After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed)

by Moore, Jewel

  But as her mother had said, it was her life and she had to live it to suit herself.

  Stephano was everything she’d ever wished for in a man—their connection went deeper than skin color. The first day, she’d joined the agency she’d felt it when their eyes met. She had put it down to his good looks and charm, but she’d always been acutely aware of him.

  The dynamics at the office would change if she and Stephano started dating. If she agreed with Stephano on an issue it would be assumed she did so because they were sleeping together; if she disagreed, their colleagues would wonder if they were having problems in their personal life. But she and Stephano had a healthy respect for each other professionally and that wouldn’t change. As a matter of a fact, with so much in common, their lives could blend together beautifully.

  The hardest part would be telling Stephano about her past. She couldn’t brush it under the carpet and simply start afresh—there were hang-ups she still had as a result of her relationship with Michael.

  Working for the agency had helped build her confidence. Paul was like a kindly grandfather and an expert life coach. He had analyzed a few of her presentations, taking them apart step by step, and had been as generous with praise as he was with criticism. The thing he loved the most about her he’d told her was her voice with its merest hint of a West Indian accent. He’d called it “seductive” and “persuasive”, saying that she could “sell oil to the Arabs”.

  Paul had told her that she would benefit from a few sessions of therapy to build her confidence and had discretely arranged a meeting with one of the best on Harley Street. The therapist had later recommended a session with a colleague of hers, a reputable hypnotist and Natalie had made remarkable progress over the next weeks.

  Paul’s interference should have felt intrusive, but she’d understood that all he wanted was her to be the best she could be. He wanted that for all his employees.

  When Craig’s halitosis became increasingly worse, everyone felt too embarrassed to tell him and no one wanted to team up with him. After a monthly staff meeting Paul had invited him for a drink. They had all feared that Craig would be given the boot, instead he had returned to work the next day, bad breath and all. But over the following weeks there had been a noticeable freshening of his breath. Natalie suspected that Paul had arranged a consultation with a specialist on Harley Street as he had done for her. Now few of them remembered that Craig had had a problem, although when he’d tried to kiss her under the mistletoe at the last company Christmas party, Natalie had instinctively given him her cheek.

  Morgan didn’t command the same attention as Stephano, but his good looks were arresting and Paul had encouraged him to use both the masculine and feminine sides of his personality to charm an audience when giving a presentation.

  Natalie’s suits were made by the same bespoke tailors who specialized in the finest Italian suits and handmade shirts. Nothing boosted her confidence more than wearing clothing that was specially made for her. She didn’t wear trousers suits often. Though it went against all her feminist instincts, she’d recognized that many clients, both male and female, reacted differently to a woman in trousers. But there were times she needed to be one of the boys and help deliver a tough message. At these times she wore trousers suits and flat shoes and acted as tough as needed. Other times called for something softer and though she never overtly flaunted her sexuality, she used her feminine wiles when the occasion warranted.

  Her epiphany had come from a surprising source, though. She had heard it mentioned that Beyoncé was shy and had believed it to be media hype, unconvinced that a shy woman would voluntarily perform in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming fans. But late one night Natalie had been watching a documentary of the singer which had been recorded early in her career and had seen the evidence of that shyness for her shyness. It had helped Natalie understand how she could feel confident giving a presentation to a room full of strangers and yet feel nervous having a drink with them afterwards. The weeks leading up to giving a presentation of her final project to her entire class at university had been nerve wracking. And yet on the day it had gone so smoothly she had amazed herself. She had never been shy giving a presentation to any client. It was the intimate, close eye-to-eye contact that embarrassed her. It was a bit like acting she’d realized—learning one’s lines by heart and delivering them flawlessly.

  Watching that documentary on Beyoncé had made her realize that her shyness didn’t need to get in the way of being successful or stop her from doing anything she wanted to.

  Standing in front of Stephano on Saturday evening wearing just a thong hadn’t been excruciating as she would have imagined it being, but it hadn’t been easy. Her body wasn’t perfect, but she’d seen enough naked female bodies in the changing room of the fitness club after exercise classes to know that hers was in pretty decent shape. Her hips and thighs could be smaller perhaps, but most women would probably say the same thing.

  She had embraced her height and found it an advantage in many ways. She took time to pamper her skin and it glowed as a result. Every time she went for a facial massage, the beauty therapist always said that she wished her skin was as gorgeous as Natalie’s. The woman’s skin was flawless, but she’d confessed that it took a lot of maintenance to achieve the look.

  When Michael had gripped her hair to force her to go down on him, he’d torn out clumps of it out and left several bald patches. The baldness hadn’t been permanent, but she’d had to crop the back really short. To her surprise the style really suited the shape of her face and her thick, healthy hair and it had become her signature hairstyle. Cut expertly it looked chic and whenever she wanted a softer, more feminine look, as she’d wanted for the dinner date, she curled it into loose carefree waves.

