The Gift

by Portia Da Costa

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked up at her, and with one last squeeze of her toes he abandoned her foot and ran his long fingers deliberately up her calf, to her knee. He cupped his hand around the back of it, the very tips of his fingers on the underside of her thigh, then he gripped harder, shifting her leg a little to the side on the bench, making space. Edging forward a little, he grew closer, ever closer to the heart of the matter.

  Seemingly satisfied with his position, he slid his hands down flat, one on each of her thighs, and began to edge the silk hem of her dress up her freshly waxed legs. The dress was dark green, slightly iridescent with flashes of emerald, and it seemed to fluoresce in the twilight as if reacting to a magnetic field, or just the presence of Jay.

  Looking directly into her eyes, he slid the edge of the silk up to her crotch, right up to the level of her panties. His expression was more complex than ever. Hot and hungry, but with drifting shadows in the dark-grey depths of his eyes. He seemed to want her, but not like a normal man. There was a strange reverence in his face, as if he too couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  Then, with a gasp, he pushed her silk skirt further, in a bunch, exposing her knickers.

  Sandy felt weak, yet somehow also strong. Suddenly it was as if she were some kind of erotic goddess, exhibiting herself for his pleasure, and she sagged against the hard back of the seat, her body loose and boneless. Wanton.

  Let whatever might happen now happen. She no longer cared about propriety or what was sensible. She no longer cared that she barely knew this unusual scarred man. All that mattered was the way he looked at her, and the way that made her feel.

  And she could smell herself now. A gust of warm, musky arousal seemed to float up from her crotch, from the saturated gusset of her fine panties. They were thin and lacy, not her usual style at all, and tiny curlicues of red pubic hair escaped the confines of the elastic at the edges. She supposed she should have trimmed or waxed there too, but there just hadn’t been time. Life running a small café on the edge of viability was always busy, and she was a practical girl, not a finicky fashion victim.

  Two long, square yet tapered fingertips settled against the lace, flexing, pressing ever so lightly. The touch barely registered, yet at the same time it was the most profound sexual contact she’d ever experienced.

  He’d been watching, watching what he was doing, and suddenly he looked up again, a raw question in his eyes.

  Do you want this? he seemed to say. Only say stop, and I will.

  Not needing to think once, let alone twice, she nodded.

  His grey eyes widened. His entire face almost seemed to glow. Suddenly he looked divinely beautiful to her, beard and scars and all, and whatever was going to happen was right. Was good.

  His flexible fingers hooked into the waistband of her knickers, and he raised his other hand to the job, tweaking the silk and lace down with both hands. Deftly, he teased the garment down over her thighs, and instinctively she lifted her bottom to help him take them off her.

  As he tossed aside her pants, he let out a hiss of air, as if he’d been poleaxed, sideswiped simply by the sight of her fragrant ruddy-haired pussy. Before she could analyse his reaction, and this unexpected expression of awe, he dipped forward and pressed a kiss to her pubic floss.

  It seemed perfectly natural to cradle his skull in her hands, and she gasped with delight at the sensation of touching his scalp. It was like suede, heated suede, as if he was running a temperature.

  He kissed the surface of her pubic hair, nothing more, lightly nuzzling her and uttering rough male purrs of wonder and delight. She opened her legs wider to him, loving the strong shape of his head beneath her fingertips, and as he pressed deeper she felt him murmur something against her, a word, low and fervent.

  What had he said? She could barely tell … but it sounded like ‘Princess’.

  Chapter 3

  Paradise. He was in paradise. Within the capsule of this moment, she was everything he’d dreamed she’d be. And more.

  Inhaling her scent, tasting the essence of sex on the soft hair of her pussy, Jay felt giddy. His knees were screaming from kneeling on the cold ground, but the pain felt as if it were in another universe. The only thing that touched him was her fragrance, her heat, her total femininity, all available to him.

  He pressed his lips more closely against her, nuzzling, and drawing in more of her intoxicating bouquet.

