19. Belladonna

19

BELLADONNA

Ididn’t know sex could be like this.

It’s a thought I’ve had more than once since coming to this realm. It’s intense and overwhelming, but there’s joy as well. There’s?.?.?. fun. The delight is there in her low laugh when I push her onto her back and set about exploring her body as thoroughly as she explored mine. It’s there in my glee at making her wings erupt from her back and her clitoris start vibrating from stroking her pussy with my tongue. Everything feels good and nothing feels bad, and I didn’t know it could be like this.

Even outside of my ill-fated personal experience, some things were just known. Sex was something to be endured by women, something done to fulfill your role as a wife and, eventually, mother. Daring to want it with someone who isn’t your husband, isn’t a man at all? Unthinkable.

But, for the first time in my conscious life, there’s barely any thought of sin as I lust, Rusalka sitting up and claiming my mouth, tasting herself there just as I taste myself on her tongue. She tugs me down onto her chest, ignoring my half-hearted protest about crushing her, and gathers me close. I only manage to tense for a few moments before relaxing against her.

“I’ll stay.”

They pause their stroking down my spine. “You don’t have to give me an answer now. Or tomorrow. Or in the next few years. You’ve been pressured and cornered and pushed your entire life. I won’t add to that.”

I think I love you.

I know better than to say the words aloud. It’s too soon for that sort of talk. And more likely, they would tell me that I’m only responding to the first kind and caring person I’ve ever met—maybe add a dose of bonding over trauma talk in the process. Maybe they’d even be right. I don’t know about any of that, only that I feel safe with Rusalka—cherished—in a way I’ve never felt with another person. “I know,” I finally manage. “But I want to stay. I feel more at home here than?.?.?. anywhere else.”

“Then your home this shall be.” They kiss my temple. “We have so much time, little one. Slow down and cherish your days where no one is asking anything of you.”

Except they are, aren’t they? Not explicitly, not anymore, but I know the need this territory has. I understand the basics of warfare, if only vaguely. A baby isn’t a nuke, but the concept’s the same. If everyone has one, the respective territories are less likely to deploy them.

I’ve spent my whole life prepared for the fact that eventually I’d be a mother so some God-fearing man would be able to continue his genetic legacy, so good Christian folks would outnumber the heathens threatening the church’s very way of life. Which is all really gross now that I’m thinking about it with a little distance. Having a baby for a territory of people who have welcomed me without hesitation, who have gone out of their way to ensure I feel just as safe with them as I do with Rusalka? That’s different.

Yes, I haven’t met every person in the territory. But even if the rest of them are jerks, Zhenya and Inna and Danik and Bogdan? The children whose free laughter I hear periodically throughout the day when I’m working in the gardens? They’re all worth saving. They’re worth protecting. I never thought of myself as a protector. The term doesn’t sit easily on my shoulders, but it feels kind of right. I think?

“Belladonna?”

I’ve learned enough in the last week to know that this conversation is better left for another day. I don’t want to argue with Rusalka when we’re having such a wonderful time—especially when we really want the same thing.

I nuzzle her neck. “Sorry, I was gathering wool, or whatever that saying is.” The truth, more or less.

Rusalka draws a spiral at the small of my back. “You’ve had a long day in a series of long days. Rest, Belladonna. You deserve it.”

Their words ping against something deep inside me. I feel like my entire world has been changed since coming here, but there are still issues buried in the center of me that I don’t know how to unpack. I don’t know if I even want to. Apparently the concept of being deserving of rest is one of them.

I roll onto my back, bringing her with me. “You’re in my bed. I don’t want to rest. You promised me an entire night, and dawn is still hours away.”

She settles between my thighs with a casual grace that takes my breath away. “It feels like you’re running from something, little one.”

Maybe. Probably. “It’s not shame. I like what we do, and I care about you.” More than care. “I’m not running away from regret, either, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Hmm.”

It feels like she’s seeing me too clearly, but then, she always sees me too clearly. It’s something that I cherish and dread at the same time.

Finally, Rusalka kisses me. “You’ve trusted me this far, and so I’ll trust that you’ll tell me if this becomes something you use to harm yourself.” Before I can come up with a response to that, they grin against my lips. “And I’ll admit that I’m nowhere near done with you. If you’re determined not to rest?” She laughs, low and wicked. “So be it.”

Their flames lick over my body as they kiss me. They’re all warmth and pressure and the occasional little flick of pain that makes it feel all the better. With another person, in another situation, I’d be terrified of being burned, but with Rusalka, I give myself over to their ministrations with gleeful abandon. It’s all pleasure, even the small pains.

They push back, creating a little distance between our bodies. I immediately reach for them. “More.”

“I’ll give you more, little one.” Their tone is amused in a way that makes me feel as though I’m in on the joke instead of the butt of it. “Trust me.”

“I do,” I say without hesitation. “With anything. With everything.”

Their expression flickers so quickly, I almost miss the change. I’m too far gone to worry about what it means, especially when the fire licks over my body and gathers at Rusalka’s hips. I watch with wide eyes as the flames wraps around her, pools in front, then forms?.?.?. “A strap-on.”

Another of those low laughs that make my toes curl. “This is so much more than that.” She rolls her hips, pressing that fiery phallus into me, just a little. Warmth and a deep pleasure steal my thoughts and what little trepidation I might have had. Rusalka pauses. “My fire amplifies pleasure, and what you’re feeling echoes through me, in me. It’s?.?.?.” They trail off, their eyes flickering again as they press a little farther into me, farther into themself.

“Good. Really good.” I grip their hips, arching up to meet them. “More. Please.”

“I’ll give you as much as you can handle.” She shifts me onto my left side and presses my right thigh up, opening me obscenely?.?.?. and allowing her to settle even deeper inside me. Deep enough that her pussy presses to mine. Deep enough that her vibrating clitoris rubs against me, seeming to pulse through my entire core. Then she begins to move.

I’ve spent a number of guilt-ridden nights sneaking porn on my phone, enough to know the beats of penetrative sex and what to expect. My sole experience was similar enough, albeit without the screaming orgasms the women in those videos seem to have on command.

This is?.?.?. different. Slower. More sensual. Rusalka is barely moving, just slightly rocking our hips in tandem as her wings create a heatless inferno at her back. Her flames hit that wicked spot inside me as her vibrations pulse faster. “Oh.” It’s like a flip is switched. All my bones go melty and strange, my muscles incapable of doing anything but clinging to her. “That feels so good.”

“You should always feel good, little one.” They kiss me before I can come up with a response, which is just as well. I don’t know what I’d say to that. It’s the antithesis of what I’ve grown up believing, and even as much as I want to embrace it wholeheartedly, I can’t. Not yet. But maybe someday.

Rusalka doesn’t pick up their pace, kissing me as they work me closer and closer to an orgasm unlike any I’ve experienced to date, building, building, building. Their breath comes just as fast as mine, their perfect breasts so close that I can’t stop myself from cupping them. I pluck desperately at their nipples, which only serves to make their vibrations stronger. “Oh my?.?.?. Rusalka.”

And then the pleasure isn’t building but exploding inside me like a firework show, too bright and beautiful to witness, something I have to close my eyes against. That doesn’t stop words from bursting out of me, though—the very words I swore I’d keep contained no matter what.

“I love you!”