Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.
A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Twenty-One. Listen to the audio version at Nobilis Erotica here!
Chapter 21
Luke knew better than to press Sally that day or the next, when Cormick called a city meeting and informed the rest of the myth-folk community of the disappearances of Glen and Brent. He called ahead to make sure she would have time to talk with him before he showed up the next day after work.
He found her in the barn, reorganizing the feed room. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her for a minute, partly admiring her butt and partly working up the nerve to say something. Finally she turned around, a piece of hay in her hair and her hands on her hips.
“Hey, Luke. Gimme a hand here? That bag of goat minerals must weigh a hundred pounds.”
“Sure. Hey, listen….” He hefted the bag up with her and moved it to a corner.
“I heard about your conversation with my daddy.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
“Oh. Um.”
“And I got something to say about it. Several things, really. One, you been courting me in one way or another since you came back from College Station ten years ago. I assume that by taking upon the formality of asking my daddy about it at last that you either got real serious about it, or you didn’t realize you were flirting so bad, or both.”
Luke made a grunting sound to this and shuffled a bag of sweet feed across the floor.
“Two, I intend to treat you seriously in this respect, since you gone and made it formal.”
“Thank you for that.”
“And three, I’m ending this courtship here and now.”
Luke stopped and stood up straight. “Excuse me? You haven’t even given me a chance!”
“Yes I have,” Sally said, attempting to gather up the wires of a hay bale and secure them. “You might not know it, but you’ve had chances, and you’ve failed. Luke, I’m sorry, but you can’t be faithful.”
“How can you possibly know that? I’ve had girlfriends. I’m not a cheat.”
“Remember what you told me about Mae? How about that? You said yourself you didn’t even really have the option of saying no.”
Luke’s face took on a rare darkness. “That’s hardly the same thing as willing unfaithfulness, and she’s a one-in-a-million case.”
“More like one in four!”
Luke tilted his head in confusion. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s not happening, OK?” She turned her back on him and started clearing old bags of medications and supplements from a shelf. Luke felt anger well up in him, mixing with the tingling, pins-and-needles sensation up his spine that he had come to recognize as Sally’s lustful energy. He grabbed her by her shoulders, turned her around, and pinned her against the wall of the feed room with his body. Her eyes widened in surprise a few inches from his own, and he stopped just short of kissing her. A flush of excitement rippled through her, and Luke felt it in his own body too, a rush of electricity like the thrumming shock of an electric fence.
“You can’t tell me you feel nothing for me,” Luke said. He pressed his knee forward, between her legs.
She raised her hands to his stomach, seeming for a moment as if she was going to push him away, but then hooked her fingers into his waistband and pulled him harder against her. “Goddamn it, Luke,” she said, her lips hovering above his mouth. “Don’t you know it takes every bit of my self-control to keep from jumping all over you?”
“Well, why don’t you?” He brushed his cheek against hers, running his lips along her jawline.
He felt her shiver against him, rolling her hips, her body arching involuntarily, her breath coming in short gasps. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingernails pressing into him like an eagle’s talons. He was sure that if he put a hand between her legs, he’d find her wet and wanting. She might not even stop him, the way her body was running away with her.
But Sally was still in control of herself, and her mind trumped her body. “Because you need more sex than you can get from one person,” she said, dropping her forehead to his shoulder with a grief-stricken look. “And while the idea of you having a couple of boyfriends on the side to make up the difference is… more interesting than I like to admit, you’re… you’re just not trustworthy, Luke.”
He grew still and drew back to look her in the eye. “How can you be so sure, when I’ve given you no reason to think so low of me?”
“I’ve seen it before, Luke! All three times before–this isn’t any different!”
“What three times?”
Sally’s eyes flew wide, like a child caught in a lie, and she tucked her head down. “Shit.”
“Shit what?” He hooked a finger under her chin and raised her face. “You come straight with me now.”
“Luke…. God, I don’t know how to say this. I’ve just got to come out with it.” She bit her lip and put her hands on his face. “Luke, we’ve done this dance before, you and me. In other lifetimes. You courting me, me giving in, you… doing what satyrs do. It’s why I haven’t told anyone what I am–I didn’t want you to recognize me. I can’t do it again. I can’t trust you, as much as I want to. As much as I want you.” Her body agreed with that last statement.
Luke stared for a long moment, his mind reeling. “You’ve been my lover before. And you didn’t tell me this because….”
“Because we were little when I recognized you. I was ten; you were seventeen.”
“God, I was wild at seventeen.” He winced, thinking of what his seventeen-year-old self would have looked like to a child.
“Yes, I know. The first time I saw you, I knew who you were. And when I couldn’t tell you then… well, the secret got easier and easier to keep. Until now, when I couldn’t anymore.”
“When you let it slip.”
Her hands dropped as she stepped away from him. “Could be I’m just tired of hiding. Go looking through your memories of your past lives, Luke. Go looking for a thunderbird.”
She slipped out of his arms and walked away.
* * *
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About the author: Julie Cox is the author of Chasing Tail and numerous short stories in Circlet Press erotica anthologies. She lives in Texas with her husband, children, and ever-expanding menagerie of animals on their farm. She runs a small online yarn business and teaches yarn spinning. She has numerous stories published with Circlet Press and elsewhere.
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