Authors: Joan Elizabeth Lloyd
“Good night, Nicki.”
Finally in her apartment Fran undressed and fell into bed. Although stories were whirling in her head, she fell asleep immediately.
As Fran partied, on Long Island, Zack Barklay lay beside his wife Diane. While Zack finished the last few pages of the book he was reading, she'd been editing a chapter of her next novel. As Zack finally closed the paperback, Diane put her pages aside. “Well?” she said. “That's the last of them, isn't it?”
Zack sighed. “Yup. That's the last.”
“So?”
“So what? I'm not an editor or a critic and I haven't read many romance novels, besides yours of course.” This was the conversation he'd been avoiding for a while.
“But you have a right to an opinion. What did you think of them? Be honest.”
Zack rolled his eyes.
“Addie's Travels
should win easily. The others aren't in the same league.”
“You're just saying that because it's what I want to hear. Come on, tell me. Really. Let's do them one by one.”
Zack let out a long breath and gritted his teeth. “Okay. Virginia Cortez. Hasn't she written lots of these books?”
“She's got nearly forty in print. She turns them out in litters. And they're always trilogies or tetralogies or lotsologies. And always the same theme. Three sisters who need husbands. Or a family of brothers and sisters, all really nice people. I could gag.”
“But
Come to Papa
wasn't part of anything, was it?”
“No. It was one of her few stand-alones. What did you think of it?”
Zack sighed again. “It was good, but I thought the characters weren't as strong as yours.” That should dispose of her.
Diane smiled. “You know you're right. I think she was nominated for her body of work, not for this book. But they can't give the prize to someone for lots of books. It's the book that's nominated, not the author.” She adjusted the pillow behind her. “And what about
Joys of Paris
?”
“It was a bit too cerebral for me,” Zack said, remembering the slower pace of the book about lovers in Paris after World War I. “The characters spent all their time thinking. I like a book in which something happens.”
“So do the judges, I hope. And
Miranda
?”
Zack reached over to the stack on his bed table and picked up one volume. “Ms. Allonzo's got a really fine book here,” Zack felt he had to admit, patting the cover. “A good character and an unusual location. I found all the information about life in Alaska at the turn of the century really interesting.”
“Didn't you find it a bit much? I felt like she'd researched so much that she had to tell us everything she'd learned.”
“Yeah,” said Zack quickly. “I did too.”
“And you just finished
The Love Flower
. Isn't that a piece of trash?”
Zack put
Miranda
aside and picked up
The Love Flower
. He shifted his position beneath the covers and tried to conceal the remains of his raging erection. “It was really trashy,” he said, knowing what Diane wanted to hear.
“It's a joke. It's not a real book, just a collection of steamy scenes strung together like beads. No real plot.”
Zack's sense of justice forced him to say, “I don't think it's really that bad. There's a traditional plot, boy meets girl, complications occur, then boy and girl get together in the end.”
“Come on. It's smut and you know it. And you just admitted that you don't read many of these things so you wouldn't know. It's cliché, hackneyed.”
It might be cliché, Zack thought, remembering a scene he'd reread three times, but it's really hot. God. He sighed and twisted under the covers. Rhona and that sailor, Flint. The night he seduced her.
Rhona knew that Flint was there even before he revealed himself to her. She knew because her body flushed, her neck tingled, her breasts swelled. She wanted him and she knew she didn't hide it very well. But she also knew that it was forbidden. He was a stranger, and the laws of her people forbade any interaction. And anyway, she told herself, in a few weeks he would sail away and she'd have nothing.
But he was there, and her body knew it. “Good evening, Miss Rhona,” he said, his low voice penetrating the sweet night air.
She turned toward the sound. “Good evening, Mr. Flint.” He was standing at the edge of the beach, partially hidden by the line of palms. She turned and walked onward, hoping that he wouldn't follow, yet knowing that he would.
He walked softly, barely disturbing the air, yet she heard every footfall as his shoes crunched over the sand. The moon was almost full as they emerged from the shade of the palms onto a strip of brightly lit beach. The sand glowed cool and white, small threads of spume washing back and forth by small wavelets at the waterline. She tried to concentrate on the waves' whoosh, whoosh and she kept walking.
“It won't help,” he said softly. “You know it won't help.”
“Help?” she said, barely able to keep the trembling from showing in her voice. “I don't know what you're talking about.” A warm, callused hand touched her shoulder and she froze. Her back stiffened and her shoulders tightened.
“Oh, but you do. You feel it, like an irresistible pull, drawing us together.” His breath was hot on the back of her neck as he grasped her other shoulder. He took a small step so his body was pressed against her back, his hardness pressing against her spine. “I can feel you trembling. You know, don't you?” When she remained silent, immobile, he whispered again, “Tell me that you feel it.”
Unable to control her body, she shuddered. “Yes,” she moaned.
