As soon as I walked in the door and the chimes overhead announced my presence, Chrissie had turned toward me. The whole world and all its irritations fell away.
She had a wide smile and shaggy wheat-colored hair. Her green eyes seemed to tease me, sending naughty messages as they twinkled my way. A black cobwebby garment over a jade T-shirt drew my attention to her outline. Full. Lovely. Her jeans were as worn as mine. She looked as if she wrote poetry, but I would later find it was sketching that gave that creative edge to her character.
“Hello there, you’re a new face.”
I would learn soon enough how direct she could be.
“Are you out walking on the moors?”
“No, I”—I gave up pretending to choose chocolate and gestured outside onto the road, awkwardly—“I’m the new assistant on the mobile library.”
“Oh, right.” She put out her hand. “In that case, welcome.”
I took her hand. “Thanks.”
She squeezed me, slowly. “Some of the villagers couldn’t manage without the service.”
“So I gather, and that’s good news for us.” I felt loss when she took her hand away. “Do you take any books yourself?” I was hoping I could deliver some for her.
She shook her head, smiling. “No, I go up to town once a week or so and stop by the main library then, but you never know, you could convert me.”
I grinned. “Just let me know what you like, I’ll make sure we stock some.”
We talked, for an age. I didn’t notice the time flash past. A couple of people stopped by for goods or for the post office service, and she managed to serve them unobtrusively, never breaking away from our chat.
“Have you always lived out here?” I asked, when the last person left.
She looked at me with searching eyes. “No, it’s about three years now. I split with my partner, and when she’d gone my life in the city felt wrong. I used to come out here to walk on the moors and take photos for sketching. When I saw this place going onto the market, I made it my fresh start.”
A fresh start. She felt like my fresh start. If I could make it happen. Four weeks on from our first meeting. Just that one hour spent together, once a week, and I’d fallen for the postmistress at Etherington. I had to let her know.
Brian clicked his fingers in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Sorry. Miles away.”
“So I see.” He hauled the van into the bus lay-by. “I said Fred’s away from home, so I suggest we deliver the books, then get off to Skipton and have a hot lunch there.”
“Oh. Sure.” Damn. I’d been living for this moment. I had to see her. But Brian was the boss. “I’ve brought a letter to post, I’ll just pop over.” I gestured at the shop. Brian nodded as he got out of the cab.
She was on her stepladder, stocking the high shelves, her long trailing skirt swishing around her shins.
“I can’t stay,” I blurted when the door shut behind me. The door chimes seemed to echo sadly around me. I stood with my back to the door.
“Fred’s away, isn’t he?” Chrissie smiled, stepping down and turning toward me.
I melted inside, then nodded, peeling myself away from the door. “I just came by to…” What? What could I say?
She watched me move, her gaze touching me. Everywhere. “I’ll miss our chat, Joanne.” She did it again, she made it easy.
“Me too.” Relief hit me. She knew.
“In that case, why don’t you come over this evening? After hours.”
I stared at her, taking in the teasing look in her eyes. Had I imagined it? “Really?”
“Why not?” She rested one hand on her hip, green eyes twinkling.
My thighs clenched, desire pumping hard in my veins. Try as I might, I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. “I’d love to.”
“Come over about eight, I’ll open some wine.”
“I will, thanks.” When I walked back to join Brian, I might as well have been walking on air.
*
Her mouth on mine, opening me up. Shock hit me, then it melted away, leaving me boneless, speechless. She turned away and lifted our wineglasses, nudging mine into my hand. I drank deeply, focusing on the glowing embers of the fire in the grate.
She reached over and brushed my hair flat. “We both knew it was going to happen, Joanne.”
My hair bounced up under her hand, as awkward and prickly as I was. “Yes. Sorry, I’m not very experienced. I want this so much but I just look at you and I lose it.”
“What’s your body telling you?” Her glance was teasing, but only in a good way. She knew already.