  ***

  Natalie made a sound of annoyance when her doorbell rang much sooner than she’d anticipated. She’d rushed home after work hoping that she’d finish cooking and have a quick shower before Stephano arrived back from Uxbridge. She hadn’t tried to compete with his mother by cooking pasta or other Italian dish. Instead she’d cooked Curry Chicken with rice, instead of roti. She slipped the apron off and hurried to the front door.

  Even after a long day of negotiations and the additional travel time King’s Cross St. Pancras to Uxbridge, Stephano looked gorgeous. The jacket of his suit folded neatly over one arm, holding the extendable handle of his small, wheeled travel case. He was the epitome of the young profession traveling for business.

  “Hi,” she felt suddenly shy and a little nervous.

  “Hi.” His response was like the purr of a lion as he placed the jacket over the handle of the case and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Did you miss me, cara mia?”

  Like crazy.

  “You were only gone for two days!” she protested weakly as he found the vulnerable pulse point of her neck and sucked it into the heat of his mouth.

  “I missed you,” he admitted, staring into her eyes.

  It should have been the easiest thing to say that she’d missed him too, but the word stuck in her throat.

  Stephano lowered his lips to hers as he lifted her bodily. She wrapped her legs around his hips and reveled in his strength and the feel of his arms around her. She was a tall, not-exactly skinny woman, yet he made her feel slender and utterly feminine in comparison to his larger frame. It was silly, but she loved it.

  She was mostly leg and Michael had a long torso, it had been odd feeling his feet above hers when they made love.

  Stephano strode to her large Moroccan sofa and lowered them onto it. His hand reached under the hem of her Indian cotton skirt to stroke her inner thighs and then move upwards to caress her through the gusset of her thong.

  She felt heat flood her face—she was drenched already. She’d been thinking about him all day and in the last half an hour as she prepared the meal she’d allowed herself to relive the last time they had made love in glorious detail.

  “Ah,
sweetheart,” Stephano groaned as he slid two fingers slowly into her slippery warmth. “You missed me, too.”

  The arrogance of the man thinking that only he could be the object of her sexual imaginings! But he was so right, she conceded.

  “I can’t wait to be inside you, my sweet,” he growled, as he sat up and reached down to undo the laces of his black Oxford brogues.

  “I’m cooking!” She suddenly remembered the meal and surged off the sofa.

  “Turn it off, cara” Stephano encouraged with a seductive wink and he slipped his socks off.

  The rice would have needed a few minutes more if they were sitting down to eat immediately, but it would soften to the perfect consistency by the time they were ready. The curried chicken breasts were perfect, fully cooked but tender. She moved it to one of the cool electric hobs to stop it cooking further.

  “That smells wonderful.” Stephano came up behind her, pressing his erection into her bottom as he nibbled on her neck. “Almost as good as you do.”

  She slid her arms around his neck as he lifted her and returned to the sofa.

  He’d stripped down to his boxers.

  He pushed the T-shirt up and stroked her bare breast—she wasn’t wearing a bra. She found them resistive and gladly rid herself of them as soon as she got indoors.

  She reached inside Stephano’s boxers and wrapped her hand about him and was surprised to find that he had a condom already in place. She pulled him through the opening and he removed his fingers so she could place the broad tip against her entrance, impatient to have him inside her.

  “Ah, tesoro,” Stephano groaned. “You feel so good…so tight around me...like you were made just for me.”

  There was little finesse in their joining. It was fast, out of control and all consuming. Stephano acted as though he was starved of her, setting the pace with a furious rhythm, driving fast, hard and deep into her receptive warmth. She gloried in his lack of control, stretched full of him, the tiny frisson of pain with each stroke adding to her pleasure.

  All too soon she felt her orgasm gathering pace. She wanted to prolong the pleasure, but knew she was too far gone as Stephano quickened the pace. She circled her hips instinctively as she raised her legs and to clasp them around his waist.

  Stephano groaned as the new position allowed him deeper penetration. He gave half a dozen deep, hard thrusts and joined Natalie as she moaned his name and arched off the sofa.

  They lay together for a moment, just enjoying the aftermath of the explosive session.

  “I love the way you move your hips just before you come, cara.”

  “You do?” she asked, surprised. She knew he was talking about the uncontrollable urge she got to move her waist as her orgasm approached. Michael had insisted on controlling their movement in bed. Once when she had followed her instincts and rotated her waist, he had come suddenly, almost as soon as he entered her. He had been angry afterwards telling her that she acted like a “slut”. It was the last time she’d felt any real pleasure from their lovemaking. She had lain under him dutifully when they’d made love and faked an orgasm when he’d finally come. Soon after that he’d dropped the bombshell about Melissa.

  “It drives me wild, cara.” Stephano nuzzled her neck.

  “And you don’t mind?”

  “I like it very much,” he replied.

  She’d been suppressing the urge to move, willing herself to lie still and give him full control. It was only as her pleasure increased and she was past the point of exercising control on herself that her instincts took over and her waist and hips did what they wanted.

  His stomach rumbled suddenly.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m starving,” he admitted. “I skipped the after-meeting buffet and drinks.”

  “That’s why you got here so early!” she accused, pushing lightly against his shoulder.

  “I couldn’t wait to see you, tesoro.” He rolled aside and let her get up.

