Cooking up a Storm (11 page)

When it was over he turned her around and tucked them both back under the covers. Her pussy felt wonderfully pummelled and, though her limbs were limp with fatigue, his hard shoulder was just the pillow she wanted. His hand tangled in her hair as he shifted to find a comfortable position.

‘I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow,’ he said in the thick, sleepy voice of a well-sated man.

‘Not too early,’ she said, sure she’d sleep forever.

‘Not too early,’ he agreed, and kissed the top of her head.

Abby was gone when he woke and her absence inspired such a wave of melancholy he grew alarmed.

He threw off the covers and sat up in bed, breathing hard. You’re away from home, he told himself — and never mind he’d come here because LA didn’t feel homey enough. He didn’t know anyone here but Abby and he’d developed a small attachment. It was perfectly natural. Perfectly.

He almost tripped on the long black sock that had fallen to the floor during the night. He picked it up, rubbed it across his chest and down his belly. His cock stirred. He thought she’d found him out when she’d tied him to the bed. He still wasn’t sure she hadn’t. Part of him was horrified, but part of him wanted to throw himself on her mercy. ‘More,’ he’d said to her, and more was what he wanted now.
S’il te plaît, j’en veux encore
— until she’d bound him too tightly to move, until nothing could move but his taut, tormented cock.

She’d left a note taped to the bathroom mirror with a Band-Aid.

‘Must go running,’ it said. ‘Thank you for last night. Will be back for breakfast if the offer’s still good.’

Storm touched the swoopy letters and smiled in spite of himself. She wrote like a girl. He was surprised she didn’t dot her ‘i’s with little hearts. He contemplated the note as he emptied his bladder and washed his hands. She wasn’t sure of him; that was clear. True, he wasn’t the settling-down kind, but he’d never intentionally broken a promise — not to Abby or any other woman.

He splashed water on his face and eyed his razor. He’d shaved immediately prior to last night’s lovemaking session but a touch-up might be advisable. Perhaps Abby could be coaxed back to bed after breakfast. He pulled out his shaving brush and soap. He wouldn’t want to leave whisker burns on those pretty little breasts — which put him in mind of another puzzle.

Why, he wondered as he whisked up a cedar-scented lather, was she still shy of him? Why did she treat her stream of would-be beaus like a joke Marissa had invented? And why would a woman who looked like Abby want to undress in the bathroom and emerge still wearing her underwear — and very plain underwear at that?

How could she not know how attractive she was? Had losing her mother so young impaired her self-confidence?

‘Why are you obsessing about this?’ he asked his soapy reflection. He knew very well that having a mother wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Sometimes a person was better off without. From what he could tell, Abby had grown up in a loving family, most of whom were still alive. He couldn’t think of one good reason why she shouldn’t be at least as confident of her allure as he was. He dragged his razor down his left cheek, exposing a swath of smooth, tanned skin. Maybe he didn’t understand women as well as he’d always believed.

Which was, he thought, a truly frightening concept.

Without warning, his mind returned to the moment he entered her for the very first time. He could see her above him, her breasts pressed close, her velvety thighs hugging his hips. Her clear green eyes had seemed huge, and as vulnerable as a child’s. But they hadn’t wavered. She’d opened for him without a qualm. She’d allowed his raging cock inside, inch by steaming inch.

The penetration had felt — he froze as the razor nicked his chin — it had felt like nothing that had gone before: no woman, no lover. But it had also felt very natural. Her warm, honeyed folds closing round his sex were infinitely soothing, and desperately exciting. So much so that it had been very difficult not to come at once. Even now his cock engorged at the memory. He touched the hardening shaft and left a smear of bloody shaving foam on the flushed, mobile skin.

Perhaps he would have to delay his buy-out longer than he expected. He had not got enough of her yet — not even close.

*   *   *

The sun rose over the Atlantic as Abby ran south along the National Seashore. Her goal was the Marconi Wireless Station where Teddy Roosevelt sent the first US transatlantic message to King Edward of England, a world-changing event that was almost forgotten today. The landscape around the site was typical Cape moor-land, scrub pines and dune grass. The beach plums were in blossom, their tufted white flowers bursting — as if in surprise — from spindly black branches.

