Along for the Ride

by Saskia Walker

  She stood up from the bed, taking off her shirt as she walked to the mirror over the fireplace. She looked at herself, lifting up her hair and turning from side to side, admiring the profile of her pert nipples, tugging upwards on her heavy breasts. She liked this feeling of being aroused and the lack of self-consciousness about it, the perfect freedom of expression that she’d gained with her sexuality over the past few weeks. She wondered where it would lead her. She smiled at her reflection. Her expression glowed, filled as it was with hidden secrets.

  It was midafternoon, and the warm sunshine fell behind her in a wedge of golden light across the carpet. Taking off the jeans she had worn on the journey, she wandered into the dressing room. She slipped on a light summer dress that floated around her shins in gossamer strands as she walked. It was cut low and delicate at the neckline, a slip of a thing in pale peach, lightly dappled with fading old gold roses. The small, dainty buttons at her cleavage were all that held it on her body, as if it might float away if they were undone. She had worn it only once before, to a garden party, but it suited her mood today. She felt feminine, at one with the midsummer mellowness and the heavy, ripening boughs of fruit they had seen on the drive there. Ruffling her hair free over her shoulders, she walked toward the window.

  Oscar and Hawkeye, the red setters, were lounging under a tree in the garden for shade. Looking further afield, she could see the hedges that marked the end of the tamed gardens, the gate to the more wild gardens and on to the fields beyond. There she saw Cal’s tall, leanly muscled frame moving slowly amongst the long pampas grasses.

  She felt an immediate tug inside her, as if a magnet were drawing her to him.

  Her hands went up to the glass, and a moment later she turned and left the room, stepping lightly down the stairs to follow him outside.

  The sun was bright, but with a heat that was comfortable, like a soft, warm blanket around her body as she moved through it. Her steps slowed as she grew close to his figure. She took the time to observe his body’s movements as he forged a path through the pale yellow stems. He wore a green fatigue T-shirt. It was fitted on his muscular shoulders and back and then hung down loosely over his slim hips and the baggy canvas trousers he wore. One hand trailed in the pampas, and he watched the moving stems as he passed. In his other hand he held a sketchbook.

  Georgie was just wondering if she should leave him alone to his sketching, when he slowed down and turned to face her, as if he had been aware of her approaching presence. He stopped and waited for her to get nearer. He reached out his hand to hers. They walked in silence for a while, and then he drew to a pause. “The light here is marvelous. It reminds me of home.”

  “Austria?”

  “The countryside, yes. I used to go to my grandmother’s house in the summer. Although she was a farmer’s wife, she gave me more freedom than I had at home ... she encouraged my curiosity for creative art. I used to sketch in a landscape very similar to this when I was younger.” He looked around him, devouring the sight.

  There was something so very keen and alert in him, a hunger for sights and experiences. It was this, perhaps, that kept Georgie so finely tuned to his attentions. There was always a suggestion of intensity welling inside him, a need to discover sensation and experience, both dark and light. Today, here in this spot, it was as if he had tapped the surrounding landscape into his body, its pagan forces and its natural strength. She stared at his face, taking in the look of his angular features, his strong jaw line. His words about his home made her ever more curious about him, this strange, enigmatic man who had filled her life so thoroughly.

  He turned back to her, his eyes sparkling azure, the sunlight streaking through his hair. He drew closer to her when he saw her expression. “Can you feel it, Georgie?” He moved the sketchbook to trace the horizon. “All around us ... nature.”

  She nodded. “And here ...” Her free hand trailed up the line of his chest. “I feel it most of all here.” They stood looking at each other, enjoying the nakedness of their mutual attunement. Then he led her again, away from the path and toward the longer grass in the woods.

  Her diversity continued to fascinate him. She could be blatantly sexual without seeming to realize it, and it always made him hanker for more of her. She looked like a pagan earth goddess to him, all ripe breasts and wild, untamed hair.

