One Long Hot Summer

by Antonia Adams

  Chapter Two – Ryan

  WAKING TO THE SOUND of rain pattering hard against the bedroom window, heralding another disappointing day in what had been a pretty miserable summer so far, I revised my plans to go shopping, deciding to do a spot of baking instead. In the days when I’d occasionally hit a brick wall in terms of whatever I was writing at the time – as all writers do – I’d found spending time in the kitchen, kneading dough or mixing cake batter, a sure-fire way to start my creative juices flowing again.

  Today, it was just another way of avoiding turning on my PC. Checking my emails when I’d got off the phone to Amanda, I’d found a chatty message from Robyn, my editor, asking how I’d settled into my new home, and how Seafront Attraction was coming along. I’d sent a bland little reply, letting her know she’d have something very soon – and how many times had I told that same lie over the last couple of months? – but I couldn’t help feeling guilty. I counted Robyn as a friend; we’d had a great working relationship throughout the years she’d been editing my novels, and I could only imagine the pressure she was under to get my latest book to print.

  Measuring butter and sugar into a mixing bowl, beating it with a wooden spoon till the muscles in my upper arm ached and the mixture was light and fluffy, I tried not to think about Robyn, or anything to do with my unfinished novel. I’d always enjoyed making cakes; maybe I should forget about writing, and reinvent myself as one of those women who opens an exclusive bakery selling fancy cupcakes at eye-watering prices? After all, Amanda had got out of publishing to follow her dream of being a painter, and look at how successful she’d been. But writing was my dream, the one thing I loved more than anything else.

  Aware my thoughts were running in circles, like a hamster endlessly making circuits of a wheel, I added nuts and chocolate chips to my cookie dough and spooned it on to a greased baking sheet. While the cookies baked, I had time to nip upstairs and check my messages again. I really owed it to Robyn to send her a more honest assessment of how things were going. Perhaps she could offer me advice on what to do next; Lord knew I didn’t have a clue any more.

  Twenty minutes later, I came back downstairs having, I hoped, made my peace with Robyn. The appetising smell of warm sugar and vanilla hit my nostrils. It should have lifted my mood, but a noise coming from the kitchen put me on edge. Dexter’s barking, loud and sharp. When I’d left him, he’d been dozing in his basket, soothed by the warmth of the oven. Now, he sounded agitated. Something had to be wrong.

  Pushing open the kitchen door, an unexpected sight greeted me. The fridge stood open, and a man was peering into it, while Dexter paced beside him, tail wagging as he continued to bark. I couldn’t see the stranger’s face, but I could pretty much see every last inch of his tanned, lithe body, as all he wore was a pair of white trunk underwear. I’d read news reports of burglars who’d made themselves a snack while in the process of robbing a house, but I couldn’t imagine any thief going about his business in such a state of undress. So who the hell was he, and why was he treating the place like he owned it?

  Wondering whether I should alert him to my presence, I couldn’t help letting my gaze drift to where those trunks clung to the firm contours of his backside. Friend or foe, this man had the most spectacular arse I’d seen in a long time.

  The bleeping of the kitchen timer, letting me know the cookies were ready to come out of the oven, saved me having to speak. The intruder turned at the sound, startled, and in that moment I recognised him. His hair was longer than I remembered, sun-bleached blond strands falling into his smiling blue eyes, and the stubble on his chin indicated he hadn’t shaved for a day or so, but it was unmistakably Ryan. When I’d last seen him, a good three years ago, he’d been a gawky sixth-former, still not quite at home in his body following a growth spurt that had pushed him to six feet in height. Now, though, he’d filled out very nicely indeed, his frame tapering from broad shoulders to lean hips, with a stomach that, while toned, didn’t bear the hard ridges of muscle to suggest he spent most of his free time working out. Just the kind of body you could trail your tongue along, all the way down to the package emphasised so enticingly by that tight-fitting underwear …

  I pulled myself up sharply at the thought. This was Ryan, my best friend’s 21-year-old son, and a lad a whole 14 years younger than me, not the hunky hero of one of my romance novels. Though, for a moment, I didn’t think it was only in my imagination that his eyes made the same slow, appraising circuit of my body as mine had made of his.