  How had it come to this, so soon? He could barely credit it. They hadn’t even kissed on the mouth yet. But he couldn’t argue. He couldn’t stop. He could only feel.

  And hear. She was gasping, and breathing heavily, as excited by the moment as he was. She moved uneasily, but she wasn’t struggling to get away from him any more, she was rising to him, opening her thighs, welcoming him to the heart of her mystery.

  Maybe I died in the Aston and this is heaven?

  Still kissing her pubis, he flattened his hands on her bare belly and began to part her soft red hair with his thumbs. It was thick and lush and flossy, but with care he exposed her, baring the gleaming rosy geography of her sex – the plump lips, the gloss of her juice, silky and abundant, and her clit, proud and exposed, peeping from its hood.

  Fighting for control, shaking with emotion, he extended his tongue in a furled point and delicately licked her.

  ‘Oh. Oh God.’

  Her voice was reedy and shocked, and he lifted his head in alarm.

  Shit, fuck, damn. What was wrong with him? He’d only really spoken to her for the first time less than half an hour ago and now he had his face between her legs. He started to back away, but her small hands closed around his scalp, her fingers shockingly strong.

  ‘No … please … don’t stop.’

  Her eyes were brilliant when he looked up into them, vivid green, yet dark, slightly spaced.

  Your wish is my command, Princess, he told her silently, and began to lick gently, savouring her sumptuous foxy flavour. The taste of her told him she wanted him, even if she didn’t know him.

  This was easy. This was wonderful. There was no stress, no angst about this. He went to work, giving, giving, giving, revelling in pleasuring her. The cries she uttered thrilled him. Little gasps, mutters, grunts. Exciting, but somehow unexpected. Not the pliant helpless sounds of surrender that had coloured his ‘rescuing’ dreams and fantasies. No, these were the noises made by a grown woman who knew what she wanted and was pleased to be getting it.

  Almost angrily, he increased the pace of his tongue, went in harder. At the same time, he slid his hands under her spread thighs, lifting her, opening her further, making a ripe fruit of her for his delectation, and to feast on. Gripping the globes of her bottom, he slid his fingertips into the hot groove there, playing wickedly, touching and taunting, opening her in other ways.

  Her heels kicked against him but he didn’t feel it. He could only taste, inhale and relish her. When she growled something indistinct and gouged her nails into his shoulders through the cloth of his shirt, he thought his heart would burst with pride and possession, sweet emotions both. As her pussy pulsed against his face, his cock throbbed too.

  He could do it now, he thought as she subsided, still holding onto his shirt. Right now, he could rip open his trousers, free himself and plunge into her. With her, at this supreme instant, all would be well.

  But it was too soon, too much of a shock for her. He couldn’t just fuck her like that, because he wanted to and because she was probably the only woman right now who it would be so simple and easy with. He needed to romance her, woo her, gift her with all the niceties and foreplay she deserved. You didn’t fantasise about a woman for fifteen years and then shag her senseless without so much as a by-your-leave.

  After dropping a last kiss on her perfect pussy, he drew away. He knew it was better to wait. He was beginning to feel the cold to the marrow in his thin shirt, and Sandy’s dress was very sheer; now was not the time to seize the moment. But there was still a nag of re
gret, of unease. He’d just passed up a chance to prove to himself once and for all that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with his potency, and that his previous problems had simply been part of the healing process. To prove to himself that he was still, and had always been, a man.

  I’m such a screw-up, Princess. If I told you only a fraction of what’s going on with me, you’d tell me to fuck off and never touch you ever again.

  But, rising to his feet, and grimly suppressing the pain in his still recovering bones, he knew he couldn’t tell her anything just yet. He wanted a little window of time to get to know her. To uncover the truth of her.

  Was she the woman of his dreams, or another woman entirely? And if she was that other unknown undiscovered woman, what pleasures and sexual explorations might they still share?

