by Lily Harlem
As I watched his movements, swift and sure, his big body agile in the small, dark hide, a heat grew within me. Suddenly I saw Ray with different eyes. Yes, I’d always thought he was sexy as hell and there was definitely something about him that turned my insides to mush and made me want to lick him all over. But now, watching him preparing a bed, a place for us to lay down and make love, a whole new glut of sensations besieged me; anticipation, possession, lust of the I’m-gonna-rip-off-his-clothes-right-now variety. I trembled, a good tremble and took a final sip of my whiskey-laced tea, noticed the shake in my hand as I set it on the bench.
“Here we go, baby.” He kneeled on the soft woolen blankets and held out his hand. “Come down here, it’s much better than the bench.”
“What if someone comes?” Clasping my fingers in my lap, I glanced at the door.
“We’ve been here a hundred or more times. No one has ever disturbed us. We have hours and hours alone in here.”
“But what if they do today? I’ll be mortified if someone from Wirral comes in and sees us… you know.” The image of us naked and humping on the floor flooded my mind. What would our fellow twitchers think if they saw us like that?
“I promise you they won’t.” He peeled off his sweater revealing a wide, muscle-packed torso, a rainbow of tattoos and a dense thatch of black chest hair.
I fiddled my fingers a little more, aching to touch him, longing to feel his flesh against mine. “You can’t promise me that,” I said, struggling to think straight. I’d seen his bare chest one other time, when it had been hot and he’d stripped his t-shirt off on our walk to the hide. The memory had stayed with me, but even so, I was still bowled over to see his fabulously decorated skin once more and the divine shape of his shoulders and abs.
“I can promise you that, baby.” He urged me down beside him. “And do you know why?
I shook my head as I slid to the blankets.
“No one will disturb us because they’re afraid of what they’ll walk in on.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Feeling bold I rested my palms on his pectoral muscles. My skin was pale against his, my hand small on his body. He was hot, hot and hard, and his muscles were solid, like they were storing an untold amount of power for when he needed it most.
“Because they already think we’re shagging, that’s why,” he said with a grin.
“No,” I gasped. “Whatever makes you say that?”
He laughed, a deep rumble of a sound that would have surely scared a few marsh harriers if they’d been close enough to hear. “Er, because we’re always together, we never partner anyone else. Hell, I barely speak to anyone else when you’re around. They all think we’re an item already.”
“Do you really think so?”
He brushed his lips over mine. “I know so.”
I smoothed my hands up to his shoulders, hardly believing that he was mine to touch after all of this time just wishing and dreaming.
“So shall we make it official?” he asked and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I think so.” A small tremor of nerves went through me. Shook my spine and wriggled all the way to my fingertips.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Are you cold?”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
“Good, because you should definitely take your top off,” he said, reaching for the base of my sweater again.
“Ray, I…”
“Lisa. What is it?” He stilled. “Have you changed your mind about me?”
“No, no, not at all, it’s just…” I stared down at my folded knees and the fluffy lilac blanket spread beneath us.
“Tell me?” he said, stroking his palm over my hair.
I looked into his eyes. They were full of concern, anxiety, fear even. I had to tell him. “It’s just, it’s been a while for me, since I, you know, had sex.”
“Is that all? Blimey, you had me worried then.”
“But, what if I—?”
“If you’ve what? Forgotten how to do it? Come on, it’s like riding a bike. Or so I keep telling myself.”
“But, I… what did you say? You keep telling yourself that, why?”
He smiled, a perfect genuine smile that softened his features and drew his mouth wide. “Baby, since my accident I’ve changed my lothario ways. There has been no one since I got out of hospital.”
“But that was over a year ago.”
“Tell me about it.”
