Musical Beds (5 page)

“Sorry,” he whispered back. “Just can’t keep my hands off you.”

She let him sling his arm around her and offer his shoulder as a resting place for her head. This compromise suited them both and they sat like that, hand in hand, for the short ride to her station.

The distance from there to her flat was only about five hundred yards, but it took them a long time to reach it, since Ben stopped her every few paces to hug her close and kiss her lips, or forehead, or cheek, or neck.

“Don’t you want to come to my place?” she laughed, fending off the eighth such advance. “I might think you’re trying to put off the evil hour.”

“Evil hour? Never!”

Eventually, they made it across the car park of her modern block and up the stairs to her first-floor apartment.

Once inside, Ben made a lunge, but Vanessa stepped back, suddenly and unaccountably shy.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, dropping her handbag onto the hall table. “I mean, I’m old enough to be—”

“Only if you had me while you were still at school! Don’t say that, Van. Don’t make the age thing more important than it needs to be.”

“So it isn’t? Important to you?”

“Clearly!”

“And…you do like me?” A horrible vision of Ben the next day, bragging about his Mrs Robinson conquest to the men in the brass section, assailed her. “I mean—you aren’t doing this for a bet or anything…like that?”

“Jesus, Van!”

He looked so horrified that she apologised at once.

He strode over, reaching her in one pace of his long legs and put his hands up to her face, gently pinching her cheeks.

“There’s one reason I’m here, Van, and that’s because I fancy you rotten, and have done ever since I first saw you. If anything, I was convinced a sophisticated, gorgeous creature like you could never be interested in an oaf like me. And now, since you do seem to demonstrate a surprising taste for oafs, I’m going to make damn sure I don’t do anything to let you down or change your mind.”

“You aren’t an oaf.” Her smile felt strange on her pinched cheeks. “And please call me Ness. Van makes me feel like, well, a van.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Stop being sorry.”

“All right, I’ll stop being sorry. And I’ll start being amorous.”

He released her cheeks and let his arms slide around her back, resting his face against hers.

“Because you, Ms Barber, are the sexiest timpanist in the whole wide world, and I’m going to bang your drum so good tonight, baby.”

She burst out laughing.

“You’re a lunatic.”

“I thought that was a good line!”

“Stop talking and start kissing.”

He followed her instruction to the letter, sighing rapturously into another sensuous kiss. Once the room was spinning and Vanessa’s lips were on fire, she drew him slowly into her living room and sat him down on her cream leather sofa. Their bodies dented the spotless upholstery and they fell into a horizontal whirl of rubbing legs and grabbing arms until Vanessa escaped his lips and muttered, “Shoes off. Sorry. Bit of a clean freak, here.”

She had already slipped off her ballet flats and she watched fondly as he struggled upright, hair all over the place, and pulled off his shoes and socks.

“Just shoes?” he asked, turning to her with a wink. “I mean, I wouldn’t like my trousers to mess up your lovely sofa. And that top you’re wearing might stain the leather.”

He grabbed it, as if intending to yank it over her head. She squealed and mock-fought him, engaging him in a tangled battle of wills until they were red in the face and trapped in each other’s arms.

I’ve never done this before,
she realised, pretending to aim feeble kicks at Ben’s shin.
Never had a proper play fight with a lover.
Matt was so serious, and Milan just wanted one thing.

“Okay, you’re right,” she gasped, defeated. “We’re going to ruin the sofa. Maybe we should take this into the bedroom.”

He raised one eyebrow, but Ben wasn’t made for James Bond-style suavity, which made the gesture all the more endearing.

“Yes, that is the green light, darling. Don’t miss it.”

“I must be dreaming.” His big, broad, dopey smile made her heart tip sideways.

“Don’t wake up, then.”

She held out her hands to him and he took them, padding after her into the bedroom.

She let him go so she could light some candles, and he went to sit on the bed. Outside it was still light and birds sang from the rooftops. Some children were kicking a ball around, and every so often it hit the garage doors with a mighty clang.

Shadows were needed. Something to hide the flaws, the beginnings of crêpe-like skin between her breasts, the hated layer of extra padding on her hips that just wouldn’t budge…

“I want to watch you undress,” said Ben when she turned to him.

