Cooking up a Storm (6 page)

‘I want you touch me,’ she said, the words bursting out, hot and impetuous.

He reached above her to turn on a lamp, a sudden and shocking exposure. She flushed as he drew back on to his knees, kneeling over her like a conqueror. His hands played lightly over her breasts. ‘Where would you like me to touch you?’

Not where, she thought, I want you to touch me with your cock.

‘Anywhere,’ she said, and could have kicked herself.

He knew she was lying. He knew. He leant down and tutted in her ear. His hair, shaggy and smooth as silk, tickled her cheek. ‘Tell me what you want, love. Whisper it in my ear.’

Oh, if only he hadn’t turned on the light. But he kissed her eyebrow very gently and the courage came. ‘Touch me with your cock,’ she whispered.

A shudder coursed through him, a glorious, carnal shudder.

‘Ah,’ he said, and set his teeth to her earlobe, as though the tension inside him demanded immediate expression. His knees shifted. The heat of his groin approached hers. ‘Where shall I touch you with my cock? Here?’

The satiny tip brushed from her knee to the top of her thigh. There it stilled, pressing softly, rhythmically against the valley that bordered her fleece.

‘You’re sticky,’ she said, then wondered if that was the wrong thing to say.

He chuckled. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than before. ‘I am overeager tonight.’

The admission, and the huskiness, thrilled her. ‘Touch me all over.’

‘With this?’ He drew a curve around her belly with the hot, sticky head, then flattened the thick length of it over her hipbone. ‘Or this?’

Abby rolled into the pressure. ‘Yes. Both. All over.’

This time his chuckle was just an expulsion of breath. ‘Want to test my limits, do you?’

‘I want you to come.’

His cock jerked. ‘Ah,’ he said.

She loved that word in his mouth, a sigh of understanding and approval — and pleasure.

He said no more. He rubbed her with his velvet-wrapped hardness, up her thighs, around her belly. He rolled her on to her front and caressed her bottom, every inch of either cheek and then the crease between, with the head, with the shaft, with the soft-hard crush of his balls. He measured the small of her back, and trailed up the sides of her body until he could thrust once, slowly, into the pit of each arm.

Settling his knees beside her shoulders, he smoothed her hair backwards over her head, on to the pillow, and rubbed his cock along the nape of her neck. He probed each side, pushing along the underside of her jaw. Delicious, she thought, like having your whole body fucked instead of just your pussy. She purred at the feel of it, then squirmed on to her back.

‘I know what I want now,’ she said.

His cock jutted directly towards her face, stiff but tremulous, vibrating with the blood trapped inside. She kissed the swollen cap of the head. Oh, it was so smooth and hot, like living satin. She licked it. It jerked under her tongue.

‘No,’ he said, and his voice was very low, very dark. ‘Not that. Not until you know me better.’

She almost laughed. His cock was straining towards her lips, practically sitting up and begging. But that hadn’t been what she meant to do, in any case. The sight of him had distracted her from her original goal. ‘This,’ she said, pushing her small breasts together to form a shallow channel. ‘I want you to come here, where I can see you.’

‘Ah,’ he said, relief in the word this time. He lowered himself. His hip popped slightly and then he sighed as she embraced him with her breasts.

He thrust slowly but firmly, pacing himself. She tilted her head to watch. His cock and hips filled all her vision. He had tan marks on his hipbones. She guessed he liked revealing bathing suits. He’d look gorgeous in a little Speedo — even a thong. The hollows at the side of his muscular buttocks were well worth showing off. Even his pubic hair was beautiful. A wild thick growth at the base of his belly, it gleamed in tight black curls, as if he’d oiled it along with his penis. His balls rolled back and forth over her ribs as he thrust. She squeezed her flesh tighter, surrounding more of him. He gasped and braced his weight on his arms.

His strokes lengthened until he butted the softness under her chin, the little cushion he’d loved with his earlier kiss. He left his fluid on her flesh; he was dripping now, a clear sweet trail of eagerness.

‘Come,’ she said.

He choked out something she couldn’t understand. Her hands occupied in holding herself around him, she lifted one knee and caressed the sweaty upper curve of his buttocks.

‘Come,’ she whispered. ‘I want you to come all over me.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, his accent so thick she almost couldn’t decipher the words.

