Life is Too Short

Life is Too Short

Chapter 10 – A Different Thranduil


Thranduil’s words hung in the air. “All I want is for you to love me the way you love him,” he had told me.

“But…” I didn’t know what to say at first, and that’s unusual with me. I might not always say the right thing, but words were usually readily available. I finally just blurted it out, “but I can’t. You’d leave me if I did!”

“No, Sinda, I will not,” he promised, eyes anguished. “I need your love, even if I cannot return it. I know that I am asking much.”

I stared at him for a moment before dropping my eyes.

“No, you aren’t,” I murmured, admitting the truth to myself. “You are only asking for me to be honest with you.”

He took my chin in his hand and turned my face towards his, but I could not look him in the eye.

“Then say it, Sinda,” he urged me softly. “I need to hear it from your lips.”

“I can’t say that I love you as I love Haldir, because it’s different, but I can honestly say that I do love you,” I told him, hoping that it hadn’t all been some kind of a test and I would now be tossed aside. My trepidations disappeared as he hugged me against his body and lavished kisses upon most of my face in a display of emotion that left me stunned.

“It is a start,” he said finally, smiling at me.

“That’s good enough?” I smiled back then raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have to say that I am yours, that you are my master?”

“We both know that it is true,” he replied arrogantly, his mouth threatening to smile. I laughed. He didn’t give up.

I decided that I’d like to challenge his comment. I lifted my hands to either side of his face and began running my fingers over the tips of his ears, immediately causing his eyes to close as a hiss escaped his lips.

“Make love to me…Master,” I whispered, fighting a smile of my own.

“Do you have to go to work today?” he asked, eyes closed and voice sounding unnatural.

“Yes, in about two hours,” I replied, looking at the clock.

“That will give me just enough time,” he assured me as he lowered me back down to the bed.

It was hard to believe that the elf that was now gently making love to me was the same one that had tackled me in the park and ripped my shirt from my body in his passion, yesterday. I didn’t know which I preferred. I guess it depended on the mood I was in. Right now, this romantic, sensual Thranduil was just what I needed. When he saw that I was close to release, he commanded me to look at him.

“Say it, Sinda,” he asked, moving into me in long slow strokes.

“I love you, Thranduil,” I told him, meaning it.

I didn’t know how I could love them both, but I did. Hearing the words was all he needed and he shuddered as he thrust into me for a final time, saying some words to me softly in Elvish before finally going still.

“What did you say to me?” I asked him, letting his golden hair fall through my fingers as we lay together quietly.

He wouldn’t tell me, but just smiled slightly. It didn’t matter. I remembered the words and I would look them up. I needed to know.

Not too surprisingly, I was running late for work that day. It normally didn’t matter, but I had my trainee to worry about and every minute counted. The guy was a stereotypical accountant, from his conservative haircut down to his brown dress shoes. He glanced at his watch when I walked in, making sure that I knew I’d kept him waiting for ten minutes.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ralph,” I told him. “I wrote up some notes for you last night and if you’ll read these through, we can go over any of them that need more of an explanation.” I handed him the ten pages of notes.

“Is that why you were late; because you were working on the notes?” he asked, wanting to put my excuse neatly into a mental box in his mind. Well, frankly, I didn’t think that it was any of his business. I didn’t work for him; he was replacing me. I had the sudden desire to bitch-slap the anal-retentive accountant mentality right out of him. He had no idea how free he could be if he’d let himself go.

“No, I’m late because I spent most of the night having mind-blowing sex with one of my lovers,” I told him as I moved to sit at my desk. “They’re both elves and let me tell you, these immortals have stamina. They seem to forget that I’m human, sometimes, and that I need to sleep.”

He stood there for a minute, holding the notes and staring at me, I’m sure. I wish I could have seen the look on his face, but I’m sure I would have laughed. It took him a minute to actually move and when he did, he hurried. I smiled after he left. Let him stew on that one for a while. Hopefully, I wouldn’t end up with a sexual harassment suit.

I was anxious to get home from work that night. It wasn’t every night that I had a hot elf waiting for me…oh wait, yes it was. I was rather happy about that fact and I smiled to myself most of the way home, wondering how I’d gotten so lucky. I thought about Haldir and Thranduil and wondered how things would end up, but for now I would just enjoy them both while it lasted.

I walked into the condo and was greeted with the smell of something wonderful and exotic, coming from the kitchen. That was a first. I should have gotten an elf years ago, I thought. I found Thranduil peering into the oven and after a quick kiss he turned me around and made me leave.

“It will be ready in five minutes. You may return then,” he told me.

