8. Mel
It crept up on her. On them.
She hadn’t planned this. Hadn’t expected it or even wanted it.
But there was something about that precise moment. The security in his arms. Nestling in against him, and feeling his strength and solidity.
Jimmy Lazenby had changed in many ways, but physically he had changed, too. No puppy fat overlying that wiry, bony frame, now his body was hard and lean, her head resting on firm pads of muscle as she tucked into his embrace on that bed.
This was madness, she knew. A thing she would certainly regret. But her mind wasn’t on tomorrow or the day after, it was lost in the moment. In her physical response to him, that shift from finding comfort in contact to something else, something more.
She couldn’t even say precisely what triggered the shift. Just something in the way they pressed and touched, a movement, a pressure of his hip against her, the way her breasts squashed against his side. That brief press of his cheek against the crown of her head. The way his whole body tensed every time they moved.
It came as an awareness of her body’s responses. The racing of her heart, the new tension in the pit of her abdomen, a heat to her skin.
There came a moment when he moved. A hand dropping so that for a moment she wondered if he was reaching for her, if that hand would come to rest on her hip, drawing her harder against him.
Her eyes followed the movement, and saw the bulge in his trousers, the fabric stretched tight. She was a little shocked to see such an obvious physical response. She wondered what was in his head, if he’d been angling for this all along, then realized that movement of his arm had been to disguise his response – a movement of awkwardness, of trying to find a way to be discreet about a response he’d clearly been unable to avoid.
She moved her hand to his forearm and squeezed reassuringly, said, “Thank you.”
Wondered what he would do if she moved her hand lower, found that hardness of his response.
Was that bad? To seek physical comfort right now, in these circumstances?
Maybe that was when it happened, when she realized she wanted that, when she understood that whatever happened in this moment must be what was right for the moment, and they could deal with any complications later.
She shifted position a little, felt his hip pressing against her, a tightening of that tension in her belly.
She kissed him. Pressed her lips against his chest, the white fabric of his shirt marked garishly with dark patches of red.
Clawed her hand and dragged sharp fingernails up his arm. Found his jaw and cupped it, turning his head as her mouth moved up. Found his chin with her lips, found his mouth.
His hands, strong on her arm, turned her, pushed her back, held her away.
His eyes on hers.
She had to look away. Couldn’t meet those eyes. She’d crossed a line, committed herself. Exposed herself.
And he had turned her down.
“It’s okay,” he said, so much damned sensitivity in his tone, the bastard. “It’s okay.”
He drew her into his arms again now, but things had changed, shifted again.
He held her, stroking her hair.
She tried to kiss him again, even so, but he held her firm, almost too firm, for the pains in her ribs and face.
“It’s your body’s response,” he said. “Fight or flight. Adrenaline. It clouds things.”
Clouding things right now was exactly what she wanted!
“It affects your judgment.”
She knew that. She understood what was happening. Couldn’t he see that?
“You’re still in shock.”
Holding her. Stroking her hair. His breathing was slow, deep, and as he held her so close her own breathing slowed to match his. Was that a deliberate thing, or just a normal reaction?
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice almost hypnotically calming.
She didn’t know when the tears had started to flow, only noticed the saltiness when they reached her lips. She hoped he hadn’t noticed, didn’t want him to see how right he was.
He said he’d changed, yes, but she’d never have believed Jimmy Lazenby had it in him to become a fucking gentleman.
“Stay,” she said softly, and she felt him nod in response.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” he said, as they settled down on the bed, his arms around her, her face resting on his pecs and trapezius, her hand resting flat on his chest.
§
She woke, so she must have slept.
The room was dark, the air cool. The house quiet.
She was still tucked into Jimmy’s side. At some point the two of them must have shuffled down the bed so they could lie, but he’d kept his arm around her, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder.
Now, she extricated herself carefully, swung her legs clear, and sat. Jimmy didn’t move.
Her body ached as if it had been trampled by a herd of cattle. Her nose throbbed, and she wasn’t quite sure whether to believe that it hadn’t been broken when she hit the ground.
She went through to the en suite bathroom, closing the door before turning on the light.
She looked a mess. Her nose was swollen, but as far as she could tell still straight; her chin was grazed and scabbed, her eyes tiny, as if she hadn’t slept for a week. Dark bruises smudged either side of her throat.
She eased herself out of her gray jeans, wincing at pains in her side as she did so. Took her top off, and then her bra, savoring that delicious release like a sigh. In only her panties, she leaned over the basin to splash cold water on her face, removing the remaining smudges of dried blood.
Stepping back, she twisted to examine her body in the mirror. There were no obvious signs of damage – no swellings or emerging bruises. She’d landed on the ground hard, been turned roughly by a heavy boot, but that was all. That and the hand around her throat, forcing her back against the tree.
