The Gift

by Portia Da Costa

  Afterwards, they staggered to bed.

  Sandy wasn’t quite sure who was supporting whom, and at the back of her mind she made a note that she’d better not leave the box of toys just lying there in the café, or forget about her dress on the floor and the gag and the love-egg under one of the tables. Some of her customers were a tad on the conservative side. For the moment though her compelling need was to get to her bed, get on her back again, and get Jay inside her. Again.

  It seemed she just couldn’t get enough of his hands, his cock, his face, his body. Even his scars. He opened his mouth to protest as she as good as ripped off his shirt and pulled open his trousers again, tugging at them for him to take them off. But she wouldn’t be gainsaid, she wanted the entire package and she wanted it naked, scarred or otherwise.

  Like a battle-damaged warrior he loomed over her. Stripped of his clothes, he now seemed to want to impose his imperfections on her, and he drew her hands over the red twisted marks that covered his chest, his torso, his belly. He seemed to be saying, face it, this is what you wanted to see, so see it and feel it all.

  Sandy caressed him, each and every line and gouge. She felt sorrow for his pain, but also awe at his courage, his fortitude. Returning from this hell to be a man, a virile, fucking man who was more, far more than normal men who’d never suffered. She kissed each scar, and rubbed her own body against his, like some priestess absorbed in a rite, healing his hurts.

  Finally, she pushed him onto his back, reached into her bedside drawer, and got out a condom. With slow deliberation, she rolled it onto him, leaning over to kiss his latex-clad cock as part of the process.

  Then she straddled him, sinking down on his fine sweet erection, down, down, down until she felt as if she were bursting, crammed right to her throat with his length and girth. And when she was squatting down on him, full to the brim, she sat there, getting her breath and absorbing the sensations of being stretched and totally possessed.

  Jay lay back, battered but beautiful, surrendered to her, almost. He was still total man, but somehow hers to ride and use and love.

  ‘Oh God,’ he murmured as she touched his nipples, pinching them as she’d pinched her own. He muttered again, low in his throat, when she reached back and between his legs and stroked his arsehole.

  ‘Whoa! Too much attention to me, and not enough to you,’ he said at length, and reared up to kiss her, and then fondle her breasts with a strange rough tenderness, tweaking as she’d tweaked, then almost doubling himself up to suck and bite her nipples.

  Now it was Sandy’s turn to murmur, to whimper, as her vagina stirred around him.

  And then he turned his attention to her clit.

  Rubbing, circling, massaging, anointing her with her own juices to slick his touch. Agitated, she started to move, but he held her hip with his free hand, keeping her clamped right down on him, her pelvis immobilised while he tormented her with pleasure. Even when she climaxed, with a little scream, he held her still.

  ‘Please let me move,’ she begged him, realising the balance of power had tipped again and he controlled her completely, even though she was the one riding atop him.

  ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘Keep still, baby,’ as he rolled her clit between his slippery finger and thumb.

  She came again, the pleasure excruciating, her head tossing even if her body was paralysed by his will. Her hard wrenching spasms embraced his cock and she saw him bare his strong white teeth as he endured the rippling caress and fought to torment her even further with yet more pleasure.

  Floating somewhere near the ceiling, Sandy looked down on him and a clear lucid part of her met his eyes, held them, and she smiled.

  ‘Enough already!’ she said, dashing his hand away from her crotch. Replacing it with her own, she set her other hand on his broad scarred chest and began to lift and settle, lift and settle, lift and settle until she was bouncing up and down on his cock and doing her utmost, her very utmost, to wring an orgasm out of it.

  Jay laughed and groaned and snarled at her. She did the same to him. And within a couple of minutes, they both surrendered to one another. Their incoherent cries were a song of joy that rang in the room.

  On waking, Sandy patted the bed at her side, and even half asleep she recognised the action as a cliché from the movies or the telly.

  Girl has fabulous shag with amazing man. Falls asleep. Wakes up, he’s gone.

