by Grace Lowrie
There was something intensely intimate about listening to a song she’d chosen; maybe because she had no voice of her own. I found myself concentrating on the lyrics as if they might contain vital clues to Melody herself, and speculated about how her vocal chords might sound. They could be deep and husky for all I knew, though I suspected not. The song stayed with me long afterwards, the words looping around my head on repeat. Did she want me to go? I hoped not.
Gregory came and went again during that time, but thankfully did not make any attempt to speak to me. I couldn’t stand the man and held him personally responsible for Mel’s solitude, though in fairness, she had never implied he was to blame.
As the days passed and our friendship grew, I learned more and more about Mel; her likes, dislikes, tastes, quirks and foibles. But now there was an awkward tension between us that was never there before. The longer we refrained from making bodily contact, the more I yearned to touch her, hold her, kiss her; make her come again.
The ghost of her silent orgasm haunted me; crackling and reverberating in the space between us. I felt hideously guilty about groping her like that in a grubby outhouse as if she was nothing. She deserved so much more than that; so much better; she deserved to be properly romanced and gently made love to by someone closer to her own age and infinitely more worthy. But the way I’d carelessly rejected her afterwards made me feel even worse. She’d said she wanted more and I had thrown it back in her face – suggesting another date, when leaving the estate clearly made her uncomfortable. No wonder she was now keeping her distance.
But what should I have done? Carried her straight off to bed and savagely taken what I wanted? I was stuck – I had no idea how to fix things, how to dissolve the tension between us and move forwards. And it was killing me. I wanted her so badly it hurt – I’d never been so horny in my life. I could no longer eat or sleep properly and it was even affecting my game. Last weekend I’d messed up a tackle allowing the other team to score a try. I’d been experiencing an uninvited flashback at the time – Mel’s erect rosy nipples poking through wet cotton – like a ptsd sufferer at the complete mercy of his memory. From the sidelines, Lester, frustrated that he was still not fit enough to play matches, had loudly berated me with an array of colourful language. Thankfully the Warriors had still won the match, but it was no thanks to me.
And it seemed wrong to masturbate to thoughts of Melody; dishonest somehow. But if I didn’t I had wet dreams and woke up sticky with my own seed like a hormonal adolescent. How could one innocent young woman have such a powerful, debilitating and downright embarrassing effect on me?
Today was a perfect autumn day; the rain had cleared, the sky was blue and the air was almost, but not quite, cool enough to see your breath. Sunlight shafted low and golden through the naked trees, illuminating piles of curling leaves like russet paper-chains as I made my way through the woods to the grotto garden.
Using the loppers I cut away vast armfuls of the creepers, which tumbled and cascaded down over the crumbling walls. The overgrowth didn’t only obscure the locked door, but also Gothic-arched, glassless windows, set into the stonework on two sides. They had been boarded up in the past, presumably to exclude prying eyes, but the timber had rotted and was easy to remove. As I did so I peered in through these apertures, but the congested forest of self-sown tree saplings trapped within a dense tangle of brambles made it impossible to make out anything of the interior. I tried the oak door, but despite a little obvious rot at the bottom, it was solid and locked tight shut.
Sensing Mel’s presence I turned to find her crouched under a nearby tree like a feral cat, cloaked in a shabby fur coat and observing me with a steady, feline gaze.
‘I figured I’d take a look inside, have a go at restoring it, but I don’t have the key,’ I said.
Rising to her feet, which were bare, she walked towards me, the muddy hem of her coat dragging through the fallen leaves and making a shushing, whispering sound as she approached. Three feet from me she stopped; her pale, heart-shaped face sombre as she held out her hand. A large, rusty iron key sat in her palm; ornate, old-fashioned and evoking thoughts of fairytale secret gardens.
My fingers brushed her soft, smooth skin as I took the key from her, and the sensation burned its way up my arm. Had she anticipated I would come here, or did she always carry this key around?
Even with the door open it took me most of the day to hack away at the jungle of foliage that had taken hold inside. As the sun rose higher it grew unseasonably warm within the shelter of the chapel-like stone walls, forcing me to strip off my sweatshirt as I went.
