Phantom Affair (3 page)

“Come.” She reached down and found the cord that held up his
loose, shapeless trousers. Instead of undoing it, though, she tugged on it,
dragging him with her when she crossed the room to the bed. She sat on the
mattress, sinking into the cushiony top. Robert stepped between her open legs
and leaned down to kiss her again. Her blood bubbled as his lips brushed over
hers, sending an arrow of pleasure and longing straight to her core.

She looked into his eyes. The light blue was no longer icy
but had sparks of warmth dancing in their depths. A connection of a kind she’d
never experienced before jumped between them, linking them.

She could feel his yielding to her in the draining of
resistance from his tense body, before a sudden, shocking set of visual images
from a time and place far outside her own experience assaulted her.

Even as the heat of arousal began to surge through her in
response to his touch and his kiss, flashes of memory rushed into her mind as
well.

A group of people resolved into a woman and several
children, all huddled near the fireplace in a tiny room. The children jockeyed
for position, the biggest elbowing the smaller ones aside to get closer to the
meager warmth. The woman sat in a rickety chair, bent over, her body shaking
with sobs.

One of the smallest of the children crept over to her and
laid his head against her shoulder. “Mama, don’t cry. Are ye missing Papa?”

“Aye,” she whispered. The woman straightened and wiped her
eyes. “I need to tell all of ye.” She spoke louder now. “Yer papa willna be
coming home again. I’ve had word he died aboard ship and has been buried at
sea.”

A shocked silence ensued. None of them knew their papa well
since he spent most of his time away at sea, but from Mama’s reaction they knew
it wasn’t a good thing. A few sobs broke out as they all huddled around their
mother. “I fear this bodes ill for us all,” she muttered. “I know not how I’ll
feed so many.”

As memories do, time then skipped over weeks, with only a
small bit of bread for food and months of hardship, until the day his mother
came home from the market with her basket surprisingly full but tears running
down her cheeks. She came over and hugged and kissed him, which surprised him
even more than the full basket.

“Robby,” she said, “Ye must be strong for all of us.” She
cried even harder as she embraced him. A little while later a man came to the
door. Robby screamed as the newcomer picked him and began to take him away. He
reached for his mama and yelled for her to stop the stranger, but she didn’t.
He never saw his mother again.

Shocked and saddened by the tragic events, Kelly pulled back
but didn’t release her hold on him. And then she was back in the dungeon room.
Robert stood in front of her, giving her a puzzled look.

Despite the tragic memories fading now, her body still
tingled all over with arousal. She offered a smile and pulled him closer.

Compassion for the boy he was mingled with love for the man
she knew and delight in being able to touch him, rub his shoulders, stroke his
hair and feel the prickle of beard when he kissed along her neck. She brushed
her hands up and down his chest, marveling at the feel of the hard muscle, the
sprinkle of hair, the remarkable solidity of him. For so long she’d wanted to
do this.

He reached up to run gentle fingers down the side of her
face, seeming almost as bemused as she at the turn of events that put him here
with her. Fire trailed behind his hands wherever he touched, setting off little
explosions just beneath the surface. Her blood heated and rushed faster. Kelly
leaned into him and put her lips against his throat, tasting, teasing, nipping
at him, learning the warm, musky scent of his skin, the salty-sweet tang of his
flesh.

He felt good. He even smelled good, like a man should
somehow, which was surprising considering his rough appearance. Kelly leaned
back on the bed and pulled him down with her. Robert had been her only lover
for the last few years, so his solid weight against her was another small
shock. He still had the consideration to prop himself up on an arm to avoid
squashing her as he rolled over onto his side next to her.

She reached for the drawstring cord holding his rough pants
up. A quick tug removed it from the casing. She had to shimmy down along his
chest to reach the fabric and push it off his hips. He kicked the pants off.