  Cold and dread and sadness and bubbling anger gripped her all in the course of a few split seconds – until she cracked her eyes open and saw Jay’s black shirt draped over the back of a chair, and his shoes lying on their sides underneath it.

  Amazing man who shagged fabulously had not gone. Well, not too far, without his shoes and some of his clothing.

  Sandy scrabbled into her robe, and padded barefoot onto the landing. She was aware of various tender areas as she walked. Not so much in her spanked bottom or her briefly clamped nipples, but more a general sensitivity and awareness that she’d been fucked, and fucked very soundly, by a big strong energetic man.

  But where the hell was he? Not in the bathroom or the kitchen or the sitting room that was for sure, although he’d certainly been in the bathroom. A towel was slightly damp, although spread out carefully on the rail to dry rather than in a heap on the floor.

  And to her astonishment, he seemed to have washed the gag he’d used and the love-egg that had been inside her.

  A neatness freak? Or maybe obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness?

  Either way, it was refreshing after her husband and the few boyfriends she’d had, who were all of the towels-on-the-floor and piddle-all-over-the-seat persuasion.

  So, he must be in the café. There was nowhere else. She pushed open the door and entered her workplace.

  He was standing at the main window, in the dark. Faint light from the window on the other side of the room revealed his broad bare back, making his scars look like the tribal wounds of some battle-tested warrior. His feet were bare and she found the vulnerability of his naked toes strangely touching.

  She could tell he was aware of her, but he didn’t turn or speak. He simply stared out into the Christmas-lit precinct in the direction of the problematical site of the old supermarket.

  Sandy brushed the nagging thoughts on that score away. She didn’t want to think about it now. She just wanted to know what was up with Jay, because something certainly was.

  His marked but beautiful back was rigid with tension.

  You’re a stranger. I’ve known you less than a week. And yet I feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anybody.

  The tension was unbearable. The question that lurked below the surface all the time surfaced again.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I don’t think you really want to know.’

  Sandy jumped, clutching her robe tighter. She’d spoken aloud without realising it.

  ‘I think I do.’

  His gleaming shoulders sagged, as if weighed down.

  ‘Yes, you probably do, but you won’t like the answer, so I don’t want to tell you. Even though I know I ought to.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’ The plain-speaking woman from a small town got the better of her. He was an incredible man, a wonderful strange man, but goodness, he could be obtuse when he wanted to.

  She walked across to him, and saw his mouth in the moonlight, tight and tense and compressed.

  ‘Who are you?’ she repeated, low and firm. Firmer than she felt because a sudden great clamour of fear arose inside her. She had a feeling that the last vestiges of her fairytale dream about him were about to be shattered, and it was a horrible premonition.

  He stared out, eyes focused on the far side of the precinct and the empty shell of the supermarket. Then he straightened up, his spine locked, and he looked like a fatalistic boxer inviting the knockout punch.

  ‘My name is Jason Bentley Forbes.’

  Sandy frowned. What was the problem? He’d given her more or less his real n
ame.

  Wait a minute. Forbes. Forbes? Bloody hell … Forbes?

  For a split second her knees felt a bit strange, then riding a tide of cold anger she braced them. Her fists clenched and she forced them to remain at her side, even though she was rocked by the wildest urge to pummel and punch him and shout and stomp.

  Forbes. He was Forbes. Forbes Enterprises. The bloody goddamn property developer who was going to build a fun pub across the precinct and put her out of business!

  Not intentionally, the voice of sweet reason reminded her. How was he to know? He’d probably bought the site and had the plans drawn up before he even knew the Teapot existed.

  True, but when she’d asked, half-asleep after sex, how he’d found her, he’d mentioned the Fresh Food award article he’d seen in a local magazine when he’d been doing some background reading on Kissley. He’d started kissing her again before she’d been able to ask why he was doing background reading, but it was obvious now that he must have known about her café for a while at least. The Fresh Food award was ages ago. And yet the bastard had still pursued her sexually, and seduced her. And made her love him.