I smiled. “It’s telling me all the right things, you know that.”
“Yes, I do. And mine is the same.” She took my fingers to her nipples, nut-hard through her sweater.
I bit my lip, my hand shaking as it rested over her full breast with its knotted peak.
“All you have to do is stop thinking about it,” she breathed. “Trust your body, let it run free. It will guide you.”
I lifted my gaze from her shirt, where her breast burned an imprint on my palm, making me want to stain it with my mouth—if I was brave enough. “Easy to say—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. She lifted my hand from her breast and kissed it in the palm, sending my nerve endings crazy. “But I can show you a way to make it easy to do, as well.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped me, but my fingers were clutching at hers, hopefully.
Her gaze locked mine. “Will you trust me to show you how?”
I about managed to nod.
She stood up and took me by the hand, leading me out of the sitting room and up the stairs to her bedroom. My heart thudded loud as I looked at the bed, so inviting with its colorful patchwork quilt and plump pillows. Here we were, at the heart of the matter.
Chrissie flicked on the bedside lamp and then walked back to where I stood in the doorway. She switched the overhead light off. “Don’t worry, love.” She ran her fingers against my cheek. I turned my face into her palm, kissing it gratefully. She smelt of musk, of woman, of desire.
She took my hands and stepped backward, step by step easing me into the space, closing the door behind us. She kissed me, holding my face in her hands as her mouth opened me up.
I moaned, gasped against her mouth, trembling with need.
She drew back, giving a throaty chuckle. “You’re like a nervous little bird about to take its first flight, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Close your eyes.”
I did so, immediately putting myself in her hands. Entirely.
She moved away and I felt loss. I heard her opening a drawer, then returning. “Don’t peek.”
Fabric touched my face. It shimmied into place over my eyes. A blindfold. My fingers automatically went to it, curious. It felt light, silky, like a scarf. She tied it in place and then began to unbutton my shirt.
“We need to teach you to trust your body more, to respond to your desires and be confident in pursuing them.” Her voice was like an aural caress, soothing and arousing all at once. She pushed the shirt back over my shoulders, exposing my breasts. “By depriving you of your sight, it will force you to focus on your other senses.” As the shirt fell away, her fingers traced the outline of my breasts, tantalizingly, making me reach after they’d moved on.
“I see,” I replied, and then laughed at my own comment. I was indeed absorbed by what she was doing to me, wondering what was coming next.
“Good, that means I can enjoy you without you flying away, little bird.” Her fingers popped the buttons on my jeans and she shimmied them down my hips. Her breath passed over my skin as she ducked low to steady me while she stripped me. I was so focused, I was like her doll. Her trick was working.
And then she was standing, her arms lifted, and she moved closer. I started when I felt bare flesh against mine. Her breasts and mine, touching. Hers large and soft, nipples peaked and squashed against my smaller
tits. She kissed my mouth and my hands reached out for her, touching her bare arms, her shoulders, her neck. I wrapped my arms around her, sinking into the experience.
I threw my head back when she moved to kiss my neck. “Oh, Chrissie, I’ve been aching for you.”
“And me for you.” She continued to undress and then guided me toward the bed, sitting beside me. Her fingers traced along the insides of my thighs, her hands easing them open.
I had to bite my lip to stop from crying out when I felt her head dip down between my legs. She kissed me, opening me with her tongue, sending shivers of pleasure through my entire groin. I clutched at the bedcovers.
“As soon as I saw you, I wanted you,” I blurted. The words were tumbling out now, my fears, my needs and my knotted nerves all unleashed under her tutelage. “At night, I wanted you so much, I dreamed of you.”
She rested her tongue over my clit, pressed firmly, rousing me to fever pitch, and then lifted away. “I know, I’ve been thinking about it too.” Her warm breath swept over my aroused flesh as she spoke. “But we’re here now.” Her mouth engulfed my clit again.
