Scarlett's Letter (Touched by a God #1) (2 page)

Dreams Diverted (2)

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Present day (October), Las Vegas, Nevada: Scarlett

Scarlett jolted awake.  It’d happened again.  She knew it.  Her body felt well-used and taken care of all at the same time.  The “abuse” from what she felt in her dreams was always more than what she ever felt with any other dream.   Anytime that she had this set of dreams, they always seemed even more realistic than her actual life.  These dreams left her with marks. Some were definite signs of the passion that was shared between her and the mystery man in her dreams.  What transpired in a night of fruitful dreams would last her for only a few days.  After those initial two to three days, her body seemed to plead for him.  Aides was a man that had the parts of her body fine tuned to the melody only he played.  He would have her so wired that just a word from him and instantly every aspect of her being was on alert. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if the man himself didn’t look like a walking depiction of a Greek god.  He had beautiful, natural, flowing locks of hair that looked as if he just lopped it off with a side scabbard versus going to a barber shop and getting it professionally cut.  His rusty brown locks tended to look somewhat haphazardly sculpted to his head on some days.  On others, it looked as if he’d run his fingers through those other worldly strands just before she appeared before him and all for her benefit.  His light brown eyes looked like they glowed, like the embers of a fire.  There were moments when it was time for her to leave his side and wake up from her dream that she could’ve sworn that his eyes flashed like they were reflecting actual embers of fire. 

Scarlett leaned back after adjusting her pillows.  She pulled her sketchbook from her nightstand and began to sketch the eyes again.  It was a guilty pleasure of hers.  She only allowed herself moments directly after the dream to entertain the notion of this man possibly being real.  You could run a porcupine over his muscled abs and when done, the porcupine would be perfectly coifed.  She could watch the muscles in his arms for days because of the strength they exuded.

Whenever she arrived, there was a calm that appeared to settle in the man’s eyes.  He looked as if he could finally breathe freely.  It was as if her very existence was one of the most important aspects of his world.  She’d been having this dream for seven years and she knew so much about the area, the home and the people that he surrounded himself with but she still felt like there was a big secret, something everyone else was enlightened of but sworn to keep from her.  She felt it was something important.  Aides looked as if he was going to share it with her, whatever it was, so many times, but the words never left his lips.  She thought to question him about it on many occasions but one heated look, one shared glance would immediately detour her thoughts.  Her excitement about being near him once again made her feel as if she were bouncing in place.  Her body was taut with the anticipation of his first move.  She always stood awaiting his gesture.  It was a dance they performed for one another.  It was their own form of Tango. The music they made, the dance they performed was one that had her slightly trembling with nervous energy.  His mind was one that she wanted to worship along with every other aspect of him.  The things that he came up with, the way that he thought to pleasure her could make a grown man cry.

Scarlett would appear and he’d take a measured breath.  He’d smile, but only a slight smile, a gentle quirk of the lips.  Her name, the one that he’d given her (Rouge), would be on his lips.  It would be a whisper of reverence.  She’d respond shyly with his name and he’d open his arms slightly while striding forward.  Before long, she would be lifted off her feet by her waist. It was that feeling that she craved first, the feeling of satisfaction.  It was the feeling of knowing that your partner had you and was supporting you completely.  Her left foot would automatically extend through to her toes in a perfect point.  Her right foot, pointed as well, would rest at the back of her left knee.  She didn’t know what to do with her hands the first time that they’d done this.  They automatically found purchase on his massive shoulders.  He lifted her as if she were as light as a feather.  She was roughly 150 pounds of solid muscle. As such, a great deal of her dance partners struggled to lift her.  This was even after she assisted with her added upward momentum, lifting her weight with her.  It was never enough.

This man placed her directly above the seven feet of his frame.  He looked up at her and watched her, assessing her mood and response.  It was something that he always did.  He always looked at her with eyes that screamed his need without him ever having to speak the words.  He would lift her at an angle then bring her down to him and kiss her gently on the lips.  It was the same motion that a father did with his child, but she never deemed it a demeaning gesture.  It was a display of his affection for her.  He repeated this motion again.  By the third time, he would’ve had enough.  The kiss would turn to a passionate embrace in a matter of moments.  She would wrap her legs around his waist.  He would then settle her core onto his ever ready pistol.  Hmm, no, that was a long handle shot gun.