  He watched her as they walked, eyeing her floating dress and her hair wavering as she moved. He paused when the grass reached knee height, and threw his sketchbook to one side.

  “I came to the woodlands to discover its secrets, and now a fey nymph has crossed my path.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be lucky?” She smiled at his remark, tossing her hair back.

  “It is, for me.” He closed on her and grabbed her hands behind her back. “But will the nymph think so when I am done with her?”

  Georgie chuckled and winked. “The nymph crossed your path with the intention of conquering you, and I feel sure she’ll see it through.”

  Cal smiled and kissed her.

  “I used to come here when I was little, and I dreamt dreams of woodland creatures back then, seeing this day, perhaps.” She pulled him down into the sticky stems. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked at him. “Please, tell me more about your childhood in Austria.”

  He didn’t want to break their mood and stared at her silently, unable to form anything acceptably nonchalant in reply.

  When he didn’t say anything, she sat up onto one elbow. “Your grandmother -- tell me more.”

  That made it easier for him. Was she so astute, or had it been luck?

  “She was my focal point growing up; then she died. I was fifteen.” He picked a stray strand of grass from her hair.

  “And your parents?” She was asking cautiously, as if sensitive to his discomfort.

  He shrugged. “My father left us when I was small, for a new wife and family. My mother became a recluse; she only left the house for church.” He shook his head, chasing away the memory of her coldness before it got ahold of him the way it used to.

  Georgie stared at him, her fingers stroking his arm.

  “She blamed me for his leaving ... no, that’s wrong. It was more that when she saw me, I reminded her of him, I think.”

  Georgie nodded.

  “It wasn’t a harsh childhood by any measure, but it was only when I was with my grandmother in the county that I felt truly welcome.”

  “Did you see your father?”

  “For a while, yes. But there were new children; it was awkward ... I was happiest with my grandmother, and when she died, I lost that.” He lifted his face to the sun. He hadn’t spoken about this for years, but it didn’t feel as uncomfortable as it once had. Either time or Georgie was helping. He glanced back at her and smiled. “Well, I’d had enough of all the awkwardness that existed with the rest of them, and I left. I got a job working in the kitchens of a hotel in Vienna, and I stayed there until I won my scholarship to art college. Other artists became my friends. I didn’t need a family for whom I was only a reminder of broken dreams.”

  She stared at him for an age, her expression heavy with thought. “Is this the real reason why you don’t do favorites, Cal?”

  She was very astute, oh, yes. He lifted one finger and tapped the end of her nose. “You are an inquisitive woman, Georgina Montgomery, and if you weren’t so damn beautiful, I wouldn’t let you get away with probing my innermost thoughts like this.”

  “I know that.” She smiled. “Well, I know the bit about being inquisitive and probing.” She captured the end of his finger in her mouth playfully, bringing his attention firmly back to her and distancing the rest of the conversation.

  She’d hooked him. He couldn’t have backed away if he’d wanted to. “You know you’re beautiful, as well. Or you should.” He leaned over her and began to unbutton her dress at the cleavage, allowing it to slip off her shoulders. “Every bit of you has been touched by beauty in its purest form. To me you are the
very essence of woman.” He moved his fingers down the soft skin of her neck and around her breasts, his hands cupping them and gently squeezing their gloriously malleable flesh.

  She sighed, and her nipples began to peak and darken under his touch. “I’m not so sure about it, but I love that I am all that for you, Cal.”

  There was something veiled whispering within her words, something that called to the deepest part of him, something that made his chest tighten. Need suffused him. He wanted to taste her, to eat her, to lose himself in her. He bent and tasted her nipples with his tongue, moving from one to the other, his face pressing into the soft, fragrant skin of her cleavage, absorbing her scent.

  She stroked his hair, and he lifted his head to look at her. Her eyes were pools of desire, her mouth open as if waiting to be fed. Her bountiful tits were peaked for action, lolling toward him. Cal wanted to grab every bit of what she offered.

