"My problem is this!"
"My jacket?" He asked, suddenly bewildered, pushing my hand aside so he could see me more clearly.
"Yes, your jacket," I said shrilly. "Because I don't know what kind of point you were trying to make with it."
Silence…and then I saw the hairs rise along Fletch's arms. Perhaps this was unsurprising, after all I felt electric, like I rippled with static and was zapping the hell out of the both of us.
His eyes traced my face and I could practically feel him reading each of the signals it was giving him; flushed cheeks, swollen lips, the gig was up. Still, even as I saw him swallow with the full awareness of what the real reason for my tense silence had been, he forced out a reply to my accusation.
"The point of the jacket was that it gets cold on the beach this time of year. That's it."
My fingers sought the edge of the fraying seat and I curled my fingers tight as I snarled, "And you were expecting me to what? Swoon? To proclaim you my temperature control hero?"
He dipped his head down, steadily holding my gaze as he said lowly, "I don't expect anything from you, babe."
Maybe he didn't expect anything from me, but his expression told me he now sure as hell wanted something. In an instant my mouth went dry and so it was with a croak that I replied, "Don't look at me like that."
His reply was truthful and succinct. "You started it."
Done. I was done with trying to stop myself, done with thinking or caring. I needed him. Now.
Not breaking our intense eye contact, I worked my dress up around my hips and then hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my stockings and started to peel them down my thighs.
His eyes widened, just a tiny bit, but he didn't make any comment as I shed the fine mesh covering completely and then knelt up, the dark green of my dress contrasting with my pale skin and the scrap of black thong just visible between my legs.
"Push your seat back." I instructed him, eying the narrow space between Fletch and the steering wheel critically.
When he hesitated for the briefest second, I exclaimed, "Oh, for God's sake!" and leant down to do it myself, my fingers pulling at the catch that had the drivers' seat sliding back to hit the seat behind it with a thump.
That done, I climbed without pause across the gearstick and onto Fletch's lap, my knees settling on either side of his hips. His hands automatically rose to rest on my waist, his fingers clenching at the bunched up material of my dress.
It felt right, natural, to sit like this, Fletch's legs taut and strong beneath mine, and I realised I'd found a way other than my heeled boots to even up our height disparity and get us face to face.
"This is a bad idea." Fletch's voice was hoarse and uneven, making me wriggle slightly against him, a move that triggered an immediate response at the juncture of his thighs.
"Yes," I agreed, knowing that, at that stage, it wasn't going to make a blind bit of difference.
And then I leant down and pressed my mouth, hot and open, against his and the conversation was over.
I felt him buck with the force of my kiss, pressing the swelling bulge beneath me up and ending any illusions, had there been any, that this was going to stop at a simple pash session.
I ground back against his erection as our mouths continued to work against each other's; messy and undignified, our lips swelling with blood and our teeth clashing as we tasted the sea salt off each other.
I couldn't get enough. When his mouth started to move down, trailing kisses down my throat, my fingers pulled at the hem of his rashie, frustrated by the way the tight material barred me access to the skin beneath. With a firm hand, I shoved him back against his seat, and used the brief, but somehow interminable, second his lips weren't fastened to my skin to tug the thin barrier up over his head and throw it onto the empty passenger seat.
As our mouths met again, with an urgency belying such a short absence from each other, I spread my palms flat against his exposed chest. I'd meant just to feel his skin, to press myself against the warmth of him, but I found as well that now I could feel his heartbeat hammering, a sensation gratifying and terrifying in equal measure. It was an intimacy I hadn't been prepared for and I was glad for the distraction when Fletch's hands suddenly cupped my arse, pulling me closer against him. After all, sex didn't equal intimacy, I'd learnt that in the same way that some people learnt their times tables; through mindless repetition.
Breaking our kiss once again, I leant across to the passenger footwell and pulled my bag up. After a couple of moments of frantic scrabbling, I pulled out a square foil packet from the stash I kept in one of the side pockets. Being a do-gooder at a uni campus, I'd quickly come to realise, sometimes simply equated to being a walking condom dispenser, a fact I was now able to use to my advantage.
