Blessing of the Saint

"The design is unlike anything we've ever seen associated with Juno," Cassie continued, without responding to Nick's comment. "Quite likely, it was an object of significance that Juno worshippers inherited from a religion that predated their own, probably the Etruscans."

"Gee," Nick said, "she must have really thought a lot of you to pass such an important find on to you." He knew that Cassie still didn't want to talk about her friend. But he also knew that she needed to talk about her. She had been bravely bearing her grief in silence for too long. Talking about this artefact, this ancient iron reminder of her missing friend had opened the issue up a little, and though she was reluctant, she was also ready.

"I had this theory that Valentine's success with the artefact didn't have anything to do with the religious connotations of the ceremony," Cassie remarked, still nonchalantly dodging Nick's comments. "But rather, with the couples themselves. You see, in Valentine's time, only the richest and most powerful people in Rome would have been married in the high temple of Juno. Almost all of them would have been arranged marriages; orchestrated to cement political ties, or raise a family's standing. Few, if any, of the couples would have actually been in love. But in the underground Christian community... A group of people who have all found inspiration in the same radical, new philosophies, who are devoted enough to follow their beliefs in a lethally intolerant society, and who trust each other with their deadly secret... It certainly sounds like an environment where soul mates are more likely to meet, doesn't it?" she concluded with a nervous chuckle. Nick had slowly approached her during her speech and by now he was standing right beside her.

"Cassie..." he began. Some distant part of her consciousness was aware that she had only known this man for less than a day, and only her closest friends and family called her 'Cassie'. Yet for some reason, she didn't flinch at his presumptuous familiarity. "...It's time to talk about Clara," Nick said.

Cassie turned and looked at him, flooded with emotion. Any other person who looked at Cassie's face in that moment wouldn't have been able to read her, apart from realizing that something was wrong. Yet somehow, Nick knew exactly what she was feeling. One hundred and twenty-two days of waiting for Clara's father to call and say, "She's been found – alive and well," had just come crashing down upon her. To Nick's eyes, Cassie's face was so articulate, he could almost feel her pain himself.

"What do you want to know?" Cassie responded, shakily, "She was working on a dig in Turkmenistan and then one day she... she... she..." Before long, her efforts to remain composed had faltered and failed. She threw herself upon her date and held him tightly. Her embrace was instantly reciprocated. "God, I miss her so much, Nick..." she exclaimed in despair.

Nick simply cradled Cassie's head as she let it all out. There were no tears – Cassie had been restraining herself for so long that even now, her body didn't quite know how to behave. Regardless, her anguish was real, and deep. "You bloody fool, girl... You bloody, bloody fool..." she chanted over and over and over again. She had uttered those words so many times since her best friend disappeared, but never before in someone else's presence. Nick held her close with patient sympathy, as she aired her private mantra, along with the grief that inspired it, over several minutes.

Despite the heart-wrenching impact of this confrontation with her own emotions, Cassie found that the pain was quickly being driven away by an odd sense of comfort. Nick was there for her. She didn't have to face this alone any longer. Even though they had only met twelve hours ago, she felt like she'd known him her whole life. She knew that he would always be there for her from now on. Always be willing to talk to her, or just simply hold her. Somehow, she just knew. The entire office seemed to become lighter as Cassie felt the gnawing pain subside.

Nick waited a few moments after Cassie had trailed off into silence and her lips had stopped mouthing the words 'bloody fool girl' before he attempted to give some comforting words, "Cassie, I can't tell you that everything will be alright, although I really hope it will be. But whatever happens, all those great memories you have of Clara, all the great things you did together, all the lessons you learned from her... those things are yours to keep, forever. Nothing can ever take them away. I know it hurts now and that it's been hurting for a long time. But Cassie, I want you to realize... you don't have to deal with this on your own any longer. I'm here for you, Cassie."

She lifted her head from his shoulder, and looked deep into his sincere blue eyes. He was so wonderful. She loved him so much and she knew that she was very lucky to have a man like him. "Thank you," she said, softly. Then she expressed her gratitude again, this time with a tender kiss to his lips. She kissed him long and slow as Nick returned the gesture with matching enthusiasm. The brilliant, beautiful Englishwoman pressed her slender body against him with increasing firmness as the kiss continued. Paradoxically, despite the growing sense of joy she was feeling, Cassandra felt like the room was becoming dimmer.

