by Adams, PJ
“Now is the moment, now is forever,
We’re living it for all we’ve got.
If there are ninety-nine ways to get together,
There’s a hundred ways to break up.”
First time round she’d taken the song at face value, a song about the precarious nature of love, how you must treasure every moment because even the most secure of relationships was vulnerable, easily lost. Now, though, she realized it could equally be about any relationship, and in particular it could be about the Angry Cans: four young men who had grown up together, lived and played and worked together, fought and broke up.
She wondered at his choice of words earlier: It had the weight of inevitability about it. People get together, people split.
He had a way of putting things, presenting a negative that’s actually a positive, and then twisting it so that it’s negative again. So now he was sitting there and singing the most beautiful song about how important it was to treasure the moments you have because they might be all you have.
It totally encapsulated the mood that had been stealing over her repeatedly this evening. A mood she’d tried to deny and resist, whereas Ray embraced it: this is life – enjoy it, give yourself up to it. Life so precious, so vulnerable.
That double-edged thing, the appreciation and the vulnerability, had been in his songs from the start, she realized. She’d just never quite understood.
She waited until the last notes of the piano had faded away, Ray still sitting there, his hands poised, his head drooping, as if the song had taken everything.
She moved around the piano and put a hand to each of his cheeks, cupping his face, tilting him up to meet her kisses. A succession of brief, delicate kisses. Across his mouth, his nose, his forehead, and then back down to his mouth, lingering now, pressing.
He turned on the piano stool to face her and his hands moved to her hips.
She parted her lips now and his tongue pressed home. That nervous thing of his, the first tentative probing and then the hunger and need stealing over him as he took control, driving deep into her mouth.
Instantly, her heart was pounding, her breath rapid, and that delicious, tense knot was forming deep in her belly.
Those hands... pulling at her skirt now, sliding it up her thighs, over her hips.
A moment’s rushing of thoughts: fear of being intimate with him (but he’d seen her naked already, kissed every inch of her curvy body), relief that she’d chosen to wear those sheer black hold-ups and the new black lace shorts she’d bought that morning. Then...
One hand now, moving away from her hip, stealing inwards.
Pressing. Thumb upright against her mound. Forefinger pressing against the fabric of her panties, hard knuckles against her softness, parting her through the thin cotton. A roll of the wrist, a rocking back and forth.
She pulled her head away from his kiss. Had to breathe. Had to let go that long, low groan.
She tugged at her blouse, fumbling with the buttons, freeing them, pulling the top free and discarding it on the floor. Reached back to unhook her bra and pull it clear. And all the time, that hand, pressing, rocking, separating.
Now that he was facing her, she could shuffle her feet sideways, forward, until she was straddling him, pressing down, settling in his lap. On his lap.
His hand fell away, came to settle on her thigh, sliding over the sheerness of her hold-ups, across the smooth skin to her hip and back down again.
She bore down, feeling the hardness of his jeans pressed against her. The thick fabric, doubled up over metal buttons at his fly. The hard bulge of his manhood beneath.
She pressed down harder, letting her legs relax so that her weight came down on him.
Hands to either side of his face again, she kissed him, an interplay of tongues as first she probed his mouth and then his tongue met hers, pressed back, entered her mouth.
What was it about having him like this? About the way he pressed, about the way their bodies fitted together so perfectly? She was right on the edge. Keep pressing like this and she would pass the point of no return, climaxing just from the pressure of his body against hers.
She shifted, and now the pressure wasn’t so direct, more on her inner thighs. She reached down and found the first button at his waist. Popped it open.
Now his mouth worked down her neck, his hands taking a firm hold of her ass, squeezing the flesh, pulling and parting, then easing their grip to cup her, stroke her, the touch suddenly gentle, like a feather.
She popped the second button and took a moment to slide her hand inside, her knuckles against flat belly, coarse hair. Pressing downwards until her fingertips encountered hardness and his whole body stiffened. Withdrawing again. Finding another button, popping it open.
A fourth, and now she could trace her fingertip over the base of his shaft, wrap fingers around it, and gently tease his manhood out into the open until it lay flat and hard against his t-shirt.
Now she turned her hand and pressed the palm against him, pressed herself back down against the back of her hand, use herself to grind that hand against him.
That was such an intensely horny thing!
Her hand separating them, a barrier. But that hand, slick with her juices soaking through her panties, and slick, too, with his.
He moved one of his hands up to her breasts now, cupped one, took the nipple between thumb and forefinger, squeezing and twisting.
She turned her hand, knuckles against his shaft, making him gasp. Pulled at her lace shorts, easing them aside so that now when she pressed down against him it was skin against skin, softness against hardness. She held herself there, waiting for his eyes to rise and meet hers. He’d been studying her, watching her pulling her shorts aside, watching his hand working at that nipple.
She remembered that moment of self-consciousness, but that seemed so long ago. Why feel like that when here he was, enjoying her, drinking her in with his eyes?