As I straightened, triumphantly clutching the protection between thumb and forefinger, I felt Fletch's hands move upwards again, over my hips to my waist and up my back. My dress was too tight for him to make much progress this way, however, and he withdrew to reach up for my zip.
With a quick clench of my thighs, I distracted him from this course of action, reaching up to guide his hands back down as a short groan escaped from his throat. I didn't want my dress down, I was sure my bruised lips and glassy eyes were exposing me enough as it was.
The tight shorts he’d worn under his wetsuit were resistant at first to my tugging, but I was eventually able to pull them down, releasing him so that he sprung up, tight and hard into my hands.
I gave his soft rigidity a few experimental strokes, until he dropped his head down onto my shoulder, his breath hot against my neck, a few quiet curses making their way to my ears. I had power in this, a power I was unwilling to relinquish. This meant I brushed his fingers aside as soon as I felt him trying to return the favour through some caresses of his own. I was ready; I'd been ready since down on the beach, I had no need of further foreplay.
As I rolled the condom down over him, he lifted his head and caught me in another kiss, this one almost painful as his teeth sank into my bottom lip. It was a delicious sting, though, one that was echoed as I pulled my thong to one side and sank down onto him. It'd been a while for me, a long while, but I was wet and ardent enough for him to enter me with relative ease.
I used my knees to balance myself as I slowly rose and fell upon him, Fletch apparently willing to let me guide the pace even as his fingers gripped my hips so tightly I suspected he'd leave bruises.
If I'd thought the intensity of three years ago had been a one-off, I was soon put right. Yes it was fast, and yes it was entirely lacking in romance, but there was a frightening completeness that came from feeling him inside me. It made me squeeze my eyes tight against a wetness that had sprung to them and seek to divert the both of us by raking my nails across the shoulders that seemed so integral to my attraction to him.
There seemed to be no distracting either of us from the need building up inside of us, though. A need represented in an increase of speed in my movements against him until, finally, I sank down one last time and buried my face against his chest.
I climaxed just before him, feeling my muscles clench, vice-like, around him as I lay hot, open-mouthed kisses against his pecs. Seconds later his hips jerked up once, twice, three times and I felt the accompanying pulse between my legs.
There was a moment of heavy, satiated stillness...and then reality came rushing back in.
We were sitting in a car park, for God's sake. An open, public, car-park and it was Fletch beneath me. After years and years spent resisting him and having him patronise me and me antagonise him, this was what it came down to? A rushed root in a car park?
Lifting myself off him, I returned to the passenger seat, pushing my dress back down as I went. I wasn't ashamed of what I'd, we'd, done, but I couldn't say I was exactly ecstatic with myself either.
"Lara-" Fletch’s voice was so soft, when he broke the silence, that it took every last ounce of strength for me to snap,
; "There's not going to be any pillow talk, Fletch."
There was another pause, as he presumably adjusted to the very firm indication I'd given on how things were going to be, and then he said heavily, "Well, that explains the lack of pillows, then."
I ignored this, reaching instead into my bag of tricks and wordlessly handing Fletch a couple of tissues. I averted my eyes as he pulled the condom off and cleaned himself up, a mundane act that, in comparison, only served to highlight the intensity of what had passed before. I was unable to stop myself turning and watching, however, as, wadding the evidence of our exhibitionist debauchery up into a neat little ball, he climbed out of the car to dispose of it in a nearby rubbish bin.
I hadn't been cured of my desire for him, I realised as I watched the interplay of muscle and sinew move across his bare back. God, if anything I wanted him more after getting a taste of what it could be. I'd barely had a chance to start hating myself for what I perceived as this weakness when I was jolted by a sudden, shrill ringing coming from my bag.
