by Primula Bond
He bent his head ‑ even with the heels she was still not quite tall enough to be on eye level with him ‑ and she looked up into his eyes and saw another flash of lust there, which she knew would mirror what he saw in hers. Mirror it exactly. Then his lips were on hers – surprisingly gentle at first, and his hands were cupping the back of her head, drawing her closer, drawing her deeper into the kiss. She softened beneath him, welcoming his tongue. She hadn’t been kissed like this for so long. And it felt amazing.
When they finally broke for air and he looked at her the lust had softened into a dark ache of longing. For a moment they just stared. Eyes were different close up. She could see the tawny flecks of gold she’d noticed earlier and other colours too – hazel, a hint of green. He had eyes like a big cat and they were very expressive. Alongside the longing there was curiosity, a kind of wondering.
He was probably as surprised as she was – that things had progressed so fast. She had never in her life done anything like this before and she had the oddest feeling, despite the fact that they were still in each other’s arms, that neither had he.
‘I ... er ... I’m sorry ... That wasn’t why I brought you here ...’ Will shook his head as though he was suddenly waking up.
‘I’m not sorry,’ she interrupted. ‘And it wasn’t why I came, but ...’ She gave a little shrug – where had all her words gone? Maybe they didn’t need words.
Then he smiled and kissed her again and her legs fell away. He was like a drug, like chloroform, he took all the power out of her body. Resistance was futile. Not that she wanted to resist. For the first time she noticed there was a brown fabric sofa in the room, tucked around a little recess that she hadn’t seen before. It was covered with a scarlet and orange throw; maybe he sat there when he was composing.
They both grinned at each other, a little inanely, and then she kissed his fingertips, and, feeling light with wantonness, she led him by the hand to his sofa. Moments later, they were stretched out on it. It was big enough to lie down on, side by side, so that’s what they did. They kissed again with ever-growing hunger. She slid her hands up under his T-shirt, felt the smooth muscular hardness of his skin. The man worked out. He evidently didn’t sit around composing all day. As she drew a nail up the dip in the centre of his back he moaned and nipped her bottom lip, the gentlest of nips, but she practically had an orgasm on the spot. No man had ever been able to give her an orgasm purely by kissing her – not even Patrick. Why the hell was she thinking of her ex-husband at a time like this?
The next time they broke the kiss, her dress was rucked up around her thighs, the strap was off one shoulder and he was bare-chested. They were both panting.
‘I want you to know this isn’t how I usually behave with my clients,’ she gasped.
‘I should hope not.’ He smiled down at her. He had somehow managed to end up on top, one leg twined between hers, his thigh pressed down hard on her clit. It was in exactly the right place to do wondrous things to her. ‘Do you want to stop?’
In answer, she reached up and clasped her hands around the warmth of his shaved head. In contrast to the rest of him it felt strangely fragile and she was reminded of a baby’s skull where for the first few months of life there is a gap that hasn’t properly closed. Suddenly he was vulnerable beneath her fingers, and some of the lust she felt for him transcended painfully into something else.
‘Do you want to stop?’ he asked again.
‘What colour is your hair when it grows through?’
‘Why? Does it make a difference?’
She smiled. ‘No, of course it doesn’t make a difference. I was just curious.’
He kissed her forehead. ‘Brown I think. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.’
‘And, no, I don’t want to stop.’
‘Good. Neither do I.’ In contradiction to his words he stood up then, but only, she realised, so he could undo his chinos and tug them down over muscled brown legs. His white briefs didn’t leave much to the imagination. The hard outline of his cock sent a shudder of lust through her. She had an urge to rip off his pants with her teeth.
‘I’m feeling at something of a disadvantage, Miss Crane.’ His voice was no longer dark brown but velvety soft, the colour of milky hot chocolate, as he knelt back down beside the sofa. ‘Maybe I could help you with this.’ He laid a hand on her bare thigh, palm down, and then slid it very slowly up beneath her dress.
After that, there was no more holding back, no more questions, no more will we, won’t we? The dress was dispensed with and soon she was naked, desperate for his touch – she had never felt so wanton, so alive, as he slid his finger into her, opening her up for the first time, finding the sweet spot inside her, exploring her, mapping her touch by touch with delicate precision. Moaning softly, she freed his cock, delighting in the hardness and the bigness of him. She had never wanted a man so much. She had never wanted anything so much.
‘You have a beautiful body,’ she told him.
‘You don’t look so bad yourself.
That was the last time they spoke for a while. She wanted to taste him, bit by bit. She began with his left shoulder, then his chest, and worked her way down. When she reached his cock she licked her way down its length and he moaned. He tasted of warmth and salt and sex and he smelt glorious and she wondered at her audacity. Twelve hours ago she hadn’t been aware of his existence, but now she felt as though they’d been waiting all their lives for this moment and there was no time to waste. She had to discover him inch by fabulous inch.
