The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) (23 page)

I was brought out of my massive man musings as he came to lie flush with my body and his arm snaked out, no pun intended, around my waist. His front was as close to my side as he could get
and his arm felt like it weighed the same as a small person.  With him on his side and me on my back, I could feel him looking down at me and the silent minutes were near unbearable. What was he waiting for? But more importantly, what would he do when the timer ran out on his waiting?

“Now
, I want you to listen to me, lille øjesten, as I promise not to hurt you in any way, but what I am about to do will feel…” He cleared his throat and it was as if he was about to talk about sex to his grandma or something.

“…o
dd and well…ah shit, how do I say this?” I was sure my fuzzy vision could make out the frustrated actions of him raking his hand through his hair and letting out a deep breath.

“J…
Ju…st…say.” I managed.

“It will make you come
.” He blurted out and at first I didn’t think my stunted brain heard him right. In fact, if it wasn’t so difficult to speak I know I would have said, ‘Come again’ shortly followed by ‘What the F word’!

“This feeling can’t be helped and trust me if there was another way
, then I wouldn’t be putting it off. I tried torturing the Warlock that injected you, but he was just a lackey taking orders and didn’t know shit. Plus, he kind of died quicker than I intended, so here we are.” He sounded like he was nervously rambling, while my mind was still trying to cast out the word ‘torture’ and ‘died’ before it could create an image.

“This will start to feel strange
, so try not to fight my darkness when it touches you.” He whispered gently and when I flinched I felt a soothing touch at my cheek, where the back of thick knuckles caressed my chilled skin.

“
Dddark…ness?” I couldn’t help but feel frightened by his words.

“Remember øjesten, don’t fight us
.” He repeated, choosing to ignore my fears. I just knew that if I had the inner strength I would have been panting like a cornered animal in the sights of a beast. So with this in mind, I had to wonder where he thought I was going to find the strength to fight. That would be like Snow White getting up just before Prince Charming kisses her and breaking his nose before pepper spraying his ass for sexual assault!

And suddenly that’s exactly what it felt like. Some dark but modern Gothic version of Snow White and I now even had the hair to match that image as I lay mo
tionless in waiting. And wait I did. It felt like he was powering up next to me for something. Every time I pried my lids back all I could make out was the swirling of black serpents that swam round his stretched out frame. I was about to try and say something but then it started.

I watched as long as I could as his body bent backwards and bowed in what looked like extreme strain on his muscles. He let out a howling groan before jack knifing forwards which ended in him curling his body around me. I felt like he was turning his body into a Boa Constrictor and I was about to feed his appetite.

Once his body seemed to come under some sort of control, his movement slowed down from the vibrations that had shortly racked his body into convulsing tension. However, this didn’t prove to be a good thing, well not for me anyway. No, this new control he found only meant whatever he had planned was about to come to light and it started with him crawling over on top of me. He held, what I imagined was an immense weight, all above me and caged me in.

“Just breathe
, lille øjesten…just…breathe.” He whispered the last words resting his forehead to mine and I once again pulled my eyes open long enough to get my first glimpse of his eyes.

“Ah!” A startled yelp escaped before I sucked in a quivering breath. This was in response to the flaming flash I had seen encircling one eye
, like someone had taken a glowing hot branding iron to his iris. I slammed them closed but I could see the moving lava spinning round his eye in the shape of a snake. It was like when someone takes a picture of you and you can still see the flash long after your image was captured.

“
Plleeassse” I moaned as fear was overriding any other emotion there should have been. I mean, I knew deep down that he wouldn’t hurt me, but this fear seemed to be stemmed from a deeper root. Apart from in my dreams, this was the first time I’d had a man’s body so close to me since Draven and I felt trapped, both in body and mind.

“Ssshh now and be brave small one
, for it is coming.” He hummed from above me like there was now an electrical current transforming his voice. His masterful tone wasn’t asking for me to try and be brave, no, it was demanding it, for there was no stopping what was coming and soon, I would be joining it.

Then it hit m
e with the force of a Freight train. It touched me like a sexually charged blanket that covered me from top to bottom. At this I no longer had to try and keep my eyes closed, as strength started to seep into my body. I looked up to see that the shadowed snakes I had seen him rule and master were now swimming all over me. They came from the home of his body like thick black ink tentacles that connected us together, like being bound by the hands of darkness. They kept hold and with every stroke they made the sensations they invoked doubled. The pleasured trail they left was leaving my chest heaving and my thighs damp with need.

