Pippa's Cornish Dream

by Debbie Johnson

  “It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” she murmured, nestling her slim figure closer to his.

  “What? The eau de Leonardo? It’s not that bad…”

  She poked him, sharply, in the ribs, and he made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a little girl squealing.

  “No, you idiot – the bay. It’s magic, you know.”

  “Really? Like pixies?”

  “Maybe, although I’ve never seen any myself. Apart from that unfortunate incident with the absinthe…I wish. Anyway. Even without pixies, for me, it’s magic. It was a smuggler’s cove back in the day, and I always think if I close my eyes, I can still see it – the wrecked boats, the lanterns, the barrels of brandy floating in on the waves. It’s so quiet now, but then it must have been a hive of activity. Or maybe I’ve just been watching Poldark a bit too much.”

  Ben paused, closed his eyes, willed himself to see what Pippa saw, to picture the vivid scenes she conjured up.

  “No. You’re right,” he said after a moment. “It is magic. I wish we had some of that brandy right now. The wind’s getting up…are you warm enough?”

  She was, she thought, but snuggled closer all the same. The feel of his solid, warm presence next to her was swamping her senses. Their hips touching; their thighs leaning against each other. His arm around her shoulder, holding her close, keeping her safe. It was bliss and she never wanted it to end. She knew it was an illusion, but it was a wonderful one. The bay never let her down.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “I always am when I’m here. This is where our parents used to bring us on holiday. I know it’s only a few miles away, but there was never enough money or time for trips abroad or theme parks or any of that stuff. So we used to come here – with a little camping stove and some sausages. Marshmallows on sticks. Ghost stories – the whole deal. They had a camper van, one of those old VW things that ran forever. It was three colours – blue, white and rust – but it got us here.”

  “I just about remember coming here on my own with them, before Patrick was born, and it carried on all the way until…well, until they died. It was just…our place. Every memory I have of this bay is perfect, and if I close my eyes again, I can almost see them as well – laughing and playing, mum burning the sausages and dad skimming stones and Leonardo eating the marshmallows. Happy. All of us together. I wish they were still here, but I know I was lucky to have had them at all. And this is the place I still feel them the most, like they’re still here, watching over me. Telling me they love me, and to buck my ideas up. When I’m down, it brings me back up – and when I’m up, I come here to celebrate it. With them.”

  “Then it really is magic,” he said, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. “And I’m honoured that you brought me here. Thank you for sharing it with me, and thank you for the last week or so. There’s been a sprinkling of pixie dust over my whole time here, don’t you think? Or is it always like this?”

  “No, it’s not – the pixies have definitely been busy. We’ve loved having you around, Ben, and we’ll all be sad to see you go on Tuesday. Maybe you’ll come back and see us again some time when you’re a famous author. Give me some notice and I’ll even make sure the toilet’s working.”

  Her tone was calm and even. Resigned. He wondered if that was how she felt – if he was just another guest among the dozens who stayed at Honeysuckle Cottage every year? If she’d wave him goodbye, then go back to her everyday life as though they’d never met? Move on to her next visitors, show them the sights, bake them fresh bread, bring them to this magical place as well?

  For some reason, the thought made his heart seize up, as if someone had slammed him with a defibrillator. The thought of leaving all this behind: the countryside, the sea, the wildflower meadows. Of going back to London, to his pristine flat crammed full of bad memories. Back to avoiding eye contact on the Tube and getting jostled in the supermarket as the worker ants foraged for food. Mainly, if he was honest, the thought of leaving Pippa – her soft laughter, her strength, her lavender hair. He’d made so many vows about himself and women. Himself and people, in fact. But now he was finding it hard to imagine his everyday life without her and the kids and even the bloody animals. This was meant to be a holiday – but now it felt like a new reality. A much better one. They’d found a chink in his armour and snuck through it without even trying. It was frightening and wondrous all at the same time.

