"Oh, right."
She watched him take two individual dishes out and put them in the microwave.
"I guess when you live alone…" she said.
"No point cooking every night for one," he finished the thought. "I make a big pot of something and freeze it all down." He looked over his shoulder at her as he got knives and forks out of the drawer. "You don't live alone then?"
"In a way I do," she said evasively. "I eat out a lot though. I'm not much of a chef."
"In a way you live alone? What kind of way is that then?"
"I've got my own flat. I just don't spend much time there. I'm really…busy. Most of the time. I travel a lot."
"Right. But your flat's in London?"
"Yeah."
"And what do you do down there in London?"
"Oh, you know. Nothing much. Work and stuff."
He held her eye over the table as he laid it, determined to worm a bit more out of her than she was willing to give.
"Work and stuff. " He brandished a table knife. "What's that? Why do you travel so much?"
"I'm, uh, a sales rep. I sell…things."
She was so transparently lying he almost took offence. But there was no point shouting at her or trying to force the truth. It would come out in time. For now, there was company to be enjoyed, and he meant to enjoy it.
The microwave pinged and he took out the dishes and laid them on the place mats. He took a bottle of wine from the pantry too and poured them each a glass.
"Dig in," he said, sitting down. "Or should I say grace?"
She laughed. "No, that's OK. God, this smells good. Is it one of your lambs?"
"As a matter of fact it is."
"Aww. Poor little lamb. Did you kill it yourself?"
"Yes."
She shook her head over the dish. "I don't think I could do that."
"Just as well you aren't a sheep farmer then."
"I suppose." She gave the food a dubious look then seemed to overcome her scruples, spearing a chunk of meat on the end of her fork. "It's lush, though," she gave her verdict as she chewed.
"Thanks." He smiled, watching her eat, enjoying her obvious relish. He liked a girl with a healthy appetite. Made you think she might be just as voracious in…other areas…
"Have you always lived here?" she asked, taking a slug of her wine.
"Me? No. I bought it the year before last."
"Seriously?" She put down her knife and fork. "I thought this must be your family farm, passed down from father to son and all that."
"No, no. Farming isn't in my blood at all."
"What the hell made you decide to do it then? What were you doing before?"
"I lived in London. I worked in advertising, would you believe."
Kim laughed and shook her head.
"No. I don't believe you. You just…you look like a farmer. All rugged and manly and all that. You so don't look like an advertising executive."
He liked the bit about being rugged and manly, curling his lip flirtatiously at her before he even realised he was doing it.
"Well, y'know. Appearances can be deceptive, as they say. I think we used that as a slogan once. An ad for some chilli-flavoured rice snack or something. Cliché or what? I didn't like it, but the top brass overrode me."
"I just can't see you in a suit."
"We didn't wear suits, love. We were creatives."
Oh, he'd called her 'love'. It had just slipped out somehow. He watched for a reaction but she seemed oblivious, still tucking in to the hotpot with gusto.
"But you're local," she said. "Aren't you? You come from around here. I mean, you've got the accent and everything."
"Actually, I don’t have the local accent. I come from Swansea. This is mid-Wales. So I'm a foreigner hereabouts."
They smiled at each other, and the eye contact seemed to last a frighteningly, wonderfully long time.
She was the one to break it.
"Do you speak Welsh?"
"Of course."
The conversation over the meal turned to the language, Rhys teaching her some elementary phrases amid much laughter and tormented pronunciation, until the food was eaten.
They took the bottle of wine into the living room. Rhys found a pack of cards in a drawer and they sat cross-legged in front of the fire playing gin rummy until Kim, too often defeated, threw the cards in the air and lay down, her head by Rhys' knee, looking up into his face.
"This is like holidays when I was little," she said softly, smiling up – was she smiling at him or the ceiling? Her eyes were misty and faraway. "In a caravan in the rain. Playing cards because there was nothing else to do. But then, it's not like that. We aren't playing cards because there's nothing else to do, are we?"
