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Waiting in Vain ISBN #978-0-85715-006-6 ©Copyright Charlotte Stein 2009 Cover Art by Lyn Taylor ©Copyright December 2009 Edited by Christine Riley Total-E-Bound Publishing This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing. Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution. The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork. Published in 2009 by Total-E-Bound Publishing 1 The Corner, Faldingworth Road, Spridlington, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, LN8 2DE, UK.
Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.
WAITING IN VAIN Charlotte Stein
Dedication To my husband and my Mother, for giving me the space. To Lizzie, for making me. And to Justine Elyot, for keeping me going.
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Chapter One
I always feel awkward at the Hennessey’s annual family Christmas get-togethers— maybe because I’m just the sister of a brother-in-law. I don’t have any family except for him, so I get to be the tag-a-long. But I guess this year my awkwardness isn’t quite so unwarranted, when you consider that the revoltingly handsome eldest son has his hand on my thigh, under the table. I try to act cool. I’ve never had a hand on my thigh, under the table. Cathy—my brother’s wife—is telling a very funny story about the family’s trips to Bridlington, and her elderly Grandmother is doling out peas, which makes the experience even stranger. Though it could be that he didn’t intend to put his hand on my thigh. Maybe he has some sort of inner ear problem, and thinks he has his hand on his own thigh. Maybe he thinks he has his hand on the thigh of his brother’s wife—Kelly, the cute little redhead. I mean, it could be that he’s having an affair with her and just didn’t look properly at the person he sat down next to at this heaving dining table. But when I glance at him surreptitiously to confirm, he’s staring straight ahead at nothing as though everything’s just as it should be. His Gran offers him peas and he says, “Oh, yeah, thanks Gran.” If only she knew what a devil he is. I know his name, of course. The youngest is George and he’s Mick. Still not married and with something of a reputation. But if he thinks he’s going to splurge his reputation all over me he’s got another thing coming. God, that hand is high up on my thigh. How do I get it off without looking like I’m getting it off? I’m in the middle of eating this fabulous Christmas Eve dinner, pork with apple sauce halfway to my mouth. I can’t just suddenly put my hand underneath the table. They’ll all know if I do. He probably does this sort of stuff all the time. He’s tall and pouty-mouthed and masculine all at the same time, with these limpid, dark blue eyes that could steam off a pair of knickers from twenty paces.
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Yet I don’t think he’s a sleaze, exactly. It’s not like he’s really rudely fondling me. It’s almost as though he’s giving my upper thigh a reassuring cuddle—one that I could take sexually, if I’d like to. But no pressure otherwise. I’m not surprised that he can get so much information into one touch. I bet he crams Bibles into his love-making. I glance at him again, but that’s a mistake. Every time I look, he gets more and more handsome. No wonder I’ve spent the last two Christmas get-togethers avoiding looking at him. It’d be my hand on his thigh if I’d done a whole lot of drinking him in. His hair is curly, like Cathy’s. Dark and curly in this Lord Byron sort of way. Some of the curls kind of hang over his forehead in a way that should seem a bit affected, but on him they just look rugged and careless. His stubble only backs up this assessment—as do his many, many tattoos. I can see one of them now, on the meat of his left bicep. Just peeking out from beneath the worn t-shirt he has on. If it was something common and laddish, something that you’d see any night of the week in some cheap nightclub, I could think less of him. But it’s a labyrinth. A whole labyrinth on his upper arm! Complete with something at its centre that I can’t quite see, unless I lean in close...a little closer...a bit closer than that... I try not to scream when he clearly catches me checking him out, but I’m sure a little sound escapes anyway. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t then whack me on the back as though I’ve swallowed a pea down the wrong way. I choke on something that isn’t there. He asks me very loudly if I’m all right. What am I supposed to say to that? I take a sip of water and smile at everyone through their concern, until he leans right down into my face and says, “Yeah, I think she’s all right. Aren’t you, Nance?” Then he winks. Not for them, however—he winks at me. As though that happens to me all the time and this is all just a perfectly naturally thing to occur—his hand on my thigh, his catching me ogling his tattoo, my near-choking, his lascivious eyelid descending over his equally lascivious eyeball. I put my hand over his, under the table, and force it down to the much safer climes of my knee. But good God, he’s not going easily. As I sip what seems to be a gallon of water, he
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uses the pressure of my hand to slide his own to somewhere between my legs. Still at my knee, but even so—between the legs is between the legs. My eyebrows meet my hairline. He starts talking to George across the table as though nothing’s going on. I wish I could be as calm and impassive as him. Unfortunately, I’m really sensitive just about anywhere on the insides of my thighs, and the last time I was touched anywhere in that region, iPods were something animals lived in. I want to stop him, I do. I want to stop squirming around as though that pea I didn’t choke on is lodged against my central nervous system. But it’s impossible when his hands are this massive and firm and I really like it. Even with his Gran staring at me, I like it. At one point, I think he actually holds my hand. Which is even weirder than all the groping and tingling feelings and winking, I have to say. I try to squeeze his hand to give him some sort of sign—not in front of your Gran. Though it could be that I won’t mind if your entire family isn’t here. You know, that sort of sign. I’m not about to pass up a hunk of beef as delectable as he is, after all. But he doesn’t seem to be getting the message. His hand is now definitely underneath my skirt. I thank the Lord that I dropped a napkin over my lap, because otherwise I’m sure it would be obvious that something is operating under there. He’s stroking me in soft maddening slides, while I resist the urge to lean into that pressure rather than away from it. And all the while he does nothing but joke about some job he did in Ipswich and compliment his Mum on the lovely tinsel-y decorations spilling about all around this already chintzy dining room. There are prim little dancing figurines in the sideboard behind his brother. I’m sitting on a cushion that has birds tapestried all over it. Everyone is wearing pearls. His hand is at my knickers. I try to send him brain waves—don’t come on to me like this, don’t come on to me like this, don’t! But he’s not getting them and I don’t have the willpower for anything more. I can feel my cheeks growing hot and glowy, and my nipples are peaking under the nice blouse I picked for this lovely occasion. I know that his hand is at my knickers, but really, he could breathe on me there and I’d feel it harder than a fist to the face.