Eventually the semi-primeval interior landscape of the garden was revealed – the four walled sides creating a mossy green room, open to the sky and the elements, but providing a humid micro-climate for the lush fernery within. A collection of irregularly-shaped stone boulders traversed the centre of the space like large pieces of furniture rising from a frothy green sea. They were stacked higher and more tightly compacted as they rose to a peak in the back corner of the space, where a natural spring bubbled out from between the stones, the water trickling and escaping down into a dark, circular pool below. Over time the damp passage of water had smoothed curves and gullies into the rock and spawned a patchwork of olive and lime-coloured moss on every surface; velvety soft, slippery and compelling.
All these aspects conspired to provide a tranquil, almost magical atmosphere, right there in the heart of the woods, but it was the statuary which really made this particular grotto distinctive.
It was Mel who discovered the first one. The interior of the walls were heavily draped and curtained in a mix of Virginia creeper, brambles and ivy, making it easy to mistake the protruding shapes for buttresses, positioned as they were at regular intervals around the periphery of the room. But they were not simply wall supports, they were plinth-mounted statues; figures sculpted from stone and startlingly pale, having been protected and hidden from view for so long.
The excitement and delight in Mel’s expression drew me straight to her. Shrugging off her coat she pushed up the sleeves of her dress and together we worked side by side, carefully tearing away the overhanging foliage in great handfuls at a time, to reveal a beautifully crafted, female nude, nearly two metres tall. She was portrayed in mid-step; parting intricately carved clumps of water reeds with her body as if fleeing from something or someone, though the expression on her face was perfectly serene.
Bracing herself against me, Mel reached up and ran her hand up the smooth white thigh of the nude before us, searing my already-warm body with a different kind of heat. The gesture was seemingly innocent but intensely erotic, adding fuel to the desire that raged inside me. Unable to resist Mel in such close proximity, I dropped my mouth to the bare patch of skin between her shoulder and her neck and kissed her, luxuriating in her tantalising scent. She shivered at my touch, her head falling sideways and presenting me with more naked skin. As I trailed kisses up to the sensitive place behind her ear, she shuddered and sighed, swaying slightly on her feet.
‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist,’ I muttered, my voice hoarse as I stepped back away from her. Tipping her head back Mel gazed up into the face of the statue, without turning around, and I moved over to the next hidden plinth, clearing my throat. ‘Let’s see what the rest of these are like...’
At length we uncovered three more female nudes, each one more openly seductive than the last. Mel made no attempt to communicate her thoughts to me in words; she didn’t write me notes or send any texts, but as we progressed I began to suspect that she was deliberately caressing the figures’ curves with her fingers; purposely brushing against me; intentionally teasing and provoking me, while I struggled and failed to keep my mind pure.
The four sculptures were arranged in opposing pairs, lining two sides of the grotto, leaving one last overgrown mass lurking behind the spring-fed pool at the far end. It was with an increasing sense of anticipation that we approached this last work of art. It was se
t higher up the wall than all the others, and at Mel’s gestured suggestion I lifted her up onto the plinth base so that she could reach the top.
Before long an imposing, faun-like figure was revealed; with the hind legs, hoofs and curved horns of a goat, and the arms, head and torso of a bearded man. But his hirsute, muscular build was not the only thing marking him out as male. Jutting out from between his fur-covered thighs was a large erect penis, which, frankly, put my trapped hard-on to shame.
Mel gasped when she stumbled across the impressive phallus, her cheeks flushing with heat and her eyes darkening as they darted to mine.
‘I guess being trapped in a room with four naked beauties will do that to a man,’ I muttered.
Mel’s face split into a huge smile and I shook my head in mock despair, unable to help smiling in return.
‘Maybe it’s time to find out who these guys are supposed to be.’ In a bid to distract myself from my own lascivious thoughts I retrieved my mobile and commenced a Google search. With Wikipedia’s help it didn’t take long to find the information I was looking for.