He turned her around and his firm lips devoured hers. She was no stranger to loving but this was all consuming as nothing else had ever been. She wanted to resist but it was like trying not to look at a beautiful sunrise, or trying not to eat when you're starving. She attempted to keep her mouth closed but when he sucked on her lower lip and then nipped at it, she was lost.
Her mouth opened and his tongue plundered, tasting, delving, reaching, demanding. And she could not resist. Her tongue dueled with his as he probed her mouth. He was a fire, and suddenly she would do anything to feed the flames. She had no idea how her arms ended up around his neck, but she hung on, pressing him tightly against her. She stood on tiptoes to better fit against his large body.
Flint held on and rode the waves of passion. As he had suspected, she was incredibly hot. Once he cut through her silly taboos, she was one sexy broad. She flattened her breasts against his chest, and pressed her pelvis against his cock. Yes, he thought, she's mine now. All he could think about was sinking his engorged member into her, but, like gentling any small animal, he'd have to go slowly.
And he knew she had her sexual tricks. All the women had been initiated into their sex cult and he wasn't going to rush. This little piece was going to give him the best loving of his life. He tangled his fingers in her long straight black hair and dragged her face back. He planted small kisses on her eyelids, her cheeks. He tightened his grip, not to hold her but to keep his hands off her tits. Not yet, he warned himself. Don't screw this up.
Rhona sighed as he used her hair to pull her head back and his lips found her throat. A soft warm breeze brushed over the wet trail he left, making her shiver. She flattened her hands on his chest, feeling his heavy breathing and the pounding of his heart. But it wasn't enough. She needed to feel his skin so she quickly unbuttoned his shirt and slid her palms against his furred chest. So hard, so hard. She tangled her fingers in the thick pelt, so different from the other men she had known.
His lips were on her collarbones now but she needed more. She opened the top of her sarong and let it fall to the sand. She smiled when she heard him gasp. “You are so lovely,” he purred, and she watched his eyes ravish her flesh. Where his gaze traveled, his hands followed. Rough palms cupped her breasts, rasping the surface in what should have been a painful movement. But the slight burning just added to the sensations that overwhelmed her.
He pinched one nipple and it was all she could do to remain standing. As if sensing that, Flint spread the single layer of cloth she had been wearing on the sand and lowered her onto it.
God, she's spectacular, Flint thought. Her body is perfect, small waist, large tits, and curly, dark hair hiding her secrets, which wouldn't be secrets much longer. How long I waited for this juicy little piece. The other women of the village he'd fucked had been pale imitations. She was the real thing.
He quickly pulled off his clothes and stood in the moonlight as she looked at him. He was proud of his lean body, hard and muscular from months of back-breaking work on the ship. He watched her eyes as she tried not to stare at his rampant sex, but he wanted her to look. Slowly he raised his hands to his belly, then slid them down the hairy surface until he held his swollen cock.
Rhona just stared, allowing her eyes to fill with him. His thighs were heavily muscled and she wondered how they would feel against her. His belly was flat, with a thick arrow of hair pointing, drawing her eyes to his cock. His huge hands held his raging erection, offering it proudly to her. He was built like an animal, huge cock and large, swaying balls. Her animal.
She spread her legs, inviting him, urging him. When she raised her arms to him, he knelt on the sand at her feet, cupping her buttocks in those rough palms. He lifted her hips and lowered his mouth so he could worship her. She had never felt anything so wonderful as his mouth on her. Others had played with her this way, but no one had made her feel what she felt with Flint. His mouth was both loving and demanding, his tongue dancing over her wet skin then plunging into her channel. It was as though he knew how to drive her upwards, yet stop just before she reached the pinnacle.
Flint licked and sucked in a frenzy. She tasted of woman, and salt, and heat. He found her with his thumbs and opened her lips so he could lick her clit. He pushed the tip of his tongue into her and listened to her gasp and cry. He wanted her so hungry she would do anything, show him all her tricks. He took charge of her arousal, pushing her up, then stopping, listening to her tiny protests.
He knew she was ready to do anything for him. He lowered her hips to the cloth, then crawled around to her head. He held his cock in one hand and stroked her lips with the other. When she opened her mouth, he pushed his engorged member inside.
Rhona instinctively used her lips and tongue to give him pleasure, as she had been taught. She flicked over the small hole at the tip of his penis, tasting the salty fluid that oozed from it. She reached up and cupped his heavy sac, gently squeezing his testicles. She used her index finger to scratch the sensitive skin between his balls and his anus and, as she did so, she felt him buck. She was giving him pleasure and this made her proud.
Flint was in heaven, and now had to concentrate on not shooting into her mouth. No, he wanted to shoot into her tight little pussy. Reluctantly he pulled back, slowly withdrawing his cock from her lips. He crawled between her legs and rubbed the swollen purple head of cock against her sopping cunt. Although he wanted to drive into her, he knew that he would defeat his purpose. He didn't want to come yet. He just wanted her hot as a firecracker. These women could do things with their cunt muscles that could drive a man insane.
