Honeysuckle and Vines

This romantic story involves the Female as the dominate character.

Well written romantic sex story with a plot and good character development

She coveted the house like an Old Testament sinner, lusting after it with Biblical intensity. It was Rahab on the walls of Jericho, a Magdaline waiting to be redeemed from its wanton existence.

Walking toward it was like walking backwards through a dream; into a past that she would need the future to discover.

Eyes fixed on the mansion poised on the knoll, Mercy picked her way along the ruts worn into the drive, all that remained of the manicured arc that had once seduced visitors with the promise of wealth and elegance. Someone had made a half-hearted attempt to keep the kudzu and creeper from raping the bedraggled gardens, she noted, and had trimmed the ancient boxwoods. But the honeysuckle and wisteria were left to swarm over the stone benches and urns, and drip from the sundial.

At the top of the drive Mercy stopped, expelling the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. Two centuries of history stood above her, hazy with ghosts drifting through the patchy sun that forced its way past the dappled shawl of oak and walnut and sycamore branches. A raised foundation anchored the house, weathered bricks in neat rows broken only by windows as shuttered and secretive as the servants who had worked and lived beneath the mansion.

Two wings snuggled against the center. One was the morning room, Mercy remembered, awash with multiple shades of yellow and green, leaf-filtered light and variegated Lady palms. The other was the library, crimson and leather-brown and pale walnut dotted with waxy rubber trees in terra cotta pots. A double staircase curled upward left and right from the carriage way, rising in undulating waves, like a woman's petticoats lifted by the breeze to tempt a gentleman's honor. They swirled into the circle of the portico and around the pillars before coming to rest at the entry.

"The foundation's sound." The man's voice shook her trance. She had forgotten he was there. Mercy glanced over her shoulder. "And the roof was done two or three years ago," he added.

"Thank you," she nodded. "It's good to know I won't be washed away by the rains."

He laughed and moved closer, standing just beside her shoulder to stare at the facade. "You always loved this place, didn't you, Mercy?" he said. "Even stuck way out here in the middle of nowhere, this was the house you wanted."

"And you never wanted it, did you?" she countered. "John Ransom Hughes, scion of the oldest family in the county, abandoning the family homestead to an uncertain fate."

The man shrugged, pushing a wave of light brown hair from his forehead and resting a hip against the carved railing at the bottom of the steps. "I was abandoning my grandmother, my mother, and a slew-eyed ghoul of a housekeeper, not the house." He grinned wryly. "At least I only ran halfway across the state. You were the one who had to put 3,000 miles between us."

"I wasn't aware there was an us," Mercy said turning away to the other staircase. She started up the wide, shallow steps wishing tiers of lace petticoats were rubbing on her legs instead of her loose, linen pants. The house deserved silk skirts and lace bodices, tapered fawn trousers and broadcloth coats stretched over wide shoulders.

From the corner of her eye she saw Ransom taking the other steps two at a time, reaching the entrance to greet her own arrival by sweeping an imaginary hat from his head. "Why Miz Mercy Mclaughlin," he drawled. "How gracious of you to allow us the pleasure of your company." His strong tanned hand captured hers as he bowed low, kissing the air just above her fingers.

Drawn in to the game by the flash of mischief in his dark eyes, Mercy bobbed a curtsey. "You are too kind, Mr. Hughes," she smiled. "I have always found myself warmed by the hospitality of this house."

Ransom gripped one of the old-fashioned brass knobs and pushed. The door groaned, scraping open a few inches, then stopped. He pushed again with no result. "Damn." Abandoning all semblance of nineteenth century gentility, he set his shoulder against the wood and shoved. The door swung wide, spilling him over the threshold. "Warped," he muttered, flushing as he recovered his balance. "Might need a bit of adjusting."

Mercy stifled her laugh as followed she him into the dimness, stopping at the edge of the faded oriental carpet covering most of the room. The odor of beeswax polish and decaying wallpaper, lilac sachets and musty plaster, dried lavender and carpet dust settled over her senses and she inhaled it hungrily. It was a smell only to be found in old houses; the smell of survival; a smell she knew intimately.

The entrance hall was nearly thirty feet square and rose two stories to a dome fitted with curved windows. A chandelier had once dangled from the center, heavy with jewels, full and warm with light. Now all that remained was a truncated wire dribbling from the bronze fittings. At the rear, staircases spread themselves wide against either wall, the amber glow of wood worn smooth with age rising to the second floor and the balcony overlooking the entrance.

