Cherry Dreams

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2012 Lilith Duvalier

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-110-7

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: JC Chute

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  CHERRY DREAMS

  The Promise Series, 2

  Lilith Duvalier

  Copyright © 2012

  The soft sound of lapping water rose up through the roasting Venice air and filtered through the windows of Alaric and Jane’s hotel room, which were thrown open and begging for a breeze.

  Jane’s hands, cold with ice water, gave his erect and unfulfilled cock a last squeeze. She then set her palms to the insides of his thighs and ran them down to his knees, squeezing again to indicate that the round was over. He gulped in a breath of air, lifting his head up to meet her eyes.

  “Jane, can we…”

  She grinned and set her thumb to his lip. They were going again. He dropped his head back to the pillows and breathed out, bracing himself. Jane chuckled softly.

  “No. Alaric, hold still, but relax,” she murmured. She was seated astride his thighs, the glimpse of pink peeking out between her widespread legs made even more tantalizing because Alaric knew that he would not end this afternoon’s game there.

  He melted further into the mattress, trying to be jelly instead of stone. His cock was stone, and had been for the better part of an hour, but there was nothing he could do about that. Jane had come up to the hotel room with a basin of chipped ice she’d brought from the kitchen, and a wicked grin, and Alaric had settled himself onto the mattress, anxious to see what delightful pastime she had in mind to while away the scorching Italian afternoon.

  Jane’s entire body glistened under its patina of sweat. Her dark hair had tightened into broken curls at her temples and the kohl liner she wore around her eyes, despite the scandalized looks she sometimes got for it, was smudged by the sweat, running into the small creases around her eyes.

  He loved her more than usual when she was imperfect like this.

  Jane adjusted her position over his thighs, making herself a little more comfortable. They’d been doing this for hours, like rehearsing a dance, step by step. The movements were carefully choreographed, a performance he was supposed to learn from the repetition, and he had learned it well.

  It had become a favorite game of his, though they didn’t often play because of the time needed to train his skin to expect the touches before they happened, but this dance had started when they had first reached Venice a month ago.

  Jane’s thumb to his bottom lip was the first step. She swept it over his kiss-bruised skin, then fished another piece of ice out of the bowl on the nightstand and set it to his lips. The ice was a novelty, an addition to the dance just as an extra indulgence on this scorching day.

  He groaned, just barely keeping himself from thrusting up and dislodging Jane from her perch. She held the ice to his lip and let the ice-cold water drip into his mouth. He could already feel the line it would trace down his neck, to the point where his clavicles met, then between the muscles in his chest, as cold as though the ice was already pressing into his flesh.

  She slid the ice up and let it fall into his open mouth, then set a chilled finger under his chin and pushed his mouth shut, an effective reminder that he was expected to stay quiet for this round, before she took another piece of ice out of the bowl on the nightstand and set it back to his lip. The chill crept down his chin and the anticipation of cold rippled out ahead of it like tendrils of frost over a pane of glass. It traced down the path that she had followed every time since she’d whispered, “This is going to be a good game,” in his ear as she’d pushed him backward onto their bed and set her thumb to his bottom lip for the first time.

  The ice slipped down his neck, hitting the dell between his collarbones at the same moment that Jane’s lips settled against his own with a quick sting as her burning mouth warmed his frozen one. She stayed close, pressing kisses to his lips, closed around one chunk of ice as the other continued down the established pathway between the muscles of his chest. He shivered as he felt the line of cold creep over to his nipples, though the ice itself was still strolling down from his collar, unconcernedly guided by Jane’s fingers. The shiver conducted to Jane, who breathed out shakily against his mouth. Nothing made him more desperate for her than the evidence the she enjoyed the reactions she crafted in his body. She kissed him harder in reward, her hot tongue probing into the chilled cavern of his mouth as the last sliver of ice faded away.

  His hips jerked as the ice circled his nipple. He could already feel it on the other one as well, and the combination of the real sensation and the phantom one tore him out of his careful concentration on staying still as Jane had instructed.

  She tsked at him gently, too lazy with heat and enjoying her game too much for any actual admonishment. “Oh, my love, you’ll want it so much more before I actually let you have it,” she whispered. She dropped her head, letting her sweat-dampened forehead settle against his as she hitched his hands up off of the mattress and wrapped them around her waist.

  “You can touch me.” She moved the ice to his other nipple and began kissing down the line she’d already traced, sucking kisses against his collarbone.

  His head rocked back at the relief that one, simple release caused and he ran his hands over her ass, cupping the flesh in his palms, gripping tight to steady himself against the way the constant buzz of arousal was starting to crest too high as Jane set her lips to his frozen nipple and sucked the numbness away.

