Chapter Twenty

 

 

 

“I reserve the right to walk away if things get uncomfortable,” Kelly said, pacing the floor in a drawing room somewhere deep in the bowels of Mountain View Cottage. She had insisted that when she was being his tutor, they meet somewhere outside their two suites on neutral ground.

Lex sat on the sofa, watching her pace with just the hint of a smile on his face. “I walked out. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have the same options. Hold it.” He cocked his head and squinted as though he were suddenly deep in thought. “Come to think of it, you walked out, too. So see, you’ve already exercised the right you’ve reserved.”

“Yeah, well, I still reserve it. You, however…” She turned to face him. “I would prefer you not walking out if you’re uncomfortable, but that you tell me you are, and I’ll back off and we can talk about it.”

“I want to know why you’re uncomfortable too, Kelly.”

“That’s not part of the deal,” she said.

“Well, it should be.” He leaned forward on the sofa. “Look, I’m a socially awkward, frighteningly oblivious basket case. How the hell am I supposed to know what I’ve done if you don’t tell me?”

She settled on the other end of the sofa and turned to face him. “I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t tell you what made me uncomfortable. I meant that there could possibly be times when we might both need a break.”

“You mean like last night in the studio? This afternoon in the sculpture garden?”

“Look, do you want me to do this or not, because if you don’t, then I can have V sneak me out with the dirty linens in the back of the laundry van.”

He offered a quirk of a smile. “We don’t have a laundry service. It gets done on site.”

“Whatever.” She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s not the point.”

“The point is that you’re uncomfortable with the situation. I get that. I’m not terribly comfortable myself, but I know that you can help me, so I’ll abide by your rules. Just tell me what you want me to do. But I do have one request.”

As though it had all been timed out, there was a knock on the door, and Dillon stepped in with a small grocery bag. “I won’t be long, Kelly. I just have something I need to tell you.” He sat the bag on the coffee table and settled into the Queen Anne chair.

Kelly braced herself. So far, the big announcements Dillon had made did not bode well for her.

“Andy Matthews is my cousin,” he said.

“Oh?”

“He’s the one who told me about your tutoring business and I passed the word on to Lex.”

The muscles in Kelly’s neck tightened. “I should have killed him and buried him in the garden when I had the chance. He wasn’t supposed to tell.”

“He just wanted to help. He admires Lex a great deal. Since he was a kid, he’s looked up to him and has been sympathetic, and frankly as shy as he is, he could identify with Lex’s situation in a lot of ways. I figured he’d become a monk or something, he was that uncomfortable around girls. But then he started dating Jenny Fallon and…well, he was a nervous wreck when she wanted to…to take the relationship to the next level. I tried to help him out, you know advise him—older cousin and all—but I guess he thought that because the last person I dated was a guy, I might not know anything about women. Anyway, he comes back a week later swaggering like Casanova, smiling ear to ear. It was pretty obvious he’d gotten seriously laid.” Dillon chuckled the way men did when a brother had just joined the League of Frequent Fuckers, as Myrna called it. “Of course I teased him mercilessly, as any good cousin would. Then he told me about his little encounter with you in Eddie’s Supermarket.” He stood and pulled a can of pears in heavy syrup and a can opener from the bag and sat them down rather ceremoniously on the coffee table.

Just then there was another knock and V stepped in with several towels, a roll of paper towels and packet of Wet Wipes. Kelly found herself blushing hard.

“The kid cornered me,” she said. “I had to improvise.” She looked at the three who were all looking back at her expectantly. “Well, I was just going to tell him to fuck off. I mean, the guy mows my lawn every Saturday and eats half a box of doughnuts from Jake’s Cakes at my kitchen table. But then he just looked so desperate. I was in a hurry, I had a can of pears I’d picked up for Myrna. She has this thing she does for the twins, making pears look like little mice. She uses peanut halves for the ears and Red Hots for eyes, and those little skinny licorice whips—you know the ones I mean—she uses them for the tails.”

Dillon chuckled. “I’ll have Cookie be sure and get the recipe. Lex loves canned pears.”

“I do,” Lex said with a serious nod. “Though I’m not keen on Red Hots.”

“She could probably use raisins,” V said. “You love raisins or chocolate chips. That would be nice. Hershey’s Kisses would be even better,” she added. Both men nodded thoughtfully. During this enlightening conversation, V spread the table with a towel and placed all of the other items on it with the precision of a surgical nurse. Then she opened the can of pears and dumped them into a bowl that looked like it might well have come from the formal dining service. Just when Kelly was beginning to wonder if she and Lex were going to have an audience, V sat the extra towels on the end table and rubbed her hands together in a ‘mission-accomplished’ gesture that would have made Kelly laugh under different circumstances. “Alexander, be sure to put down towels on the sofa before you get started.”