He pushed harder, faster. The friction burnt the tender skin between her breasts, friction and his own inner heat. She watched him watch his penis. The muscles of his face tightened. His skin went dark like an Arab’s. She knew he was going to come any second, so she shifted her gaze to his cock. Like his face, it was darker and stiffer. The cap was red and shiny, growing even fuller as she watched. He moved faster still. A cry caught in his throat. He held his breath. The eye at the tip seemed to widen, darken, deepen.

Yes, she thought, yes, and he came, an explosive burst of white, hot against her chin, wet running down her neck and over her breasts as he pulled back and shoved again, still pulsing, each jet shooting strong and hard as though his entire supply must burst free in an instant.

Seconds later it was over. His arms shook from holding his weight. She stroked his shoulders and his elbows buckled. He eased himself on to her. He laid his head on her sticky breast. His eyes slid shut as she stroked his hair. He was easy to hold, not all that much heavier than her.

Sleep, she thought, even as she felt him fight it. She wanted him here in the morning, wanted him in her arms. Not likely, she thought, but she could pretend.

*   *   *

‘I left your present in my pocket,’ he mumbled, trying to shake off his lassitude. He couldn’t stay here. To spend the night would send messages he didn’t mean to send. He had rules about such things. They’d always served him well.

‘Present?’ she said. Her hand continued to stroke his hair.

‘A bonbon I thought we might want to carry. A cream-filled devil’s cake dipped in Swiss-chocolate icing.’ He sensed her mouth watering. ‘Of course, it’s not as spectacular as your caramel-pecan crumble, but it does have the advantage of being small. Some ladies prefer their desserts small, you know, and it does pack a powerful punch.’

‘You like my pecan crumble?’ she said.

He ignored the way the vulnerability in her voice cinched his chest muscles. What harm could there be in pleasing her with the truth? ‘I adored your crumble,’ he said.

Abby sighed happily. ‘That was Dad’s favourite recipe.’

Surprise made him incautious. ‘Your mother didn’t cook?’

Her mouth puckered and twisted at the same time. ‘My mother died in childbirth — having me, actually.’

He could have kicked himself. He did not want to know her personal history any more than he wanted to spend the night. He shifted slightly, letting his weight rest on his side. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘That’s all right. Dad was a great father.’

Storm debated the merits of silence. Clearly, her father was dead as well. By keeping his mouth shut, he could end the conversation here. There was one fact, however, which might be useful to know. ‘You father left you the inn, yes?’

‘Yes, me and my sisters. When he first got sick, I came to help him in the kitchen. I was the only daughter who didn’t have a family at the time. When he died, it seemed natural that I take over as manager.’

She wrinkled her nose, which forced him to ask yet another question. ‘You don’t enjoy managing the inn?’

Given his purpose in coming to the Cape, he would have welcomed an affirmative. But she merely shrugged, a gesture that made her breasts shift under his chest. ‘I could do without the cooking, but I love talking to customers, especially when the tourists come. I like decorating, too, and doing accounts — though they’ve been nothing to smile about lately. Dad wasn’t the most businesslike man.’ She clasped her hands behind his waist and tugged him closer. ‘What about you? Are your parents alive?’

‘No,’ he said, because that was simplest.

‘Mm,’ she said, her tone thoughtful.

He tensed, fearing she’d turn sentimental or expect him to supply more detail. Women often wanted a man to turn himself inside out for them, especially after a good fuck. But Abby just continued stroking his hair around his skull until the caress made him want to close his eyes and sleep in her arms.

Fighting the urge, he pushed on to his elbows. ‘I should be going. I want to get an early start tomorrow. I have to make a list of supplies we’ll need for the new menu.’

‘All right,’ she said, releasing him without protest.

She watched him in silence as he gathered his clothes and dressed. Her face was calm, even fond. Had he wanted her to be disappointed? Perhaps he had. He knew he would have stayed if she asked. He was capable of saying no to certain women, but not the really nice ones. As he backed towards the door, a funny ache bloomed in his chest. She held the flowered coverlet to her chest, modest again, her golden hair hanging in a cloud around her shoulders. The deep-pink walls cast a glow on her as she sat in the rumple of satin roses, as though she were a fairy and this was her bower. She looked so sweet and feminine — and as far removed from his life in LA as LA was from his childhood.

Had she really begged him to come on her breasts? Had she really said, ‘Touch me with your cock?’

