Consent

by Sahara Kelly

  9:30pm...Laura enters the bedroom and is arrested as a collaborating spy.

  The rest of the evening...Adam attempts to get the truth out of the dangerous spy Laura.

  11:15pm...Adam and Laura sleep, cuddled around each other like puppies.

  The television was never turned on.

  Apartment 7A

  Chapter 1

  Adele Martin opened the large white envelope carefully, knowing what she’d find inside. An invitation to Eve and Simon’s wedding.

  She sighed and slipped the elegant card free of its covering.

  In spite of the fact it was a small affair, Eve had done the thing right, and managed to send out the requisite tasteful assortment of tissue, small notes, envelopes and other paraphernalia that denoted her forthcoming marriage to the truly delicious Simon Austen.

  Adele had promised to shoot the entire thing, mostly because she loved Eve like a sister, but also because having a camera in her hand and a purpose to her afternoon alleviated the knowledge that she was dateless, divorced, and over forty. She avoided sitting at the “odd” tables at affairs like these, by waving her camera around and busily mingling with the guests.

  Everybody loved to have their photos taken by Adele.

  Adele herself was beginning to hate it.

  Eve had teased her about a date, and had made sure that Adele’s invitation read “...and guest”. She’d even added a personalized postscript. “Remember, you said you’d bring Brian...”

  Well, she hadn’t said she’d bring Brian. Eve had said she should bring Brian.

  And the thought was quite impossible.

  Entertaining, but impossible.

  Adele relaxed into her favorite chair, a large papasan bamboo job with a soft and fluffy zebra-striped cushion swamping it. It was a great prop, and also very comfortable. It was where Adele did some of her best mental photography and also where she sat and allowed herself the occasional fantasy.

  About Brian.

  And how he would eagerly accept her invitation to accompany her to the wedding. And how he’d tenderly stay with her, letting everyone know she was his date. And how afterwards he’d bring her home, come inside, slam the door behind him and take her up against...

  Whoa. Enough of that.

  Brian McMillan might be the best looking creature to walk the face of the earth, but he was off limits. He was a youngster.

  He was...Adele’s brow wrinkled as she tried to do the math...he was eight years younger than she was. That would make him a mere child at thirty-three. She being the very ancient forty-one that she’d become two months ago. And not very happily, either.

  Turning forty had been sort of fun, a milestone, a great party, a statement that she “was woman”, and could roar with the best of them.

  Turning forty-one just sucked.

  She sighed, idly looking over Eve’s wedding invitation as she tucked her long legs underneath her.

  Brian was a doll, though. She wondered if he remembered their first meeting, the night he graduated from college.

  She’d been out with friends, and sort of celebrating the ink just drying on her divorce papers. Someone had said let’s drop by this party for this guy we know, and the next thing she knew she was knee-deep in beer cans, laughter and a pair of sky blue eyes.

  Brian had taken one look at her and made a beeline for her and they’d shared the fun and the booze and the jokes until some ungodly hour in the morning.

  Then, in the darkness of the hallway, as she’d been rather fuzzily leaving, he’d touched her.

  Followed her downstairs, and taken her arm. God, she could still feel that touch like it was yesterday. He’d pulled her against him.

  His body was hard, rock hard even then, his muscles firm and masculine and his cock grinding into her like a lead pipe against her pussy. He smelt of beer and cologne and heat, and he’d pressed himself against her, backing her to the wall.

  She’d been soft and relaxed, a little drunk and a lot tired, full of beer and laughter, and her body had responded in an elemental way. She’d welcomed him.

  Without a word he’d kissed her.

  Hard and long, his lips had devoured hers, pushing, moving, seeking, finally prying her mouth open and thrusting his tongue inside.

  She could still, even to this day, feel the tingle that had shot directly through her body to her clit. It was like nothing she’d ever felt, before or since.

