Cooking up a Storm (5 page)

He spread his hands as if to say: have it your way.

‘Do you want the job or not?’ she snapped, as much as a woman with a voice like a kitten could snap.

‘Absolutely,’ he said, though he wanted much, much more than a job.

With a suspicious frown, she led him on a tour of the inn, her crisp demeanour intended, he was sure, to keep him at a distance. She pointed out the staff locker rooms, the herb garden and the entrance to the now-closed north wing. He’d be staying in the south wing, she said, along with the waitress he’d met earlier. The rooms weren’t anything fancy, but he’d have his own bath and he could change the furnishings however he liked.

‘And nothing leaks,’ she added, as though that should be the deciding factor.

He looked around the cosy sitting room. ‘I like it,’ he said, and he did.

An adjoining door led to a bedroom and, from there, to a pleasantly spacious bath. The furniture was all ‘found’ items, big fat chairs and scratched secondhand tables. Only the upholstery was new, a cheery cream - and - navy check dotted with scarlet diamonds. Another landscape photograph hung in the sitting room, this one of herons flying over a flooded marsh. He could picture himself living here after he bought the place. He needn’t reopen the inn, after all. If he could not make a good income from the restaurant alone, he wasn’t the chef he thought he was.

‘You should air out,’ she said, striding by him to fling open the inside shutters and throw up the sash.

A rose-covered cottage sat across the way, no more than a stone’s throw distant. Two storeys high, it had a sharp peaked roof and the trademark dark-grey Cape Cod shingles. Swimming with roses, it looked like an illustration from a fairy tale. Its topmost window was lit against the coming night. A sight to welcome a man home, he thought, with an old hitch in his chest. In its own way, the cottage was as seductive as the inn.

‘Who lives there?’ he asked, coming to stand beside her.

For one telling moment she was silent. ‘I do,’ she said, and stalked from the room.

*   *   *

Storm unpacked, first his clothes, then his toys. Both bags were equally large and equally well organised. He set his personal massage oil on the small drop leaf table in front of the sitting-room window. The oil was his own recipe — a blend of sandalwood, cedar and other aromatic essences. Much lighter than most people preferred, but effective for him.

He placed his favourite Delft blue saucer on the warming tripod and poured a pool of golden oil into it, making it a private act of grace. The flick of a match lit a small bayberry candle, which he nudged beneath the dish. At once scent rose in the air, sweetness and spice. His thigh muscles heated. His shoulders relaxed.

For a moment, he contemplated pulling out his bondage straps, perhaps the leather cuffs with the Velcro fasteners. He’d noticed a bentwood chair in the bedroom. He could secure himself to it with no trouble. His balls tightened eagerly at the idea and, as a result, he discarded it.

He did not intend to spill his seed tonight, not yet, and perhaps not at all. His passion for bondage was deep and secret. Always he indulged alone, preferring not to bare his vulnerabilities to an audience. The only people who knew of his hobby were the teenage girlfriend who’d given him his first taste, and a psychiatrist he’d consulted briefly when various childhood ghosts rose up to haunt him. Both the shrink and the girlfriend had made their natural exits from his life. Only his love of rope and strap remained. He did not regret the predilection. He could not regret anything that stirred him to such an agonising pitch of desire. Given his purpose tonight, however, the bindings might prove too stimulating.

While the oil heated, Storm removed his clothes and folded them. He looked down the lean planes and curves of his body. He was harder than usual at this stage of the proceedings, angling up a bit. The old-rose colour at the root of his cock darkened towards raspberry by the time it reached the mushroom-shaped head. He was circumcised, which he regretted sometimes, though it did put everything on show. No doubt he was not as large as Abby’s former boyfriend, but no woman had ever complained about his looks and he didn’t think she would, either.

Smiling to himself, he placed a bath towel over the seat of one of the overstuffed armchairs. He adjusted the storm shutters until they covered two thirds of the window, then turned the chair to face the narrow view. Dusk had fallen as he made his preparations. A standard lamp with a pleated parchment shade lit the room behind him. Though muted, the glow would reveal him to any passerby. That was to the good. Storm hoped he’d be seen. In fact, his erection stretched a good half-inch at the prospect. He did not, however, wish to be obvious about it.

He sat and sank into the chair’s embrace, then dabbled his fingers in the warming oil. Excitement crawled over his skin as he gazed at the lone lighted window in Abby’s cottage. A shadow moved behind the glass, slim and small. She was home.

