Healing Talia: a RiverHart short story (The RiverHart Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Healing Talia

  by

  Adira August

  A RiverHart Chronicles Short Story

  Copyright © 2017 Adira August

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either wholly sprung from the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Healing Talia: a RiverHart Chronicles Short Read by Adira August

  Fiction - short story - erotic romance

  Introduction

  "I got Rolly to take Ben outside," Talli told Avia, propped up in the hospital bed, trying to eat clear soup with a plastic spoon. "He's starting to to get zombie skin staying in here staring at you all day long."

  "When we all get out of here, let's make Ben take us someplace with warm sand and bright sun for a few days," Avia said.

  Talli rolled her eyes. "Don't you dare say that to him, he'll buy Hawaii for you or something." She munched on one of Avia's saltines. "You know that gift basket he got us as a welcome? It's got like, at least three-thousand dollars worth of sex toys and products in it. Stuff we used to drool over on his website."

  A shadow passed over Talia's face and her eyes filled.

  "Tal?" Avia asked, reaching for her twin's hand.

  "I can't … I can't even think about sex," she said wiping her eyes. "It's always been such a wonderful thing between us. … What if I never …?"

  "Have you told him, yet? Roland?"

  Talli shook her head. "Just that the kidnappers never got around to raping me," she said.

  "They did rape you, Tal. They did everything but penetrate your vagina and anus. They did those things against your will. You were raped and it's a horrendous thing and you need to talk to someone."

  Talli sighed. "Just ... they're all dead now, so it won't help …"

  Avia grabbed her phone and texted Ben.

  GET ERIN KENDALL HARLEY, M.D.

  4 TALLI 2 DAY

  "They don't get to win, Tal," Avia said fiercely. "Those worthless pieces of shit motherfuckers do not get to win."

  Talia's Story

  Superheroes. Talia thumbed through the Halloween costumes. She tried to focus on the task she set out to accomplish. Go to store. Get costumes and candy. Return home.

  It was her first time out of the house by herself in three weeks. It had been three weeks. Like yesterday. And forever.

  She slid another costume aside. She could have used Superman. Didn't he have superhearing and x-ray vision? Wouldn't he have heard her screaming, seen her fighting inside that van? Ripped open the metal sides and flown her away. Her eyes filled. Shit. Not here.

  "It's a crapshoot."

  Talia found a short black woman about her own age, peering at the costumes through wire-rimmed glasses.

  "I'm sorry? A crapshoot?" Talia asked.

  The woman nodded, and her fluffy curls jiggled. "It's three weeks to Halloween. If I buy what he wants now, two days before Halloween he'll want something else. If I don't buy it now, he'll want the same thing, but when I come back, they'll be sold out."

  Talia laughed. "Could be worse. You could have twin boys who have to have exactly the same thing."

  "Do not even say a thing like that out l-" the woman stopped, eying Tallia closely. "Don't tell me."

  Talia held out her cell to show the picture of Cas and Pauli.

  The two women, now Talli and Gen, walked side-by-side to the parking lot, carrying their bags of costumes and candy. They'd decided it was safer to buy what they might need, now, than face the wrath of two four-year-olds and a fiver who'd been asking for specific costumes for weeks, later on.

  Talli had always been the friendly, outgoing sister. Avia, the more reserved one. But this time, Talli didn't offer or ask for a number or email. Gen seemed like someone she'd like knowing. Once.

  But now, she just wanted to be safely at home. Behind locked doors. Waiting for Rolly. The man who'd always made her feel so safe. And now, scared her to death.

  Sweet Roland. Who gave her all the space she could want. Who never asked what was wrong when the tears ran down her face. Who slept on the couch in his study. Who loved her more than his own life.

  It made her nauseous to think of him touching her. It made her panic to think of him leaving her.

  Talia realized Gen had stopped. Right. Walmart. It was the spot where they'd part company, each to her own car.