Moving by rote, I pulled my phone out, breaking the habit of a lifetime by not registering the caller ID before I answered. I was unprepared, therefore, as a familiar voice snarled, "Where the hell are you?"
It took me a second to place the voice, but when I did, I let out a choked noise of disbelief at Saskia's gall.
Crossing my legs tightly, as if the better to hide the evidence of what I'd just done with her brother, I bit back, "I think you'll find that's my line."
She let out a huff of teenaged annoyance and then said, "I'm at school, waiting for you. You're supposed to be giving me a lift to Za-Za’s, remember?"
I was about to snarl back that I remembered just fine, it was she who seemed to have forgotten, but I could see Fletch was returning to the car so I quickly snapped out that I'd be there as soon as I could, and hung up. Just in time too, as I'd barely lowered the phone from my ear when Fletch pulled open his door and slid back into his seat.
Instantly there didn't seem to be enough room to breathe. That the way he had to pull in deep breaths suggested we both seemed to be similarly afflicted by this figurative lack of oxygen wasn't comforting.
I could tell he was about to try to say something and couldn't stand to hear whatever it was, so got in first, snapping, "Just drive, Fletch, I've got somewhere to be."
There was a beat where I could sense he was weighing up whether to take me on, and then he shook his head as if he just couldn't be bothered with the hassle, and turned his key in the ignition.
If I'd thought the previous drives had been uncomfortable, they were nothing compared to the trip back to the Townsend house.
Fletch had barely pulled the station wagon to a halt before I'd fled. There'd been no need for goodbyes, I had absolutely nothing to say to him, so I felt only a twinge of shame at running away so obviously.
I drove to Saskia's school in a daze, focusing on putting as much distance between Fletch and myself, whilst desperately trying not to remember the way it'd felt as we'd kissed, as he'd held me, as he'd moved inside me...
Pulling up outside the school gate, I gave myself a quick check in the rear-view mirror to make sure there was no tell-tale sign of what I'd been doing before Saskia called. Apart from an unavoidable brightness in my eyes and flush on my cheeks, I was pretty sure there was nothing to lead Fletch's sister to suspect anything had just happened.
I was wrong.
Saskia had barely yanked open the door to my car before she'd wrinkled her pert little nose and said, "What the hell? Why aren't you wearing any shoes?"
----------
Fletch knew Lara was just as thrown by what had gone down at Shelbys Beach as he'd been. Realising she'd run from him without even taking her precious boots just sealed the deal.
Back in his room in the flat he shared with Daz, he sat on his bed and stared at the intimidating black shoes with their insane heel and tried to make sense of just what the hell had happened. He wasn't having much luck.
She'd seemed so sure and the feeling of her atop him had been so right and then... Shit. Since when did Lara run away?
He got it, if there was anyone just as blindsided by the way they were with each other it was him, so where did she get off just bolting?
It was bull, he decided. She didn't just get to turn up out of nowhere, ask for his help, snarl at him, root him and then disappear like some modern-day bloody Cinderella.
She'd dictated it all up until then, from their naive teenage flirtations to her assured moves at Shelbys beach, and he'd had enough. It was his turn to have some sort of say in what went on with them, and it was her turn to just deal with it.
Chapter 11 – Submit
"Watching other people have sex isn't really that sexy, is it?"
Glancing up from filing smooth a fingernail I’d broken in an uncharacteristically careless move that morning, I couldn't help but see what Livvy meant. The laptop before us was showing graphic amateur porn, the sort that looked less like a physical manifestation of a romantic impulse, and more like a couple of pale pink fish flopping about at the bottom of a boat.
"Well, there seems to be quite a market for it," I pointed out, "so it must be turning someone on."
"But, I mean, they're just bodies," Livvy said emphatically and her prudish confusion made the dichotomy between the debauchery being shown on the screen and the innocence of our current surroundings seem suddenly glaring.