Thrills surged up and down her spine when she laid a hand on
his belly and smoothed downward with her palm, sliding it under the swelling
shaft until she reached the root of his cock. It jutted from a cushion of pale,
curly hair. His breath caught in a sob when she put her fingers around it and
slid them up and down a couple of times.

“Kel-lee! I be too full. I can’t…” She felt the quiver shake
his body, showing how close he was to spilling.

She released his cock and slid back up, rolling to her side
to meet his gaze directly. His eyes were wide, the light blue irises glinting
with emotion and effort. When she looked at him directly, she felt drawn into
him, almost like falling into his mind.

A prolonged nightmare lasted for a year after he was taken
from his mother. The man who’d bought him was a chimney sweep and Robert was
his new assistant. Robert had to climb up inside the chimneys to scrub away the
soot. He dreaded going into that contained space. He hated the smell of charred
wood or coal, the feel of ash all over him and the darkness. Every day he
fought the terror of getting trapped in those narrow stacks. But whenever he complained
or balked the man beat him.

Twice he ran away and twice he was dragged back and locked
in a small dark room with just a crust of bread and a cup of water a day for a
week until he cooperated again. By his third try he knew how to prevent
recapture and got away. He found shelter of a sort with a group of beggars and
pickpockets who welcomed him when he proved quite adept at both begging and
theft.

He finally found his old home but his family was gone. His
mother had died, a neighbor said. She had no idea where her body had been
buried, nor did she know what had become of his brothers and sisters.
“Scattered,” was the best guess she could offer.

He returned to the thieves and beggars and made a decent
living removing the burden of heavy purses from the belts of well-to-do
citizens. But after a couple more years, he hit a growth spurt that made his
formerly slick moves awkward. Caught in an attempt to pick a pocket, he got off
with a flogging and a warning that he’d lose a hand the next time. That terrified
him into rethinking his life. When someone told him about opportunities in a
new land over the ocean, he decided he had nothing to lose. He signed a
seven-year indenture in return for his passage.

The sea voyage he preferred to forget. Stuffed in a dark,
smelly hold with just barely enough to eat and drink and the constant rocking
of the ship making people sick, the only comfort lay in knowing there would be
an end to it and the promise of better things on the other side.

Once they landed his indenture was sold to a Virginia
tobacco grower. The work was hard and the hours long, but for the first time in
his life he had enough to eat and he made a few friends among the other
servants.

It wasn’t ideal. His muscles and joints ached all the time,
he got sunburned regularly and was chilly all winter, but the biggest problem
was another servant who seemed to delight in finding ways to get Robert in
trouble. But on the whole it was a good time.

The day he finished out his indenture felt like the day of
his birth as a man and he set out for a free life with spirits full to
bursting, one of the few times of real joy in his life.

This was another one of those times.

Kelly felt the thrill of his pleasure at her touch, the
electric jolts that tore through him when she put her hand around his balls and
began to knead them. It added to the tactile joys she already experienced. His
fingers explored her breasts, rubbing them with more enthusiasm than expertise
and then moving down to her pussy.

After just a couple of minutes, though, he moaned,
“Kel-lee!” in a pleading voice.

“Yes, love.”

“I can’t…”

“I know. Wait here a moment.” She got up, found her bag and
slipped the packet out of it. He watched intently as she opened it and
extracted the condom.

He eyed it dubiously. “What be this?”

“Protection,” she said. “I’ll put it on for you.” His sandy
eyebrows rose almost to his hairline as she put the condom on him.

“Ah, so ye won’t conceive,” he said, his expression
clearing.

“And to protect us both from disease, though I have a clean
bill of health. Now,” she said once the condom was in place, spreading her legs
for him. He climbed awkwardly between her knees, then fumbled to get his cock
positioned. She reached down and helped direct him.

It had been so long since her last solid lover, she was
tight. When he realized it was uncomfortable for her, he tried to restrain
himself from plunging all the way in at once. Instead he did a few tentative
pumps, going in a little way and pulling back, giving her time to adjust to the
way he stretched her.