He shifted on his knees and I glanced at his groin. There was a definite space issue going on in his jeans. “Oh, well, I’m sorry, I…”
“Don’t be sorry.” He reached for my top again and this time I let him tug it over my head. “Let’s just accept the fact that we’re both a little out of practice so if things don’t go quite to plan we may have to give it another go.” He grinned cheekily. “Or several more goes.” He dropped his attention to my bra. A pretty white affair with a tiny daisy at the center of the cups. “However with you looking like a dream wrapped in a wish with sprinkles on, I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty damn perfect for me no matter how it goes.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at his mushy words, but only for a second because then he laid me down and hovered above me. “Ray!”
“Lisa,” he said on a heavy breath as he found the front clasp on my bra and released it. “You have no idea how much I want to adore you.”
My aching breasts slipped sideways and he wasted no time palming one and kissing over the other.
I touched his head, tugged the beanie off and wound my fingers into his hair. Sighed as he pulled my nipple into the heat of his mouth. Damn it had been so long since a man had kissed me there, and had it ever felt so good? No, I was pretty sure it hadn’t.
“So sweet,” he murmured, switching his oral treat to the other nipple.
I arched my back, pressing myself into him. Suddenly I wanted more, more of everything. More of what had been missing from my life for so long. “Ray, please, let’s…”
“Let’s stop wasting time? I couldn’t agree more.”
Sitting back on his haunches, he reached for the buttons on my jeans. I studied his face as he worked the material down and over my feet. The darts of sunlight on his scars made them look like satin ribbons draped over his cheek, and the determined set of his jaw made my heart rate rocket.
This big, devastatingly sexy man who had won my heart wanted me. Really wanted me. Little shy Lisa was about to get the ultimate trophy.
“Are you trying to finish me off,” he muttered. “Have you any idea how many times I’ve sneaked a look at your arse and wondered what underwear you have on.”
“You have?”
“Hell yeah. Never thought it would be a thong so tiny and pretty that it is, quite honestly, a crime to remove it.” He looped his fingers through the waistband and grinned. “Oh, well, maybe I’m not that much of a reformed man.” With a flick of his wrist the thong was at my knees, two seconds later it was off and discarded with the rest of my clothes.
Stooping, he kissed my knee, my thigh, the neat triangle of pale fuzzy hair at the juncture of my legs.
“Oh, God,” I said as I was hit with an overwhelming need to feel him kiss lower, deeper, inside me.
“That’s it, open up.” He pushed my thighs apart and settled between them. “Relax and let me make you fly.”
I was about to make a comment that I was scared of flying, but Ray distracted me with his tongue by tickling it through my soft folds and searching out my clit. Oh, he was good, so good and damn accurate too.
A delicious wave of desire tore through me as he set up steady rotations on my needy nub. I gripped the blanket and threw back my head. Allowed him to work his magic on my clit that was swelling and throbbing and building in tension.
Moans erupted from my throat and although I’d felt shy when Patrick had done this to me, with Ray it was different, he was enjoying it too. I could tell by the way he was exploring my pussy with his mouth and fingers. Giving his own low g
roans of approval.
Suddenly he stopped, sat and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “I want to come with you,” he said a little breathlessly.
“Yes.” I held out my arms to him. “Please.” I was wanton. No longer worrying about someone walking in or having forgotten how to do it. I just wanted to make that connection with Ray, have him plunge into me so I could grip his cock with my pussy and ride to a mind-blowing satisfaction.
Ray stood, kicked off his jeans and toed away his shoes. He had a dragon tattoo on his right thigh that I hadn’t known was there. Big and bold it’s tail wound up to the leg of his navy boxer briefs. I stared at the dragon’s fiery breath for a moment, but then my attention was captured by something else.
His cock.
Thick and long it jutted upward from a black patch of hair. The head was swollen and angry-looking, the slit already damp with pre-cum.
“Condom,” he said, stooping and rummaging in his jeans pocket. “I’m sure I have one somewhere… yep, here we are.”
He straightened and I watched fascinated as he tore the wrapper with his teeth then smoothed the sheer latex down his shaft. Taking his time, making sure it was properly rolled right to the root.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yes.” I couldn’t help a gulp of apprehension. Ray was big. Would I be able to take him?