Let her see me, he prayed. Let her sense the current between us and welcome its rise. A single evening in her presence told him she was his favourite sort of woman: not a virgin, but virtually unawakened to her erotic potential. Deep down where the self hides its secrets he knew she was hungry even if, on the surface, she merely wondered what the fuss was about.

Oh, love, he thought, how happy I’ll be to show you.

He closed his eyes. He must not be caught watching her watch him. She must believe herself alone and safe in her voyeurism.

He lifted his hand from the oil and moved it over his erection. Fragrant droplets rolled down his fingers. They fell to the bobbing head, a warm, wet patter, then ran in tickly rivulets down his shaft and over his balls. He pulled his feet on to the cushion of the chair, narrow feet with long, agile toes. For an instant, he imagined them digging into her mattress as he pressed slowly inside her. Would her bed be soft like her? Would it smell of lavender and musk? Shaking off the image, he let his knees sag on to the chair’s plump arms. A cool breeze slipped between the shutters and ruffled the hair around his anus. He was completely exposed now.

He dipped his hand in the oil again and let fall another rain of drops. His blood seemed to thicken in his veins. With the smallest sigh, he cupped his scrotal sac and began to massage his balls.

Was she watching yet, he wondered behind his shuttered lids, and what would he wish her to see if she was? Something that would shock her a bit. Something that would capture her attention and refuse to let it go.

He dipped his second hand in the oil and curled it into the furrow between his cheeks. Anal play excited him almost as much as bondage, but the risk was worth it. He would like her to know this about him, for the day when she changed from tempted to temptress.

Blowing his breath out lightly, he circled the puckered ring of muscle, then pushed his left middle finger firmly inside, down to the webbing. His thumb he centred over the Jen-Mo spot, an acupressure point midway between his anus and scrotum. Thus poised to halt ejaculation the moment it threatened, he willed his hand to stillness. The two pressures, on his perineum and in his anus, were pleasurable but not unbearably so.

And now to begin, he thought. With his right hand, he grasped his oily shaft, thumb on top and two fingers enclosing the ridge. He pulled upward, easing his grip as he approached the head, tightening it as he neared the less-sensitive root. Despite the precaution, his arousal spiked quickly. He couldn’t help but think of her watching; couldn’t help imagining how her hand would feel performing this service, small but strong, gentle but curious.

The image was too powerful. He had to back off. He lightened his strokes until his touch barely skimmed the surface of his cock. Even so, his skin stung with sensitivity, especially the drum-tight surface of the head. He felt a drop that was not oil roll down the glans. He forced himself to breath deeply, slowly. When that didn’t calm him, he let go altogether.

Relax, he told himself. You’ve done this hundreds of times. You are not going to lose control tonight. He breathed in. He breathed out. He took hold of his shaft and resumed the massage. This time he allowed his stroke to rise only to the flare of the head.
C’est mieux
, he thought, better.

Just as he was congratulating himself, a bird took flight in the grassy space between the inn and the cottage. He started at the flurry of wings. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream. He almost opened his eyes. Had Abby’s appearance at the window alarmed the bird? Was she truly there? His excitement level surged so abruptly he had to administer a bracing pinch to keep himself from going over the top.

After a short rest, he began masturbating again, then stopped again. Four times, he repeated this pattern, each time rising more swiftly towards the point of no return. Thoughts of Abby disrupted his usual control: her soft pink lips tugging at his nipples, her thick, sun-bright hair sweeping his groin, the arch of her neck as she climaxed — all figments of his imagination but so vivid he realised tonight could be no demonstration of stamina. He must end it, and quickly, or he’d never be able to restrain himself.

Soon, he promised his clamouring cock. He was so hard now he had to pull the shaft back from his belly. He pumped harder, his fingers tight, almost rough. He gave his sensation-starved glans the attention it wanted, enclosing it with fingers and thumb at the top of every pull. His skin was hot and slick, his veins popping in tiny ropes of blue. Ah, it felt good. He never wanted to stop, but his balls were rucking up in preparation, his thighs burning. His anus quivered round the finger that pierced it. He should stop. This second, he should stop.

He squeezed out one more pump. His seed seemed to boil inside him. Out, it wanted out. One more stroke, he pleaded, risking it, loving it, but then his limit was reached. His orgasm was a breath away, a looming pressure, an ache. The first contraction fluttered. He dug his left thumb into the Jen-Mo point, halting his seminal fluid just as it exploded down his urethra.

