by Kris Pearson
“What’s all this, then?” he queried, eyes sharp.
“I’m just pleased with the way my writing’s going,” Eloise said. “How’s yours? Tig’s told me all about it,” she added, unrepentant at the dishonesty. “Noumea, darling? That was a nice holiday—we should go back some time. You could do some more research.”
“It’s coming along...coming along,” he acknowledged. “Mind you, I’m only doing it in dribs and drabs. As I can, you know.”
She nodded and raised her eyebrows encouragingly. “It’s hell, sometimes, isn’t it? When it just won’t do what you want it to? When you know what has to happen and the words don’t come?”
His eyebrows drew together in genuine surprise. “No, the words are never a problem. It’s finding the time. I’ve always been able to spin a good yarn, but I never realized how long it would take to write it all down.”
“So it’s going well?”
Johnno stroked his chin. “I’ve got this yachtie, see. And he sails single handed to New Caledonia. And the Frenchies are very suspicious of him. Is he a spy? Is he smuggling something they ought to know about? Is he a terrorist? That’s the current thing of course. So they’ve got a bit of a honey trap going with an undercover woman. Francine. Very tasty.” Johnno’s eyes rolled heavenward as he thought of her.
“Huge breasts, I suppose?” (Her own weren’t.)
“About a 36C, but a very narrow waist, so the effect is intensified.”
Eloise fumed. She itched to get her hands on his book. “If you’d like me to read any of it aloud to you, you might find that helpful? We do that at the writers’ group. It’s very interesting hearing your sentences as someone else construes them.”
“Construes...” he murmured. “What a lovely word. I shall have to work it in somewhere.”
“I’ll read for you after dinner,” she offered. “Tigger will be out with her new friend.” The girl had been very secretive. Perhaps the new man was married?
“No, no, no,” Johnno replied. “I don’t want to take you away from yours if it’s going well. Some other time perhaps...”
He preceded her into the bedroom to set down his briefcase and hang up his jacket.
Eloise pressed her lips together in frustration.
CHAPTER 21 – VI SUCCEEDS WITH SHERRY
She’d re-work the other night’s story if it killed her! It must be possible to spice things up a bit. She took a generous sip of the sherry she’d just poured, and read the original beginning she’d typed.
He glared, infuriated, at his ravaged vegetable plot.
She considered that for a while, had another sip, and began again.
He stood tall and furious, glaring down at his ravaged vegetable plot with eyes the color of ebony.
Better.
The sun flowed over the strong lines of his nude body.
Much better. She sipped again.
It would be the cat from next door. The furry little Persian that Miss Smith cradled against her trembling white breasts.
Okay, so how would he see her breasts?
...trembling white breasts, framed by the cross-over neckline of her revealing pink dressing gown.
Revealing...revealing...not really. Maybe her gaping pink dressing gown? Vi nodded, x’d out the line, and inserted the new one.
He inspected her from the privacy of the balcony outside his lonely bachelor bedroom.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed out loud, wondering how to describe a desirable young man’s room. Her twin grandsons weren’t helpful examples; last time she’d visited them in Australia their walls had been awash with posters of sneering pop stars and over-tanned sporting heroes. Little did she know how many semi-naked girls had been covered over to save her blushes.
...outside his sexily appointed bedroom? ...outside the mirror-walled bedroom whose only furniture was a king-sized bed and some bottles (tubes?) of massage...um...of musky massage oil?
She wrinkled her nose and took another swig of sherry.
Suddenly Miss Smith cast her huge green eyes upward. Her pupils dilated as they met his, and the little cat sprang from her arms onto the moist soft earth of his broccoli plot. She exclaimed as the claws from Lulu’s hind feet scored her skin. Blood welled from a long scratch. She dabbed at herself as her neighbor watched, his face impassive in the hard light.
Serve her right for having such a naughty cat, he thought.
Vi sighed, back-spaced on the old Brother, x’d the last sentence out, and tried to conjure up a devastating hero.
He dragged on a pair of skin-tight black leather trousers, and leapt, bare-chested, down the spiral staircase into the shared courtyard...or maybe...into the warm and private garden with the high surrounding walls?
“Let me help you,” he murmured, peeling the fabric down to bare the topmost curves of her creamy breasts. A pulse beat there with a steady rhythm. Rupert watched, fascinated.
Vi ground her teeth and tried to find him a more modern name.
Zac watched, fascinated, as the warm red blood poured from the cruel weal.
Damn, Vi thought. She sounds too injured. Maybe ‘leaked from her tempting flesh’ would be better? She yanked the page out of the typewriter and got to work with a black marker pen. Cross that out...and that...and that. She took up a pencil and began to scrawl across the paper. It was better—much better. Why hadn’t she been able to write like this the other night? She swigged at the sherry again.
He stood tall and furious, glaring down at his ravaged vegetable plot with eyes the color of ebony. The sun flowed over the strong lines of his nude body.
It would be the cat from next door. The furry little Persian that Miss Smith cradled against her trembling white breasts, revealed by the cross-over neckline of her sensuous silver boudoir robe.
