"So ... good.” Lily sighed, wrapping her arms and legs around him.
"Hang on, baby. I need to..."
"Yes!"
He took her as he'd longed to take her, the hard steady thrusts of his cock powerful enough to shake the bed. She responded gloriously, clinging even as she worked her hips in sync with his, hot and giving, as he'd somehow known she would be. He held on to his will, wanting more than anything to just keep thrusting in her, thrusting and thrusting without cessation. His cock began to twitch, and he knew his climax neared.
"Kiss me, Lily. I want my tongue in your mouth when I come."
* * * *
Everything about sex with Ryan was so much more than she could have imagined. His words in the shower, designed to arouse and maybe frighten just a little, had lit her fires, and clenched her gut. The weight of him pressing her into the bed excited her. He'd taken her in a complete, all-out, hell-bent-for-leather mating that she thought—and hoped—would leave marks. Hot full friction, Lily had never felt anything so good in all her life. Everything disappeared then, except Ryan and the salacious sensations racing through her. She thrust her hips counter point to his, a racing pace now, and felt the orgasm gathering at the base of her uterus. Crying out in pure rapture, she held on tight as the tidal wave flooded her body and drenched her soul. She vaguely heard Ryan swear, as he held her bottom close, pressing their bodies more tightly together. Aware of his hot penis pulsing within her, contentment filled her to overflowing.
For long minutes, only the sound of gasping breathing could be heard. Lily felt Ryan's weight on her and considered him the best blanket she'd ever worn.
"You okay, sweetheart?” His question, a husky whisper, tickled her ear.
"You tell me."
"You're fucking fabulous. I didn't hurt you? I thought I got a bit rough. I might have bruised you."
She groaned as he moved off her, and then smiled when he simply rolled to his side and held her close.
"I certainly hope so. That way, if I begin to doubt this actually happened—you know, if I wake up afraid I just had another dream—a mark or two would be wonderful reassurance."
"You are an amazing woman. Wanna snuggle for a while?"
"Aren't we?"
"Mmm. Just wanted to make sure you didn't have anything else you needed to do."
"The only thing that comes to mind is a repeat performance."
"Nap. Then food. Then we'll see what we can do about that."
"Sounds good."
* * * *
"I could make some sandwiches,” she offered as they descended the stairs an hour later.
"That would be great. Let's eat outside. After lunch, we can relax in the hammock. Once I put it up, that is."
"You have a hammock?"
Ryan chuckled. “No, babe, you do. It's in the shed. Mark bought it last year, and told me later that he regretted not getting one sooner."
Ryan tied off the last rope as Lily came out the back door, balancing a tray. He quickly relieved her of the weight of it, carrying it to the picnic table while she took a moment to look at his handiwork.
"It looks complicated. How the heck do you get into it?"
"You sort of just fall into it. And they're a bit hard to get out of. Which is, I believe, the way it should be."
Lily had donned her bathing suit. Ryan didn't tease her for being too shy to sit around, eating while naked. In fact, he'd kissed her lightly, and slipped on his boxers. When they got into the pool again, he figured he could talk her out of her suit without a problem.
"So what is it that you do, exactly?” Lily poured some iced tea into her glass, then offered the pitcher to Ryan.
"As little as possible."
When she continued to just look at him, Ryan smiled. “You'd be amazed how often that line is enough. Actually, I work out of my house. Software.” He wasn't going to go into the details of it. In his experience, most people's eyes glazed over when it came to the technical-speak of software design. He didn't feel the need to puff himself up in her eyes, either. He had more money than he would ever spend, and seemed to be able to keep selling his designs so would continue to have more money than he would ever spend. Lily had already given him her opinion of money, so he didn't bother.
"I don't do anything."
"Is this a problem?"
"Well, I should, don't you think? I'm forty-three years old, and I've never held a job. In all likelihood, I have several decades left to live. I should do something to pass the time, shouldn't I?"