His cock and his balls kept her busy for quite a while. In the end it was Will who tugged her gently away, his eyes full of dark lust. ‘I want you.’ The words were thick on his tongue, and then his tongue was in her mouth again. She wondered if he could taste himself on her lips. The idea sent delicious tremors through her clit as she welcomed him into her mouth. He left no part of her mouth unexplored, probing and gently nipping and sending a fizzing wave of pre-orgasmic contractions sweeping through her. What was it with this man? If he could do that to her with a kiss, Lord only knew what he could do when he was inside her. Heaven didn’t come close.
It was he who brought reality back to the room by disappearing to get a condom from his bedroom. She lay on her back on the sofa, trembling with anticipation, and thinking in some distant part of her mind that she was glad he didn’t just have condoms to hand – that she wasn’t one of a long line of women he seduced on this couch.
But he didn’t waste any time when he got back. Neither of them could wait any longer. He straddled her, leant forward to kiss her and in the same moment he was inside her in a gloriously hard surge of movement that took her straight into a glittering climax. And that was before he’d even begun to fuck her.
His lips were parted in an expression that was half smile, half groan, as he watched her come, and then he was moving: totally controlled, bloody huge some part of her mind acknowledged, and with a skill and tenderness that left her wanting to weep.
Natalie gave herself up to him, gave herself up to the perfect rhythm of their love-making. She hadn’t known she’d been looking for anything – she hadn’t dreamed that such joy existed, but she had found it somehow anyway. And so had he she saw with another wrenching fire bomb of an orgasm as she felt him spasm and spasm and spasm inside her and his face screwed up in the agony of bliss.
In the free fall back towards earth she found that there were tears on her face and he thumbed them away and stroked her face. ‘It’s OK to cry,’ he told her softly. ‘There is only one of us in this room.’
Chapter Three
It was the beginning of one of the most wonderful times of her life. Will took her to rustic pubs with beams and inglenooks and eccentric landlords and introduced her to real ales with names like Sheep Dip and Huffkin and Man Overboard. They went to deserted coves and watched sunsets blaze purple and scarlet, and then swam until they were numb in the cold Atlantic sea. They had two-hour conversations that felt like 30-sec
ond snatches because they never ran out of things to say. And they made love. Natalie had thought it would be impossible to improve on that first time, but she was wrong.
Every love song she heard on the radio was for her, and even the songs that weren’t supposed to be love songs sounded like they were being played especially for her. There was one particular song that stuck in her mind. It was called One of Us and the chorus was, “Two of us arrive at this place, but only one of us will leave it. One of us, one of us, one of us.”
Natalie didn’t even know the rest of the song, but the words resonated in her heart because Will had said them.
‘What did you mean when you said there was only one of us in the room?’ she asked him one sunset evening when they were walking along Studland beach, their fingers interlinked. The tide was out, leaving the ripples of the sea moulded into the hard white sand. There was a scattering of sail boats dotted against the pink sky and the salty seaweed smell of evening-beach filled her senses.
He glanced at her, his dark eyes thoughtful. ‘I meant that really there is no separation between humans – we put the barriers there and we pretend we are individuals, but we are not. We are all as one in the big scheme of things – anything I do to you or to any other person I am really doing to myself.’
‘Right,’ Natalie said, none the wiser.
Will smiled at her. ‘I think that we are all part of a universal consciousness,’ he said, ‘And that what happens to us individually doesn’t matter.’
‘So it’s not just about us being as one when we’re making love?’ she asked, feeling let down but not sure why.
‘No, it’s about everything we do.’ Suddenly there were shadows in his eyes and just for a moment – even though the sky was still pink and the air still balmy with heat – she felt a shiver of foreboding.
Will squeezed her fingers. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as if he was reading her mind. ‘It means I’ll always be with you whether I’m here or not.’
‘That doesn’t sound very reassuring,’ she said, feeling her voice husking over the words.
‘Well, it should.’ He let go of her hand and danced away from her, jogging on the spot with the grace of a boxer. ‘Race you to that sign.’
‘What sign?’ She shielded her eyes in the golden light and saw where he was looking, several hundred yards along the beach. It was the sign that warned tourists they were entering a nudist area. Smiling, she darted towards him but he was gone, sprinting away from her.
For the next few seconds there was nothing but the soft sea breeze on her face, the springboard sand beneath her thin-soled trainers and the pounding of her heart as she tried to catch him; which was impossible because he was taller and fitter and faster than she was and he had no intention of letting her win. By the time she reached the warning sign she was gasping for breath. Will grinned at her in delight. ‘I won, which means ...’ He rugby tackled her legs, so she toppled in an ungainly sprawl beside him on the sand. ‘... you have to do what I say.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ she panted, putting her fingers to her brow in an insolent salute. ‘Your wish is my command.’
‘We go skinny dipping.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’ He brushed a sprinkle of sand from her shoulder. ‘It’s perfectly legal.’
‘How boring.’ She flicked a glance around them. Apart from a dog walker some distance away across the dunes, there was no one else around.
‘I don’t think you’ll find it boring.’ His eyes shone with a dark challenge and before she could reply he was stripping off his cut-off jeans and peeling his T-shirt over his head. Still sitting on the sand, where she knew they were less visible to anyone who might appear, she followed suit. When they were both naked her gaze dropped to his cock which was semi erect, and still pretty damn magnificent she had to say. She reached out for it, but he slapped her hand away.