  “Well, what if I don’t go back?” he said. “What if I stay a bit longer? I’m getting lots of work done here. Nobody bothers me. I could stay. If that was all right with you.”

  He paused, all his senses on hyper-alert. Waiting for her to say no, waiting for her body to tense up next to his. Waiting for the rejection he always seemed to expect since Johanna had done her walking routine. Waiting for her to shove him right off this dream cloud and back into reality.

  “That would be…all right with me,” she murmured, after what felt like a lifetime. “I have a booking, but I could move them into Primrose, as long as I could get the dishwasher working again.”

  “I can fix dishwashers,” he added quickly, feeling his heart beat faster. Calm down, you idiot, he thought. All she’s said yes to is taking your money for another week or so. This isn’t your life and it never will be. You’re on borrowed time. You’re a paying guest, and maybe a friend, and perhaps she fancies you just a little bit. But nothing more than that – and certainly nothing that merited this kind of hyperventilation.

  “Of course you can fix dishwashers. You’re Ben Retallick. You can do anything. But I was wondering…” she said, her fingers creeping onto his thighs. “…if this was enough for you? Staying here, like this? I know you’ve sworn off all contact with womenfolk etc. etc., but…well, there has been that pixie dust, hasn’t there? Maybe I’m imagining it, but there seems to be something more between us, Ben. More than I’d like there to be, maybe, but I think it’s there. I’m not the world’s most experienced of women, but when we’re together, it feels…kind of yummy.”

  “You’re not imagining it, Pippa. And yummy is exactly the right word. But…” he said, distracted by the touch of her soft fingers on his legs, the sensations that were coursing through him. He couldn’t even hear the sea, his heart was pounding so fast. A pterodactyl could fly overhead carrying a cow and all he’d notice was the fact that she was stroking him, and his body was reacting in an immediate and disconcerting way.

  This, he thought, was right where he should stop it. Move her hand and end it. This is where he should draw the line. At flirtation, at fun, at friendship.

  But her hand was still moving, running up and down his thigh, and he could hear her breath, coming faster than it had any right to come. He could smell her hair and feel the outline of her breast as she leaned closer in to him. He was barely capable of thought, never mind drawing lines and sticking to them. Any line he drew right now was likely to be pretty wonky.

  “But what?” she asked, fingertips skimming over his groin, her eyes widening as she felt him there; felt the reaction her touch had provoked.

  “But…God, how do you expect me to think when you’re doing that? I’m only flesh and blood, you know! No, Pippa, you’re not imagining it. It’s quite obvious that you’re not imagining it.”

  He nuzzled her hair, inhaled the scent of her, gave himself over to the pleasure of feeling a soft, sweet woman cuddled next to him. It had been so long…

  “I feel it too,” he said. “I want you so much it drives me crazy. I sit in that cottage every night picturing you in bed, wanting to join you. I see you around the farm and I want you. I even see you in your wellies, carrying shovels full of pig manure, and I still want you. I didn’t expect this, not ever. You’re way too young for me. You’re way too good for me. I know all of that and I still want you.”

  “You’re thinking too much,” she replied, turning her face to look up into his eyes. “And you’re talking too much. Let me come back to Honeysuckle with you, tonight. We may never get the op
portunity again, and I want you too. I’m so sick of denying myself everything I want. It’s been so hard, for so long, and…Lord, I don’t want to sound like a L’Oréal advert, but I’m worth it. I deserve it! I deserve some fun, for mollusc’s sake! Even if it’s just for one night, I deserve to forget everything I have to do, everything I need to accomplish. I want to forget about tax bills and chores and Social Services and Patrick.

  “For one night, I want to forget about all of my responsibilities, about everything apart from the way you make me feel. I know this isn’t forever, Ben, for either of us. We both have our reasons for that – pretty good reasons. But for now, I’d like to just be…a woman. Not a mother, or a sister, or a bloody plumber. Just a woman. Can you help me with that?”

