Wings of Fortune - Part 12

It was late, but Sam wasn’t tired. Mara hadn’t called or texted him as he’d expected, and it was making him worry. He paced his room fretfully, despite the plastic medical boot on his foot. It ached a bit, but he wasn’t concerned about that right now. The bite on his neck still hurt far worse than his ankle, anyway. After several more minutes of pacing, he decided he couldn’t take the silence any longer and picked up his phone.

“Hey there,” he texted Mara, then waited for a response.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Nothing. Not a word.

Sam frowned, then tossed his phone to the desk in frustration. This wasn’t like her at all. When she was happy, she was chatty. When she was angry, she vented. When she was sad, she was desperate to talk. Stretching his memory, he couldn’t even think of a time she hadn’t been communicative…

He rolled onto his bed, then propped his hands behind his head, crossing his legs, losing himself in thought.

Maybe he should call Candace? Find out what happened? But that led to another whole set of problems. What had that look she’d exchanged with Matt meant? Was she really into him? And she had floated last night! Right in front of him. Right out of the bed. With weird, ethereal wings. That was not normal. Something had clearly happened to her at the pond. But what?

He played back the events in his mind. Candace there, looking gorgeous in her blue bikini, the parachutists falling from the sky…

Maybe that was it. That had to be it. Everything had been normal until then. There had been that static electricity discharge when they hit the water... Their bodies hadn’t been found… everything that was happening had to have something to do with them.

What was it, though?

Before he could continue to puzzle it out, however, he heard a tap at his window. His eyebrows jumped as his eyes opened and focused on the window.

Candace hovered outside wearing nothing but a black nightgown, bobbing up and down as if floating in the water, translucent, dark wings framing her magnificent hourglass shape. Every time he thought she couldn’t possibly become more beautiful, she somehow managed it.

As she watched him swallow hard, she gave him a coy smile. He rose quickly, then opened the window. As she climbed in, he couldn’t help but admire the athletic but elegant definition in her lightly muscled arms and long, sinuous legs. As she rose inside, he realized she was nearly as tall as he was now.

His eyes shot momentarily downward to the flawless skin of her chest, the dramatic swells of cleavage clearly visible in the low-cut nightgown proving irresistible to his masculine instinct. When his eyes returned to her face, he noticed that her full lips were smirking.

She spun on her heel, her incorporeal black wing swinging around, and he jumped back, instinctively. It brushed past his face with a wash of swirling air, seeming to have a more substantial presence than it had the day before. He reached out to it. His hand still passed through, but it was slightly viscous this time, providing some measure of resistance to his touch.

Candace strode over to his bedroom mirror and gazed into it, the hint of a smile crossing her full lips.

“I’m beautiful, aren’t I?” she said in a soft, tender voice that sent a shudder through Sam’s body.

“You always have been,” he replied, approaching her from behind.

“But I’m prettier now, right?” she asked, eyes moving to track me through the reflection in the mirror. “I just feel so, like, turned on these days—especially around you…”

Sam stopped about a foot behind her, his fingers twitching with the desire to touch her, especially after that comment, but his mind remained uncertain as to whether he should.

“I think you’re pretty much perfect.”

Her smile widened, and her eyes returned to their self-examination.

“Something is happening to me, Sam. Each time I look in the mirror, I’m more beautiful…” Her voice lightened, becoming breathy. “And I can fly…”

Sam breathed in her scent. It was like an exquisite perfume, but… somehow better. He felt his desire rising. Unable to help himself, he reached out a hand, grasping a stray lock of ginger hair and tucking it behind her ear.

“I know…” he said softly.

She cocked her head toward his hand, causing his fingers to slide down her thick tresses, along the rim of her ear. He stroked her hair until his fingertips touched her neck. He felt her shiver under his touch.

“That feels good,” she said still facing the mirror, voice almost a whisper. Her words emboldened Sam, and, as much as he wanted to ask her more about what was happening to her, he couldn’t fight his desire. Having her here before him, heartbreakingly beautiful and trembling—it was too much for him to resist.

He gathered her shimmering, fiery cascade of hair, poured it over her other shoulder, then leaned down and kissed her neck. He heard a halting breath escape her lips. He kissed her there again. And again.

His fingers progressed down the smooth muscles of her toned back, feeling that ghostly resistance as they reached the place where her wings connected. They found the string that held up this side of her nightgown and pushed it outward until it fell over her rounded shoulder, coming to a rest at her bent elbow.

He glanced up toward the mirror, seeing the delicate, lacy fabric at the front of the nightgown fold over, exposing more of one luscious breast. She shivered. Despite the cool summer-evening breeze wafting through the open window, he didn’t think that it had anything to do with the temperature in his room. On the contrary, her skin felt warm to the touch.

Finding the side of her arm, his fingertips traced the slopes and crevices of her feminine muscles. His kisses progressed along the ridge of her shoulder, just above her clavicle. He heard her sigh again, the muscles in her arms tensing slightly under his hand, letting him know that she was enjoying his touch.

Suddenly, she began to rise. He took a startled step backward and looked down. Her bare toes were the only part of her feet that still touched the carpet. She pushed off gently, like a slow-motion temps levé in zero gravity. She was floating, completely suspended in the air.