  ***

  Stephano enjoyed the West Indian style curry and praised her as he ate it with gusto. Not for the first time, Natalie silently her mother for insisting that she learnt to cook at the age of sixteen. She’d resented being dragged away from reading at the time, but she had been able to feed herself adequately when she’d left home and now impress Stephano with her culinary skills.

  They sat on the sofa replete from the meal, sexual awareness simmering between them, but too full to give in to it. Paul had nailed the Cadbury contract. Though semi-retired and enjoying golf and his much-younger third wife, Paul was the go-to man when the agency needed a big hitter. He was so eloquence, they always said that instead of kissing the Blarney Stone he’d taken a bite out of it.

  Later she blamed the darkness and the wine which made her lose her customary inhibitions, but before she knew what she was doing she’d started telling Stephano about her relationship with Michael. Every shameful detail tumbled out, things that she hadn’t told Nathan, things that she had worried about telling Stephano lest it changed his perception of her.

  He held her as she cried, stroking her hair softly.

  “I still feel sad that he had such a terrible childhood,” she sniffled and blew her nose one last time.

  “Even if he had an unhappy childhood, sweetheart, that didn’t give him the right to inflict his pain on you. I hope I never meet that fool, cara mia. I will find it difficult not to deliver several punches to his face,” Stephano threatened softly. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you,” she apologized belatedly. “I lost my confidence and when I saw you with Eva…she looked so beautiful and so…”

  “And so are you, cara mia.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “You’re everything I need in a woman. Beautiful, intelligent…great cook, ”

  “And you’re all I’ve ever needed in a man,” she whispered back to him. They were probably lines she’d read or heard sung in a corny love song, but they were appropriate.

  “I’m staying the night, teroso.”

  He didn’t ask for permission. Natalie turned her head on his shoulder and snuggled her face into his neck, grateful that he’d somehow sensed that she needed companionship after stripping away the defenses she had built up over the years and allowing herself to experience the hurt and the pain she’d felt at that time.

  She knew with an account as lucrative as the Cadbury’s contract, Stephano would have gone prepared for negotiations to overrun by days, if necessary. He would have packed an extra set or two of fresh clothing in his overnight case.

  “We can only help people who want to be helped.” Stephano’s words caressed her ear as he spoke. “Renata’s two previous lovers cheated on her and she couldn’t let the past go and start afresh with me. Even my friends were a threat to her because her last boyfriend cheated on her with a transvestite. I tried to be understanding, but her jealousy would have destroyed both of us if I hadn’t ended the relationship.”

  They had more in common than she’d realized, Natalie thought, as she stroked the back of Stephano’s neck soothingly. Though their experiences had been vastly dissimilar, they had both had past lovers with emotional problems. And letting go of Renata hadn’t been easy for Stephano—the remembered pain was there in his voice.

  ***

  Natalie smiled as she watched Stephano unashamedly moisturize his face as she massaged night cream into hers. She’d thought that he would have been in bed, waiting impatiently as she went through her after-shower routine, but he had one of his own. It was to be expected—good looks were an asset in their field of work and flawless grooming was everything. No matter how tired she was, she always cleansed and moisturized before going to bed.

  He finished before her, slapping on the moisturizer instead of working it in a massaging motion as she was doing, and came to stand behind her to nibble on her neck.

  She had another good few years to worry about wrinkles, she decided, and turned in his arms to kiss him.

>   Stephano backed her up to the bed and fell onto it with her.

  “I’m going to pleasure you until you scream.” He placed her hands above her head and commanded, “Don’t move them!”

  “Really?” she challenged his first statement with a laugh.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Don’t do a single thing. Just close your eyes, lie back and let me do all the work.”

  “That sounds easy.” She smiled and closed her eyes obediently.

  Stephano started by pressing soft kisses against her forehead and her eyelids, and along her pert nose before kissing her deeply. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.

  Reaching up, he placed her hands back against the sheet on either side of her head.

  “Leave them there,” he growled as he moved his lips along the curve of her jaw and then slowly across the slender column of her neck. He’d discovered that the side of her neck was particularly vulnerable and he went in for the kill.

  “Ah.” Natalie clutched the sides of the pillow beneath her head and tried to stay silent as Stephano sucked on the soft skin of her neck, pulling the flesh into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue. Who would have thought that someone kissing your neck could be so arousing. And trust Stephano to know exactly the right amount of pressure to apply to drive her out of her mind. But it was a contest now and she refused to scream as he had promised she would. Her toes curled and her hips undulated as she tried to contain the sensations.

  Stephano cupped her breasts as he moved down the bed, holding her gaze as he began to tweak her nipples firmly. She bit her bottom lip and remained stoic. Stephano smiled as he bent his head and captured her right nipple between his teeth. She lost the battle, gasping as she pressed her head deeper into the pillow, her neck arching.

  Forgetting that her hands were supposed to remain where he’d placed them, she cupped his head instinctively as he moved to her other breast. He suckled her gently as his fingers plucked the nipple his lips had abandoned, the moisture making it seem like it was still covered by his lips.