  He looked down at her, at those huge eyes reflecting the moonlight, at the hair pooling around her shoulders, and realised that resistance was futile. He was a dead man walking.

  “There’s nothing I’d like better,” he said. “Now where are the car keys?”

  She’d been steady and focused on the drive back, concentrating ferociously on the road despite the hormones raging inside her. Ever since her parents had died, driving had been something she’d taken very seriously, and even the presence of Ben and all his man-bits sitting next to her didn’t alter that.

  The minute he unlocked the door to Honeysuckle Cottage, though, that all changed. She’d expected to feel shy, nervous, uncertain. Because she was capable of being all of those things, especially as she’d just propositioned a man for the first time in her life.

  Instead, it was as though her inner slut had been unleashed, and she practically threw herself at him the minute the door quietly clunked shut behind them.

  He barely had time to breathe before she draped her arms around his neck, reaching up on tiptoes to kiss him. He leaned back against the door, scooped her up so her legs wrapped around his waist, clinging on to him.

  He kissed her back, hard and hot, and it was everything she’d wanted it to be: urgent and fast and needy. She could feel the musculature of his shoulders beneath her hands, and the press of his erection against her, and wanted more, immediately. Even kissing him, even being held tight against him, was breathtaking – like nothing she’d ever encountered.

  “Slow down, Pippa,” he said, pulling his lips away from hers, smiling when he saw her expression. A child who’d had her latest toy taken off her. Pouting and sulky, lips swollen and red.

  He stroked her hair from the sides of her face, leaned in to trace her cheekbones with his lips, dropped lower and gently kissed the hollow of her throat. She sighed and rubbed herself against him, dragging his t-shirt up so she could make contact with bare skin.

  “Slow down…we have all night,” he said, nipping at the sensitive flesh of her neck, “if you want to feel like a woman, then let me take my time – let me make this special for you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder, hands still playing over the smooth skin of his back. “I’m not very experienced, and I’ll probably be rubbish, and I’ve basically been imagining this ever since you got here.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry,” he replied, pulling her face back so he could meet her eyes, kissing her softly, slowly. “And you won’t be rubbish – I’ll take enthusiasm over skill any day. But I don’t want to rush this. I’ve been imagining it too – and there’s a whole week’s worth of sexual fantasy stored up in my brain waiting to come out and play…now let me take you to bed. Let me make you forget everything you want to forget.”

  Her cornflower eyes were clouded with desire and she was chewing on her full lower lip. Her hair was splayed around her head like gold dust and she shook her head sadly.

  “I already have,” she said. “What’s your name again?”

  Chapter 8

  “You look happy, sis – late night playing Scrabble, was it?” asked Patrick, as he ambled into the kitchen. The gravel scars on his face were healing up and it looked suspiciously as if he’d just had his second shower in as many days. Miracles, she thought, would never cease.

  She ignored his comment – sarcasm, she’d always been told, was the lowest form of wit – and instead handed him a mug of steaming tea. She hadn’t even spat in it. She was that happy.

  Happy and tired, and aching in places she never even knew she had. Ben had made her forget, all right – she’d forgotten everything but the touch of his long, strong fingers, the lick of his tongue, the glorious sight of his naked body. The way he’d made her murmur his name, over and over. The way he’d made her feel things she’d never known it was possible to feel. The way he’d taken her body to a strange and foreign land, full of delights and pleasures and delicious pains. She’d been busily thinking “wow”, replaying it all in her mind, ever since she’d got up, and suspected the smile would never leave her face. The mums had stared at her when she’d done the school run and she knew she must look exactly like what she was: a woman who’d spent a very good night with a very bad man. It had been…amazing, all of it.

  None of which, she thought, Patrick needed to know. He may be a grown-up, but he’d always be her baby brother. She’d never had a sex life before, and it would be great to have someone to talk to about it, but Patrick was most definitely not that person. Even if the smug grin on his big, daft face told her he knew exactly what she’d been up to, and was most amused by it. It probably made a change for someone else in the family to be the naughty one.