She stopped that line of thought. Couldn’t let herself think about what might have happened.
She was here. Safe. With Jimmy Lazenby lying on her bed.
Such a strange situation.
Not just the Harriet thing, the terror that bunched in her throat whenever she thought of her missing friend. Or Glenn, the raking over of the past.
This.
Standing in her room’s en suite in only her panties, studying herself in the mirror while Jimmy Lazenby lay on her bed.
And her response to him, the power of that need that had swept over her.
He was right. Of course the bastard was right. The adrenaline rush, the relief of getting through that awful situation in the park, the pathetic girly response to the big strong man who had saved her... She knew these were fundamental biological things, survival mechanisms.
But god, she had wanted him so badly!
She’d needed that skin on skin thing. Wanted to be held by those strong arms, to be had by him. Wanted to feel him in her and see the look on his face, the widening of his eyes as he came deep inside her.
Release. Escape. Call it what you will.
It had been one of the most powerful things she had ever felt.
And just because it was a thing of primitive biology, that didn’t mean it was not real, a genuine need.
More cold water. A gentle dabbing with a towel coarse from too many washings.
She peed, washed her hands, breathed deep, taking her time to gather herself.
She pulled on the t-shirt she’d picked up on her way in here, tugging the hem down when she realized it wasn’t quite as long as she’d thought, because of course clothes just stretched like that, in response to a tug and wishful thinking.
When she stepped back into the room he hadn’t moved, but she saw his eyes were slit open, watching her.
Did he even sleep? Was that something he’d had trained out of him by the same people who taught him how to handle a gun and how to do sensitive when the situation demanded?
She fought the reflex urge to tug at the hem of her t-shirt again. He’d seen it all before, and anyway, the bastard was doing his gentleman act.
But do gentlemen watch you like that, though, as you walk across the room, your t-shirt riding up with every step? She wondered if he was getting hard again, watching her, then made herself stop.
She climbed into bed, under the covers this time. Turned so her back was to him, and tried not to get frustrated when she tried to pull the covers around her but they wouldn’t move because he still lay on top, still in that damned suit, the blood-stained shirt.
Seconds later she felt pressure through the covers, on her arm. His hand, pressing down, squeezing and then withdrawing, and she hated that right now Jimmy Lazenby was the one who made her feel so safe and secure.
§
Morning. Bright sunlight angling in through the gap in the curtains and across the room, the angle low, so it must still be early.
Everything felt wrong.
The aches and pains in her body. The rasp of her breathing through a nose that was swollen but not quite broken. The aches in her bruised neck.
The man. Next to her. On top of the covers, still in his clothes, his blood-stained shirt.
So wrong, but so right, too.
Was he sleeping? Had he slept at all? Or did he have some ninja-like ability to stay alert through the hours of darkness?
She’d turned in the night, and now lay on her side facing him, her legs drawn up. He’d moved to make room for her, still lying on his back in the narrow space that remained.
They’d never slept together until now.
How odd was that?
Back then, ten years before, they’d been together for a few months, but she’d still lived at home with her parents. She couldn’t bring boys back for the night, and she’d felt uncomfortable about the inevitable questions that would follow staying out overnight. She and Jimmy had taken their moments wherever they could, but never for a whole night.
And now, she lay there in underwear and t-shirt, the bed covers forming a barrier between her and him, lying there in his suit.
He’d taken the jacket off at some point in the night. Maybe that was when she’d turned over, taking advantage in her sleep, claiming more of the bed for her drawn-up legs.
He’d been right.
Of course he had.
How would she feel now if he’d succumbed to her advances? She’d hate herself for being so reckless, for opening up old wounds in the heat of the moment. She’d hate him for taking advantage, for coming up here with her and putting them both in that position.
It had been an adrenaline thing, a biological thing, last night.
But now...
Was it nostalgia? A curiosity for a life not lived? Some strange post-traumatic tenderness?
She moved against him. Pressed her cheek against his arm, and as if automatically he raised the arm, made room for her to snuggle in.
Was there an ounce of spare flesh on his body now? She didn’t think so.
She drew an arm out from the covers so she could loop it across his chest, the hand resting easily on the ribs, just below the bulge of his pecs.
Felt him tensing in response.
She knew he must be doing that thing again, fighting the natural responses, trying to be sensitive.
All that shit.
She moved her hand down in one smooth, slow sweep, fingers dragging across ribs, across the ripples of his abdomen, the muscles tensing one by one to match the path of her hand.
She didn’t give him a chance, pushing her fingers inside the waistband of his pants, and swiftly down.
Fingertips, pushing through coarse hair. The broad base of his manhood – soft, caught by surprise. Filling out.
Fingers, following that fleshy course, pushing down his length, pressing against his shaft as it filled, hardened, pushed up against her hand in the tight confines of his pants.