  And Talia was grateful they'd met. Thankful Gen had hung out with her while they both did Halloween shopping. Otherwise, Talli might have run for home long ago. Costumeless. Candy poor.

  Talia wished she had a way to thank her, but then she'd have to say why or sound like a crazy woman. But then, she pretty much was a crazy woman.

  Gen was holding out a card. "That's my work phone if you want to meet up, sometime. Maybe get the boys together. We can talk on a park bench and watch our destructocons dismantle the playground equipment."

  "Thanks," Talli smiled, pocketing the card. She turned away with a little wave.

  She was at home, hanging up her coat, when she took the card out, intending to throw it away. "Genevieve M. Noel, Ph.D. Crisis counseling, anger management, PTSD, sexual assault. Adults and children."

  Noel. Dr. Christmas. Talli put the card into her billfold.

  It was the night before Halloween. Professor Roland St.Clair, who's darkest secret used to be that he was, indeed, descended from Merovingian kings, pulled into his garage and sat in his car instead of entering his home. Because now his darkest secret was that his wife, his beautiful, vivacious, confident, funny, sexy, amazing-she-could-love-him wife, was beset by demons.

  He heard her screaming in her sleep too many nights. He cried, himself, in frustration, wanting desperately to comfort her, hold her, soothe her back to peaceful dreams. He wanted to do the very thing she was terrified of.

  So he'd rigged up a remote to turn on bright lights in her room and start music playing. It usually woke her before she woke the boys. When it didn't, he comforted them, instead.

  He used to come home and rush into the house and scoop up the twins, who these days often couldn't be bothered with him, being far too engaged in the smashing of monster trucks into one another.

  So he'd scoop up Talli, instead. Even after five years of marriage, almost six, they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

  But now he had a new routine. The few seconds between hearing the door to the garage open and hearing his voice, seeing it was him, threw her heart into hyperdrive. So he'd pull into the garage and text his wife he was home.

  Then he'd wait, adjusting his mindset, arranging his face, and preparing to love her the best he knew how - by giving her as much space as she required. He'd wait. Until she opened the door that led into the utility room and beckoned him to come in.

  He'd move more slowly than usual, having found sudden movements, especially of his hands, tended to frighten her. So he spoke quietly and they exchanged news of their days. And she'd - weep - was the word that best described it.

  She called it "leaking." Sometimes the tears would just run. And she'd say, so strained he could hardly hear her, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Roland."

  He did spend more time on the floor with his children these days. And she loved watching them. He hoped it was healing for her in some way. But she still called him "Roland" now. She never did, not before. It drove him crazy at first. "Rolly." He was just an instructor them, and a temporary one, at that. He was sensitive to how juvenile her nickname for him was. H
ow undignified. Rolly.

  But he also remembered the first time she'd used it. The first day he met her. The first time he'd fucked her. Or she him. Both together.

  There should be a better word for mutual unbridled lust. Maybe not. They'd fucked each other's brains out, she'd said with her crooked grin.

  He was twenty-seven. He'd got a late start due to his military service, acting as a translator in Fallujah. Being young and foolish, he'd thought he could do some research in the area into ancient cultures and languages. But all Roland learned was that war is more destructive than time.

  While pursuing his Ph.D., he'd taken a summer job at Texas Tech teaching bits of the Classics. This class, Mythology as Religion, was offered as an easy A requirement filler for non-Classics students. Which comprised essentially the whole campus.

  Writing the basic class info on the board underneath the legend: ARE YOU IN THE CORRECT CLASSROOM, that first day, he listened to the students wandering in. Desk feet scraped, backpacks thudded, friends called to friends.

  Then he turned around and his life changed forever. Just to the right of his desk in the front row. Long legs crossed at the ankle and pulled back and to the side, in faded jeans that looked soft to the touch stretched over firm thighs. A loose, pale salmon t-shirt followed the curves of full breasts in soft folds. The shirt was stretched a bit by her back against the chair, revealing just the edge of lacy pink bra strap.