“Oh, for heaven sakes, V, I’m not going to piss on the furniture, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

She gave him the evil eye. Then she motioned Dillon to follow her and turned on her heels toward the door, which was barely closed behind them before Lex stiffened on the sofa, his whole body tense as though he sat at full attention.

“Was this your idea or Dillon’s?” Kelly asked, hoping to relax him.

“It was mine, after Andy told Dillon and he told me. I thought it was something that I…” The muscles along his jaw looked as though they were made out of iron, and a fine blush crawled up his neck, tinting his ears bright pink. “I’ve never touched a woman…in that way.” He forced a laugh. “Obviously. I’ve…” The blush deepened, and he avoided her gaze. “I’ve put lube on some of the sculptures, you know, down there, but I… Well it isn’t the same.”

“The pears won’t be either,” she said. Her heart suddenly ached at the physical isolation this man endured on a daily basis, and it wasn’t just her heart that ached, she felt his lack deep in her core. It had been easier with Andy. She had been almost flippant with him. She was sorry for that now. She spread one of the towels on the Queen Anne chair across from him and settled herself onto it so they were facing each other. “The texture will be different and with the pear there’ll be less give.” She dipped her fingers in the bowl and rubbed the heavy juice between her index finger and her thumb. “If you touch a woman, she’ll be much warmer.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “You’ll be amazed at how warm and how soft she’ll be down there when she’s ready to be touched. With Andy, this”—she nodded down to the pears—“was improvisation. This was the best I could do under the circumstances, but a woman, well, a woman feels like nothing you’ve ever touched before.”

He was no longer avoiding her gaze. His eyes were locked on her, and he was struggling to keep them on her face, she knew that. She understood the urge for him to drop his eyes to the place of which she spoke, the place with which she was so intimate, the place that couldn’t help but respond to the topic, to the situation, to the strange intimacy they had shared almost since the moment they’d met. “You can look, if you want.” She opened her legs so that he could see the place in between clothed in black denim, completely disguised and yet so very obvious. “And I’ll look at you too.” She nodded down to his own jeans straining to contain him already. “It’s what men and women are naturally inclined to do when there’s sexual attraction.”

With her heart hammering in her throat, she took one of the pear halves into the cupped palm of her left hand, then she brought it down between her spread thighs, feeling the juice of it run over her fingers and drip onto the towel as she spread her legs a little farther and held her palm to mimic the position of her vulva. “Touch it like a woman would touch it, and you’ll always get it right.” She dragged her index and middle finger up from the bottom of the pear to the center and felt her own body respond in empathy. “The pear has no folds, no secret valleys, no swollen flesh to be teased open, so you’ll have to use your imagination with that.”

Lex gave a little moan, soft and deep in his chest, as he shifted to make himself more comfortable. “I know the anatomy,” he said. “I’ve watched porn and I’ve studied drawings. I know how it looks like it might feel. I know the response it elicits.” He flicked his tongue nervously over his upper lip. “Of course that’s just acting, isn’t it?”

“Porn is about fantasy, about voyeurism, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real if it gets you off. But when it is real”—she spread her index and middle fingers up the sides of the pear’s central opening—“if you’re good, if you’re sensitive, you’ll feel the spasms of your lover’s orgasm, even see them if you’re using your tongue, and you can feel them gripping at your cock when you’re inside her. If you’re paying attention.

“The clitoris.” She laughed softly. “Well, with Andy, I used a Tic Tac, but he’s a chemistry major. He likes charts and graphs and periodic tables. You’re an artist, you live in your imagination, so you don’t need a Tic Tac. Some women like the thumb stroking and circling while the other fingers work inside. Some women like to use their fingers.” She demonstrated on the pear, and Lex groaned. “It’s always best to ask and be sure.”

“What do you like?” His words were a labored rasp against the back of his throat, and Kelly found herself stunned by the question, and way more aroused than she wanted to be. He shouldn’t have asked. She shouldn’t have answered. But she did.

“I like it this way.” She shifted her hips and opened a little further so he could see her thrust and scissor, circle and probe technique, and her body responded with the tight grip and release of muscle memory.

“Jesus,” he whispered, moving forward on the sofa and leaning closer for a better look. “And when someone uses their tongue?”

She caught her breath in a giddy laugh. “Afraid I can’t tell you what I do since, sadly, I’m not that flexible.”

“But you can tell me what you like.” His voice had gone rough.

“I like the flat of the tongue to part me and then probe me, circle my clit then add a little lip action and kiss and suck.” She closed her eyes, finding it difficult to meet his gaze when she spoke about something so intimate, so secret. Come to think of it, she’d never had a man actually ask her how she liked it. The few who had given a rat’s ass about her pleasure had been happy enough to let her order them about, but never quite got the hang of it.