  It was made worse because they had gone through a repetition this morning, her hands and mouth over his body, down to his collarbone, down first to the right nipple and then the left, down to his navel where her teeth worked at him gently, palms heavy over his hip bones while her tongue teased just the tip of his cock, then her hands around him, down over his balls, then just underneath them, before a final squeeze around his knees to let him know it was over after the third round of kisses and touches.

  The one variation in the steps was whether or not she brought him to orgasm. Sometimes she made him come, then come again, then again until he couldn’t anymore. With her mouth around his cock, or her fingers thrusting inside him, or both. Sometimes she left him to jerk up into nothing, while she ran her hands and lips over his body over and over again, and then left him to wait until his erection subsided, shaking with the feeling of being on-edge and unfulfilled until the next time he was granted release.

  He’d not come last night, nor this morning, and it was taking every ounce of the reserve that Alaric had learned over the last year of being Jane’s companion to keep from whipping his arms away from her waist, wrapping his fist around his cock and jacking himself over the edge as quickly as he could.

  His hands tightened around Jane’s ass and she patted at his forearm gently to tell him he was gripping tighter than he was allowed to. He slid them over her hips, and between her thighs, setting his thumb to her mound and rubbing in slow, teasing circles.

  She laughed and bucked her hips forward, slotting herself more firmly against his hand. Her head flicked up from her chest and she surged forward to dot another kiss to his lips before sliding the ice from his second nipple down his stomach and moving her mouth to the second nipp
le, making his already clenched muscle thrum as he just barely managed to overpower the urge to thrust up again.

  Her tongue worked over the bundle of nerves, and her mouth closed around it, bringing it from numb to burning in a couple of sucks. The feeling of the ice crawled down to his groin, several inches ahead of the ice itself. The line of kisses followed.

  “Relaaaaxxx,” she hissed as her teeth reached his navel, nipping at the sensitive skin, the ice sliding down through the line of hair along his groin. The anticipation of the ice bit at his cockhead. He moaned and rubbed his thumb harder between Jane’s legs. The ice left his skin. Jane pressed her lips to his, her carefully doled-out kisses turning sloppy and demanding, one hand digging into his hair, tugging as her hips working against his hand.

  “I’m trying,” Alaric responded into the miniscule space between their lips when he pulled back for breath. His hips squirmed underneath her. Even without her hands on him he could feel where they would be moving next, tongue at his cock and hands at his hips.

  “I know, love,” she sighed before kissing back down the path. She set the ice exactly to the point where it had last left his body, trailing it down to the base of his cock. His hands fell away from her body, to keep from getting in the way of her hands and he wrapped his fists in the sheets, clenching them into wrinkles.

  She tapped the ice to the tip of his cock. He couldn’t keep his hips from moving at the first touch. She tapped him again. He almost resisted the urge to move away. He held still on the third touch and she laughed approvingly and replaced the cold ice with her hot tongue, even as she traced the ice down the underside of his cock.

  “Ah, fuck,” Alaric gasped.

  “Mmmh,” Jane agreed. “Maybe we should.”

  “Yes,” Alaric begged. “Oh, Jane, yes… can…”

  “Not until we’re done again.”

  Alaric moaned. Jane always led him through three repetitions in a round, and this was only the first one. Her tongue swiped up the under side of his cock, the ice pressed up into the spot just behind his balls, just a quick plunge, making an extra spot of pleasure burst in his stomach.

  Then she pulled away, grabbed another chunk of ice and started over at his lip.

  This round was quick, almost cursory, the ice dragged over his skin so fast that it hadn’t even melted by the time she pressed the last of the chunk behind his balls and held it there, letting his hips struggle between the instinct to press harder down into the pressure or pull further away from the cold.

  The third round, the round that stood between him and his promised release, was agonizingly slow. Jane fished ice chip after ice chip out of the bowl as one after another they melted against his flushed skin.

  Finally, Jane’s hands squeezed against his knees.

  Her skin was as cold as the ice, and as she squeezed his knees, he could already feel her frozen grip tightening around his cock. When her hands followed the expectation it was as though the chill doubled, but his lust was such that even the freeze of her grip couldn’t dissuade it.

  She held his erection tightly in her frigid grip as she lifted herself up, swiping the head through the wet and hot core of her body before sinking down, every inch she took in hotter than the last.

  “Should… am… neee…” Alaric sputtered, fighting the sensation he could feel and the sensation he was only imagining as he tried to form his question. “Stay still?”

  “No, love,” Jane whispered, wrapping his hands back around her waist and leaning back into his hands. “Give me my pleasure.” She rolled her hips down onto his and Alaric saw the shiver of desire he knew so well run up her body. “And then you can take yours.”

  Alaric sucked in a breath, and thrust up into her body, her hips meeting him thrust for thrust, the wet, welcoming heat of her chasing away every chill. The heavy weight of her in his arms, and the way she made absolutely no effort to hold herself up because they both knew he would never drop her, made his already rushing blood boil.