‘Good night,’ she said.

Good night, he tried to answer, but the words stuck in his throat. He set her bonbon on the chair and left with nothing more than a wave.

Marissa pedalled her bike to Wellfleet Harbor on the bay side of the Cape. This was not the wisest thing for a woman to do in the middle of the night, even during the off season, but the trip was a matter of sanity.

She’d seen Abby at the window. She’d watched tension take hold of her body at whatever she saw in the stranger’s room. She’d read the hunger in her eyes, as if she wanted to leap across the space between the buildings. The shock had kept Marissa from sleep and so she’d seen him, too, in his all-black outfit, creeping across the yard and up Abby’s rose trellis like some secret ninja Romeo.

She should have called the police, but she knew why she hadn’t. She was afraid this particular home invasion would be welcomed — and it was.

She’d heard nothing for a while, though she strained towards the window and bit her nails. The cries came later, first hers, then his. His were louder, hers more heartbreaking. They were deep cries: groans, pleas, moans of pleasure she doubted Bill had ever inspired, the sort of sounds a woman would be embarrassed to have anyone but her lover hear. Marissa should have buried her head under the pillow, but the situation held her spellbound. She could not tear herself away until the last sigh faded. It was like watching a car accident, except she was the one bleeding her heart out in the wreckage. Worse, her own pain hadn’t prevented her from becoming aroused. Too hurt to masturbate, too hot to sleep, she slunk out the back door and grabbed her rusty, no-speed Schwinn.

Though the ocean was closer to the inn, she wanted to ride to the bay side, the peaceful side. The Cape’s hook-shaped peninsula wasn’t wide here, three miles at most — barely far enough to raise a sweat. She covered the distance quickly and leant her rickety bike at the end of Old Man Weston’s pier.

It had to be two in the morning but he was sitting at the end of the dock, his arms propped behind him, his silver hair glinting in the moonlight. She often found him here, sometimes with his camera, sometimes not. Either he never slept or he guessed when she was coming.

Marissa wouldn’t put it past him. He was like a Zen master or something, the inscrutable native Cape Codder. Her ankle boots made a hollow sound as she walked down the worn planks. The old man didn’t even twitch. She looked past him. The tide was in. The sandbars slept beneath the inky water. She felt as though the night were lapping at her, mocking the painful, live-wire sensitivity of her flesh. What she wouldn’t have given for a good, hard fuck!

She dropped down next to Jack, close enough to rub thighs. He had good thighs for an old guy, long and solid. His head turned as she sat, not all the way, just enough to catch her in the corner of his eye. Water slurped against the pilings.

‘You don’t even fish,’ she said.

‘Don’t need to.’ He shifted his hands so that his shoulder brushed hers, a reassurance kind of thing — or Marissa took it that way. ‘Watching the barnacles grow is entertainment enough.’

She snorted. ‘Right, old man.’

‘My name is Jack.’

She ruffled her hair so that the spikes stood up straighter. ‘You let other people call you “old man.” Why not me?’

‘You tell me.’

His voice held a strange note. She turned sideways so she could face him straight on. Their eyes met and held, her chocolate brown to his olive brown — both black in the moonlight. A zing of sensual awareness tingled in her thighs, something she’d never caught from him before.

She scrubbed her hair and shook the sensation off. ‘Nah, you’re not interested in me. I’m not the one you come to see every night at the inn.’

‘No, you’re the one I sit on the end of this dock for.’

She bumped his shoulder. ‘Don’t kid a kidder, old man. You’ve got a thing for Abby. I can tell.’ But not as big a thing as I do, she added silently. Otherwise, you wouldn’t sit here letting some cocky LA playboy cut you out of the picture. You’re a man, after all. You’ve got half a chance.

Jack drew a flat stone from the pocket of his jeans and skipped it across the rippling waters of the bay. It skipped six times before disappearing with a loud plunk. ‘Did that man come for her?’

Marissa shivered. He couldn’t know. He’d been buried in his journal the whole time he and the stranger had shared the dining room. ‘What man?’ she said.

‘The man with the silver-blue eyes. Did he come for Abby?’

‘He came for a job.’ Jack’s silence said he didn’t believe her. Marissa squeezed her knees to her chest. ‘You may be spooky, old man, but you don’t know everything.’