  That did buckle her knees, and she sat down, her head whirling.

  Jay was on his feet beside her, tall and towering. He looked strong and rocklike and watchful as he looked down at her, his expression complex. She saw neither apology nor defensiveness, just a heavy look of tiredness.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before you fucked me?’

  She wanted to shoot venom at him, but somehow she just felt tired too, and weighed down by wearisome inevitability.

  Prince Charming had been too good to be true. He’d turned into the Evil Robber Baron already.

  Guilt came in his eyes then. Angry guilt.

  ‘I wanted you. I still want you. I’d dreamed of you so long.’ He sighed out a long breath. ‘And I knew I wouldn’t get so much as the time of day if you knew who I was. When you talked about the supermarket development at the cocktail party, and confirmed what I’d feared about its potential effects on your business, I knew it would be all over for us before it even started if I told you I was a Forbes.’

  ‘What do you mean a Forbes? How many of you bloodsuckers are there?’

  She was being ridiculous and she knew it. It was business. Just business. That was all it was.

  ‘The company, or should I say the companies, they all belong to my father, William Forbes.’ A sudden look of anguish swept across his scarred face. Deep worry. ‘And I have an older brother who’s very much involved in the day-to-day running of the various divisions, especially overseas. You could say I’m just the worthless playboy son. Or I was until I ruined my dazzling looks in a smashed-up supercar and decided I wasn’t the darling of the ladies and the media any more. So I decided to finally give in and work with my old dad.’

  ‘God, if they made a movie or a telly series about this it’d get panned for being too unlikely and full of coincidences.’

  She scowled at him, as angry with herself as she was with him.

  He’d fucked her senseless and played her body like a finely tuned instrument whenever it suited him. And she’d let him, without having the gumption to get to know him even the slightest bit first. Even now, she could feel his mouth and tongue on her, working between her thighs that first night in the garden. The memory was so vivid her clit jumped, quickening just at the thought of it.

  ‘I can’t get over the fact that you knew who I was, and how I’d be affected by your father’s business plans, and you still … you still …’ She couldn’t get the words out, even if her body was replaying the effects of the action.

  ‘Put my face between your legs and made you come?’

  ‘I should have slapped you and told you to fuck off! I must have been insane to let you anywhere near me, whoever the hell you were … are.’

  But that was wrong. Even now, she knew she couldn’t refuse him. Maybe wouldn’t have done then, knowing what she knew now. It was hard to believe but she suspected it was true. He’d put a spell on her right from the start.

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  Jay seemed angrier now, less tired. Maybe he was furious with himself, or her, it was hard to tell. There was a look in his eyes, something indefinable. Confused, like fury but somehow almost gentle, almost heartbreaking. Almost heartbroken. It was quite astonishing and she’d never seen anything like it.

  ‘I think you still want me,’ he said. ‘I think that you don’t regret anything, because you’re too strong a woman for that. I think you still desire me, even now that you know I’m a Forbes.’

  ‘So what if I do?’ she flung at him. ‘I don’t have to do anything about it, do I?’ She was playing with fire, yet she couldn’t seem to turn away from it. ‘I’m not a slave to my own sex drive. I can just ignore it. And you, for that matter.’

  His eyes flashed like polished steel, as sharp as a blade, and within a single breath he was in front of her, looming like a bird of prey, staring down at her. Panicked, she started to push her chair back, afraid of what she’d started, but, before she could, he sank down onto his knees, with a visible grimace of pain, and pushed the wings of her robe apart, baring her.

  Gripping her thighs hard, he parted them, drew in a great breath then laughed, low and bitter.

  ‘Can you really ignore this?’ he asked, closing his eyes for a second and rolling his head slightly, like a gourmet or a wine connoisseur. ‘You smell beautiful. You need sex. You need me to satisfy you.’

  ‘What I need – what I want – is an orgasm. Not you. Any willing pair of hands, or mouth, would do.’

  But they wouldn’t, of course. Probably never would again. The last man on earth she should have allowed to get to her had ruined her for all other men.