I went to my room and changed into something more comfortable but also sexier. If he had gone to the trouble of fixing dinner for me, I could at least thank him properly. I left my bra off and put on a rather see-through tank top and a pair of skin-tight shorts. I thought he’d like it. I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing the outfit in public.

When I returned to the dining room, he started to pull a chair out for me, but hesitated when he eyed my clothing, or lack of it. He glanced at the food he had just placed on the table and then back at me. Making a quick decision, he grabbed the covered dishes and placed them back in the oven, on low, before turning back to me.

“Dinner will wait,” he told me, eyes holding mine as he moved towards me with catlike grace. “I wish to have dessert first.”

When we finally got around to eating, the meal was wonderful. It was a curried chicken dish and I loved the mix of spices on the tender pieces of meat.

“This is incredible, Thranduil,” I told him.

“I learned this recipe in India, approximately five hundred years ago,” he admitted.

“Well, I see that the years of practice was time well spent,” I told him.

We cleaned up the kitchen quickly then went downstairs together. For some reason, Thranduil didn’t take me right away but spent almost an hour in the shower driving me crazy with desire.
After drying himself off, he took the towel and used it on me, managing to make even that into an erotic event.

He carried me to the bed and lay me on it, before walking over to the stereo and putting on a few CDs. While the first song played, he walked around the room lighting candles, finally turning off the lights. I had never seen him so romantic. I liked it.

“I made some sex CDs for us today,” he told me as he joined me on the bed.

“Sex CDs?” I laughed, though it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying as his large hand slid up my belly and the fingers splayed out across my ribs.

“One for soft, gentle sex, and one for more aggressive sex,” he explained. “It took a while. I had to find just the right songs.”

He had started this CD with “Lady in Red,” which I had always liked.

“I picked this song because it reminds me of you. All of them remind me of you or of us,” he admitted, tracing a finger along my jaw line.

I was touched. He had really put some thought into this.

“And I have found a special song for us,” Thranduil replied, moving his mouth down to the spot right below my chin. “It is the next one.”

He took his time kissing most of my pulse points then lay next to me, his hand traveling up my body languidly.

“Listen to the words now, Sinda. This is our song.”

I recognized the Bruce Springsteen tune at once, another of my favorites.

He began to kiss various parts of my body with a bit more ardor as the haunting intro to “I’m on Fire” filled the room. I was already very stimulated from his considerations in the shower and what he was doing to me now was taking all of my attention. I was barely aware of the song.

“Listen,” he said when Bruce Springsteen’s voice filled the room. Thranduil began to sing along on some parts as he watched my face in the candlelight. “…got a bad desire,” he kissed my lips for a few moments. “…I’m on fire.”

“Tell me now, baby, is he good to you, can he do to you the things that I do?” he sang along with Bruce as he held me still with his eyes. “Can he, Sinda?” he asked me in a whisper.

He kissed me in a leisurely manner, right below my ear, and continued, “I can take you higher.” Taking my earlobe into his mouth, he bit lightly, whispering, “I’m on fire.”

His words sent chills down my spine. He had a beautiful voice for one thing, and once the message finally sunk into my passion-dulled mind, I knew that what he was saying was the absolute truth. I didn’t bother telling him that sex wasn’t everything, that Haldir and I had something that transcended a mere physical relationship. Right now, it didn’t matter because his actions were making it hard for me to think past the physical. Nobody could make me feel the way Thranduil did and nobody could take me any higher. I think that the realization must have finally shown on my face because he smiled and once more whispered the words into my ear.

“Can he do to you the things that I do?”

“No,” I whispered back, heart racing.

His mouth moved over my face, not touching me, but getting close enough for me to feel his breath as it caressed my skin. “You cool my desire,” he whispered as his mouth passed over my ear.

While watching me through half closed eyes, he breathed the next words into my mouth. “I can take you higher.”

My heart was pounding as I lifted my head just a hair to press my lips against his. He began to show me just how high he could take me, and indeed, it was higher than I’d ever gone before.

*********

I had difficulty getting to work on time the next day, but I made it. Thranduil had offered to start packing up some of my things while I was gone during the day, which surprised me, but I was grateful. I sure wasn’t getting anything done to prepare for the move while we were home together in the evening. I think that he needed something to do, so it helped us both out. I have to admit, he did a better job than I ever would have. Everything that he packed was completely organized and labeled. If it was fragile, it was wrapped so well that I could have dropped it on the floor and it would not have broken. I let him know how pleased I was with his effort and that took most of the night, again.

I wondered how long he would stay but I was afraid to ask him. I took back everything I had said about wanting some elf-free time. I wanted Thranduil to stay as long as possible, but I would not tell him that, afraid that I’d push him away.