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This is not how I thought dinner would go, when I was busy packing my little suitcase and getting comforting Christmas hugs from my brother. “You’ll have a lovely time, just like last year,” he said. “No need to be on your own at Christmas.” How not on my own did he want me to be, exactly? I think the main problem is that I can’t escape. If I jump up, everyone will know that something’s wrong. I’ll have to make up some sort of excuse, like I’m about to throw up. But staying seated just means that I have to fight myself and him. I think about passing him a secret note, as he strokes one sly finger over the plump pout of my pussy through the thin—and damp—material of my knickers. The note will read, Please try this again later, when we’re far away from your chintzy family. But then his hand slides away just as I’m holding my breath and feeling that sweet ache build in my beating clit, and I sag against the table quite suddenly. I’d be lying if I said I sagged because he set me free.
* * * * I should have known, really. What an idiot I am! Why didn’t I let him do whatever he wanted while I had the chance? Hell—I should have actively encouraged him. Go ahead, fondle me, Mick! Let your Gran see, I don’t care! But I didn’t, and now he’s ignoring me. I can’t even say how vastly unfair that seems. My only opportunity was an illicit grope under the Christmas dining table. Great. Of course, it could be that he’s not ignoring me. I mean, we are all very busy after dinner. He helps Granny wash dishes, and I help George and Cathy sort out the clearing of the table and the folding it away. I’ve no idea why it needs folding away as it’s going to be out again tomorrow, but who knows how the inner workings of the Hennessey family sort themselves? They’ve probably got all kinds of routines and traditions that I still haven’t fully grasped. Groping under the table was certainly a new one. It’s still brand new when I crash into him in the narrow flock wallpapered hallway, me carrying a mile high stack of plates and him armed with full bin bags. It gets newer yet
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when he squeezes past me as I clutch the good china, lopsidedly grinning at me in this awfully knowing sort of manner. “All right, Nance?” he asks. He’s not really asking anything, however. He winks again. I hate that his winks now apparently go straight to my groin. I shiver, and the plates make a racket. So I guess he’s not ignoring me, exactly. He’s just picking his moments to corner me, like a mouse in that labyrinth on his arm. He does it again, when we’re all sitting around in the Hennessey’s vast living room, stuffed and sprawled on fat couches. The game is charades, of course, but I’m pretty sure he’s not miming film, three words, first syllable. He’s miming the exact size and shape of my breasts, for the benefit of his oblivious family. They seem to think he means A Clockwork Orange, but I can assure them he doesn’t. But he agrees with them, and slouches back down into the soft maw of the sofa, long legs spread out before him like pathways up to heaven. It’d be okay, if his jeans weren’t so tight. Especially up there, near the top. When he spreads his legs, it’s practically obscene. I pinch my own legs together as I perch on this little I’m-not-quite-a-relative chair, and try to look at other things. Like his built upper body. I mean, he’s not massive, or anything. He’s not Vin Diesel. But neither is he Crispin Glover. His shoulders are big and round and smooth, like apples. All of him stands out really nicely in that worn and tight t-shirt he’s wearing. I feel awkward and bulky by comparison, not casual at all in my little blouse and skirt set. With the sensible flat Mary-Janes, of course. My hair neatly back in a little plaited bun. My hands crossed in my lap. Likely they all think that Cathy married well—such a lovely young man, and what a well-mannered and pleasant sister he has! I suppose it only occurs to a person that they need to keep up appearances when those appearances are about to be shattered. Or are simply in need of shattering. I need shattering all over the place, I know that much. By the time we all start departing for bed, I’m a mess. All the fear and the need and the fear and God knows what else is turning me inside out. When I’m just about to go into my bedroom and from two rooms down the hall Mick calls out, Night, Nancy, I almost fall over my own feet.
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Mainly because the left one wants to stride towards him, immediately. And the right one wants to run into my room, right the hell now.
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Chapter Two
The Hennessey house really creaks at night. I remember all the bumps and groans in the night from previous years, as well as the drafts under every door. Last year I was in the hideous green room on the other side of the house, and that was cold enough. This is unbearable. David popped in to see me not ten minutes ago, and brought me another blanket when he saw that I had the covers up around my ears. But it’s already not enough. I need the cardie in my suitcase—it’s only two steps from the bed. Two steps too many, I reckon. I think I can see my breath in the air. The windows are those sorts that a lot of quite big, old houses have—the ones that look as though they’re made of black toothpicks and sugar glass. Don’t even get me started on the curtains. I think they’re silk, but someone should tell them—silk is thin. It’s not well-suited to keeping drafts out. And yet somehow, somehow I fall asleep. I know I do, because I have to wake up to feel the sudden heat on the backs of my legs, on my freezing bottom, on the hatefully exposed-to-the-air back of my neck. Still groggy with half-sleep and not sure where I am, I push back against the heat simply through instinct. Something is warm. I want to be near it. I’d push back if it was Cathy. I’d push back if it was Gran, for goodness’ sake. So really, when you think about it, I can’t be blamed. Even when I realise that Mick Hennessey has snuck into my bed in the middle of the night, I can’t be blamed. He’s absolutely boiling hot, and that is not a problem at all. In fact, I actually snuggle right back into the curve of his big body, and pull his arm around me tighter. He seems surprised by that, I’m certain he does. I feel him stiffen a little—bodily, I mean—and when I tell him how lovely and toasty he feels, he laughs low and throaty into the darkness. “Ah,” he says. “So you’d have let me touch you in the dining room if I’d have provided some warmth?”