Vi took another sip of sherry and swirled it around her teeth. Yes, a sensuous silver boudoir robe sounded a lot sexier than a gaping pink dressing gown.
He inspected her from the privacy of the balcony outside his mirror-walled bedroom whose only furniture was a king-sized bed and some bottles of musky massage oil.
Suddenly Miss Smith cast her huge green eyes upward. Her pupils dilated as they met his, and the little cat sprang from her arms onto the moist soft earth of his broccoli plot.
She exclaimed as the claws from Lulu’s hind feet scored her skin. Blood welled from a long scratch. She dabbed at herself as her neighbor watched, face impassive in the hard light.
Zac dragged on a pair of skin-tight black leather trousers and leapt, bare- chested, down the stairs and into the warm and private garden with the high surrounding walls. They were entirely alone. Birds flittered. Bees buzzed.
“Let me... help you,” he murmured, peeling the glimmering silver fabric aside.
Her flesh shuddered with every heartbeat. A pulse beat there with a steady rhythm.
He watched, fascinated, as a trickle of warm red blood leaked from her pale skin.
She was tiny and delicate, but the curves of her breasts were sumptuous.
He bent and licked.
She moaned as he took her blood onto his teasing tongue, lapping as fastidiously as any cat with a tempting treat.
Vi crossed her legs. Goodness!
This calls for a second sherry, she thought, polishing off the last mouthful of the current one. She rose and meandered across to the cocktail cabinet, pushed up the mirrored lid, and poured herself another generous tot.
She sipped with pleasure and returned to her story.
But could she take it any further? Once again she’d set up the scene, and her readers could guess what might happen next. But this time she’d try and get them into bed together, even if his jutting arousal and her slippery pink folds and nerve-filled nub were just too much to describe.
She took up her pencil again.
His hot tongue slid over her warm skin, advancing toward her rosy nipple. He detected the change in skin texture, and marveled as he felt the little peak grow to fill his mouth.
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br /> No, of course not! That makes it sound the size of half a lemon. She’s small and delicate.
How about…’his hot tongue slid over her warm skin, advancing ever onward toward her firm rosy nipple?’ Because surely he would have turned her on enough with the licks to get her perky? Vi smiled and nodded to herself. And sipped her sherry.
He swept his tongue over the tight peak, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth with an indrawn breath.
With a sensuous moan, perhaps? Or a hiss of desire? Vi tried a few noises and went back to the indrawn breath. She didn’t want the woman hissing like a snake. She’d never hissed herself, as far as she was aware.
He bit. With infinite tenderness. She tried to lean away from him and found she could not. As easily as that he’d caught her. And now he suckled in tiny tugs and deep delicious draws. She shuddered with the sensual bliss of it, cradling his head in her hands as he pleasured her.
His smooth golden skin needed stroking. She surrendered—running her hands out over his broad shoulders. Her nails dug little crescents as he sent waves of sensation through the age-old pathway to her center. She became liquid with desire.
Suddenly Zac released her. He straightened, and gazed down into her eyes.
She saw a muscle jumping in his firm jaw, tensing and relaxing. So he was not quite in control? Good, she thought.
What’s her name, Vi wondered. Tiffany? Annelise? Or something modern like Britney?
Britney felt barely in control herself. She’d admired her handsome new neighbor for several weeks now, weaving lustful fantasies as she lay sleepless in her formerly comfortable bed. Knowing he was only feet away in the adjoining apartment’s bedroom made her imagination so much more vivid...
“Take me now,” she demanded.
He lifted her against his body and she wrapped her slim legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She hung there, drinking from his lips as he climbed slowly toward the mirrored bedroom.
Their bodies ground together. Every step he took angled his arousal against the cradle of her hips with explicit need as he carried her to the heaven she’d so far only dreamed about.
He kicked the door closed behind them.
She slid down his muscular frame until she stood pressed against him. His lips roamed her face, her hair, her neck.
Britney breathed in his musky maleness, and he drew her down onto the bed.
Vi flicked the pencil away with a triumphant little exclamation and had another swig of sherry. She could do it!
She would not be pursuing the story to the point where he ripped aside the silver boudoir robe and made her admire the contrast of their bodies in the mirrored walls. His so strong and dark...hers so pale and delicate in comparison.
And she would certainly not be describing the way his hard sex jerked as it itched to plunge into her slippery feminine core.
Or how he spread her on the bed and buried his face between her thighs to lick and tease until she screamed with the shattering release of a clenching orgasm.
Or indeed how she returned the favor by taking him into her wet pretty mouth, sucking and sliding around him until he gave a huge shuddering gasp and hung there on the very point of ecstasy.
While she drew back, smiling, to see if he was right out of control.
Or how he thrust into her, fiercely, repeatedly, grunting and moaning, grabbing her legs and pinning them back against her shoulders, so she was confined and utterly helpless as he plunged deeper and deeper...
No—no need for any of that, Vi thought, oblivious to the fact that men like Zac didn’t grow their own broccoli.