Most of the furniture remained in place, shapeless lumps covered with gray-white sheets. Bodies in their burial shrouds, Mercy thought, patiently listening for the final trump to rise and live once more. She let her memories strip away the coverings, seeing the divans and plush chairs and side tables, polished mahogany and crystal vases and silver tea services. In her mind they were all bathed in the bronze light of late afternoon streaming through the tall windows and filtering down from the dome.

She began to move forward then paused to nudge the carpet with the toe of her sandal. "Is it still there?" she asked. "No one ever had enough energy to rip it out," Ransom said. "So once a year Glory Bea would roll back the rug and give it a good polish." Mercy bent to lift the edge of the fraying carpet, revealing the point of one inlaid star. Ransom knelt beside her and together they moved enough of the heavy covering to show the beginning of the parquet floor. She had only seen it once, but Mercy's imagination could still see the massive star that dominated the center of the floor immediately beneath the dome. Around it were scattered thirteen smaller stars, the builder's meticulously fashioned homage to the newly independent United States.

But two generations after it was laid such obvious allegiance to an oppressive Union was an embarrassment, and the massive oriental carpet was laid to hide the inlaid stars like a chastity belt imprisoning an adulterous wife. Mercy let her fingertips brush over the surface, feeling the edges of the inlay as the wood texture changed. "What a waste," she said glancing toward the man beside her. "Why didn't you take up the rug?"

Ransom dusted the grit from his hands. "I tried once. Just before I left. Grandma nearly had a coronary and made Glory Bea switch me for impertinence. Mother, well..." His dark eyes slid away from hers, dropping to stare at the offending carpet. "Mother was too ill to disobey Grandma."

Or too drunk Mercy amended. She stood and let the rug flop back, wrinkling her nose at the tiny cloud of dust that blew up. All the reasons she had spent the past twenty years on the other side of the country flooded back; the provincial snobbery, the too-stretched memories, the War that never ended.

She looked down at Ransom still crouching beside the rug, and tried to imagine what his private life had been like. They had met in high school and Mercy only knew he was reasonably good looking and rich--and secretive to the point of eccentricity. Her friends thought she was crazy to accept his dinner invitation, and after an evening spent in the Hughes family circle she almost agreed. Except for the house. Being in the house made all her visits tolerable. And it made his secretiveness understandable.

Mercy roughly shoved aside thoughts of her past. Crossing the offending rug, she went through the archway beneath the balcony, into the dining room, and straight to the tall french doors lining the back wall. The old wood protested when she pulled the center doors wide to let the afternoon breeze rush through. Scented waves of honeysuckle and jasmine poured in, massaging over her skin like warm oil. Cleansing her lungs with the air, Mercy stepped onto the porch.

Brick pillars soared three stories. Beneath her was the outdoor kitchen space, accessed by a covered stair that crooked its way down from the far corner. Above her was the sleeping porch. Mercy glanced up, wondering if the old woman had laid there in the summer, remembering century-gone glories and staring possessively over the slowly disintegrating property.

Years before the gardens had seemed a thousand miles long to Mercy's young eyes. Old rose bushes, leggy and heavy with fading blooms staggered in uneven rows along the edge of the orchard. Scores of apple trees had flourished there, along with plum trees, peach trees, and cherry trees. Once-tamed gooseberry, blackberry and raspberry bushes now rampaged around the old stables, their fruit ignored and withering. Honeysuckle vines clung to the pillars and the balustrade. It crept over the steps leading to the overgrown lawn and along the wood ribs of the ceiling. Impulsively Mercy plucked a blossom and pulled it apart, raising it to her lips, curling her tongue around it to gather the tiny drops of sweetness. Through her lashes she watched Ransom pause in the doors, staring, the tip of his tongue running over his lips in unconscious imitation of hers.

Deliberately she turned, tossing the spent flower aside and reaching for another. She felt Ransom moving toward her, the porch boards quivering with his steps to send vibrations through her whole body.

"So are you ready to buy my house, Miss Mercy McLaughlin?"

He was closer than she expected, his breath tickling her bare shoulder. Mercy pressed back her emotions. There was no reason for her heart to lurch, sending an arrow of memory through her. Slowly, with carefully controlled movements, she leaned her back against a pillar and faced Ransom. "Are you ready to talk about the real price?" she asked. "You know there's a lot of work to be done."

"I'll do whatever I can," he said.

"It would be nice for the house to be restored. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Ransom looked back through the dining room and entrance hall and out the open front doorway as if listening to distant voices, the remnants of past hauntings, waiting for them to grant or deny permission. He stared for a long minute, slender face still, his thick hair stirring in the breeze that explored the house. When he turned back, he smiled, his gaze dropping the length of her body, then rising to meet her eyes. Between them there extended an odd distance filled only with their breathing. A minimal distance. The distance between desire and fulfillment.