Nick was between her and Saint Valentine's artefact. She never actually saw it develop a brilliant golden sheen during their embrace earlier. Neither did she see it transform back to it's regular lacklustre tone now that it's work had been done. As had happened so many times during the relic's rich history, two soul mates had come together in it's presence. As a result, a potent bond had been not created, but merely awoken between the young couple, thanks to an enchantment so old that even the ancient Romans had forgotten it's origin.

As their lips and bodies remained pressed against one another, each with no apparent desire to break away, Cassie felt tingles of anticipation welling within her body. The primal impulses that had been in hibernation since her puberty were at last being roused by the romance between them. Cassie soon realized that their love remaining unconsummated was becoming an intolerable situation. After their lips had parted, she gazed at him doe-eyed for a few seconds. In some ways, it was hard to believe that this key moment of her life had finally come. She took Nick gently by the hands and led him over to one of the two stylish wooden chairs that sat in front of her desk. Once he was standing in front of the chair she had picked out, she silently placed her hands upon his shoulders and pushed him down on to the chair. As soon as he was seated, Cassie stepped over to him and nimbly straddled him, then sat down upon his lap.

Nick exhaled a deep breath of excitement. There was no doubt now – this woman that he had come to love, in such a short space of time, was prepared to take him all the way. He supported her attractive body with one hand between her shoulderblades and the other upon the small of her back. Then, for several seconds, they simply gazed at each other. Cassie's inexperienced hips were rocking softly back and forth, eagerly rehearsing the carnal grind. Nick could feel her warm breath blowing on his cheek.

Though they were nigh motionless, the unseen passion within their bodies was building close to bursting point. Then Cassie lunged upon her beloved American with a kiss a million times more wanton than their first, and the hungry indulgence of the flesh had begun.

Triggered by Cassie's kiss (which he passionately returned), Nick's tender embrace tightened fiercely around his sexy British professor, vanquishing the few offensive inches of space that had divided their lusting bodies. As one kiss became another and another and another, Nick's lower hand sank down her jacket and on to her matching skirt, stopping as soon as it found itself upon her shapely ass. His fingers clenched repeatedly upon her lissome posterior, squeezing it as firmly as the curve-hugging fabric of her skirt would allow.

Cassie's hips were gyrating with only slightly more energy than before. Though her pure womanhood was excited about what it was about to experience, it moved with almost facetious restraint, pressing upon Nick's crotch calmly and slowly as if to say, "Would you like to come out and play?" rather than, "I will have you."

After a while, Nick's hand moved away from Cassie's butt, leaving it tingling with delight. He ran his hand across her veiled thigh, then manoeuvred it between her legs and into her skirt. His exploratory fingers soon reached their destination; that warm strip of cloth between the leg-holes of her panties. When he first touched them, her panties were dry, but when he put a little pressure upon her snatch, they quickly became moist. He began to gently rub his fingers up and down the length of her covered labia, inspiring her body to produce a lot more of it's natural lubricant.

Cassie cooed happily into the ravenous kiss she was sharing with the man she loved. Unlike the similar advances of the other man, which had seemed so perverse, Nick's attentions to her nether regions felt so good... so right... so arousing. It was a very pleasant surprise. As his skilful hand became more familiar with the treasure beneath her panties, Cassie felt the side of one finger pressing her panties between her outer lips. After a few moments, he had pushed a fold of the fabric in as deep as it would go, and was sliding the length of his finger back and forth between the tender gates of paradise. Perhaps accidentally, his amorous finger brushed against her pearl, rocking her entire body. Her toes clenched within her shoes and her abdomen became giddy for that all-to-brief moment of clitoral stimulation. But once it was over, Cassie's sexual imperative had become more desperate than ever.

