Lady of the Lake

by Erin McCarthy

  Violet rubbed her fingers over her lips and smiled back. “I can’t believe you’re standing there naked.”

  “Hey, never say I didn’t rise to the occasion.”

  “That you did.”

  Dylan’s apartment was filled with lots of low, modular furniture in contemporary black, with sage green sofas. Violet skirted a cube end table and moved towards him. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to remember where she’d set her glasses down. Things were a touch fuzzy, and since he was naked, she’d prefer total clarity. “It’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s not. It was just a misunderstanding.”

  He was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window that boasted a view of the lake. Violet glanced left and right out the window. “Can’t people see you standing there naked?”

  “What people? There’s nothing but water down there.”

  “People on boats.” Violet tried to move away from the window, but Dylan took her arm and stopped her.

  “Who cares?”

  He was really close to her and really naked. Violet took a deep breath and concentrated on his face. “Obviously not you. But I would.”

  “So we’ll move into the bedroom before we get you naked.” He kissed her neck, sliding his tongue up towards her ear.

  “Dylan…” Violet shivered. That felt awfully good. She was torn between wanting to fling herself on the bed and let Dylan get her pregnant in the traditional, sweaty, skin-on-skin way, and fear that when it came to the big moment, she wouldn’t enjoy herself.

  It would mortify her to be naked with Dylan Diaz, accepting such an enormous gift from him, and be unable to please him. Or herself.

  “Do you really hate sex, Vi? Did someone hurt you? Were you forced or something?” His hands were gentle on her back, his voice soft in her ear.

  “No! Not at all. And I don’t hate it. It’s more like I’m just there for the ride.”

  He chuckled softly. “Funny choice of words.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to laugh. “I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want to take this understanding between us and ruin it.”

  “Okay.” He put his forehead on hers. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll order some dinner from the marina restaurant. We’ll drink some more wine. We’ll talk. Take a shower to warm you up and get that lake water off you. And whatever feels right, we’ll do. If it doesn’t, we won’t.”

  “Okay.” Violet kissed Dylan, cupping his cheeks with her hands. He was a most amazing man, she had to say. “Thank you.”

  “But I’m not putting my clothes back on.”

  She reared back, having forgotten that he was naked.

  “Just kidding.” He grinned. “Why don’t you hop in the shower while I order something to eat?”

  “Great. I like anything without mushrooms.” Violet took off in the direction he pointed and closed the bathroom door behind her.

  With trembling hands, she turned on the shower. His bathroom was large, with chrome fixtures and a black and white checked tile floor. Big, white, fluffy towels were stacked on three shelves next to the shower. Violet grabbed one and shook it open, then stripped off the T-shirt and bikini bottoms.

  Wrapping the towel around her, she checked the water temperature and adjusted it. There was shampoo and shower gel already in the shower. Two minutes later she was under the stream of hot water, sighing and rolling her shoulders. It felt good to be warm, good to get her fuzzy, half damp hair off her face, good to wash the slimy sensation of lake water off her skin.

  The bathroom door opened. Violet jumped, but then reassured herself that there was a shower curtain in faux gray suede, not a clear shower door.

  “I brought you something to wear,” Dylan called.

  “Thank you.”

  “I ordered crab legs and salads. Sound good?”

  “Great.” Surely he would leave, any second now. She felt just a touch vulnerable.

  “What? I can’t hear you with the shower on.”

  Violet pulled the top of the curtain back so she could stick just her face out. Dylan was leaning on the counter, steam rising around him. He had what looked like a hand towel wrapped around his middle. It covered all of about three inches of him, but at least his you-know-what was out of view.

  “I said, that’s great.”

  “Oh, okay.” He moved towards her so fast, she didn’t have time to react.

  He was kissing her. Oh, good grief, he was kissing her, with his hands in her wet hair and tongue plunging into her mouth.