“Oh, God, do you? Really? It’s nothing special…”

“Shh! Of course it is. Let me watch you.”

She looked for mockery in his eyes but found nothing but the most earnest intent.

Well, perhaps it was ridiculous, at her age, to be coy about nudity. She wasn’t a slip of a girl any more, but she wasn’t a hag, either. She had all the right curves and everything a sexy woman needed—including, at number one, confidence.

So she threw back her head and shook her hair, then she began to pull off her top. If only she’d worn a shirt today. The slow unbuttoning would have been so much more alluring. Pulling this silly thing over her head didn’t have quite the same effect.

But once her breasts were revealed in their balconette bra, Ben didn’t seem to notice the difference.

“Ohhh.” He exhaled, licking dry lips. “I’m dying to touch them.”

“In time,” she said, feeling the first surge of her female power over him. Why had she never considered a younger lover before? Well, Milan was, of course, by a couple of years, but nothing significant. How intoxicating Ben’s blatant worship was.

She reached for her waistband and unlooped the side button of her skirt. Once the zip was down, it fell to the floor. Her teal green satin briefs matched the bra, and the warm weather had happily dispensed with the need for hosiery. Although…

“Are you a stockings man?” she asked.

“I’m not, uh, averse.”

“Maybe I could wear some next time.”

“Would you do that? For me? Wow.”

She pirouetted, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror that nearly shattered her resolve.

You’re forty-two, love. Act your age.

And now there was only the underwear to go. Were her legs okay? When did she last wax them? And should she have done her pubes? Would a young man even know what they were, in today’s world? Perhaps he would be horrified and appalled, like John Ruskin in that story about his wedding night.

Stop being so bloody ridiculous!

And would she even remember how to do it? What if—

“That bra’s pretty, but I think there’s something even prettier underneath.”

Ben derailed the unhelpful train of thought, reaching out his hand, fingers waggling suggestively.

“I hate to admit it, but I’m incapable of taking a bra off sexily. Can’t reach the clasp. Perhaps you could…help me out?”

“Gladly.”

She presented her back to Ben, who was only too happy to oblige with unfastening it. He tried to reach around and cup her breasts, but she danced away from him, leaving him swinging the bra in his fingers, unsatisfied.

“Oh, you tease!” he moaned, throwing back his neck so Vanessa could admire its swanlike length and prominent Adam’s apple.

For a moment, she maintained the pose she’d taken reflexively—arms crossed over her breasts, spine bent as if in shame, gaze lowered.

Then she straightened up, lifted her chin and spread her arms wide, so that her bare breasts were exposed in the fullest and most flattering way. Maybe they weren’t the tits of her twenties, but so what? They were the ones Ben wanted to see.

“Oh, I want to touch you,” he wheedled. “Let me touch them.”

She couldn’t keep him waiting any longer, and, besides, the thought of his hands on her body was too exciting to let pass. She shimmied across the room, feeling like Mata Hari or some other exotic, dangerous woman, loving the heady sense of erotic control.

He reached out for her hips, helping her onto the bed, where she straddled his lap, enjoying the texture of his jeans against her bare thighs.

“How much do you want it?” she whispered, placing her hands on his shoulders and nuzzling his cheek.

Her nipples grazed his cotton shirt. One of them caught on a button and she took a quick breath, shocked by the coldness of it.

“This is surreal,” he said with a low moan. “You’re really here…?”

“These aren’t surreal,” she said, drawing back and cupping one of her breasts in her hand. “They’re totally real. Do you want to find out how real?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Go on then. Touch them.”

She rocked gently up and down on his lap while he handled her breasts as if they were treasures at first, so gently and reverently.
You’d think he’d never seen a woman’s chest before
, she thought.
Actually—has he…?

She felt a catch of anxiety in her throat, wondering if he was comparing them with other, younger, firmer, higher-set breasts that he might have fondled before.

“Beautiful,” he said. “So beautiful.” She breathed again.

“Do you really think so?”

He looked up, as if troubled by the unsure quality in her voice, and tutted at her.

