Spun (6 page)

Tillz hated knowing Anja was within, locked in its clutches.

Chapter 4

The sun was setting all too quickly, it seemed to Anja. She had spent the day pacing the cottage, trying to plan an escape, or trying to work out a ploy to fool Werner and gain her release. She failed miserably at both endeavors. True to his word, Werner had had Roulf bring her more base metals, and now two large jars rested on the table, reminding her of her imminent demise.

When it was fully dark, Anja built the fire and ate a bit of the food Roulf had brought her. She tried not to let the fear and panic building up within her overtake her completely, but she was afraid she was losing that battle. She was worried she would succumb to full-blown hysteria before the moon had risen.

She sat on the rug by the fire, stared into the flames until she felt hypnotized by the light and motion. Sleep threatened to claim her but she fought it. She still believed that, given sufficient time, she would think her way out of her current situation, out of the cottage and away from Werner forever.

After several hours had passed, she was about to give up and finally admit defeat. There was simply nothing she could do. Tillz would not come for her. She could not turn base metals into gold. She did not know any equations or chemical reactions or spells or incantations that would turn one element into another. Werner would enter the cottage in a few short hours, see she was empty-handed, and then kill her. She could only hope her father would be spared. Perhaps Werner would be satisfied enough with her death, or her father would realize the danger and flee the village.

She lay on the rug, rested her head on her arms, and let sleep start to claim her. Her eyes were closing, and she began to drift off when the sound of the door opening startled her fully awake. Had Werner come to collect the gold already? Her heart pounding, she sat up. She was still trying to gain her feet when a man entered the cottage. He removed his hat and coat, and the beating of Anja’s heart picked up its pace.

It wasn’t Werner.

“Tillz,” she said, stunned. “You’re here.”

He hurried over to her, sank onto the rug in front of her, and took her gently by the arms. “You are unharmed,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “He hasn’t hurt you.”

“How did you know to come?” Anja was still trying to convince herself that Tillz really was in the cottage with her, that she hadn’t conjured him up out of desperation.

“I went to your house this evening,” Tillz said, “but you weren’t there. I stopped in the tavern and heard Roulf telling a friend that Werner had decided to keep you. The man has a mouth as big as his belly. I came here straight away.”

“I’m so glad you’ve come. I was worried … I didn’t know what I was going to do in the morning … what I would tell Werner … I thought…” Anja realized she was babbling, but in her relief she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“Shh,” Tillz said, gathering her into his arms. “I’m here.”

“Thank you,” Anja said, clutching his shirt. Impulsively, she leaned into him and kissed his neck, then drew back, embarrassed.

“Anja,” he said gruffly, “You don’t have to … I haven’t come here to make you—”

Anja put a finger to his lips, cutting off his explanation. “I know,” she whispered. She stared at him for a moment, unspeaking, not because she didn’t have anything to say, but because there were too many words bubbling up in her throat and she didn’t know which ones to give voice to. “Tillz,” she began, “what happened last night … what there was … is … between us … what … is it?” She hated how she stumbled over her question, but she couldn’t think of how to phrase it, didn’t have the words to describe what she had happened to her last night, what was happening to her now.

“I do not know,” Tillz said.

“But surely you’ve … I mean, I’ve never—I have no experience with—but you…”

Tillz shook his head, and Anja’s heart stopped. Did he not know what she was talking about because she didn’t affect him in the same way? Was it possible that only she felt the crackling energy between them, that for him it really had been only a simple kiss?

“I do not know what it is,” Tillz said, “I only know I cannot explain it, can’t stop it, and don’t think I want to even try.”

“So you do feel it,” Anja said, her heart pounding once again. “It isn’t just me.”

“No,” Tillz said, his voice deep and husky, the word barely more than a breath, “it isn’t just you.”

Being near him, the madness took her over again, and she found she couldn’t be still. In her sultry daze, nothing else seemed real. Werner was no threat, morning would never come, there was no iron or copper or gold. There was nothing but Tillz.

She leaned into him again, tired of fighting the pull, tired of trying to keep a distance between them. She melted into him, and when his strong arms tightened around her, it was as if Anja had come home.