  She was naked, hot water sluicing down over her backside, her breasts brushing against the shower curtain, and he was kissing her. Everything in her felt hot and tight, moist, a burn stoking in her inner thighs.

  Violet sighed when Dylan pulled back. She wanted to be a wild woman. She wanted to just fling back the curtain and leap on him in a soapy, slippery, wet maneuver. But she didn’t have the guts, the nerve, to do it. And if she did it, she wouldn’t know what to do once she made the leap.

  Instead she ducked back into the shower. The bathroom door closed as Dylan left the room, and Violet turned to the little shelf in the shower containing products. There was a disposable razor there. She picked it up and flicked off the lid. She had noticed a row of stubble on her right leg that she had missed. If she did wind up sleeping with Dylan, she didn’t want to be hairy on top of stilted and insecure.

  She stuck her leg up on the interior edge of the shower and squirted shower gel on it. The position challenged her balance and she wobbled a bit, grabbing wildly at the curtain. “Darn it!”

  Stabilized again, she picked up the razor and bent over.

  Dylan turned from shutting the bathroom closet and pondered how badly it would frighten Violet if he just stepped into the shower with her. He was in pain, man. Suffering. Agony.

  There was a wet, sexy woman three feet away from him. Who wanted him to get her pregnant, yet at the same time didn’t want to have sex with him. It made no sense. It was pure torture.

  He was sure that he was going to die before the night was over. Might as well call up the last rites and stick on his headstone that he died from unfulfilled lust. His mother would be mortified.

  Violet said something from the shower.

  “What, Vi?”

  The curtain rattled and it sounded like she slammed into the wall. Concerned, Dylan called out again. “Vi?”

  She didn’t answer him, and he pulled back the curtain, afraid she’d wiped out in his shower and conked her head. She’d had a hell of a day and hadn’t eaten and it was possible…

  Holy shit.

  Violet wasn’t injured. She had her leg straight out, propped on the bathtub lip, her tight ass sticking up, her breasts falling forward. Her hair hung in thick, dark ropes down her back, and her flesh was pink everywhere from the hot water bouncing all over her.

  Dylan almost swallowed his tongue. Instead he must have made a sound, maybe a gurgling from all the excess saliva, because Violet turned, an orange razor in her hand.

  “Dylan!” she said, and put her free hand over her breasts.

  Like that covered anything.

  He was having none of that modesty bullshit. Ripping the towel from his waist, he stepped into the shower behind her, preventing her from leaping away. If it made her nervous to look at him, he’d just stay behind her.

  But he was going to touch her.

  Violet stood up, and Dylan placed both of his hands on her waist and pulled her back until she was fitted against him, his cock nestled in the smooth slit between her cheeks.

  “What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Joining you in the shower to help you wash yourself. To conserve water. Save on soap. Get my jollies. Take your pick.”

  Dylan reached up and cupped Violet’s full breasts. They both groaned. Her nipples were tight little pebbles when he brushed his fingers across them, and she sucked her breath in hard when he gave a little tweak to each.

  She felt gloriously curvy,
soft yet firm, her hair clinging to his chest, and her head turning back towards him. Her lips were open, sighs tripping out, and he kissed the corner of her mouth.

  “You feel so damn good, Vi. All woman.”

  “I always thought I had a stripper’s body,” she said, her little backside wiggling against him like she wanted something. “Which is a total waste on me, since I don’t know how to use it.”

  With a laugh, he slid the palm of his hand over the flatness of her stomach and parted her wet curls. “I don’t think it’s wasted on you at all. God knows it’s making me happy right now. I’m going to go to hell for all the things I want to do with you.”

  Playing with her curls, he moved his hand around and around, skirting her clitoris and tugging on the springy hairs, spreading her apart, then letting her fall closed again. He kissed her shoulder, licking her dewy flesh from side to side. Her back started to bow, and her breathing changed from slow and deep to rapid and shallow. He moved over her again and again, never really touching, never really leaving, teasing and plucking them both into arousal.

