Lily of the Springs by Carole Bellacera Read Free Book Online

moved to my inner thigh, stroking the soft hollow, damp now with sweat and secretions that were not new to me, that had flowed whenever Chad kissed me, but not like this. It had never been like this.
    His moist breath fanned my face. “Let me touch you,” he said raggedly. “Let me dip into your honey-pot, sweetheart.”
    With a soft moan, I thrust my pelvis against his hand and parted my legs to give him easier access, and that’s when I knew for sure that the bad Lily Rae had taken over, and now, also for sure, I’d go straight to hell. But even that made no difference. Because Jake’s fingers had slid under the elastic of my panties, burrowing gently into my aching flesh, where no boy had ever touched me before. I gasped, digging my nails into his muscular arms, and closed my eyes, giving myself up to the pleasurable sensations rivering through me.
    Jake kept up a steady rhythm, stroking gently. His breath caressed my face, warm and staggered. I kept my eyes closed, my mouth ajar, as soft, kittenish cries issued from my throat. I felt like a flower opening up to him, a fragrant rose, warm from the sun, wet from the rain, unfurling secret petals.
    The pleasure became so unbearable that I thought I was surely dying. My mewling cries turned into impassioned moans, and from somewhere far away, I heard a ragged, feminine voice crying out, “Yes, yes, oh, yes . Please don’t…oh, please…oh, oh… Jake !”
    His fingers moved faster, harder, mining my depths with a sure, steady purpose, bringing me higher, closer to a mountain I knew I had to reach, or I would die. He pressed his half-open mouth against my cheek, his gasping breath in rhythm with every sweet plunge of his fingers.
    “Yes,” he murmured against my skin. “Come for me, baby. Just let yourself go. I want to make you feel good, Lily. Don’t it feel good?”
    I drew in a sharp breath and stiffened, teetering on the edge of a different kind of cliff than the one I’d stood on at the beginning of this night. Jake’s hand stilled, and for a heartbeat of a moment, the world stopped turning. Not a breath of air stirred between us as I stared into his glazed eyes, indigo in the light of the moon.
    Finally, his fingers moved again, and the night exploded into a dazzling firework of stars. White-hot flames shot through my core, radiating out from my belly to sizzle along nerve endings from my toes to my fingertips. Clutching him, I gave a sharp cry and shuddered against his hand, still moving, still caressing, still sending ripple upon ripple of glorious pleasure through me. And even when my last gasp had trailed away into silence, and I sagged against him like a limp dishrag, he cupped my female essence, as if reluctant to move away.
    He spoke first, his lips soft against my cheek, “Tell me you didn’t let Nickerson do this for you,” he said huskily. “Tell me you saved this for me.”
    To my bewilderment, tears burned behind my eyelids as I realized the truth, a truth I’d never admitted to myself. He was right. I had saved this for him. That’s why it had never felt quite right with Chad. It wasn’t because I was a good girl, trying to follow the strict rules of my God-fearing parents. It was because Chad had never been the right boy.
    A memory came to me then. Of a sun-striped summer afternoon, sitting on an old deadfall, drying off after a splash in the swimming hole. A suntanned boy with sapphire eyes and wheat-colored hair, a little girl with curly, dark hair and wide brown eyes, a first kiss in the dappled sunlight, and words spoken by childish voices.
    “When we git big, Jake Tatlow, will you and me git married for real?”
    “I reckon so, Lily Rae. Ain’t no other gal here in the holler, ‘ceptin fer Alma May Mackelroy, and she’s as fat as my pa’s old sow. I reckon I ain’t partial to her a-tall.”
    With this romantic declaration, Jake had fashioned a ring out of a twig from a blackberry bramble and placed it on my hand.
    I still