“When you came to me last night,” Anja said, her lips moving against his neck, “and demanded a kiss, I was surprised and nervous, but also … intrigued. I couldn’t explain it, but I
wanted
to kiss you—desperately—and I thought if I did, my curiosity would be sated, that you could leave and I would think of you again only in passing. But instead…”

“Instead the desire only grew stronger.”

“Yes. And then I thought it was because you were a stranger, dark and mysterious, and that as your newness wore off so would these strange feelings. But once again, when you stayed last night and we talked, and I grew to know you more, again the desire only grew stronger.”

“I do not know what madness led me to demand a kiss,” Tillz said as he stroked her back. “Only that when I saw you in the village, I … wanted you. I too thought a kiss would be enough, that if I knew what you tasted like I could move on, but it wasn’t enough. It’s as if nothing is ever enough.”

Anja pressed her lips lightly to Tillz’s neck, felt desire ripple through him—or her—she couldn’t tell, because she could no longer discern where she ended and he began. She was done—done talking, done questioning, done fighting her attraction to him. She moved onto his lap, straddled him, and kissed him firmly on the lips. Tillz looked at her for a moment, and he seemed to wage some internal war. Then, growling, he pushed her back onto the rug, shrugging out of his coat as he followed her down. He kissed her, but this wasn’t the gentle, teasing kisses of the previous night. He tasted her lips, again and again, like a starving man unable to consume his fill. Anja loved it, reveled in it, went wild with it.

Anja grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulled him even closer. She wanted to touch him everywhere, kiss him everywhere,
feel
him everywhere, and she wanted him to do the same to her. She wanted him to do things she didn’t have the words for, wouldn’t even be able to describe.

She just …
wanted.

Him.

He felt her desire, responded in kind. Their limbs entangled, their hands and lips were everywhere on each other. Anja was desperate, breathless.

His lips were at her neck, hot and electrifying, his hands seemed to sear her skin where he touched her. His fingers traced down her arms, circling her hip, outlining the length of one leg, and then the other. She explored him as well. She was timid at first, awed and somewhat intimidated by the newness of his body. He was huge, every part of him was hard, strong, and heavy. She marveled at the cords of muscles that lined his arms, the rippling hardness of his back and stomach. She knew he had to work for his survival, living as he did alone in the woods, and his body was toned and strengthened by the physical demands of that existence.

As Anja’s desire grew so did her boldness. She moved against Tillz, eager to have his body against hers. She ran her hands down his back, dug her fingers into his flesh, and his muscles flexed in response. She put a hand under his shirt, ran a fingertip lightly along his chest and stomach, felt his skin shiver and his nipples harden from the pleasure of it. She loved how his body responded to her touch, how he had the same effect on her. Anja moved her hands lower, crooked a finger along the waistband of his trousers. Her fingers brushed against the hardness underneath the fabric, and she was both embarrassed and aroused by it.

Tillz’s hands continued to roam over Anja’s body, over the swell of her breast, the gentle roundness of her belly. Anja gasped, strained against him. She needed this, his nearness, his touch, his lips upon her, and she needed
more
. He brought his hand to the neckline of her bodice, tugged it down to release her breast. He drew her nipple into his mouth, gently licked and sucked until Anja thought she would die from the pleasure.

Tillz pressed tighter against her. His weight was hard and heavy upon her. She shifted her hips, unsure what she sought, but when his hard cock settled between her thighs, she knew she had found it. Tillz ran his hands along her body again, caressing a breast, then a hip, running a single finger under her skirts, down the outside of her leg, then back up her inner thigh. Anja moved restlessly against him. All thought had ceased for her. She was now simply a vibrating bundle of sensation.

“More,” she panted.

Tillz withdrew from her just a bit, leaving an aching emptiness where he had been between her legs. He ran a fingertip in circles along her skin, starting low on her belly, moving down her hips to the top of her thigh, then back again. Just when Anja thought she would go mad with unmet need, Tillz drew his finger between the wet, heated lips between her legs.