They always spent the first few hours reacquainting themselves with one another’s bodies.  It didn’t matter how long it had been. It always felt as if they’d not been apart from one another a day, let alone a year.  They were there with each other and that was all that was important. After they were gratified, for the moment, they washed and would make their way to an area he’d had prepared for her.  Either they would watch recordings of dancers, watch dance movies or he would request that she dance for him.  She never minded.  It was a pleasure for her to be able to share something so sacred to her with a man she was growing so very fond of, even if she didn’t really know much about him.  Her body reveled in the pleasure of doing something that brought great happiness into her life.  The music and her movements were one.  How could one not get caught up in such a reward as the ability to perform?

Scarlett’s audience of one was her best audience ever.  He never took his eyes off of her.  Whenever she performed what he deemed a “complicated compilation of movements,” he would clap louder than any fully packed theatre ever could.  If she performed a piece that she’d been practicing in her own personal makeshift studio, a piece that she held closest to her heart then his eyes misted as hers always did when everything was in harmony.  It was as if he felt the depth of feeling she felt when she performed the pieces. 

Scarlett had been classically trained as a ballet dancer since she was five.  Her training was her first and foremost priority, but she enjoyed letting her hair down and just enjoying where the music took her.  So, she’d taken contemporary, jazz, modern and African (yes, African) dance courses during high school.  It allowed her a better appreciation of her training, but also gave her the ability to be creative with the pieces that she choreographed.  She performed regularly with the Mosaic Theatre Troupe and taught classes on the weekends to elementary, junior high and high school students. In her wildest dreams, she never would’ve believed that she would get any form of enjoyment from having just one person watch her dance.  Aides changed that for her.

She always played the part of a shy, modest dancer when he made the request of her.   He saw through her sad act and resistance.  Her hesitancy only lasted long enough for him to walk to the built in wall unit that housed the home theatre and surround sound system.   By the time that he was standing before the five disc player that made up the five points of a pentagon, one that glowed with a red lit background, Scarlett would be standing in position and ready to begin.  Some days it was a free style moment.  Other days, she would swear that he would pluck the very piece of music that she’d been working to directly from her mind.  There was no way that they were that simpatico.  There was no other way to explain how he picked the piece of music that would sometimes haunt her dreams if she hadn’t completed the choreography on it.   None of it could be real.  No one could be that in tune with another individual.

The dreams that she had during this time of year sometimes interfered with her everyday life, nothing good could ever come of that.  She often spent more time dwelling on things that transpired between the two of them and not enough time focusing on whatever task was at hand.  More often than not, Scarlett found that she had to remind herself they were just dreams.  No matter how realistic they appeared, Aides was a figment of her imagination.  No man was that in tuned with her.  No man was that infatuated with her.  No man could ever be that enthralled with her. Scarlett had always been bothered by the fact that the she and Aides had such a strong connection.  She really didn’t want to believe it was real. 

Scarlett reminded herself, on more than one occasion that, they were nothing more than her base desires manifested in "motion picture" form via her dreams.  She told herself she was sore the next morning because she’d tossed and turned the night before.  She convinced herself she was marked because she probably banged into something in the middle of the night.  The feelings that were tied to the “Dream god” were not authentic and could never be.  The man was not a real, living being.  He was someone that her psyche, or subconscious, had conjured up to make her deal with the fact that she was alone.  She hadn’t been in a relationship in a few years.  It wasn’t for lack of trying.  She’d been on blind dates and coffee dates with some of her friend’s rejects, which was never the best practice.  What ended up happening every time was she would compare them to Aides.  If they didn’t come up to the standard that he was, then she didn’t want a second date or anything else. 

Her body was usually thrumming with sexual frustration by the middle of the summer.  During the time of harvest, her body seemed to ready itself.  It would prepare itself for her mental time with him.  The readiness came recurrently as if their interactions really happened.  In her dreams, he would curiously speak to the tightness that he often had to deal with when he took her.  She knew that he relished the fact that she was so limited in her experience.  They both understood that it meant that no one else had touched her body since the last time he had.   No matter how much she may have needed relief from the all too intense pressure from spending almost a year away from his bed, she never strayed.

After that first night with him, she had tried to have a “booty call buddy.”  It didn’t get very far.  She was having a hot and heavy make out session once and the guy’s breath was suddenly so atrocious that she thought she was going to be sick.  He was immediately thrown out.  Scarlett had tried again, but the guy looked like every depiction of big foot from the neck down.  He was so hairy that his hair bred hair.  She couldn’t even stomach it.  She’d gone out a couple times with her friends and tried to pick up guys as well.  It was always closest to the harvest time of year.  If a guy flirted with her, she would return the flirt.  As he would be making his way over to her, his attention would be called away by some falling bystander or a bustier female would cross their paths.  His attention would be immediately averted and she would have to return to her home empty handed.  Not only would she be empty handed, but she would also be even hornier and definitely more frustrated.

