Rhys clenched his fists but kept the police presence in mind and simply watched Webb and his goons file from the room without a backwards glance.
"Thanks, lads," he said to the officers as they rose from the bed.
"No worries," said one. "I think everything's square now. She's found, she's been booked, he's gone. You can take your car. She'll get a summons in the post about the speeding. Points on the license, most likely."
"So we'll be off," said the other. "But, er, before we go…" He turned shyly to Kim and held out his notebook. "Don't suppose I could have your autograph, could I?"
She laughed, a long high note of slightly hysterical relief, and took the book and pen.
"Of course, darlin'," she said. "Though pretty soon nobody will remember who I was."
"Who you are," corrected Rhys. "You aren't dead."
"I won't forget you," said the young policeman, taking back his notebook. "This'll kill 'em down at the pub. I'll be dining out on this story for years."
"That's good enough for me," said Kim with a more genuine smile. "You can say you were there when I announced my retirement."
"Shame, though," he said. "I thought you were brilliant. Voted for you, I did."
"Come on, Bryn, quit while you're ahead," said his partner with an eyeroll. "You'll be throwing your knickers at her next."
Rhys laughed, but couldn't help making a subtle move towards Kim, a hands off, she's mine.
The officers couldn't fail to notice it and they left with polite goodnights, shutting the door behind them.
"Do you think that's it?" asked Kim anxiously. "Do you think he's really letting me go, just like that?"
"He didn't have much choice. Come here."
She fitted herself gratefully between his arms and vented a few tears of relief. Rhys felt the warm wetness trickling through his zip into his chest hair and he held her closer until she began to wriggle.
"I feel like I've left you with no choice either," she whispered. "I hope you don't feel like you're lumbered with me. If you want me to go…"
"Shut up! Jesus, woman."
Her lips twisted into a grin.
"Well, I didn't like to presume," she said. "After everything you told me."
"Listen, love, after everything you and I have been through, it really is time to put the past behind us. I don't want to waste any more of my life on my own, and if you want to spend some of it with me, well…you know. You're more than welcome."
"Do you mean it?"
"Of course I mean it. And Skip'd miss you. She likes you."
"I'd hate to let Skip down."
"Come home then."
"OK. Are you going to put your jacket back on first?"
"I dunno. I figured I'd give those paparazzi outside something to get excited about."
Kim slapped his shoulder lightly.
"Twat. Go on. Get dressed and let's get out of here. This room smells funny."
"But it was good enough to get buggered in, wasn't it?"
"Don't! Oh my God. What if Jonathan had walked in on us?"
"I kind of wish he had. We wouldn't have had to waste all that time talking."
A crimson-cheeked Kim dug him in the ribs then stepped away and watched him put his leather jacket back on, smiling crookedly throughout.
"What?"
"Nothing. You're hot, that's all."
He finished zipping up and took her hands.
"So are you. Listen. You do realise that life on a farm isn't a holiday, don't you? It's bloody hard, bloody back-breaking work. Long hours, not much to show for it in the bank, no glamour whatsoever."
"Lots of early nights," she said, still smiling.
"Yes, well, there is that," he conceded with a smirk. "Lots of those."
"It'll do for me then."
"Well, you don't have to make any promises, love. We'll see how it goes. If it's not for you, it's not for you. But I hope it is."
"So do I."
Chapter Nine
The lambs looked lost and confused without their woolly coats, prancing around and bleating in bemusement at their sudden nakedness. Skip had no sympathy, herding them back into their pen after shearing, barking as if telling them off for their vanity.
Rhys switched off the clippers and tried to brush the greasy wool from his clothes. It fell into the generous sack he'd filled ready for sale. He tied the neck and hauled it to the sheds after securing the sheep for the night. Having disposed of the wool clippings, he poked his head around the door of the neighbouring shed, recently converted for cheesemaking.
"How's it going?" he asked.
Kim, in apron and gloves, looked up from the vat she'd been frowning over.
"I don't think this rennet's right," she said. "I might have got the proportions wrong."
He bent over, grimacing at the sour-smelling curds and whey.
