Pandora's Box (62 page)

Dressed in a silk ruffled white poet-shirt with rose pearl buttons marching up the front, she was lying down, curled in on herself, her arms circled the waist of her long soft-pink merino skirt.

Even with the cuts, yellowing bruises on her face and the bandage around her head, to him she looked beautiful and fresh like a nymph.

And then his relief turned into boiling rage.
Fuck, Sophia. Fuck.

With a firm voice, he uttered her name loudly, “Sophia.”

Stretching her arms above her head and arching her torso on the ground, she opened her eyes lazily. She looked up to see Alistair’s tense face looking down at her, his brow creased. She was having such a nice dream that she had yet to come out of it. She whispered, “Hi.” 

“Craigdale has been turned upside down and you didn’t think to inform us that you were about to take a beauty nap,” he reprimanded. “Do you know how long we have been looking for you, Sleeping Beauty?”

Sleeping Beauty?
She sat on the ground and picking up his arm, she looked at his watch.
Oh, God. It’s late.
But when she looked back at his frowning face, her guilt evaporated.
Are you looking for a fight?
“No. Not really. And I don’t care.”

“Do you have any idea how I was feeling while you were here sleeping peacefully?”

Yes, afraid, I’m sorry.
With her index finger, she poked his chest. “And who do you think you are? To lie to me? To omit things about my life? And then demand I comply easily with everything? Who?”

Who am I? To do what? What do you mean?
He looked at her through his black eyelashes.

She lifted her chin, daring him to answer, starting to get annoyed.

“Well,” he straightened up to his knees, towering over her. His anger grew in tandem with his uncertainty. “If you don’t know, I don’t know either.” He didn’t realize that he had lapsed into his mix of Scottish Gaelic and English and that his accent had turned almost into a brogue. “But I know who you are,” he shouted, “You, Wife, are
mo beatha. Mo gràdh. Mo chridhe
. Or at least, I hope so.”

“I can’t defend myself if I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she shouted back, up on her knees and pushed him.

He fell back on the grass astonished by her sudden attack.
Defend? From whom? Me?

She straddled him, pounding her fists against his chest, as she bit out, “You liar, you alpha-macho, you caveman, …”

Sophia stopped mid-sentence and drew a huge breath.
My Lord Caveman.

Your Lord Caveman.
Alistair was staring fixedly at her, with hooded eyes. “Have you finished?”

No, I haven’t. But it’s not so important right now.
Without answering, she crushed her lips against his, her tongue seeking his as her hands gripped his long, silky hair, tugging, slanting his head, demanding surrender.

Her breasts smashed against his chest as their mouths and hands sought, took and gave into a carnal need so explosive that they didn’t even care they were out in the open or that everyone was looking for her.

He sat up with Sophia straddling his legs and pulled off his sweater, his eyes hot as he stared at her mouth reddened by their rough kiss.
Be careful. She has been hurt.

I missed you.
She closed her eyes in bliss as her hands ran over his shoulders and arms, chest and abs to palm his engorged crotch, squeezing. She gasped and undid his fly to have better access. When her hand dipped into his boxers and fisted his hard manhood both of them moaned out loud.

Everything inside him cracked and he couldn’t hold himself still any longer. He needed contact, beyond desperate. He ripped her blouse open, the tiny pearl buttons flying away to expose her breasts encased in a beautiful white silk bra. He splayed his big hands over them, pulling the bra down.

“Suck.” Her nerves were on fire and she screamed in pleasure when he tongued first one nipple then the other before taking one in his mouth completely. She fisted his hair and her pleasured cries rippled in the air.

He could feel the urgency coiling inside her and pushed her onto the grass. He threw her skirt up to her waist and tore off her panties, his fingers reaching for her and finding her wet for him.

She spread her legs and wound them around his hips, as he shoved his jeans and boxers down. Her desire sparked all over her body when his erection pressed against her inner thigh.

“Fuck me hard,” her voice was low and strained.

Alistair ran his hands over her toned tights, feeling the velvet texture of her skin and was swept by a wildfire of passion. His pupils dilated as she moaned in lust, his blood burned and urged him to take her but he didn’t want to be too rough.