I felt like the need was going to burn right though me and leave me with nothing but ashes instead of flesh. I needed to find release like I needed my next breath. I looked up to the figure above me that seemed to be having his own trouble keeping control as this other part of him explored every inch of my body, inside and out. I felt the pressure of the shadows as though they were made by the flesh of a man and each touch was a scorching caress. It seemed to touch parts of me that had long been left untouched and I cried out as it connected with each sensitive nerve.

At one point I even lost my mind and reached out to the man above me. I would have begged his own hands to take the place of supernatural fingers but as if he knew this, he quickly snapped out and restrained my wrists in an unbreakable hold. Almost bruising were his fingers as they curled into the tightest shackles, but I didn’t care. I was too lost in my need to care other than at least he made contact, no matter how brief.

The controlled darkness seemed to latch on to the connection like a live feed as its strength seemed to amplify. I cried out into the night in what seemed like a wishful howl and I heard it being mirrored back at me from above.

“Please…oh God please…I need…I…” I begged without even letting the shame of it to register. I just didn’t care. I just needed to feel myself shatter beneath him. It was like having a room full of hands on your body all at one time and I felt like each one was vibrating along my hypersensitive skin.

“I know…and…
Uhh….Ahh…you will!” He shouted in between obviously seeking the points of his own pleasure. I felt the bed beneath me shaking and I followed its source, that being the body of muscle above. He was trying to hold onto something and I had an idea what. So, just as I felt that ultimate climb to a never ending and all-consuming pleasure cliff I knew I would soon jump from, I arched my head up as far as it would go and spoke my wishes,

“Let go and come with me
.” I whispered breaking both of our controls like high tension wire.

“AHHH…OH, OH YES…ARHHH!” We both screamed out only in different ways. Mine was a scream w
hereas the body above me still shook from howling a roar that made the fixtures in the room shake with the force of it. I clenched my muscles that I could once again feel working and rode out the blissful waves until the tsunami destroyed all coherent thoughts.

Shortly after came the part of floating down to earth on a weightless cloud of euphoria. The feeling that power had flowed back into my being
, only to be taken away by the power of such an orgasm. Oh, he had healed me alright and in the most shameful way imaginable but right now I couldn’t find the spare energy to care. No, all I could find now was the extra senses it took to notice two things, one was the man above me was trying to get his breath and the most important…Was that wet patch on my skin mine or his…

Or both?

Chapter 23

Master of the Ouroboros

The next morning I woke after one of the deepest sleeps I could remembe
r in a long time and the reasons made me blush. It wasn’t hard to understand why my body had felt it necessary to shut down to such a degree. When was the last time I had such a firecracker of an orgasm…? Wait… that really wasn’t a memory I wanted to explore in the pits of my mind. If anything, those memories I kept well hidden behind a solid and impenetrable vault door, one labelled ‘My Heart’.

It was too deep for me to swim in and it made me vulnerable in its depths. No, I was going to put
a stop to any of that immediately and focus on the now, not the past and unless I had a bottle of something I could shot to get me through it, then that wasn’t about to change. So, back to the other reason I had slept so well and was also one of the most confusing facts. It was the first time since pre orgasm that I was also held in bed until I fell asleep in the arms of another. I don’t know whether he knew I was aware of this fact, as when I woke his warm body was no long wrapped protectively around me. But nevertheless, it didn’t change what I already knew.

After last night’s risky and turbulent events transpired, the aftermath of coming apart under the hands of darkness had left me wiped….but I was
n’t the only one this affected. My shadowed saviour, whose face I still hadn’t seen and whose name I still didn’t know, had only had enough energy to roll to one side and pull my shaking body closer to him. We didn’t speak another word after that and once I heard his breathing mellow into an even rhythm, it didn’t take me long to follow suit. This didn’t mean that I wasn’t aware of his movements in the dead of night, one he seemed to command entirely.

I didn’t know what time it was
, but at some point his protective bulk left me and I heard water running. I had never been more tempted to get up and perv at someone in the shower before. The reasons weren’t just to get myself a shot of colossal eye candy soaping down a naked body, no matter how much I knew the amount of muscle I would find. Hell, I could easily feel that this dude had muscle on top of muscle when he had pressed himself against me in bed, but this had nothing to do with wanting to haul myself up from the comfy bed. It was solely for the reason to find out who this guy really was. And unless he showered in the dark, I was fairly certain I would get a good glimpse of him this time.