First thing was first: her panties simply had to go, and unfortunately, Cassie couldn't see how she could be rid of them while her legs were spread over Nick's lap. After leaving their foreplay on a cliffhanger with an extra-assertive kiss, she began to climb off of her date. She nearly tripped over when she caught one of her feet against a front leg of the chair, losing her shoe in the process. She leaned over, so that her lips could lightly skim against his, even while their bodies remained apart. Meanwhile, her speedy hands hiked up her skirt and pulled down her panties. Once both legs had stepped out of the constraining piece of underwear, Cassie blindly tossed it towards some random corner of the office.

With Cassie no longer on his lap, Nick took the opportunity to release his implement of love. However, Cassie's interlude was so brief that Nick only had time to unbuckle his belt, before he felt the weight of a wanton woman descending upon his lap once more. One of his hands stuck around to unzip his fly, while the other was quick to resume wooing the round ass of her skirt.

As if to make up for the disruption, Cassie drew her date into their most passionate kiss yet, the instant she was off her feet. A moment later, she groped around tenderly, in the vicinity of his open fly and soon found the enormous tent in his underwear. She stroked his rigid organ once or twice through his underpants, partially to heighten his arousal, partially to assess what he had to offer. She was not disappointed. If anything, the sexually inexperienced professor felt a little overwhelmed.

Though the English beauty was lavishing countless kisses upon him, Nick's attention was more focused on what he considered to be a very mild hand job. His idle left hand decided it was only fair that Cassie's snatch received similar treatment, and so it snaked back into the depths of her skirt to tease her naked sex. He extended a single finger and stroked it down the length of her opening, marvelling at how perfectly soft and smooth her genital flesh was.

Nick's style of foreplay left Cassie little chance of exhibiting some self-control. Her womanhood was already saturated with desire, and now he was slowly caressing naught but the most external part of her sex, leaving the length of her canal with a maddening craving for masculine fulfilment. She carefully inserted her gentle hand into Nick's underwear and when it re-emerged, Nick's maleness was within it's grasp. Nick, realising that sex was immanent, moved both his hands on to the outsides of Cassie's thighs and hiked her skirt all the way back up to her waist. Then, Cassandra Marsh began to advance her naked womanhood upon the tempting column of maleness before her. This was the right time. This was the right man.

She positioned her snatch above Nick's erection, then guided his cock with her hand as she lowered herself upon it, very slowly. She immediately ceased her kissing, although Nick's resolve to adore her lips seemed to double. Her brow furrowed in agony as her most sensitive flesh was stretched to a degree that nothing could have prepared her for. Her lover's rod, so welcome, but so brutal, ruptured her delicate hymen and drew her blood as he loved her with pain and pained her with love.

A look of shock washed over Nick's face as he realized what he had just done to the alluring brunette. She stared deep into his eyes, with signs of oncoming tears in hers, and nodded softly.

"Be gentle," she pleaded quietly. Nick nodded silently in response, resolving to spare his lover as much pain as he possibly could. His hands, which were already on Cassie's hips, instantly began to support the bulk of her weight.

After many tentative exertions on to his maleness, Cassie's body had been penetrated as much as their position would allow. Guided by Nick's hands, she began to softly gyrate her hips. With no little willpower, Nick fought off the dogging urge to forcefully thrust his manhood deep into the professor's enticing female form. Within the coital hold of her tight snatch, even the shortest strokes were driving him wild. In an attempt to let off some of his pent-up desire, Nick began to kiss Cassie's cheek with steadily increasing abandon.

Though in the end, it was not Nick who succumbed to the urge for more industrious intercourse, but Cassie. Gradually, the ache of initiation began to subside and Cassie was seduced by the sensation of her lover's cock thrusting within her womanhood. Her hips began to writhe in wider and wider cycles, causing the stimulation she felt from the motions within to rapidly increase. Her breath grew heavier as the muscles working her body against his demanded more oxygen. After a while, she began to quietly moan.

Though their fornication had already begun, Nick was gripped by a powerful desire to undress his lover further. Once her hips were confidently humping his manhood without any assistance, he moved his hands upward to begin removing Cassie's jacket. However, the intoxicating ecstasy of what was going on below muddled his priorities and Nick became torn between removing Cassie's clothes and holding her torso to his as firmly as possible. He had pulled the top of her jacket down over her shoulders before he realized it would go no further. At that point, he gave up on the jacket and began to unbutton her white blouse.