  He burst inside her at the first feeling of her body tightening in his arms, arcing back forcefully into his hands. Her walls clenched around him and she dropped harder down onto him as he thrust up, letting her tight body milk his pleasure from him until she loosened in his arms and he pulled her down against his chest. They caught their breath before Alaric shifted down the pillows they had earlier stacked against the headboard and tangled his lips with Jane’s.

  They fell apart, boneless and satisfied. Alaric’s gaze settled on their dinner things, hanging near the door. His top hat and tails hanging in front of her dress, looking as though they were reclining against the huge red skirt of Jane’s dress.

  He’d hardly been able to speak when she’d brought out the dress to show him. Her gowns had been dancing through the rainbow lately, and she’d come to favor a particular shade of butter yellow that made her seem so very fresh and innocent. But he’d never move past the lust that Jane in a red dress always brought out in him.

  “I know,” she sighed, her breath hot against his neck. “I can hardly bear the thought of putting them on in this heat.”

  “Nor can I,” Alaric agreed. He turned his body into hers, running a hand over her sweat-slicked stomach. “We could lay in bed and touch each other,” he suggested, with a quirk of his lips. Jane laughed and dragged her fingers through his hair.

  “We did that last night,” Jane pointed out with a smile.

  “I am aware.”

  “I could be persuaded to let the opera pass me by tonight.” She settled further back against his chest. “Though we must clean up and find some supper if we’re going to continue to exert ourselves like this.”

  “Of course,” Alaric smiled. He kissed her. “Just give me a moment to get the feeling back in my legs first.”

  ****

  Jane washed in the ice water. She had never been one for the heat, and the warmth of the day was beginning to overwhelm her. The thought of lacing herself into her corset without cooling her body first was intolerable. Alaric, to whom the icy feeling now meant more than simple refreshment, opted to wash with a cloth that he first warmed between his hands. Though he did watch her as she sat in a chair near the nightstand and let the water drip down her naked body. And she saw the way his expended cock perked up in interest as he watched.

  She hadn’t expected a love or a life like this from the sweet young pirate she’d met at the Carnival last year. She’d thought a dalliance with him would be steady, safe and enjoyable, and she hadn’t honestly expected it to last forever. She’d hoped for the best, but a realist at heart, she’d known that a few days of games and orders weren’t a guarantee of anything more. It was too likely he’d decide to give up on their bohemian life for a woman who was less complicated and, while she was more than welcome to enjoy herself while it lasted, she should be ready to reconsider her options.

  But here they were. Comfortable together. In a relationship together. In love.

  She had never been tied down to his lands or relegated to his kitchen. They still traveled Europe by hot air balloon, landing in whatever likely field they found and staying until the place lost its charm. She was sure she loved him and she was even learning to trust him, loosening the reins on occasion just because she knew she could without Alaric thinking that he could take the reins away from her.

  They were happy.

  Alaric helped lace her into her corset and her light summer dress. It was simple, cotton and green like pond water. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and grinned. Simple clothes like this still sometimes made her feel as though she was in costume. Alaric brushed his lips across her temple and they set out into the street together.

  They found a small café a few blocks from their hotel and across the street from a chemist.

  The café was empty because of the heat, so they were seated near a window with no delay. A breeze was finally starting up. It wasn’t quite enough to cool them, but some movement in the air and the chilled, delicious gazpacho made th
e heat of the day more bearable. They lingered over the first course. Jane let herself mull over a way to bring her extended game of anticipated touch to a satisfactory end. She had hoped, when she’d come up with her ice game this afternoon that it would serve as a satisfactory last hurrah to a game that she was starting get bored with, but it had been somewhat anticlimactic. Enjoyable, yes, but not a proper ending.

  By the time their entrée was served the clouds in the sky were darkening and the heat was finally beginning to break. The breeze came up, the temperature came down, and a light rain was kissing the dust in the street as their dessert of cherries jubilee was brought out to them.

  “I love cherries,” Alaric said, sliding his spoon into his mouth and closing his eyes. Jane smiled at him. It was very similar to the expression he had on his face after she let him come.

  “Do you? I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh yes. Our ship once landed in Japan … well, crashed in Japan. It took me three days to get the balloons patched up to functional again. But we were near a cherry orchard. Our first day there I nearly made myself sick. Of course, we were low on rations and I’d probably have made myself sick on beets or dandelions, or grass as long as it hadn’t come out of a can.”

  Jane dug a bright red maraschino cherry out of the dish and traced her tongue around it, watching the way Alaric watched her before finally popping the whole thing in her mouth with a grin. She leaned back in her chair and looked out over the darkening street. The lamp in the chemist’s shop caught her eye, and her fuzzy musings on ways to bring the game to an end suddenly solidified into an idea.