Her room, the room we were currently in, was covered in girly knick-knacks and floral motifs; I could've sworn there was even a doily underneath the lamp on the table next to the bed we were sitting on. The gag-level sweetness of the whole thing made my good deed recipient seem somehow both younger and older at the same time and I almost felt bad for exposing her to such depravity.
Then again, as she tipped her head back and forth in a way that suggested she was trying to figure out which way on the screen was up, I was also fiercely glad she'd had the opportunity to see what was what before being thrown into the deep end. I wasn't having her being blindsided by that lanky Taylor fellow of hers, no matter how harmless he'd seemed when I'd met him.
"I want to know what the lead up was," Livvy continued, apparently unaware of the random streak of protectiveness I'd just uncovered in myself. "Which one of them decided they were going to make a video and upload it to the internet for strangers to...?" She broke off and tugged at a lock of her mousy hair, the words 'masturbate to' seeming to escape her even after our sessions. "I mean have this couple been together for long? Do they have any kids? Who are they?"
I snorted and returned to my filing, muttering, "I think you're looking into this a bit too deeply; the focus here isn't the plot."
"I know that," she persisted, "and I can see that they have genitals and that's great and everything, but I can't stop thinking about who is going to have to clean the sheets after all this."
I actually laughed at this, surprising myself and, I suspect, her.
For God's sake! This was all Fletch's fault! All my reactions had been off since the day before when he'd wrapped that stupid jacket around me.
With a bit of effort, I was able to school my expression back to my chosen mask of bored neutrality, hoping Livvy hadn't noticed the visible wince I'd unwittingly evoked by even thinking Fletch's name.
"If I told you they have an equitable domestic arrangement whereby they take it in turns to scrub away the stains of their carnal sin, would you be able to just watch them for the reason I intended?" I asked, the frustration present in my voice admittedly not so much directed at her as it was at myself for not being able to get Fletch out of my head.
Livvy ducked her head, suitably chastised, and said quietly, "What was your intention again?"
"That you take in the mechanics of the act," I said tiredly, gesturing towards a particularly complicated 'act' being performed on the screen. "And, while you're at it, note the realistic imperfections like her bad wax job and his shrivelled nut-sack."
&
nbsp; Perhaps for the first time taking in these details now I'd pointed them out, she grimaced faintly, but then seemed to steel herself and nodded. "OK, taking in the act, noting the imperfections, I can do that."
"Good."
But, as she went quiet, I realised it wasn't good, actually. Whilst Livvy was tutting or tittering, or generally behaving like the hopeless soul I'd cast her as, I could focus on the good deed I was doing. As the minutes of Livvy's silence ticked by, however, there was nothing to distract me from thinking about my own bout of carnal sin from the day before.
As much as I wanted it to be, my memories were insistent in reminding me that those moments in Fletch's car definitely hadn't just been 'bodies' as Livvy’d described. It'd been heat and pulse and a release like I hadn't felt in years. I felt different because of it, more languid and relaxed physically even as I was mentally exhausted from being on high alert anytime I caught sight of anyone who looked even vaguely like Fletch.
"Was Fletcher the first person you had sex with?"
The words 'Fletcher' and 'sex' put so suddenly together in a sentence spoken aloud made me start and stare at Livvy in a nude combination of horror and astonishment. Livvy's bambi eyes widened at this reaction and she virtually tripped over herself in her haste to apologise.
"Sorry, you don't have to answer that," she gabbled. "I was just thinking about how it's going to be for me and then I accidentally thought about what it might’ve been like for you and I just figured, after what Merry and Stefano said that time, that it would've been with Fletch..."
I cut off her stumbled explanation with a short, harsh, laugh. "Well, next time you accidentally picture me losing my virginity, don't put Fletch in the scene," I said grimly, "because he definitely wasn't there. Brock Baines has that honour."
"Brock Baines," Livvy repeated, snatching up a fluffy pink cushion from where it had rested against her pillows. Cuddling the monstrosity against her chest, she turned the name round in her mouth a couple more times before asking, "So, did you love him?"
The Do-Gooder Page 13