"Needs work. That brie-style soft cheese went down really well at the market though. I got quite a few orders."
"Oh yeah?" She brightened. "I wish I could've come with you but there's so much to do…"
"Everyone asked after you."
"Still?"
"Yep. It'll take more than a year for them to stop calling you Kizzee. Every other customer was like: 'How's Kizzee? Is Kizzee singing at the barn dance? Do you think she'll ever make another record?' Kizzee this, Kizzee that."
"God, it's really been a year, hasn't it? You were talking about shearing the sheep when I first came here."
He stood behind her and clasped his hands on her stomach, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"I suppose that's an anniversary then, is it?" he whispered into her ear.
"I suppose it is," she said, nuzzling against him. He felt her tighten, tense with anticipation. She knew what was on his mind. He wanted to get that apron off her, now.
He kissed her neck and she sighed with pleasure, peeling off her gloves as his lips made a thorough tour of her skin. She reached up behind her, rubbing her fingers into his hair, holding him in place so all he could do was carry on.
He removed them when he decided it was time to move on, turned her round to face him and unleashed himself on her lips, gorging on their sweet plumpness.
Every time he kissed her, he still felt that tiny spark of guilt, that sense that he didn't deserve this happiness, but he was learning to overcome it now and it was diminishing at last.
"Let's go to bed," she murmured, breaking off, but he shook his head.
"Better idea," he said. "Come on."
He led her to the door and looked out into the yard.
"Weather's not quite the same as it was that day, but…"
He lifted her into his arms, sweeping her up with a shriek and a laugh, and set off across the dusty concrete to the barn.
He set her down by the ladder and kissed her again, untying her apron strings and letting the garment fall on the straw. She clung tight to him, allowing him everything, letting him cup and squeeze her breasts inside her t-shirt, then move his hands to her jeans-clad bum and stroke her cheeks.
"Get them off," he ordered, breaking the kiss.
"What?"
"Those jeans. They aren't needed."
"Rhys!"
"You know I only let you wear them for work. You aren't working now. Get them off. Or do I have to do it for you?"
He'd unbuttoned them already. All that remained was for Kim to push them over her hips, rolling her eyes a little, and down her suntanned legs. She hadn't bought a pair of knickers or a bra in the whole year she'd been living with him, so her pussy was soon laid bare to his hungry eyes. Before much longer it was going to be spread open and full of his cock, he thought. The idea made the bulge in his own jeans throb and he grabbed Kim, crushing her bare thighs and pussy lips against it.
"Is this what you wanted to do when you found me?" she asked mischieviously, her own hands landing on his arse and massaging it.
"Strip you naked? You bet it was. Didn't take long either, did it?"
&nbs
p; He laid a light smack on her bum and she jolted against him, but her only vocal reaction was a purr. Hardly a protest.
"I couldn't wait, babe," she said, between snatches of kissing. "Gorgeous strapping farmer rolling me in the hay…what's not to like about that?"
"Ah, yes, about that hay," he said, quirking his eyebrows up to the loft. "Get up that ladder. You're getting rolled in it. Up you go."
She grinned and pretended to try and run away, but he seized her firmly and nudged her up the ladder, admiring the sway of her hips and her bare round bum cheeks as she went. From these close quarters it was easy to see that her pussy was wet and ready. He reached up and put his hand between her thighs as she climbed.
She squealed and clung to the rungs.
"You'll make me fall down!"
"Stop right there," he said, once she was almost at the top. "Now bend over. I haven't had you on this ladder before. Keep your legs open."
"We'll fall off and break our backs," said Kim nervously.
"No we won't. We're only about six feet off the ground anyway."
He climbed up behind her and stood one rung below. His cock was lined up perfectly with her glistening pussy. He took some time to grind his denim-covered bulge into her juicy delta, running his hands under her t-shirt and massaging her breasts as he did so. He felt like pure animal man-beast, claiming his mate while she bent over ready for him. The powerful lust it aroused in him drove him on to undo his jeans and free his cock, ready to fuck already.
But perhaps he ought to make sure his mate was really primed first.