Slowly, she drew herself up, along his shaft, until the head of his dick nestled in the folds of her labia, nudging against her clit so that every tiny movement sent a surge of pleasure arcing through her body. Then she moved again, slid upwards until he was pressing against her opening, a delicious pressure as he started to enter.
She’d been holding her breath, she realized. Focusing everything on the sensations of his body against her. On the way those sensations changed as they moved, as they realigned themselves.
His eyes were locked on hers again. She’d had her eyes closed, briefly. Had it only been briefly? How long had this moment lasted? Now is the moment, now is forever, We’re living it for all we’ve got. Never had that been more true than now!
Slowly, so slowly, she took his full length into her, lowering herself onto him until he was fully impaled and she could feel his pubic bone hard against her.
His hands were at her waist now, holding her, steadying her.
Feeling so full, feeling his hard body beneath her, that grip at her waist... Those dark eyes locked on hers, a smile tugging at his features, his mouth slightly parted... The rapid rise and fall of his chest...
She was so close! She could feel it building, something relentless. Something that if she’d wanted to hold it back the opportunity to do so had long since passed and now was the time to live that moment, let it grow, let it steal over her senses, her entire body.
She reached for his head, drew him into her cleavage. Felt his hot breath on the soft skin of her breasts, the scrape of his stubble.
His hands came up to hold her breasts, fingers and thumbs squeezing at her nipples, and now there was the softness of lips, the firm wetness of his tongue, the hard drag of teeth. Across one breast, around to the nipple. Sucking it in. Teeth closing around it. Tongue flicking, hard and steady.
Now she didn’t think she could take any more. Everything was so intense. So much more.
It took her suddenly, an eruption from deep within.
She arched her back, her nipple dragging
free of Ray’s teeth with stabs that were both pain and pleasure.
She bore down on him, holding him deep, still, so that she could feel every pulse in that hard shaft, feel herself clenching around him, a rapid muscle tremor deep inside her that diminished slightly with each throb.
She’d done that thing again, where she forgot everything. Where she stopped breathing, where her mind blanked, perhaps even briefly blacking out altogether so that now she felt dizzy, her head rushing and spinning, and she had to slump forward against him, vaguely aware of one of his arms coiling around her back to hold her while the other braced against the piano stool, holding himself upright, supporting them both.
He turned her.
Somehow he extricated himself and turned her so that she was kneeling on the piano stool, leaning over the piano, her breasts pressed against polished wood, her arms spread over the lid, her face pressed down. The wood of the piano’s top was cool against her cheek.
Behind her, Ray stood. His knees were against the stool, and against the insides of her ankles. His hands on her hips, holding her tight.
He’d removed her shorts when he’d moved her, too, although she couldn’t remember that happening – it was all so fast, so smooth, so in control.
He positioned himself, and she felt the fat head of his manhood pressing between her thighs, finding that soft wetness, pressing and parting her labia. Finding the opening and pushing, bursting inside her and sliding slowly, steadily in until his balls were against her thighs and her ass was against his lap.
Immediately, he pulled back until he was almost clear before driving home again, hard and fast.
Pausing, pressing, withdrawing, and then slamming back into her, only to hold once more.
She thought then of how it must be for him: this was measured, hard sex, savoring every sensation when he was deep inside her just as he savored those hard thrusts, the deep sliding, the wetness and tightness of her.
And the view... He would be looking down on her, watching himself sliding into her. Looking down on the spread of her ass, her skirt bunched up around the narrowing at her waist. Taking in those figure of eight curves.
“Fuck me,” she hissed back at him. “Fuck me hard.”
He did.
No more lingering each time he drove deep, he pulled back straight away and thrust again. Leaning forward now, one hand reached for her breasts, found one, cupped and squeezed it. The other hand came round to her belly, pressed against her, slid down to the narrow strip of hair over her mound and started to caress, sliding skin across clit, again and again.
She really didn’t do this... this orgasm after orgasm thing. She’d always needed a slow build and then plenty of recovery time. But Ray... Ray.
It was going to happen again. He’d drawn it out of her.
She felt it intensely in the pit of her belly this time, as the head of his manhood kept ramming hard against the front wall of her vagina and sliding deep.
Everything focused on that sensation, a whole world closing in on that pounding pressure and the steady thump as he slammed against her ass and thighs and then... then he held himself deep and she felt a throbbing in his shaft, deep inside her, and then wet heat filled her.
She ground her face into hard wood, giving out an animal cry as orgasm seized her too, blossoming deep in her belly and spreading outwards. He pushed again and held and more wet heat filled her and then she felt a transformation taking place, his shaft softening, ebbing, starting to subside.
He slumped over her, his face against her bare back. His hands fell from her body, crashing against the piano keys in jarring discord, and that seemed so silly, so melodramatic, that suddenly a fit of giggles stole over Emily.