  “I want to devour your gorgeous body and cover it in tracks of my semen.”

  “Oh, god, yes.” Her voice was a moan. She clung to him.

  He wanted to feel skin on skin and reached up to haul his T-shirt over his head. He lay over her and moved his naked chest against her breasts, slowly riding the firm flesh and the knots of her nipples back and forth with the movement. It was rich -- rich and powerful. He could feel the waves of sheer lust that rolled between them, crashing waves of sensation through their every nerve ending.

  She snatched at his shoulders, a growl in her throat, pushed him back and rolled over him, taking the kiss into her own mouth. He groaned and lay back against the grass. The smell of crushed grass and summer seed hung heavy in the hazy atmosphere. He let his arms fall open, taking the heat of the sun into his skin, bathing in its warmth. He felt the stirring energy of the earth beneath him and the rich passion of the woman climbing over him. She lay with her breasts crushed against his abdomen while she led her kisses across his body, from one arm, along his collarbone, to the other.

  Her mouth was warm, moist, and succulent. It closed on his nipple, and the gentle tug of her teeth closed his eyes to the sky. The pull of her body on his rose up inside him. His arms moved to take her, but she held them down against the ground. Her body was arched over him, pinning him down. She looked like a wild creature again, come to feast on him. He groaned and relinquished himself to her.

  She rubbed her face against his chest, resting her belly over the swell of his cock. It was sweet torture. His body was taut with the need for release. She stroked her hands over his chest, and he arched up in response. Every bit of him was wired. The hard curve of his cock pressed insistently against her belly. She rolled and freed it from its constraints, and, to his extreme pleasure, captured his hot, pulsing rod in her waiting mouth.

  He felt the core of his body sinking and rising simultaneously, as if he were diving into a warm pool of water. Her tongue danced and teased over his cock until he was crazy with it, the blood pounding into his loins harder and faster. She took him deep, plunging up and down over the stiff shaft of his cock with her delectable mouth until he whimpered. Then she was milking him with her breasts, that sweet, soft flesh riding him, slow and deliberate. All he could feel was the warmth all round them and that heavenly enclosure on his cock, drawing him off with such consummate skill.

  He looked down at his cock thrusting up between her tits. She was rubbing their flesh up and down on his burning hot skin, occasionally licking the end of his cock to lubricate it, taking it deep into her mouth before returning the rod to her breasts, alternating the pressure and texture of his pleasure. She glanced up at his face, watching his reactions. She was observing him to find what stimulated him most and what held him off from coming just yet, to make his sweet torture last.

  Christ, she was good.

  He gasped when she took him deep into her mouth again, stroking the sensitive places on the head of his cock against her throat with such eminent precision that he thought he would have to beg her to make him come soon. His balls were locked in an iron grip. Her ribcage was pressing down onto them with each stroke. Then he felt the quick, urgent hammer of release, its thudding pressure building up until it ripped him up and he spurted his seed into her mouth.

  He lost contact with time and space for a few moments. Then he felt her move, felt the gentle lapping of her tongue drinking him in while her hands stroked and soothed him. She crept up his body, her tongue leading the way. When she paused, his hand went into her hair, drawing it back from her face, and then slid over the warm skin of her back, stroking the sunshine with his fingers. His body was still jerking in the aftermath.

  He stroked his hand down to where her dress hung around her hips. He pulled the skirts of it up around her waist, and she rolled over onto her back. “Open your legs,” he whispered.

  She followed his instructions, drawing her knees up and opening her thighs for him. His hand passed down over the warm skin of her belly and across the soft, delicate hair on her mons. He wanted to taste her; he wanted to drink from her sex. He knelt between her legs and bent his head, plowing her sex lips apart with the strong muscle of his tongue. He trailed it from the nub of flesh that stood out between the full, ripe lips, down to the wet channel of her inner sex. Like a tiny mouth, it beckoned him. He pressed his tongue home there, suckling on her juices, and then began to lick and stroke the tender pink folds of skin that surrounded her honey pot. She writhed beneath him, low moans coming from her open mouth. He pushed her on until her sex grew plump and heavy with blood and sensation. He closed his mouth over her clit, nurturing it and milking it until she was drenched with waves of pleasure and her hips began to buck.

