fyre holds me in his arms, stroking my arms and talking to me softly, calling me Sophia with each gentling sentence. “It’s going to be okay, Sophia, relax. You’re safe here, Sophia.”

He whispers a mantra of my name, “Sophia, Sophia, Sophia,” and I don’t cringe. I don’t feel sick with the pain of losing my mother and, finally, I can relax against him, finding peace in my name, and it seems my mother has finally found a way to comfort me during the worst of the storm.

I awake, realizing I fell asleep during a storm, and it wasn’t a small storm. Unbelievable.

Storms terrify me. Normally, I sit vigil, waiting for the end of the storm, fear keeping me immobile. It has been that way since I was a child, though I don’t know why. I only know that I hate storms. I wait for the end to come, not the end of my fear, but the end of time. With each roll of thunder, I wait for the trumpet blast that will signal the return of the King—the return of Jesus. Silly? Yes.

The storm has ended. No Jesus.

I am going to hell—for many reasons—but for today, I am going to hell because I am glad Jesus didn’t come. I would have felt sorely cheated if he had returned before my three months with this man had ended. Oh yeah, so going to hell.

I look at the man lying next to me, looking so incredibly sinful. He sleeps and even in sleep he looks unholy. Totally and inexplicably forbidden. Sleeping, he is too much temptation and I reach my hand out to touch him, the hard plane of his chest, the skin stretched painfully taut over his pectoral muscles, his nipples hard points in the midst of all that stretched skin. Pushing down the cotton sheet that drapes over his body, I look, taking in the angular lines and solid muscle that forms the man.

Where has my shyness gone?

Where is the woman who hid under the covers from Garrett?

I am not that same woman. I do not know where she went, but I am no longer she, and honestly, I am glad that she is gone.

She would have been too afraid to join Lord Fyre for three months. She would have been too afraid of the feelings awakening in the very tissues and fibers of her being, feelings that make me want to reach out and stroke the imperfections of his body. I’ve never seen him naked. Last night that changed and I was too tired, too sore to pay much attention. I am still tired, languidly so, still not wanting to move, but it takes little effort to stroke the length of the scar on his left forearm, long and deep, slightly ragged, even though it appears to be an old scar. I wonder only for a second how he got it, then he moves, startling me, but he only rolls onto his side, in sleep. I sigh, taking note that his back is scarred just as much as his front. My gaze moves to the next imperfection, a row of round circles, angling across his back, not decorative, not on purpose, though their effect accentuates his power. It is a wonder he survived whatever caused the marks, and because I know instinctively that he is lucky to be alive, I trace each dented, perfect circle reverently.

My touch must tickle because he rolls back over, hiding the scars that make me curious. I smile.

Looking at his body, it is so hard not to. Even scarred, or maybe because of his scars, he is perfection and it makes me giddy. Perfection in my bed.

My touch could wake him, but there is no fear of him waking even though I lie in his bed naked. He too is as naked as the day he was born. Even though, yesterday, I admitted to Dr. Psycho that I fear sex with him, I explained it wrong, or the explanation was twisted by the time it reached Lord Fyre, because it wasn’t that I feared the sex. I feared my inexperience. I feared not being able to please him. I feared the ultimate outcome—losing Garrett forever if I allowed my baser needs to win and I gave myself to Lord Fyre fully.

I do not know how long we’ve slept; I know only that it is daylight again, and in my mind, time for him to

awake. Awake before I lose my nerve and am no longer brave. Awake before I start thinking too hard about consequences, guilt, and judgment.

I smooth my hand over the flatness of his stomach, dropping lower, finding him hard. Wondering what thought God had when he made all healthy, able men awaken with a hard-on. Awaken. Hard. Oh, shit.

“How long have you been awake?” I ask, letting my fingers close around his length. His hand closes around my wrist, holding my hand still, though I don’t release his length, feeling him grow stiffer in my hand.

“Long enough to see where you wanted your exploration to lead.”

I bite my lip, not looking at him, taking in the very fine vision of his hard cock. He is not a deep rose color as the other two men I’ve had sex with have been. Lord Fyre’s penis is a darker tan, with distinctive purple undertones.

“Is it okay that I touch you?” I ask.

“A little late to be asking,” he replies. “Do you have any idea what you’ve started?”

I giggle a little selfconsciously. “I hope so.”

“Have you thought this through?” he asks, sounding to my ears very dark and foreboding, making my breath catch and hold. I look up into his eyes and he traps me there, holding my gaze with his, becoming my conscience. “Have you considered Garrett? Did the two of you discuss where three months with me could lead?”

“I assumed…”

“I assure you, he wouldn’t assume.”

“So, we shouldn’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m confused.”

“Exactly. The forty-eight hours after an extreme scene, especially the kind of extreme scene I put you through, can be emotionally unbalancing. I don’t want you to do this if you are going to regret taking our relationship to a more intimate level, and I’ll be very clear here, if you want me to fuck you, you will ask me to fuck you. What you experienced with Garrett wasn’t fucking, was it?”