"I don't know.” He chewed the ham and cheese sandwich slowly, pondering her question.
"Do you need to earn an income to keep a roof over your head and body and soul together?"
"Not really. The farm is mine, free and clear. The only expenses I have are utilities and taxes. I have no debts. I invested my divorce settlement, and the money Uncle Mark left me, so I have a good monthly income. I'd also managed to have a nice savings account of my own accumulated before the divorce."
Ryan cocked one eyebrow, because she said that with a smirk, which intrigued him.
"Shortly after we got married, Reg made sure to give me ‘pin money’ every week. An allowance, if you will."
"An ... allowance. As if you were what ... his kid? His ... servant?"
"Reg is many things, but a twenty-first century man is not one of them. Anyway, I began socking that away when I found out about the first mistress, rather than using it for whatever he imagined I spent it on. Of course, being a fair man—his perception, not mine—he made sure that I got a small ‘raise’ each year. I still had a bank account in my maiden name, so I put my savings there. Neither of the lawyers bothered to ask if I had any independent assets, nor conducted any kind of a search to see if I did. So, golly, it just never came up during the divorce proceedings."
"I'm guessing it's substantial. You got a bit of your own back after all, didn't you?"
"A bit."
"So, you don't have to work. Why, then, would you want to?"
"Personal growth?"
"You really feel ‘less than’ in that way, don't you?"
"Yeah. I know it sounds foolish."
"No, it doesn't sound foolish. I think it would be damn near impossible to have a really positive image of yourself if you've been put down most of your life."
"You and Uncle Mark really did talk a lot, huh? He always thought I had been treated so much worse than I thought I was. I got to live in a nice home, drive a nice car, do pretty much what I wanted to do as long as I took care of the house, and Reg."
Ryan could have pressed the issue. And probably, knowing himself as well as he did, he would. Once Lily became more comfortable with him. But for now, he wanted to erase the worried look from her face. Two ways that he knew to do that. One, fuck her brains out. Two, reassure her. First the second, then the first.
"Well, you don't need to have a job to achieve personal growth. But you do need to have a plan."
Chapter 4
Lily didn't understand how forming a plan for personal growth necessitated a trip into the city to go shopping, but then she could admit she didn't understand a lot of things. Saturday morning, bright and early, Ryan arrived. He parked his bike in the barn, then came into the house to ‘help Lily get dressed.’ His version of help involved stripping them both naked, having his way with her, and then showering them both and starting the dressing process again at the beginning.
"I have to wear panties,” Lily protested, even as Ryan stood in front of the drawer, blocking her access to it.
"No, you don't."
"I can't wear a skirt into the city with no underwear underneath of it."
"Sure you can. The same way that you can wear this nice t-shirt with no bra."
"Ryan!"
"Come on, Lily. It'll be fun."
When she only continued to stare at him, he gave her his best smile and what he must have considered the no-fail argument. “No one else will ever know. Besides, it'll reall
y turn me on. Unless, of course, you're too chicken."
She slipped on her red and white cotton skirt, and the red cotton t-shirt. Studying herself in the mirror, she had to admit that it wasn't obvious, this lack of underwear. The shirt fit loosely enough and her breasts were small enough that it wasn't overtly obvious she went braless.
"I feel so..."
"Naked?"
"Yeah."
"That's the point, sweetheart.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her lavishly. “Every time you remember that you're naked under your skirt, remember that when we get home, I'm going to put my mouth on your pussy and drive you wild."
She didn't have to check the mirror to see if she wore a blush, beet red, to match her outfit. She could feel that she did.
* * * *
"I should probably tell you right up front. I've never really liked shopping."
Ryan had accepted the keys to Lily's car and was behind the wheel, navigating their way toward the city. At her confession, he shot her a quick look to judge her mood. He'd thought she'd been joking. But her expression belied that.
"Why not, babe?"