She slowed to a walk when she reached the meandering wooden paths that led to the historical site, now just a marker under an open-sided gazebo. To her relief, no one was around. Though her body was calm, and virtuously tired from her run, her mind spun with memories of the night before. She parked her bottom on a grassy hummock and gazed out at the ocean. The breeze was blowing whitecaps off the waves and solitary clouds scudded across a rich blue sky. Slowly, her thoughts began to settle.

There’s nothing wrong with you, she told herself. Storm is not turning you into a sex maniac. You’re simply discovering a part of yourself you didn’t know before — and about time.

A familiar shadow fell slantwise across her feet.

‘Hello, Jack,’ she said, without turning her head.

Jack sat beside her and, as always, they fumbled for each other’s hands. He pulled their twined fingers on to his knee and she leant into his side. He was warm and solid. How long had they been sharing these companionable silences? She thought back. Since she returned to help her father, she supposed. She’d needed someone sane to hang on to and neither Francine nor Sandra had fitted the bill.

Jack was her very favourite of her father’s friends.

‘Remember my sixteenth birthday?’ she said, because he never minded a conversation that came out of nowhere.

‘Yeah. You were as pretty as a new fawn.’

Abby squeezed his fingers. ‘You bought me those little pearl earrings. Everyone else gave me something childish, or sensible, but you understood I wanted to pretend I was a woman.’

‘Still are,’ he said with a sideways glance. ‘Last time I checked.’

Oh, she loved that sly dog grin of his. No wonder she’d had such a crush on him back then. He’d been recently widowed and was — or so it seemed to a Brontë-obsessed teen — terribly romantic. He’d loved his wife, she knew. They’d been horribly sweet on each other, even after ten years of marriage. They’d always hold hands when they walked. Sometimes, when they came to visit with the Coates, they’d look at each other in a certain way and Abby would think: I want that when I’m married. I want the secrets my husband and I share to shut out the rest of the world.

She remembered one day in particular, a month or so after the funeral, when she’d walked to Jack’s house with a casserole — probably inedible — she’d made with her own two hands. He’d burst into tears when she gave it to him. That had been a strange moment, seeing an adult break down that way. She’d pulled him into her arms and he’d held her like he’d never let go. They didn’t speak of it afterwards but they became a different sort of friends that day, not so much a girl and a grownup, but more like equals.

‘I had such an awful crush on you,’ she said, without quite knowing why.

Jack’s thumb stopped stroking her hand. A seagull’s cry rose above the sound of the waves. ‘And now?’ he said.

She looked at him, blinking in confusion. ‘Now?’

He turned and stroked her cheek with his other hand. To Abby’s embarrassment a wave of sexual heat washed over her body. She knew her face must be turning red.

‘Now,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question any more. He leant closer, slowly, his head tilting. Abby couldn’t breathe. Her chin came up. Her lips parted — to say something, she thought — but, when his mouth brushed hers, she knew they’d parted for his kiss.

His lips whispered from side to side, teasing, tantalising. Dizzy with a sudden upwelling of desire, she gripped his arms for balance. He pressed closer. His tongue flickered into her mouth, a question, an invitation. His kiss was gentle but he was breathing hard, almost panting against her cheek. This meant a great deal to him. She could hardly believe it, but the way he was holding her, the way he was breathing, told her so. His body heat bled through the cotton of his shirt; his muscles were rigid with tension.

Tentatively, she touched his tongue with her own, lightly, and then again. He groaned, a sound of pure, masculine lust she’d never expected to hear from him. Her initiative broke his restraint. He sucked her tongue hard, drawing it into his mouth and then pushing his deeper. His arms slipped around her back and tightened. His weight pressed her into the dune.

She didn’t think. Her legs parted and wrapped themselves around his waist. She pulled his wrinkled cotton shirt from his jeans and thrust her hands up under the cloth. He jerked when she touched his skin. His back was smooth and warm. She felt the scar where she’d accidentally caught him with a fishing hook when she was twelve. Oh, how she’d cried when she saw the blood. Even then, she’d loved him. She traced the puckered tissue down, down past the fuzz at the base of his spine and on to his hard, narrow buttocks.

‘Abby.’ He surged into the lee of her thighs, his erection insistent beneath the denim. ‘Tell me if you want this to stop.’

Almost before he’d finished speaking, he shoved her sports bra over one breast and latched on to her nipple. She couldn’t have told him to stop then to save her life. She wanted. She wanted. She was one big, empty want and she needed something hard and hot to fill it.

