The Gift

by Portia Da Costa

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  She put the wine to her lips, swallowed. Despite its sweetness, a moan bubbled in her throat as he squeezed and stroked, squeezed and stroked, squeezed and stroked. Tears formed in her eyes, not because she was upset or distressed, but just because the rush of strange contrary sensations was close to overload.

  ‘Please,’ she muttered incoherently, setting the glass down regardless. It was like being in a match or tourney of some kind, requesting a time out. Immediately Jay withdrew his hand, giving her crotch one last friendly little pat.

  ‘Didn’t you like that?’ He sounded gentle and concerned, the way he might have done if they’d just tried a ride at the fairground, or a new sport. Maybe it was a sport? If not that, it was definitely a game. Sandy plucked up the glass again and drank nearly all of it in one gulp.

  ‘I don’t know. It was weird. I’m not used to doing – feeling – the two things at once.’ She twirled the glass’s stem in her fingers, trying to quantify the experience. ‘I didn’t not like it, it was just unusual. A bit intense.’

  ‘Intense is good,’ said Jay steadily, swirling his water in its tumbler. ‘Intense reminds you you’re alive, stretches your senses. A girl like you deserves “intense”, no half measures.’

  Sandy stared at him, amazed and a little shocked. He’d hit on a nerve somehow. She realised that she’d never really done ‘intense’, at least not sexually, until he’d kissed her between her legs last night at the Waverley. She’d enjoyed sex, yes, but never felt swept away by it, even during orgasm. But with Jay, she was riding a riptide. All the time.

  He sat beside her, sipping his water and looking at her over the rim of the glass, yet it still felt as if his fingers were touching her sex. The impression they’d left on her was indelible. When he’d gone, would she ever forget the feel of him?

  ‘Here you are, sorry you’ve had to wait.’

  The barmaid’s voice sounded as if it was coming from another dimension, and Sandy blinked hard, trying to focus, smile and thank the girl, whom she knew quite well. While she fussed with the plates and cutlery and condiments Barbara had set before them, Jay ordered more wine for her, a half bottle this time.

  ‘You’ll get me tipsy,’ she admonished when the other girl walked away.

  ‘No, just more relaxed.’ Jay grinned, reached for a chip and popped it in his mouth. Then, slowly, very intently, he sucked his fingers.

  Sandy’s sex clenched. It wasn’t the grease he was tasting, but her own flavour, lingering. He laughed and she scowled at him, more excited by what he’d just done than she dare admit.

  They ate in silence for a while, and Sandy couldn’t believe how hungry she was. Jay seemed less so, and he picked at his food while she devoured everything. When Barbara had brought the wine, and gone again, he leaned towards Sandy and said, ‘I want to touch you again. Desperately. Right now.’ Sandy started to fill her glass, but her hand shook so violently that Jay had to take over. He managed it smoothly, without spilling a single drop. As she put it to her lips, sucking greedily at the sweet wine, his hand inveigled its way amongst the ruffled, velvet fabric of her skirt, moving unerringly to the delta of her sex.

  ‘Oh, you’re so wet. I love that. I love that you’re so juicy and so ready. So horny.’

  Sandy drained half the wine in one swallow, then set the glass down. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do the drinking and being fingered at the same time thing again. No, it was just that she didn’t think she’d physically be able to hold onto the glass. Not when Jay’s fingertip immediately started circling her clit in a way that couldn’t have been more perfect for her if she’d given him written instructions of her preferences, chapter and verse. Her own hands flopped onto the seat, as if she’d lost the use of them. She could feel the firm muscular line of Jay’s thigh where her fingers lay against it, but she didn’t seem to have the strength or the dexterity to actively touch him.

  Stroking, stroking. Circling, circling. It went on and on, and she felt herself perspiring again as the sense of tension and the need to come gathered and gathered. The under-band of her bra was wet through, and she imagined sweatstains on the underarms of her top, but she didn’t care. Stirred by Jay’s hand, her crotch was a pond, and she was convinced the seat beneath her was saturated and fragrant with her juices.