“Don’t you? Don’t be so daft. I’ve been looking at these, under those tight sweaters you like to wear, day after day after day, and dreaming of getting to see them. They’re perfect. Look. I’m going to bury my face in them, and that’s the last you’ll see of me all day.”

She shrieked with laughter when he pushed his face right down between each globe and made a snuffling noise like a pig at the trough. He held them tight, devouring them with kisses until he managed to push one nipple into his mouth and tongue it ravenously.

Vanessa broke off laughing to pant, suddenly aflame from nipple tip to clit. She gyrated on his thighs, grabbing his head, pushing her breast further into his hungry mouth.

He clasped his hands around her back, holding her tight, and moved on to her other nipple, giving it equally lavish attention until she worried that she was soaking through her knickers and staining his jeans.

“Ben, oh, Ben,” she crooned, trying to pull away. “That’s so good, so good. But…”

He released her nipple with a final delicate lap.

“But?”

“When can I taste you? All these clothes…”

“Tell you what. You can watch me undress when I’ve got your knickers off.”

“Oh, yeah? And when will that be?”

“Just…about…now.”

She screamed again as he flipped her onto her back on the bed in one sweeping move. He’d done this before—he had to have done.

Her fears about bedding a virgin were alleviated, only to be replaced by vague wonderings about his previous lovers.

Stop fretting. The past doesn’t matter.

She was still giggling and squealing when he removed her final barrier, baring her pussy, pubic hair and all, to his gaze.

“Oh, yes,” he said, flinging the underwear into a corner of the room. “Now I can die happy.”

“Oi, don’t go dying on me! You’ve got work to do, young man.”

“
Oh!
You called me ‘young man’!” He rolled his eyes in mock-ecstasy. “I
love
it when you do that.”

“Get your kit off! Now!”

“Wait, wait. I have to do something first.”

He crouched low between her thighs and buried his face in her pussy lips, taking a long, deep breath.

She threw back her head and surrendered to the sensual moment.

“Oh, God,” he said, rising back up on his knees. “She wants me! She really wants me!”

“You bet she does. Come on! Get the jeans off.”

He leapt off the bed and set to a free-form striptease that had her delirious with giggles from the start. She propped herself on her elbows and watched, enraptured by his complete lack of self-consciousness despite his slightly gawky posture. He seemed not to care what she, or anyone, might think of him, milking every movement, spinning his shirt above his head while his hips circled.

When the jeans came off, he commenced a series of joking bodybuilder poses until she begged him to stop, laughing so hard her ribs ached.

“Okay, then, here we go,” he said, thumbs in the waistband of his boxers. “The moment of truth. I hope you like it.”

He sounded genuinely concerned.

“I’m sure I will. Tell you what—why don’t you come over here and I’ll do it for you.”

He smiled widely and launched himself back onto the bed.

Kneeling up together, they kissed, then Vanessa pushed her hands down the back of the shorts, feeling his tight, round bum, giving it a squeeze before pushing the pants down over his thighs and the thick, upright stalk of his cock.

“Mmm,” she said, grinding her pelvis against it. “Pleased to see me?”

“Just a bit.”

Their words faded, overwhelmed by the heavy breathing neither of them could now control.

Vanessa put her hands on Ben’s shoulders and pushed him down, back, until he lay underneath her while she crouched above, poised to strike.

“So much I want to do,” she said, panting, “but first, just let me…”

She shifted her leg carefully over him until she sat astride his hips. Her pussy spread and rubbed against his tall shaft. She stroked it up and down, letting her clit slide along the pole. His face was so lost and helpless she had to kiss it, until her nipples pressed hard into his chest.

“Wait a minute,” he said, when they’d emerged from the depths of kissing. “I need to do something.”

“Condoms?”

“Yeah.”

“Stay still.” She stretched her body over until she reached the bedside table. It wasn’t easy but, thanks to a regular yoga regime, Vanessa was able to extract the pack from the drawer and take one from the box.

“I’d better check it’s in date,” she said ruefully, examining the bottom. “Oh, okay. Two more months to go.”

“It’s been a while, then?”

Ben’s question, at once seductive and teasing, made her feign a light slap to the top of his head before she opened the wrapper with her teeth.