His eyes dropped once more, dark lashes fluttering against tanned cheeks. "Whatever pleases you, ma'am," he said. "I'll be happy to oblige." A knowing calm spread deep inside her and Mercy heard her voice lower and thicken with a cadence she thought she had lost. "You like obliging women, Ransom?"

His lips twitched. "However I can, Mercy."

"You think you can oblige me?"

"If I can," he said.

"And the price?"

She caught the flash of expectation that escaped his hooded gaze when Ransom looked up. "Negotiable," he smiled.

Laughing, Mercy stretched, arms extending over her head until her fingers tangled in the vines, tugging them loose to splay over her shoulder onto the floor. She picked one up and trailed the small flower over his cheek. "Negotiations can be a most delicate undertaking."

He abruptly leaned forward to brush her with a kiss. He graced her mouth lightly with the tip of his tongue, working it between her lips to probe gently. His tongue slid across her teeth to circle the inside of her mouth, fluttering over her tongue, stroking until Mercy broke away.

"You belong in this house, Mercy," he murmured. "It needs to live again. Like you."

Putting both hands on his chest, she pushed him back, surprised at his perception but unwilling to expose herself so completely. "And you?" she asked. "Are you negotiable?"

"Would you like me to be?"

Mercy caught his chin in her hand. "You have no idea what I like, Mr. John Ransom Hughes," she laughed. He said nothing, remaining still and poised as she probed the will behind his eyes. "I like to see what's up for negotiation."

Later, when there was time to think again, Mercy could only recall her anticipation and the strange remoteness gripping her. Different times layered themselves one on the other--the past, the present, the possible future. She remembered herself full of waiting; the tingling in the center of her stomach when Ransom began unfastening the buttons of his shirt. His long fingers worked with gently dexterity, supple ligaments moving smoothly beneath the skin until he shrugged the cotton material from his shoulders and let it drop among the honeysuckle vines.

Maybe the humid perfume of jasmine and old roses intoxicated her. Maybe she'd been alone in bed too long. Whatever it was Mercy's nerves fired as never before; her reasoning stopped, replaced by an obsessive desire she would have once scorned to reveal. She laid the tips of her fingers on him, tracing the muscles beneath his skin, until he shivered beneath her touch.

Spreading her fingers, Mercy pressed her whole hand against him, smoothing over the stark relief of his collarbone. She could feel his heart beating wildly against her palm; could feel his pulse inside of herself. She circled Ransom's still figure, massaging his shoulders. Leaves rustled around her legs as she stopped behind him, leaning against his back. The hard points of her nipples pushed into him, only the light silk of her camisole between them.

Her hand snaked around his waist to close on the front of his pants with blunt directness, molding his length. He was already hard, heat radiating through the layers of cloth, and her probing touch revealed him in ways Mercy had only guessed. A throaty, wordless murmur shivered through Ransom as he recoiled in her grip tightening around him, possessing him. Her hand moved to unfasten the waistband of his pants, easing the zipper open and pushing the cloth down until it fell around his ankles. Slowly Mercy peeled away his shorts, easing them down his legs then running her hands back up along his thighs. She molded her hips to his, her fingers tickling playfully through the dark curls at the base of his erection until he sucked in a quavering breath.

"Did your grandma watch when Glory Bea switched you?" she asked suddenly.

Ransom jerked in her hand then nodded. "To be sure it was done proper."

"Bent over a chair--or maybe stretched out on her bed--pants around your ankles and your bare ass all red and hot..."

"Her bed, always her bed..." His voice strangled over the words.

"And your mama?" Mercy circled her hands over his rear. "I imagine she made you feel better afterward?" Her words were a mere whisper on the nape of his neck. "She let you lie over her lap and rubbed soothing cream over your cheeks to take away the pain." Ransom groaned softly, pushing his clenched buttocks harder against her hand. "And you rubbed yourself too, didn't you? Back and forth on those full, soft thighs--creating a different sort of pain for yourself."

His fists closed against his sides, his body shaking. Mercy drifted one hand around to his belly, kissing along his shoulder blade until she was beside him, pinching his smooth cheeks while she wrapped his thick rod with her hand.

"You must have prayed she would do this for you," she said stroking him gently. "Or this..." Her fingertip sought out the tight ring of his ass, pressing until Ransom gasped and began to rock helplessly. She let him move, watching his eyes squeeze closed as the two sensations spread through his body. His breath came in short pants, his tongue flicking over his dry lips, his body stretching toward the rim of his pleasure. Mercy stepped away from him abruptly.

"Please!" Ransom's anguished cry stirred the glassy late afternoon heat enveloping them.

