Tagan's Child (41 page)

I propped
myself up on my elbows to look at him, happy for the distraction.
“I think I can safely say that coming to the beach features in
Toby’s top three things to do,” I said with a smile.

“He is such a
lovely little boy,” Leylana interjected as she handed Halsan a
Panama hat; it was such a normal, wifely thing to do. “He reminds
me so much of Tagan in his mannerisms.” A wistful look settled
across her features.

“He is pretty
special, I have to agree,” I said

“The kidnap
doesn’t seem to have affected him too much,” Halsan added.

“I’m sure it
has affected him more than he is letting on,” I said.

I shrieked as a
shower of freezing cold water rained down on my back and turned
around to see who the perpetrator was. Ahran stood over me with a
big grin slapped across his face.

“He told me to
do it,” he said, pointing to Toby and doing a convincing impression
of a guilty school-boy passing the blame. Toby stood next to him
dripping wet with an equally wide grin plastered across his
face.

“Well, you
should know better,” I said, directing my mock scorn at Ahran.

“Ah, don’t be
like that,” he said in his sweetest voice, “come and have a
swim.”

I loved it when
Ahran was playful. Oh, what the hell!

I jumped up
suddenly. “The last one in is a lemon!” I teased and ran as fast as
I could towards the water. Momentarily, I had forgotten I was a
mere Sapien and had just taken on a full and a half Ramian. Both
easily caught up with me and took me down into the water as I began
to wade in. I gave as good as I got and spluttered and splashed
back as hard as I could. The three of us spent the next ten minutes
enjoying ourselves, dunking each other and stealthily grabbing each
other’s legs under the water. For the first time in what seemed
like a lifetime, I forgot my fears and worries and lived in the
moment.

Toby returned
to the beach to resume his hole digging and I floated on my back as
Ahran powered out some front crawl. Out of the corner of my eye, I
watched the play of his powerful shoulder muscles as he
rhythmically broke the surface with each hand. He turned and headed
in my direction.

“You should
carry a health warning in that bikini,” he said, approaching me.
“All hot-blooded males in a 10 kilometre radius beware.” The look
on his face was predatory and it made me shiver deliciously.

The top half of
my bikini was a little on the skimpy side. My chest was more ample
than my bottom half and it meant I always struggled to get bikinis
that fitted without showing an indecent amount of flesh. This
bikini was no exception.

“Well, I’m
lucky that there aren’t any hot-blooded males in the vicinity,” I
said facetiously. I was rewarded with a dunk. He took me by
surprise and I swallowed some water which made me cough and
splutter as I returned to the surface.

“Sophie? I’m
sorry, are you alright?” His voice changed from playful to anxious.
I caught him full in the face with a hand-sweep of water and
attempted to swim away, still coughing but laughing at the same
time. Before I could put any distance between us he caught me by
the waist and pulled me to him.

“And where do
you think you are going?” he said with feigned menace.

I turned to
face him and placed my hands on his chest. His eyes darkened
dangerously.

Now I was in
trouble.

He took hold of
my legs and wrapped them around his waist.

“No, no, no,
no,” I said quickly and attempted to wriggle free but he gripped my
legs tightly around him.

“People will
see,” I protested, and glanced over his shoulder to find that
Leylana and Toby were nowhere to be seen and the King was engrossed
in the tablet on his lap with a couple of guards not too far
away.

“It will only
seem odd if you struggle,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eye.
“To the casual bystander, we are just facing one another having a
perfectly normal conversation.”

As soon as my
skin made contact with his any protest from me was always going to
be a weak and feeble one. He ran his hands down the length of my
thigh until he cupped my bottom and supported my weight.

“I want to bury
myself in you,” he declared. His voice had become delectably husky
and it made my heart slam against my ribcage.

“Not here,” I
argued, although my rebuff only seemed to carry a promise for
later. I really didn’t want to lead him on but it was impossible to
think coherently all the time his hands were gently kneading my
behind.