  Brian’s mouth had claimed her, eaten her, sucked something out of her body and replaced it with something new. A feeling that was so unique she’d ended up measuring all other kisses by it, and finding them lacking.

  If people hadn’t intruded on that moment, Adele was absolutely convinced that Brian would have had her panties down and his cock inside her in no more than two minutes. And she would have helped him shorten that time to a minute thirty.

  As it was, they had pulled apart, stunned, and Adele vividly remembered the flush that covered Brian’s cheeks as the realization of what they were doing seeped into his beer-soaked brain. She was pretty sure she was coloring up rather brightly herself.

  Under cover of the noise of the party, Adele had left, knowing her path lay in a different direction to that of a young college graduate.

  It had been six years until she’d seen him again.

  A buzz from her cell phone distracted her. “Hello.”

  “Adele, darling, it’s Jan. So sorry, but I have this weeeee problem with today’s shoot?”

  Adele pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to keep her temper. “What is it this time, Jan?”

  “Well, sweetie, you remember I told you about divine Mark, the scuba instructor? Like he’s the most fabulous thing in a wetsuit? And out of it...” she gave her little trademark giggle which was supposed to enchant people but simply set Adele’s teeth on edge.

  “Well, Adele honey, like he’s gonna take me scuba diving with him. To the Caribbean? You know? I mean, isn’t this like fabulously wonderful?”

  “Jan,” said Adele, trying to interrupt the flow of words.

  “So, like we have to catch this plan, because the Caribbean is like someplace you gotta fly to? And I have to run and pack, although Mark says all I’ll need is the bikini. And maybe not that...” The giggle came again, shut off halfway through by the dial tone.

  The bitch had done it again.

  Adele was steamingly, violently, spit-nails-through-wood angry.

  This time, Jan had “like” cooked her goose. Burned her bridges. Bent over and kissed her ass goodbye. It was positively the last time she’d ever pull this shit, because Adele would fire her.

  She might have been popular, certainly had the breasts for the job, and yeah the camera loved her. Her flesh was creamy white and she photographed like a renaissance virgin on a sex binge.

  Adele didn’t care how busty she was, or how many vibrators her photo on the box could sell. She’d had it. Jan’s career as an Adele photo model was history.

  She managed to stop herself from flinging her cell phone at the wall, but the urge was there.

  Now what the hell was she supposed to do? She had two boxes of “For Couples Only” toys, a deadline that was creeping closer, no female model and Brian due in half an hour.

  Oh God. Brian. Her panties dampened and she frowned. Not now, she sternly told her hormones. Maybe it was the change beginning. Maybe this rush of pumping energy that waterlogged her underwear at the mere thought of Brian was something to do with the upcoming advent of menopause.

  Whatever it was, it was bloody annoying. Especially now when she had a crisis of major proportions on her hand.

  She sighed. Life could be fucking difficult at times.

  *~~*~~*

  Life, thought Brian McMillan, could be fucking frustrating at times. He was waiting for the elevator to take him to Adele’s studio on the seventh floor. She called it her studio, but everyone knew it was her apartment as well.

  Hell, he had to walk through her bedroom to get
to the bathroom to change for the shoot. He’d never obeyed the urge to stop and pry through her stuff, no matter how much he’d wanted to.

  Her room was meticulously neat every single time he’d passed through. The bed was made so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. There was never a sign of nightwear, or robes and if she had bunny slippers they were so far under the bed they’d probably suffocated. He knew the powdery scent that she loved, and that she had a fascination with watches. There were always two or three neatly aligned on the top of her dresser. Her closet was invariably shut tight, and her hamper empty. He knew her rooms better than his own. He’d probably been in there more often than her current lover.

  If she had one.

  Brian gritted his teeth. His cock was misbehaving dreadfully, as it always did when he reached these damned doors.

  The fact that he invariably had to wait for the elevator gave his body ample chance to consider what lay ahead, and the thought that he’d be spending the next few hours with the most desirable woman he’d ever run across never failed to rouse the fella from his nap.