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“You provided plenty of warmth, you cheeky bastard,” I reply and he laughs again. Much too loud, this time. I tell him to shush, but he just squirms against me and laughs some more. “What have you got on under here, Nance?” he asks, and with more incredulous humour in his voice—“Is this a dressing gown?” “I’m freezing—stop it! I can’t believe you’ve just jumped into my bed in the middle of the night!” “Well, technically, this isn’t your bed. It’s my old bed. So I suppose you’re the one who’s intruding.” That gives me pause. I don’t know where this sudden curiosity about Mick is sprouting from, but it’s definitely there. Maybe if he wasn’t stroking my dressing gown as though it’s my pelt, it wouldn’t exist. “This is your old bed?” “Yep.” “I don’t see any Kylie Minogue posters on the walls.” “I was much more of a Winona Ryder fan, you know—small, bookish, so neatly put together that you just want to ruffle her up...” His mouth is suddenly hot and wet on the curve of my neck, and his hand is in my still-wavy-from-the-plaits hair. True to his word, he ruffles it all into a right old mess, though I’m not sure that I look anything like Winona Ryder. Bookish and neatly put together, possibly. Gamine and lovely? Maybe not quite. Not that he seems to mind. In fact, quite the opposite. His left hand is busy tugging at my dressing gown while his right strokes great bone melting lines through my hair. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this far with a man without going on some sort of date, first. But then maybe he views the other Christmases we’ve spent together as dates. Or as foreplay. All those games of charades where I apparently teased him with my tight bun of hair! Even so, I have to put him off. Just a little. “Mick...” I begin, as his tongue curls just ever so slightly around my earlobe. “I think you’re gorgeous, but...” “You think I’m gorgeous?”
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I’ve not idea why he sounds incredulous, again. “Did I say that? I meant—” “Because I think you’re gorgeous. I think you’re delicious, too. I just want to...unwrap you.” I bite my lip against the tingles his words produce. They’re not even particularly sexy words—why is he making me feel this way? “That’s very Christmas-y of you, but we don’t know much about each other...and you’re being really, really loud...” “Afraid someone will hear?” he says, without missing a beat. I think he’s known for some time that that’s exactly what I am afraid of. “Maybe they’ll hear you being really dirty with a distant relative, and frown down on you on Christmas morning.” “Maybe...” I say, but I can hear my voice getting more and more faint. Pretty soon, I’ll be saying nothing at all. Plus, there’s the fact that I seem to be rubbing back against his soft mouth and his big warm body. I turn my face just ever so slightly—not really meaning anything by it at all—and we’re kissing. In fact, he seems startled by how much I’m actually kissing him. For one brief, pushed-over-the-edge moment, I don’t hold back. I clutch his perfect face in my greedy hands. I thrust my tongue into his mouth. He falls on me like a starving man. God, he tastes amazing, too. Like something peppermint-y—as though he prepped himself for this—and something alcohol-y. His hot, wet mouth warms my cold one, and his tongue dances eagerly with mine. I suppose I should be made nervous by how much my open-mouthed kisses give him the green light, how suddenly raring to go he is, but I’m not. Not yet, at least. For now, I’m completely unperturbed by him getting me onto my back and launching himself over me. It feels good to have a solid male body pressing me into a bed. I’m desirable. My body is heating through and through. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. There’s maybe something wrong with him pulling my dressing gown open so that he can press all of that solidness against my barely-covered-by-a-nightie body. Or maybe not
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wrong exactly, in the strictest sense of the word. On any other day I’m sure it would be spectacularly right, considering how much I’m aching between my legs and how hot he is. But his Gran’s in the next room. I know she is. I saw her doddering her way in there, after giving me a violet smelling hug and a twinkly-eyed smile. She’s so elderly that I’m sure she was alive before sex was invented. She conceived Mick’s Dad by shaking hands with a stork. I don’t think Mick wants to do anything with a stork. “Your Gran’s in the next room,” I hiss at him, when he starts pushing past just making out in the middle of the night on his old bed. But I’ve got no room to talk, because I seem to be rolling his t-shirt up his amazing body. If he keeps tempting me like this, I’m going to go for the buttons on his jeans, I know I am. Please stop me, Mick, before I unbutton your jeans. “Is she? Think she can hear me spreading your legs?” “Oh, gross, Mick. Gross. She’s eight hundred years old! And besides, I’m not spreading my legs so you can just—” “Get you to make loads of noise? I was planning on it, but thanks for the permission.” “I don’t make noise. Ever. I only have very, very quiet sex.” “Aw, that’s a shame. Because I’m a talker. A shouter, even.” “I don’t know why you’re telling me this. I’m not going to make you shout.” “Well, where would the fun in that be? I’ve just told you that I’m no challenge, so making me shout would be pretty boring. Making you shout, on the other hand...” I think I’m naked—though I’ve no idea how that happened, in between all the talking. He tosses away what I’m sure is my dressing gown and my nightie, and I guess I should I be freezing but somehow I’m not, anymore. It’s all the heat he’s radiating, probably. Especially when he kneels up over me and I’m completely exposed, and then he pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses that away, too. Of course, I’ve seen him like this before. Last year, when I caught him in the hallway in just his jockeys. But back then, I was too nervous to do anything but catch a glimpse before slithering into the bathroom. Now, I look my fill.
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He looks as good as that glimpse suggested he would—with just the right amount of body hair, too. A rough brush over his solid chest, a delicious tapering trail right down to the waistband of his jeans and beyond. He knows he looks good, I’m sure. But I appreciate him looking at me as though I look good, too. His sultry, liquid eyes wander over my breasts—nipples peaked like tiny pinpricks—and the curve of my hips and the dark dip in between my spread legs. Because they are spread. I’ve got a leg either side of his folded knees, and though I’m trembling slightly I don’t feel self-conscious about that. My skin glows pale and sweet in the darkness. I’m ready to be eaten. Though I honestly have no idea that he’s going to take my thoughts literally. I mean, I guess it’s the easiest way to make a woman shout. But even so. He can’t really be serious about going down on me while his Gran is in the next room. Right? Oh my God, I’m not right. I’m not right. He gives me one lingering kiss on the lips, then he starts disappearing down my body. Of course, I squirm. Especially when he flicks his wicked tongue over one tight nipple. And over the other one, for good measure. And when he dips into my belly button. And when he bites, playfully, at the lush curve of one of my hips. But I don’t try to wriggle away in earnest until he has his arms curled around my thighs and his face right there and I think—Lord, I’m not going to get through this alive. Please Lord, save me from Mick Hennessey. But I don’t think the Lord is listening. His Gran might be, but any and all deities are nowhere to be found. He’s going to lick my pussy, and I’m going to lie here and see if I can take it without singing his praises. I’m definitely not going to make it. He touches me, first, and that’s bad enough. His fingers are thick and rough and I just feel so exposed and tender—I’ve been on hold too long. I’ve been primed since the dining room, since yesterday, since last year. And the fact that he notices does absolutely nothing to help me. “You’re so wet,” he says, and I wish his voice didn’t sound that good as he does so. He doesn’t wait for me to deny or confirm this, however, and instead just continues stroking through my honeyed slit like a professional tease.