A single, scalding spurt escaped the tip of his cock, then stopped as he increased the pressure of his thumb. He uttered a curse he couldn’t hear over the roaring in his ears. Then he came in earnest — hard throbs of sensation, an orgasm slowed to quarter speed and cranked to quadruple intensity. His cock twitched with each contraction but emitted no more fluid. He came, for one minute, then another. His thighs jerked closer to his chest. He gasped for breath, his body dripping sweat. He flung his head against the back of the chair. He wriggled the finger that nestled inside his anus and came again.

Dieu
, he thought, his brain reduced to one-syllable words. God. Sweet.

The contractions diminished, the sea of pleasure calming. He sighed and opened his eyes. He looked out the window towards the cottage…

And saw a slender shadow dart behind a curtain.

The memory of his pleasure haunted her. She lay in bed in her T-shirt and panties, with the covers shoved to her waist, and she remembered.

He’d been completely exposed. He’d pulled his feet on to the navy cushion and thrust his knees wide. She’d seen the dark pucker of his anus, and the finger he’d pushed inside. He’d opened his legs like a woman who wants to be filled, and yet she’d never sensed anyone’s masculinity more forcefully. She’d been quivering with awareness, dripping with it.

He’d stroked himself. He’d oiled the stiff, thick rod so that it glistened in the lamplight. He loved his own cock; she knew from the way he touched it. He’d lingered, he’d teased, starting and stopping, starting and stopping, until she’d pressed her thighs together on a sharp throb of sympathetic longing.

Her fingers had twitched. She’d wanted to touch his swollen flesh herself, but even more she’d wanted him to come; wanted to see his hard shower of seed. That tiny jet had not satisfied her. She’d wanted fountains, oceans. Instead, he showed her that long, dry, bone-shaking convulsion. The length of it distracted her from her disappointment, and awed her. She’d thought it would never end. She’d thought she might come herself just by watching.

In all her life, she’d had two lovers: a boy in college and Bill. Nonetheless, she knew this wasn’t ordinary male behaviour, neither the ritualistic auto-eroticism, nor the orgasm that wracked his body like an electric shock and refused to let go. How long had it lasted? Two minutes? Three? Had she ever seen anything like his transcendent, tormented expression?

Storm was different from other men.

Abby slid her hands down her body and cupped her panty-covered mound. She’d worked herself to three hard orgasms since she’d fled behind the curtain — three, and felt as if she’d had none; she was that hungry. This wasn’t like her. Once had always been all she’d ever wanted. Had he put something in the pasta?

‘Nonsense,’ she said aloud for the reassurance of hearing the word. She’d watched him prepare the meal. There was nothing in that dish that wasn’t perfectly ordinary.

No, his exhibition had done this to her. He’d opened his eyes at the end. Had he seen her? Had he meant for her to see? But what sort of man masturbated for an audience? A dirty old man with a raincoat, she thought. Except it wasn’t like that. She couldn’t say how it was different, only that it was.

She clenched her hands in front of her mouth. Maybe it was different because he’d known she wanted to see. But how had this stranger known what she hadn’t known herself? Frustrated, Abby flopped on to her side. This isn’t like me, she thought. This isn’t me. She turned off the lamp with the fat red roses on the shade. She was exhausted. She needed sleep. But Storm followed her into her dreams.

They were waltzing on the beach under a crescent moon. She didn’t actually know how to waltz but she swooped like a feather on the hard, damp sand. As they turned, her gown fluttered, filmy and white with a touch of innocence — like Clara’s nightdress in the
Nut-cracker
ballet. Like a true prince he danced her through the foamy edge of the waves. He smiled at her and didn’t drop his eyes. She wished she could see them better. The dream was misty.

‘I can’t feel you,’ she complained.

He pulled her closer, his palm pressing the small of her back. He was naked. ‘Is that better?’ he asked.

She squirmed, wanting to brand herself with the whole, hard imprint of him. His hip brushed her hip, his chest her breast. But the sensations wouldn’t coalesce.

‘It’s not enough,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry.’ He brushed a wisp of hair from her face. ‘Tonight I will lay the secret in your hands.’

She started awake and bit back an unladylike curse. Her body throbbed as though he’d teased her to the edge of satisfaction and left her hanging. The dream seemed so close, so vivid, she could almost hear the echo of his final words.