She was so tight that at first he pushed into her just a bit and gave her time to adjust to his size. Then a bit further. It was sweet torture for him, but he knew the reward for patience. These native women knew things that would put a London doxie to shame.
Inexorably his cock filled her and he reached down to rub her clit, a trick he'd learned from another woman of the village. That had been the first time he'd felt that clenching that they did and he wanted it again. He held perfectly still and he rubbed.
Rhona lay still and just sailed. She was filled, so full that it was as though every wonderful feeling was centered in her belly. She felt his cock, held torturously still as his fingers urged her upward. Gently, she squeezed her vaginal muscles, testing the fullness of her channel. No man had ever given her what Flint was giving her, had joined with her so completely so that she couldn't tell where her pleasure ended and his began.
She squeezed again, and felt Flint's back arch. And then she could hold back no longer. His fingers drew her climax from her, sharp spasms clutching at his great cock. And she knew when he could hold still no longer as well and suddenly he pushed into her, pounding her against the sand. Again and again he thrust into her as shards of color enveloped her. Then, with a roar, he poured himself into her and the brilliant colors of her climax were as nothing she had ever experienced.
He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him so she lay, pillowed on his large body. Together they rested, with his cock still inside of her.
Zack remembered that scene so well he could play it like a movie in his head. “It's just smut,” Diane continued. “And Mort and I have been spreading the word.”
Zack pulled himself back from the beach and Rhona. “Spreading what word?”
“Mort and I have been making it plain to anyone who will listen, that it will really demean the image of The Madison Prize if it goes to a piece of trash like
The Love Flower
.”
A snapshot of Mort Lieberman, Diane's editor at Romance Classics, flashed through his mind. He was a small man with rimless glasses, a bow tie, and an expression that always looked like he had just smelled something rotten. Zack had taken an instant dislike to him at the one dinner they had attended together, but he had kept his feelings to himself. And, Zack thought, he was a fine editor and it was Mort's careful work that helped push Diane's books onto the romance bestseller lists. “Who will listen?”
“We've been heating up controversy on the various Internet writers' lists. You'd be amazed at who reads those messages.” As Diane sat up to put the pages she had been working on on the bedside table, the sheet fell to her waist, revealing her lush breasts beneath the filmy lavender nightgown she wore.
Zack tossed
The Love Flower
onto the floor beside his bed and turned toward his wife. As she reached over to turn out the bedside light, he placed a light kiss between her shoulder blades. She stilled and he continued to kiss her spine, down to the line of her nightgown. “How about taking that thing off?” he said.
Obligingly, Diane turned toward him and drew her nightgown off over her head.
Sunday morning, Carla called Fran and they agreed to meet for brunch at a trendy local restaurant called Eat At Joe's. The two women ordered and when they were finally alone, sipping champagne and orange juice, Carla asked Fran about the previous evening.
“It was fan-flipping-tastic. Bone-jarring, tooth-rattling, body-satisfying wonderful. I'm really sorry about pushing you off into the back room.”
“Why? I told you I'd end up back there with CJ.”
“I know, but I feel I chased you.”
“And if I retired to give you some privacy, is that so bad?”
“I guess not. Privacy. That's a funny word for what went on with so many people watching.”
“Yes, but you didn't know any of those people. It's anonymous and that's a different kind of privacy. That's why so many men enjoy sex with prostitutes.”
“You're probably right. How was your time with CJ? It's hard to imagine him involved with kinky sex. He looks so angelic.”
“I know. And he's anything but. He can play the dominant, but he particularly enjoys it when I spank him like a naughty boy. Last evening he was anxious to give me a new leather paddle he made. Very springy, and noisy. The sound, as much as the pain, turns him on.”
At Fran's raised eyebrow, Carla continued. “I spend a few minutes calling him a bad boy and forcing him to tell me all the really naughty things he's done all week. Each one gets ten slaps. That way he can tell me how much he wants, without really telling me. When he thinks the count's high enough, he runs out of bad deeds.”
“Clever.”
“It was Ronnie's idea. She's so good at this, gauging just where the line is between pleasure and pain. Anyway, he was up to fifty when he finally stopped.”
“And he enjoys this?”
“Tremendously. I don't understand it, but I accept it. And I do enjoy his pleasure.”
“So did you paddle him?”
“I make him volunteer for it, forcing him to admit that he really wants it. That admission makes him even hotter. So I have him lay across my lap, very slowly, and then I make him count each swat and thank me for doing it. And the new paddle was wonderful. It made a loud smacking sound as I reddened first one asscheek, then the other. Then I moved to the backs of his thighs. By the time I got to forty he was crying like a baby.”
Fran just shook her head. “I don't understand it. If he's crying, isn't that torture?”
“Not to him. He can stop any time by saying the safe word or just by standing up. But he doesn't. He cried and counted, his cock getting harder and harder, trapped against my thighs. When I'm finished, he has to walk across the room and get a special soothing lotion.”