Fairway to Heaven

by Lily Malone

  It turns out the truck Brayden was driving that day is an older one — the only one on the mine with mirrors like it. None of the staff or management knew it might be a problem.

  So I figure that’s why these experts deserve the big bucks. Trying to follow all that maths and angles gave me a headache.

  So it’s a roller-coaster, but we try to stay positive. The good thing is, I know whatever happens, we’ll get through it together.

  Jack is a roller-coaster too. He isn’t happy that Brayden and I are engaged, neither is Amber. So far, we haven’t thrashed out the terms of any financial agreement between Jack and me. That’s another work in progress to add to the list.

  ‘Jennifer Gates?’ Dr Whethers says, looking over her glasses into the waiting room as she collects my file from her receptionist. ‘Come this way, my love.’

  That’s another novel thing about this doctor: she doesn’t do bedside manner, she does endearments.

  I put my magazine on the table. The reading here is far classier than Vic Park Medical Centre. These magazines are only a month out of date.

  Dr Whethers makes long appointments. She doesn’t rush. She’s a talker. Not always about vaginas. Last time we got onto politics and journalism. When she found out I freelance wrote about real estate she quizzed me about property for an age.

  Luckily, we had that conversation while I was dressed and in the patient chair in her office. I don’t think I could have handled a real estate discussion with my legs spread in her examination chair.

  For my follow-up appointment, she sits across her huge timber desk and asks me how things are going. After a bit of this gynaecological foreplay, she says, ‘Okay. Well, my love. We’d better take a look at you.’

  She must see how my face tightens, because she looks at me sympathetically and says, ‘I know. It’s no fun coming to see doctors like me. We all want to look at your lady bits.’

  I’m too stressed to laugh, but I do manage a chuckle.

  It’s not as bad this time. I’ve done it once and I know the drill. Last time I cried.

  The examination room is straight across the hall. She gives me a few minutes to take off my skirt and knickers, and sit on her examination chair where I cover my lower half with the sheet.

  There’s nothing “bustle” about Dr Whethers. She’s a biggish lady, and she’s very much slow and steady. The nurse comes with her, walking straight around to stand near my shoulder.

  ‘Okay, my love. I know this isn’t much fun, but here we go.’

  The nurse lowers the chair, and it hums at me. It’s a bit like being at the dentist, only here, it’s not my mouth they want me to open wide.

  Dr Whethers tells me to slide my bottom forward, and I feel the doctor’s gloved hands hold my calves, positioning my legs as she wants them.

  ‘Slide further forward. Further. Further. Good girl.’

  The nurse squeezes my shoulder, and leaves her hand there as the doctor’s fingers start to push and pull.

  ‘Oh, that looks so much better,’ Dr Whethers says, and I feel relief flood through me. ‘That’s how skin should be. Pink and lovely!’

  ***

  So tonight’s the night. It’s May twenty-fourth — Brayden’s birthday — and Dr Whethers has given me the all clear.

  I’ve just tucked Seb in bed, in his beautiful new room in the new house that I love.

  Brayden asked us to stay here, right back on the day he proposed.

  At the time, I said no. I told Brayden it was too late in the day to go all the way into Busselton to pick up Seb and pack our things, and I didn’t want to spend the first night in our new home up to my elbows in packing boxes.

  It was more than that. It sounds crazy, but it was important to me to have one last night at the beach house. I needed to say goodbye.

  The summer at the shack helped me recover from Jack’s betrayal. It was where Brayden and golf returned to my life, and where SeaScribe started. That battered, weather-beaten house taught me that I could find joy in my own company, and pride in standing on my own two feet.

  They were dark times and bright times.

  Now, it’s my time.

  I lift my arms and let the slippery silk of my new nightgown cascade over my skin. The lace bra that matches it is a delicate pink-beige, like the dusky inside of a shell, and the knickers are wisps of sexiness on my hips. It’s cool in the bedroom, or perhaps it’s the excitement making gooseflesh on my arms. Whatever it is, I shiver.

  I feel like there should be champagne on ice — I’d say this is an event worth celebrating — but I don’t want to numb any sensation with alcohol tonight.

  I pad to the living room, nightgown swishing my thighs.

  A fire burns in the wood heater, casting a muted orange glow. The side lamp is on.

  Brayden takes one look at me and his face creases in a slow smile. He knows exactly what’s on my mind.

  It’s not rocket science.

  He is on the couch, and I come to a stop in front of him.

  ‘Wow, Jenn.’ He slides his hands over the slippery silk, taking two handfuls of my bottom and pulling me close.

  He flicks the lacy bow that dips between my breasts. ‘Nice… although I kind of miss the cupcakes.’

  Slowly he stands, brushing my body on his way up.

  I press against his chest, and gasp as the lace rubs my nipples. My arms twine around his neck and I lift my lips to taste his.

  His kiss melts me. My bones feel soft, fluid, and I’m wet to the core.

  ‘Make love to me, Brayden. Please. I can’t wait.’ My voice is rough with months, no, years, of wanting him.

  His voice is rough too. ‘You can’t know what it does to me, to hear you say that. God yes.’