This plan in theory was a sound one, so what kept me from f
ollowing through? Easy, it was plain and simple… fear. I still didn’t know who had sent him other than a guy named Elder and the fact that he owned a soul debt. These are the things that I got from his own mouth when talking on the phone, but they still left me confused as to their full meaning.

So I had waited until I heard the water turn off and kept my breathing as even as possible, faking sleep. I did so well at this, I didn’t even jump when I felt the covers being slowly pulled from my body. I don’t know if frozen was the right word to describe how I felt at that moment, as the blood pounding its way through my veins felt anything but cold. My skin felt on fire just whenever he came near me and I had a feeling this had something to do with the after effects of what he did to heal me.

After the safety of the covers left me I then felt fingers lightly trace up my bare leg and the urge to bite my bottom lip was torturous. At first I didn’t know what he was planning on doing to me but then his actions left me stunned. He was cleaning me?! I could barely believe it when I felt a warm wet wash cloth start to clean the evidence of what happened between us earlier. He used slow and careful movements, no doubt in an attempt to try not to wake me. I decided it was better for both of us for me to still pretend to be sleeping as I didn’t know who would be more mortified when he realised I knew what he was doing. And now that I knew there was nothing sexual in his actions, I decided, what was the harm in a little after care?

That
was, of course, until he travelled further up and I couldn’t help the little jolt it caused. He stopped his movement suddenly and waited. Once he was obviously happy I wasn’t going to fully wake he continued to wipe down my most private place until he was satisfied. It didn’t take that long before his job was done and he rose from kneeling on the bed. Once he had rid himself of the damp cloth and towel he had then used to dry me gently, he once again resumed his place by my side. This time instead of tugging me closer to him, he inched closer slowly until he was flush against me.

Then his last move of the night once again astonished me. He gently lifted my head while he shifted his full arm underneath me
, before rolling me to my side. I found my back curled slightly to the wall of his front and tucked securely in the cradle of his big body. My head found a comfortable nook on his arm to snuggle into and I could have sworn I heard a deep inhale of breath at the gesture. Finally, once the covers were pulled back over us both, his arms wrapped round my torso holding me in place for the night. I slept soundly that moment onwards thanks to the comfort of safety I found in his hold.

It was strange to say, considering what had passed between us
, but it felt like being held protectively by a friend or a brotherly figure more than a lover, one would have expected after the night we had together. But this brought me back to the now and how different that felt once I opened my eyes. As now, my soft and gentle protector was back in full shadowed biker mode and his hooded face gave nothing away.

He sat next to the bed after bring
ing closer the chair that had held the jacket he now had covering him. He was leaning forward with his forearms resting on the top his thighs and his hood fell forward as he regarded the floor. I took a moment while this deep contemplation occupied his attention, to take in as many details about him as I could.

The long leather jacket he wore was draped at the legs over each side of the chair, thanks to the slit up the back, made for easier movement. It was the first time I had noticed that the hood was made from a di
fferent material and looked as if it was a separate piece of clothing under all that leather. The thick dark grey wool had specks of lighter grey and it was big enough to cover his eyes completely. In fact, the only thing that I knew I would see when he lifted his head was dark stubble on a square chin with full lips above.

This th
ought brought me a flash back to last night when I saw what looked like a flaming serpent swimming in one of the eyes that looked down at me through the controlled darkness. Did he even realise what he had revealed or had it been a result of what was happening at the time to my overwhelmed brain…was I once again seeing things?

I didn’t have much time to look deeper
into the reasons as a head on square set shoulders snapped up. And yep, stubble chin and full lips were all I was rewarded with. I mean jeez, you would have thought after last night we would have at least been on a first name basis, let alone faces being seen.

“You’re awake
.” He said and his deep voice sounded grated and strained. I found I could only nod, which he took for a different reason.

“There is no need to fear me little one, my hands will remain right here
.” He said looking briefly at the hands he held firmly at his knees. I shook my head slightly, trying to think of the best way to say what clearly needed to be said.

“I…” I had to first clear
my throat, which prompted him into passing me a bottle of water. I had a moment of craziness, hoping that it wasn’t from the mini bar in the suite, as God only knows how much that would set me back! I took the water and my eyes took note of the black snake that circled his middle finger at about an inch thick. The contrast of the deeply engraved ink was startling against his pale rough skin. The weathered and thin scars on strong hands told me that once upon a time he was no stranger to hard labour outdoors, only in a cold country at least.