  One day, he mused, he’d like to arrive at Adele’s door without being semi-erect.

  He grimaced to himself. Never happen. She was too...too...too something, and damned if he knew what it was.

  The doors slid apart on a melodious chime and Brian stepped in, turning as he heard a voice behind him.

  “Hold that, will ya?” The smilingly harassed face of Eve Bentley ran in behind him and caught her breath. “Thanks. I don’t think I could have stood waiting in line any more today.”

  Brian smiled at her, recognizing her from his frequent visits.

  Her eyes went a bit glassy as he turned the full force of his grin on her.

  “My pleasure,” he said, knowing his voice sounded sexy, and powerless to change it. Why should he? His voiceover residuals gave him a very nice income thank you.

  Eve cleared her throat. “I don’t know if Adele told you, but I’m getting married,” she smiled back at him.

  “Yeah, congrats and all that. She did mention it.”

  “Oh good. Well, I hope you don’t think I’m being pushy or anything, but I really want Adele to come to the wedding and this time to have some fun, rather than spend the entire day calculating her lighting angles, or whatever it is she does.”

  Brian tilted his head to one side, watching the animated woman in front of him.

  “So I mentioned to her that you’d be a great date for her that afternoon. That is if you’re not currently...um...if you’re free, so to speak...” Eve’s color was creeping up her cheeks as she realized she was, in fact, being horribly pushy.

  “She doesn’t have a date?” Brian kept his voice level as he asked the question, although how, when his heart was jackhammering the back of his Adam’s apple, he had no idea.

  “Adele? Nah. Hasn’t dated in ages. And I hate for her to come stag, it’s so depressing. Having done it myself way too often, I really do understand.”

  Eve smiled then, and Brian couldn’t help grinning back. This was one charming lady, and Brian figured Simon had to be responsible for that gleam in her eye. “Let me see what I can do, Eve. No promises, but thanks for cluing me in.”

  “Happy to, Brian. Simon and I will be really tickled if you can pull it off. Don’t mention this...” she waved her hands as the doors pinged open to her floor.

  Brian pantomimed zipping his lips shut.

  Eve winked and slipped off the elevator, which resumed its journey upwards.

  Hmmm. No date. Not for ages. Well, well. Wasn’t that interesting? Brian’s lips curved and his mind zinged with possibilities. His cock liked every single one of them, and this time he got his wish.

  He arrived at Adele Martin’s front door without a semi-erect cock.

  It was fully erect and raring to go.

  Chapter 2

  “The Caribbean?” Brian’s gorgeous eyes widened at Adele across the small kitchen table as they sat and enjoyed their usual pre-shoot conversation.

  He toyed with his bottle of spring water, and Adele knocked back her third soda of the day like there was going to be a worldwide shortage announced any minute.

  “Yeah, the Caribbean.” Adele waved her hand gloomily at the stuff spread out before them.

  It had become a habit for them to sit and look over the day’s props, discussing the best way to present them, any requirements from the manufacturer or ad agency that was funding the shoot. Brian had clearly learned a lot about the artistic end of photography, and Adele knew that he continually put it to good use, making her job a hell of a lot easier.

  For her part, she’d recognized Brian’s innate ability to pick out one or two unusual items and use them in a different way, and she was always ready to listen to his ideas and suggestions.

  Except today.

  “So, you do it instead.”

  “What?” Adele blinked.

  “You do the shoot instead of Jan.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Brian sighed. “You have a remote, a timer and limitless rolls of film. It is Thursday afternoon, and your deadline is less than forty-eight hours away. Correct so far?”

  Adele nodded.

  “These items are couples-oriented, so you need two people on the cover. Yes?”

  Adele nodded again.

  “So. Do the math. There are two people here. One is male, one is female. Both are relatively attractive. Both can wear this junk and are familiar with the process of shooting the photos. What’s not to understand?”

