“You’re a student too, right?” Carrie comments.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Jamie replies,
“Well how do you manage it, then? You seem to be in here at all hours.”
“Truth be known,” he sighs, leaning back against the serving counter, “I do the minimum when it comes to my school work. As long as I get some kind of pass my Dad will be happy.”
“Oh,” Carrie replies, putting down her spatula and turning to face him.
“What are you going to do with your English Degree once you have it, then?” he asks.
“I’m not totally sure, to be honest.” Carrie leans back against Graham’s preparation area. “I sometimes fancy journalism. Other times I think about teaching or lecturing. I’m really not sure.”
“You know,” Jamie, says, moving forward until he’s standing in front of Carrie, “You look beautiful, even under these harsh lights.”
“Oh, please,” Carrie snorts, her cheeks redden and her eyes drop to the floor. Her hands clench together in front of her. “I’m not beautiful.”
“What are you saying?” James runs a hand through his long, blond hair, flipping it out of his face. “You think you’re ugly?”
“Yes,” Carrie replies, head slung low, her eyes focusing in on her shoes.
“Nonsense!” James exclaims, standing up straight and reaching out a hand. Carrie feels his fingers tipping up her chin, and her cheeks burn under his bright, blue gaze.
“You are beautiful.” He almost whispers it reverently, as if praying in church. Carrie is mesmerized by his stare, and her lips begin to bend into a smile before she shakes her head and it droops to her chest again.
“Carrie.” He’s closer now, and both his hands cup her cheeks and pull up her face. He’s so close, touching her, making her whole body explode with feelings. “Oh Carrie, you are beautiful. So very beautiful, yet you hide it so well. You hide it away and if you did just one thing, the world would see how beautiful you really are.”
“One thing?” Carrie is confused and uncomfortable. No one had been this close to her since…and the panic was rising. His touch is inflaming something, making her pulse pound. She wants to run, run far away but she can’t. She’s trapped. She pulls back and James lets his hands slip away from her face , feeling the counter digging into her lower back.
“Yes. All you need to do is smile. When you smile your whole face glows. You’re eyes shine with gorgeous natural beauty. Your skin comes alive with it.”
Carrie is shaking her head again, but a little spark is in her eye.
“You’ve got to believe me Carrie. You’re beautiful and even more so when you smile”
Carrie smiles wryly and James grins, pointing into the stainless steel structure behind him. “Look, look at how beautiful you are.”
Carrie turns her head and looks. She looks at her reflection and sees nothing but fat, nothing but the ugly child her father told her she was, but in James’ eyes she can see something new, not repulsion, not sympathy or pity. But what is it? She really isn’t sure.
“But I’m fat,” she replies, crossing her arms across her chest. “No smile can change that.”
“Fat?” James shakes his head, coming forward again. “Never. You’re beautiful.” He repeats that word again as if it’s a spell and Carrie feels the tug of it deep in the pit of her stomach.
“May I touch you?” His words are like a soft breath, caressing her cheek and her head rocks forward of its own accord. She’s wanted him to touch her for weeks. His hands squeeze her in at the waist, pulling in her blouse tight against her breasts.
“Look at these curves.” His hands move higher and cup her breasts. She gasps, feeling her nipples tighten, her heart beating faster. “Beautiful curves.” His hands move down and rest on her hips, then dip behind her, grasping her generous buttocks, pulling in her baggy trousers. “What a peachy behind.” His breath is coming in gasps from his lungs as his hands lift once again to her hips.
She can’t think. No one has made her feel like this before, this closeness scares her yet excites her. She wants to push him away as the old memories fight to surface, yet she wants to pull him closer, too.
“But what about this curve?” She takes his hand in hers and presses it to her stomach. “I’m fat.”
His breath is shallow and she sees him bite his lip, holding something in. Repulsion. Repulsion. She tries to step back, away from him but she’s trapped.
“It’s okay.” James steps back, giving her space to breathe. She smiles weakly. “That curve is just as beautiful as the others. Feminine, womanly. It’s a hill that leads deep into a valley of sheer ecstasy.”
His eyes never left hers, and the panic, still uppermost in her mind is frozen by the suggestions in those eyes. She can see his hand in her mind’s eye, moving over her stomach, into her pants and…
She gulps air. It’s too much, all too much.
“I’m not beautiful.” She shakes her head, her hands shuddering uncontrollably.
“Okay, well I think you are. So much so I’m talking like a poet and I want to paint you.”
“You’re an artist? I thought you were studying business.”
“Yes, I am studying business and I am an artist. My dad wouldn’t pay for University if I did a, and I quote, ‘artsy fartsy’ course. So I took business and I do the art in my spare time.”
“That’s why you’re always doodling then. You know, on napkins and stuff.”
Carrie feels a bit safer now that the topic is off her body and onto something far less personal.
“Yeah, I love to draw and sketch. I’m not so good with paint and stuff, but I have a little talent with a pencil.” His cheeks flush and Carrie enjoys seeing him flustered.
“Cool. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.” She shrugs.