  Sandy struggled to sit up. To wake up. It was like she’d been in a dream for the last fifteen minutes or so, but now she was back in the real world with a vengeance. Sitting on a bench in the freezing cold with her pussy hanging out in front of what amounted to a total stranger.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  To give him his due, Jay looked as if he’d been in some kind of dreamland too. His dark eyes were slightly hazed, as if he’d been taking something. God, what if he was a junkie as well as some kind of sex maniac? But she didn’t think so, he looked too hard, too fierce, too self-disciplined to succumb to pharmaceutical entertainment.

  ‘Where are my knickers? I’m feeling a draught here. Can you see them?’ Swathed in Jay’s jacket, and turned on by his seduction, she hadn’t really noticed how cold it was, but now she was beginning to feel the sharp pinpricks of the winter air.

  Hardly the most romantic thing to say after a guy had given you pleasure and apparently taken none for himself, but the weird expression on his face was spooking her. Seriously so. Flipping down her skirt, she patted it into place repeatedly, as if it might fly up of its own accord if she didn’t hold it down, or be lifted by some kind of mind control on Jay’s part.

  As she watched him, he blinked, and seemed to come back to earth alongside her. His scarred brow crimped into a slight frown, and the sudden hard set of his mouth seemed to suggest that her less than grateful utterance had annoyed him, perhaps as much as she was annoyed with herself for blurting it out.

  Swooping down, he caught up her knickers from where he’d cast them on the turf but, instead of handing them to her, he bunched them in his hand, then lifted them to his face and inhaled, very pointedly. His dark brows lifted and, what with the scars and the piratical beard, he looked like the very devil himself. Sandy blushed, knowing how strongly her little panties would be scented. And not just with Miss Dior either.

  ‘I thought I might keep them.’ He took another deep sniff. ‘A souvenir. Or perhaps a reward, for services rendered.’

  Confusion engulfed her. Embarrassment made it difficult to think. Suddenly getting back to normal social cocktail-party interaction seemed infinitely desirable. Risky sex games with a peculiar stranger just weren’t her usual scene and, right now, they scared her. She grabbed wildly for her knickers and he let her take them, eyeing her with another frown as she struggled to wiggle them back on. At first she resisted the arm he put out to support her as she stepped from one foot to the other. But when she allowed herself to succumb, his hard-hewn muscle felt like a hunk of solid granite.

  ‘I have to go. I need to get back. I came with someone.’

  As she reluctantly freed his magnificent bicep, the antipathy in his eyes was unmistakeable.

  ‘And no, it isn’t a man. It’s Kat, my cook. You know, she served you in the café … I came here with her and she’ll be wondering where I am.’

  Why do I need to explain myself to him? He’s just a man I temporarily lost my mind with. With luck I won’t see him again after tonight.

  ‘Good. I’m glad it’s not a man.’

  What was it to him? Did one orgasm make him think he owned her? Anger and other mad emotions set adrenaline pumping in her blood. She had to get away, think, calm down. Being around him, even though things were getting prickly, was messing with her senses and her judgement. Her mind might be processing antagonism, but her body was still responding to his brutal beauty like a filly in season flaunting her availability to a stallion.

  She shucked off his jacket and thrust it at him; grabbed her bag, turned on her heel, and started to walk. Or tried to. Her upper arm was suddenly in a vice. A gentle vice, but one that wouldn’t yield.

  ‘Let me go!’

  The vice opened. She was free.

  So why didn’t she dart away from him, run and never look back?

  Because, even without physical force, he still seemed to be holding her. Those dark eyes constrained her just as securely. They were softer now, and mellower, but still as compelling.

  She stared at him for a long moment, unable to look away from his grey gaze. Why did he suddenly seem so familiar? Not the face, but the eyes. They looked like … no … that was impossible. It was just a trick. There was no real similarity at all between the kindly, shaggy, almost angelic boy of fifteen years ago and the battered militaristic man of now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice raw, ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you …’ He paused, and she noticed again how beautifully long his eyelashes were as they flickered, completely at odds with every bit of the rest of him. ‘But you’ll need your shoes before you go anywhere, won’t you?’