‘Don’t be so impatient.’ And then he was scrambling to his feet and sprinting towards the sea. And there was nothing to do but follow.
The shock of cold on her ankles and knees was swiftly superseded by Will, who was slightly ahead of her, splatting his hand down hard into the sea and sending a sea spray shower over her stomach and breasts.
‘You bastard.’
Laughing, he dived into the shallows before she could retaliate and began to swim out to the deeper water. She followed him, the chill water shocking her skin and chattering her teeth so the only thing to do was swim, moving her arms and legs quickly, rhythmically, forcing the blood round, forcing the warmth back. She was surprised at how quickly her body adjusted to the temperature and it didn’t feel as cold. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d skinny dipped. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this free.
Just ahead of her Will paused, treading water, waiting for her to catch up. He was grinning and his head was shiny from the sea.
‘Isn’t your head cold?’ she asked, reaching him, and he laughed.
‘What a strange question. No, my head’s as warm as all the other bits of me.’
‘Is that so?’
‘That is so. Want to check?’ He caught her hand and guided it to his dick and she felt that he was right. His warm hardness pulsed beneath her fingers.
‘How the hell does that stay warm – not to mention hard?’
‘It’s waiting for you.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘It’s the power you have over me. Ever made love in the sea?’
‘No ... Will, we can’t, we’ll drown.’
‘What a way to go!’
She was laughing despite herself and her clit was thrumming to the sound of his voice, and she knew she was soaked without the help of the sea and her nipples were like bullets – was that desire or cold? And her whole body was delighted by his invitation. Only her mind found excuses to resist.
‘Can we go in a bit so I can touch the ground?’
‘Don’t you like being out of your depth?’ As he spoke, he drew her closer so she was against the hardness of his chest and with one hand he held her close while the fingers of his other hand found her clit. One touch and she was lost.
Glorying now in being out of her depth, she opened her legs and he pressed her apart and slid a finger into her and then a second one. He began to move them inside her, a rhythmic thrust that made her forget the cold, forget everything but him.
He was watching her, his eyes dark with lust, his lips parted as he thrust his fingers in and out of her. She moaned, more turned on, despite where they were, or perhaps because of it, than she’d ever been in her life.
‘Come for me.’
‘You are out of your tiny mind ...’
‘Come for me, Natalie.’
She moaned again, gasping, and suddenly her mouth was full of salty water and she was choking. Still impaled on his fingers, he pushed her up out of the water so her head and shoulders were clear of the sea. Controlling her as though she was a glove puppet – and yes, she was a puppet, dancing to the tune of his fingers. But his eyes were solicitous. ‘You OK?’
‘I’ll live.’ The tang of saltwater filled her mouth and her cunt flexed around his fingers, loving him, and she knew that she would always remember this moment. She would never be able to disassociate the dark taste of the sea with the sheer bliss of his fingers, controlling her.
‘Might be best to keep your mouth closed,’ he said idly.
She panted defiantly. ‘Just because you’ve got your feet on the ground.’
‘If I hadn’t we’d have drowned by now.’ He lowered her back into the chill arms of the sea, his eyes tender.
‘That’s cheating.’ But really she was past protesting. Her heart was already halfway to eternity and her body was fully there. With a soft moan she hugged him closer.
‘Fuck me, Will.’
He didn’t argue. In the next instant he was inside her; his dick the only warm thing in an ocean of cold. How was that possible? She stopped wondering how it was possible as he began to move. She stopped wondering
anything, and just focused on the slow-building crescendo. He filled her world, he filled her universe with his little gasps and grunts and growls. She had never heard a man growl like Will did – it was primal, desperately sexy. It could tip her into ecstasy, that growl.
In a pleasure-pain dance of heat and cold, they moved in the swell, the sea joining their game, like some great cold heartbeat that beat in time with their love-making.
And when Will finally shouted out his release she felt as though they were caught in a bowl of sea and sky – a great blue vastness of pleasure with them at its centre and the waves of her own orgasm radiating out into the universe.
Chapter Four
‘You’re spending too much time with him,’ Anton grumbled one morning as they got ready to go down to the gallery. He was straightening his tie in the hall mirror of the flat and he had his dark blue voice on – bossy and threaded through with barely concealed disapproval.
Natalie shot him an irritated glance. ‘Since when was it any of your business who I spend time with?’
Anton gave his tie an unnecessarily sharp tug, and met her eyes in the mirror. ‘It’s my business when you keep disappearing. It’s supposed to be a “Meet the artist” exhibition. Not a “Guess what the artist bloody looks like”. I almost lost a sale yesterday because you weren’t there – the man had come all the way from Truro to see you.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, with a flash of guilt. And he did have a point. Her time with Will did often overspill into work time. Will’s working hours were erratic – he only wrote music when he was totally inspired, he’d told her, and then he would immerse himself sometimes for days in music – he’d hole himself up in his studio and blot out the world. Lately, he’d said, kissing her fingers one by one, he’d only been inspired to spend time with her.