She was so right. We are here now. And it was more special than I could ever have dreamed. My entire body was wired into her mouth. Sensation swamped me. Her body rolled closer and she stroked one strong finger at the mouth of my cunt, dipping inside, where I clenched her, making her chuckle. She lapped and probed, rocking back and forth in time, and her actions hammered the breath out of my lungs. Her thumb replaced her tongue and I felt her mouth move up against my belly and then rest on my breast with a hungry kiss.
Urgency hit me. My hands moved into her hair, my hips rising from the bed.
When she moved again, lying alongside me, and kissed me, I needed to respond so badly that I went to lift the blindfold off. She must have been watching. Her fingers caught mine.
“No, feel your way, trust your instincts.” She returned her attentions to my cunt, where she stroked one finger inside, hooked it against the plump pad of flesh on the inner front wall.
Desperation made me bite my lip, but I wanted it all and I reached for her. I stroked her shoulders, my fingers raveling themselves in her tousled hair, then shifted to cradle her full breasts, my thumbs tracing over the diamond-hard tips of her nipples. Each and every time I touched her, she swayed closer, moaning aloud. That did strange, powerful things to me, sending me deeper, further than I might have gone, making me brave. “I want to taste you,” I whispered. ??Please. I want to make you come.??
She turned around on the bed, never ceasing her attention to my clit. Pleasure spangled through me when I felt her climb over me and I breathed her in, my face between her thighs, her breasts resting over my belly. I reached up, my mouth groping for her, and then we were totally joined, each engulfed in the other. Her mouth on my clit, mine on hers. Our hips rolled, fingers stroked. We moved in time, drinking each other in, stroke after stoke leading us on in the dance. I was adrift on a hot tide of pleasure and my hands groped for the solidity of her thighs to ground me as I hit home and my hips lifted, my clit throbbing, my core in spasm.
She groaned, nursing my tender clit in her mouth as she rode out my moves, her thighs trembling with pleasure on either side of my head. Her sticky juices ran down into my mouth and onto my cheeks as she shuddered to completion.
I squinted into the light when I took off the blindfold and then smiled when I saw her glowing face smiling down at me. She looked even more gorgeous, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. My chest ached with pride.
She lifted the scarf in her fingers. “Did it work, little bird?”
“Like a dream.” I nodded, laughing, and pulled her into my arms, brave at last and no turning back.
*
The road to Etherington didn’t look like an unfurling ribbon anymore. Nowadays it looked like Chrissie’s blindfold, wavering across the landscape, tempting me in for more lessons in how to lose myself to her love. My heartbeat lifted when I saw the road rise and the outline of the cottages appeared at its end, marking the spot.
“You look happy,” Brian commented over the drone of the engine and the creaking shelves.
“I am.”
“You’re settling into Etherington well enough, since you moved out here?”
“Oh yes. Indeed I am. Feels like I found home, you know?”
He nodded. “It’s a beautiful spot to be, no doubt about it.”
“That it is,” I replied. That it is.
When we reached the village, I hauled the mobile into the lay-by, pulled on the brake, and looked at him for his feedback.
He gave me a wink and a nod, signaling approval of my first trip at the wheel. Apparently he’d decided that I had discovered my confidence.
I smiled and shook his hand. And isn’t that just the icing on the cake.
The French Lesson
Kim Baldwin
Waterloo Station, London
The Eurostar looked fast and futuristic with its streamlined shape and smooth conical nose, all bright red and brilliant blinding chrome. And I was going to travel in the very poshest car, on this, the poshest train around. When you’re out to fulfill a fantasy, it’s best to do it up big, I say. I’d dreamed all my life of going to Paris, and getting there was part of the whole experience. The Chunnel Train would deliver me to my destination in less than three hours, providing unmatched accommodations and the scenic splendor of the English countryside on the way, while freeing me from the hassle of airport security checkpoints and endless waits.