"What's to like? You stop what you're doing, drive to the mall, deal with the crowds, try to guess what to buy, drag it home, discover it's just not quite right, then have to go back and repeat the process, but add in the always fun getting-a-refund, first. Waste of time, if you ask me."
There had been more than a trace of heat in Lily's words. He had enough knowledge of the lady beside him, and her family, to guess they'd never appreciated her efforts on their behalf. Now, he understood the lack of stuff at her place. He'd snooped shamelessly yesterday when she'd been napping. She had very little in the way of clothing, make-up, or jewelry. She had no computer, no DVD or VCR, no CD player. Some photos decorated the rooms—her kids, her kids and her ex-husband, her uncle, her mother. But no art hung on the walls, and she had no pretty little do-nothings scattered about.
Shopping had been turned into just one more thing to do and get criticized for, he realized.
"If you hate shopping, then why did you agree to go with me today?"
"To please you."
Wow. For the first time, Ryan understood the magnitude of what Lily had lived—and the battle ahead of him. As much as it warmed him deep inside to know she'd do something she hated just to please him, it bothered him that she'd acted out of habit—or conditioning. Checking his mirrors, he signaled and pulled the car off the road, onto the shoulder. Once he put it in park, he turned, unclasped her seatbelt, and scooped her into a kiss.
"Thank you. But for the next little while, if you don't mind, we're going to focus on pleasing you for a change. Okay?"
"In just the last few days, you've given me more pleasure than I've ever had before. If I become any more pleased, I'll burst. I don't need anything else."
"Oh, yes, you do. You told me that you wanted to grow, as a person."
"Well, yes..."
"To grow means to experience new stuff, right? To expand your horizons. Right?"
"Right."
He heard the caution in her response and grinned. “Okay, so the first lesson is this: Sometimes it is a fine thing to be selfish."
"Not if you talk to my mother. If you ask her, and my ex, that's always been my biggest flaw."
"Nope. Your biggest flaw is that you don't see yourself clearly, and don't value yourself nearly enough."
* * * *
Ryan's pronouncement had left her speechless
He didn't take her to Hamilton, the closest city. Nor did he settle for Burlington or Oakville. When he left the expressway at the Highway 10 exit in Mississauga, her brow furrowed.
"Square One?"
"Yeah. They've got everything ... well, almost everything. There are two more stops we'll have to make after here."
He parked the car in a spot on the second floor of the parking deck attached to one of the larger department stores in the mall, the Bay. As teens, both her children had thought this mall the place to shop. She wondered now if that fact had kept her away from here until today.
"This place is huge!"
"Largest mall in the province. Second largest in all of Canada. There's nearly four hundred stores and services here, babe."
"Shop a lot, do you?"
"When I'm in the mood."
"You must be an expert if you know how many stores and services there are here."
Ryan gave her his cheeky grin. “I surfed the web last night, trying to decide where we'd go today. I checked out their website."
"Oh."
Despite his little speech in the car, Lily didn't understand that they had come here to shop for her. But she figured it out when he pulled her into a store called La Senza.
"Oh, my.” The delicate, lacy bras and nightgowns captivated her. She wanted to go and take a closer look at the pale, frothy creations, far fancier than anything she'd ever owned. She watched in horrified fascination as Ryan's attention zeroed in on some corsets, merry widows, and other bits of kindling in bold, kick-ass colors.
"Oh, but I think pastels look better on me."
"Who told you that?"
She opened her mouth to answer, then snapped it closed again. Over the years, whenever Reg—or her mother for that matter—had bought her a nightgown or lingerie as a gift, it had always been in pastels.
"Uh huh.” He read the answer in her eyes. “Tell you what. You buy what you like and I'll buy what I like. Deal?"
"I don't think they carry your size here."
He grinned in appreciation and swooped in for a quick kiss, turning her so she backed tight against a rack of nightgowns, while his hand stroked her hip. Before the kiss ended, his fingers snuck down, then up under her skirt, caressing her naked bottom.