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When he brushes over my clit, I jerk my hips. I can’t help it. It’s like being zapped with a minor electric shock. And though I don’t make a sound, I have to say I breathe pretty loudly. A really loud intake of breath. The kind that could easily be disguised as anything—a sleepy sigh, a slight cough, a weird hiccup. But I’m sure I can see his cheeky mouth curling into a victorious smile, anyway. “Did I make you this wet?” he asks, just as he smoothes two fingers all the way down to dip right into me. My back arches—just a little—at the sensation of being filled. I have to bite my lip, it’s been so long. “I bet I could make you wetter, though.” I guess he warned me that he’s a talker. But even so, I don’t think I can take much more of his running commentary as he fondles and fucks and licks me. Because that’s what comes next. He licks my clit, just once, like a tease, while those two thick fingers rock inside me. “What do you think?” I think I hate you, right now, Mick Hennessey. “Maybe if I lick you, again. How about that? Did you like that little lick? Maybe if I do it again, only slower.” And oh, then—he does just that. He drags his tormenting tongue over my clit, slow as syrup. My entire body bristles, as though he rubbed my fur the wrong way. Orgasm coils in my belly, ready and waiting. “How was that?” Awful, just awful. “Pretty good, huh? And you know, I can do it again—if you just ask me to do it. Does that seem fair? You ask me, and I do it. How about that?” I look to the heavens for inspiration, guidance, anything. It’s pretty obvious before we even get into this, what sort of game he’s hoping to play. And although it’s thrilling— although I’ve always wanted to do this sort of thing with a man, to have a man be this vocal and cheeky and almost...commanding, with me, I just can’t do it here. We cannot do this here. I answer him anyway, however.
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“Do it again,” I say, no preamble, no building up to it in tiny harrumphing whines. Just direct, get to the point, oh God, please get to the point. But of course, I whisper it. I’m not likely to shout it, am I? He knows I’m not going to shout it. Or even say it a normal voice, despite the fact that the words themselves are quite innocent. I could be talking about something mimed in a game of charades. Unfortunately, we’re not playing charades. And a whisper isn’t, apparently, going to cut it in this game. “Sorry,” he says. “I can’t hear you.” He is an unmitigated pervert. His poor Grandmother. “I said—” I begin, through gritted teeth. “—do it again.” “God, that was awful! That was even less audible than last time, Nancy. You’ve got to enunciate, enunciate.” Who is he? I’m amazed that he even knows what the word enunciate means. The last time I heard that word it was in one of my many, many fantasies about Alan Rickman being my linguistics professor. “Shut up. Just shut up, Mick, and lick me,” I say, and I say it much, much louder than I did the first time. Maybe not loud enough for everyone to hear, but certainly enough to please him. He rewards me by curling those fingers and finding that little bump of nerves that even my vibrator usually has trouble discovering. Sensation shimmies through me, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. My pussy tightens and flutters around the intrusion, all of its own accord. He seems to appreciate such a reaction, and shows his appreciation by licking my clit. Just once. A soft stroke that lingers too long for me to stay completely quiet. Not that I care as much as I once did. I’m practically delirious. I do what any reasonable person would do, and put my hand on the back of his head to hold him where I need him to be, but he just laughs. “Ask nicely, and I will,” he says. I moan. Desperately. “Well, that’s a start.” “Please—is that what you want me to say? Please?”
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“You could try it. Try it on the same volume level as me, and see where it gets you.” No, I think. No no no, don’t do it! But my body has other ideas, and apparently, my body controls my mouth and vocal chords. “Please, please just make me come. Make me come, okay? Please.” He looks up at me and locks me in place with those gorgeous eyes—even in the darkness, you can tell they’re a deep and unsettling blue. “Good girl,” he says, and even before he licks me, I shiver, all over. When he actually does swipe my clit with his tongue, I moan really, really loudly. I can’t help it. My hand simply doesn’t get to my mouth in time. It was too busy stroking through his soft, curly hair and trying to force his head between my legs. Now, I need both over my mouth, as he swirls delicious patterns over and around my bud. He homes in on just the right spot, instinctively, and licks and licks and licks. Pleasure bursts through me. I think I come about a minute after he gives in, but really the whole thing feels like one long orgasm—from him flicking his tongue right on the underside to the nerve-jangling scrape of his teeth. And, oh Lord, then he sucks my clit into his mouth, and I’m definitely coming. I think, somewhere in the middle, I managed to call out his name. I definitely said something between the cracks of my fingers, because when he kneels up, satisfied with his work, he’s grinning. His mouth looks great, all painted with my slickness. It’s the only thing I can pay any attention to, however. I’m boneless, lost on a tide of sexual ecstasy. My body keeps jerking with little after-shocks, and my brain feels numb. I think I can dimly hear the sound of foil tearing and rubber snapping, but that’s about as much as I can manage. Well, that and kissing him back fiercely, when he leans down to slant his mouth over mine. I taste myself on his lips, tangy and sweet—a fact that he seems to revel in. I can feel him grinning, against my mouth. His hand is on my thigh, spreading me wider so that he can fit his bare body between—and he is bare. I don’t know when he got rid of his jeans, but he’s completely naked apart from the condom. I have the overwhelming urge to grab myself a handful of his naked arse. It gets worse when he tells me, “I’ve waited three years for this, Nance.”