"You've had too much wine," said Rhys, holding the near-empty bottle aloft and squinting at it. But his heart raced and his throat was dry, not just from the slightly bitter aftertaste of the Merlot.
"Maybe. But it's like stepping off the edge of the world, into a lovely, lovely…I don't know." Her head moved closer, almost nudging his thigh. "Don't you ever get lonely?"
"I chose this life," he said, putting the bottle down. "I can't complain. I don't know any women who'd take to getting up at four thirty to bottle feed the lambs either."
"You do, then? Lonely Mr Farmer." She began to sing. "The farmer wants a wife, the farmer wants a wife, E-I-E-I, the farmer wants a wife."
"You've got a nice voice," he said, but the compliment seemed to sour her mood.
"Thanks," she said, looking away from him, back to the fire. When she looked back at him, she had wiped the pensiveness away and switched on an impish smile.
"So you prefer sheep to women, then, do you? Is it true what they say?"
It seemed the natural thing to do, to take hold of a pigtail and wrap it around his fist in mock-threat.
"And what might that be? Would you care to tell me?"
"One man and his sheep. A relationship of equals." She snorted with laughter, then squealed as he yanked the pigtail and descended towards her, lying propped on his elbow, his face an inch from hers.
"Say that again, and see what happens," he whispered, his knuckles grazing her neck as he held the hank of hair fast.
"Sorry," she squeaked, her eyes gleaming with exhilaration. "So it's not true then? You prefer women to sheep?"
"Do you want proof?" The tip of his nose touched hers. She was so close and she smelled of wine and roses. And what was the harm, anyway? How could it hurt?
She nodded and he sensed the tension in her body, the breath held, the muscles furled.
Permission.
He released her pigtail and slid his hand underneath its tight plait, palm on the side of her neck, fingers reaching around to the nape. Warm, female skin beneath his touch – something he had thought he could live without. What a fool he was.
Her lips were soft with a trace of some lipstick that tasted of those violet sweets he used to get in a mixed bag as a boy. He kissed them and he felt her response, a flutter then a flood. She clung to his neck and pulled him in. At first it was so delicate that he wanted to keep it that way, just to skim the surface of this huge well of sensuality that lay in his reach. He wanted to take it slowly, savour every tiny scrap of sensation, draw it out infinitely in case it never came again.
Their lips brushed, breaths mingling, noses rubbing, until the teasing lightness of it made them both wild for more. Now he wanted to show her what she could have. He put his free hand beneath her chin and held that too, so she could do nothing but give in to the increasing pressure of his kisses. Not that she seemed to want to do otherwise. She put a hand on his waist, climbing up him, wrapping a leg over his hip and holding him tight.
He put a thumb beneath her lower lip and pulled it downwards, opening her up for the eager penetration of his tongue. Inside her warm mouth it pushed its way, into a dark place of sighing and softness. She let him in, no struggling, just sweet acceptance. He had forgotten kissing
could be so maddeningly sexy. He was far, far gone on the addictive deliciousness of it, pushed over the boundaries of restraint. No sense or reason could prevail against the shocking re-emergence from his depths of pure lust.
He felt he could never get his tongue deep enough or his lips hard enough, however close he came. Kim had her hands in his hair now, her fingers wound tightly in his dark curls, and her tongue pushed just as avidly as his, as if she wanted to scoop out his soul with it. He rolled over on top of her, and then back again, and then she lay on top of him while they writhed against each other like fury, seeing if they could burn each other's clothes off by friction alone.
They kept this up for what seemed like hours, until they rolled too far towards the hearth and Kim's hip was crushed against the tiled surround, causing her to yelp into Rhys' mouth.
He broke off. "You OK?" he gasped.
"Fine, just a bump."
"No, I mean, are you OK? With this?"
She looked dazed, as if she didn't understand the question.