“We’ve done it, Arnold,” she giggled, tweaking the old cat’s ear and up-ending her glass to enjoy the final mouthful of sherry.
CHAPTER 22 - IAN’S TIGHT NEW TROUSERS
He’d never been anywhere like it. Would never have considered going there if it hadn’t been for Liz. Let’s face it, would never have found the place.
Up the alley they went, toward the pounding, pulsing music. In through the black-painted front door, held partly open by a large plaster bulldog, somewhat chipped about the nose.
Liz looked right at home. Ian watched as she pushed hangers along racks and inspected clothes. She tossed a bright purple T-shirt over her arm. He started to protest.
“Not for you, for me,” she said, smirking.
He subsided again into puzzled panic, and stood dithering as she roamed the little store.
“What size are you?” She held impossibly narrow black jeans against him.
“Bigger than that.”
“They’re stretch. They’ll surprise you.” She tossed them at him and continued her search. Ian checked the label on the jeans. No way were they that size...
“And these,” she said, adding two T-shirts to the jeans. One was black and much too shiny...the other a very boring gray. Ian’s lip curled—they weren’t to his taste at all.
Liz saw. “Wait till you see them on,” she said, threatening him as though he was ten years old. She added some miniscule denim shorts to the T-shirt she was carrying.
A long haired, pale skinned girl, reeking of smoke, drifted out from behind a curtain and turned the screaming guitars down a little.
“Hi, Melanie,” Liz said. “This is Ian. I’ve brought him in for a try-on.”
Ian gazed, fascinated, at her feet. Bare, with rings on several toes, and each nail varnished a different color. Should he shake her hand? Had he just been introduced? Apparently not—Melanie turned away and ignored him. A few moments later she emerged from the back of the shop with two more pairs of trousers—one with black leather strips in assorted places.
“These are new,” she said to Liz. “He’d be about the right size for them.”
Ian gathered he was not even to be consulted. And what about the pants being the right size for him?
“I suppose you’ve got horrible big grundies on?” Liz asked. “Have you got anything slinky, Mel?”
“Stretch boxers...satin thongs...” She inspected Ian and shook her head. “And some unisex leopard print hipster things.”
Ian was close to dying of embarrassment. “Not satin and not leopard,” he spluttered.
“Let’s see the stretch boxers then,” Liz said.
Melanie produced a box of small garments. Liz selected black and pushed her hands through the waistband and out the leg holes. “Yep, they’ll do. Put them on, Ian,” she added, passing them across. “And try the black jeans and the gray T-shirt together first.”
She waved him toward the fitting room. He slunk away, wishing he’d never agreed to take part in her mad scheme.
He struggled out of his plaid shirt, and found Liz undressing right next to him.
Her jeans hit the floor. Only a knee-length curtain hung between them. It was all too easy to imagine her long legs and no doubt tiny panties just inches away. The black jeans were never going to fit with that sort of provocation.
He toed his shoes off, and reluctantly removed his trousers and gleaming white Y-fronts. The little black boxers were very thin, and very stretchy indeed. He adjusted himself into them. It was almost as good as being naked.
“Hey, damn good,” Liz said close beside him. Ian hoped she was referring to her denim shorts and not his boxers.
He threaded himself into the black jeans. He was amazed to find they did pull up... and over...and around. The zipper took a little persuading, but then it slid home with a soft rasp. And although he was now encased very snugly indeed, he was not actually uncomfortable.
He glanced over his shoulder. The reflection in the mirror showed a long legged dude with a trim backside. He turned to survey himself front on. Lord—what a bulge! But it seemed somehow in keeping with the rather raunchy pants. A satisfied grin sneaked across his face.
“How’s it going?” Liz demanded from the other side of the curtain. “Are you decent?” She twitched the curtain aside anyway as he shrugged out of his shirt. “Jeez, Ian—not a singlet!
No wonder you always look bunchy. Take it off.”
Ian the Iris-hybridizer would have refused. But Ian the black-jeans-wearer had more courage. He stood spread legged in the little fitting room and dragged the offending vest up over his head.
“My...God...a body...” she breathed, inspecting his lean muscular torso and strong shoulders with great interest. She pushed the curtain back and surveyed him in more detail. “Turn,” she commanded.
He grabbed up the gray T-shirt and held it against his chest.
“No,” she said, reaching for it. Ian sucked his gut in before releasing the shirt.
She nodded, eyes all over him. “Okay—put it on—but don’t try and tuck it in like you always do.”
He looked down at the T-shirt to get his arms through the right holes. She stepped a little closer and smoothed it against his body. The fabric was as clingy as the boxer shorts, and molded to him like skin.
And Liz was touching him! No wonder she needed the Brazilian business. She wore the tiniest shorts he’d ever seen, and a brief bright top, not yet fully buttoned up. Or maybe she intended the world to see that much? He made the most of the view as she circled him critically, tugging at his shirt to straighten it.
She stepped back. “Dynamite.”
He met her eyes in the mirror.
“Do you feel the cold?” she asked.