Leaving her with a wink, he headed toward the boudoir apparel that had captured his interest.
Lily stared dumbly at the lingerie before her, trying to get her body back under control. This is interesting. She wasn't even wearing panties she could soak. Bearing down, she ordered her libido to take a break, turning her attention fully to the garments. It had been a long time since she'd purchased anything for herself. And, she had a new lover. A new, younger lover. If that wasn't a cause to splurge on sexy undergarments, she didn't know what was.
"May I help you?"
The clerk appeared to be in her thirties, curvy, and wore a big smile. With a look over her shoulder to where Ryan plowed through the racks unassisted, Lily turned her attention to the young woman, nodded, and surrendered to the urge.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, you can. I think I need ... everything."
* * * *
"Five hundred dollars. I just spent five hundred dollars on lingerie."
"Amateur."
The scoffing tone stopped Lily in her tracks.
"What do you mean ... amateur?"
"You only paid five hundred dollars, babe. We spent an entire half hour in there. A seasoned shopper would have done better than that."
She looked from his Cheshire-cat grin to the bag he held—a bag smaller than her own.
"Tell me you didn't spend more than five hundred just now!"
"No can do."
"Ryan! I can't let you spend that kind of money on me!"
He silenced her with a kiss. “Didn't. I spent it on me. I am going to enjoy dressing you up and then stripping you down. I think it could become my all-time favorite leisure activity."
"What am I going to do with you?"
"Oh, sweetheart, the list is endless."
Lily didn't have time to focus on that outrageous statement. Ryan had a definite agenda in mind as he led her from store to store, one end of the gigantic mall to the other, and from the lower level to the upper one and back down again. They went toe to toe for a few minutes, arguing over who would pay for the purchases. Ryan insisted that since this had been all his idea, he should be the one to foot the bill. Lily argued that while she would accept the lingerie he'd just bought as a gift, no way wou
ld she accept anything more. Finally, he gave in, and Lily felt flushed from the victory. Precious few times had she ever stuck to her guns and argued without giving in, let alone won. After seeing the different garments he'd thought suited her, she did give in and told him he could decide what those purchases would be.
He evidently took her confidence in him to heart, and selected several outfits for her, everything from the laid-back casual to the sophisticated chic. He pulled her into the Gap, and Fairweather. They toured and purchased from the Bay and Sears. He took her into Nine West and wasn't happy until she'd chosen five pairs of shoes.
"I've never owned five pairs of shoes at one time in my entire life!"
"See, look at all the ground-breaking moments you're having today. And here comes another one."
He led her into the next store, and knew in this one exactly what to buy.
"Why do I need a computer?"
"Everyone needs a computer, Lily. It's the great convenience of the new millennium. You can find out any information, acquire any commodity, pay any bill, play any game, meet people the world over—all from the comfort of your own home."
"But the Internet is just full of—” she almost said sex and spam, but changed her mind. After all, she had taken a younger man as her lover and urged him to show her ‘everything.’ Complaining about all the sex swirling around on the Internet would be disingenuous.
He seemed to know what she'd been going to say, anyway. “I can't argue that there is a lot on the Internet that you probably won't be interested in, Lily. But the truth is that pretty soon, anyone who doesn't have a computer, or know how to operate one, will be considered functionally illiterate."
"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"
"No, it's just another sign of the times. A few decades ago, some big wig with IBM declared that there would never be a need for anyone to have a computer in their home. Today it almost seems as if there are more computers in the average home than there are people."
"I must be old. There are days when I feel everything is moving too quickly."
"You're not that old. I feel the same way. Come on, I know just what to get you, and I'll help you learn how to use it."
By the time they left the computer store, Lily imagined her eyes to be permanently crossed. She didn't hold out much hope this old dog could be taught all those new tricks, but she did want to expand her horizons. When even every truck on the highway sported a website reference, obviously computer literacy was the new literacy, just as Ryan said.
Lily in Bloom Page 3