Darkest Love (3 page)

“You love it.” It came from somewhere beyond reason, deep in his chest and out of his mouth before he knew it. She swept her tongue in response, cleaning the underside of his penis with wet, smooth strokes. Rain lost it–his next pumps were so vicious Annie withdrew, gagging. He cursed himself for missing the view.

“Oh, man.” He panted over the
lap, lap, lap
of the lake. Annie was gasping, too, her face red, breathing deep gulps of the salty air that was–he could only imagine–tinged with the scent of his dick.

“You're so hot.” He touched the top of her head, suddenly warm for this woman and her efforts and the sublime experience she had just afforded him.

“I had to stop.” She forced a meek giggle that was pained as well–a testament to the size and power of his cock. Her blonde head was bobbing against the backdrop of the foamy, shell-covered shore. His hand rested on top of it.

Rain kicked his trousers away. By the time he looked back she had raised her face–it was adorned with a smile and bisected by his pulsing, rock-hard cock.

“It's probably for the best,” he told the hazel puppy eyes. She was
smoking.
“I was about to come
your
brains out.”

“With that, he pulled her to her feet and peeled her kaftan over her head, throwing it on the sand. Her breasts were as full as he remembered, tanned to a delicious caramel through topless mornings by the river.

“We're going to finish this. Out there.” Rain gestured to the waves. He took Annie's hand, and they were off.

* * * *

Annie's skin puckered as she waded in. The frothy water around her ankles was
freezing
.

“No looking back now.” Rain was behind her. His shirt was off and that erection was still high and mighty under his abs. She poked her tongue out defiantly after she snuck her peek.
I'll look back if I feel like it.

And with a body like that, I'll probably have the impulse.

She placed thigh after thigh, pushing ahead against the resistance of the water, aware of Rain's eyes trained on her ass. She could
feel
them. A squeeze of her cheek as the water reached knee level assuaged any doubts.

“I can't wait to take this,” he whispered. Suddenly there were lips on Annie's ear and wet fingers groping at her neck. She collapsed back into him, closing her eyes and sucking on the finger that Rain slid in her mouth. She relished his hot breath and the atmosphere of wind and Rain for a moment, then strode on, heart pounding and nose still full of the manly scent of him.

The water spiked up in tiny waves, licking at her hips and sending flecks up her abdomen and chest.
I cannot believe I'm doing this. Again.
The thought came through her horniness and shocked her, just as the water was about to reach the hot space between her thighs.

Oh God. I will regret this.
Annie would have reached down and touched herself if he hadn't chosen that moment to do the same.

“Don't go in any further. I want to feel how wet you are.”

Before she could protest that the waves were smaller ahead, there was a hand between her legs.

“Oh.” Annie moaned as the pleasure finally surged from that spot where it had been pooling for the last hour. Her vision starred up. Warmth flooded up her back, down her arms, and into the ecstatic, horny skull that had lost all power of thought, and sight, and wanted this man more than anything.

Rain's fingers moved in slow circles around her clitoris and his tongue licked at Annie's ear. His arm locked around her waist and she gave in, letting another starburst fill her vision as a new hot tsunami rushed up through her body.

“I've got you,” he whispered. The hiss of the waves and the whisper of this god made the orgasm sublime. Cosmic. Annie arched her back, guiding his hand to her nipples.

He obliged, teasing the fine points, finessing all the pleasure out of the nerves. Annie cried out.

After a new orgasm had simmered through her, she wriggled out from under his bicep and twisted to see Rain's face. His eyes were sparkling and slitted in the wind. His lips were pursed in that way she loved, thoughtful and stubborn at once, and his jaw had never looked firmer, stronger, or more covered with sexy stubble. She had felt it grazing her cheek as he worked her clitoris.

They both leaned in at once to kiss, making Annie's heart leap with joy. They were in sync. His tongue played as his hands groped her ass. With a final firm squeeze–almost painful–and a final sweep of his tongue over hers, Rain pulled off.

“Are you sure we can do the choke out here?” Annie asked. The vulnerability in her voice startled her. “If I black out…Rain, I'll drown.”