“Thank you
.” I said after taking a strong gulp. He lowered his head slowly in acknowledgment.

“And what I was going to say wa
s that I am not afraid. I think I know by now that you do not mean me any harm.” I think this must have shocked him as his head came up quicker and this time I could just see the end of his nose.

“This is good as I think it is time you and I had a little chat about the way of things…” I was about to speak but his hand shot up to stop me in my tracks.

“But first, I think your body would benefit the effects of a hot shower.” I smirked at him and narrowed my eyes in a playful mocking before saying,

“Hey
, if you think I smell bad, all you needed to do was say caveman.” His reaction was priceless. He stood quickly and stammered to speak. He didn’t know I was joking. I laughed and after wrapping the robe tighter under the covers, I swung my legs round and walked up to him.

“Relax c
aveman, I was joking with you.” I said patting his chest, which I noticed was without the strange leather straps that he had across his chest when at Afterlife. He grunted and I smirked again as he proved my new nickname for him. I started to walk away when he grabbed my hand suddenly, shocking me. He yanked me back to him and my hands found his chest as the only way to steady the quick flight.

I looked up at him and one of his hands held me to him with his palm plastered to the small of my back. I felt embarrassed and had to look away but he made a
tutting sound. He raised his fist to my face and his knuckles skimmed the apple of my cheek. However, this proved not enough to get me to look back at him so he moved down my neck and then journeyed back under my chin. He raised my head up with his fingers still curled into a fist and I had nowhere to go other than to look up at his hidden face. There was something disconcerting about someone that could see your every emotion being played out on centre stage in an opera, while their face remained hidden in the wings. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to speak as the silence had started to make me squirm like a fish in a sushi bar, he killed the tension.

“My name is not c
aveman, lille øjesten.”

“And my name is not 
lil..le ogestin.” He smirked at the way I had said it wrong and I noticed a slight dimple to one side dip before disappearing.

“To me it is, Keira. Now go shower…” He said and the
n leaned down to me to say the rest,

“Because you are starting to smell a bit
.” I laughed as I smacked him on the chest, little good it did me but it made him laugh with me all the same.

“Yeah
, well you don’t smell so hot yourself cavemen, what’d you do last night, sneak out to go mud wrestling?” I shot back and this time it got me a full blown grin, one I would to have loved to have seen the effect it had on a pair of eyes.

“Very good little human and no, it wasn’t mud I was wrestling in last night
, but in an alleyway saving you little behind, now go shower before room service arrives as I don’t think it will go down well if I answer the door, do you?” He said with humour lacing his every word. But of course his words did beg the question, how exactly did he get me back up here last night without anyone seeing?

I laughed once and then left him standing there watching me go. I was just about to walk into the bathroom when the sound of my name being called stopped me. I looked back over my shoulder at him and raised my eyebrows in question.

“My name is Sigurd, I live in a loft apartment in New York, not a cave and I am hungry little human, so hurry up and don’t make me wait.” I shot him a smile and a little wink with my next statement,

“It
’s nice to finally know you, Sigurd.”

My shower was a quick one and not just because I was told to by one big ass biker dude in a hood. I found myself excited that he was finally here and that I might actually get some answers out of him this time. I mean there was nothing like a near death experience followed by a shared orgasm to bring a friendship together
, right? So with this in mind I was in and out of the shower in no time and I was finding with my new hair…or lack of, that it was a lot quicker than I was used to.

I didn’t know why I felt so comfort
able around him but it felt as though I had known him for years. Like someone close to me had introduced him once and that alone stood the weight of any suspicions. Besides the fact that he had saved me from being taken or even killed, it was also the fact that he had saved those closest to me. Which was surely something he hadn’t needed to do, so that begged the question…Why did he?

I decided to put all these overwhelming feeling
s down to what had happened last night. I mean, being connected in such a way was bound to have its consequences and I knew from extensive experience what the effects of a ‘healing’ can do. So that was most likely it and now I could find myself having a deep connection to the big guy…what was his name…Sigurd. Was that Dutch or something?

Once dressed in a comfy pair of stonewash jeans and a stretchy long sleeved, maroon coloured top with those trusty thumb holes I loved so much, I walked back into the sitting room
hoping to see the delicious sight of freshly baked goods.

“
So what’s on…the…menu…” I trailed off quietly as I processed the situation in front of me.