I swallow hard, thinking too hard.

“Did Garrett fuck you, or make love to you?”

I start to tremble and release my hold on his swollen cock, but his hand still holds my wrist, so my hand is left hovering over his erection, I am left nervous, disconcerted.

“I don’t know,” I lie.

“Touch me again,” he commands, relaxing his grip on my wrist enough that my hand drops, touching by accident before closing around his length on purpose.

“Good girl,” he praises. “While you decide what you want, fucking, or not fucking, give me what I want.”

My lips part to speak, to deny knowing what he wants, but my hand moves, holding him, stroking him, and to deny that I understood would only sound childish.

I hold his gaze, slowly moving my hand up and down his length, my fingers gripped around him so that his flesh moves separate from his hard shaft. His cock is baby smooth in my hand, rock hard but smooth, and I’m afraid I’ll hurt him. I keep the movement slow, my hand tight. It seems such an intimate thing, touching him while I look into his eyes. By watching his changing expressions, I can tell if I’m doing it right. I want to do it right. I want to please him.

“Harder,” he commands.

I squeeze harder, nice slow strokes up and down his shaft. His eyelids droop a little, though he still watches me and I still watch him.

“Faster,” he whispers.

I move my hand faster, twisting as I pump, causing him to moan, the sound of his pleasure rippling through me, making me feel pride. I pump him harder and faster, wanting him to feel it, feel me, wanting him to ache with need for me. Wanting him to need the pleasure that I’m giving him as much as I needed the pain he gave to me.

Harder…faster…up…down…twist…twist.

“God, Sophia,” he sighs and the name he calls me cuts through me, brings me pain, not like the comfort he brought me last night, but acute pain, making me miss her, making me think of her knowing I’m here, knowing I’m doing this. I don’t want to know what she would think of me now and I’m embarrassed, thinking the worst. I squeeze tighter, wanting suddenly to hurt him back, needing him to scream my name in pain the way I’ve screamed his and I succeed, my name a roar from his mouth. But it’s not pain I’m bringing him and I watch, satisfied as his come shoots free. When our eyes meet, a jolt of awareness quickens my heart. Need. His? Mine? I reach out to stroke his face, but he pushes my hand away, shutting all emotion visible in his gorgeous brown eyes away as if what I saw hidden in their depths hadn’t been there at all. But it was. I saw it. I felt it.

“Taste me,” he says, pushing my face down. “Taste what you’ve done to me.”

I close my eyes, feeling unsettled, really unsettled, and snuggle my face deeper into the pillow, hiding, crying, but not sobbing, slow hot tears rolling down my cheeks. Tears of confusion. I’ve never done that before, not for someone else—though once, Lion shoved his dick into my mouth, but it was after everything else, after he’d raped me, sodomized me, had already come himself, and his dick was shriveling as he shoved, a last-ditch attempt to humiliate me more.

When Lord Fyre said, “Taste me,” I wanted to. I enjoyed taking him into my mouth after I’d stroked him to orgasm. He was still coming when I lowered my mouth over his still-erupting shaft, his warm, salty

jism coating my tongue. I didn’t swallow, at least not at first, so it flowed into and out of my mouth, covering his cock. I enjoyed doing that to him, feeling powerful when his come crested and flowed over the tip of his penis, thinking, “I did that! I brought him!”

I was proud, giddy.

Now I just feel dirty, used, and I don’t know what the difference is.

He came in my hand, in my mouth. So much cream that I couldn’t possibly swallow it all, and so it flowed out of my mouth and onto my chin in a large splatter.

I made him feel good. Why do I feel so shitty? I’m ashamed of what I did.

He left me in bed alone while he went in to shower. I look at the mess we’ve made, his come a wet puddle of darkness on his turquoise-colored sheets, other splatters and streaks tell a sordid story. I roll them into a ball, hiding the evidence of what we’ve done, a tear hitting the sheets to form one more dark spot among so many.

I will not cry over this. Not when I wanted to touch him.

I pull the sheets completely from the bed, leaving them wadded on the floor, not knowing where to put them. I want the bed changed, all evidence of what happened gone, but as I rummage through drawers and closets, I find nothing more than clothing, his, no women’s clothing, and of his, it is a sparse closet, some summer shirts, slacks, a few pairs of dress shoes. I wonder where he hides his endless supply of leather, thinking that perhaps he has an underground lair, like Batman, the place where he keeps his kink clothing.

“Find what you’re looking for?” he asks as I come out from the walk-in closet, scaring the shit out of me, so that I jump and “eek”, hiding my nakedness behind a shield of arms. He stands in the doorway of the bathroom, steam rolling from the warmer bathroom into the cooler bedroom. The heavy scent of cloying incense flows into the room not burnt but damp, warm, the fragrance of his shower gel perhaps. I don’t recognize the scent.