  His gaze travelled slowly up, over the rounded ridge of her collarbone, the sweet column of her neck and her clean jawline, pretty lips, pink and moist and parted, to her eyes. Her eyes that burned like emerald fire. For him.

  He felt his cock lengthen and twitch and he moved behind his desk chair, staring down into his briefcase, pulling out his notes. This can't be. He risked a quick glance back. Her nipples were hard, poking her t-shirt. She licked her lips, shifted in her chair.

  The quick glance became the two sets of eyes locked together in a few seconds of unspoken conversation. I want you. Yes. Now. Yes. … So. That was settled.

  Roland cleared his throat and started class. He never looked directly at her again. When he'd turn back to the class from making a note on the board, he'd find her eyes sliding away from him. From his body.

  When she bent to make a note, he allowed himself to look at her - at waves of dark golden hair she held back with one hand. At slender fingers holding the pen. The swell of breast curving down and in to her waist. The place he wanted to start, both hands circling her, lifting her, pulling her into him.

  When she stopped writing and looked up, she'd catch him looking away. And she'd smirk a little, he saw in his peripheral vision. And it would make him smile a little, too. As if they were old friends sharing a private joke. Except, they'd never met. He didn't know her name.

  After class he waited, still not looking at her. Fiddling with his papers and briefcase. He had to wait. To see if she left. To see if he'd imagined it all.

  He had to wait, to allow her to approach him. He was her teacher. He couldn't approach her. Besides, this kind of thing never happened to him. He wasn't that guy.

  She stayed in her seat. He could feel her gaze on him. It had weight. Like she was caressing his body with her palm.

  As the others made their way out the door at the back of the room, she simply sat and gazed openly at him. His cock was throbbing. When everyone else was gone, she picked up her backpack, shoved her stuff inside.

  He still didn't look directly at her. Until she stood. He straightened and turned, heart pounding. He finally looked openly back at her as she took the few steps up to him. Right up to him. If he'd taken a deep breath he'd have touched her. If his cock didn't stop shoving against his cargoes, he would. Everything in his gut was hot and tight and his palms itched, literally, thinking about the feel of her.

  And she, she was beautiful. Her face flushed, her eyes wide and dark. Her palms ran back and forth over her jeans on the outsides of her thighs. As is she had to keep them there to keep them off him. He hadn't imagined anything.

  "If anyone finds out, I'll be fired," he said. His voice was hoarse and low with his arousal.

  Her eyes closed for a second and her hips shifted as if he'd touched her intimately. Then she plucked the pen from his shirt pocket and held her hand out to him, palm up, with the pen in it.

  "I need to go drop the class. Write down your address," she said. Soft. Breathy. Aroused. He wondered if they could make each other come just by talking.

  He gave her his address, about mile from campus, with 'after 4:00.'

  She shoved the paper into her pocket and walked out.

  It was half past three when he got home. Time to run an electric shaver over his face. Time to renew his deodorant. He didn't own cologne. He did have mouthwash. He gathered the papers and books from the couch and coffee table and put them … where …. shoot … over under the window. He neatened the piles at least.

  He wondered if he had anything to offer her. The knock came as he crossed to the small kitchen area of his over-some-guy's garage apartment. Two long strides to the door. He pulled it open. She was there, on his tiny wood landing, with no backpack. The wind lashing her hair …

  His hands were on her waist, dragging her inside, lifting her and turning as he kicked the door shut. Her hands were at his waistband, fumbling for the button, unzipping, cool fingers and warm palms sliding inside his boxers and down over his ass, pulling him to her, moaning deep in her throat.

  He wrapped her in his arms and lifted. Three stumbling steps to the couch and he fell on top of her. Her hands moved to his front, flat against his abdomen, gliding over his skin, seeking him. Then his tongue was in her mouth, her hands were on his cock and they were lost in that moment of finally, finally, finally touching.

