Never: an erotic retelling of Peter Pan (42 page)

Dee waited for some recognition but he merely said, "Go on." 

Was it possible he'd never met the mermaids?  Skye hadn't known of the Lost Boys.  Perhaps Peter kept them all separate.  

"You were with a mermaid," her new Champion prompted.

"Yes.  Sasha."  Dee cleared her throat and he pressed the straw to her lips.  She took a sip, then went on, "We were in the pavilion beside the lagoon and she was dancing." 

"You were alone?"        

"Yes we were."  Dee tried to remember the details.  "Skye had left in a huff an hour earlier and Zoe, that's Sasha's... friend, had gone outside.  I think she was swimming in the lagoon."

"Go on."

"Very well."  Dee licked her lips, aware of a heated blush creeping up her chest as she considered the explicit nature of what followed.  "Sasha was dancing, as I said," she cleared her throat, striving to keep her voice even, "and I was watching her.  It was a belly dance.  With veils.  And she took them off one by one.  I was on a bed of cushions looking up at her while she... moved... above me." 

The memory of that sinuous body with its slow gyrations gradually transformed Dee's blush into a different kind of heat.  She remembered her infatuation with the dusky beauty.  The desperation of her desire.  Those kohled eyes, so limpid Dee had wanted to drown in them.  And the jewels glittering against her matt,
cafe-au-lait
skin.   

"She was beautiful," Dee sighed, reliving the dance inside her mind, each glide of those perfectly contoured arms, each roll of those bewitching breasts.  "Her scent was so exotic it was dizzying.  And as those veils dropped I felt the most incredible languor come over me.  As though - "

"You were drugged.  What did they give you?" he cut in and Dee was startled at the sound of his voice.  She'd forgotten he was listening, she’d been so immersed in the memory. 

"Some sort of wine," she said, trying to refocus.  "But only one glass."

"And the last thing you remember is watching this woman dancing?"

"Yes.  No.  She finished dancing and..."  Dee should have been embarrassed, but the memory of Sasha's voluptuous body beneath hers, the taste and texture of her skin - like licking orchid petals, the way she'd caressed Dee's breasts with handfuls of her thick, lustrous hair - 

"You fell asleep?"

Dee found her chest rising and falling.  She couldn't think.  Her mind was full of the experience of Sasha, the scent of her, the weight of her breasts pressing onto Dee's.  "Yes.  I... must have," she stammered.

"It's all right," he said softly, obviously mistaking her quickened breathing for anxiety.  "You're safe here.  We won't talk of it again." 

"Good.  I didn't..."  She swallowed a couple of times, unsure whether her light-headedness was from arousal or impending unconsciousness.

He pressed the straw to her lips and she sipped the cooling liquid.

"I feel dizzy," she murmured, her head lolling to the side.

"Sleep now.  We can talk again later," he said, and she felt herself drifting off.  But it wasn't the slide into blackness she'd come to expect.  This was a floating feeling.  A not-quite sleep.  A limbo. 

And through it she heard faint noises, felt the covering being taken off her.  Cold air touched her skin and she felt her body shiver.

"It's all right, my little waif," he crooned, as though to a cat.  Or to someone he thought was unconscious.  "You won't feel a thing."

But she did.  She felt a cold touch on her stomach, followed by the warmth of a large hand.  

"I just need to soothe this sunburn," he murmured as he worked some sort of cream up over her ribs and onto her breasts.  Even in her dream-like state, the sudden shafts of pleasure arrowing from behind her nipples caught her off guard.  She made a whimpering pleasure noise. 

"Too hard?" he said to himself. "I'll have to be gentler."

Dee was sure if his touch was any lighter she'd faint from the amount of excruciating pleasure it produced.  Her head was clearing rapidly but she kept the knowledge to herself, straining to breathe evenly as though asleep. 

A faint scent of coconut drifted up to her as his fingertips smoothed the cream over her breasts and up to her shoulders.  It stung and felt like so many little flames licking at her skin.  Then the exquisite torture slid down the length of her arms to her hands. 