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At which, I run my hand down his perfectly curved back. Just to feel the length of his solid maleness, to build the tension before I get to his gorgeous arse. I want to ask him why he waited, what made him hesitate, how he can be this confident in the sack and yet have held back from approaching me before tonight. But the feel of him will do, for now. He’s thick and full and good, so good that I hardly care that someone is bound to have heard that guttural gasp of appreciation he lets out—sometimes, things are just too fantastic to care about anything, pleasure aside. And I want him to feel pleasure. God knows he made me feel good—he’s still making me feel good. It’s only fair that I jerk my hips up to meet his and clench my pussy around his driving cock and tear my nails down his back. It’s only fair that I make him cry out when I pinch one of his apparently sensitive nipples and suck one of his earlobes into my mouth. When I lick the turn of his throat, wetly—it seems that he’s sensitive just about everywhere. And he’s right. He’s no challenge at all. I mean, maybe it turns him on to think that everyone can hear him fucking me, but somehow I think he just likes vocalising his pleasure. A lot. He groans my name and tells me to scratch him again and gasps, brokenly, when I sigh that he feels very good indeed. But the perverse thing is that I don’t mind—in fact, quite the contrary. Great swells of pleasure break over me whenever he opens his mouth, and the dirtier and louder he talks the more it turns me on. It turns me on when the headboard starts banging against the wall, too. I’ve caught exhibitionism from him, somehow. Any second I’m going to— “Oh God, yes!” I shout, and he follows right behind me.
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Chapter Three
My face is the colour of a postbox when I finally dare to creep down for breakfast. I try to combat the red with lots of foundation, but I don’t think it’s had any effect. And even if it had, I’m pretty sure other things about me give away my total embarrassment at having bonked their eldest son really loudly, the night before. Like my cringing. The hunched shoulders. The almost ridiculous effort I’ve gone to, to make myself look even more respectable—tweed skirt, thick tights, glasses on. I’m fairly certain I do not look anything like the sort of girl who would bonk someone so flagrantly. Though it’s possible I look like someone who is over-compensating for bonking someone so flagrantly. I scan the kitchen for my partner-in-crime upon entering, and am thankful that he’s nowhere to be seen. He snuck back to his own room some time before dawn, all of which helps in this charade of me as the innocent virgin who simply doesn’t do that sort of thing. I’m glad I forced him to go. I’m not so glad that I now have to face the only person who’s in here—his Gran. She’s busy all brewing tea and getting ready for what seems to be a ginormous Christmas breakfast, already dressed in something prim and elderly, humming a tune that was probably made up in 1865. I just stand there, nervously, by one of the chairs around the kitchen table, staring down at the mounds of tomatoes and bacon and things I cannot eat or I’ll be sick. Terror and embarrassment are making me ill. The memory of Mick between my legs goes a long way to combat this, however. Just a sweet, gentle pulse, right there. An echo of his thick cock. Oh God, I’m thinking about his thick cock in the same room as his Grandmother. “Hello, dear,” she says, when she finally notices me. “Merry Christmas.” “Merry Christmas,” I manage—though barely. “Would you like a boiled egg?”
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
21
I’m momentarily thrown by such a question. The presence of egg and boiled in the sentence cannot be processed by my brain. I was expecting disapproving looks and maybe some brimstone and hellfire, not boiled eggs and Merry Christmases. Thankfully, my mouth moves without me having to operate it. “Oh, no thanks, Mrs. Hennessey.” She dithers and twitters and smells of violets, even over all the food steam. “Call me Patricia, Nancy, Patricia. Dear me.” I’ve tried before and failed. I don’t know how she expects me to succeed now. Now that she’s heard me calling out her Grandson’s name in the throes of wild passion. “Sit down, won’t you? The rest won’t rise for a while yet, I should think. Don’t stand on ceremony for them.” I obey her, just so that I can wring my hands under the table. It’s a mistake, though, because then she loads my plate up with gigantic piles of bacon and scrambled eggs and toast and God knows what else. She comments on my appalling appetite, when I’ve barely managed a thing before everyone else comes barrelling down the stairs. Mick, on the other hand, manages plenty. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone eat as much as he puts away the moment he’s sat down next to me at the kitchen table. George and his Dad try to equal him, but they’ve got no chance. They didn’t burn off any calories having sex last night, after all. He winks at me, in between pushing rashers of bacon into his mouth. I try to nibble a corner of some toast, innocuously. It doesn’t work, however. His Dad still booms out, “Did you sleep well, Nancy?” When I’m least expecting it. I’m made very aware that beside me, Mick has stopped eating. I can no longer hear his knife scraping against his plate, as though he’s ever so terribly interested in what I’m about to say. Or why his Dad might be asking such a question. I smile, tightly, up at his big, hairy Dad—while everyone else seems to stare at me, intently. Oh Lord, they definitely heard us. No wonder my brother isn’t having a boiled egg—he’s so mortified that he can only managed beans on toast. “Very well, thanks,” I squeak out, and he just nods and goes back to speculating about what’s in that giant present George seems to have bought him.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
22
I nibble my toast. Everyone stops looking at me. Under the table, Mick squeezes my thigh.
