Beginnings

by L. T. Smith

  Kisses elicited guttural moans, sucking at ardent lips and throats and shoulders. Breasts rubbed against each other, squirming in their need for contact. Her hand slipped between our bodies and gently pumped the mound of flesh, causing me to moan deeply inside her mouth. Hips rhythmically danced against each other and the pressure was building.

  She was between my legs … the same legs that were clutching her … one leg around her waist pulling her deeper. I could feel her pubic bone chaffing my need, but I needed to feel all of her … needed her to possess what belonged to her … claim it and own it … take it with her fingers – her mouth – her tongue – her all.

  My hand strayed to her arse and stroked it before pulling her in. It was firm and undulating blissfully underneath my fingertips. The whole action was rhythmic and controlled … an affirmation of the spoken ‘I love yous’ from earlier. Mouths kissed … tongues wandered and breathing became laboured. It was perfect … a perfect connection … I could almost hear the click of us slotting together.

  As she kissed me, I stared at her face willing her eyes to open and allow me to see inside her, and when she did I was lost … forever lost. The love and depth I discovered there was breathtaking and I physically felt myself draw in a breath in case I needed it.

  Her hand came up and cupped my face, the thumb gliding over my lip and chin, the rhythm never breaking. I opened my mouth and snatched at it, capturing it between my lips and sucked it in. Blue eyes flickered closed and then opened again to expose the desire that had been hiding just below the surface … primitive … unabashed … yearning. The same desire that cascaded throughout my body. I thought I was going to lose control.

  Her thumb was replaced by her mouth and I wanted to climb inside … crawl down deep inside her and stay there. Hide up. Camp there inside her chest … claim squatter’s rights … just needed to be with her … needed to become a part of her.

  Then the lips were gone and my mouth felt robbed of hers … felt cheated and exposed, until … there they were … on my neck … on my shoulders … my collarbone and then on to my breasts. My hand threaded itself into her hair, as my other hand left her backside and stroked the small of her back. The movement of her mouth on my nipple was agonisingly wonderful … short flicks and rolls, followed by sucks and holds.

  I just needed her. Needed her. Needed … her … any way she wanted … any way she desired me … just craved contact … craved her.

  Lips on my belly, sinking into a fully alert belly button. I felt the dip and rise of her head before she moved further down … down … down. Her nose nuzzled my pubic hair before she ventured lower, delving into a promise of forever. A firm tongue parted me and stroked along my folds, my legs widening even more to give her access. It was so gentle, so tender, so slow, as it moved downwards towards the pool of wetness that was flooding from me.

  She circled … and circled … and circled, driving me crazy with the need for her to fill me. Lap lap lap … then the circling again. I was trying to push down on her … trying to make her tongue just slip inside. The pounding in my chest was becoming unbearable; my mouth was dry and I kept on licking my lips, sucking in air in the process.

  Inside. Just a little. Push. A little more. Push … and inside fully. The moan shot from my mouth completely unreserved, my fingers digging into her head and pushing her face into me. I could feel the breath hitting my skin and dispersing like ripples in water. Her fingers were digging in the tops of my thighs, trying to ground me – stop me forcing myself upwards.

  She waited a little while before she pulled it out, leaving me wanting again.

  ‘Please … Ash … please …’ The tone was needy and unashamedly wanton, but I couldn’t stand the emptiness … the void in me the absence of her tongue had left.

  Then it was inside me again and I felt the sensation rip all along my spine and travel to my fingers, which were pulling at the tangled locks of her hair. Slow pumping actions … her head was rhythmic, but my hips were frantically trying to increase the tempo. The feeling of her eating me was divine … consuming all I had to offer … and it flooded freely from deep inside to coat and captivate her.

  Nothing else mattered. Just her and me … me and her. Connecting. Her inside me. That was the only thing, the only sensation I was aware of … and it was building and building and becoming hazy in its quest to fulfil and to deliver the promise of ecstasy.

  Have you ever had the experience of having it all, but it not being enough? Experiencing the ultimate connection, but needing more?

  That’s exactly how I was feeling. I was so close, but there was something missing, a certain something that was stopping me tipping over into the wild blue yonder. I needed more from her. I needed her … needed to touch her, take her, make her feel what I was feeling. I needed her to share this with me, become one with me, do this together.

  I knew we were doing it together, but I wanted her to know everything about me. I wanted to tattoo myself inside her, spoil her for anyone else.

  It took everything I had to pull her away from my wetness, pull her up towards my face, feeling her body glide over my sensitive flesh. But the feeling of her mouth covering my own, the taste of me on her lips and tongue … God …

  And when I slipped my hand between her legs to glide along her folds to feel how soaked she was … I knew this was what was missing. Our joining. The previous time we had made love paled in comparison to this.

  Seconds after I had found her spring of desire she discovered mine once again. And then ecstasy began.