‘Right, I believe this is the god Pan, from Greek mythology – see the reed pipes he carries in his hand...’ I glanced up and caught Mel running her hand slowly across Pan’s chest. Clearing my throat I returned my eyes to the relative safety of the small screen. ‘He was the god of shepherds and flocks, woods and mountains, fertility, lust and rampant male sexuality...’ I paused to swallow, but didn’t dare raise my eyes from the screen. ‘He was known for actively pursuing nubile young nymphs and goddesses, heedless of the consequences...’ Was this a joke?
I slowly looked up to find Mel caressing Pan’s big hard cock with one hand, her eyes intent on mine.
‘Please don’t do that,’ I muttered, unable to look away, my mouth dry.
Mel withdrew her hand, and dropped down until she was seated on the edge of the plinth before me, her legs dangling and her head level with mine. I kept my eyes on hers, but in my peripheral vision I could see she was slowly hitching her dress higher up over her thighs.
‘Melody...’ I warned, my cock throbbing in my pants, but still I couldn’t turn away. Trailing the fingers of one hand up the inside of her leg she then touched herself, like I had once before. Her eyes dilated, her breathing shallowed and her cheeks pinked as she began to pleasure herself, her gaze fixed on mine.
It was too much. The whole world was conspiring against me. How could any hot-blooded male be expected to resist temptation like that? Mel was my own personal nymph; virginal yes, but definitely not innocent – the woman was hell-bent on seducing me.
Casting my phone aside I cupped her face in my hands and claimed her mouth in a kiss.
Chapter Thirty-six
Oh how I’d missed Liam’s kiss; his touch; the musky warmth of his skin and the protective feel of his rough hands on me. Slipping my hands underneath his T-shirt I wrapped my arms and legs around him, urging him closer into my embrace and relishing the solid mass and weight of his body against mine.
I knew all about the god Pan and his carnal desires – I’d read a book once – ‘The Brinkworth Guide to Ancient Myths and Legends’ – and could recall Pan’s attempts to seduce various women; the water-nymph, Syrinx, and the moon goddess, Silene. That these mythological figures had been hiding here in this garden all along was extraordinary, but right now all I could think about was the unbridled lust the stories represented and the living, breathing, hot-blooded man before me. Liam may not be a god, but he certainly had the power to bring me to life or, I suspect, destroy me completely.
Withdrawing, he used his hands to loosen my grip on him. His physical size and strength made it impossible to prevent and intense disappointment lanced through me. But instead of moving away he pulled off his T-shirt, dropped to his knees with the defeated groan of a felled tree, and looked up into my face.
‘Do you trust me?’ his voice was unusually husky.
I nodded and he moved his hands up beneath my dress to my hips, braced himself, leaned forwards, and placed a soft kiss on the birthmark on the inside of my thigh. The seemingly innocuous gesture was as welcome as it was unexpected, giving me goosebumps, while his eyes roamed across my face assessing my reaction. Encouraged by whatever he saw there he proceeded to press a long, lingering kiss to the damp cotton between my thighs and my whole body thrilled and ached with delight. Liam began to ease my knickers down and I shifted up off my bottom to make it easier for him. He sat back on his heels to gently unhook them from my feet and I flushed with heat as he gazed at me there; my most intimate parts spread open and exposed. But the sober expression on his face and the hungry look in his eyes made my insides clench with excitement.
Rising back up onto his knees, he gripped my hips and brought his face in towards me, and I closed my eyes. Pressing his mouth to my sensitive flesh he began to tease me with his tongue and I was overwhelmed by a rush of emotion. Was there ever a sensation naughtier or more heavenly? Trembling all over and fighting for breath, I clutched at his hair, near-delirious, as he quickly worked me up to a dizzying peak; my pelvis flexing back and forth with a drive of its own and my muscles tensing all over in anticipation.
Because this time I understood what was happing to me; I’d longed for another orgasm for weeks. My sheer desperation left no room for embarrassment as I greedily rubbed against him...
And then he made a sound; a low moan similar to the noise he made when enjoying good food, and the vibration tipped me over the edge into that incredible shattering sensation I so craved; my body shuddering in great waves from head to toe; my lungs gasping; my blood pounding in my ears and the roof of my mouth.