‘I know you’re wasting precious young energy hankering after something you’ll probably never get.’

‘Fuck you,’ she said, furious, her eyes stinging with tears. She hadn’t come here for this.

He caught her arm before she could get away; caught it and held. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move, but the hand on her wrist spoke for him. ‘I’d like to fuck you,’ it said. ‘We could do it right here, right now.’

‘I’m capable of having more than one “thing” at a time,’ he said mildly.

Marissa tried to laugh. ‘I guess you think I should console myself with you.’

He seemed immune to her scorn. Maybe he could feel the pulse racing in her wrist. Maybe he could see the sharp points of her nipples beneath her ragged white T-shirt. He tilted his head and looked up at her. ‘Do you only like women?’

She yanked her wrist free and rubbed it. ‘I like men. Sometimes.’

‘Do you like me?’

‘How the hell should I know?’

He inclined his head another degree. ‘Why not ask your cunt?’

The word brought a flush to her face, though she’d said plenty worse herself. He had to be fifty, older than her father. He shouldn’t talk to her that way. But if he felt any remorse, he didn’t show it. Instead he spread his arms in invitation. He wore an old pair of Levis, velvet-soft and ripped at the knees. Helpless to stop herself, her eyes roved. Even in the moonlight, she could see his big erection. It filled the faded patches at his crotch, a strong, thick arch. Marissa’s pussy went soft at the sight, more than ready to take him up on his offer.

‘Here?’ She looked at the tiny lights on Indian Neck, at the oyster boat bobbing within shouting distance. ‘Out in the open?’

‘The moon likes you,’ he said. More of his crazy Zen shit.

She accepted the compliment with a toss of her head. ‘I want to be on top,’ she said, setting the terms up front.

He grinned. She couldn’t remember seeing him do that before, not full out and flashing teeth. It made her feel good to have inspired it. Her feet seemed to move by themselves. She straddled his thighs, Valkyrie-style. The ankle boots made the pose more effective. Jack stroked their thin leather with his fingertips, travelling up the black laces and down the stretchy insets that hugged her ankle bones. Funny. Gemma had liked her in the ankle boots, too — the ankle boots and nothing else. Maybe men and women had more in common than she’d realised.

Jack called her back to the present by sliding his hands up her legs. He tested each muscle with a squeeze: ankle, calf, thigh. Her legs were kind of skinny but they were strong and long. Jack set his forehead on her thigh and breathed out softly, as if he was tired, or maybe just overwhelmed. Whatever, the warm puff of air made her pussy go hot. With sure and gentle hands he rolled her bike shorts down.

She wore no panties. He cursed and closed his eyes as his fingers found her bushy mound. He combed through her hair, tickling, grazing, spreading the little trickles of wetness that slipped past her lips.

She couldn’t keep her footing while he did that. It made her feel more than she expected. Stepping out of the bike shorts, she braced on his shoulders and knelt. His hands slid down her back and cupped her bottom. He pulled her closer until her lips parted round his denim bulge. God, he was warm. She wriggled up and down, mashing her clit into his hardness.

‘Are you a noisy fuck?’ he asked.

Marissa stiffened.

His lips whispered down her cheek. ‘Would you rather I said “make love,” Marissa? Because it’s bound to be a bit of both.’

‘Just make it fast,’ she said, unsettled, off-balance. ‘Remember, it’s my butt hanging out for all to see.’

He laughed and peeled down his zip. She watched him free himself from his briefs. He had an OK-looking thing, she supposed. The shaft was long. The head was kind of pointy, though, and it veered left a little. Not that she cared. In fact, it was kind of interesting. She touched the bullet-shaped cap. It quivered under her hand. She liked that. He pulled a condom out of his pocket and showed her how to roll it on. His preparedness almost made her believe he had been waiting for her.

‘You have done this before?’ he asked, his voice just as hoarse as an ordinary man’s would be.

‘A few times.’

‘Well, don’t force yourself, sweetheart. Not even for a horny old man.’

She grabbed his ears and kissed him. That was nice, too. He kissed well, confident but not pushy. His lips were kind of flexible, and his tongue was…

He ran it to a tender spot on the side of her neck and she forgot to decide what his tongue was. His fingers slid up inside her, three strong fingers. Strong was good, she thought, as he pumped them deep into her sheath. His thumb moved up to her clit before she could remind him to do it. He was good at that, too. His expertise surprised her, but she guessed he’d had a few flings in his day.