Holding on tight to the ladder with one hand, he used the fingers of the other to tease her clit out of its warm, wet hiding place and stroke it gently.
"My God, you're soaking," he said in a low, authoritative voice. "You must want fucking, hmm?"
"Oh." She tried to part her trembling thighs even further, bowing her legs on the ladder rung. "Oh, that's good."
He rubbed more firmly, then pushed two fingers inside her, enjoying the sucking sound it made, looking forward to the moment when they would be replaced with his cock.
"Later on," he told her, still fingering her, "I'm going to take you to bed and I'm going to lick your pussy until it melts away. Over and over and over again. I'm going to make you come so many times you lose count. What do you think of that?"
What Kim thought of that couldn't be articulated, it seemed, but the sudden tightening of her muscles around his probing fingers gave enough of a clue. She was close. Should he pull out and make her wait until his cock was in her, or should he be generous and let her have her orgasm?
No, he wanted to be fucking her when she came, because she always said better things and made more satisfying noises when he was thrusting into her.
"Hold tight," he muttered, and then he pushed himself up her tight hot passage, settling himself all the way in until she was pinned against the ladder.
He watched her bottom cheeks bounce with the force of his thrusts, heard each little grunt of exhalation, watched his cock emerge then disappear over and over into that velvet clamp of hers.
He held on to the ladder for dear life with one hand while his other kept twiddling at her nipples.
She cried out, a long desperate keen, and he pounded harder, wanting to prolong her orgasm for minutes, hours, days. He wanted her to be coming forever, coming around his cock, coming because he made her.
But her climax had to peak and then subside sometime, and that seemed the right time for him to give in to his. He poured himself into her, feeling himself empty, filling her up. He loved this now that they had been to the clinic and no longer needed to use condoms. He loved it when she lazed around after sex, her thighs sticky and dripping with his seed. It made him want her all over again.
They did it again, more comfortably this time, in the hay, with Kim impaled above him, pushing her breasts into his face.
Then they did it in bed, and this time he took her arse, something they had done properly and pleasurably many times since the abortive attempt in the Travelodge.
"All in all, a pretty sound anniversary," he said, yawning in bed with a glass of wine in one hand and Kim in the other.
"Yeah," she agreed, snuggling against him.
She was on that damn phone again, looking at the internet. She'd persuaded him that they had to get connected, what with trying to set up the cheese business but he didn't particularly like it, especially when Kim became entranced by showbiz news websites. It unsettled him. He worried that she would be lured back to the glamour, away from the hard work of farm life.
"What the fuck?!" She sat up suddenly, staring at the screen.
"What is it?"
"Jonathan Webb's been arrested."
"What for?" This was good news as far as Rhys was concerned. He couldn't prove anything, but there had to be some reason for the council constantly blocking his planning applications, not to mention the nasty stories that had been in the press about him and Hannah's death a few months back. They'd weathered all of it, but he suspected Webb was behind the unpleasantness, acting out of vindictive rage.
"Sexual assault."
"Are you serious?" Rhys snatched the phone and frowned at the display, unused to reading the tiny characters.
"Yeah. The winner of the latest contest. It says some other women have come forward with similar stories."
Rhys put his arm around her shaking shoulders.
"What about you?" he said softly. "Do you want to come forward? He coerced you into sex, whether you believe it or not."
She shook her head. "I don't think I could prove anything, you know. I never said no to him, never put up a fight. It wouldn't stand up in court. Even though I know you're right, deep down. I can't face having flashbulbs going off in my eyes again, not now. But I'm glad that girl's braver than me. I'm glad he'll never be able to do it to another woman. Pour me some more wine – I want to drink to her."
Rhys reached for the bottle.
"Couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap," he said. "Now, we ought to make this the last glass. We've got that rennet to sort out tomorrow, and I've got hoofs to clip. And there's the bloody midsummer barn dance."
"Oh no, not the bloody midsummer barn dance."
Kim smiled up at him and let him kiss her, a long and tender kiss that said more than any words could have done.
"We're all right, aren't we, Kim?" he said, handing her the wine glass.
"Yeah," she said dreamily. "We're all right."
Ask No Questions Page 10