He pulled away and she was able to turn, bury her face against his shoulder, still giggling, and now he joined her, laughing, swinging a hand against the keys again, another random chord.
“Is there a bed?” she gasped. “I need a bed.”
He took her hand, and they staggered across the wide floor to one of the doors, pushed through and there was a room like something out of a period drama, an ornately decorated four-poster the centerpiece.
They moved towards it and Emily smoothed her skirt down so she could unhook and unzip it. She raised a leg, resting her foot on the edge of the bed, and slid one of her stockings down, aware of her wetness, of his juices running back out of her. Enjoying that raw animal thing, nature’s mess, their physicality, her heart still racing from the sex, the climax, the thrill.
She slipped the other stocking down her leg and climbed into bed, Ray watching her all the time.
“I don’t even know which side you prefer,” she said.
5
She woke in a panic.
Just for a second or two she didn’t know where she was. She opened her eyes and saw the canopy of the four-poster above her. She turned to her left and almost tumbled out of bed. She caught herself, and squinted across what seemed a vast distance to a window where light spilled in.
Her skirt and stockings were on the floor, and now she remembered that the rest of her things – her blouse and underwear, her bag – were in the room next door, somewhere near the piano.
She had a flashback to being pressed hard against the piano’s polished wood surface. Her face and breasts squashed, her arms spread wide along its top.
She turned, and Ray was sleeping on his side, facing her, his mouth slightly open, the stubble now a dark mat along his jaw.
She slipped out of bed and padded across the rug and then the bare wooden floor.
This place. It still felt as if she was staying in a National Trust home, a living museum. At any moment a guided tour might come through the door, and here she was, walking naked through this suite’s living room, picking up her discarded clothing and bag.
Her phone.
Anxiety suddenly coming to a head, she checked for messages or missed calls but there were none. Even then, she wasn’t reassured. Was that a good thing, or bad? At least with messages you have a better chance of understanding what you’re anxious about, but how do you interpret silence?
She stopped herself.
She was being stupid. Allowing feelings of guilt to run away, out of control.
She knew what she was doing. From the moment she had accepted Ray’s invitation to meet him at L’Auberge and bring some overnight things, she had known what she was doing.
Her marriage was over. Dead.
She had to move on.
She had to explore what she really wanted.
§
She’d never thought about it like that. Not in such stark terms.
Over.
How did she feel about that?
Relief.
Sheer relief.
§
Her phone: she checked again, but there were still no messages. She was being stupid. Paranoid.
She checked the time, but it was fine, it was still early. Ray had said there would be a car for her, either to get her to the station or right into the city for work.
She walked back through and Ray was awake. He looked up, smiled, put his phone aside. “Sorry,” he said. “Just catching up on messages. You know.”
She still had her phone in her hand so she waved it, her eyebrows raised, and said, “Yes, I know.” Then: “I’m going to have to get away. I need to get showered and into work.”
He rolled over to face her, just a sheet casually draped over the lower half of his body. He looked like a photograph, a center-page spread. Did he just naturally fall into poses like that, or was this what it was like to be with a beautiful person?
She hugged herself, suddenly self-conscious. She wasn’t a morning person at the best of times, but after a night like last night...
“Come here,” said Ray.
He’d seen right through her sudden rush of insecurity.
She hesitated, still, and he rose to a kneeling position, the sheet still somehow tangled around his waist.
She went
to him, stopping at the side of the bed. He put a hand to her face and drew her in to a tender kiss. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “You blow me away.”
Closer, until their bodies were pressing, his arm slipping around her waist to hold her firm.
She felt weak, as if her legs would fail. That skin on skin thing, his chest against her, her breasts squashed against him, the hardness growing under that sheet.
“I have to get to work,” she said.
“I know.”
“I have to get ready.”
He nodded, reached down, and the sheet fell away.
“I have to...”
§
Downstairs, later – too much later – she was showered and dressed in the fresh clothes she’d brought with her. The car was waiting outside, but she was going to be late for work, even if the traffic was in her favor.
Ray walked outs with her, stopping her with a hand on the arm before she climbed into the back of the silver Merc.
“Hey,” he said. “Be in touch, okay?” Then he drew her into an embrace, and held her there for long seconds before reluctantly letting her back away.
She nodded, unsure of the sudden rush of emotion that swept over her then. She still didn’t understand what this was, but moments like these... Something was happening. Something big. Something that was so much more than a bit of fun.
Just then, Ronnie appeared from around a corner of the building. “Darling!” he rumbled. “Tell me you weren’t just sneaking off. Does the boy have no manners?”
“I...” Emily’s response was cut off as Ronnie stepped up to her and took her into a big hug. He smelled of roses and lavender – a scent, or simply because he’d been gardening, Emily couldn’t tell.
Still holding her, he arched his back so that his head drew away and he fixed her with a sharp look from those famous pale blue eyes. “He’s told me all about you,” he said. “Before you came here.”