For the next few days, we fell into a routine. He worked on packing for me while I was at work and I came home to gourmet meals every night, followed by lots of unbridled elf passion. I didn’t think that life could get much better than this, except that I found myself thinking of Haldir quite often. It made me feel guilty. I should be grateful for what I had, but I selfishly wanted more. Time after time, I had to push away thoughts of what Haldir was doing at any given moment. I tried to concentrate on Thranduil instead, and give him as much as he was giving me.

When the weekend came, I worked through it, but Thranduil wanted to take me someplace fun Saturday night. I agreed, figuring it wouldn’t kill me to go in a little late on Sunday, since I’d be alone at work anyway.

We spent the evening touring the Las Vegas strip, which he hadn’t done in twenty years and was shocked by how much it had changed. When we had all we could take, we decided to stop by a local bar on the way home and have a drink. I was wearing the short, black dress that he’d bought me and he was also dressed in black – jeans and a dress shirt. He looked quite handsome and, as usual, every eye was on him as we walked in. The bar was kind of rough around the edges, but I’d lived in the town forever and usually showed up there every month or so when some friends managed to talk me into it. It was impossible to go there without running into somebody I knew and it happened several times that night. We were invited to sit at a table with some friends from Taekwondo and it was a lot more fun than hanging out on the strip had been. There was a good band, too. I was worried about the noise on Thranduil’s sensitive elven ears, but he showed me the tiny, but powerful earplugs that he wore.

My friends quickly pulled Thranduil into their conversation. He was easy to talk to, though I know that he often intimidated people. Being second and third degree black belts, these three guys weren’t easily intimidated by anybody. Their wives, who did not participate in martial arts, were too busy checking out the elf king to be intimidated by him.

“Have you seen Sinda spar yet?” one of them asked, smiling.

“Chuck,” I said, warning him. I was very proud of my sparring abilities but that was a different facet of my life that I wasn’t sure I wanted to share with Thranduil. I liked the way he made me feel sexy and feminine and the image of a fighter didn’t mesh well with the side of me that I showed him.

“No, I haven’t but I would like to,” he smiled down at me. I rolled my eyes. Great.

“You’ve got to see it to believe it,” Chuck laughed. I felt like stuffing a sock in his mouth. “The other women won’t spar her, so she has to spar us.”

“Why is that?” Thranduil asked, regarding me with a half smile.

“You’ve got to understand,” I tried to explain to Thranduil, “there are only a few women in our classes and they’re only in it for the exercise. They don’t like to spar but I enjoy it. In fact, it’s my favorite part. I’m very aggressive when I spar these guys, and I think the women are afraid I’ll be that way with them, which I wouldn’t. I’m very careful about matching my opponent’s abilities. If they want to go nice and easy, I can do that, too.”

“Yeah, I saw her do that, once,” Chuck laughed and the others joined in. “I think it was when we were teaching the kids’ class one night.”

“Does she win?” Thranduil asked now, taking a sip of his beer.

“Sure,” one of them said.

“No,” I corrected him. “Not often, against these guys. They just humor me, but I do okay in tournaments when I compete against women.”

“I would like to see you spar, Sinda,” Thranduil told me, a twinkle in his eye.

My traitorous friends told him exactly which nights we normally sparred and Thranduil assured them that we would be there.

“I think that we’ll be busy packing,” I told him, irritably. I didn’t want to do this in front of him.

“We don’t pack in the evenings, Sinda,” he reminded me with a grin.

No, we didn’t, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up my private time with him to spar, either, but on the other hand, I needed to let the instructor know that I’d be leaving. I sighed. I guessed that it was inevitable.

The band finally played a slow song and Thranduil led me out to the dance floor. I loved dancing with him. He was so good and he made me look like I knew what I was doing. We switched partners now and then with the others at our table, but I noticed that he didn’t dance with the other women the way he danced with me. He made me feel special, cherished. Of course, so did Haldir.

After three beers, I remembered that I still owed him for our last date began trying to think of ways to pay him back for what he had done to me in the restaurant. I tried reaching my hand over to grab him under the table, but he was too strong, easily pulling my hand away with a smile and a raised eyebrow. He knew exactly what I was doing and wouldn’t allow it. I would have to think of something else. My chance came when we were dancing. I remembered what it had done to me when he whispered certain things into my ear. I waited for a slow dance and rubbed my body as close to his as possible. He smiled down at me, letting a hand drift down my back further and further as I pressed against him. I could feel his desire growing between us. I stood on my tiptoes and whispered into his ear exactly what I wanted to do with him when we got home. I saw his eyes darken as he looked down upon me with interest.

“In that case, I think that it is time for us to leave,” he told me, kissing the area around my ear as he spoke the words.

“Maybe a couple more dances,” I told him, pressing harder against him.