His hand moved across, closed on her wrist. Still the gentleman.
Almost, at least.
Gentleman enough to try to stop her, but not enough to actually pull her hand clear, so that he ended up just gripping her wrist, as if holding her there, her fingers still pressing down against his shaft, his erection still growing.
“Mel...”
His face, turned to her, as he tried still to do the right thing.
She kissed him, a soft pressing of her lips to his. Felt the scrape of his stubble against her and tensed involuntarily – so many raw, tender parts of her face.
Instantly, his hand went to her jaw, a gentle touch.
She kissed him again, her mouth molding to his, their tongues pressing tentatively.
Such a strange mixture of the familiar and the new! Back then they’d kissed so much her face had hurt for altogether different reasons. Young love, and all that.
It was a kiss she knew so well, but no, one she didn’t know at all, as the initial hesitancy fell away and now he kissed her deep.
Her whole body was alive to that kiss, and for a moment she even forgot her hand, where it was.
Then she pushed deeper, managed to fold her fingers around him, squeeze and pull. His shaft still pointed downward, forced by his pants and her hand, everything restricted by lack of space in his clothing.
She needed more. She pulled away from his kiss and twisted, despite the pains in her body. Ended up leaning across him, her weight partly on his ribs and belly, her hands free, fumbling with button, hook, zipper, opening and parting, pushing the tight waistband of his shorts down.
For a moment his manhood still stretched downward, pinned into place by that waistband, and then she’d pushed farther and it sprang free, flipped up, hard and long against his belly.
She pushed down, pressed her lips against the swollen head, the tip of her tongue against the narrow slit opening.
Her left hand moved down, flat against his balls, then curling under, cupping. Her other hand pressed against his shaft, folding around, lifting his length clear of his body so she could take the head fully into her mouth, pressing and sliding her tongue against him.
Only now did she dare twist, moving her body, turning her head so she could look up and into his wide-open eyes.
That look. That moment. The oh my god! in his eyes.
It was as if he’d finally come to life, snapped out of a reverie, as if he’d finally accepted this was happening.
His hands moved across her. One hand on her shoulder, squeezing, the thumb caressing. The other hand, running down the curve of her back, the swell of her ass, straining to reach for her, finding firm muscle, squeezing and stroking, pulling at her as if he could drag her closer by his grip on her ass. Then moving farther down, pressing at the crack of her ass through the thin, lacy fabric of her panties.
Stretching... pressing against her softness and making her breath snatch in her lungs.
She shifted a little so he could reach more easily, so his fingers could press at the folds of her sex from behind, only prevented from entering her by those panties.
She wanted to suck him deeper but couldn’t... her neck, her throat, the ache in her jaw. She started to pump with the fist wrapped around the base of his shaft, and his fingers, pressed, caressed, stretched until...
Now it was Mel’s turn, that oh my god! look plastered over her face, she was sure, as she felt firm, delicious pressure against the folds of flesh covering her clit, and bolts of pleasure coursed through her body.
He hadn’t had these moves ten years ago, this precision of touch. Hadn’t had the strength and control to just twist, turn, and suddenly she was being lifted clear, laid back on the bed, repositioned like a rag doll.
He kissed her again, soft and tender, always sensitive to her injuries, reading her responses and knowing when to draw back and when to give in to passion.
His mouth moved to her jaw, down over the bruises of her neck, his touch an almost disturbingly intense mixture of pain and pleasure. Down to her chest, his turn to kiss through fabric, so she could feel the firm shape of his mouth, the wet heat of his breath, working down across the swell of a breast, finding the nipple.
He moved over her, kneeling with one leg between her thighs so he could arch his back, find her breast again when he’d eased her t-shirt up, lips closing around the nipple, tongue gliding, swirling. And if she arched her back and rolled her hips she could push against him, the hardness of his knee, his thigh, against her sex, making her so wet, so desperate for more.
Hands moving down her body, fingers hooking into the waist of her panties, pulling, so that when he straightened, rocked back on his heels, she could push up and he was free to pull her panties down, disentangle them from her legs, one at a time, cast them off to one side.
For a moment he stayed there, eyes devouring her nakedness.
And for that brief, self-conscious moment, she wondered if his mind was rushing to comparison, measuring and mapping the toll ten years had taken on her body.
Then she saw the look in his eyes, that same oh my god! The sheer disbelief and wonder that this was happening.
He dipped his head, pressed his mouth to her belly and worked down. Wetness, the rasp of stubble, the sharp drag of teeth.
Closing on her mound. Pressing. That pressure alone almost enough to tip her over the precipice into climax.
He started to move, pressing with his mouth, pushing his lower lip up against her, gliding across the folds that covered her clit, the wet heat of his mouth engulfing her sex.