“You know I'll hold you.”

She did. She trusted him with that.

The waves crashed harder, as if in sadistic excitement, as Rain's hands finally encircled Annie's throat. She saw his ecstasy. His handsome face twisted in a look of rapt eagerness.

He began to apply pressure.

“Ucch.” The water battered Annie's back as pain started to fill her skull. Her throat and voice locked up. Just like that the hot pleasure was gone from her loins–her focus was urgently on her neck, on the glee in Rain's face, and on the horrible feeling in her head. It was a dull agony–her brain felt like it was shrinking, blocked off from the blood pooling out of her heart, nourishing the rest of her body.

Her whole body started to feel light. A final sharp pain pierced her forehead as she watched Rain lick his lips.

“Stop. Stop.” They had both expected her to say that. Rain did not–his fingers kept pressing, locking tighter and pushing up towards her chin at the same time, to cut off the delicate passage that was hidden up there. An epic choke sound blasted from Annie's throat as her whole body collapsed.

The world went black.

Annie was limp. She had gotten one last look at his open-mouthed ecstasy before she lost consciousness.

* * * *

Annie awoke to the sound of the lapping river, a more persistent breeze and the lock of the same strong arm around her waist.

“How long?” she moaned. “How long was I gone?”

“Just thirty seconds.” Rain replied. His heart pumped on her back. “Let's do it.”

Annie gasped as he entered from behind, bringing all the feeling back like a storm to her loins. His penis pounded in and out, brushing the sweetest spots in her most secret space–the part that she worked with her fingers at night, knowing exactly how to curve the digits and where to press. Rain's shaft pressed her g-spot with every thrust, working it blissfully.
After all that neglect.
Her g-spot–her hungriest part of
all–
had been waiting there, positively pulsing for the touch of Rain's penis. Annie screamed as her entire body came back to life–just a moment ago the world had been black.

“Rain. Rain.” She called as the water churned around them. Rain kept thrusting, hands on her breasts. With every slam of his penis a new wave of pleasure was released. Her body was like a slow blooming flower, taking its time yielding scents and colors.

Annie threw her head back as a final orgasm rocked her. She felt Rain explode too. He grunted in that familiar way she loved–she had taken him to the top. A million sensations had passed through him and now they were all connecting, land sliding gloriously into that final release.

She felt him withdraw.

Then there was just the pounding of the waves, the call of a lyrebird on the shore, the bubbles around her thighs, and a sky that was darkening rapidly.
Grey, shot through with red
, Annie thought peering at the horizon. The sun was just a slit now.

Grey and red is such an amazing combination.

“Rain. Look.” She pointed. That sky was like as the sex they enjoyed together–soft pink spaces were shot through with streaks of brutal black.

She let Rain carry her back to the shore and giggled as he tossed her on the sand, like a fisherman's catch.

“Why don't people want to admit that it feels good?”

Rain was spread next to her on the bed, legs so long his feet stuck out of the end of the quilt and scraped the dirt-packed floor of Annie's hut. He grinned lazily, spent after the sex and the day of thrashing around in rivers.

“Safety liability,” he murmured, taking a handful of soy crackers from the plate Annie had placed by the bamboo bed frame. She watched his hand enter the candlelight. The fingers were lit suddenly, all the creases and the lines of the knuckles defined. On the wall behind his fiddling fingers a shadow appeared, each hair defined so the hand looked like a monstrous spider.

Annie's eyebrows shot up. “People could just admit that it's a guilty pleasure though. Like drinking and driving.” She nuzzled into him, both to drink up his yummy smell and to banish that sinister spider-hand from her sight.

“Well, it's easier just to not talk about it at all. Keep it taboo. Can you imagine how many divorces would go AWOL for the man if the wife claimed she was mentally disturbed? And that she got that way because he strangled her for both their pleasure?”

“Ah. It's another way to protect men in the courts. I should have guessed.” Annie giggled, giving his chest a lick. Rain twitched.

“Stop that.” She laughed at his pec shifting like a tectonic plate before an earthquake. It always amused her that he was so ticklish.