“Maybe now,” he replied, rather tersely.

He tried to lead me out the door when the dance was over but I pulled him back to the table. He would have to make a scene to get me out of there before I was ready. That was part of the plan. I wanted him hot and bothered by the time we got home; really hot and bothered.

I think he figured out what I was up to because he started to play along with it. He allowed my hand to move over the growing bulge in his jeans for a while before finally moving it away again. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, but while he was there he warned me that if I kept it up he’d embarrass me in front of my friends. Believing him, I decided to behave, for the moment. We stayed for another dance and when it was over, I agreed to go. We said our goodbyes to my friends and left through the back door but we barely made it outside before he shoved me against the wall and pressed his hard length against me.

“I want you right here,” he said calmly. “Right now.”

“I don’t think so,” I told him. The back door was used rather frequently. With his usual skill, he managed to distract me from explaining to him why it would be a bad idea.

“No,” I told him, shaking my head to clear it. “We can be home in five minutes.”

He stopped and weighed his options, still pressing himself against me.

“You want me, too,” he murmured into my ear.

“Oh, yes,” I said, wondering if I could last the trip home. I felt him stiffen suddenly, but not in a good way. He looked alert and ready. He had heard someone approaching us long before I was aware of the stranger’s presence.

“Hey, longhair,” the very red-neck sounding voice slurred. “We don’t like your type around here.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I said, in no mood to deal with losers. I needed to get laid by the elf king and fast. Interruptions were not welcomed. “Take a hike.”

“Sinda,” Thranduil said, feigning shock. “Such language.”

Maybe he really was surprised. I didn’t talk like that.

“I’m sorry but we have better things to do right now than to deal with scum like this,” I informed him. “Want me to take care of him?”

It was the three beers talking and he smiled at my words. I saw that there were two of them now, but I wasn’t worried. I knew I could handle myself and I didn’t doubt that Thranduil could do the same. He ignored them and smiled at me.

“You are absolutely right, Sinda. We have better things to do. Now, where were we?” he asked, kissing me again. I put my arms around his neck and caressed his tongue with mine as he deepened the kiss.

The first guy went to grab Thranduil and I saw the king’s hand shoot out at an impossible speed. The man suddenly found his throat grasped in an iron grip that held him very effectively in place. It seemed to work every bit as well on his friend, though there was no contact.

“I think I’d leave if I were you,” I told the one that seemed frozen in place. Thranduil continued to squeeze the other, just a bit, while he turned his attention back to me and finished our kiss at a leisurely pace. When he was done, he let the man go.

I took Thranduil’s arm and we walked to his rental car while the two jerks just watched, one of them bent over and gagging as he clutched his throat.

“I kind of enjoyed that,” I told Thranduil, kissing his arm as we walked.

“It gets your adrenaline going, doesn’t it?” he asked me.

“It gets something going,” I admitted. It had turned me on, watching Thranduil in action.

“Car sex?” he asked as we got into his convertible.

“No, sorry, I have other plans for you,” I told him.

“I’m intrigued,” he said, hand sliding over my bare knee and slipping beneath my dress. I let him.

We were both very worked up by the time we got home, tangled in each other’s arms and kissing our way up to the door. My grumpy next door neighbor peeked out and saw us, but I only waved, knowing that I wouldn’t have to put up with her anymore. I had a buyer for my condo and it would close shortly after I left. I would handle the rest from Oregon.

When we got inside the front door, Thranduil wanted to take me right there on the stairs, and though it hadn’t been part of the plan, I let him. I realized now that he would never agree to the slow torture I had in mind, when he was in a state like this. For that matter, I didn’t think I would have lasted. I was glad that my stairs were carpeted, as he pounded me into them, both of us still dressed. I think he enjoyed having sex with me when I was wearing a dress and heels. Even with our little tide-over on the stairs, he was breathing hard when we made it to the bed and I told him to lay down on his back and close his eyes. I went to the dresser and got five bandanas and scarves from the top drawer. Returning to him, I could see his head turn as he tried to catch any sound that I made. I used the first bandana to blindfold him and he tried to grab me and pull me to him, but I slipped free of his grasp. I took hold of his wrist to bind it to one of the four posters on my bed, but I couldn’t budge him.

“Please?” I asked. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Kiss me,” he said. I complied and when he finally released me, he let me tie his arms and legs to the bed. I spent a half hour or so torturing him with my hands and mouth, licking and tasting about ninety-eight percent of his accessible surface area. Sometimes I would stop for a moment and move to another spot before settling down someplace new. He was never quite sure which area I was going to be going for, but by the time I was done with him, he was straining at his bonds.