Their activity was rocking the chair to the point where the rear legs were rising a couple inches of the ground. They were about five seconds from tipping themselves right over. Cassie grasped the bulbous headpieces on the top corners of the chair back and forced her weight upon them, to steady the chair.

As the intensity of her gyrations seemed to plateau, Cassie sought out Nick's lips and attended to them with fleeting, yet amorous kisses at random intervals. She could already feel it building in her loins - a tantilizing buzz that carried a promise of joy unlike any she had ever known. Every advance she made on to Nick's maleness made the sensation more profound. She could feel her control over that region of her body slipping as the carnal flame of ecstasy consumed her. "Yes...Oh yes... Yes... Yes... Mmm... Oh Yes... Yes..." Cassie moaned, quietly.

Nick had only undone the top three buttons of his lover's blouse before his fingers were lured away by the call of feminine flesh. He shifted his hands around behind her and embraced her tightly, so that the last moments of their coitus would be spent with their bodies pressed together. Once in place, his lusty paws began to knead and rub the beautiful professor – one upon her right shoulderblade, the other upon her bare, pliant ass. He could feel their first act of love coming to a head. Cassie's hips were pounding against him incessantly, like a battering ram determined to destroy the mental dam that held back his reservoir of semen. Nick could already feel the tremors of impending collapse radiating through his body.

Cassie, who was unaccustomed to the experience of penetration, was quickly overwhelmed by the maelstrom of pleasure and suspense brewing within her sex. Her vaginal muscles suddenly spasmed, and Cassie's mind was lost to a paralyzing burst of rapture. "Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh!" she bayed through her quivering jaw.

The muscles of her hips had turned to jelly, but her lover's arms acted quickly to maintain the tempo of their sexual writhing. As incredible as it had seemed at the onset, every thrust of Nick's maleness seemed to make her orgasm even more ferocious. Cassie could hardly stand it.

"Yeah... Oh baby, yeah... You're so hot... Oh god, yeah..." Nick snarled in appreciation. He worked the attractive professor's hips against his own, unsympathetic to the fact that her climax was nearly driving her mad. He knew he could not resist the orgasmic clench of her snatch for very long, but he was determined to enjoy every last second of it. He forced his rod through her resistant canal over and over, until he was overpowered by the instinct to fill her with his seed.

"Oh, Fuck!" he grunted, as he pulled Cassie's hips firmly against his own and thrust his organ deep into her heavenly opening. The release of orgasm washed through his body while his cock fired generous doses of sperm into the woman he loved. "Unnnghh! You're fuckin' amazing! Amazing! So amazing..." he growled as he ran his fingers firmly through the flesh of her ass. By now, Cassie was gone. All that remained was a panting shadow of a woman, who had been shaken to the core by raw physical indulgence.

A few wonderful moments later, their orgasms began to fade. Cassie's incensed womanhood began to quiet enough for some semblance of awareness to return to her. Nick's maleness softly trembled as it deposited the last ounces of semen into his lover's snatch. Cassie's head fell to rest on Nick's shoulder and her hands slipped from the back of the chair to the back of her beloved. As Nick repositioned his hands to better support her exhausted body, Cassie's hips drifted away from him and his manhood slipped from her delectable fissure.

The two lovers remained in that calm embrace for several minutes, moving only occasionally for comfort or support. Nick would also periodically lay a soft kiss upon the side of Cassie's neck. Once their breathing had shallowed and their bodies had recuperated somewhat, the couple began to stir. Cassie lifted her head and began to stare blankly into space, her eyes darting in many directions, but focusing on nothing in particular. Shortly thereafter, Nick lifted his head and their eyes met. Their expressions were near-identical portrayals of utter confusion.

Cassie's mouth began to move, as if to speak, but no words came out. What could she say to a man that she'd fornicated with only twelve hours after first meeting him? She knew many women would take such a situation in their stride, but this simply wasn't who Cassie was. Nick was equally stumped. All he could remember was that one minute he was consoling her about her missing friend, and the next they were going at it as if it were their wedding night. He began to worry that he had unintentionally become one of those jerks who took advantage of upset women by giving them a friendly shoulder to cry on.