He read the anxious movements of her hips. He fumbled between them, tore open his zip, and yanked down her running shorts. The tip of his cock touched her mons, burning silk to burning silk. The glans pushed between her lips. It nuzzled her gate. He waited one last instant. She did not refuse him. Their eyes held as he entered her, one steady, for - God’s - sake - don’t - try - to - stop - me push. Then he stilled, buried deep inside her. Her hands fanned out across the small of his back, restless, enthralled.

‘This is so strange,’ she said.

He smiled and dropped his head for a deep, wet kiss. After a minute, he broke free. ‘Strange bad or strange good?’

Abby was breathing hard. ‘I’m not sure.’ She wriggled against the hips that held her nearly motionless. ‘But please don’t stop.’

He began to stroke and it was different from either Bill or Storm. There was a discipline to it, but there was no holding back of passion. He gave and took in equal measure. The simplicity of his technique was deceptive. He knew just where to hit her. He had a way of varying his rhythm and angle that had her nails pricking his back and a groan burning her throat. He put his hand between them at the end but she scarcely needed it. She came twice, once before him and once after. From kiss to climax, the whole thing hadn’t lasted more than five or six minutes.

Now I know I’m a sex maniac, she thought, as he carefully withdrew.

She rolled on to her elbow and touched his cock before he could tuck it away. He covered her hand, wrapping her fingers around his soft, spent penis. She stroked him gently, marvelling at the fact that this was Jack’s penis, her teenage crush. It was long and pink now, the shape of it unique, him.

‘I may not be a young man,’ he said, his hand brushing hair back from her face, ‘but if you keep that up, you’d better be prepared for another quickie. A man can store up a lot of unrequited lust in fifteen years.’

Abby looked up at him in surprise but his gaze had returned to her cosseting hand. Fifteen years. He’d wanted her all that time and never said a word?

‘Why today?’ she said.

‘Guess I’ve been feeling lucky lately.’

‘Lucky?’

‘Yeah.’ He scratched his chin and grinned, and she knew he wasn’t going to share his other exploits. ‘Besides, I wanted you to know you’ve got options.’

What did that mean? Her hand stilled. She barely noticed that he was thickening up again. Did he mean she shouldn’t confine herself to Storm? That she couldn’t trust Storm? ‘Do you know something about my chef that I don’t?’

He rubbed her forearm, coaxing her to continue stroking him. ‘All I know is that he’s a man with a hole to fill. And it’s not the kind of hole anyone can fill but him.’

‘So what are you saying?’ she asked, but she knew. He was saying she shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking she could change his ways. Storm had seduced women like her before and he’d certainly do it again. She looked down at Jack’s cock. The head was beginning to redden and lift. For the first time, she noticed his pubic hair was the same silvery grey as his head. It was thick, too.

‘You’re saying I should play the field,’ she said.

He tucked her breast back into her bra, then brushed its budded nipple with the back of his fingers. ‘I’m saying you should remember there is a field to play. They’re all lined up and waiting, Abby. All you have to do is choose which ones you want.’

‘I don’t think I can.’ But she had. She had this morning.

‘That’s a choice, too,’ he said.

She was silent. She stroked him musingly, watching him rise bit by bit from his gaping, faded jeans. His cock was strong, not an old man’s cock at all. It wasn’t huge but the pointed head and the funny sideways veer had a certain quirky elegance.

‘I want to suck it,’ she said.

His laugh was a startled snort.

‘Far be it from me to deny you,’ he said. ‘But for that I think we’d better move to my pick-up.’

Abby had had enough al fresco encounters for one day and so she put up no protest. Jack sat in the passenger seat with his legs splayed open, and she crouched in the space beneath the dash. She made him push his jeans down to his ankles so she could lick him all over: his cock, his balls, the sweaty crease at the top of his thighs, even the firm pad of tissue behind his scrotum. He buried his hands in her hair.

‘God almighty,’ he said as she tried to see how much of him she could swallow. ‘I must have done something fine in another life.’

She laughed at that, even though she knew she wasn’t really good at this. She’d never much wanted to practise on Bill. Poor old Bill. For his sake, she should have cut him loose long ago. Given her inexperience, she wasn’t surprised that Jack pulled her off him before he came.

‘Your mouth is as sweet as spring flowers,’ he said as he pulled her on to his lap. ‘But it’s your pussy that’s been giving me wet dreams for the last fifteen years, and I’ve just got to have another poke.’