  Adele was stunned speechless.

  Her mind blanked out, dropped into a galactic vortex of confusion, from whence one overriding thought emerged microseconds later—get almost naked with Brian? Oh God yes!

  “I couldn’t possibly.” And that couldn’t possibly be her voice. A teenage boy with serious puberty problems would have sounded better. The squeaky break that robbed her words of their determined nature brought a grin to Brian’s mouth. Brian’s devastatingly sexy mouth. The one that Adele would pay zillions to have pressed all over her body.

  Her hormones began a small line dance.

  “Sure you could.”

  “Brian, I’m not Jan. She’s young, stacked, very attractive and sexy. Oh, did I mention young?”

  Brian grinned again and picked up the small thong that featured a little tuxedo bow tie. “Adele, you’d look fabulous in this.”

  The line dance picked up speed and added a quick dip.

  “And this...” Brian added the barely visible black demi bra with the mock white shirtfront.

  The line dance was really getting into the swing of things.

  Adele turned down her inner music and ignored the frustrated boos of her hormonal chorus line. “Brian, you’re sweet to say so, but I couldn’t...”

  “Why the hell not? It’s not as if we have too many options here, Adele. You want to call these people...uh...” he picked up the literature that came with the products and scanned it for the manufacturer’s name. “Here we are, you want to call Bun Bunnies Inc. and tell them that Adele Martin failed to make the shoot?”

  Adele’s mouth snapped shut. He’d got her there. She’d never, ever, missed a deadline for a shoot. Blizzards, jammed cameras, broken hearts, just about every disaster you could name, Adele had survived and turned in her photos on time.

  “You know anyone else who’s free within the next hour? I sure don’t...”

  Brian was hammering valid points at her from across the table and she shut her eyes against the brilliant blue of his gaze.

  “Brian,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “I can’t. I’m...I’m not...”

  “Not what? A busty blonde? No. You’re not.”

  Adele stood nervously and took her half empty can of soda to the sink. She carefully emptied it out, rinsed it, and tossed it into the recycling bin. She then went to the fridge and took out another can of soda.

  Brian chuckled. “What was wrong with that one?” He nodded at the
bin.

  “Huh?” Adele had no clue what he was talking about and was surprised to find herself with a fresh can of soda in her hand. And a growing need to pee.

  “Look. Brian. Bottom line.” Adele leaned against the counter and took a breath. “I am not the glamorous sex kitten that the sponsor is going to expect to see on the package of his sex toys. I am...um...” she found the words stuck in her throat.

  “You are a very sexy, vibrant, real-life woman, who could sell flip flops to Eskimos if she put her mind to it.” Brian grinned over his water bottle at her.

  “What?” Adele restrained the impulse to slap her ears and make sure they were working. Brian thought she was sexy?

  “You heard me. You have hair that makes a man want to wrap himself in it and get lost for days. Your legs go on for miles, your skin is always glowing, and your mouth, well, the less said about that the better. It probably should come with a government warning.”

  Adele’s mouth gaped. The one that didn’t have the government warning. “What the...the fuck are you talking about?”

  “C’mere, babe,” said Brian, standing up and grabbing Adele’s wrist.

  He led her into her small studio and stood her in front of the mirrored wall that she used to check various angles of her compositions or as a light reflector for some of her more avant-garde shots.

  He made her turn and face the mirror, removing the soda from her hand and standing behind her. “Now. I want you to forget who we’re looking at. You are using your photographer’s eyes right now. Kinda like using your listening ears at nursery school.”

  Nursery school. Bad analogy. Children. Youngsters. Youth. Brian. Young. Not possible.

  He sure didn’t feel like a third grader, however, as he stood oh-so-close behind her. “First, the height. See how nice and tall you are? Just grazing my ear here. We’re well matched height wise, you have to admit.”

  Adele did her level best to follow his instructions, noting that the top of her head did indeed touch his ear. Especially if she tilted it, just so...