She pushed against him, reached down and buried fingers in his tousled hair.
She was so turned on...
So ready to... just...
He paused. Held her there, right at the edge.
Looked up the length of her body and met her gaze.
And then, perhaps reading the slight sag of her body as she drew back briefly from the edge of climax, he pressed again, his tongue parting her labia, pushing up against her clit with a delicate, gliding sensation.
Her fingers tensed in his hair, her whole body tightened so that she felt as if she was about to explode, and then release erupted from the pit of her abdomen, a rippling of muscles deep within.
She cried out. Turned her head as if she might bury her face in the pillow, stifle the sounds of her climax, but that movement only served to push her harder against him, intensifying the ebbing throbs of her orgasm.
He kept his mouth against her, enclosing her sex, just the right pressure to prolong those last pulses, drawing the peak out. Then he moved, pushed lower, found her opening and drove his tongue deep.
For a moment she thought he’d somehow missed what had just happened. Wondered why he was still going. Surely he remembered she was an all or nothing kind of girl? One big O, and that was all until she’d had time to recover. That had always been the way.
She never...
Never...
His tongue, deep inside her. The pressure of his mouth against her, his upper lip now the one that pressed and slid against her clit as his tongue moved inside her. Somehow... somehow transforming those last dying pulses of orgasm into something else, a renewed arousal, a need...
This never happened.
It wasn’t happening now.
She didn’t believe it. Must still be sleeping, dreaming fevered dreams inspired by her trauma and the adrenaline rush of the previous evening.
She didn’t...
Her fingers in his hair... reaching, changing so her hands cupped his skull, pulled at him, drew him up so that his mouth dragged across her sex, her mound, her belly. Up, until she could kiss him, taste her sex on his mouth, their eyes locked, barely even blinking.
He must have seen something in her expression, just then, the slight wince at his weight on her from the pains in her ribs and neck.
Instantly, he took his weight on his arms and knees – an act that inadvertently made one leg bear down, his thigh against her wet sex again, reminding her, as if she needed any reminding, of how he’d managed to raise her to new levels of arousal almost immediately after she’d come so damned hard against his face.
She reached down for him, needed him inside her. Now.
Instead, though, he rocked back on his heels, moved to lie at her side, and then drew her nearest leg up so it looped over his hips. Now, the head of his dick pushed against the folds of her sex. She reached down again, found him, guided him, sliding the swollen head of his manhood through her labia, against her opening.
She looked into his eyes, and all she wanted to do was kiss him, and then... he pushed, opening her, entering her from the side.
His jaw sagged, his lips parting a fraction, as he entered her, kept pushing, sliding deeper, and she felt the hardness of his shaft sliding against her fingertips as he pushed into her.
She reached for his face now, her hand wet from their sex. Pressed her palm to his jaw, craned to kiss him, as he filled her.
He started to move, small thrusts that were little more than a roll of the hips, the position limiting them but also intensifying every sensation.
She kissed him. A hungry kiss, as if it might be their last.
His body against her felt so right. Inside her... so right.
He moved a hand down to where hers had been, the pressure of his palm on her mound moving against her with every thrust, every sensation combining, building to a new level of intensity. His fingers pushed down, coming to lie along the lines of her sex, parting around the place where he entered her.
She didn’t think she could take much more of this, had never known such intensity. Madly, his questions from the previous evening churned up in her brain. Did you black out? Not yet... not yet. Do you feel dizzy? Dizzy, yes. Head spinning. Any blurred vision, or double vision? Oh yes.
He dipped his head, kissed her shoulder, the side of her breast. Everything, so alive to his touch, his kiss. The scrape of his stubble and teeth. The wet heat of his mouth enclosing her nipple. The flick of his tongue.
She reached down. Said, “I... I...”
“I know.”
He drew back, then, pulled out of her, and she felt emptied, cheated of that delicious sensation of being so filled. Then when he thrust again, his length slid up through her folds, sliding against her clit, against his enfolding hand. Her hand on his felt that wet sliding, and pressed down, grinding him against her.
His whole body tensed and he thrust again, hard and fast. That realignment must have done something, that change of sensations, the slide between pussy and hands.
She felt a throbbing sensation, a pulsing against her, and then wet heat exploded over her mound, her belly, her arm.
And that shift in sensations, the throbbing of his shaft, the pressure of their hands, the slight softening of him and the way that molded his manhood against her even more perfectly...
She cried out, twisted her head away again, as if she could somehow stifle the sounds of her climax. Felt herself pulsing against his dick, his hand, her hand.
Felt dizzy, felt her eyesight blurring, doubling, felt darkness creeping in from the sides of her vision with the intensity of her response.
Met his mouth as he raised his head. Kissed him, slow and tender, long, never wanting to stop.