Wanting Amanda

by Wendy Silk

  “Well, Amanda, it is nice to meet you. I’m Billy. It is a real pleasure to make your acquaintance.” His eyes sparkled, brimming with silent laughter not at her but at both of them.

  Amanda repeated his name. “Billy.” She stopped for a moment, feeling his name fill her mouth. It was as if she had begun a completely new life, in which she would need new words to describe the things that were going to happen to her. She said it again, feeling the word between her lips, just as if it were his own flesh and heat penetrating her, filling her throat. “Billy.”

  With a friendly smile that said that he might be able to do without that lemonade after all, Billy turned toward the door and let himself out. He let the door close softly, so that a tiny click was the last thing Amanda heard before she dropped onto the rug, her knees having buckled from the strain of bending over as he fucked her. Her dress was wrinkled and damp, and her body was aching, but her spirit felt freer than ever before.

  Chapter 11: Ease

  The next morning, Amanda’s invigorated sense of self-empowerment had given way to twinges of doubt. She still felt sure of her own feelings, and knew she was proud to have made a move that felt right. But how would he act when they saw each other again?

  She didn’t have long to wonder. A knock announced a visitor at her front door. It was early for a Saturday, but not so early that she was still in bed. Her dreams had been full of Billy. She had tossed and turned all night, wishing he was there to bring her to climax again so she could finally sleep. With her coffee mug in her hand, Amanda rose from the couch in her loose pajamas to answer the door.

  Nobody was there. When she looked down, she saw a huge wicker picnic basket on her doormat. It was everything a picnic basket should be, with wine slanting from the top, and a perfectly clean white cloth peeking out. A note attached to the lid held the message, “Amanda, let’s spend the day together. I’ll be back in half an hour. Get dressed and be ready.” Below the simple words was a scrawled signature: “Billy.”

  By the time she had brushed her long hair and changed into a plain white tank top and a pretty floral skirt, the half hour had almost elapsed. She took a moment to brush a pale gloss over her lips, staring at herself in the mirror. “I’m ready,” she murmured.

  True to his word, Billy arrived at her door. He looked at her appreciatively, noting mildly, “You look pretty.” Amanda hadn’t quite expected the feeling of friendship she now felt with him. With Michael, she was always a little taken aback by the lascivious glances he directed to her short skirt or her décolletage. Body positivity was one thing, but leering was quite another. After the interlude she and Billy had shared yesterday, she would have expected that he’d be checking out her figure in a way guaranteed to make her blush. But he wasn’t ogling her or, apparently, even thinking about the hot sex of yesterday. Instead, it felt like he wanted to this to be a regular date, as if he actually liked her. This wasn’t at all what she had thought would happen.

  Billy collected the generously stocked picnic basket, asking teasingly, “You didn’t look inside, did you?” He went on a little more self-consciously, “After I left it here, I wondered if that was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t want you to think you should make anything to add to it. I just wanted to treat you.”

  Amanda smiled. “No, I was so busy getting dressed that I didn’t even think of it. You have this down to an art form. Have you done this before, Billy?”

  “Nope.” Billy walked next to her with the confident gait of a man who knew who he was without proving it to others. “I never really wanted to before. The picnic part, I mean. As for yesterday, well, no. I haven’t ever done anything quite like that either.”

  He chuckled as he led her to his truck. It was a battered red pickup--exactly the sort of vehicle she would have imagined he might own. Despite the years of wear on his workman’s vehicle, it was freshly washed for their date. This picnic might be impromptu to her, but she was beginning to understand that he had spent his whole morning preparing for it. He walked her around and gave her a hand up as she climbed into the passenger seat. As he came back around, he fit the picnic basket into the back, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Amanda almost turned to him to ask where they were going, but she realized she didn’t have to. He had a plan and she found that she trusted him.

  “I thought we’d go up to the lake and do some walking before we sit down for lunch. We can get to know each other a little better.” His eyes glinted with the humor of the situation.

  Amanda’s thoughts buzzed with excitement. She had hoped for more of the same pleasures that she had found with him yesterday, but she also found herself wanting something different. He was like nobody she had ever met. She was going to know him better by the end of the day, she was sure of it.

  It was not a short drive to Lake Travis, but for Amanda, it went by far too quickly. She snuck tiny looks to her left at Billy’s profile as he drove. He sat very still, concentrating on the road, but he seemed to be charged with an easy power as well. “He could probably hike all day, then swim the entire lake,” Amanda thought. She had never seen somebody with so much physical ease. Compared to him, Michael was a jittery bundle of Wall Street nerves. “Stop it,” she silently commanded herself. This was not the time to think of Michael.

  Billy turned to her, “I know you’re looking at me, you know.” He chuckled. They had only been on speaking terms for two days--well really, just one day--and she thought he had already laughed more than any other man she’d met. “I’ve seen you almost every day on campus, trying to get me to look at you.”

  “Well, why didn’t you?” she blurted out. She had known full well that she was stalking him, but it felt awkward to have to admit it. At this moment, she wasn’t the sexy, rich girl she like to think she was. Was she turning into a bumbling wallflower, blushing at everything he said?