His weight settled over me and I felt the prod of his cock at my entrance. “I’m going to take it real slow okay,” he whispered onto my lips.
“Okay.” I gripped his shoulders and spread my legs wide, hooked my ankles over the backs of his thighs.
The smooth head of his penis pressed into me. I tensed and gripped his biceps. “Ray!”
“We’ll fit fine, just relax.” He gained more entry, pushing apart delicate tissue unused to being stretched by a man. “Ah, fuck, you feel amazing, Lisa, I knew you would. So damn soft and tight.”
“And you’re so damn big,” I gasped.
He chuckled, in a strained kind of way, and then rocked his hips, smoothing through my wetness until he filled me.
Pain and pleasure skirted together, barely a line between them. “Ah, oh, Ray,” I called.
He silenced me with an open-mouthed kiss. Swallowing my cries and groans and whimpers with his hungry, ravenous plundering of my mouth.
He shunted in some more and his pubis connected with my clit. Bright lights burst behind my eyelids as lust screamed through my body. Fuck, that was what I wanted, just there, right on that bundle of nerves. “Oh, oh, yes,” I gasped, breaking the kiss and clutching his shoulders. “God, yes, don’t stop, please Ray, fuck me. Fuck me like that, just there, oh…”
A deep moan rattled up from his chest. “Sweet Jesus,” he said, “I hope you’re not hoping for a marathon session, because hearing you speak dirty like that has just about got my balls exploding.”
The devil poked me with his sharp little fork. “Fuck me, Ray,” I said. “Fuck me, now, hard, fuck me until neither of us can breathe or remember our names.”
He straightened his arms and stared down at where we were joined. There was a glisten of perspiration on his forehead. “You asked for it, little lady.”
A shiver of utter delight tore through me as he pulled out then forged back in.
He grimaced.
I cried out.
He set up a wild, thrusting rhythm. The scent of sex filled the hide, the sound of our sweaty bodies slapping together echoed in my ears.
And then I was there, hanging onto the edge of ecstasy. His wide glans was bashing sublimely at my G-spot, his pubis grinding my clit. I allowed the pressure to erupt and topple me over.
Spiraling through bliss, I sank my teeth into his chest, just a little, over a tattoo of an eagle.
“Ah, ah, yes, I’m coming,” he grunted then froze at the hilt.
Sliding my hands down the smooth planes of his back to his butt, I pulled him closer still. Felt his cock pulsing inside me, jolting up against my cervix. Our bodies had come together spectacularly, wondrously. I couldn’t have ever hoped for more.
“You okay, baby,” he gasped, opening his eyes and gazing down at me. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, his lips were moist and parted.
I touched the teeth marks over his eagle then reached up and cupped the scarred side of his face. “Never better, you?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely.” He grinned, a dirty, sexy grin that balled his cheek against my palm. “Who would have thought,” he said, “that the shiest little bird of them all would be the one to take me to paradise?
About Shy Bird and The Actress
Both Shy Bird and The Actress are additions to anthologies published by the charity Coming Together. Shy Bird features in Coming Together Triumphantly edited by Dorla Moorehouse and raises money for The National Women’s Health Network. Each story, donated for free by the authors, shows how sexy a person’s recovery can be when individuals take the chance to be happy again after physical or emotional trauma. I really enjoyed writing Shy Bird and I hope readers find Ray, with his scars and history, a super-sexy hero. The rest of the anthology is available on Amazon and Smashwords and by purchasing it you’ll be supporting this worthy cause.
The Actress was the very first story I donated to Coming Together back in 2010 and is nestled in the pages of Coming Together As One. Each story in this book is ménage a trois orientated and funds raised go to the charity One, which, headed by U2’s Bono (my favourite band of all time), aims to end extreme global poverty and preventable diseases around the world. For more information visit One. The entire anthology is also available on Amazon and Smashwords and by purchasing you can be content in the knowledge that while enjoying a little bad you are doing a lot of good!