  Her feet looked pale and vulnerable against the grass, but the sight of them sent a frisson of sensation speeding through her, an echo of his fingers caressing her instep. And other places. And not just his fingers.

  Without asking whether she wanted it or not, he put his jacket around her shoulders again, and as she grappled for self-control, Jay retrieved her shoes. A second later they were doing the ‘take my arm while you dress yourself’ dance again. Stubborn independence whispered to her to flop down on the seat again and put the hated shoes back on unaided, but it was just easier not to fight, and accept his help.

  ‘I’m sorry that I took advantage of you.’

  The words took Sandy by surprise, and for a moment she wondered what he was talking about. Then she remembered in a flash of heat as Jay made an eloquent gesture with his strong, tapered fingers and his mouth quirked slightly in a way that could have been accidental but which was probably deliberate. ‘It’s just a strange night … sort of like magic … And hot.’ A smile appeared, and that was definitely deliberate. ‘Well, figuratively speaking …’

  Sandy’s heart thudded slowly, thumpety-thump. He was arrogant, and he seemed dangerous, and he did frighten her. But she couldn’t turn away, couldn’t flee. There was an aura of excitement about him, like a net, a thrilling bondage. She hadn’t had this sense of connection with a man in a long time. Perhaps never. Maybe now was the time to reach out and make the most of it?

  ‘I’m sorry too.’ It came out on a total impulse, but it was true. He hadn’t hurt her, had he? In fact he’d given her pleasure, unselfishly, taking nothing for himself. ‘Wh-what you did for me … It was lovely. More than lovely. I feel as if I owe you. In fact I do owe you something in return.’ Trying to be surreptitious, she glanced down at his crotch, to see if he was still erect. But the way he stood, his back to the lighted windows, created shadows. She looked up again, and found him tracking her every tiny movement, like the Terminator.

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ His voice was shockingly brusque after the gentleness of his apology, but he immediately modified it. ‘We’ll get to that. Let’s have a drink for starters, eh? A real one. I’ve got whisky in my room, if you’d like some?’

  Disquiet flared again. His room? It was too risky, too much his domain. She needed to keep at least a semblance of control over the situation. And herself.

  ‘Er … no … but why don’t you come to my place? To the café? We could have a cup of tea, and there are some of Kat’s special mince pies left, still nice and fresh.’

 
What? He almost certainly wants to fuck me and I’m offering him tea and a mince pie?

  The amusement in Jay’s face almost banished his scars altogether, and his grin was white and wicked in the frame of his dark immaculate beard.

  ‘Well, that’s different. But why not?’ He laughed softly, then nodded in the direction of the Lawns Bar. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be socialising though?’

  ‘I was … but I only really came here to find out if there was any fresh gossip about a new development in the town centre, on the site of the old Bradbury’s supermarket. But it seems nobody’s talking.’

  Dreary reality took the edge off the night’s magic. She didn’t want to think about the fun-café-pub or whatever it was squeezing the life out of the Teapot’s business.

  ‘Perhaps no decision has yet been made?’

  There was an odd note in Jay’s voice, and his expression was strangely shuttered again.

  ‘Oh, I’ll bet it has. Forbes Enterprises will build one of their super-mega open-all-day fun coffee pubs and that probably means the end of the Little Teapot.’

  The vehemence in her own voice shocked her. Why was she sounding off to a stranger? Well, obviously, he wasn’t entirely one now, seeing as he’d kissed her pussy and made her come. But he was about sex, not the grim reality of losing her livelihood and the business she’d inherited from her beloved grandmother. The two things were in two different universes. They couldn’t mix.

  ‘But your café is a niche business, and has a loyal clientele, I would imagine. Hopefully it will still thrive,’ observed Jay as by unspoken agreement they fell into step along the path. His light touch on Sandy’s back, even through his coat, made her quiver almost as much as his tongue had done. Dark thoughts about the Teapot’s future seemed to recede, drop behind a barrier, obscured by the here and now of the distinct power emanating from Jay’s fingertips.

  ‘I suppose so. But can we not talk about that now?’