“No, not here.
I’m not into public displays of my sexual prowess,” he said with a
crooked smile. Oh, how much I wanted to lean forward and kiss him,
but any contact I was to have with him had to strictly be
underwater.

I settled for
running my hands up and down his forearms.

“You like
that?” he asked, as he continued to fondle my bottom through my
bikini bottoms.

I nodded, not
able to tear my eyes away from his.

“What about
this?” He slowly slipped his hands underneath the fabric of my
swimwear and made contact with the skin of my behind causing me to
take a sharp intake of breath.

“Judging by
your reaction, I would say you found that… favourable,” he said
with an arch of his brow his own breath sounding a little
uneven.

I nodded again.
Our eyes were locked together, as his voice, which now was just a
low rumble in his chest, continued to seduce me. My own voice had
caught somewhere in my throat.

The world had
suddenly shrunk and now it contained just the two of us, standing
there, the warm sun on our shoulders and the cool, crisp water
soothing our heated skin beneath the surface. Ahran’s pupils were
dilated and I suspected that if I reached forward I would find
further evidence of his arousal. I kept my hands firmly planted on
his forearms, silently willing him to continue, the fact that it
was so delightfully risqué fuelling my excitement.

Ahran began
stroking down the backs of my thighs and up underneath my bikini
bottoms. He did this over and over again and it was slowly driving
me crazy. My lips parted as my breathing picked up and still our
eyes were focused on nothing else but each other. Here I was, with
this incredibly gorgeous man who had stolen my heart and he was
looking at me as if I was the epitome of every male fantasy. It was
a pulse pounding experience. I suspected it would take some form of
catastrophic natural disaster to force our gazes away from each
other.

“Ok, so we’ve
established that you like me caressing your beautiful behind, what
would happen if I did this?” he rasped.

I knew where he
was going next and I held my breath as his hands ran over the top
of my thighs and his thumbs hooked inside the front of my bikini.
He began to stroke the narrow strip of hair hidden there.

His eyes were
fixated on me, he was here with me but at the same time he’d
drifted somewhere else, concentrating on what he was doing with his
thumbs and what effect this was having on his own state of
arousal.

“…and this?” he
asked as his thumb made its way down between my legs and found the
most sensitive part of my body.

I gasped and my
nails dug into his wrists.

He began a slow
assault, moving his thumb up and down and around in an exquisite
solo dance.

I began to
pant, feeling hot waves within me beginning to build as we stood
there in the lake locked together in our secret, underwater, sex. I
gently moved my hips back and forward.

Oh dear lord, I
was a slave to his expert fingers. I closed my eyes as the waves
built in power.

“Open your eyes
Sophie,” Ahran demanded.

And like his
obedient subject, I raised my lids but was barely able to focus.
Ahran’s persistent thumb continued to work its magic and I
struggled not to rock my hips more markedly.

One final sweep
of his thumb tipped me over the edge.

“Ahhhran,” I
breathed as I clutched his forearms to brace myself as the bone
melting heat spread through my body, the lower half of me gently
convulsing over and over again as the breath rushed from my lungs.
I wanted to throw my head back and give myself over to the
sensations coursing through my body but knew I couldn’t give such
an outward display of what had just culminated under the water. In
that moment I realised that no other man would ever make me feel
the way he made me feel. It was a heart-wrenching and depressing
thought.

Ahran held me
as my orgasm subsided and then I slid down his body until my feet
made contact with the soft sand of the lake floor.

“Okay?” he
asked with a little smile, still holding my arms.

“Yes…thank
you.” I said, feeling a little embarrassed that he had made me
climax so easily. My eyes drank in his exceptional features. He
really was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

He chuckled.
“You don’t have to thank me, the pleasure was all mine.”

“But you
didn’t, you know…” I said, willing him to understand what I was
getting at without actually having to say it.

“Believe me,
touching you brings its own pleasure.” I couldn’t help wondering
whether he was for real. Walking away was becoming more and more of
an impossibility.