The running comment or going teasing statement from her friends was that someone was creeping in her room on these nights and accosting her. It was said that she was so hard up for a little something that she took the olive branch then concocted the crazy story to cover her ass. The story continued to say the man who accosted her would then slip back out the window after he’d had his fun and go on his marry little way.  None of them believed the insanity of the story that they shared.  They also refused to entertain the thought that there was some man that was able to pull her through her dream state to his side of the world.  If there was, then they wanted to meet said man so that they could learn his mystical ways and use them to their advantage.  She loved her friends.  She just wished one would catch on to the fact that her mind had already begun to accept that somehow her dreams were a reality.  Her mind was ready and willing to accept the dreams were her truth and everything else was fiction.  Was that because she wasn’t happy with her real life?  No, it was because she missed what he gave her.  In those moments that they shared, she knew he was devoted to her one hundred percent.  She knew that she was his focus, his due north.  She hadn’t found that outside of the dreams.  What woman wouldn’t want that?

Her truth was her time with Aides wasn’t reality.  It was sad to know that her life was sad enough that she would rather live in her dream world and not the life that she was given.  Scarlett’s living reality was she was alone and she hadn’t really been with a man in seven years.  Her living reality was her friends were going to go off and have relationships…and marriages…and divorces… and children.  She would be the spinster with a million cats. Yes, her living reality was she needed to gain control over her wayward thoughts before she drove her car into a damn wall. Thinking about Aides and her menial existence was going to get her killed.

Called to Him (3)

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Present day, her bedroom: scarlett

She was pregnant!  How in the hell had that crap happened? Scarlett Rose Grace was about to be in the
Guinness Book of World Records
.  Talk about Immaculate Conception! There was no way that she could be pregnant.  The headline caption would read “Woman, that used nothing more than her toys in a secret compartment of her desk, gives birth to a healthy child on this day.” Well, not those words exactly, but something along those lines because there was nothing else or no one else.  She tried to recall a time or situation, but nothing came to mind. 

She sat down and thought about her past few days, but nothing sprang to mind except for the odd conversation that she’d had with Aides in her dream.  His voice had been so calm as he spoke words that her brain didn’t want to comprehend.  Oddly enough, the last words that he’d said before she awoke were, “I will be with my child.  I will have you, Rouge.  You will be at my side and you know it.  Just as you know that you are mine.”

She’d laughed when she awoke at the oddity of his words.   Scarlett looked over at the nine different tests that she’d taken over the past six days.  Each one was a little different from the other, but all reflected the same response.  All said loud and clear, after reading the instructions at least twice through, that she was pregnant.  Pregnant.
Pregnant?
P-R-E-G-N-A-N-T.  Scarlett was growing a life within her body.  There was just no way what he’d told her was essentially accurate, was it?  How?

If what he said was him being truthful, telling her the honest truth, then there were such things as gods and goddesses.  If what he told her was actual fact, then her dreams were real.  If he was finally explaining the exact meaning behind some of his more cryptic statements of, “I’m not exactly the man that you think I am” or “Reality can sometimes be a fluid word, depending on the viewer,” then Scarlett thought she wanted his balls on a platter.  If what he had been telling her was truth, then she had been dealing with Hades and not her dream guy, Aides.  She’d been sleeping with Hades.  She was pregnant with Hades’, the Lord and ruler of the Underworld’s, child.   It just couldn’t be her reality.  No, she was going to be sick.

The night of the Harvest Moon, during the Season of the Harvest, was one that would now ring with a new truth.  It was the day that the most evil man took from her what should have been one of the greatest moments of her life.  It was the moment that she would look back upon and regret forever.  It was a night that would forever be the night she destroyed the perfect future that she had etched out before her.  He’d done that.  He was the reason for her hatred of him.  He was the reason that her heart felt like it was caught in a shredder, regurgitated then cycled back through again. 

“I FUCKING HATE YOU, HADES,” she screamed at the walls and windows of her bedroom.