  ‘Hey, Lily!’ His grin was crooked, appealing on a purely sexual level, and I couldn’t help being glad Amanda hadn’t insisted on giving me the courtesy title of “aunty”, as so many women do with their close female friends. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you exactly the same thing. Aren’t you supposed to be in Thailand?’

  ‘That was the plan.’ Ryan leant against the now closed fridge door, watching as I retrieved the sheet of cookies from the oven. ‘Except Charlie didn’t manage to sort out his passport in time and it all kind of fell apart. So we decided to come down to the coast for the summer.’

  ‘We?’ I looked round, wondering whether any more half-naked young men were about to step out of the shadows and make their introductions.

  ‘Yeah. Charlie and Giles are staying in a B&B down the road in Weymouth. They were hoping to crash here, but I told them Mum had someone looking after the house. I didn’t realise it was you.’

  ‘So what would you have done if it had been someone else?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno.’ Ryan waited only seconds after I’d placed the cookies on a wire rack to cool before coming over to the table to snaffle one. Breaking off a piece and popping it in his mouth, he chewed thoughtfully. ‘Probably gone off to join them. But I’m sure you don’t have any problem with me staying here, do you? These are delicious, by the way.’

  He didn’t sound as though he was trying to charm me by complimenting my cooking. And I had no intention of suggesting he leave, now he was here. It would be nice to have another body around the house, seeing as my plan to capitalise on the solitude the beachside cottage offered to finish my novel had already come unstuck. Though if he intended to meet up with his friends, I probably wouldn’t see all that much of him. Certainly not as much as I could see right now …

  Stop it, I told myself. OK, so it’s been a while since you’ve been in the company of someone you found so attractive, and your sex life could best be filed under “non-existent”, but there are limits.

  ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ I asked. ‘I was just about to make one.’

  ‘Great,’ he replied. ‘I’ll just go and put some clothes on. I was about to have a shower, but …’

  But what? That can wait? That would be more fun if you joined me?

  ‘Back in a mo,’ Ryan said chirpily, and left, treating me to one last view of his delectable arse, cheeks flexing beneath the tight white cotton.

  In his absence, I busied myself grinding coffee beans – another trick I’d adopted to waste time, rather than buying the ready-ground variety – and boiling the kettle. As I watched raindrops chase each other down the window pane, my overheated imagination picked up the idea of stepping into the shower with Ryan, not caring how inappropriate such thoughts might be given the difference in our ages. I pictured him peeling down those tight trunks that had done so little to conceal the dimensions of his cock. In my fantasy, it reared up, hard and proud, its plump head already shining with juice. I fought the urge to reach out and stroke my fingers up and down its solid length.

  Beneath the towel knotted just below my armpits, I was naked, and I undid the knot, opening the towel wide to let Ryan feast his eyes on my small, high breasts, curvy hips and the soft red curls on my mound, a couple of shades darker than those which fell halfway down my back in wild profusion.

  The shower in Amanda’s bathroom had a cloudburst head, and being pulled beneath its spray by Ryan was like finding myself caught in a tropical storm wi
th him. I loved the effect, feeling the water beating down hard on our bodies as he pulled me into a close embrace. Our lips met, the scratch of Ryan’s stubble against my cheeks adding another level of stimulation to my increasing arousal.

  Slowly, I dropped to my knees, my tongue trailing down his smooth, wet chest, over the flat plane of his belly and down to where his cock waited for my oral caress. Holding my damp curls out of the way with one hand, I used the other to grip the base of his dick, keeping him steady so I could take his crown between my lips. He filled my mouth to the brim, the salt tang of his precome waking my taste buds, making me hunger for more. Swirling my tongue over his straining flesh in sloppy circles, licking at the sweetly sensitive spot where the head meets the shaft, I brought a sharp gasp of pleasure from him. Looking up, letting him all but fall from my lips, I saw his eyes screwed tight and his head thrown back, fat drops of water raining down on his exposed throat. In that moment, he looked so masculine, yet so submissive, his whole body taut and trembling, waiting for me to plunge my head back down on his cock. What could I do but oblige, using my hand to wank him with slow, steady tugs that couldn’t fail to have him coming within moments, shooting his load to the back of my throat as I swallowed it in quick, greedy gulps.