  Stoking and caressing. Slipping along and pinching the engorged nub between fingers. Movement of bodies polishing the sweat into each other; breath on skin; lips on mouths; thighs between thighs. The rhythm was getting incensed … we were getting to the place where reality was fading, and all that mattered were the senses. The taste and touch and smell and sound and sight of each other.

  The sheet underneath me was gathering and twisting: we were gathering and twisting. Breathing was becoming more difficult, but I still had to kiss her just as badly as she needed to kiss me. I could feel as well as hear the catching in her throat … gargling and staccato gasping and I knew she was on the verge of plummeting off the same edge as I was.

  We entered each other at the same time, fingers slipped effortlessly inside to be greeted by the cries of our cumming. Walls spasming and clasping the fingers deep inside; bodies thrusting together and names juggled in the air in long breaths expelled from deep inside … from a place I never knew existed until this moment.

  Perfect. One word. Perfect. This coupling … this joining … this connection of two people who have ultimately just become one. Perfect.

  My mouth was dry, my tongue rough, my skin soaked. The rest of my body was totally drained and I barely had the strength to glide my tongue over parched lips, trying to gather some moisture from within as I did.

  Totally contented. I felt totally contented and whole for the first time in my life. It felt like I this is where I belonged … where we belonged.

  Ash paced a gentle kiss on my mouth before half lying on top of me, her fingers still inside gently pumping, eliciting mini shocks that rippled throughout my near comatose body, her free arm up and underneath my back.

  I had one arm over her shoulder and held her to me, believing that if I let go she may vanish. The fingers of my other hand slipped out and rested on her mound, gradually cooling in the night air.

  And there we lay … in each other’s arms … content … connected and finally at peace.

  Sleep came in his quiet wonder and claimed us, taking us down into the realms of his kingdom where I dreamed of a beautiful blue-eyed woman who lay in my arms … a beautiful woman who I knew loved me.

  Loved me.

  Loved … me.

  And I loved her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  IN THE MORNING, she was gone. We barely had time to talk about anything, and all I knew was she was leaving for Manchester that after
noon taking Spencer with her.

  He was wanted mainly for murder, and now they had evidence on him they were taking him back to be tried there. It didn’t stop the charges I had against him though, but that was a different case altogether and he would be tried for that one separately … and back in Norwich too.

  Ash gave the impression that things were not going to be easy for a while. There were many people who wanted Spencer sent down for a very long time, but there were also people who relied on him for their bread and butter.

  Dangerous times indeed. Nothing like a frightened criminal to keep you on your toes. And there were going to be many of them. Read was in a detention centre, so I really didn’t have any worries on that front. The other gang members from Norfolk had either fled or been picked up for some misdemeanour or another.

  However, that didn’t stop me worrying about Ash’s safety, as she was going into the thick of things.

  The kiss she had given me as I stood at the door had been so full and perfect, and I had felt myself sinking inside her. It wasn’t hard or passionate … just … just … everything. We held each other, neither of us saying anything, totally content in each other’s arms.

  As she pulled back and looked down at me her eyes twinkled again, but I saw the difficultly she had in raising a smile. It came out slightly crooked and even more beautiful than usual. I wanted to beg her not to go, to stay here with me, hide up from the rest of the world and responsibilities … so I could keep her safe and warm and loved.

  But once again I didn’t say anything, just nodded my head like I had accepted the situation and I was giving her permission to leave.

  ‘I’ll call you when I can, ok?’ She placed her fingers under my chin and raised my face to hers again. A soft kiss on my lips. ‘Ok?’

  I croaked out something that resembled a yes.

  ‘It won’t be easy for a while, but remember …’ she leaned down and brushed her lips across my ear, ‘I love you.’ Each letter scattered itself down my spine; each syllable danced on my flesh, and once again my voice failed to make any reasonable noise, but the words were clear as day as they were written all over me.

  I love you. Bolder than headlines. Stark. Naked. Exposed and willing to die for the cause.

  I grabbed each of her hands and did what I had always wanted to do. I lifted them and placed them on either side of my face, just to show her … to show her … I was hers … always hers. To show her I would be forever lost in her … my heart was forever lost.

  The look in her eyes… God. If I could put that into words, I would be the most gifted writer in the world – past or present. I doubt there were the words to convey what I could see there. I don’t think they have been created yet … doubt there are the letters to craft such words, or the syllables to give these words voice.

  But they were spoken just the same.

  A kiss … then another … then another …

  Then she was gone …

  … leaving me gasping for the want of her. She left … leaving me stunned and frozen to the spot. She left … leaving me there …

  … standing

  … with her heart in my hands.

  Two months. Two … months. Seven phones calls in two months.

  I know, I know … it was because of the case. Yes … that’s the rational thing to think. She had said it would be dangerous to keep in contact whilst the case was still going on, and said it was an ‘I’ll ring you when I can – it’s too risky for you to call me’ scenario. There were too many angry sidekicks of Spencer’s to deal with, and she wanted me to be out of the picture for a while to make sure I didn’t get anymore unwelcome visitors. As if that was going to stop Spencer form getting put away for murder anyway. But Ash had said, if they knew I was connected to her, they might try and use me to get to her, as she was the leading witness.