It was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

She sucked in her breath and arched her back, pressing her hips against his hand. She grabbed fistfuls of her skirts, pulled them up until they pooled around her waist, laying her bare before him. Tillz stared at her, seeming to drink in the sight of her body, his hand momentarily stilled.

Anja explored his body with her hands. Growing braver, she moved along his thigh, over his trousers, then along the flexed muscles of his buttocks, and she was pleased by the groans her touch elicited. Emboldened, she cupped a hand around his cock, surprised when it grew even harder. She moved to his waistband and began to undo the fastenings.

“Slower,” Tillz gasped, removing her hand. “I wasn’t done with you yet.”

He knelt between her legs, gently moved her thighs apart. He kissed her belly, following the trail he had blazed with his finger, down her hips and over to her inner thigh. When he touched his tongue—ever so lightly—to the heat of her, Anja cried out.

Somewhere in a dark corner of her mind, Anja had the thought that she ought to protest, that what they were doing was indecent. That thought was soon supplanted by the haze of their mutual passion, however, and replaced with the undefined yet certain knowledge that what they were doing, while not entirely decent, was utterly
right
.

She trusted Tillz—completely.

She wanted him—completely.

She had met him such a short time ago, but she knew him as if she had known no other, had a deep, primal connection to him that included the physical but was so, so much more.

Tillz moved in deeper, gently pulling and sucking at her flesh, then burying his tongue within, and whatever rudimentary thought process Anja had still been able to muster was completely extinguished. She writhed beneath him, simultaneously wanting to move closer and farther away from what was almost unbearable pleasure. But Tillz wouldn’t let her go. He put his hand beneath her bottom, lifting her slightly, and drove his tongue into her again and again. Anja grabbed fistfuls of his hair as if making sure he wouldn’t leave her.

“My God … my God,” she repeated mindlessly.

The intense pressure between her thighs built until Anja bucked her hips against his tongue. Finally, when she thought she could take no more, the pressure burst, sending the waves of her orgasm throughout her body, down to her toes, out to her fingertips, up to the roots of her hair. She rode each wave, over and over, until she was left depleted and exhausted.

Tillz gathered Anja in his arms, held her against him. She shivered from the intensity of her release, and nestled into the heat of him. Her breathing was deep and ragged, and as she slowly came back to her senses, she was surprised to realize he was breathing hard as well. It was as if he had been as affected by what had transpired between them as she had been.

She had thought that would be the end of it, that she had experienced everything with Tillz and now her wantonness would subside, yet still she wanted more. She could tell from the tension in Tillz’s body, from the strangled sound of his breathing, and from the hungry way he looked at her, that he wanted her too. She moved a hand along his chest, but he captured it and held it still against him.

“No,” he said gruffly, “we must stop before I lose all control.”

Anja wanted to protest, but she found she was too exhausted to do so. Instead, she snuggled closer.

They lay together for untold minutes until their hearts stopped pounding and their breathing returned to normal. Anja rolled to her side and propped herself on her elbow. She stared at Tillz for a moment, seeming to take him in. The fire lit his features, casting them in a warm, red glow. She brought a hand to his face and traced his scar with the barest touch of a fingertip.

“Does it pain you?” she asked softly.

Tillz looked at her quizzically, as if trying to read her thoughts. “No. Not anymore.”

“How did you come by it?”

“I was ten,” he said, sliding his gaze away from her and turning to watch the flames. “My parents and I were walking along the path from the village to our home on the outskirts of the forest. We were waylaid by three men, armed with knives and hatchets.” Tillz furrowed his brow. “They demanded money, jewels, whatever we had of value. They seemed to be under the impression that my parents were in possession of some great fortune.”

Tillz idly stroked Anja’s arm. His expression was slightly unfocused, and Anja saw he had become wrapped up in his memories. “My father handed over what he had, but it was not enough. The men—barely out of boyhood really—became enraged. Two of them would have left us—I don’t believe they desired a big confrontation—but the third was aggressive, cocky, adamant that there was more to be extorted from us. He grabbed my mother, saying that if we would not voluntarily give him what he wanted, he would take it from us.”