  And he was a devil. An evil beast of taunting and teasing, attack and retreat. Every time she felt orgasm gathering, and she began to pant and shift on the bench, he eased back and played delicately around her folds instead of touching her clitoris directly. Sometimes he just inserted a finger into her again, showing astonishing flexibility in his wrist considering the awkwardness of position and angle, and just left it there, quite still, while he took a tiny sip of water.

  ‘I don’t think I can take much more of this!’ she gasped eventually, grabbing for her glass regardless of the fact she was convinced she’d spill its contents if Jay moved as much as a muscle. The wine was sweet and flowery in her mouth, a bit too warm now, but she didn’t care, sucking it down as if her life depended on it. ‘Please, I can’t, I just can’t …’

  Why couldn’t she ask for what she wanted? Jay clearly wanted her to ask. His eyes were narrow and playful, long lashes like black fans sweeping down, slow and teasingly.

  ‘I’ll give you what you want, if you ask for it.’ He sipped again at his water, then set the glass down as if he might need both hands when she succumbed to him. When …

  Sandy didn’t know whether to laugh, or get angry. Her feelings were all over the place. She could have done both, easily. She wanted to be controlled, but she didn’t. It didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t wait to come any longer.

  ‘Fuck you, Jay Bentley, I’ll take what I want!’

  As if the current powering her body was switched on all of a sudden, her inert hands sprang into action. Beneath the table she rummaged amongst her skirt, knocked away Jay’s hand, and replaced it with her own. With her free hand, she held his wrist so he couldn’t touch her. Of course, with strength like his, he could easily have reversed the situation, but he didn’t. He only watched her face, his own like fire, as she began to rub herself.

  It was rough and greedy and inaccurate, but still effective. He’d turned her on so much it took but seconds to come to orgasm. As her pussy lurched and clenched at emptiness, and hot waves of pleasure washed her pelvis and her belly, she dug her nails hard into Jay’s hand and gritted her teeth, biting down on the urge to cry out, maybe moan his name.

  Even as she came, she knew she was hurting him. Her nails were short, as befitted someone involved in food prep, but they were strong and hard and she’d always had a good grip. Swirling her hips, rocking against her own hand, she was minutely aware of the way her nails dug into his, perhaps breaking the skin.

  But he didn’t make a sound, or move a muscle.

  Except to smile.

  Chapter 10

  ‘But what about you?’

  They were walking towards the place where Jay had parked the Aston. In the car park at the back of the Town Hall, apparently, although Sandy had no idea how he’d wangled that. He’d simply murmured something about a petrol-head he’d met at the Waverley who’d given him a pass to leave the car in the secure area there, not wanting such a fine piece of automotive artistry to be at risk from a casual prang, parked at the roadside.

  But for the moment, Sandy wasn’t bothered about the beautiful supercar. She was more concerned about Jay’s equipment rather than his wheels. She’d come in the Fox and Grapes – twice – and he hadn’t once.

  It was difficult to glance at his groin without being obvious, but she knew he’d sported a hard-on in the pub because, as she’d sat gasping after her own bit of executive action, he’d grabbed her limp hand and pressed it to his groin, and the rampant hardness there. She’d tried to cup him, to rub him too, but he’d put her aside. Very gently, but very firmly.

  ‘What about you?’ she repeated, snatching another tiny r
econnoitre out of the corner of her eye as Jay disarmed the Aston’s security system. He’d got his jacket on now though, which obscured her view somewhat. Good job really, come to think of it. She somehow didn’t think it would bother Jay very much at all, but she’d have been pink-faced with embarrassment walking across the precinct in daylight beside a man sporting an erection as impressive as his was in his snug-fitting jeans.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said easily, opening the door for her and watching her thighs as she negotiated her way into the low body-hugging seat. Despite the volume of her skirt, she was still acutely conscious of her lack of underwear, and the playful draughts that tickled her damp sex-lips as the folded black fabric rode up.

  ‘But … well … don’t you need to come?’ she demanded as he slid into the car beside her. Whatever those pills he’d taken were, he at least appeared to be pain-free now, and moved lithely. She wondered for a moment if she should worry about his ability to drive under their influence, then decided not to. At least he’d stuck to water in the pub. As he stowed his camera behind his seat, she noticed that he still looked pretty hard.