“That’s enough, Sinda,” he told me at last with a groan. “Untie me so I don’t have to destroy your scarves.”

I quickly untied him and couldn’t believe how fast he grabbed me and rolled me beneath him. It was short but very, very intense and I promised myself that we would play this game again, soon. He had a turn next, tying me up and netting similar results. I was very glad that I had decided on the four poster bed.

***

The rest of my time in Nevada flew by. I spent the days training Ralph, who seemed afraid of me now. That was good. He wouldn’t be calling to bother me any more than absolutely necessary. I don’t need to tell you how I spent my nights. They were wonderful, though I still thought about Haldir quite often. As the day drew closer for him to return I grew anxious to see him again. The hard part was not letting Thranduil see this. We had settled into a great relationship that could be easily toppled by his insecurities about Haldir.

When Thursday rolled around, I had hoped that he would forget about the promise to go to Taekwondo, but he told me that he’d been looking forward to it all week. He watched me put my white tank top and uniform pants on.

“Is this what you wear to spar?” he asked, a smile on his face.

“Sometimes,” I said, grabbing the top of my uniform and tying it in the proper places. “This is what I usually wear.” I grabbed the long, black belt and looked for the gold words and found the side that had my name on it. This was complicated. I had to wrap it all the way around front to back then tie it in the front. I was proud of myself for getting it right the first time. It had to end up with my name on the left hand side and sometimes it took me a couple of tries to get it right.

I grabbed my sparring bag and we left for the studio, or dojo.

“Okay, now if we do this, you are going to have to understand something,” I told him, not wanting any problems.

“I’m listening,” he told me as he executed a right hand turn.

“This isn’t play fighting. We wear gear, but we hit hard and we kick hard. Sometimes I hurt somebody and other times I get hurt. It happens.”

He glanced at me and I didn’t like the look on his face.

“You can’t interfere,” I told him, “no matter what.”

“You expect me to sit by and let a man pummel you?”

“Yes. It happens every week. I know what I can handle and so do they. It’s made me a stronger person and a better fighter. If you jump in and do something, I would be absolutely humiliated. Please promise me that you won’t.

“This is why you didn’t want me to come and watch,” he stated, not promising anything.

“Well, that’s not the only reason,” I admitted.

He looked at me with a question in his eye as we pulled into the parking lot.

“I like the way you make me feel,” I told him, a little embarrassed. “Soft, feminine, sexy. I don’t normally feel that way, especially at Taekwondo. I don’t want you looking at me in a new light.”

“You think that I will no longer find you sexy?” he asked, a smile threatening.

“Right,” I told him, getting out and grabbing my sparring bag from the back seat.

He pushed me against the car and kissed me. “I don’t think that there is anything you could do to change the way I feel about you.”

His words were loaded and I saw in his eyes that they had a double meaning. I ignored it. This was not the time to get that personal.

“Promise me you’ll stay in your chair,” I told him.

“I promise,” he said, taking my earlobe between my teeth.

I showed Thranduil to a seat and gave him a small kiss. He wanted more but seemed to know that it would not be appropriate here. I bowed before stepping onto the floor, as was the rule. I told my instructor immediately that I was moving and that it would be my last class, and he seemed genuinely sad, but he also told me that he knew of a good studio close to where I’d be moving. That made me feel better. Most of the time, I felt really good about the idea of moving, but every now and then I got scared thinking about giving up everything familiar to me to go to a town where I’d never even been before. And why? To have a great sex life with two different elves for a few years until they tired of me. Having a studio where I could continue my Taekwondo would kind of help me get my feet planted firmly on the ground.

After our usual warm-up, we worked on our forms for a while. Black belt form had eighty-one moves and I’d learned about half of them so far. I learned six more that night and after that, we sparred. It was hard to keep my mind and eyes off of Thranduil during class; he was an overwhelming presence. I noticed that Chuck’s wife was there that night as well as the others. I thought that was kind of strange since the wives usually only showed up at testing. I wondered if maybe they were there to see Thranduil and I had to fight back a smile when I saw how they kept talking to him during class. He answered their questions and chatted with them, yet he rarely tore his eyes away from me for a moment. I was very flattered considering the fact that he had three good looking women hovering over him.

When we started to spar, his eyes became riveted on me and this is the part I was worried about. I had seen him leap over bushes to get to me, when motivated. I had no doubt he could clear the low wall between us in a single bound if he thought that somebody was hurting me.