His labored breaths picked up into furious pants, but when
he finally pushed all the way in, he stopped there and looked down at her. The
joyful lights couldn’t totally dim the shadows of his past that showed there.

The patch of land he’d been granted as part of his indenture
agreement was heavily wooded and rough for agriculture, but it had a stream
running through it and was near enough to a decent-sized town that he could
walk there. Eventually he could build a life on the patch, but he’d need a job
for a while. After spending a few days building a rough hut for shelter,
fishing for meals and gathering berries and fruit, he headed into town to look
for work.

It took two days of inquiries before he got hired as an
assistant cook by one of the two small, rough taverns. He knew nothing of
cooking but under the guidance of the elderly head cook, he learned and even
discovered he enjoyed it.

He made a few friends, including the sadly slow young man
who assisted at the livery stable next door. Unfortunately that put him at odds
with a couple of the town bullies whose main sport was teasing the boy and
playing nasty pranks on him. No one else seemed to care about the boy or the
bullies’ increasingly stupid and dangerous tricks.

Robert often stood between them, defending his friend, which
meant the occasional fight. Mostly Robert won those, through a combination of
being bigger, tougher, smarter and meaner. His years of thievery had made him
quick. Years spent in the fields working off his indenture left him strong. His
entire life had made him ruthless.

When an especially nasty prank left his friend and a horse
injured, with it set up to look as though his friend had been responsible for
the accident, Robert had had enough. He sought out the pair and told them the
next time they did anything to the stableboy, Robert would beat them into the
ground. As expected, the leader of the pair of bullies couldn’t let the
challenge pass. The fight that ensued was long, vicious and recognized no
rules. Robert threw punch after punch and took a few as well. They traded
kicks. The bully grabbed his hair and tried to jerk his neck around. Robert
reached for the other man’s eyes, attempting to scratch at them. When his
opponent bit into his arm, Robert yelped, twisted and tossed him to the ground.
The bully grabbed him around the ankle, tripping him. The two rolled around the
stableyard, trading punches and gouging at each other. His opponent tried to
kick him in the groin, fortunately missing by inches and digging the toes of
his boot into Robert’s thigh instead. That was it for him.

Robert grabbed the other’s arm and spun him around to face
him, then drove his right fist into the bully’s jaw. His adversary went down on
his side. Robert jumped on top of him, but backed away when the bully screamed
in agony. He rolled over to show a mangled hand that had caught beneath him and
taken the brunt of his weight when he fell. Two fingers were obviously broken.

Robert straightened and stared down at him. “Ye ever bother
Sammy again, it’ll be both yer arms I break.”

Kelly pulled her gaze away from his with an effort. The
violence of the fight disturbed her but not enough to make her let go of him or
push him out. His breath picked up speed again as he struggled to keep from
moving too fast.

She matched her rhythm to his as he pumped in and out. After
a few plunges, his cock slid smoothly and pressed on that sensitive spot inside
her that thrilled with each touch. It made her gasp and buck.

Amazing sensations engulfed her, the largest being the
tension of need pulling her tighter with each push of his cock into her, but
his balls slapping against her added to the raw pleasure of it, along with the
press of his strong thighs against hers, the tingle of his chest hair tickling
her breasts and the incredible resilience of the skin of his back where her
fingers dug in.

A tide of need rose inside, filling her, threatening to
burst out of her skin as it swelled.

She realized just how much she’d missed in not being able to
share the pleasure. Touching him, kissing him added to her arousal. His soft,
sighing moans delighted her. The warm scent of his arousal and the solid weight
of his body on hers contributed their own thrills. She’d never tire of watching
his face screw up in tense lines as the pleasure grew nearly unbearable.

She loved this man. Even with his violent past, she loved
him. Part of her wished she could wipe away all the horrible memories, the
unbearable pain and ugly treatment he’d endured. That couldn’t happen, but she
could give him a better future.