* * * * It makes me wonder if he really has been waiting three years to bed me. The present he gives me, I mean. It’s not the sort of gift that’s going to draw the attention of everyone— Attention, family! I like Nancy! But it’s definitely had some thought put into it. So much so that I’m certain he must have asked David what I might like. Or just watched me really closely on all the previous years. It’s not as though he came up and talked to me a lot, all those times before. But clearly, he knows what I’m about. It’s a book of fairytale illustrations. Fairytales from all different eras and all over the world. Really nicely done—beautiful, in fact. But to everyone else it’s just a book, so it’s not as though he has to explain the fuss. After I’ve opened it, I don’t feel embarrassed, anymore. I don’t know why. I just don’t. I’m glad that we did what we did last night. It was fun and exciting and pleasurable, and there’s nothing wrong with that, even if his Gran did hear. When he asks me if I want to go for a walk after we’ve cleared up all the wrapping paper, I don’t say no. After all, I bought him a t-shirt. It’s the least I can do. The morning is crisp and clear, frost still all over everything despite the pale wintery sun. I wear my boots and my new leather coat with the fur collar —thanks, David! —and his Gran forces him to put on the cardigan she knit for him. It’s not a bad cardigan, exactly. It’s grey and big and looks manly. It’s just that it looks Dad-manly, rather than young hot stud manly. Though he needn’t worry—he’d look like a young hot stud wearing a bin liner. “All right?” he asks me, as we start down the little crazy paved path to who knows where. There’s a stream at the bottom of their garden, I know, so maybe he figures we’ll take a walk along there. Maybe he just wants to grope me in some frosty bushes. Maybe I want him to. “Just fine,” I say.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
23
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” For a second, I think he means because of the book. I’ve no idea why he could expect me to be mad over such a thing, but I think it anyway. Before I realise and feel silly. “Why would I be mad?” “Because I seduced you in my bed.” I giggle a little at that—seduced! “Oh, I know. I was powerless to resist your manly charms.” He wrinkles up his nose in a way that somehow makes him even more handsome. “Yeah, ‘course you were!” he says, and then he only goes and mimics me. “Oh Mick, Mick, please!” I give him a shove, for that. “I seem to remember you doing your fair share of noise making—they weren’t insults you were doling out, mate.” “Like the compliments, did you? Appreciated my silver tongue?” Aha. Here’s my opening. I knew one would come around, eventually—though I have to say, I didn’t think he’d be so easy. “You’ve got a good line in bullshit, I’ll give you that.” “Bullshit? What bullshit?” Et voila! And now I can ask about his comment the night before without seeming like a sap or an idiot. Nancy, you are a genius. “As though you’ve waited three years to sleep with me! Come on.” Or maybe not so much of a genius. He goes very quiet, after I’ve spoken. We walk in silence for what seems like an age. It’s a good thing the scenery is pleasant, or the lack of occupation would drive me bonkers. I gaze at the misty fields beyond the stream, trying my best to appear as though I don’t care what he has to say about that. Unfortunately, it seems that I do care. I know I do, because I feel all funny inside when he says, finally, “What would be so bad about that?” Mainly because he takes so long to say it. Him taking so long to say it turns simple words that mean nothing into something else altogether. It turns them into the truth, I think. He really has waited all this time to make a move on me.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
24
I shrug. I want to say other things, but I’m afraid of what they’ll be. I like him too much, already. I liked him before, as handsome and funny and charming as he is, but this sudden swerve into possibly soft-hearted territory is really putting a strain on things. Amazing sex and sweet words and thoughtful gifts and now, oh Lord, he’s holding my hand—what next? “You could have—you know, asked me on a date before. It’s not as though you’re awful and ugly, or anything.” “Yeah,” he says, before following it with something that I think makes me go deaf. Or at least paralyses me, momentarily. “But I’m not smart.” I need the deafness and the paralysis just to work out what he means. But thankfully, he supplies the meaning a second later, “And you are. You’re massively smart. Einstein smart. You probably date loads of other, massively smart blokes who know the square root of eighty million, or something.” There are many, many things wrong with what he’s just said. But all I can think to blurt out is this, “How do you know I’m smart? I might be as thick as a brick!” “You got every question right when we had that Christmas Eve quiz the first year you came.” Oh, Lord. He’s right, though—I did. I just didn’t realise that meant some gorgeous lust object would be...what? Intimidated by me? That sounds ludicrous, even when I’m just thinking it. “Yeah, but you’re gorgeous!” I’m still in blurting out mode, it seems. And the blurting isn’t stopping. I pull my hand away from his and turn to face him. “You’re absolutely gorgeous! Hideously gorgeous! I hate to break it to you, Mick, but gorgeous men aren’t afraid of asking clever women out on dates. Quite the opposite.” “Did you work that out in your giant alien brain?” he says. Completely deadpan. See—not only is he gorgeous, he’s also funny enough to make me laugh in the middle of indignation. “No, but—” “Were there lots of equations involved? If X has a tight bum and Y has big knockers, do they intersect in column Z?”
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
25
“I’ll intersect your column, in a minute.” Such a warning does not put him off, however. He touches a teasing tongue to his upper teeth, and pulls at the front of my coat. “And what do you mean, big knockers?” “Well, I never said it was just your brain I liked, did I?” “I knew I caught you looking down my top last year.” “I’m only human! They were right there, staring at me!” “My knockers don’t stare. They’re shy. They hide themselves in blouses—especially when they’re here with all your family about.” “Apart from when you come out of your bedroom just in time to catch me coming out of the bathroom, wearing that skimpy little vest thing you wore last year—oops! Didn’t know you’d be in the hallway, Mick! Here, look at my knockers!” “That’s rich! What were you wearing those skin-tight jockeys for? Do your balls hang low in polite company? Did you suspect that it would be as hot as the sun out in the hallway, so wore just your underwear, in case?” “I knew you checked me out.” “I bloody didn’t! I was too busy trying to hide my breasts from your prying eyes.” On the word eyes, he leans down whip-quick and kisses me. Of course, I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t turn that quickly. I don’t have good tread on my tires and I skid all over the place. Though mostly I just kiss him back, twice as passionately. Despite the fact that it’s Christmas morning and his entire family is probably looking out of the living room window at us. Not that I care all that much, anymore. It just feels too good to stop—that’s the truth. His hands feel cold, this time, on my face. But that feels good, too. So does his body, when I slide my arms around him. It makes me mad to think we could have been doing this for the last three years, if it wasn’t for his weird fear of my massive brain. Why couldn’t he just be like normal blokes, and not care a fiddle about what’s in my head?