I went against Chuck while the other two men squared off against each other. We kept it light at first, jabbing and throwing an occasional kick. The instructor then told us that he wanted us to try a specific combination; left jab, right cross, round kick to the head. That was fine, except for the fact that I was 5’1 and Chuck was over six feet tall. I had to kick a long way to reach his head and it didn’t come easily for me. My first few kicks barely reached his shoulder and I saw him smirk. I was faster than he was, though, and could easily block his kicks, especially when I knew they were coming. Some of his punches landed, but I barely felt them. I couldn’t help but notice how tense Thranduil was when I turned in his direction and again I prayed that he wouldn’t do anything. I had made a big mistake at that moment, worrying about Thranduil rather than my opponent and Chuck got me in the head, hard. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor, my head spinning. Now I was mad.

The instructor called for a short break and told me to walk it off. I walked over to Thranduil who stepped up to the wall and told me that he didn’t like what he had just seen.

“I wasn’t paying attention, and that’s why it happened,” I told him. “You can bet I’ll pay better attention next round. Please don’t do anything.”

“Sinda, I promised you that I wouldn’t interfere and I will keep my word, though it is difficult to watch this. Go kick him back.”

I smiled, intending to do just that, now that I was warmed up and annoyed.

Back on the floor, we touched our gloves together to indicate the beginning of our match. This time I ignored Thranduil and concentrated on Chuck. He got a few punches in, but so did I. I needed to get a kick to his head to make me feel better. After studying his moves for a few minutes, I saw that he always ducked a bit to reach with his right cross. The next time it happened, I was ready. I dodged the punch then kicked hard and fast, aiming where I expected his head to be. It was perfect. I knocked him off guard and he staggered and fell onto his knees. Now he was mad. That was good because we did our best when we were both angry. It got a little intense for a while; he was hitting too hard and so was I, but his punches were not connecting. I got a couple of mine through, but he didn’t seem to feel them. He was in the zone and getting even more aggressive. One of his punches finally landed, and it landed hard, right above my right breast. I felt that one and had to stop and let a wave of pain pass before continuing. Thranduil stood up. I turned and looked at him until he sat down again.

When we started again, the coach told us to free-spar, with no set moves to try to incorporate. I liked this best. The instructor was right there now, trusting the other two to behave themselves. He didn’t trust us and I don’t blame him. We had a history. We liked to fight way too much and he let us because we pushed each other. He warned us occasionally, but we mostly ignored him. Chuck was frowning, intent, and he punched at me three times, driving me back a bit, but he left himself wide open on the third punch and I nailed him right in the ribs with a good side kick. It took him a minute to shake it off and now I knew that I was in trouble. He had that crazy look in his eyes. I kept my stomach muscles tightened all the time now, because I knew that a punch or kick would be getting through and it would be hard. Sure enough, after only a minute or so, he punched me square in the midsection, hard enough to take my breath away. I bent over in pain, trying hard to breathe. He never should have hit me that hard, but the instructor wouldn’t say anything because I’d been doing the same thing and we all knew it. When I could finally straighten up, I risked a glance at Thranduil and saw him clutching the chair in front of him, fingers white and jaw clenched. He was still in his seat, though. Good. I stuck my mouthpiece back in and went after Chuck with a vengeance. I landed three hard punches before he got another good kick to my head. When I went to retaliate, I blew it. I didn’t aim and kick but I kicked kind of wildly, and my left foot managed to slip out from under me at the same time my right foot landed at the side of Chuck’s head. We both went down, but I landed flat on my back with a loud thump. For a moment, I couldn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I’d done some serious damage or not. I saw Chuck get to his feet and suddenly the instructor was there at my side, asking if I could move my arms. I went through the routine, being well familiar with it. Don’t move your back until you’re sure everything else works right. When we’d decided that my back wasn’t broken, I rolled to my feet and got up, shaky. Class was over and I was glad. I was in pain.

I took off my sparring gear and bowed out of the room, going to Thranduil who grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap for a long kiss.

“Are you all right, Sinda? Did you hurt yourself?” he was still frowning. He lowered his voice, “If he hurt you…”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Besides I did it to myself.”

Chuck approached us and I whispered to Thranduil, “Be nice.”

“You okay, Sinda?” Chuck asked, genuinely concerned. We might be the greatest of foes on the floor, but we were friends otherwise.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

He shook hands with Thranduil and I was very happy to see that Thranduil didn’t crush his hand or do any of the bad things that I had expected.

They invited us to go to dinner with them, since it was my last night of class. I didn’t really feel like we could say no. Thranduil agreed to go, but said that we’d be a few minutes and asked them to save us seats.

When we got in the car, I asked him where we were going.

“Someplace where we can have a quickie on the way,” he told me.

“I don’t know how to tell you this but the restaurant is right across the street,” I pointed.

“Sinda,” he told me. “I don’t mind going but I cannot wait through an entire meal to have you. Watching you spar really did things to me, except when you got hurt of course.” He grabbed my hand to show me what the sparring had done to him.