  ‘All in good time.’ He fastened his seat belt. ‘Unless you’d like to do the honours before we set off?’ His teasing eyes lit upon her lips, then his own groin.

  Still a little floaty from wine, Sandy let out a little breath, her mouth watering. She’d never been enormously crazy about giving blow jobs, but right now she would have loved to do it. Loved to explore that splendid cock, which had pleasured her so thoroughly, with her tongue. What would he taste like? How hot would he be? Would she be able to get much of him in her mouth? God, he was big.

  Her fingers moved of their own volition, but, as they settled on Jay’s thigh, he laughed. And when she looked up at him, annoyed that he seemed to be making fun of her, he nodded across the car park to where a little group of brave office workers from the Town Hall were eating their lunches outside despite the chill, munching on sandwiches and drinking bottled water or take-out coffee in a small pocket of garden adjacent to the tarmac. Quite a few were staring in her direction, obviously rabidly curious about the couple who’d just got into James Bond’s Casino Royale car.

  ‘Jesus Christ, I nearly did it!’ she snapped at him, then burst out laughing as he laughed too. ‘You’re a terrible influence on me, Mr Bentley. I hardly know you and yet you bamboozle me into letting you feel me up in a pub … Where they know me, I might add. And then you get me so tipsy that I nearly give you a blow job in a public car park!’

  ‘Is it only the wine?’ He gave her a crestfallen little-boy pout, which looked bizarrely attractive and at the same time utterly weird coupled with his hard-bitten battle-scarred features. ‘I thought it was my sparkling personality and my pretty face that’d won you over.’

  The wine had helped, but no, it was him, mostly him, that made her act – and feel – so out of control. There was still a little bit of her that wanted to touch him right here in the car park, even if not taste him. Her fingers itched. She could feel all the nerves and muscles in her hands priming themselves to make a cradling cupping action around his denim-clad crotch area. To hold him, to feel the heat of him through his clothing was like an obsession she seemed to have had for a thousand years.

  And his laughing eyes told her he understood every goddamn thing she was feeling.

  ‘Look! Drive, will you!’ She clipped her belt, concentrating on a different set of small accurate motions of her fingers. ‘Let’s get out of here before you make me do something else I could well get arrested for!’

  She gave him a fierce look, even though her lips were still twitching to share in his laughter.

  They drove for a little while. Kissley was just a small town, and to the north of it, in the opposite direction from the civic hub of the borough, England’s green and pleasant land was on hand to be enjoyed. Well, not quite so green at this time of year, but still pleasant in a stark and wintery way.

  Not that Sandy was quite in the mood for appreciating the glories of nature. Jay was quiet, and seemed to be focused on his driving, even though he kept their speed modest. It was as if he was either deep in thought, or challenging her with silence.

  For her part, it was hard to know what to say to him. What did you say to a man who really only seemed to communicate via sex? A dozen times questions about his background, his family, his reasons for being in the area rose to her lips. A dozen times she looked at his hard face and, even though she knew she was being stupid for not asking the questions, she still couldn’t. It was as if something unusual, and special, that might never come her way again, would be fractured by who, why and how.

  Instead, she kept glancing at his groin.

  His erection had subsided a bit, but still it tempted her. She harboured little fantasy scenarios of reaching over and unzipping him, and tasting his cock as he drove. But then, he’d already had one major smash-up driving an Aston Martin, and she didn’t want him to have another. Not because she was a prize-winning giver of blow jobs, but perhaps because she wasn’t actually all that experienced at it and might make a clumsy mess of it.

  ‘What are you looking at, Sandy?’

  Oops, she didn’t think she’d been so obvious. Jay’s attention hadn’t been 100% on the road after all then.

  ‘I was just looking at your jeans,’ she lied, knowing it was a pitiful fib and he’d see right through it. ‘They’re very nice. Are they designer?’

  ‘Armani.’ He was playing along. Not quite laughing, but not far off.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Glad you think so.’

  ‘I guess you’ve got loads of money then. Designer clobber, flash cars, good hotels and all that.’