He brought her off twice; deep, hard, shotgun orgasms. Then he poised her on top of his pointy cock. Like the Washington Monument, she thought, stifling a giggle. But, ooh, he was right there, verging on going in. She clenched her pussy, trying to draw him inside, but there wasn’t enough to grab and he was too strong to force.

‘Tell me something…’ He swirled the glans around her gate, getting it all slippery with her juice. ‘Are you thinking of Abby now?’

‘Not until you mentioned it,’ she said, and she laughed, actually happy.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

She was still laughing as he lowered her on to him and then he laughed, too, a low chuckle of triumph. She didn’t mind. She felt kind of triumphant herself. She squirmed around him, testing the relatively unfamiliar intrusion. This was the first time she’d done this sober. She couldn’t remember the other men feeling so lively inside her. When she squirmed, his cock squirmed. When she tightened, it swelled. The give and take of it intrigued her. Maybe this het stuff wasn’t as dull as she’d thought.

‘You’re hot,’ she said.

He snorted. ‘No kidding, Sherlock. Watching you come is better than an week of X-rated movies.’

She gave him her best swivel, the one she practised by humping a dildo in front of her mirror. He liked it. He put his hands on her bottom so he could feel her hip action from both sides. ‘I guess you have done this before,’ he said, which pleased her immensely. ‘Better be careful or you’ll make an old man come like a young man.’

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t really matter. He could come any time he wanted. She was still glowing from the two she’d had for starters. Jack, however, had other ideas. He kneaded her cheeks, a bone-deep massage that passed straight through her gluteus maximus and into her cunt. Her temperature jumped ten degrees in two seconds. She switched her angle, trying to get more stimulation for her clit.

‘How about this?’ he said. He took his right hand off her bottom, laid it across her belly and plastered his thumb around her mound. He bent the first knuckle and it curled into her sheath right along the top of his shaft.

‘Tight,’ she gasped.

‘Bad tight?’ He was out of breath. She knew he ran six miles every morning, but he could hardly get the words out.

‘It’s good,’ Marissa said, and she didn’t sound much better. He was holding her right where she needed to be held, stretching her right where she needed to be stretched. The good ache rose as she rode his cock and his thumb. He wriggled both from side to side, in opposite directions. Marissa’s pussy fluttered like crazy, overloaded with sensation. Jack groaned and thrust his buttocks up off the pier. It was a good moan, from the belly.

‘Faster,’ she said, half groaning herself.

He gritted his teeth and thrust to his limit. ‘Hurry, Marissa.’

She gyrated over him, keeping him deep, holding him tight. She was almost there, almost. He made this rough, animal noise and bit her shoulder through her T-shirt. That did it for her, like a switch flipping to ‘on’. She gave it up with a low cry and a deep, hip-shaking shudder. He kept her going by pumping through her spasms and then he, too, went crashing through the spume.

They sagged over each other. He put his arms around her back and swayed her from side to side. The embrace made her feel peculiar. He held her like he really cared about her and it was, well, she couldn’t help thinking it was how a father should hold his daughter — some other type of father than hers, that is.

But that was too, too weird to think about. She pulled away gently so she wouldn’t hurt his feelings and tugged the hem of her T-shirt down. It covered her butt, just barely. The planks felt rough on her skin when she sat and leant into his side.

He looked at her, measuring her reaction; reading her mind, for all she knew.

She swallowed against the funny lump in her throat. ‘Not bad for an old guy.’

He didn’t smile, but his eyebrows lifted in what could have been amusement. ‘Not bad for a girl who’d rather stick to her own kind.’

‘Well.’ She swung her feet over the water and wondered if she were losing her mind. ‘I wouldn’t mind another go if you find yourself in the mood again.’

That made him laugh. It was a nice laugh, but she still had a sneaking suspicion the joke was on her.

*   *   *

Storm woke to the sound of birdsong outside his window. He rolled out of bed, showered off a lingering sense of oddness from the night before, and headed for the kitchen. Despite the early hour, Abby and Marissa were there ahead of him, laughing uproariously over something — not him, surely; Abby wouldn’t kiss and tell, or laugh about what they’d shared.

As he entered he heard Marissa say something about Abby wading knee-deep in vultures.