  He picks me up — like I’m already his bride and there’s a threshold he’s in a hurry to cross. He carries me the length of the hall, past Sebby’s room, past the bathrooms and the bedroom that I use as my office, and into the room we share.

  He’s lived like a monk since he proposed to me, poor bloke. He’s been so patient.

  ‘I love you,’ I say, as he lays me on our bed.

  ‘I’m glad about that, because I’m not going anywhere.’ Again, that sexy smile as he shrugs out of his shirt. ‘I love every minute of every day when you’re in it, Jenn.’

  He unzips, then steps out of his jeans. His jocks get kicked to the floor, and he’s back with me.

  ‘You’ll tell me if I hurt you. If it hurts at all. We’ll stop.’

  ‘I’ll tell you.’ He won’t hurt me. Brayden would never hurt me.

  I’m not on the pill. We’ve talked, and while we’re not in any rush to add to our family, we’re happy to let nature take its course.

  After all my tests, we know I’m clean, and Brayden’s been checked too — he said it was only fair. I’m so glad we don’t have to worry about condoms. I want skin on skin with nothing to separate us, no barrier however thin.

  He didn’t shut the bedroom door, so there’s enough light from the hall to let me see his body stretched beside me. His weight is on his elbow, and his free hand trails across my stomach. He pushes the thin straps from my shoulders, baring my lace-clad breasts for his hands. His eyes glint with admiration for what he sees as he slides the lace from my breasts.

  The second his lips nibble the sensitive nub, I’m lost. My hips twist on the bed, my legs entwine with his, and I want to be even closer.

  I want him everywhere at once. It’s been so long.

  His fingers slide inside my knickers, and rub over, then into, my inner folds. They’re big fingers, his fingers, sure and confident. They don’t tease. When they enter me, I almost hit the roof.

  ‘Tell me that’s because it feels good, Jenn?’ He murmurs, soothing my hips to the bed.

  ‘It… feels amazing.’ It does. I don’t want to analyse everything, but it’s almost impossible not to. There’s no pain. It feels normal.

  He slides the scrap of lace from my legs, tosses it to a c
orner. I sit up, and he helps me pull the nightgown over my head, snap the catch on my bra.

  Brayden moves between my legs, balancing his weight on his elbows. When I look down, I can see his beautiful cock, hard, extended and pulsing for me.

  ‘You control it, Jenn,’ he says, huskily.

  I reach for him, and guide him to the place I want him most.

  Nothing happens.

  ‘Relax,’ he says.

  But I’ve already started to panic. ‘I thought I was relaxed.’

  ‘Nah. You’re not. Let go, love. Let me in.’ He moves against me, very gently, and I realise how tight I’m holding my thighs. He’s right. I have to trust my body enough to let go.

  ‘You can do this, Jenn. I know you can. Relax, baby. Open up for me.’

  I take a few quick breaths, look into his beautiful, patient eyes — eyes that love me and would never hurt me — and slowly I will my thighs to yield.

  And as I do, Brayden slides inside me. It’s tight, but there’s flex there, and I have faith in my skin. There’s no barrier. Nothing. I gasp, but not with pain.

  ‘Okay?’ he asks. He’s having a hard time controlling it. The muscles of his neck are corded and tight and he exhales on a low groan of pure desire.

  ‘I’m more than okay.’

  ‘You are so beautiful, Jenn.’ He moves, still gently, testing the snug fit, making sure I’m stretching with him, and asks again, ‘Okay?’

  ‘Easy peasy.’

  Another groan, or a moan, his or mine — I’m not sure. I’m too busy concentrating on the exquisite press of his flesh in my body as he starts to move more forcefully, taking me with him, and then I’m lost in the bliss of the deepest pleasure without pain.

  ***

  Brayden stays inside me for a long, incredibly sweet time when it’s over. I don’t want to lose him. I contract my vaginal muscles around him experimentally, just because I can.

  He kisses my cheek. ‘You’re crying?’

  ‘They’re happy tears,’ I reassure him. Has any woman ever been happier than I am right now?

  I once told him I didn’t swing from bedroom chandeliers, and there’s an argument that one outing tonight is enough vaginal exercise and I should start off easy.

  Then I think about how it felt — and the voice in my head says bugger that. Go for it.

  I contract my muscles again and I feel Brayden twitch in response, hardening inside me. His hand cups my breast, tweaking the nipple in a way that sends instant heat to my groin.

  ‘Keen to go again, Jenn?’

  ‘I think we should check everything’s still working right. You know, just to be sure.’

  Thanks for reading Fairway to Heaven. I hope you enjoyed it.

  If you’d like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage www.lilymalone.wordpress.com, follow me on twitter @lily_lilymalone, or like my Facebook page www.facebook.com/lily.lilymalone

  You can also follow me through my publisher’s page here www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you’ve read, and what you thought.

  If you liked this book, you might enjoy my other Escape Publishing novel His Brand Of Beautiful. There’s more info over the page.

  This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you’d like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.

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  ISBN: 9780857992376

  Title: Fairway to He
aven

  Copyright © 2015 by Lily Malone

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 4/132 Arthur Street, North Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2060.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  ® and ™ are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and are used under license to the Publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in Australia, New Zealand, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

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