“So, it didn’t turn you off?” I asked, surprised.

“Not in the least,” he assured me, “quite the opposite, in fact.”

I had an idea. “Drive behind the restaurant.”

We went to the farthest part of the parking lot, where it was dark. He slid the seat back and unzipped his pants, expecting me to climb on.

“No,” I said, “not this time. Somebody might see.”

Instead, I dropped my head down to his lap and used my mouth on him, quickly bringing him to completion that way. When he was done, I sat up and said, “We should go inside now. They’ll wonder where we’ve been.”

“Not yet,” he said, slipping a hand below the elastic of my karate pants.

“Thranduil, no, I can wait until we get home.”

“No?” he asked. It was too late. His fingers were already working their magic on me.

“Maybe,” I modified my original pronouncement.

Within a few minutes I had changed my answer to a resounding yes. I think it was a grand total of ten minutes that we had spent in the car, but from the looks on my friends’ faces when we walked in, they knew exactly what had happened. I was surprised to see several other friends there, too. There was even a cake in the middle of the table and it finally hit me that we were having a going away party.

“Sinda, you both look much more relaxed than you did at the studio,” Chuck’s wife, Dana, smiled and whispered to me.

“I’ll just bet we do,” I said, not denying it.

She giggled. As it turned out, they had planned a small party, contingent upon me showing up to class. Once I had shown and Dana had gotten Thranduil to agree to bring me to the restaurant, she called the others and had them meet us. Thranduil had been in charge of keeping me busy for a few minutes to give them time to bring a cake in and get everybody seated. We ate Mexican food and drank margaritas and it was a pretty good night. I was going to miss these guys but Chuck and Dana promised to rent a minivan and do a road trip to Oregon, bringing some of the others. I was glad to hear it.

When it was time to leave the restaurant, I could hardly move, which was embarrassing. I didn’t want Chuck to think he’d hurt me. I ended up waiting until most of them left before whispering to Thranduil that I thought that I might need some help standing. I saw concern in his eyes as he casually lifted me into a standing position. I was able to get out of the restaurant without attracting any attention because we walked slowly and talked to Chuck and Dana on the way to the parking lot. It took a while to get to Thranduil’s car and I needed help getting into the front seat.

“Is this normal, Sinda?” he asked me.

“Well, not really, I admitted,” leaning back against the seat, “but I had something similar happen about a year ago. It was whiplash. I couldn’t move the next day.”

He started the engine.

“Do you wish to go to the hospital?” he asked me.

“No,” I said, horrified. “It would take a lot more than this to get me to go to the hospital. I’m just a little worried about getting to work tomorrow for my last day.”

“I am sure that what you did to me in the car earlier didn’t help any,” he stated.

“It didn’t hurt much then,” I assured him. “I think the muscles in my back have just had time to stiffen up, now.”

When we got home, I opened the door but he didn’t even let me get out and walk. He simply scooped me into his arms, locked the car and carried me to my condo. I handed him the key and he let us in, taking me upstairs to lay me on the couch. I nodded off to sleep as he was rummaging around doing something, but soon he lifted me again and laid me on the floor on a sheet he had placed over the carpet. I had no idea what he was up to, but if he thought that I was going to be participating in some kinky sexual act, he was going to be in for a surprise. I saw him open a small bottle of oil and I laughed.

“Are you going to take advantage of the fact that I’m in no condition to protest?” I asked him.

“Sinda!” he said, appalled. “I hope that you are kidding. I am going to make you feel better.”

“You always make me feel better,” I replied.

“Not that way,” he said, rubbing oil into his large hands. “I am giving you the night off.”

He straddled my legs and began to give me the best massage of my life. Okay, the only real massage of my life, but I know that even if I’d been accustomed to professional massages, it would have been the best. It hurt a little, but at the same time, I could almost feel the muscles healing as he worked. I told him that at one point and he laughed.

“Your muscles are healing, Sinda,” he told me. “A little bit of elf magic, though my powers have diminished over the years. I believe that I still have enough left in me to heal your body.”

Maybe that explained what had happened back at the lake, about a million years ago, when I had drowned. Haldir hadn’t been able to explain it at the time, but maybe Thranduil had been involved. I asked him about it.

“No, Sinda,” he said. “I did what I could and so did Haldir, but you were beyond our help. Neither of us understood how you were brought back.”

I thought about this some more and my mind drifted. When he finally lifted me and carried me to bed, I was barely aware of it. I did notice his arms come around me to hold me, though. I felt bad since I assumed it was his last night and we wouldn’t be having sex. Haldir would be arriving sometime the next day and we would be going to Glen’s house that night for the going away party. Saturday morning the movers would come and then Haldir and I would begin our drive to Oregon. Tonight had to be my last night with Thranduil.