“Sophia,” he said in a needy sigh. Sweat trickled down his temples as he debated with himself if she was well enough to be made love to.

“Hard,” she whispered and gripped his biceps, her nails digging into his skin.

It ripped away the last threads of his control. He understood that all Sophia wanted was to feel alive. And he was there to give her all she wished for. He was going to make love to his wife, to make her feel loved, protected and free. He looked at her as he settled himself on his forearms, nudging at her opening.

“Keep your eyes open. I want to see their amazing kaleidoscope of color,” he breathed before he slid into her with one powerful thrust.

She gasped, jerking forward, rejoicing at the sensation of utter fullness. It emptied her mind of all thoughts as he started to pump.

“Pick up the time.” His voice roughened with the command. Alistair pulled her against him and thrust again. “Fuck yourself on me.”

Sophia’s world distilled to pure sensation with her husband’s hands gripping her shoulders, sliding in and out of her in powerful plunges. Just the sight of his glorious body glistened with sweat, pumping into her as his forest-green eyes demanded her heart and soul was enough to spike her lust. Her blood ran as lava, making her skin burn. She squeezed herself around him, dug her nails into his tapered waist and raked them over his back.

“Do it again.” He grunted out loud. The sensations were nearly unbearable. “I love it when you’re so free.”

“Then give me more,” she asked, repeating the action. “I want more.”

Alistair’s groans rumbled as air scorched his lungs. He slammed into her all the way in, jarring her to the core, pleasure mixing with an edge of pain in an erotic mixture.

Sophia’s pulse pounded loudly in her ears and she could feel herself getting more and more out of control.

“Tell me what you want, Sophia.” Alistair grabbed her, plunging so far inside her that she shook with the impact.

“Ah! You. My husband, my love, my lover. Please!” She thrust her hips upward, trying to rub herself against his pelvis. She was in a whirlwind of frustration, pleasure and tormented need.

“You’ll come just from taking me deep.”

Heat flooded Sophia and her thighs began to tremble. She moved back in desperation, craving release. Her mind filled with images of them making fierce love in the middle of the maze; Alistair all fiery and tense above her, his back and buttocks muscles bunched and corded with exertion and damp with sweat. She was on the edge, feeling the explosion of bliss so close and yet a step away. She braced her forearms on the ground and pushed up, shamelessly pumping herself in tandem with him and urging them both toward ecstasy. “Ah, that’s good. Harder.”

“You are so fucking hot,” he murmured, as he speeded up his plunges.

In an upward spiral of frantic desire, her nails scorched his back and dug so deep in his shoulders that they drew blood, but he was so immerse in the ecstasy of their heated lovemaking that he didn’t even feel it.

She whispered in his ear, “You are mine, Alistair Connor.”

“And you are mine, Wife,” he grunted, loosening the leashes of his desire as her small bites on his earlobes and neck brought him close to climax. His breath hot against her neck, he ordered, “Let go, I’ve got you.”

Cries of pleasure tore from her throat as pressure coiled inside her body and shudders coursed through her. She threw her head back and shouted his name to the sky, “Alistair Connor!”

The feelings overwhelmed him, before his roar shook the air as he came long and hard inside her. Gasping, aftershocks of powerful desire and release traveling downstream his veins in an idyllic labyrinth of pleasure, Alistair rested his forehead on hers. “
Tha gaol a agam ort
.”

Tendrils of his long hair clung to Sophia’s cheek and she ran her fingers through it, savoring the silky sensation.

They lay there sweaty and panting for a moment before he withdrew and rolled onto his back to pull up his boxers and jeans.

It was then that Sophia turned her back to him, curled into herself and burst into a keening cry and huge sobs.

Thank Christ!
He didn’t say anything. Gently, he brought her onto his chest, cradling her in his arms, his broad hands roaming over her back soft and tender.
Cry, my love, cry.

A relief so great welled in his chest that it brought tears to his eyes too, and he was powerless to stop them.

Her hands gripped his shoulders and wandered over his neck and face, frenzied, reconnecting, relearning, also feeling his frantic and intense emotions. She raised her head. Even through her tears she could feel his tearful gaze consuming her.

They lay there on the grass, both crying, kissing, touching, hugging. Their tears mingled and their hands pulled them tight against each other.

