In Too Deep (32 page)
Oh yes! Oh yes, yes, yes!
Claudia felt a crazy urge to wolf-whistle, but kept the sound as a silent tribute inside her mind. Whoever this mysterious stranger was, his body was familiar to her senses. He had exactly the kind of physique she had always preferred in a man. Spare and lean, but strong looking, with fine, straight limbs and a chest that was deep and nicely defined but free of hair. His swinging penis was substantial and distinctly perky. Claudia would have liked a better look at that particular part of him, but he chose that moment to jump back down into the water.
Under cover of the aquatic commotion, Claudia crept a little nearer and sank into a more comfortable semicrouch. In spite of her concern about the young man’s injuries, her overwhelming feeling as she watched him was excitement – a delicious, clandestine devilment that sped through her system like a fortifying wine. He was so gorgeous, so appealing, so unaware of her. She felt as if she was stealing pleasure from his winsome, youthful body.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, woman, she chided, grinning hugely and feeling even more recovered than she had done earlier. She was a widow, and getting a little too close to middle age for her own liking, but the sight of this man, so innocently vulnerable yet so tempting, filled the female core of her with a sudden jolt of yearning.
Who are you, mystery man? she thought, feeling her own body come alive beneath her cotton dress and minimal summer undies. And what are you doing here in my little bit of river?
After a few moments, what he was doing became quite evident. As Claudia watched from her hiding place, her heart hammering madly and her fingertips tingling with the denial of not touching him, the young man began a makeshift but strangely rigorous toilette.
First, he ducked his head, then rose again, rubbing at his tousled hair and making the motions of shampooing it. He washed his face carefully too, running his fingertips over his jaw as if he were monitoring the length of his stubble. His regretful shrug indicated that he generally preferred to be clean-shaven, but as there was clearly nothing he could do about it, he began to dash water over his arms and back and shoulders, again and again and again; so much so that Claudia wanted to race back to the house and return with towels and shampoo and shower gel, and all the fragrant, expensive grooming products that a man so fastidious would clearly relish. He even scrubbed frantically at his teeth and his gums with the pad of his forefinger.
When he had attended to his upper body to his satisfaction, the young man moved towards the bank into the shallower water, in order to wash himself just as thoroughly below the waist.
Claudia held her breath again. Believing himself alone, her cleanly young god was completely uninhibited, and after working his way up over his legs and thighs, he began massaging water freely over his buttocks and genitals. Claudia watched wide eyed as he meticulously scrutinised and dowsed himself; then shared his wry but unexpectedly sunny smile when the inevitable physical reaction to this occurred.
It took her all her time not to sigh, then gasp, as the stranger’s wet penis swelled into a long, stiff erection between his fingers. As he handled himself, his lean young face became more tranquil, losing the expression of fear and worried sadness that had seemed to haunt it. In the midst of her own arousal – a rush of wet heat between her legs that was so sudden and so copious it shocked her – Claudia realised that caressing himself was as much a comfort to the young man as it was an act of sex. He seemed reassured by his body’s own responses.
But that took nothing away from the eroticism of his performance.
As the stranger’s eyes closed and his head tipped back, Claudia felt as if a gate she had been pushing against had finally swung wide open. The feelings that had been coming back gradually were suddenly all-consuming. Watching the flashing fingers of the young man in the river, she gave herself permission to reach down and clutch her groin.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to lie back, throw her legs apart and make herself come until she couldn’t see straight. But most of all she wanted to thank her mystic stranger.
That bud of happiness was now an open flower.
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2008 by Virgin’s
Black Lace
This edition published by Virgin Books 2012, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.
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Copyright © Portia Da Costa 2008
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