"Are you serious?" she said, her voice broken and husky. "You're the best kisser I've ever met. You're like…I don't even know what you're like."
His furrowed brow relaxed and he grinned, feeling like a king.
"You're not so bad yourself," he said.
"Wasted on those sheep," she said.
"Watch it," he growled and they were back for round two, mouths locked on once more.
If he never kissed another woman, he thought, deliriously mixed up in the lascivious languor of it all, at least he would know that he had been the best kisser this beautiful girl had ever known. He would always have that now. He plunged back in, nipping at her lower lip, licking at her teeth, giving and taking away. Her fingers curled and gripped at him while she ground her pelvis against his, teasing his erection with cruel efficiency.
He lifted his head again and gazed down at her with brooding intent.
"I think you've let yourself in for a lot more than a kiss, my girl," he said.
"Oh good," she said, with a pleasurable little shiver. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He wedged his knee between her thighs and set to kissing every inch of her face, taking it slowly, across her hairline, behind her ear, on the tip of her nose, while the warmth of the fire licked over their bodies.
"Mmm," she said, holding on to his shoulders, wriggling suggestively against him.
"What's the rush?" he chided, testing the limits of his restraint by taking everything at this perfectly lazy pace.
"Ohhh," she moaned, grabbing his arse and squeezing.
He took her wrist and removed the over-eager hand, holding it out to the side.
"You'll have to wait, madam," he said. His lips reached her neck and he feasted on the pliant flesh, knowing how this had always turned his ex-lovers on. Kim was no different. She sounded almost in pain, the most gratifying little whimpers pouring out of her as he worked, slowly, diligently, towards his ultimate aim of driving her to lustful distraction.
"You're still wearing my jumper," he said, reaching the neckline of that garment. "Perhaps we should take it off."
He pulled her upright by the shoulders and she lifted her arms obediently.
"I like wearing it," she said, watching him throw it into an armchair. "It smells of you."
"Oh yes? Well, so do I. And I'm still here."
He nudged her back down and began work on her slinky silver shirt, undoing the buttons while he knelt over her, shadowing her.
He kissed her collarbone when it was revealed, then the hollow at its base, then the gentle slopes of her breasts as they emerged from her black satin balconette bra. He eased the shirt all the way off and looked down at the mouthwatering expanse of her, all of it kissable, from her shoulders to her pierced navel. Most of all, he wanted to slide his thumbs inside those bra cups and see what he could do to her nipples. So that was what he did.
Could a man ever tire of playing with nipples, he wondered. He was sure he could carry on indefinitely, stroking and pressing them, feeling them stiffen between his thumb and forefinger, watching them bloom. Then there were all the things you could do with your mouth, your tongue, your teeth. The fun never ended.
Kim's legs kicked and thrashed underneath him and her head twisted from side to side. Her face was deeply flushed now and her skin lightly beaded. Her lips were swollen from kissing, which made him want to kiss them again, in between sucking on nipples.
"Oh God," she pleaded. "Oh God, this is so…"
"Good?" he suggested, kissing her again while the pads of his thumbs grazed those full-to-bursting nipples, round and round in slow circles.
"Torture," she blurted when he released her. "If I'd known some kind of sex devil lived here…oh God. Please."
She bucked particularly violently underneath him. Well, perhaps it was time to move on. But he'd come back to her breasts again. And again. Many times before he was done. He reached around and unclipped her bra, which had become redundant anyway with its cups wrenched right down, then he shuffled down along her thighs, ready to take a good long look at the unexplored territory below her waist.
There was something about the smell of her that made him want to do extremely sinful and wicked things to her. She clearly felt the same way, because she struggled to sit up and grab hold of him, trying to squash her breasts into his chest, her lips on his neck.
"Mm, hmmm," he said, capturing her mouth again and lying forwards on her until she was flat on her back again.
"I want you," she moaned. "So badly."
"You'll get me," he promised. "But I need to see to these hotpants."
"You've still got your shirt on," she protested.