As I began to drift back to Earth I realised he had risen to his feet. I opened my eyes and his gaze locked on mine – dark and burning. As incredible as my orgasm was, I now wanted more; I wanted him in the most carnal of ways. I wanted to see him naked; give him pleasure; feel him inside me and see him come. Without taking my eyes from his, I reached out and unhooked the button at the top of his trousers. He stared back intently, but didn’t try to stop me as I began to lower the zip of his fly. Before I’d even reached the bottom the heavy length of his cock sprang forwards into my palm, still concealed in his boxers, but hot and throbbing. He closed his eyes and shuddered as I wrapped my fingers around him and gently squeezed.
‘We don’t have to do this,’ he muttered, though whether he was trying to convince himself or me, I couldn’t be sure.
Afraid that he might stop me, I tugged his trousers down from his hips with both hands. And to my delight he proceeded to finish what I’d started; kicking off his boots, peeling away his socks and then removing both his trousers and boxers completely. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him – feet planted, shoulders back and penis unashamedly erect; thick and swollen with need. He did not look vulnerable without clothes. On the contrary, he looked handsome, virile and powerfully masculine.
Swallowing hard I visually feasted on him, my blood humming in my veins. How long had I been waiting to see this man naked? Many months, though it felt like years. Without looking down I rummaged around in the concealed pockets of my dress until I found the condoms I’d stashed there. He raised an eyebrow when he saw them.
‘You came prepared huh?’
I nodded and he smiled.
‘Not up here,’ he said, gently taking my spare hand and helping me down from Pan’s plinth. Scooping my coat up off the floor, he led me over to a smooth moss-covered boulder, about the size of a twin bed, and spread my fur coat out over it. Sitting down on one end, his cock jutting up to his belly button, he gazed at me where I stood between his knees.
‘We have to take this slowly, OK? I don’t want to hurt you.’
Nodding, I pressed the condoms into his hand. With his teeth he ripped one open and I watched, fascinated, as he efficiently rolled it down over his length.
‘I want you to go on top so that you’re in control,’ he explained, shifting himself further back
wards. ‘Come straddle me.’
He offered me his hand and without hesitation I scrambled up onto the fur-covered rock, hiking up my dress and kneeling with a knee either side of his lap.
‘If you want to stop me at any time, for any reason, I want you to slap me across the face, exactly as you did before, OK?’ He lifted my palm to his cheek for added emphasis and I nodded, bemused by his concern. ‘I’m serious, Mel, it’s important that you are able to say no – don’t hesitate, just hit me and I’ll stop, OK?’
I appreciated his consideration, but at that moment it was frustrating; the longer he delayed the more I wanted him. Pulling my dress up and off over my head I threw it aside, thrilled to be completely naked with him at last. Liam’s penis lurched and he groaned as his eyes roamed over my bare breasts; my nipples tightening under his gaze.
‘God, you are beautiful,’ he muttered, gripping my thighs and trailing hot kisses from my neck down to my chest. As he took my nipple into his mouth, pleasure spiked through my body making me convulse.
He looked up at me. ‘Jesus, Mel, I don’t know if I can do this; I’m ready to come already.’
Too late to back out now, Liam Hunt. Bracing my hands on his shoulders I shuffled closer to him so that his sheathed erection pressed against my opening. Leaning back on one elbow he gripped himself in his other hand and rubbed the head slowly back and forth along my labia, making my whole body tremble and ache with yearning.
His breathing became laboured as I leaned forwards and began to press down and ease onto him, slowly, a centimetre at a time, holding my weight in my thighs and maintaining a gentle rocking motion with my hips. He stared intently at my face – his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed with concentration as he lightly skimmed my clitoris with the pad of his thumb, creating a warm, fluttering sensation inside me, and helping me to relax. It was uncomfortable as he began to stretch me open; my body gradually accommodating him, little by little, and yet I revelled in the intimacy of the moment; the intense ardour in his eyes. I wanted more, and patience had never been a virtue of mine. With one long exhale I sat up, letting myself sink right down onto him, taking the rest of him inside me in a sudden, sharp rush so that we were skin to skin in his lap.