  “Well, Amanda,” he returned. “I just wasn’t sure what would happen next. You’re a beautiful girl, and I guess I wanted to wait until you were really interested. I’d say that worked out pretty well, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked down at her hands in her lap. There was no way to argue with his excellent logic. It had worked out very well. It was still working out, as far as she was concerned.

  It felt like their hike lasted for days, but it was only about an hour later that Amanda plopped herself unceremoniously down on the crest of the hill that they had climbed. She removed her sandals, complaining, “Billy, seriously, why didn’t you tell me these shoes were no good for what you had in mind? You said ‘walking,’ but you really meant that we’d be hiking up a mountain all morning.”

  Billy turned to her from his work of spreading the enormous white picnic blanket. “Oh, come on. I like those sandals, and this was hardly more than a stroll. I knew you could handle it.” He was joking, but his eyes darkened for a moment as he gave her another look. “You’re not a delicate flower who can’t enjoy a little bit of a workout, are you? I was sure that after yesterday’s...after the way you handled yourself yesterday, that you were up for anything.

  Amanda glared at him. “No, I’m not delicate.” When she saw that he wasn’t at all ruffled by her irritation, though, it melted away. “I can definitely handle myself,” she smiled. “You’re right about your memory of yesterday. I’ve been thinking about too, and I’m glad we did that. I wanted you.” She felt a flush creeping up her cheeks.

  “Amanda.” Billy sat still and looked at her intently. “There’s something between us. This isn’t just a one time thing. You can feel that, right?”

  She looked down at the grass, not sure if she wanted to answer this question. They belonged to different worlds. She couldn’t tell him that she was only there for a year, and that she had signed a contract stating that she would return and marry Michael. She had agreed to go back to a life in which every material want would be granted almost before she even knew she needed something. She loathed her fiancé, yes, but she knew she would enjoy the daily luxuries that would b
e hers in compensation for marrying him. Even if she fell for this handsome, preternaturally good-natured, almost unbearably sexy man, what life could they have together?

  “I’m not a snob.” Amanda heard these words in her head, and started. For a moment, she worried that she had said them aloud. No, she hadn’t. But she was mere moments from saying them, from ruining their picnic date with the petty concerns she might have about his education or his prospects. Now she sounded like an old lady. “Stop it, Amanda,” she thought furiously. None of that mattered. She could never escape Michael. She was wasting her time worrying about whether Billy was suitable for her. They would never get the chance to be together in the long term.

  She finally answered him, speaking aloud this time. “Let’s just think about now, Billy. I don’t mean that I don’t feel it. But let’s think about what we feel now.”

  As Amanda spoke, she crossed the blanket, sitting in front of Billy, with their knees touching. She leaned into him, experiencing a surge of lust that made her question everything she knew about herself. This time with him would be the experience that her life would revolve around. Even if she couldn’t change her future, she would be thinking of him every moment after this, she knew it.

  Billy shrugged aside her oblique refusal to discuss anything serious for the moment. He wasn’t on a deadline. Unbothered (could anything bother him?), he slipped his arms around her lower back and held her close to him. In a moment, they were lying on the blanket, kissing as passionately as if they had been apart for months. He ran his hand through her silky hair, caressing her cheek as he teased her lips with his. His tongue darted into her mouth, tasting her, teasing her. She arched her back as he searched along her neck with his kisses, finding spots that might have been ticklish, but were now hot and eager for his touch.

  With her hair spread around her head, Amanda looked up into Billy’s eyes. She murmured, “What if somebody comes along?”

  He propped his body easily on one arm and smiled at her. “I think we should do what we want,” he replied, “If somebody comes along, they can just turn around and go back the way they came.”

  “Yes,” Amanda murmured. “I want you here, just like this.”

  In response, he moved his hand beneath her skirt and found the strap of her cotton bikini panties on her hip. He slipped his fingers beneath the strap and ran his hand along her smooth skin, cupping her ass and pulling her closer to him.

  His dark head bent to her breasts to kiss along the scooped neckline of her tank top. In response, her nipples hardened and pressed against the fabric. With every part of her body surging to meet him, Amanda lifted her top over her head and tossed it to the side. Billy’s lips met her creamy breasts readily. She felt his hot breaths against her soft skin as he took a nipple into his mouth. She cried out, arching her back at the pleasure he sent along her body with his sensual sucking of her pert nipples, one and then the other.

  Amanda felt as if she could not catch her breath. The urgency of their coupling was somehow even greater than it had been yesterday. His hard cock pressed against her through his jeans. Yesterday, she had been innocent of what he could do with it. Today, she was on fire with the knowledge of how he would use it in her. She couldn’t wait another moment to have him again, to stroke his hot length and to feel him moving deep inside her.

  Although Billy continued to move as though he could comfortably make this last for hours, Amanda burned with the desire to have him now. She pushed against him, rolling him back onto the blanket. She straddled him, her daintily flowered skirt hiking up to show her taut thighs. He took no notice of her weight on him, as he raised his workman’s hands to hold her hips on his. She sat back, her fingers struggling against the button of his jeans. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she had been yesterday, some of her usual grace gone as she greedily sought to open his pants and free his ready cock for her own pleasures.