  Her head rolled against the ground, and she grunted with the force of her need. Her fingers clutched at the earth. He felt her spasm inside, and she dripped her honeyed essence onto his waiting tongue, a heavy ooze of pleasure that he devoured.

  Chapter Eight

  “You must be starving.” Felice eyed Jason across the long oak table that stood down the center of the kitchen. “I’ll cook for you.”

  Jason, having rested well the night before, hadn’t gone to sleep that afternoon at all and had been quickly whisked off by their hostess. She had shown him around the house and the grounds, then invited him into the kitchen for a chat and coffee. The room was massive, two walls lined with steel shelving housing a massive range of utensils, more of which hung from a rack above their heads. A big black range spanned one side of the room, with two fridges, work surfaces, and the sinks on the other.

  “Well, if you’re sure you have the time.” Jason realized that with everything that had happened, he hadn’t actually eaten since lunchtime the previous day.

  “Of course! I love to feed people ...”

  Her glance was outrageously suggestive, and Jason couldn’t keep the eager expression off his face.

  “I get the chance less often now that Georgie is in London and David, her father, is away so much.”

  She began to rifle around in the fridges, one elegant leg stretched out behind her, her movements as graceful and eye-catching as a ballerina while she went about her tasks.

  “When he was the local member of Parliament, we had such dinner parties here.” She turned back to him, her arms laden with goods.

  “Have you been with the family long?”

  “Twelve years. Since Georgie was a mischievous girl running around the place, driving away every housekeeper who came to work here.” She winked. “I won her over.”

  “How?”

  “She was eleven; she simply needed to be treated like a young lady -- she wasn’t a child anymore.”

  Jason enjoyed the image of the young Georgie, the rascal of a kitten who was calmly tamed by a glamorous sophisticate. With such a sexy, glamorous lady as her mentor, it was no wonder Georgie had turned out to be such a siren.

  “She just needed a guiding friend. Anyway, now that there is less to do, we have a young girl from the village, Maddie, who comes in daily to do bits of housekeepi
ng and food preparation, but otherwise the domain is all mine.” She turned away toward the wall of shelves, stacked with cooking utensils, to select her tools. She glanced out the window. “Ah, here’s Maddie now. Just in time.”

  Felice seemed to welcome the chance to feed and entertain him as her new guest. She moved around the kitchen as if it were her stage, every act done with bravado and flourish. She eyed him up all the while, and Jason sat on the edge of his chair, alert to her every movement and the intensity of her continued appraisal.

  Maddie was first given the task of sorting forest fruits for a summer pudding, and Jason noticed that she dallied overly long with the gooseberries while she eavesdropped on their conversation, apparently eager for gossip to take back to the village. Meanwhile, Felice created a gourmet omelet in minutes, with duchesse potatoes, crackled ham, and a tossed salad, instructing Maddie as to which herbs she was to collect from the walled garden, and exactly how to pick them. She tossed plump cherry tomatoes and radicchio in her secret-recipe French dressing, and then wielded a cucumber like a weapon before scrolling it into elegant spirals with a carving knife.

  The omelet melted in his mouth, both sumptuous and piquant, and while he enjoyed the food she had prepared for him, Felice eyed him up as if he was all those things, too.

  As they chatted, he began to piece together the information he was offered, and it suddenly dawned on him that Georgie’s father was David Montgomery, an MP whom he’d had the chance to meet several years earlier when he was a fledgling photographer. He’d been called in to take some portraits to accompany an interview, because the photographer who had been booked had gone off sick. It had turned out to be a real career break for him.

  “You know David already?” Felice was surprised.

  “If it’s David Montgomery, Randlethorpe seat?”