Beginning harvest, Hell/hades realm: scarlett

Scarlett had been counting down to the very day.  The day that her body went on high alert because it knew before her mind did that the hour was near.  Her breast felt fuller, her center clinched and her muscles tightened at just the thought that when she felt the tug in her dreams she would be taken to
his
presence. Her mind had wanted to scream at the thought that she was accepting of this routine.  It rebelled against the truth that she felt.  The truth that on some level there was a reality with her time with Aides and it was causing her head to hurt. 

She’d taken extra care when she bathed that evening.  Scarlett had even made sure that everything that needed to be shaved was freshly done.  Even though she’d shaved the day prior, she went through the process again.  She knew something was going to happen that would change things between them.  There was a feeling that things would never be the same after their time together.   She didn’t know what led her to know that this time shared would result in there being something a little different between them. What she was hoping for she hadn’t received.  What she received was a form of what she wanted but the delivery sucked ass? The tone and his demeanor was that of some foreigner.  The man that spoke to her was not the man that she’d come to know and adore.

They’d greeted each other as normal and had spent what she’d come to realize as two weeks within
his
time and realm.  She’d been to Hell and lived to tell about it.  He said that they needed to talk.  She hadn’t wanted to talk though.  While he lounged on a chair not looking at her, she moved to where he lay naked and pulled him to her lips.  The beauty of his scent and taste flooded her senses.  She took him further into her throat and heard his beautiful response to her machinations.  She moaned and he hissed as her tongue swirled around him.  He quickly pulled her off of him and lifted her lips to his own.  After she was kissed senseless, he grabbed her hips and lifted her above his head.  When did he remove her bikini bottoms?

“Spread,” he commanded.

She immediately complied as she spread her legs and felt her toes curl over the back of the chair. He chuckled then kissed and nibbled her thighs.  Scarlett was still in the air just above his head as he continued to torture her with his mouth.  His strong arms held her suspended just above him.  He licked a trail down her legs to the backs of her knees and she giggled then screamed her frustration.  Aides moved back along her legs to nibble at her thighs, but never where she wanted him.  She squirmed in his hold and his chuckle told her that he was enjoying himself.  Well, she would just not take pleasure in what he was doing.   That would teach him.

Scarlett locked her legs and thought about her father.  Yep, that would be enough to keep her thoughts away from the pleasure that radiated through to her core as his lips trailed to the one region she wanted him. She could feel his breath on her, there.  Yes, that was where she needed…
what…tHE…FUC…

“Stand,” he’d commanded.

“No!” she’d practically whined.

“Stand,” he’d commanded again, completely dismissing her whiney tone.

“I said ‘no’ and the answer hasn’t changed,” she’d responded.

“Rouge,” he’d growled in a menacing tone.

A chill ran over her body.  Why she took pleasure in that tone was anybody’s guess, but she did.  It made her feel safe to know that someone so powerful was awaiting her compliance.  She knew she should go ahead and relent but she couldn’t help but stir the already overflowing pot.

“Don’t use that tone with me, Mister! I am not one of your…FU…” she couldn’t help the response. 

He’d blown his warm breath on her sensitive and highly moistened area.  Her body trembled with need.  He knew what the hell he was doing.  She wanted to scream.  She wanted to cry.  She wanted relief from her torment.

“Play nice and do it,” he barked then kissed the place that she needed him most.

Scarlett immediately stood.  He moved the chair so that he was lying flat with his head at the perfect angle.  It was right in line with her. He used that to his advantage.  Aides wrapped his arms above her thighs and made her drop to his face.  She yelped at the suddenness of his movement of her.  When she attempted to move or even adjust herself, he grunted and banded his arms tighter around her.  Her muscles wanted to rebel against the tourniquet that was his arms.  She imagined he felt like a boa constrictor, but his squeeze was a pleasurable one. 

The warm of his tongue as he moved under her and around her was beautiful.  He thrust in and out of her at one point so thoroughly that she thought that he’d entered her with his manhood.  When she came down from the height of pleasure, she found herself still sitting.  He was the only reason she was still upright.  The way he held her only allowed for forward motion.  She could double over forward but not back.  If she moved back her body resisted the motion.  He lapped at her and sucked in a way that had her at her peak once again.  She had only just come to terms with the fact that he’d just taken her to such a pleasurable height seconds ago.  He was taking her there…no, he’d had her there again within the next second. 