“We had better
head back to the beach,” I said, glancing over his shoulder.
Leylana, Toby and three of the bodyguards were making their way
back. Toby had a bucket in his hands and Leylana carried a small
fishing net.

“You go ahead,
I just need to spend a bit longer in the water,” he said a little
self-consciously.

I gave him a
knowing smile and squeezed his hand before letting go and wading
through the water to the shore. I could still feel the tingle where
his thumb had been and I had a warm glow that came from somewhere
deep inside. And that’s what I had to deal with. Apart from what
had just happened, being with Ahran felt good. Not only could he
give Daniel Craig a run for his money in his swim shorts, and by
some way in my opinion, he was kind, sensitive, perceptive, funny,
the list went on. He wasn’t your average man and that was aside
from his looks and his highly evolved talents. The problem I faced
was that in the eyes of those around him, I was not a suitable
match and to make matters worse, it was because of me that he had
broken his parentally arranged betrothal. And so my internal battle
raged on. I gave a hopeless sigh and walked towards the royal
party.

“Look Auntie
Sophie,” Toby said skipping towards me. “Leylana and I went further
up the beach and caught some little fish, see?” He held the bucket
out for my perusal.

I peered in.
“Oh yes.” There were some small almost translucent fish darting
about in the confines of the bucket.

“Leylana said I
can take them and put them in the pond in the palace,” he said
enthusiastically. He was clearly enjoying himself.

“Good idea,” I
said encouragingly.

“Aha! Here they
are,” Leylana said, interrupting my appraisal of Toby’s catch of
the day. I followed her eyes to find one of the bodyguards walking
across the beach with a box in his hands.

“What is it?” I
asked intrigued.

“Ice cream!”
she replied with a mischievous smile.

Ahran came to
join us and I avoided his eyes just in case I blushed. Leylana had
already proven to be too observant. The ice-creams were handed out
and we sat down to eat them.

“Ooh! That’s
delicious,” I declared, swallowing the sweet, creamy ice cream that
tasted like toffee apples.

“Where did you
get these from?” I asked unable to recall seeing an ice-cream van
in the car park.

“There is a
very good Gelaterie in the town, I had someone come and deliver
them to us,” Leylana explained.

Well, I suppose
you could do that when you were royalty. Oh, how our lives were
poles apart.

Toby polished
off his ice-cream first and challenged Ahran to a bat and ball play
off. I finished mine and laid back to relive the secret moments
Ahran and I had shared in the lake. It had been risky and hot and
incredible.

“How do you see
us taking things from here Sophie?” Halsan said, dragging me out of
my X-rated reverie. It took me a moment to realise he was talking
about Toby. I reined in my thoughts, forcing them to the back of my
mind as I contemplated what the King had just asked me.

“Well, as I
said to you before, Toby must come first. I know you will want him
to spend time with you but he’s got school and a home back on Earth
with people who love him. He’s going to need some normality in his
life,” I forewarned, watching Toby dive for the ball. I wanted to
remind the King that although he was half Ramian, he was still half
human.

“I understand,
but we are going to have to strike a delicate balance. I want him
to learn about our way of life and culture because one day he will
be King of Dinara.” I baulked at how Halsan seemed to think Toby
becoming King was a fait accompli.

“I would be
doing him an injustice if I did not teach him about our world but I
understand he has a life back on Earth and that is part of who he
is also.” He took a deep breath as if it pained him. “But, I have a
duty to protect our world and I cannot take any risks that might
breach our security and the anonymity we have in your world, it is
something we are very proud to have protected over the years.”

I made eye
contact with the King and noticed the determined set of his mouth.
I knew I had a fight on my hands here. There was the possibility
Toby might decide that becoming the ruler in a new world was not
for him, but looking at him now and seeing how easily he had
accepted his newfound status, that seemed unlikely. No matter what
happened, it was clear we had a very difficult situation to manage
and I wasn’t at all sure how we were going to reach a
compromise.