Find Your Own, Then

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to stop by and read 'Find Your Own, Then.' If you enjoy it please leave a rating, if you are so inclined. Comments both good and bad are welcome, with a preference toward the former (of course). If this hit you the right way then hopefully my other posted stories will be to your liking as well, so try them out if you wish. In any case, thanks again for your time and interest and kudos to those who gave the effort to make this happen.

A 750-word story shouldn't need an introduction so I'll get out of your way after providing the pronunciation of the protagonist's name, in case it's new to you: EE-fa.

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As she slid a leg over Grant's torso, Aoife knew this had to be the last time. If she were going to truly hold herself accountable this was already one too many, but once he'd kissed that spot where shoulder meets neck the result was a foregone conclusion. Shame it had to end, for he was a nice lad, well-built and thoughtful, and armed with an adept tongue and endurance galore. Said application of those skills was why the heat between her legs made her feel she'd surely melt if she didn't feed the fire, and wasn't that a contradiction? Not the time for musing, though.

Biting her lip, a moan escaped as she eased the head of his cock inside, pausing to savor both his gasp and the anticipation of what was within reach, fulfilling her desire, slaking her hunger.

Especially her hunger.

Through sheer will Aoife limited herself as she slowly slid every bit of him inside, taking tiny sips of his essence instead of the gigantic gulps her body was screaming for, aching for, clamoring for. The pleasure threatened to break her resolve but she managed to both revel in the orgasms that rippled through her and keep from taking him too far - t'was a close thing. As his own climax overwhelmed him she felt his heart skip out of time and missing a beat or two before shuddering back into rhythm. As he collapsed beneath her she noticed the gray hairs on his temples, the lines next to his eyes, all new. Indeed, time to go.

The things he started murmuring as she sprawled next to him only reinforced the need to break it off. She sent him away with a kiss that still tasted like her, and it was all she could do to not slam the door shut and fuck him against it. In the end she more or less shoved him out, slumping against the frame despite the raw energy surging through her. His life would be shortened from having been with her, but not too much. Days, a couple of weeks, maybe a month. She'd learned how to take what she needed and little more, so there'd never be an Eammon again.

Eammon.

She frowned as the guilt that lapped up against her, as if it had been her fault, as if she'd known who that fella was the night he'd shown up at the tavern she worked at, what with his clever words and rakish smile. Didn't know he was mate to that woman who lived in the woods - some called her healer, other called her witch, but Aoife reckoned the latter part had been proven accurate. "Find your own, then," the hag had snarled at her a few days later, before smacking Aoife with what appeared to be a black cat's tail - sans the rest of the cat - dipped in . . . something. Blood? As disagreeable as that sounded it was better than some other options that came to mind. At first she had laughed it off, not afraid of some crazy slag, and it wasn't long before Eammon met her and took her away from a lifetime of being groped and pinched. He had a bold heart and nearly made her pass out from pleasure when they coupled, leaving her feeling even better long afterwards, though she didn't know why.

Not right away.

When her big tree of a man had withered away and died within six months of meeting her, she didn't make the connection. Mayhap it was cancer - medicine in the 17th century wasn't particularly enlightened - but she only knew that while her husband was gone her libido was most certainly not. Ignoring it made her feel weak, tired. Her hair began to turn gray and fall out. Though it had only been a dozen months since the final time Eammon possessed the strength to lie with her, her face bore the ravages of twenty times that. Easy enough to find a willing partner, and after she felt and saw the difference at once. Younger, stronger. This time she fled before there could be a repeat, and so the pattern began. Trying to find her own, if he existed. Trying to break the curse.

She texted him after she was out of town, saying she was too old for him. She was browsing Tinder candidates in her next destination - wonderful thing, technology - when he replied: you don't look a day over forty.

Aoife smiled. "You left off 'decades,' boyo."