Wide-eyed, Sam watched her slender fingers find the other spaghetti strap of her nightgown and remove it. The thin garment dropped to the floor, baring the entire expanse of perfect, milky skin to him. He stepped forward once more, drawn to the statuesque curve of her magnificent shape, placing his hands on the outward flow of her nude hips. He felt the spherical swells of her voluptuous backside press into his firm stomach.

His lips pursed as they moved forward, eyes closing. He kissed the center of her back. She continued to rise, and he trailed kisses down her back as she did. When he reached the small of her back, he firmed his grip on her hips and pressed down gently. Sensing his wishes, she began to descend.

Her hands moved to his, covering them as they remained on her hips. She wrapped her fingers around them as she slowly descended, then pulled them forward to her taut lower stomach, just above her low-rise panties. The action pulled her toward him, tucking her torso inside his arms until her back touched his chest. Sam moved his face to the crook of her neck, mouth beside her ear and whispered.

“You’re amazing,” said Sam, noticing the husky desire in his voice.

“You’re the only one I want to amaze,” she rasped, ruby lips hypnotic in their movement as he watched them reflected in the mirror.

Candace turned her head toward him as her toes returned to the floor. Sam reached his head around her swan-like neck and touched his lips to hers, kissing her hungrily. He felt her tongue slip skillfully between his parted lips, swirling sensation into him.

After a moment of the most unbelievable thrill of his young life, Sam came up for air. The gentle huff of heavy breathing breaking the nighttime silence, Candace turned in his arms, her bare breasts brushing against his arm and chest as she did.

Sam felt his already rigid cock turn to absolute steel as it pressed into the warmth of her tight stomach. Her lithe arms glided around him, hugging the back of his neck, pulling his mouth toward hers once more. Despite the delicacy of her touch, he could feel the power in her arms as they pulled him inexorably in for more. Not that he had any desire to resist her...

He heard the soft smacking of their lips as they continued to kiss. His hands roamed the satin skin of her back, brushing against her hair, which had fanned back over her shoulder to again cover the upper half of her back. Caught up in the moment, he moved his hands down and across the upper slopes of her luscious ass to rest, once again on her hips.

Feeling the thin fabric of her panties under his fingers, he began to push the sheer fabric downward. One inch. Two… when suddenly her hands released his neck and shot to his fingers. She pulled his hands—and her panties—back up to their original position.

Sam’s eyes snapped to hers questioningly, his feelings slightly hurt.

“I’m sorry. I thought… It just seemed…” he stammered.

“I… Yes, I know. I mean, I don’t know what I was…” she stuttered in reply, her face more embarrassed than seductive for the first time that evening.

Her gaze shot to the floor, darting about until she found her nightgown. She turned away and bunched it up in her hands before letting it fall over her head. She turned back to him as she adjusted the thin straps to their original positions.

Sam was both crushed and relieved. He wanted this… really wanted this… but wasn’t entirely sure he was ready. Apparently, she wasn’t ready either. He didn’t want to rush things. Well, he did in a way… but he certainly didn’t want Candace to regret anything, least of all her first time.

He saw the beginnings of a blush paint her cheeks and forgot all of his other feelings for the moment. His only concern now was comforting her. He opened his arms wide and wrapped them around her, this time in a friendly hug rather than a lovers’ embrace.

She tensed for a moment, then, realizing his intent, relaxed. He felt the tension leave her body, and she dropped her cheek to the downward slope of his shoulder, eyes facing away.

“Sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to, you know, tease you or anything,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what’s going on with me lately. I mean, I love what’s happening in some ways.”

He felt her cheek pull back into a smiler.

“These changes have me feeling pretty good about my body. And being able to fly? As Mara would say, ‘so freakin’ cool!’”

Her tone changed almost imperceptibly, becoming darker.

“It’s just that I get these urges sometimes. And they feel so good. Sooo right…”

Pulling her head from his shoulder to look directly at him, she searched his eyes. “But I don’t know if they really are…”

She lowered her head to his shoulder once more. “All I know is I feel safe when I’m with you…”

“Is it Matt?” Sam asked suddenly. He probably should have led into that question more smoothly, but it had been on his mind and just slipped out.

Her head shot up, eyes finding his once more, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Matt?”

“Yeah. Are you more attracted to him?”

“What?! I tell you I feel safe with you, and your next question is about Matt?”

“Safe isn’t attraction, Cand. The friend zone is safe. And I’ve been there so long. I have a pretty good idea what it feels like…”

Candace’s eyes rolled before coming back to his.

“Did you not feel me, like, all over you a second ago?”

“But you said it was just because of some urges that you’re not so sure about! I mean, what am I supposed to think when…”

She cut him off with another kiss. Less sensual than before but more enthusiastic, more passionate. He could feel the emotion behind this one. It felt more authentically her, though it was difficult to know for sure. Candace had been acting so peculiar lately. Whatever the case, he enjoyed it even more than he had the others. It felt more… right... somehow.

She didn’t break the kiss until Sam was nearly to the point of suffocation.

“Does that answer your question? I’m attracted to you, Sam.”

Sam considered. It had been pretty compelling evidence…

“Then why didn’t you and Mara patch things up?”

Candace’s eyes fell to the floor, and her jaw tightened.

Sam heard the front door open.

What was…?

Crap!

Mom was home!