  “I…” she gasped.

  “Hmm? You what, sweetie?” Dylan stroked his cock between her tight thighs, just once, then twice, clenching his teeth down on the urgent need to thrust and take. He wanted her so fucking bad, but he wanted to draw it out, soak them both in pleasure and wring every last drop out.

  When he tapped her clitoris, she shuddered. “I want…”

  “What, baby? Tell me what you want.” Dylan dipped his tongue into her ear, moved it in and out while he cupped her mound with his immobile hand. She jerked forward against his hand.

  “I want you to touch me.”

  “Inside, you mean?” Dylan whispered in a raw, low voice, the palm of his left hand brushing back and forth over her nipple, his right hand still holding her, index finger flicking over her clit.

  “Yes. Inside.”

  He could barely hear her, but the quiet words, the desperate need nearly did him in. He throbbed against her, wanting to give Violet the passion she had never felt before, wanting her to understand how it could be, wanting to remember himself that sex could be intimate, personal, a gift between two people who cared about each other.

  “Whatever you want, beautiful.” And he moved his finger down between her folds and inside her with a deep push of his middle finger.

  Shaking the shower water off his face, he leaned over her shoulder to watch his hand covering her, his finger pull all the way out of her, then plunge deep inside her body again.

  “Oh, yeah, Vi, that’s perfect.” She was creamy wet, swollen, tight around his finger. When he wiggled his finger forward, stroking like he was dipping into frosting, she jerked away with a moan.

  Their feet squeaked in the wet tub as they readjusted. “Don’t get too far away from me,” he teased.

  She shook her head, chin tilted up, eyes half closed. “No, no, I don’t want to stop you. This feels…”

  Dylan added a second finger to the first and her words dissolved into a gasp. She was holding the wall with both hands, leaning farther and farther forward, her ass bumping into his cock as she started to move with his thrusts.

  “That’s it, baby. Damn, that’s sexy.”

  He plucked at her nipple as she squirmed, little mewling sounds leaving her mouth at regular intervals. Dylan was sweating, water racing down his taut body, steam rising between them, and he thought without a little self-control he could come just like this, resting along her backside. She was racing forward, and he was pushing her to the finish line.

  Bracing his feet as far apart as the bathtub would permit, he let go of her breast, pulled his fingers completely out of her.

  She made a sound of distress, head snapping up.

  Dylan slipped his thumb down her clitoris, then twisted right inside her.

  Violet came with a loud agonized cry, her fingers clutching at the smooth tile wall, her body shuddering around his thumb.

  He stroked in complete triumph, reveling in the abandon of her cry, the tightness of her body, the length of her orgasm, which went on and on.

  Dylan kissed the back of her neck as Violet quieted down, her back straightening.

  “Oh my,” she said.

  And she had said she didn’t make noise.

  Hah. She just hadn’t met him yet.

  “There’s more where that came from.” Dylan turned the water off and stepped back, then out of the shower. Violet wobbled a little, so he grabbed her waist and lifted her out of the tub.

  Limp, she fell against him, her breasts colliding with his chest. Oh, man they felt even better this way. Dylan couldn’t wait to get his mouth on one of those.

  He grabbed a towel from the rack and lifted her up, hands under her butt. “I’ll dry you off on the bed.”

  “Dry me off?” she whispered. “I can do that myself. But, well, if you really want to.”

  Dylan dropped her on the bed flat on her back. “I really want to.”

  Violet clamped her thighs closed, crossed her ankles, and stuck her hands over her chest. She fiddled with the ends of her hair and looked thoroughly aroused, yet completely embarrassed.

  Frank the Fuck-up probably only did it in the dark.

  “Shouldn’t you close the blinds?” she asked, darting a nervous look at the window.

  Dylan didn’t see anything but the lake, and a couple of aggressive seagulls swooping back and forth. He figured the birds didn’t care if she was naked or not, but he wasn’t going to argue and delay his pleasure.