  The image I’d created was so vivid I could almost feel the water raining down on my bare back, taste the last, salty drops of Ryan’s come. When had I lost the ability to put those feelings, the overwhelming emotions of making love to such a gorgeous young man, on paper? I shook my head to clear it of the lingering remnants of my fantasy, aware of a tell-tale wetness in my panties.

  By the time Ryan returned to the kitchen, dressed in a pale pink T-shirt bearing the name of its designer on the front and a pair of baggy, knee-length khaki shorts, the coffee had brewed and I’d made a mental note to get fresh batteries for my vibrator the next time I went shopping. I poured a mug and handed it to him. He dumped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar in it, stirring vigorously, before taking a sip.

  ‘So how long were you planning on staying?’ I asked. ‘Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, or anything.’

  He grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and turned it round, sitting on it so his elbows rested on the top of the chair back and his thighs straddled the seat. ‘Not sure yet. Could be a month, could be longer.’ Reaching for another biscuit, he broke it in two, throwing one half to Dexter, who crunched it up greedily. ‘The plan’s for us to do some surfing, but that all depends on the weather and the tides. I mean, we can always go over to Bournemouth – there’s a great spot down by the pier but it gets so packed with tourists. And then there’s Kimmeridge Bay, just the other side of Weymouth, but the conditions there are so inconsistent, you never know what you’re going to get. So I reckon we should hire a boat and hit some of the places only us locals know about …’ He broke off, concerned that my eyes appeared to be glazing over. ‘Hey, Lily, I’m not boring you, am I?’

  I shook my head. ‘Of course not. It’s just been a while since I had a conversation with anyone other than Mrs Bentley in the village store, that’s all. I’m relishing the novelty of not discussing the weather, or how much butter’s increased in price since my last visit.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here, out in the back end of nowhere? How did Mum persuade you house-sitting for her would be a good idea?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t need any persuading. It gave me the chance to get out of London for a while. I needed a break from where I’d been.’ Wondering whether I should tell Ryan the whole story or not, I decided there was nothing to lose by pouring my troubles into his sympathetic ear. ‘You see, the relationship I’d been in for a long time had broken up …’

  ‘Were you still with that Alex guy?’ Ryan interrupted. About to ask how he knew about Alex, I remembered that we’d come down to stay with Amanda one glorious April weekend. If I remembered rightly, Ryan had been revising for his A levels at that point, his maths text books strewn over this very kitchen table.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Well, we went our separate ways a few months ago.’

  ‘That’s a shame. He was a really nice guy, from what I remember. Drove a Triumph Spitfire, didn’t he?’

  ‘He still does. What a memory you’ve got.’ The classic, cherry red sports car was Alex’s pride and joy. Every time I walked along the street and failed to see it parked outside our flat, I received a painful reminder that he was no longer in my life. ‘Well, when your mum suggested I come down here, I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to get away from my old life and really concentrate on my writing for a while, with no distractions.’

  ‘And how’s the writing going?’

  It was an innocent enough enquiry, but I still felt an anxious clutching in my gut at the thought of the unfinished manuscript on my PC. ‘It’s OK, all things considering.’

  ‘Meaning you don’t want me getting under your feet while you’re trying to work.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t see you being any trouble. Not if you’re out with your friends all the time.’

  Ryan’s next comment saved me having to outline the full horror of my insurmountable writer’s block.

  ‘So tell me more about what it is you write. Mum’s got a whole stack of your books in her bedroom, but when I asked if I could read one of them, she always used to say she’d let me when I was old enough.’ Again that slow, sexy grin, causing something to come unglued deep inside me. ‘Am I old enough now?’