After some minutes her deep sobs turned into light shudders.
He always makes me feel so protected and loved.
“I’m sorry. I can’t believe I said that,” she shook her head, whispering mostly to herself, between soft sobs.
He might have lied, but his intentions were good. I could have asked him to explain himself instead of exploding in a fit of rage.
“I didn’t mean to say you were a liar or… And I didn’t mean to run away. I’m sorry.” 

“I know, my love. I’m sorry too. Although, I realized it was an outburst and you didn’t mean what you said, you were right,” Alistair said, his hands caressing her back again.

Sophia sniffed and put her head on the hollow of his neck. “For once, you are not making any sense to me, Lord Cryptic.”

“I know,” Alistair shrugged, also exhausted. He looked up at the gray sky. “And it’s all your fault. After I started therapy, my answers are much more complicated, more unreasonable. It’s was easier before. Two plus two equaled four. Now… It’s not so simple anymore. It can be zero, four or a thousand. These last few days, my mind seemed to contradict itself a hundred times a day.”

“Our minds will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary.”

“I shouldn’t have lied or omitted anything from you and I’m sorry for that. It’s just that I don’t have… control of anything anymore.”

She traced random designs on his naked chest, thinking about what he just said. “I’m also discovering I have no control. Should I care? Should I fight it? Should we?”

“I don’t know. It seemed I had all the answers before, but I never did.” He sighed as he stared up at the sky and the blossoming nature around them. “Look up, Sophia. Look around.”

When she gazed up, she didn’t see the gray sky, the moving clouds or the threes. There was a butterfly flying lazily a few feet over their heads.

She immediately tightened her grasp around his biceps.

“What is it?” he asked, concerned.

“Butterfly,” she whispered, her eyes glued to the insect as it drifted closer. 

Not remembering her phobia, he said, “In Greek myth, Psyche, which literally translates to soul, is represented in the form of a butterfly. Befittingly, Psyche is forever linked with love, as she and Eros shared an endlessly passionate bond together, both hopelessly in love with the other. Take, for example, the butterfly’s stages of life. I can relate them to our own life-phases… growing pains, times of ravenous needs, times of vulnerability, moments of miraculous expansion. From egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis and from the cocoon, the butterfly emerges in her unfurling glory. Overwhelmingly, cultural myth and lore honor the butterfly as a symbol of transformation because of its impressive process of metamorphosis. But was that the caterpillar’s plan? If it had any plan at all?” He laughed humorlessly. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what we control, because life will always find a way to thwart our carefully laid plans. It goes on without really caring what happen to us.”

“Thwart? You’re looking at it in such a bad light,” she whispered, still staring at the flying insect dancing above them but not so tense anymore. It didn’t seem so menacing. In fact, it didn’t menace at all. “You must listen to the mystery it speaks in silence. I could still be inside my shell, whining that Gabriel had died. And it took me a long time to stop feeling guilty, to be free so I could be whole to love you. I still feel sad, I still miss him, but I don’t feel guilt anymore. It was not easy. But… if life hadn’t
thwarted
my plans, you and I would have never crossed paths. One of the main reasons we are together is that he is dead.”

No, I guess it wasn’t easy.
He swallowed, imagining himself in her shoes. Propping himself up on an elbow, he stared into her hazel eyes. “Sometimes, you sound too old, Sophia. Too wise.”

“Too much pain quickly ages and teaches a soul.” It was not a sad statement, nor derisive. It was just a conclusion she had reached long ago. “I don’t believe I’ll ever understand why there has been so much pain and so many deaths in our lives.” Her fingers combed his hair back from his eyes as she talked. “But then, I’m profoundly grateful for so many miracles. I couldn’t thank God enough for Gabriela, you, and this baby.”

A smile appeared on his serious face when she mentioned the baby. “For years, Sophia, life was chaos for me. Hell on Earth, a mire that dragged me deeper and deeper into darkness until my days had no light; wherever I looked it was all cold darkness. Black and no white. But you, my private ray of sun, with your generous love, showed me the path to discover my own summer.” His knuckles caressed her face as he murmured lovingly on her lips, “You healed me.”