  Oh, why the fuck did I say that? So much for not asking questions.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got money. Is that a problem? Would you prefer I was poor, but honest? The salt of the earth, toiling for a crust?’

  He didn’t sound angry, but she sensed he was testing her.

  ‘Nope, nothing wrong with money in my book. Although I’m not totally hung up on it, of course.’ She glanced at him, but he was completely unreadable now, his face almost mask-like. Without animation, the scars were a lot more noticeable.

  ‘I could do with a little bit more of it though. If I could afford different premises with better access, I could move my business and stand a better chance of surviving the onslaught of a bloody Forbes fun pub.’

  He frowned. ‘What, you mean you’d move the Little Teapot lock stock and barrel? Don’t you have a sentimental attachment to where it is now?’

  ‘No, not really. When my gran originally ran the café, it wasn’t even in Kissley, it was in another village, the next one along, Otterley.’ She stared out of the window, wondering how to explain something she didn’t quite understand herself. ‘No, it’s the “soul” of the café that’s important to me. The Little Teapot is a state of mind, as much as bricks and mortar.’

  There was a moment of silence. Sandy half expected him to laugh. But instead he said, in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, ‘Yes, I get that.’ When she looked at him he was frowning again, his face hard and tense as if he were processing some unpleasant fact. Maybe he was? Maybe he had problems of his own, something of which her predicament over the café reminded him? She couldn’t begin to work out what, but who needed to go down the route of fretting and worrying again? Better to face problems when they arose and all that, blah, blah, blah.

  She didn’t want to see that hard look on his face. She wanted the sexy twinkle, the teasing luscious little smile. Desire in his eyes. She wanted to look down and see the hard-on he’d had before.

  ‘Let’s not talk about the Teapot and fun pub and all that stuff this afternoon. It’s aggravating and it’s boring and I try not to do aggravating and boring on my afternoon off.’

  He flicked a glance at her, his fingers light on the wheel. His tension visibly dissipated, and Sandy almost imagined she could see it seeping away, evaporating like an u
npleasant miasma. His tongue did that sweet little sweep over his lower lip that turned her innards to honey. It was his ‘tell’. His sex tell. Did he know that? Probably. She’d put good money on the fact he did it on purpose.

  ‘So what shall we talk about?’ He didn’t look at her this time, but he was smiling as he watched the road ahead. They were skimming along with farmers’ fields on both sides now, skirted by hedgerows and small copses. The lane they followed branched into smaller ones, unsurfaced, some that looked well used, and others obviously leading to nowhere. ‘How about sex then? Shall we discuss that?’ Jay appended with a chuckle.

  ‘Oh, that again.’

  She wanted to, though. And she wanted to do more than talk. She could barely believe her own horniness, her own body. And she couldn’t even blame it on the wine she’d drunk, because she’d been stone-cold sober when he’d come to the café.

  ‘We don’t have to,’ responded Jay, almost airily. ‘I can quote poetry to you and we can waft hand in hand through that meadow over there.’ He nodded his head to a big, ploughed field at the left, with a long slightly winding lane bordering it on one side.

  Although they’d got off lightly so far this year, the sky was heavy, and Sandy could swear a flake or two of snow was beginning to fall. Even so, without consulting her, Jay eased the Aston to a stop at the entrance to the lane, which was little more than a wide track dividing a field from a little wood with overgrown scraggly hedges at either side. Despite its unpaved status, and being out in the middle of nowhere and leading to God alone knew where, the lane was surprisingly well marked.

  Sandy blinked, suddenly realising where they were. With a little snort of laughter, she said, ‘Well, if we wander through that field, we’re likely to get an audience, even at this time of year, and day. And they’ll probably expect a bit more than wafting and a poetry recital!’

  ‘How do you mean?’ He turned towards her, looking interested.

  ‘Well, that’s “Adultery Alley”.’ She nodded towards the lane winding away from them. In the distance, where it widened beside a gate, she could see a car parked. ‘It’s a notorious local haunt of doggers, bit-on-the-side merchants and general all-round shaggers. There’s almost always someone there having a bit of fun in their car.’