I awoke very early, feeling rested and refreshed, which was a first after spending a night with Thranduil. I twisted in his arms, grateful to be able to do so.

“I think that you still have your healing powers because I shouldn’t be able to move right now.”

He leaned over to bite my lower lip softly before trailing a hand up and down my body.

“I think that you are jumping to conclusions, Sinda. We will not know how well you can move until we test your body,” he whispered.

“Good idea,” I said, wrapping my fingers around his arousal. “I believe that your body is in fine working order. That makes you highly qualified to run the testing.”

The results of our testing showed that my body was back in perfect working order, thankfully. I glanced at the clock and knew that I needed to get into the shower. I asked Thranduil how long he’d be staying. I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I also didn’t want him there when Haldir arrived. I had the feeling that things might be a bit tense between them, now.

“Didn’t I tell you? Glen called and invited me to the party as well. I will stay an extra day because I would hate to miss your going away party.”

I didn’t know what to say. How awkward would that be, having them both at the party? Besides that, I wanted Haldir in my bed that night…alone. The night I had spent with the two of them together had been fun, but now that I knew that this was all real and not some kind of wonderful fantasy, I didn’t know if I could repeat it. I also didn’t think that Haldir would like it one bit. I know that it had piqued his interest at one point, but by the time we finally went through with it, he had made it very clear that he did not want to share me. After being away from me for over a week now, I thought he’d be even less happy to find out that Thranduil would be with us on Haldir’s first night back. In fact, in light of recent changes in my relationship with Thranduil, I thought that there might be some fireworks, and I don’t mean the good kind.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I told him. “I didn’t let Haldir stay for your first night back and I don’t know if it would be fair for me to let you stay for his first night back.”

He touched my temples with his fingers for a few moments while watching my eyes.

“Sinda, do you think that I would intentionally provoke the Marchwarden?” he asked, a glint in his eyes.

“Yes,” I told him. “And please tell me that you didn’t just read my mind.”

“I just read your mind.”

“How?” I asked.

“I have allowed myself a very small bond with you,” he began to explain.

“Haldir said that you would never do that. It’s too risky,” I said, getting agitated. I had one elf that I already had to worry about. I didn’t need to worry about both of them this way.

“Yes, it is risky but I know my limits, unlike the Marchwarden,” he assured me. “He has already gone too far. I will not.”

“Don’t go around reading my mind all the time,” I told him. “It’s unnerving.”

“I can’t do it without physical contact, so you will know,” he told me.

“Why not?”

“It is a very small bond, Sinda. This is what I have tried to tell you. To read your mind without touching you would take a much stronger bond. It is why I’m concerned about Haldir. He has already passed that point.”

I didn’t want to hear that, though I had suspected that it was true. I didn’t know what I could do about it, so I ignored it.

“Why did you make this bond?” I asked him.

“Because the sex is so much better,” he informed me.

That explained why I had sensed a change. Sex had always been good with him, but lately it had been extraordinary. Of course, it was great with Haldir too, but in a more spiritual way. That was it, I thought. With Haldir, I felt like our souls became one during sex. With Thranduil, the physical part was incredible and now we were getting a bit of that “soul touching” part on top of it.

“Back to the problem at hand,” I said. “If you read my mind, you should understand my concerns.”

“I do,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

That should have solved the problem. It really should have, but I just suddenly could not picture me downstairs, making love to Haldir while Thranduil was left out.

He smiled. “Ah, so you are not worried about me insisting on sharing the night, you are worried about yourself. If you allow me to join you, Haldir will not be happy, yet you do not wish to leave me out.”

What could I say? He had hit the nail on the head. Guess that happened when you read somebody’s mind. It was easy to intuit their thoughts.

“Would you like us both together again, Sinda?” he asked me, running his lips down my neck and over my shoulder blade.

Again, I stayed silent. Two hot elves at once, sure I wanted it one more time. It had been exciting. Could I actually do it? That was another issue.

“Hmmm,” he said, moving over me to suck a nipple into his mouth. I watched his mouth as he worked on me and soon I began to forget about our conversation. When he spoke again, I was confused at first. I had to shift gears for a moment to pick up the thread of thought.

“It is simple, Sinda,” Thranduil pronounced. “I will explain to Haldir that I am staying for the party. I will also tell him that he owes me this for keeping you from me last week. I know he feels guilty about that.”

“If you can convince him without upsetting him, I’ll go along with it,” I said. “I don’t want tension between the two of you.”

“No, I can think of something I’d much rather have between the two of us,” he said, sliding into me.

I forgot all about everything else for a while.

~~To Be Continued~~