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?” she said, raising her eyebrows at him. “Or would you prefer it if I drew you some diagrams?”

  He laughed and she was taken aback by the sound of it. She didn’t think she’d heard Patrick laugh for…well, three years or so. Her heart swelled with love and affection: for so long, she’d looked at him and only seen trouble. Thought of him and only felt anxiety. Spoken to him like a shrew instead of someone who cared about him. How had that felt for him? To know he was the thorn in her side, the millstone around her neck? It can’t have been easy, playing the bad boy for all this time, when she knew he was an essentially decent person. Maybe it was time for them both to change, not just him.

  “I love you, Patrick,” she said abruptly, which wiped the smile right off his face.

  “Er…yeah. I know that. Thanks, sis, but let’s not get carried away, eh? We are English, you know? Too much of that lovey-dovey stuff and I’ll be sick in my mouth. Right. I’m off to do some gardening. D’you want me to drop the kids off at school or something?”

  “Thanks for the offer,” she said, clearing the cups away, “but they’ve already been there for two hours. Your body clock doesn’t seem to run to the same time table as the rest of us, does it?”

  “Guess not. Laters. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…”

  As Patrick was, she knew, already something of a legend amongst the teenaged girls of the village, she suspected that left her with a lot of leeway.

  She finished rinsing the dishes, then poured two fresh mugs of coffee. She’d already deposited the kids at school, done the morning feed and replied to her emails. And, she added with a wry smile, found time to brush my hair, iron a clean t-shirt, and track down underwear that actually matched. A red-letter day indeed.

  She walked out into the courtyard, pausing to enjoy the feel of sunlight on her face. The grey clouds had finally cleared and the air positively hummed with summer. She could hear the gulls over the bay; the sound of honeybees in the hedgerows, lambs bleating in the fields. It was warm – it was bright. It was fan-bloody-tastic.

  She’d woken up in her own bed – much as she enjoyed making love with Ben, she still had some responsibilities she couldn’t forget – and listened as Scotty pattered down the hallway towards her. He’d climbed in, bleary-eyed, hair tangled and immediately asked when he could see Ben. That had been the norm for the last week and for the first time she found her own heart echoing it. She knew she’d said it was only for one night, and maybe it
was – but as soon as she was conscious, she’d found herself thinking about him again. He filled her mind and smothered all sanity. It was terrifying and terrific, and totally new to her.

  Any minute now, she thought, I’ll make time to start worrying about that…

  “What can you see up there that I can’t?” said Ben, emerging from Honeysuckle to find her standing dead still, holding two mugs of coffee, face turned up to stare at the sky. The sun streamed down around her, glinting off her hair, making her look like some pastoral angel fallen to earth. Wearing a Simpsons t-shirt.

  She gave him a grin that could crack the hardiest of souls and he felt a little bit of himself cry for help.

  Ben had woken up that morning alone, tangled in sheets that had seen some heavy-duty action the night before. He was supposed to have been the one showing her the sexual ropes, but in reality, she’d blown his mind. Her sensuality, her abandon, the totally wanton side of her nature that had emerged and taken complete control. There was no pretence, no coyness, no game-playing: just one hundred percent joyous lust. One night with Pippa, he’d decided, was worth a lifetime with any other woman.

  He’d slept late, exhausted, reaching out for her as soon as he started to swim back to consciousness. Stretching his arm out over the pillow, he’d found her gone and fought back a moment of panic. A moment where he felt the same blind emptiness that had consumed him after Johanna had left. Default setting: she’s done a runner.

  Well, Pippa wasn’t Johanna, he reminded himself. She couldn’t be more different if he’d designed them himself. And more importantly, they’d made no promises to each other – no promises made meant that none could be broken, and he could set aside that panic, that fear. This was a completely different situation.