  ‘Fair enough,’ snapped Jay. His voice was taut and combative, but in his eyes there was more, desperation and remorse.

  He released her thighs and plunged in with his fingers, delicately working his way through her pubic hair and peeling apart her sticky labia. With what sounded like a sigh, or a gasp of regret, he dove in, finding her clit instantly with his tongue, and began to lick and work at her in fast angry strokes. When he’d settled into his rhythm, he reached beneath her, holding her buttocks, lifting her and feasting on her, punishing her with lashing relentless stimulation.

  Sandy grabbed for him, wishing his hair was as long as it’d once been so she could dig her hands into it, grip it in hunks and pull it to punish him. As it was she could only claw at his shoulders, making tiny red marks amongst the bigger ones of his scars. She threw her own head back, no longer able to look at him, and started to growl and grunt as the sensations spiralled, not caring if she sounded like a she-beast in heat.

  She didn’t care what he thought of her. She didn’t care about him. All she wanted was his skilled and hungry mouth, giving her pleasure.

  And pleasure it did give, fast and rough and unremitting. Battering her with his tongue, he forced her at breakneck speed towards an orgasm that seemed to tear her into little pieces. It had come too soon, and was so violent that it was difficult to differentiate it from pain.

  Climaxing, she cried out, clutched at him, forced her crotch against his mouth, demanding more. And when he gave more, she wanted even more than that. She wanted him in her.

  Shoving him away, she slithered down onto the floor, threw apart her legs and reached for him. His eyes were on fire, and the bulge at the crotch of his elegant trousers was enormous. He wanted her, but in his moment of hesitation she realised he probably didn’t have a condom. For once she didn’t care, but he did, and he was about to say something, his face still full of wrath, when a tinkling trill of bell-like sound broke the spell.

  Sandy sat up and looked around. It was the same distinctive ringtone that she had, but her phone was in the bedroom, on the sideboard.

  Jay refastened the zip he’d begun to tug down and rose to his feet. As he headed for the table by the window, Sandy noticed a mobile
phone there that she hadn’t seen before. He must have brought it with him. Was he expecting a call this late? Or early? It must be close to dawn.

  Despite her anger and her pleasure-fuddled state, she got up and moved to the other end of the room, respecting his privacy. She slid behind the counter and pulled out the bottle of whisky she kept there for the occasional and totally unlicensed alcoholic coffee for favourite customers. After pouring some into the nearest glass, a tumbler, she knocked back a belt of the fiery spirit. She didn’t normally drink like this but, hell, what more extenuating circumstances than these could there be?

  Slowly sipping a second small measure, she returned her attention to Jay, and got a shock. He was talking in low tense tones. His back was to her but she could see it was rigid with some kind of powerful emotion. It was a little as he’d appeared earlier, when she’d first happened upon him at the window, but different, so different, as night from day.

  ‘All right,’ he said, hard, flat, but not emotionless, ‘I’ll be with you in a couple of hours.’ There was some kind of retort from the caller, and Jay almost rocked back. ‘All right then, three or four hours. Of course I don’t want to fucking well total another Aston. I can drive fast and still be safe. I’m not a complete bloody idiot!’

  He snapped shut the phone and just stood there for a moment, looking shell-shocked, as if he were processing information that had come to him from another planet. As tall and strong as ever, he looked oddly deflated, as if he had literally had the stuffing knocked out of him. But then, the moment was gone and he stalked across the room towards her. For a second he glanced at the whisky bottle, then he scowled, shoving his phone in his pocket.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to go like this. But I have to.’ His beautiful mouth worked for a moment, as if that inability to compute still remained. ‘My father has had a heart attack and I must go to him. I knew he wasn’t well. I should have stayed. But he made me so bloody angry and … and I had to see you again as soon as I could.’ He grabbed her by the shoulder, his expression fierce and conflicted. ‘Look, I’m sorry … about everything. But I must get on the road as soon as possible.’