  ‘I should think so, but they’re really aimed at women.’

  ‘Isn’t all the best erotic fiction?’ Ryan chuckled, and I felt a flush rise to my cheeks. A tinny electronic tune filled the air, sparing me from further inquisition. Ryan dug in his shorts pocket as the tune repeated itself, bringing out his smartphone. ‘Hey, Charlie, how’s it going? Yeah, yeah … It’s an old friend of my mum’s, Lily Metcalfe. Oh, she’s cool, she’s a writer … Yeah, I’m sure you’ll get to meet her. OK, see you there.’

  ‘Are you off out?’ I asked, not wanting to speculate on what questions might have been asked about me on the other end of the line.

  ‘Yeah, I’m going to meet the guys in Weymouth.’ Ryan stood, pulled his car keys out of his pocket, tossed them in the air and caught them. ‘I should be back early evening.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine. I’ve no intention of keeping an eye on your comings and goings, not even if your mother asks me to.’ A thought struck me. ‘Does she actually know you’re here?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’ll get round to telling her eventually.’

  ‘Won’t she be checking for photos of your Thai adventures on Facebook?’

  ‘I’m not sure Mum even knows what Facebook is. And even if she did, I’ve blocked her from accessing it.’ Pure wickedness infused his grin. ‘You’ve got to keep some things secret from your folks, after all. See you later, Lily.’

  With an affectionate ruffle of Dexter’s fur, he was gone, heading for the elderly green Mini parked by the side of the house. I didn’t stop to see him pull away, turning out on to the road that led to Weymouth. I was still wondering whether Ryan’s appearance had derailed my plans for the summer – and if that might, in the long run, turn out to be a good thing.

  Chapter Three – Reading

  THE EMAIL POPPED INTO my inbox a little before six o’clock. “On way home. What’s for supper? Ryan x”, followed by an automated line to say the message had been sent from his smartphone. I was torn between admiring his cheek at expecting me to feed him and a sudden giddy rush at the prospect of seeing him again. This wasn’t like me, acting like an overgrown schoolgirl in the presence of a man I found attractive, I told myself sternly. But hadn’t that been the same reaction Alex had always provoked from me in the early days of our relationship, when just the sound of his voice on the phone could get me wet?

  Just as well I’d gone with my instincts and put a chicken in the oven earlier, I thought as I logged out of my mailbox and went downstairs. If Ryan
got back late, there’d be leftovers if he wanted to make himself a sandwich. As it was, I’d be serving it with potatoes baked in their jackets and a crisp green salad – and maybe a glass or two from the nice bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc chilling in the fridge.

  By early afternoon, the rain had passed over and I’d been able to take Dexter for his walk. Even on the sunniest days, the beach here was never busy, being just a little too far for most day trippers from Weymouth or Bridport to venture. Today, with the clouds still low and threatening and the sand damp and cloying beneath my boots, I had the whole bay pretty much to myself, able to let Dexter off his leash to run out into the sea, paws splashing in the surf as he barked at the seagulls who bobbed on the waves.

  Returning to the cottage, I still had no enthusiasm to work on my novel, so instead I spent an hour or so updating my blog, adding the recipe for the chocolate and nut cookies I’d baked that morning as I knew I always got extra hits when I discussed food. Sex and chocolate the two things guaranteed to attract readers, I’d mused, before reaching for my ideas notebook and scribbling down a note about finding a storyline that linked the two. And if ideas were starting to pop into my head, I thought with an optimism that had been lacking over the last few weeks, it couldn’t be long before I was struck with the compulsion to write once more.

  Around 40 minutes after I’d received Ryan’s message, I heard a car pull to a halt on the gravel driveway at the side of the cottage. Moments later, he strode through the front door, Dexter rising from his basket and trotting out into the hall to greet him.

  ‘Hey, Lily, something smells good,’ he said, entering the kitchen.

  ‘Thought I’d cook a chicken for tonight, and your timing’s great, because it’s just about ready.’