Page 41 of Witch Upon a Star
Cool liquid touched my lips and I drank down the sweet water. Some dribbled down my chin and onto my chest, conflicting with my heated skin and raising goosebumps. I felt my nipples tighten into pebbles.
If Kora had been pregnant with my child, I would have fought for custody. I would have raised my son or daughter without their irresponsible and manipulative mother. Some might condemn me for taking a child away from the mother, claimed that children should be raised bybothparents, but that was bullshit. Single man or woman, two men or two women, it didn’t matter the gender. Iknew. I’d been raised by a bastard of a father and a selfish mother who eventually abandoned me. Having a man and a woman in the household meant jackshit. It washowthe child was raised, not by the gender or quantity of its parents.
Sadness had gripped me at the idea of a child, though. It had nothing to do with my bachelor days being over or raising a baby on my own. It had to do with the mother. Kora. I didn’t want to have a baby with Kora.
I wanted to have a baby with Calliope.
The bamboo bucket tipped again, dropping a waterfall ofwater down onto the flames and burning embers. Steam rose up to the hole in the ceiling but did not escape. Instead, it collided with the roof, creating a cyclone of mist. A form slowly took shape, a dark shadow among the white vapors.
A bear, powerful and vicious, stepped forward. It didn’t move towards me, nor did it attack, but walked mid-air without making any progress in escaping the mist. He roared, and I got the instinctive feeling that he—or maybe she—was protecting something.
That beeping sounded again. I turned, and my mind spun. A white flash blinded my vision, keeping me from finding the source of the beeping. A scorpion walked across the vast white nothingness, clicking its claws and curling its infamous tail.
I was reminded of that child’s story of the scorpion and the frog.It’s in my nature…
Cool liquid against my lips brought me abruptly back to the sweaty dome. I greedily drank down the water, swallowing hard and fast. Hands, so small and gentle, touched me everywhere. Had she grown extra arms? How was she able to touch me in so many places at once?
My eyes landed on her face. In the flicker of the fire-lit lanterns, I saw her flushed cheeks, her dilated eyes, and her soaked hair. I loved her hair.
I reached up to touch it, wondering if this was how Midas felt just before turning an item to gold. When my hand moved, it seemed to shimmer. Like I could see the past, present, and future position of my hand. I saw my fingers touch her hair before I felt it.
She watched me intensely. I couldn’t tell how far or close she was to me. I lifted her hair to my nose, breathing indeeply. She smelled of sweet honey and the forest. Wild and untamable. I paused when I saw something crawling through her hair. After my eyes focused on it long enough to identify what it was, I lifted my hand to pick it up.
“What do you see?” she asked. Her mouth moved in front of me, but it sounded like her words were coming from behind me.
“It’s a ladybug.” Did my voice sound like it was slurring to her, or was it just me?
I saw her lips move, but all I heard was thatbeep…beep…beep…of the EKG again. When I looked back at my fingers, the ladybug was gone.
Calliope took my hands and placed them on her breasts. She was nearly flat-chested, but I didn’t mind. I was more of an ass-man myself.
A low chuckle sounded. “Oh really?”
Had I said that last part out loud? I hadn’t meant to. I squeezed my hands over her tits. I wanted that fucking bra gone.
“Quinten…” My name sounded breathless on her lips. She’d started to call me ‘Starbucks’ last night, but fuck, to hear my birthname like that? There was nothing like it. “Quinten, I want you to kiss me. No one’s here. We can’t be interrupted this time.”
The entire world fell away. I forgot about the fire, the mist, the animals, the beeping… They all vanished, and there was nothing in my life but her.
I claimed her lips as I’d wanted to do for days. They were soft and moist. She trembled in my arms, and it took a great deal of thought to remember that this wasn’t justourfirst kiss, butherfirst kiss ever. She’d never been touched before by aman. Never let another man feel the softness of her lips, the thickness of her hair, the smoothness of her skin. She wasn’t just mine in the metaphorical or emotional senses, but in the physical sense. Every touch was new, every experience a first.
She would never know what it was like to have another man press his lips to hers, to sweep his tongue against her mouth and gain entry to its depths. She would never feel another man push her gently back onto the throw pillows that lined the floor of her sweat lodge and mold his body over hers. She would never compare another man’s weight over her or the size of his hips cradled between her legs.
All her touches, her moans, her pleasure weremine.
And I was claiming her. Here and now. I may not be able to offer her my first and only touches as she was me, but she would have something even greater. She would have what no other would ever: my body, my heart, and my soul.
Every touch was sensation, intensified by the heat of the steam and our bodies. Our clothing was removed, though I wasn’t entirely sure how that had happened. I did not recall taking off my underwear, and yet I was as naked as she was.
“Quinten…” I loved my name on her lips. Loved how she said it like a prayer, likeIwas her god.
She had no idea it was the other way around. Thatshewas my goddess, my reason for being. I would worship the very ground she walked on, lay waste to all who threatened her, shower her with jewels and diamonds not worthy of her beauty, build her a house with my own two hands, and protect her and our future children with my life. She would never go hungry, never know fear, never worry about tomorrow.
I was here, and she was mine.
My lips traveled everywhere on her person. She swooned in pleasure under me as I licked her neck, her tits, and trailed a path down over the indentation of her navel. As much as I loved a little light bondage when it came to sex, I found I loved feeling her reactions more. How her hands gripped my hair, how her nails scraped and bit into my muscles, how her arms tightened like she never wanted to let me go… I was not sure I could ever tie this woman as I had others or place a gag in her mouth to keep her quiet. I loved her sounds too much, her innocent gasps and reverent touches.
Her touches were featherlight and yet anchored me to this time and place. Toher.