She shivered and hugged herself, then stiffened at a sudden sense of wrongness. The room was dark. The moon lit the other side of the house. The nearest illumination was the security lamps at the front of the inn. She listened, but heard nothing except her own quickened breathing and the waltz-like sweep of the curtains on the floorboards. The curtains were satin printed in large pink and yellow roses. Their hems pooled on the floor the way the Victorians used to favour, to prove they could afford more than just what they needed.

What had Storm said? ‘A little too much is just right.’ But how much was too much, and did he mean sex as well as food? Her pussy swelled, heavy and warm.

Something was different. The window was open. She’d left it open, but had she left it open so far? Had the breeze picked up since she went to bed? Was that why the curtains billowed out that way?

The sound made her think of sheets rustling, of making love to a stranger, slowly in the dark, without a word, just push and pull, push and pull, and throaty cries above the rustling of the sheets. She put both hands to one breast and pushed it back against her ribs. Her nipple was so hard.

A shadow detached itself from the shadow by the window.

‘Pleasant dream?’ it asked.

Abby’s shriek was pathetic, a squeaky inhalation no louder than a mouse.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, once she’d found her voice. She should have been outraged, or terrified. She was a little frightened, but it was a butterfly-in-the-stomach sort of fear. She knew the intruder’s identity, of course. The way he moved gave him away: silent, confident, like an Indian rajah. He even smelt of India: sandalwood and other, more exotic spices, perhaps from the oil he’d used to rub his cock. In her mind she saw his hand again, squeezing up that thick column of flesh. She bit her lower lip.

‘I thought you might want company,’ he said.

I don’t, she tried to say, but he was there, looming over the bed, and the words wouldn’t come. Her body was melting, not just her quim, but her breasts, her bones, her tongue. She wanted company all right — his.

He pulled the light blanket down her body, then the sheet, like someone unveiling a work of art. Abby shivered. He laid his palm over her belly, pressing lightly through her T-shirt. Like magic, her shivering ceased. She was hot. His hand was hot. Was it normal to have hands that hot?

‘May I remove this?’ he asked, touching the hem of the cotton shirt.

She knew that if she said ‘yes’ to this, she’d say ‘yes’ to anything that might follow. But how could she refuse? She might never get another chance to sleep with a man like this, a man she’d wanted the instant she met him. Unable to speak, she nodded.

Even in the dark, he saw.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as though this didn’t happen every day, as though he were someone who had to ask. He removed her T-shirt and panties, then folded both and laid them over the foot of the bed. Abby smiled. He was a neat-freak, she thought, liking him better for that small eccentricity.

‘Tonight is for you,’ he said, his accent even more wonderful in the shadowed hush, ‘for your pleasure.’

‘And not for yours?’ she was bold enough to ask.

He growled. Really, she couldn’t call it anything but a growl, soft though the sound was. The effect was delicious, like a finger trailing down her spine. Almost before she knew what he was doing he’d climbed on to the high tester bed. He crouched over her on hands and knees.

‘I will definitely take pleasure in this,’ he said. ‘But tonight I wish to explore, not to experience, to discover what pleases you and what doesn’t. For that I need all my concentration.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and wished she knew how to play his lush, verbal games, how to make him quiver with longing at the sound of her voice. It was probably too much to hope that he would stick around long enough to teach her.

Feeling wistful, as if this were already goodbye, she lifted her arms and lightly clasped his waist. His skin was warm and smooth, his flesh solid. He bent his head and kissed her, a slow, deep insinuation of tongue to tongue. After four years with Bill, kissing a man without a beard felt strange. Storm’s lips were soft, his jaw shaved very close. He tasted faintly of anise, perfect for a woman with a sweet tooth. She moaned when he withdrew.

‘No promises,’ he murmured, the words tickling her lips. ‘No obligations. Only pleasure.’

It sounded so appealing when he said it. ‘No obligations. Only pleasure.’ Hadn’t she had enough of obligations, what with Bill and the restaurant and her sisters’ children who were, face it, the teeniest bit bratty?

‘Only pleasure,’ she agreed, and felt him smile against her cheek.

*   *   *

Storm ran his hands down her body, one long sweep from shoulders to feet. She had the most incredible skin, smooth as silk, but not as fragile. More like velvet. The flesh beneath was soft and firm. He circled the gentle mounds of her breasts, then her belly. She tensed. A vulnerable spot, he thought, and bent to kiss it, gently, softly, until she relaxed.

Her legs were longer than he expected, and stronger. He lifted one foot and found a callus behind the heel. Perhaps she ran. That would explain the well-developed muscle of her thigh, the apple-firm round of her calf.