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
26
I almost make myself laugh, just as he’s getting to the really good stuff. You know, hand on my bottom, other hand in my hair, tongue doing things in my mouth that makes my stomach somersault. By the time he’s through, his hands are no longer cold at all. I don’t think anything on him is cold, and the same goes for me. In fact, I’m boiling hot and desperate to unbutton this completely inappropriate coat, even if it means we’ll look like we’re undressing on the back lawn. I don’t think any less of him for saying, “The shed’s over there.” Instead I just follow him, mindlessly, to a place where his Dad probably smokes a pipe and reads porn mags, and spiders have parties in all the corners. Sure enough, it’s a dim, grimy mess. There’s barely enough space for both of us to fit inside, amidst the old rusty tools and the piles of broken things and the bags of soil. But if I try not to think about my tweed skirt and sit on the bags, and he stands right between my legs, why, there’s plenty of room to spare! Lucky us. And it’s the perfect height, too, for me to attack his mouth with little effort on my part. I don’t even have to drag him down to me. It’s all just lips and tongues and terrible, desperate groans of appreciation, as though we didn’t have sex only a few short hours ago, and we’ve both been lost in a lust desert for the past one hundred years. I think I actually bite him. I’m that hungry for him after all the great gifts and flirting. “Someone could come down here and walk in on us,” he says, but I’m not sure what his intention is in doing so. Is he trying to make me stop? It’s too late for that, now. He’s turned me into the same sort of pervert he apparently is, and the idea of someone walking in only spurs me on. I pull him right to me with the heel of my boot pressed to his backside. He gives me a breathless laugh, for that one. Then his hands are on the buttons of my coat, the hemline of my skirt. He can’t seem to decide which to remove or tug aside or push up first, and settles on all three in a hurried jumble. The tights throw him. God, I wish I hadn’t worn them. What was I thinking, trying to look respectable? I should have come downstairs naked. Naked, Nancy!
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
27
I guess I’ll just have to settle for him being naked. Though he voices some surprise when I manage to unbutton his jeans before he’s even got my tights halfway down my legs, and when I yank them and his underwear all the way down to the ground. Now he’s there all bare legged, while I recline on my throne of soil, almost fully clothed. He’s sporting an absolutely delicious erection. I didn’t get the full view of it, last night, but it’s here in all its glory, now. Thick and just ever so slightly turning skyward, with a little jewel of liquid beading at the tip. I want to lick him up, but unfortunately he has other, frustration-prompted ideas. My boots are apparently massively in his way, so he pushes me down onto the dirty bags, grabs a pair of shears, and cuts the crotch of my tights clean in two. Just like that! I have no idea why such a thing makes me breathless. I only know that it does. When he drags me back up to him, I search frantically for air. Probably even more so when I realise he’s done the same to my knickers as he has to my tights. “Are you wet?” he asks, and I almost laugh at so foolish a question. But then he follows those words with these, “Because I just need to fuck you right now.” And I forget anything was ever funny at all. “Fuck me,” I tell him. “Just fuck me.” The scrabbling around on the floor he has to do to get a condom out of his pocket is almost too much for me to bear. I think I actually grind my teeth, and it takes a lot of restraint to keep my own hands away from my slick and aching pussy. It also takes a lot to keep my hands away from his heavy cock when he stands back up again, all harried and pink cheeked and fumbling with foil. For some reason my hands are steadier than his, so I get to fulfil my own need to touch him, after all. I take the foil from him, and tear it open, and take my sweet time rolling the rubber down the length of his gorgeous prick. He gasps, when I give him a little teasing squeeze. Just a tiny one—barely anything at all. But then I remember from last night how sensitive he is. He doesn’t seem to like it when I lean forward and graze my teeth over his t-shirt covered nipple, either. “Enough,” he tells me, in this rough and breathy sort of voice.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
28
The sort of voice that goes straight to my clit. When he grabs my thighs, his strong grasp goes straight to my clit, too. And when he yanks me to him, hard—oh I don’t mind that at all. I don’t mind any of this. Least of all his lust darkened eyes and his thick erection pressing between my legs. Despite his obviously desperate state, he takes an exquisite moment to slide the head of his cock through my slippery folds. Just that small moment, to kiss his firm flesh against my clit. He had to tease me until I spoke to him the night before, but not now, no way. I tell him in the throatiest, shakiest tones how much I like him doing that. I cry out his name, brokenly. I wrap my legs around his hips. When I do, he has mercy on me. He slides into me in one smooth glide, groaning as he does so. I only get that one sweet pause before he fucks into me hard and fast, over and over. He gets a hand on my hip, on my ass, and holds me so tightly there’ll be bruises tomorrow. But just having him be that desperate with me, that impatient—it makes my teeth chatter. I cling to him and dig my nails in and tell him harder, harder, harder. “You like it like that, huh?” he asks, though of course he’s not really asking. It’s obvious I like it. I’m gasping as though I can’t get air and generally making more noise than I’ve ever made in my life. “You like my cock in you?” he asks, and I tell him yes, yes. “You could hardly wait for me to take you down here and fuck you, could you?” I think I actually sob my answer. I know I sob it when he gets hold of my hand and shoves it between my legs. “Touch yourself while I fuck you,” he says, and I’m honestly not sure if it would matter whether he was fucking me or not. His cock feels amazing inside me, and he’s hitting all the right places and he’s doing so hard and good, but his words—the way he says them. All that rough lust in his voice and his hand forcing mine. I barely have to touch my clit, and I’m coming. I feel his hand gripping my wrist, and I come and come and come. I cry out in a way I’ve definitely never done before—guttural yet high and silly sounding.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
29
But I don’t care. It’s all just too good and exactly what I need. I’ve been waiting all my life for sex like this. For him. God I hope he gives me the chance to make him feel as good as he’s made me. Though I think I’ve made an all right hash of it, when he calls out my name about ten seconds later. He calls out the Lord’s name, too, as his hips jerk against me and his hands tighten on my thigh and on my wrist. Then he sags against me, trembling. I don’t think I’ve ever made a man tremble, before. But that’s okay, because I’m trembling, too.