Smiling, Mercy leaned back against the pillar appraising his need, the helpless thrusting of his erection into the air, his balls swinging in full arcs beneath. "Is that what you said to your mama?" she asked. "Or did you stay quiet and sneak off to your hot little room to finish yourself?" Gasps dragged out of him with rough, guttural sounds while Mercy waited. The moment drew out, Ransom's eyes blazing into hers, white-hot with nerves stretched tight. Acknowledgment passed between them, vibrating with awareness of the perfect symmetry of the timing.

"Please." The word was barely intelligible.

"You don't even know the price," she said and his silence answered her.

Slowly Mercy began pulling open the lacings of her camisole until the ribbons dangled free. The silk teased her nipples to a dull ache as it whispered away from her skin. There was no halfway now, no compromise between passion and prudence. He was hers. She would take him and all he offered, ignoring the sacrilege to his memories. It was done, sealed in silence and the scent of honeysuckle.

The vines scratched against the backs of her legs as Mercy let her loose pants fall. Hooking her thumbs in the elastic of her lacy briefs she pushed them over her thighs and calves until they puddled around her feet and stepped out of them. She was so close the tip of his rigid flesh tremored against the russet curls outlining her slit.

Ransom's eyes dropped from hers. His stance shifted imperceptibly showing he knew what was expected and what he would pay. His hands rose to cup her breasts, holding them as he would hold fragile porcelain. He cradled them, caressing the undersides, rolling the delicate points between his thumb and forefinger, pulling on them gently, pinching each hard little nub alternately. With every tug Mercy's hips swayed restlessly, her lashes fluttering.

Bending, he trailed his mouth across one breast then the other then back, tasting the velvety peaks leisurely. He circled the soft pink aureoles with his tongue, then firmly stroked across her right nipple with the flat of his tongue. He caught it tightly between his lips, sucking and nipping it lightly until Mercy gasped.

Slowly Ransom knelt before her, exploring her smooth skin with his fingertips, running over her sides and along the curve of her waist, making her arch her body toward his touch. He wound his hands around her hips to caress her soft buttocks. He rained kisses down the front of her body, licking and nibbling the skin of her ribs and belly, over her hip and along the inside of her thigh, avoiding her shadowed nether lips.

He trailed his nails over the outside of her thighs and up her calves to tease the back of her knees as his tongue swirled up and down her inner thighs. Ransom grasped her hips as he kissed her lower lips softly, flickering the tip of his tongue lightly over her unfolding slit. His ran his tongue along her, dancing over the hard kernel emerging from its folds, back and forth across the small nub of sensitive flesh until her clit throbbed beneath his mouth. Then he engulfed it with his mouth, sucking fiercely until Mercy cried out her need, her fingers digging into his shoulders.His hands found her nipples once more, taking them between his fingers to tug and pinch. Mercy tangled her hands into the hair at the nape of his neck, driving against him as his tongue delved into her hot, tight canal. She constricted around him as he penetrated deeper, in and out. Her belly was awash with liquid flames.

She allowed the feeling to take her over, command her motion. It was impossible to keep still. From the edge of her spine to the sinews of her calves she was pulled into a tight rhythm, straining to center herself in the flow. Her focus dissolved then coalesced and dissolved again in the heat cresting in the pit of her womb. It spread outward sending sparks scattering the length of her body. They reassembled into one fiery star that pulsed with long hot streaks and Mercy felt her climax explode from her, flowing over his lips and tongue.

Ransom steadied her, hands gripping her hips as he sucked and lapped her juices insistently while one wave after another broke over her. He pulled her inside out, making her lose herself, shuddering and writhing with the intensity that wouldn't stop until she sagged weakly, her strength crumbling. He stood quickly, holding her to him as she trembled and shook.

Slowly Mercy returned from the white depths that had claimed her, aware his erection was quivering and throbbing, trapped between their bodies. "I will have all of you," she sighed into the curve of his throat.

"Whatever you wish," he breathed and she moved to look into his face.

"I will have you in your grandma's room," Mercy said. "With the curtains pulled back and all the windows open and the sunlight exposing you completely."

Ransom's eyes closed and his erection jerked against her belly. "Does that excite you?" she asked, letting her hand slip between their bodies to stroke him. "Do you like the idea of being stretched out over your grandma's bed, remembering."

His breath was ragged now and she held him tighter. "Remembering and wondering if you will feel my touch--or the switch--or both." He surged into her hand, his throat hoarse with broken moans.

"Waiting to squirm and cry and beg," Mercy whispered. She felt the wetness oozing from his tip spread over her fingers and smiled. "For me --

The End