She concentrated on her breathing.      

"Rope burns are healing," he observed, carefully avoiding her wrists, but Dee barely heard him.  The sensation of cream being massaged between her fingers and into her palms made her toes curl.  She moaned again. 

"Still hurting?" 

Dee knew he expected no answer.

His hands slid back up to her shoulders, where he stroked the delicate skin of her neck, moving up onto her face where his large fingertips were surprisingly deft.  His thumb brushed some cream across her cracked lips and she felt the tingle shoot straight down to her loins where it stirred up all manner of volcanic reactions.

Another dollop of cream landed on her stomach and she tensed.  He spread it over her hips, heading down  her legs, gliding, massaging, all the way to her ankles.  It was all she could do to keep her breathing shallow and quiet.  

Then he massaged cream between her toes and she started to squirm.  She couldn't help it.  Her nipples were so hard they hurt.

"Nearly finished," he said softly, but Dee didn't want it to finish.  Her head pounded, but below it her body throbbed.  Between her thighs was hot and liquid, and every touch of his hand was transferred there along her tingling nerves.

Working the cream back up her legs, his fingertips strayed to the sensitive skin behind her knees.  She saw sparks behind her closed eyes and realised she was panting.  There was nothing she could do to stop herself now.  She'd be begging soon if he didn't...

His hands were sliding back up her thighs, the fingertips curved outside her hips, the thumbs trailing the inside of her legs, and it was too much for her.  The unexpected intimacy of his touch and his belief that she was unaware of it, was a fantasy within the fantasy and she gave herself over to it. 

An inarticulate noise welled up in her throat - a primitive signal of her need.  Somehow she managed to part her legs.  A little.  Enough to catch his attention.

His hands stopped and held, right where they were.  Just short of where she wanted them to be, where the pounding need was louder than the pain behind her eyes.  She felt delirious. 

"Hot," she managed to murmur, all pretence forgotten as she waited on his reaction.

The silence in the room throbbed and Dee held her breath, her heart pounding almost as loudly as her head.  How would his massage end?  It was obvious by the confidence of his touch that this wasn't the first time he'd taken such liberties with her body. 

"I know what you need, my little wanderer," he said, and she felt one large hand begin to slide up the last few inches, so slowly it felt as though time halted to watch its passage.  Her body was taut, like a drum waiting for the first Congo beat.

Then his thumb eased into the pulsing vortex and she shuddered, her breath catching in her throat.  "I won't let you go hungry," he said, and Dee gasped in approval.  A moment later she was moaning.  He was good.  He knew exactly where to touch and how.

The pain in her head was completely forgotten as her body responded to his masterful touch.  Within the space of a minute she was over the top.  Fireworks were exploding inside her mind and she was spiraling down into the darkness again. 

This time, with a smile of gratitude on her lips.

Long Shadow sat back pensively, watching her for minutes before he reached forward to recover her with the sheet.  His body felt light like the smoke of a fire, swirling with the winds of excitement she'd awoken in him.  But his heart was heavy with the knowledge that he’d misjudged her. 

This woman was not a manipulative whore, and neither was she a knowing accomplice of DeMartande's.  She appeared to be nothing more than a victim.  And DeMartande, like a crack dealer reeling in a junkie, was binding her to him by the addictions he'd fostered in her.  Addictions he had total control over. 

Worse, she appeared to be a willing victim.  An acolyte to her 'God'.  The same God who had hired Long Shadow as his token 'Redskin' - to service her sexual needs.  Soon DeMartande would discover there were many levels to his 'play', and not all of them to his liking.  Until then, Long Shadow knew he must act with caution.  Yet the days of caring for Wendee had stirred in him a very incautious sentiment.   

Despite the precariousness of his own position, he found himself wanting to champion her, not only against whomever had tried to kill her, but against DeMartande himself.  He wanted to rescue her. To rehabilitate her.  Which was beyond madness.