"All in good time. You've been driving me mad with those teeny-tiny short shorts all day. They're coming off now. No delays."
He unbuttoned the waist and eased them over her bottom, cupping his palm over the curve on the way. They were soon gone and then she lay in front of him in no more than a pair of little satin knickers and her stripy knee-socks. The knee-socks lasted another three seconds, but the knickers were allowed to stay, just for as long as it took him to lift her legs and kiss her feet and lick the backs of her knees until she shivered. Then his lips moved at a leisurely pace up the insides of her thighs until he crouched between them, breathing hot breaths on to the thin material stretched over her pussy.
She squirmed, bringing herself closer. He took in a long, deep breath. God, she wanted it all right. She was soaked and his lungs were full of the scent of her. He pressed his lips to the stained satin, feeling the outline of her lips and her clit, tracing around them with his tongue.
"Ohhh." Her sigh was half a sob. He felt her hands in his hair again, tugging pleadingly.
"Do you want these off?" he asked, before dragging his tongue along one elasticated leg hole.
"Christ, yes."
He waited until he had repeated this move on the other side before pulling at them, very gently, displacing their hold on her most private parts. The big reveal, he thought, watching the waistband edge over her pubic bone. Would she have hair? He hoped so, preferring a natural look, but Kim proved to be a waxer in that respect.
There was the smooth triangle, and now the cleft below, ready for his fingers, his tongue, his cock, whatever he decided to give it. He hurried with the disposal of the knickers now and spread her thighs with his hands, wanting to map her intimate parts, look at the juicy folds and the fat clit inside them and the tiny hole behind that he meant to fill. Oh. Something occurred to him and he smote his brow.
"I want you so much," said Kim, perhaps mistaking this gesture for a misgiving. "So, so much."
He leant over her, stroked her face, kissed her long and slowly.
"God, so do I," he said fervently. "You're fucking gorgeous. I could keep you up all night. But there's one problem. I haven't got…anything. You know?"
Chapter Three
He gritted his teeth, awaiting Kim's response, feeling guilty for bring
ing her this far without thinking of the consequences, not to mention furious with himself. Actually, it was the lump in his trousers that was most furious of all, but he wasn't about to let it have its way and override his common sense, tempted as he was.
She propped herself on her elbows, blinking at him.
"And?"
"Well, you know. No…protection."
"Do I need protection from you?"
"Look, I can go to the chemist first thing in the morning but ―"
"Well, that's all right then. You can do that. And meanwhile…don't tell me you've never heard of all the other things you can do, Mr Demon Lover?"
"Of course I know about the other things." He began to take off his shirt, his heartbeat regulating, his hopes rising once more. It was OK. It would be OK. "Believe me, I know all about them."
"That's good," said Kim, faux-innocent. "Because I have no idea at all. Please show me what they are."
He threw his shirt aside and pounced back down on her, bare-chested, hovering over her luscious naked body. She laced her fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him further down so that when he spoke, their lips touched.
"You know fine well, madam," he said. "You can't pull the wool over my eyes."
"Well, you'd know all about wool."
He nipped at her lip, a warning, then smiled devilishly and shimmied back down until he knelt between her thighs once more.
"You're not the only one who can tease, remember," he said, reminding her with a thumbnail flick to one of her nipples.
"Oh God, don't start that again," she begged, bucking her spine.
He answered by bending and taking a nipple in his mouth, sucking luxuriously and unhurriedly while she kicked her heels and beat her fists on the rug. This was how he wanted her – frustrated beyond endurance, desperate for everything he could give.
She tried so many different tactics to move him towards her pussy – stealth, force, sweet requests, demands – but he was only going there when he was good and ready, and her nipples were as swollen as they could be.
Finally he released his engorged little captives and knelt up again. He held her eyes as his hand moved down her stomach, prodding at her navel, then lower. He placed his palm flat on her mons.
Ask No Questions Page 2