“Really? I’d think you were really creative. Anyway, shift’s pretty much over. Wanna come and see my sketches?” His cheeky wink makes Carrie giggle.
“I am sure they warned me about this at school. ‘Never go with a stranger who wants to show you his etchings,” they said.
“But you know me, and you’re going back to the halls anyway.” He flutters his eyelashes at her. “Pleeeasse?”
Carrie sighs dramatically, a smile plastered over her face. “Okay then.”
Jamie claps then kisses her cheek.
“Good. Let’s get closed up.”
* * * *
“Hey, I just thought,” Carrie asked as they slid down the shutters for the night, “if your dad’s paying for you to be here, why’re you working? And working here of all places?”
“Oh, Dad’s only paying for tuition. I’ve got to pay my rent and food and stuff myself.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“Yeah, Dad said it’d make me appreciate money doing this. And, though I hate to admit it, I think he was right.”
“You certainly can appreciate the value of a pound when you flip around twenty burgers to earn it.”
“Exactly.”
Carrie is very quiet in the car, her brain working over time. For one, she can’t believe Jamie thinks she is beautiful. She’s trying to work out what the joke is because surely he can’t really want to paint her? She’s nervous, really nervous, and part of her wants to escape but another part of her hopes that he won’t let her go.
“Jamie, it is kind of late…” she stammers.
“You’re not tired, are you?”
“Well, no,” she says, cursing her inability to lie.
“Well then, we’re not in to work until late tomorrow and I always do my best work at night.”
Jamie pulls up outside the stark modern exterior of the most expensive halls of residence at the university.
“I’m on the top floor. We’ll take the lift.”
Carrie was not the only
one feeling a little nervous, Jamie has never shown his pictures to a girl before and he certainly hasn’t tried to paint a woman in the flesh before. His mind is filled with gorgeous images of Carrie naked, bathed only in moonlight. It’s such a shame she thinks she is so ugly because she is clearly beautiful. Jamie has known many girls but none of them have made his heart flutter the way Carrie does. It’s arousal. Oh yes, he feels lust when he looks at her, her curves are just made to be squeezed, but he can’t get her out of his mind, her smile makes him gooey inside.
The lift pings and the doors open.
“This way.” Jamie smiles, sweeping his hand out in front of him.
“Oh, wow.” Carrie exclaims as she walks into the dark room.
“That’s why I went for this one, right on the top floor –you get great light from up there.”
They stand together, necks craned back as they look up and out of the skylight onto the star sprinkled sky above.
“Erm, Jamie?” Carrie asks, looking his way. “How are we going to see your sketches in the dark?”
“It’s okay, Carrie. I know this is just a student flat but it does have electricity.”
Jamie walks over to the wall and the room becomes illuminated. Carrie blinks, then smiles over at Jamie.
“Nice light fittings,” she laughs.
“Is that one of yours?” She points at a large canvas on the wall.
“Yes, it’s the first ever painting I did. I know it’s pretty rubbish but it’s there to encourage me on to do better.”
“Rubbish?” Carrie shakes her head, “Nonsense. It is beautiful. You’ve captured so much life in her eyes. Who is it?”
Carrie continues to take in the picture of the giggling babe as Jamie explains it is a relative of his, painted at Christmas time.
“Almost a year ago now, wow. She’s a proper little toddler these days. Into everything, so my brother says, anyway. I have some more over here if you want to have look. I’ll go and do us a drink. Coffee okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Carrie replies, absorbed in the drawings before her. There are plants and flowers and animals that seem so real she could stroke them, but his obvious area of expertise is in drawing people. A wizened old man looks forlorn. His face has given up the battle and is flowing down into his body like a melted candle. He is followed by the fresh faced niece seen in the painting, smaller still, her tiny feet the focus of the drawing.
Carrie’s heart skips when she flicks the page. A tall, thin lady, naked as the day she was born, stands severely, her hands by her side as if she were a soldier. What a smile, though, and long flowing hair.
“Who’s this?” Carrie asks as he walks back into the room, two mugs in hand.
“Oh, that’s my biology teacher.”
Carries eyes widen,
“And she let you paint her like this?”
“Oh, hell, no. That’s all just my fevered imaginings. I didn’t do very well in biology. I spent all my time sketching the teacher.”
“I bet that went down well with her.”
“Well, she wasn’t impressed when she found one of my nudes, but thankfully she didn’t realize it was her. Either she was short sighted or my drawing wasn’t as good as I always thought it was.”
“Or you drew what you were seeing, not what was there.”
“Or there is that, granted. Anyway, drink up, then we’ll sort out a pose for you.”
“Oh, well I didn’t think…”
“Are you going to the Christmas party?” Jamie changes the subject.
“The what?”
“Christmas party. Well, the Christmas piss up is a more accurate description.”
“I didn’t know about it, but it’s only November.”
“Oh, it must have been mentioned while you were off. It’s going to be at The George on the first Saturday in December.”
“Well, I’m not much of a pub person…” Carrie starts,
“Oh, go on, it’s always a good night.”
“Well, I’ll try and pop in for a bit, it’s just I always feel kind of out of place, as I don’t drink alcohol.”