Her fifth almost complete blackout had her reemerging to him rubbing himself against her entrance then posting at there and sliding back out.  His hand was wrapped around himself and he smirked knowingly at her.  His pride knew no boundaries.  Scarlett tried to lock herself up again.  She felt him enter and start a slow pace of moving back and forth within her.  He kept up this slow torturous pace until her forehead beaded with sweat.  His lips kissed her forehead, then nose…then lips.  There he slowly kissed her.  The mimicking of what his hips were doing had almost done her in.  She then recalled her stance.  She would not let him control her responses.  She was in control.

It was as if her thinking that she was in control triggered a response from him.  He pulled completely out of her most needy area.  He sat up on his knees then pulled her legs up.  Her feet went over his shoulders and he angled the top half of his body to her left side.  Aides had hold of himself again and just teased her entrance for a few moments before sliding ever so slowly all the way inside of her, eliciting a loud, inhuman sounding moan from her, one that she quickly cut off.  She began to think of her mother’s boy toy of the month and stilled.

“Testing my will are we, Rouge?” he questioned and his voice told her that he’d already accepted the challenge. 

His hand went to her breast and he gently massaged first one then the other.  He did this while pulling out then slamming back in.  The first she just took and shook with.  By the fourth, she was biting her lip.  Somewhere after the seventh, she completely lost count and her battle with him.  He was commander and chief of her body.  He knew it and took pleasure in the knowledge of it. 

“Give…Me…What’s…MINE!” he roared as she felt her walls tighten around him and her release.  His was right there along with hers. 

They fit together like a lock and key that night.  In that moment, she’d known something shifted.  Something moved inside her mind and told her that it was over.  Her entire being was in agreement that she was done for.  For once, her mind and body were reconciled and had accepted the truth of her life.  She didn’t know how significant that feeling was until she looked back on it when the first stick said, “pregnant.” 

He smiled wickedly at her then made love to her until the world went black.  She awoke the next morning to his side of the bed being empty.  A note was on the table in front of breakfast made especially for her.  It was comprised of her favorites: eggs cooked over easy, French toast, hash brown bacon, freshly squeezed orange juice and a cup of coffee.  A beautiful pink gown lay across the couch that wasn’t far from where the table was set.  She’d expected one of his cute little notes with a limerick or little poem.  What she received was:

You are expected to be in the main dining area by seven p.m.  The Master has much to relay to you this evening.

Well, that effectively killed any form of happiness buzz that she’d had when she woke up.  Scarlett sat back in the chair that she took after reading the card.  She sat there for a few moments then decided that she would not be in his bed waiting for him.  He would not command her as if she were some child to be chastised.  She showered, quickly dressed and made her way down to the botanical gardens and remained there until the following morning.  Her gardens were well stocked with plenty of items to occupy her time.  There was even a well kept snack bar in the sitting area.  He’d thought of everything when he had this set up to keep her entertained on the days when he was away.  She could have a snack or meal if she wanted to. Scarlett remained there until the following evening.  She was surprised no one had come to look for her. 

As she’d left the room and walked into the hall, she bumped into someone.  It was someone…no, not someone but a something.  The thing felt like a Mack truck when she’d run into it.  It had four arms with six fingers on each hand, a misshapen face and only one eye in the middle.  It stood a good two feet above her and snarled when she stopped to look up at it.  Everything in her told her not to scream, but her response was not under her control.  Scarlett felt her mouth open and the scream tore from her lips.  It was from the pit of her belly.  By the time it finished leaving her lips, she saw Aides appear next to her.  How in the…what the f…?  He did
not
just appear before her.  His face had contorted to a complete mask of terror.  The man that stood before her was one that frightened yet aroused her.  How was that even possible?

Aides response to the thing that had previously been about to attack her told her that he was going to possibly take the “life” of the thing before her.  He didn’t appear to care one way or the other. 

“Carnus, leave this place. NOW!” his voice echoed off of every surface and resounded throughout room. 

The thing ceased his pursuit immediately.  He straightened his back.  Before he could make a move to exit, his arms were removed from their sockets.  She hadn’t even seen Aides move.  A sickening greenish blue stream poured from the thing and it bellowed and moaned, but left the area.  When she looked over at Aides, his face was one of complete calm.  She would’ve questioned what she’d seen if it hadn’t been for the matching “bloody” mark that was being wiped from the end of his blades.  He tossed the scythes in the air.  As they twisted one revolution, the blood removed itself.  On the second revolution, they disappeared from thin air.  By what would have been the third, she dropped to her knees and began to plead for her sanity to return or to wake up from this horrible, horrible nightmare.