“So it really feels amazing, hey?” he asked, crunching nuts and soy crackers in his mouth. His eyes met Annie's in the candlelight, relaxed and gently intrigued. She knew this would last until tomorrow, and she was determined to enjoy it.

“Yes.” Annie rested her chin under his pec, feeling his eyes on her face as she thought. “It's like… your whole body is tenderized. Your body goes weak, and the whole world is black. Then when sensation returns to you, it's twice as strong.”

She didn't add the part that bothered her: how truly ecstatic Rain looked when he was choking her. It only bothered her a little. Any woman who has seen the porn men watch alone is aware that male sexuality is founded on brutality. Even in the kindest man there is at least a streak of it.

“How many times did you come?”

“Four in all,” Annie said, happy for the hand that came to rest on her hip and the affectionate pat it gave her, though she knew it was partly because Rain had imbibed most of her malt whiskey. He had not drunk since arriving in Sivu. The afternoon had been full of pleasures for him–a quick sex-booze-and-violence catch-up.

“I always enjoy it with you,” she said.

“Me, too.” Rain's voice was friendly enough but she felt his body tense, pec locking into a tight hill. Annie knew what that was: he feared what might be coming next. A lecture:
Are you going to go cold on me tomorrow, like you always do?

She shut her mouth, listening to the crackle of the nibbles between his teeth and watching the light flicker around her furniture as the candle danced its tiny dance. She only had two more nights on the island anyway. On Monday she flew back to Australia, then on to New York for journal submissions and awards night. She would avoid Rain, she resolved, until her flight.

No point distressing myself
. Annie dozed off to that thought, lulled by the soft light in the hut. Her brain switched off as quickly as it had out in the water. But this time, it was because it was eager to process some violent new memories.

* * * *

“And the winner is… Rain Mistern.”

Rain swept out of his seat and tore down the aisle.
I've won!
He walked way too fast actually, knocking a couple of wine glasses from precarious perches and stepping on the train of an attendee or two.

It wasn't excitement; it was a matter of necessity. He needed to get to the stage fast.
If anyone tries to disrupt this I'll stick my fist in their outraged face.
Rain did not want that violent episode flashed on the jumbo screen that was trying to capture the reactions of the winner. And all the losers. He grinned despite himself at the prospect of his colleagues watching him wrestle with a female protestor.

“Good work, Rain. Well deserved.” As he neared the steps, a field collaborator shot to his feet and pulled Rain in for a hug. Rain peered over the man's shoulder, and couldn't help but smile again at the sight of the entire anthropology community decked out in tarty gear. Men's faces were tanned and red-eyed above their bow ties–they had clearly just swept in on planes for awards night, still not recovered from a nasty case of conjunctivitis or Madras eye. These were guys who spent so much time in hats with mosquito veils they sometimes came home with nets tattooed on their faces.

Not tonight. Penguin suits and gowns with endless trains filled the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, the gauzy fabrics of lady's dresses swooshing into the aisles like different colored mists. One set of brown female eyes at a nearby table was full of anguish.

Oh boy. A protest.
It took Rain a second to realize the woman was upset because he had stepped on her train, dislodging an evening's worth of soil. It clung to the gauze in a zigzag pattern, still bearing the design of Rain's boot sole, making a mockery of the delicate design on the fabric.

You can't take the dirt out of the field worker,
he thought as he patted Marty Boland's back, meeting the woman's eye over Boland's shoulder and mouthing, ‘sorry'. Everywhere he went women lost it, for one reason or another: orgasms, jealousy, competitiveness, zigzag deposits of patterned boot dirt. They licked their lips at his biceps, spoke in awe of his book sales, raged at his supposed sexism, and then… parted their legs like curtains.
Strange, beautiful creatures.
He was always in trouble and always fighting them off anyway.

“Go, Rain.” Marty Boland released him and he tore up the steps two at a time, earning thunderous applause and squeals from the tipsy crowd. How were the nominees taking it? He caught a glimpse of Annie Childs on the screen, clapping calmly. She was the only one who did not look a bit tight-mouthed at her loss. She was taking it well.