Her feet were small. The length of his hand covered her sole. He sucked a curled toe into his mouth and laved it with his tongue. She squirmed. Her musk rose in the air. She was silent, though, as if shyness held her cries inside. No matter, he thought. The other signs of her pleasure would read all the more clearly.

He kissed a path up her legs and parted her petals with his thumbs. Her sex glistened in the dimness, running like an open honeycomb. He inhaled deeply. Her scent swirled through his head, rich, sweet, and tinged with an exotic spice that was purely her own. That scent called to him, as if some celestial perfumer had designed her with him in mind. He was so hard his skin felt ready to burst. His testicles hung like stones in their drawn-up pouch. The temptation to eat her juicy peach until she begged for mercy was strong.

That, however, was a pleasure for another night.

He continued his upward progress, lips preceding fingers up arms, across shoulders. He found another sweet spot under her chin, a tender little pillow of flesh. He nuzzled it until her arms came round his back. Then he laid a trail of kisses to her breasts. The lightest touch of his tongue on her nipple broke her silence. Ah, her breasts were sensitive. One cry followed another as he suckled and plucked and nipped the sharpened tips. Her legs scissored on the mattress. Her hips thrust upward, seeking penetration. He had to lift his body to remove his half-crazed cock from temptation’s path.

She whimpered at his retreat but he filled her with his fingers — just two fingers, for she was tight. Her warm, thick folds clung to his knuckles as he worked her, his thumb firm on her button, his mouth busy at her breasts.

‘Please.’ Her head thrashed from side to side on the pillow. She seemed unable to get where she wished to go. ‘Please.’

He took her hand and placed it over his. She did not move. She seemed afraid to guide him. ‘Show me,’ he said, and kissed her full on the mouth.

Her tongue reached for his. She sighed, and then shyly she moved his thumb. She swept it from one side of her clit to the other, rubbing the slippery hood across the shaft. When he’d caught the motion she wanted, she pressed the back of his hand as if to say: a little harder.

Good girl, he wanted to say, but feared she’d take offence.

He brought her off three times, each hard and quick.

‘Enough,’ she gasped, though her body still squirmed around his fingers.

He let her rest for a moment, then sat back on his heels. ‘I want to show you something.’

‘I don’t think I can stand any more,’ she pleaded even as her sheath rippled and clung.

‘One more special one,’ he insisted, and curled a third finger into her body. After three orgasms, the swelling behind her pubic bone was unmistakable, a delectable, fluid-filled cushion. He pressed upward, slowly increasing the pressure until at the last he was lifting her weight off the bed.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘What is that? That is so…oh, my God!’

He chuckled, delighted to be the first to introduce her to this pleasure.

‘Abigail Coates,’ he said, ‘meet your G-spot.’

He covered her mound with his second hand and captured her clit between finger and thumb. She groaned. Lightly, he pinched the hood over the shaft and sleeked it up and down — not her motion, but one he thought she might like.

She did. Her hips struggled towards his hand. Her breaths came in aspirated moans.

‘Please,’ she said, completely beyond shyness. ‘Make me come. Oh, God, I can’t stand it!’ Before the wail faded, her body bent up like a bow. Her sheath clenched tight. He pressed harder, within and without.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘oh…’ and spurted all over his hand.

It was over in five deep shudders. She sagged back against the bed. He petted her gently down before removing his sopping fingers. He was glad she hadn’t realised she’d ejaculated. Some women got nervous about that, thought they’d lost control of their bladder. He could explain the difference to Abby some other night.

‘That was incredible,’ she said. ‘I’ve never felt anything so intense. How did you know I could do that?’

He bent to kiss the tip of her nose. ‘I make it my business to know.’

‘Your business,’ she said, a funny note in her voice.

‘My avocation,’ he clarified.

She seemed to like that answer better because she twined her arms behind his neck and pulled his head deeper into the kiss. Mm, she had a nice mouth, firm but pliant. He hovered over her, enjoying it, the tip of his cock throbbing painfully in time to his heart. He wanted to spill, needed to, but it would wait; just a little longer, it would wait.

*   *   *

Abby loved his tender exploration of his mouth, that one luscious point of intermingling. She wanted more, though. Every inch of her skin was hungry for contact. She wanted all of him to touch her. Most especially, she wanted to feel his cock. She wanted to feel what she’d done to him. She needed to know he was as hard now as he’d been when he was sprawled in that chair, rubbing himself the way he liked best.