“Why not?” Jamie puts down his mug and opens a drawer in the coffee table.
“I’ve seen the damage it does,” Carrie replies solemnly. “I don’t ever want to get like that, angry, loud and violent.” She shivers.
Jamie’s eyes meet hers for a moment then he continues to pull things out of the drawer.
“Well, I’d understand it if you didn’t come, then. Just it won’t be the same without you.”
Carrie blushes. “I’ll make it, for a bit. I’ll probably go early though, I get scared when people get drunk.”
Jamie walks over to the corner and fiddles with an artist stand.
“Now, I was thinking you could kinda recline on the sofa there. It gets bathed in moonlight and I really want to paint you like that. The moon beams will really radiate off your sweet, pale skin. So if you could take your clothes off and get comfortable,”
Carrie throws Jamie a scared look.
“I want to paint your beautiful skin, Carrie, please.”
“I don’t know if I can, Jamie. I’m not…I mean my body is…”
Jamie approaches her and she panics, her words getting tied up in knots on her tongue. He wraps an arm around her waist.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. His lips brush hers and her mind goes blank. His lips are so tender and soft, his tongue is gentle in its explorations and tasting of the strong coffee he just drank.
It takes a few moments for Carrie to focus away from the explosion of pleasure dancing across her lips and to realise that Jamie’s fingers have undone all the buttons on her work blouse. She tries to pull away from his kiss as panic flares, but he holds her more firmly, his kiss deepening as he mistakes her struggles for a heightening of lust. The thing is, as soon as the kisses becomes rougher, she finds her lust exploding in the pit of her pelvis and through her whole body. She kisses back, her lips working once more as she rubs them against his. Her blouse slips off her shoulders and the gentle skim of the material sends tingles of thrilling pleasure up and down her arms and into her breasts, which are now firmly pressed against Jamie’s chest.
“So beautiful,” he moans as his lips kiss down her neck.
She moans as he hits sensitive zones that are seemingly directly connected to her cunt. She feels her clit thud in rhythm to the sucks of his mouth on her neck. She loses herself in the sensations and it isn’t until she feels the pressure relieved that she realises he’s undone her bra.
“No,” she cries as he peels the strap down her shoulder.
“Shush,” he implores as his lips lift from her skin allowing the strap to slip down her arm.
“No, Jamie.” She gasps as the other strap is peeled down and the bra falls away. Jamie steps back and Carrie crosses her arms in front of her.
“No,” he commands in a strong voice, and Carrie finds her arms falling to her sides, her face burning with shame and what? It takes her a second to realise it’s lust. His commanding tone turns her on.
“Oh Carrie, you’re magnificent.” He moves towards her again, his kisses trailing down until his lips tickle over the flesh of her breast and seek out a nipple. He sucks hungrily as his fingers work on the button and zipper of her trousers. Carrie just closes her eyes, her hands clenched at her sides as she allows Jamie to do what he wants to her.
She is scared, definitely scared but her anxieties seem to be lifting the more naked she gets. Her body is trembling with desire. Goose bumps cover her flesh as her trousers pool around her ankles, and Jamie groans around one nipple before leaving it to suckle its twin on the other breast.
Jamie is enveloped in the sensuality of the moment, his own nerves buried beneath the urgency of lust. What an amazing woman, such a beauty. He is already hard and straining.
Her flesh is like milk, creamy and satisfying. He will never be able to get enough of her. He knows it now as definitely as he knows the sun sets at dusk.
He latches his fingers into the waistband of her plain cotton panties and slowly pulls them down. He can feel her fists tightening beside her as he pulls them lower, dropping to his knees to get a better grip and view. He peels the thick material away and watches the soft pattering of brunette hair appear. Lower he pulls and the pouting lips of her pussy hang down like dew drops as he pulls the material away from her completely.
“Beautiful,” he croons, for what seems to be the millionth time this evening.
“Jamie.” Her voice is cracking with emotion and when he looks up a tear softly hangs at the corner of her eye. He stands up and presses into her curves.
“Its okay, Carrie, you’re so beautiful. I could look at you all day and all night.”
She wraps her arms around him and buries her head into his shoulder.
“Thank you.” She sniffs then pulls away him. “I’m sorry to be so, well, like this. It’s just I have issues.” She giggles depreciatingly. “More issues than the Evening News in fact.”
He grins. “We all have issues.”
She leans forward and of her own volition presses her lips to his.
“Lie on the sofa.”
He lets out a shuddering breath. He wants her. God, how he wants her, but he wants this delicious anticipation to last. She complies, tucking her knees up to her body, throwing an arm across her breasts.
“Not like that.” He strides over and pulls her arm out of the way. He angles her so that an arm lies beneath her breasts, offering them up for him. He then straightens out her legs before bending the top one up, making a triangle of limbs and parting her pussy, revealing it.
“I can’t pose like this.” She squirms, as Jamie walks away.
“Oh yes, you can, or would you prefer me to tie you spread eagled on my bed instead?” he snaps and she gasps.
“So, what’s it going to be Ms. Beautiful?”
The Victoria Blisse Collection Page 5