Of course, you can’t have everything. Though I hadn’t minded exploring London by myself, my fantasies of romantic Paris—with its candlelit cafes and moonlit bridges—had always involved seeing it with a lover. But I hadn’t been very lucky in the romance department, and I just got tired of waiting. So instead of having wild sex on the train to Paris (as I’d always fantasized), I appeased myself with an upgrade to premium first class.
The car was nearly empty when I got on board. An attendant in a crisply starched uniform was serving drinks to the only others on board—a young couple, seated halfway down the long car. I paused in the aisle to admire what was undoubtedly the most luxurious train I’d ever been on.
The gray and burgundy seats were wide and plush, with deeply cushioned headrests and ample legroom. Each seat reclined and had its own folding table made of cherry. The floor was gray carpet. The décor had touches of Art Deco, with etched glass accents on the windows and stylized sconces providing soft, subdued light.
I chose a seat in the back, on the aisle, facing forward. It’s a good place if the car is empty, like this one, because I get the maximum view out of both sides of the train.
A moment after I settled into my seat, the steward approached with a smile.
“Welcome aboard the Eurostar. May I get you a beverage?” he asked with a Scottish brogue.
Now, I’ve always been a sucker for accents, and hearing a variety of British dialects during the past week had been a real treat. But it was Paris I was really looking forward to. French really does it for me, if you know what I mean. Ooh la la. Gets me all hot and bothered, though I haven’t a clue beyond oui and par-lay-voo what any of it means.
“I’d like some Earl Grey, please,” I told the steward, and he gave a little bow of his head and retreated toward the back. I returned my attention to the young couple. They were oblivious to everything but each other, holding hands, their heads bent together, talking in low tones. They looked very much in love.
Suddenly, she was standing there—near the front, her presence filling the aisle. I hadn’t seen her come in. I sucked in a breath at the sight of her as all the air rushed out of the car.
She was tall and sleek and beautiful, dressed head to foot in form-fitting black leather—pants and jacket and laced-up boots that came to mid-calf. Powerfully sexy. Subtly dangerous. Perfect androgyny. Her hair was dark and fairly short, with shaggy bangs that half hid her dark eyes and long, lush eyelashes. She looked about the car,
taking in its accoutrements with a pleased nod. Her glance fell on the young couple and lingered on them a moment, then continued on toward the back, toward me. I felt a chill of anticipation run up my spine.
When her eyes met mine, she froze—and when I did not look away, a smile curled at the edge of those dark red lips, making her even more beautiful. She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head in question.
Still I could not look away, or breathe, or swallow, or think a rational thought beyond oh, please.
“Miss?” The spell was broken by the steward, who’d materialized beside me. I glanced up dumbly as he served my tea, blocking my view of the apparition.
He had a small silver tray in his hand containing cream and sugar, cup and saucer, napkin and spoon, and a small teapot of tea. There was also a plate of assorted cookies and freshly made scones, normally a real favorite, but I couldn’t wait for him to set it down and leave.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, finding my voice.
“Just ring if I might be of further service,” he said, indicating a call button by my hand. “I’ll be serving brunch in an hour.” He retreated toward the back again as the train began to move.
I saw her then. She had taken a seat on the aisle, several rows away, facing me. Watching me. Of all the available seats, she had taken one where both of us could see each other easily and also get a view of the couple sitting in between us.
The steward reappeared and took the woman’s order. Her eyes never left me, just as mine never left her. She licked her lips in a most inviting way and appraised me with a candor that I found both unsettling and unbelievably exciting. As her gaze skimmed over my body, her hand absently caressed the armrest of her chair. I felt something twitch in my belly, a stirring of heat. I missed every bit of the scenery flashing by, and my tea grew cold.
She glanced toward the couple sitting between us, and I did, too. They were kissing now with abandon, their arms around one another, unmindful of their surroundings. That twitch in my belly got worse. My eyes went back to the woman. Her smirk reassured me that she was getting as aroused as I was.
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