It was the loud schussing sound that caused her to open her eyes. Lex had moved the coffee table out of the way, paying no attention to the slosh of pear juice all over the towel V had spread. His eyes were locked on Kelly as he fished out his own pear half and fell to his knees in front of her. When she realized what the man was about to do, she dropped the pear she’d been holding with a little gasp of surprise and scooted as far back in the chair as she could. He knelt low, holding the pear in the cup of his hand, as she had, placing it against the edge of the chair between her legs! She gave a little yelp and scrambled back in the chair still further, spreading her thighs over the rise of the chair arms to keep from touching him. He moved forward, the back of his hand so close to her crotch that she could feel the heat of it, and he lowered himself still further until his hair nearly brushed the insides of her thighs. Then, still looking up at her from his position on the floor, he began at the bottom of the open pear half and ran his tongue flat and undulating all the way up, flicking in just slightly in a little circle at the top end before he closed his lips around the apex and she could hear the slurp and suck of the sweet syrup.

“Oh! Lex! Ah!” And then she went non-verbal, holding her breath, tightening muscles deep inside her body, the only muscles she dared to move if she were to keep from touching him. She raised both arms and fisted her hands around the back of the chair to keep from curling them in his hair. Her thighs trembled from her efforts to keep her legs on the chair arms and not throw them over his shoulders for leverage. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe as he licked and nuzzled and suckled until pear juice ran down his chin and onto his T-shirt, until his face was damp and sticky, until his forehead was sheened with perspiration, and still he held her gaze as though they were locked together in each other’s orbit, neither able to move without the other’s consent.

“Oh God, I’m gonna come.” She barely managed a warning when his own convulsion brought him dangerously near her body. He had stopped breathing, she was sure of it. She practically climbed the back of the chair to keep from touching him as he lost control. Then with a tremendous gasp of oxygen, he straightened, let the pear fall from his hand onto the aubusson carpet and looked up at her.

“I’m going to pass out.” And he did.

 

“Are you all right?”

He came to curled in a fetal position on the drawing room carpet with half a pear lying next to him. When his vision cleared a little more, he saw that Kelly sat cross-legged next to him, offering him a bottle of water, then it all came back to him, and he smiled up at her, careful not to move his head just yet. “Never better,” he managed.

“You passed out,” she said.

He couldn’t help noticing she looked pretty damned pale.

“I did,” he managed, then he added quickly, “but don’t worry. It was worth it, I promise.”

Her eyes were huge and fever bright in the fading light of the room, and her hand shook when she reached to push a strand of hair back behind her ear. She said nothing, only gave him an owl-like blink and, for a moment, he thought she was going to cry.

“Please don’t worry, Kelly.” He wished desperately he could take her in his arms and comfort her. “It’s my fault for getting too close, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just… I just wanted to feel as much as I could.”

She nodded her understanding and caught her breath, her eyes still locked on him as though she feared he might suddenly explode. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m very sure.” There was another tense silence under her watchful eye, which he found he really didn’t mind at all. He was feeling rather cocky in spite of his close communion with the floor. He smacked his lips. His face was sticky and so were his hands. “So, how was I?” he asked with a little chuckle.

She gave a hiccup of a laugh. “Well, all I can say is that is one very happy pear half.” God, she had a beautiful smile. He loved it when she smiled.

“And you?” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m not the one who hit the floor, though I might have if I’d not been pushed back in the chair as far as I could get to keep from touching you.” She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Neither was I.” He closed his eyes to keep the room from spinning, but realized even as he did so that he might not be able to wipe the smile off his face until sometime next week.

“Nothing like that has ever happened to me,” she managed. Her voice was still breathless, and even over the heavy scent of pears and his own musky release, he thought he could smell her scent, earthy like the woodland floor after a summer rain.

“That goes without saying for me,” he said. He risked pushing himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the sofa, studying her, cheeks flushed now that she knew he was okay, nipples peaked through the red pullover. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“If I’d have done that to you, would you have come?”

“You did do that to me, and I did come.” Her eyes were suddenly serious, and for a moment, he feared she would bolt, but then she smiled. “I have no idea how you did it. From the very beginning at the gallery last night, I kept wondering if you’re very brave or just reckless. I think the jury might still be out.”

He felt lightheaded again and lowered himself back onto the floor. “It’s all right,” he said in response to her look of alarm. “I just had a moment to think about what happened, and as for your observations, well, I’m not sure, either.” When the room stopped spinning, he opened his eyes and looked up at her glorious smile, which he returned in kind. “What I do know is that was the best sex I’ve ever had.”