  He ripped the vertical blinds closed with his bare hands instead of using the cord.

  The doorbell rang as Violet unfolded the towel and spread it over the front of her.

  “Damn, that’s the food.” Dylan stripped the towel right off of Violet’s body.

  “Hey!” she protested.

  “I’ve got to answer the door.” He tied it around his waist. “You look better naked anyway.”

  She thunked a pillow down over her nakedness. “You’re going to answer the door in a towel?”

  “Yep.” He jogged to the door, almost losing the towel at one point. He was going to get rid of the delivery person, throw the food in the kitchen, then get back to his real dinner.

  Violet.

  Seven

  Eyes closed, Violet clutched the thick down pillow to her crotch, listening to the sounds of Dylan chatting with the deliveryman.

  He had given her an orgasm. In the shower.

  She was shocked down to the tips of her water-shriveled toes.

  It had felt so good. Easy. She had made sounds, for crying out loud. At one point she had been sure her back was going to snap from straining towards him.

  Now she felt a touch embarrassed, a bit sleepy, and a whole lot satisfied. She could go for months on this high.

  She was positive she could just slip under his navy duvet and fall asleep. But Dylan expected more. Turnabout was fair play. She owed it to him to let him finish, after the way he had yanked more pleasure out of her in five minutes than Frank had in four months.

  So she was mentally prepared to give it to him when he came back into the bedroom, chewing, a cherry tomato in his hand.

  “Tomato?” He held it out to her as he tossed the towel to the floor and climbed onto the bed.

  “No tha-” Her words were cut off by the tomato being shoved between her lips.

  “Eat it. It will tide you over until we get to our dinners.”

  Violet chewed, the juice running down her throat and making her want to cough. Dylan tugged the pillow out of her hands and flung it so hard it hit the wall before dropping to the floor. She tried to muster up some enthusiasm as she spread her thighs, letting him know she was ready for him.

  With a little luck, he’d be quick about it.

  He stopped crawling on his knees between her ankles and just looked at her, his eyebrows raised.

  “What?” she asked nervously.

  “You look like you’re calculating ho
w fast I can be in and out. I think you’re hoping for sixty seconds or less.”

  Her cheeks burned. “Why would you think that?” And how was she so transparent?

  “The grimace on your face is a dead giveaway.”

  “I’m sorry. I tried to tell you.” Violet tried to roll away, reaching for the towel. Maybe she could strangle herself with it. This had to be the most awkward moment of her life, and to this point, her life had really just been a whole series of awkward moments.

  The only time she was comfortable and confident was when she was with her students. Who were all five years old.

  But this moment had to surpass all others in pure humiliation.

  “Shhh.” Dylan put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t apologize. You did tell me. And I said we’d only do what feels right. Did it feel right in the shower?”

  Violet’s body hummed just from the memory. “Yes. Really right.”

  “So, let’s just experiment and see what feels right here on the bed, okay?”

  “Okay.” She wanted to relax and let it all hang out. She wanted to be able to get down and dirty with Dylan so that he would enjoy himself. “But I need you to tell me what to do, how to please you, Dylan.”

  His lips brushed across hers. Dark eyes swept over her face. “Just be you. Just that you care enough to want to please me is enough.”

  It didn’t feel like enough. He was willing to give her a baby, the thing that mattered most to her, and she couldn’t even give him a good time in return.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Vi. If you don’t want to do this, I’ll go to the clinic. I promise you’ll get a baby one way or the other.”

  That made tears well up in her eyes and her heart swell like a balloon. Violet reached up and gently stroked his cheek. “You really have no idea how wonderful you are, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t make too much of it. For the most part, I’m just an overpaid jock, Vi.”

  “And I thought I had confidence issues? There’s nothing wrong with success, you know. It’s the result of your talent and hard work. You should enjoy it.” She pulled his mouth down onto hers, kissed him slowly and thoroughly. “Make love to me, Dylan. Please.”