The Actress
I lifted my stiff neck from the floral pillow and fumbled for the bifocals resting on my nightgown. Sliding them on, I managed, after a few moments, to make out the numbers dancing in the serrated green haze of the digital alarm clock. 05:04 . Only four hours until Leanne arrived.
After ringing the bell for a pot of Earl Grey I reached for the dog-eared scrapbook resting on my bedside table. It was impressively heavy, ridiculously thick and had been laminated by Leanne several years ago as a Christmas present.
I found myself reaching for it often as I approached my ninetieth year. For me, history held so much more than the future. I wasn’t bitter, scared, or even sad about this fact. It was simply how it was, and I accepted it— although the arthritic joints I could happily do without.
The scrapbook helped me lose myself in my past, and boy, what a past it had been. There’d been nothing boring about my life. I’d lived it to the full. No, make that, I’d lived it to bursting point.
I opened it randomly to let the memories burst out. The first picture to show itself was a paparazzi picture of me, Sapphire Makepeace, holding up my first glittering Best Actress Oscar outside the Kodak Theatre. I looked stunning in a cerise full-length gown which hugged my slender curves and hit so low at the front my navel would have been the next viewable piece of flesh. I wore a dazzling smile and an enormous collection of diamonds on my left ring finger. Dean Mayer, my new husband, stood close by, his raven hair slicked to the side, square jaw set proud and his hand resting in the small of my back. I could still fell the possessive, reassuring pressure of his palm against my bones.
I swallowed and pulled in a tight breath and the memory of his favourite Italian aftershave swirled in my chest. It was a part of me. He was part of me. Fifty-four years of marriage joins souls together for all of time.
After scanning a few more pages, I dropped open the album again. This time it offered a newspaper cutting, full page in black and white. The headline read: HOLLYWOOD’S FAVOURITE STAR MISSING IN HIMALAYAS—WORST FEARED—TRIBUTES POURING IN. Beneath the jarring black words was a faded, grainy picture of me setting off on a climb in aid of global poverty charity, One. I looked confident, determined, and happy. The climbing gear suited me, it was tight enough to be
sexy, expensive enough to be couture. I’d also thrown a rope over my shoulder for effect and held a pickaxe in the manicured hand I’d clutched the Oscar in six months previously.
However, my eyes didn’t linger on my own young self. Instead, I looked at the two climbing experts flanking me. Their names still rolled around my mouth a hundred times a day. I couldn’t have forgotten them if I’d tried.
Andy and Lee Driver.
Brothers.
English.
They’d summated Everest on two previous occasions. They’d also been given the unenviable task, or perhaps some would have said enviable task, of getting me at least up to camp VI safely. That was all I needed to do to complete my sponsorship duties. It was all the insurance company would allow because my next three movie deals were big budget. A dead leading lady would be an inconvenient expense.
I studied their faces. Lee had a sharp, angular jaw line, supporting a devil-may-care expression and long hair which curled out of his striped beanie like gripping fingers. Andy’s broad grin stretched the small, spiked tuft of hair beneath his bottom lip and creased his young but weathered cheeks into balls. He wore his hair shorter than Lee’s, and although I knew it to be the same sun-kissed gold as his brother’s, it couldn’t be seen on this photo because of his peaked Manchester United cap.
Their eyes were an identical stunning ice blue, so beautifully clear and pale they could have been chipped straight off an ancient glacier. I leaned in for a closer look. I’d always liked their eyes the best. It was the adrenaline junkie sparkle that did it for me every time. They just couldn’t get enough. Life on the edge was their drug. It buzzed them to a high few people on the planet were ever lucky enough to experience.
Of course, a black and white newspaper clipping didn’t do their eyes or their sense of presence justice. So with a sigh of part frustration, part melancholy, I rested back on the pillow and let a wave of drowsiness wash over me.
Suddenly, I was there again.
Surrounded by snow-dusted peaks, I glanced up. Sharp rocky points licked an azure sky. There was an acute sense that the deep blackness of space was only a whisker away. My cool limbs felt free and agile, my body light and lithe, and my thoughts sharp and fresh.