  Amanda was less collected than she was accustomed to being, especially in the company of attractive men. She knew how Billy could make her feel. The memory of yesterday was making her clumsy, focused only on making sure it happened again.

  Billy watched her face behind her swinging hair as she finally managed to open his jeans and tease out his thick cock, standing tall in her hand. Amanda wasted no time, lowering herself onto him, taking his length into her slippery sweet center all at once. She arched her back and ground down on him, moaning with pleasure. Her eyes were closed as she moved rhythmically on him, finding again the sensations that made her forget everything but this.

  As Amanda groaned with pleasure, Billy’s eyes remained on her. His gaze lingered on her moist lips and closed eyes. Had she seen the way his eyes blazed with feeling for her, she would have understood that she had entered unknown territory, in which much more was at stake than she knew.

  As Amanda began to relax onto him, with her own orgasm fading away, Billy firmly rolled her beneath him and began to thrust urgently into her. No longer did it seem that he could wait all day to take his pleasure. Billy was now fiercer than she knew he could be, using his muscular arms to hold himself above her as he pumped harder than ever inside her. Her long legs wrapped around him, bringing them even closer together. Her fingertips gripped his taut back and she felt him stiffen as he emptied himself inside her.

  “Amanda--” he murmured, savoring her name as her came within her.

  Their sticky bodies collapsed against each other, tangling in the crumpled picnic blanket. With no thought of lunch remaining in the mind of either, they lay as still as possible, waiting for normal breaths to return to them. The hilltop air was entirely without a breeze, so that the humid afternoon folded over them, enclosing them in what felt like a world of their own. Sleep came to them both, as they lay entwined on their blanket on the grass.

  The sun continued to arch overhead as they napped, dappling the ground through the trees. When Amanda awoke with a start, she found that the sweet nap she had found in Billy’s arms had cost her a light sunburn on some sensitive areas. He was no longer on the blanket with her, but the warm fabric at her side suggested to her that he had only just got up. If he hadn’t woken her by moving, she could have slept all day in his embrace.

  Amanda propped herself up on her elbow, smiling at Billy who was only a few feet away, examining the slightly wilted contents of their picnic basket. “If any other hikers came up as far as we did, they must have turned around and crept away when they saw us sleeping here.”

  “Yep, but I’d say they would have been laughing so hard they wouldn’t have been able to be very quiet about it,” Billy agreed. “Did you like that?”

  Amanda teased him, “The nap? Oh yeah, that was just what I needed. I’ve been having some late nights recently.” She reached for her tank top and shrugged it back on.

  Billy snorted and reached out to lightly swat her behind. She squealed, but neither of them had the energy to fall into another steamy session of sex. Instead, they sat companionably next to each other, munching sandwiches as the afternoon sun turned into a quiet dusk. They traded funny stories about their friends and their favorite hangout spots in Austin, but did not, Amanda noticed, touch on any personal details such as family or upbringing.

  She hesitated to break the lighthearted mood, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Billy, I feel like I know you...I mean, I know your body.” She lowered her eyes, embarrassed, but forged ahead. “But I still don’t know anything about your life. Where are you from? What’s your family like?”

  Billy’s face took on a closed look. “Amanda, I can guess so much about you without being told. I see your expensive clothes, your fancy dorm room, and the way you carry yourself like you know you’ve got the resources to sort out anything that comes your way. It all adds up pretty clearly.” He was quiet for a minute, then began again with a new sort of patience. “Don’t you have those same guesses about me? I can see that you like watching me work outdoors in the dirt. You were attracted to me because that was what you saw. A guy
who had to get some manual labor done to clear the way for rich kids like you to walk easily along perfectly clean paths.”

  “Billy, I--” Amanda started to argue, but she stopped, knowing he was right. That was what she had seen when she first started trying to catch his eye. Maybe she appreciated other things about him now, like his kind voice or his careful consideration of her feelings, but that wasn’t what had drawn her to him at first.

  “I don’t mind if you see me that way, Amanda.” Billy replied in his calm voice. As always, the image of him as a rough, hurried manual laborer was incongruous with the kind way he spoke, as if he had all the time in the world to care for her. “But since that is already in your mind, let’s leave it there as it is.” He grinned at her. “I know that the way you saw me at first is what I have to thank for getting into your pants. So let’s not spoil it with a lot of other stuff that doesn’t even matter.”

  As they packed up their things and amiably headed back down the trail in the dusk, Amanda wondered if he was right. They had a natural fit that allowed them to get along so well--it wasn’t just the breathtaking sex; it was turning into a real friendship. But was it possible to truly be friends without knowing more about each other? Had Billy just confirmed that everything she saw about him at her first look was all there was to him?

  In the truck on the way back, Amanda couldn’t keep her mind from the subject of whether she really knew Billy. They chatted lightly about a band he wanted to see, and an art museum that she had visited downtown. The heat of their attraction to each other hung in the air, as it always did. But now she had something different in mind. As she hopped from the pickup truck’s cab at the entrance behind her dorm, she leaned toward him and spoke as casually as she could.