  It had never been like this for him. This mindless overwhelming barrage of feeling, not thinking at all of what he should do or how. Just skin ands heat and sounds, the sounds, the moans and gasps and when he finally tore her jeans open and shoved them out of his way and his fingers found her pussy, hot and swollen and wet and ready for him, he almost came.

  She kicked off her jeans and raised her hips and his cockhead found her and pressed and it was … effortless. One long, smooth glide into her tight cunt.

  It was then her name for him was born. In her effort to say his whole name, she could not get past the first syllable as he thrust into her again and again, just because he wanted to feel her over and over, quivering and clenching around him, wanting him.

  Rol - ... Rol - … oh, God, eh, eh, Rol - "

  She began a breathy panting that came out "eee .. eee.. eee' and inevitably -

  "Rol-eee … Rol-eee … God, oh my God, Rol - Rol-eee ..."

  Roland found his hand on his cock in his car in his garage, thinking about the amazing girl he'd taken on the couch in his grad student apartment before he spoken ten words to her. He stopped. Talli would open the door any second. How would she react to finding him jacking himself in the family sedan?

  There was a time she'd laugh and tease and maybe join him. A time before.

  A time before his sister -in-law took up with Benedict Hart. Before some of the sex-toy king's business connections had tried to kidnap Avia, to get him to agree to a deal and got her identical twin, instead.

  Roland wanted to hate him, but Hart had also saved his wife. Avia and Hart and one of his men, who'd been killed in the process, saved her. So, Roland couldn't hate him.

  He couldn't hate the man who'd jetted them home and had top of the line security installed in their house and set up a limitless fund for therapy if Talli wanted it. Or he did.

  Everyone who had hurt his beloved was dead. He had no one to hate. No one to kill. All he had was his impotent rage and the pain of seeing her pain. A suffering he did not know how to ease.

  So he waited. And moved slowly and spoke quietly.

  It suddenly occurred to Roland that he'd been waiting too long. Talia usually came to the door in under a min
ute. It had been almost five. He looked over to the door. There was something stuck on it. A note.

  Roland looked around the garage. Talli's car was there. Nothing was out of place. Had she gone somewhere on foot? He got out and read the note:

  "I'm in your den. Bring ice if you want to have a drink with me."

  Talia waited. She was curled up in his big armchair. She thought the dark brown leather made a nice contrast to the deep green silk-satin lounging pajamas she'd donned for the occasion. They were something Ben had given Avia. Av passed them on to Talli, saying she'd never wear them. Talia thought they looked like something Garbo might have worn in the 30s in a movie with John Barrymore.

  "Tal?"

  Roland was in the doorway with a plastic bucket of ice. The bucket was red with Disney characters chasing each other around it. Not exactly Grand Hotel. Talia giggled.

  "What?" He asked. He looked at her as if she were a dream that might evaporate at any moment. It broke her heart a little.

  "Love the Goofy and Micky motif," she said. "Let's drink and talk. Unless you need dinner, first?"

  "It can wait," he said, moving to a sideboard where there were glasses and bottles. "You want brandy on ice cubes?" She nodded vigorously, as a small tease. If Roland had a pet peeve about her, it was ruining expensive liqueurs with ice.

  She unwound herself from the chair and took her glass from him, leading him over to the couch he folded out at night to sleep on. He settled at one end with his drink and turned to face her. He kept his hands around his glass of whiskey, in his lap. Unmoving.

  Talia took a long drink. "Okay. First, I need to tell you that for about three weeks, now, I've been seeing someone." She was taken aback by the sudden, terrible look on his face. "Rolly? Are you okay? What's wrong?"

  "I - hang on. What do you mean by 'seeing' someone?" He asked, pale and tense.

  Talia was confused. Then she was outraged. "Roland Cavenaugh St.Clair! Are you thinking for a second I'd be unfaithful to you?" She glared at him. "I've been seeing a therapist! Sort of. In a way."