  Evidence they had collected in his Norwich apartment had been enough, and Ash had said they doubted they would even need to call Jo to testify to what she had heard … they wanted to keep that separate for now, you know, get him for one thing then be able to get another sentence on top of that one. If they introduced the evidence about what he had done to me then the case would become muddled … and the jury might forget things.

  It was only on the fourth call that Ash actually admitted the reason for her taking the case in the first place. She had started the case with another Detective at the Met, and was going to help him do some research before she passed over the reigns to him. Then she found out who Spencer actually was … to say she had been surprised when she had figured out the link between him, Norfolk, and me would be an understatement. Her primary concern was to keep me safe.

  And that’s why she came.

  And that’s why I was called.

  And that’s how she knew me even before I had turned around.

  All the things she had said all made sense to me now … me being the link … her pretending she didn’t know about the Child Protection Act … any copper worth their salt would have known about that, never mind a Detective Inspector.

  But at the time I was too fucked up to even notice these things. The reappearance of her into my life had completely thrown me for a loop. And then the way she treated me … she had been such a bitch, and obviously I was no angel …

  She had done that to try and detach herself from me … from the situation, as she said she would be good for nothing if she let her feelings for me cloud her judgement. And she needed to be on the ball … Spencer was no fool. Evidence of his earlier scrapes had shown her he had no feelings for anyone. Even his own mother had pressed charges against him when he was fifteen for assault. She had put up with his temper for years, but the final time he had beat her she had said enough was enough.

  So, if he would beat up his own mother, what would he be capable of to a sister he had never met? To a family he had never met? And Ash wasn’t going to take any chances with my safety, even if it meant me hating her.

  I asked her why she just couldn’t tell me who he was in the beginning and be done with it. She laughed. I got offended, and then she laughed again. Then I went silent. And she started calling me all lovey dovey names and making kissing noises down the phone. I just said ‘Tell me’ after each new endearment, until she sighed and told me that if I had known I would have acted completely differently to Read and it would’ve got back to Spencer … and then he would have known … and yadda yadda yadda … and had I ever seen a cornered rat?

  Yep. She was right. I was crap at acting, always had been.

  God, I loved this woman.

  And God … how I missed her.

  Work had been hectic at first, especially as I had loads to catch up with after my time off. I signed Sam Read off my books and had to pass him over to some other poor unsuspecting soul, who turned out to be Gemma Jackson.

  She was a little off with me at first. I’d never got back to her after the fiasco at my house between her and Ash, even though she had called a couple of times and left messages. But I used the Turner charm on her once again, without being flirty this time, and before long we were actually speaking like two women who get along rather than just want to get into each other’s underwear. Well, Gemma trying to get into mine more like it.

  Gemma told me that she thought Ash and I had some kind of history, but couldn’t get a sensible answer out of either of us. The chemistry was definitely there, in spades, and at times she said she definitely felt like a gooseberry. Like any full-bloodied female, she didn’t give up hope though, especially after I had denied there was anything going on with Ash.

  All the time she was talking, I kept on giving her ears a surreptitious look. They seemed bigger, although I knew they weren’t. It was the thought of Ash saying they were that made me believe they were. Not a good way to get on the right side of someone if all I could do was stare at her ears. It was something kids usually do. And like a child I wanted to laugh and point at them whilst chanting ‘Big ears … Big ears …’ Very mature
, especially because I have just said we were acting like two women. Two grown women at that.

  At the end of our meeting I had the distinct impression she was going to ask me out on a date again, but I pipped her at the post and told her that I was seeing someone. Her face fell a little, and I wasn’t going to tell her who it was for too many reasons. But when she uttered that single word ‘Ash?’ so softly, I just nodded and she followed suit, understanding that that was it …

  After a quick hug and a muttered ‘you know where I am’ she was gone, and I felt relieved for some strange reason.

  But when work started to slow down and I had the chance to think about what was going on, you know, I began to allow the feelings I had been suppressing to rise to the surface. I tried to convince myself that she hadn’t called for nearly two weeks because of the case … but why not? I knew the case was coming to a head … knew the jury were out, and things were extremely tense.

  I just missed her.

  I had been following the proceedings through the news … well online versions of the news, as it was classed as a more local story and hadn’t really made it to the Nationals. The Manchester Evening News Online followed the events methodically, painting a picture of a man who was caught up in greed and cruelty, him being the cruel one. I caught a snapshot of Spencer being led from court and could just make out the striking figure of Ash hovering around in the background, trying to blend in.

  Her face was facing downwards but her eyes were peeking up through the front of her hair, which had fallen forward. I knew she wasn’t looking at the camera, knew that she was checking on Spencer, but I felt like she was looking at me for some strange reason. And it fascinated me. Time and time again I would go back to the My Pictures folder and hunt her out. I had edited it so it was just her … and I would stare at the screen …