* * * * He sits next to me on the sofa, when we all watch something supposedly awesome on the telly. He sits next to me at the dinner table, when we all eat Christmas dinner. But even so, I don’t think any of them suspect that we are...whatever it is we are. Fucking? Lovers? A fling? I guess it would be sort of difficult to tell his Mother and his Grandmother that we’re having a fling, and that’s why we go for walks and sit next to each other now. God, next year’s going to be even more awkward. But I don’t regret it. How could I regret something like this? I can still feel him on me and all over me. Still taste his peppermint-y mouth. David asks me what I’m smiling about as we stand at the front door, waiting for Cathy to bring the car around. I tell him it’s because I’ve had a lovely Christmas—which is the truth. I have had a lovely Christmas. It’s just that it had nothing to do with turkey and presents and not being alone. Well, maybe it had something to do with that last part. I’ve never told him before, but most of the time I feel alone even when I’m surrounded by the Hennesseys. After all, they’re not my family. Not really. They’re an offshoot of someone else’s love—of David and his love for Cathy. And Cathy’s love for him, in return. But it’s been different, this year. Even if it’s just a fling, I’ve had a little taste of excitement and warmth and something that’s just mine. And who knows, maybe I can have another fling, next year. I could be his Christmas girl, ready to be unwrapped with the rest of the presents.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
30
He strolls up to me, as David starts packing the car with suitcases. Hands in pockets, probably ready to be sheepish. I’m betting he’s going to have explanations and excuses and those other things that men have when they’re wanting to ensure that something remains just a fling, but he really doesn’t need them. I want to pre-empt him, and tell him it’s okay. I’m happy with how things went this year. “You off, then?” he asks, and I try not to let my knowing smile show. “Looks like it,” I reply. “Thanks for the t-shirt.” His Mum’s about three feet away. I’m not sure what else he can manage, without giving our whole game away. She smiles warmly, when I glance at her—all ready to give David and Cathy and I some goodbye hugs. “I’m glad you liked it. And I really liked the book. A lot. Really. It was awesome. So...thanks.” “Oh God yeah no problem. The t-shirt—that was also...awesome.” I don’t why he’s so intimidated by my giant brain. He seems able to catch onto my secret code with amazing speed and skill. “Really...gorgeous,” he says, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “Not as gorgeous as the book.” He raises an eyebrow right back at me. “I dunno. The t-shirt is pretty hot.” Oh, this is descending into farce. I’ve got to get out of here before something even more ridiculous happens—and I do. I get to the driveway and then wish I’d hugged him or something, or hugged his Mum as code for I really wanted to hug you, so just as David’s opening the car door for me I turn, and say, “So I’ll see you next year, then.” Because that’s code, too. It’s code for next year, I want to do everything that we’ve just done, again. Only sooner. Christmas Eve morning, if possible. The moment I walk in the door. Right now. I want it right now, just because looking at you stood in the doorway with your hands in your pockets makes me ache.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
31
He laughs, and I know exactly what that laugh means. It’s blissful and incredulous and it turns what he says next into something that’s code for I’m going to be seeing you tomorrow. “Why wait?” he says.
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
32
Epilogue
I’d forgotten how long the drive is to the Hennessey’s home. Or maybe it just seems like a long time, when I’ve got someone next to me who needs immediate attention. And by attention, I of course mean a head to toe licking, stat. He gives me that look—the one that says, I’ve already had great big long licks of him, not an hour earlier. Can’t I be patient? Can’t I wait? But of course I can’t wait. I’ve had Mick Hennessey for an entire year, and I still can’t wait more than ten seconds to devour him, the moment he walks into any room—something which he’s used to his advantage, on more than one occasion. He uses it when I’m least expecting it, always. He’ll turn up at work, just when I’m meant to be on my best behaviour. He’ll catch me as I’m walking home along leafy lanes, or as I’m just saying goodbye to a friend somewhere very public, indeed. Mick Hennessey loves those three words—very public, indeed. I have to say it’s been a wonderful twelve months, finding that very thing out. And I don’t know why it’s a surprise, when he tells me I’m about to find out some more. “Think you can behave yourself?” he asks, and I thrill for two reasons. The first is that I know I can’t, and the second comes because he knows I know I can’t. I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone long enough to have all that knowing tangling us together, but it’s definitely there. Things can actually go unsaid. We have codes, secret codes, and they’re as delicious as they are wicked. “Of course I can,” I say, and wait for him to prove that he understands I’m lying. He doesn’t disappoint. “A whole three days of Christmas fun,” he sighs. “All that unwrapping and eating sticky things and squeezing past each other in hallways...” “Christmas is not sexy. Christmas is twee and polite and nice. I can cope.” “...and then there’s all those cold draughty rooms, just waiting to be snuck into. All that silence everywhere.” “Your Gran in the next room, listening to every word we murmur.”
WAITING IN VAIN
Charlotte Stein
33
“And she will be listening, now, ‘cause she knows we’re together. She’ll be waiting for me to sneak my way into your bed and do sinful things, before we’re married.” I shrug, and glance at my nails. “What do I care? I have to put up with you forever, now. I can last a few days, easily.” I catch his grin, though I’m sure he thinks I haven’t. “Forever, huh?” he says, but he knows what I’m thinking of. My initials at the centre of his labyrinth. That ring he thinks I don’t know about, in his crappily packed suitcase. His hand on my thigh, so high up that I’m already melting. I sigh, theatrically. “Or until I get bored, of course.” His hand moves higher on my thigh. I’m not sure there’s much more leg for him to uncover, but if there is, he’ll find it. He always finds it—the right spot, the echo of sweet memories, the chill of something we shouldn’t be doing. “You really think you’re going to get bored of me?” My heart drops a little when I realise there’s a hint of actually asking in his voice, something in him that really wonders if I’ll ever get tired of him. How he could ever think such a thing, I don’t know. If I had a labyrinth on my arm, I’d put him at the middle of it. But it’s okay, because I don’t need to do that. I know exactly what I’m going to do, to show him that I love him as deeply as he seems to love me. “Wait until we get to the dining room table,” I say, before letting my hand rest ever so lightly, on his upper thigh.
About the Author Charlotte Stein has been published in numerous erotic and erotic romance anthologies, and has written her own longer length works for both Black Lace books and Total-E-Bound. She has been writing for more than half her life, but only recently worked up the courage to submit something to actual publishers. Thankfully, the story ended well. Email:
[email protected] Charlotte loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
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