Carla Hadim - Wild And Willing

The house was full of mahogany, and old books wrapped in antique bindings were stacked on dark shelves.

From where he sat on the overstuffed couch, Rick Temple stretched his long chinoed legs across the dark red, white-fringed carpet toward the fire that flared in the hearth. He balanced one white tennis shoe on the toe of the other. "It's burning fine now," he called over his shoulder. He heard Elizabeth Cruise close the door of the liquor cabinet somewhere in the living room behind him. The only illumination was from the sparkling fireplace. He lay back against the couch, his head cradled in the laced fingers of both hands.

"You look very comfortable." Elizabeth handed him the drink he had asked for, brandy with a lace of absinthe.

"I am comfortable," he answered. He smiled at her, accepted the glass.

She looked reflectively into the fire. Her dark hair with its few strands of honest gray was tied back with a girlish ribbon. She turned her dark eyes on Rick, measured him, studied his hands, his mouth, his lean body in the snug-fitting pants. She looked at his hair that tumbled thickly over his forehead, nearly covered his ears, had grown unevenly over his shirt collar. His hair, glossy in the firelight, reminded her of the difference between herself and this young man in her house.

She said, "Your hair is gorgeous, did you know that?"

The odor of the brandy and absinthe was strong in his nostrils as Rick passed his glass under his nose. His eyes fastened on Elizabeth's face.

"Do you think this is terribly wrong of me?" she asked.

"I admire you for it." He held out an arm and she sat down beside him.

She sipped her own brandy, leaning on her knees in front of the fire.

The smaller logs that Rick had placed on top of the fire tumbled as those lower down gave. way. A shower of sparks shot up the rock-lined flue. They left the fire to burn however it would.

Finally Elizabeth asked, "Do you really admire me? You don't even know me."

Rick answered, without hesitation, "Yes, I do." He sat up to place his drink on the rich patina of solid mahogany beside the couch, then carefully moved the glass so it rested,on a cover of Vogue and would not stain the fine wood. He took Elizabeth's glass from her hand and placed it on the magazine beside his own.

She let him move her face to his and he kissed her willing, moving lips.

It was the second time they had kissed. The first had been only an hour before, in Elizabeth's Bentley, outside the club restaurant where they had -accidentally, Elizabeth believed -shared a table. She had chatted gaily with the young, good-looking assistant sailing coach, babbled away almost like a girl, all during supper and over the single sterling-silver coffee pot they had shared afterwards. She thought it was as if twenty years had been taken off her life and she was fifteen again and giddy. She could hardly think of a thing to say so she had talked endlessly, afraid for the conversation to pause for even a minute for fear the young man would find an excuse to get up and leave.

Elizabeth was one of the many widows and divorcees who lived during the summer in expensive old houses near the sailing-resort club on a peninsula off the coast of Massachusetts. She lived there, she thought, for the benefit of her fifteen-year-old son, Shawn, so that he could continue the `sailing lessons he had started four years before, so he would be in a proper social environment for a young man beginning his climb and so she could spend at least part of the summer with him. She saw so little of him since he had gone away to prep school. But tonight Elizabeth was glad that Shawn had asked several days before if he could spend the night with a sailing chum; she had reluctantly consented because she knew how unhappy he would have been if she had said no. She knew that Shawn needed more companionship than just that of his mother, and faced resolutely the fact that she was no longer enough for him. She also realized that she needed something more herself. So she had invited the young assistant sailing coach, after supper, to come to her house for a nightcap.

Yes, he had said, he would like that. Since it was a pleasant evening he would walk back to the docks for his own car, later.

She asked him if he would drive the Bentley. He helped her in on the passenger side, then climbed behind the wheel himself. He had leaned over and kissed her then, quickly, on the mouth, and she had thought she was surprised.

Their bodies were warm from the fire. Rick kissed the side of her face. He thought of the rich mahogany furniture through the house. He wondered what her bed looked like. He kissed her eyes. Her lips nibbled along, his strong jaw line, over his chin, to his lips.

Rick thought everything was on schedule, going according to plan.

She dropped her hand to his leg and felt along the inside of his thigh almost to his crotch where his cock was beginning to rise. She stopped with her thumb against the growing mound.

"Elizabeth," he said, "would you like to go to bed?"

"Mmmmm," she murmured against his ear. "No, I wouldn't, darling." She kept her palm against the sensitive inside of his thigh.

Rick worried for a moment that he might have to persuade her. Her refusal surprised him. Maybe he would have to talk to her for a long time. Maybe she was afraid he would spread stories around the club about her that she could be made by anybody with a stiff rod in his pants.

She passed her hand quickly along the inside of his thigh. She pressed softly and for only a second against his hard-on, which was growing larger. She caressed his cheek. "You're so young," she said, "so damn young."

"Age can't matter now," he said.

"Not to you, it doesn't. You don't have any, that's why. I'm thirty-five, did you know that? I have a son fifteen. I married too young. You won't, will you? Don't get married too young."

He laughed. "All right, I won't." He had no intention of getting married. None whatever. He grinned at her in the innocent, guileless manner he had. His grin, he hoped, was going to be his ticket through life.

Elizabeth touched his crotch again. She rubbed her palm against his prick that was harder than before but not fully up yet.

"I don't want to go to bed," she said. "Not yet. Will you wait a minute and I'll be right back?"

"Of course." Rick let her up. He looked at her. She was a very nice-looking woman. Mature, slim-waisted, her long straight hair.tied back with a yellow ribbon tied in a bow knot at the back of her head. Her breasts were not large but they did not sag, either. Rick thought she looked, well, youthful.

"I love fires," she said.

"You're beautiful in firelight," Rick Whispered.

"You're beautiful yourself. Enjoy your drink. I'll be right back."

Rick inhaled the aroma from his glass and sipped the contents. He thought about Jane, the waitress who had been on duty tonight and who had placed Elizabeth and him at a table together. He thought he might treat Jane to a date or a free sailing lesson for her cooperation. He liked Jane, but the pleasures of being poor held no comforts for him. Jane was one of the local girls who had the good fortune to live near the club, in the houses on the other side of the rich section, but who also had the misfortune of being born into a family with no money and less background. She lived, as only poor people did, year-round on the peninsula. Jane was sure Rick was brilliant because this fall he would be a senior at his ivy-league college; she wanted Rick to be a lawyer, run for president some day. Rick wasn't sure he was even going back to school after the summer. He wasn't sure a proper, cultured life was what he wanted at all. He had begun to think he would prefer to live by his wits. His wits and the succor of friendly women. He thought if he learned enough this summer that he might give it a go this winter in Florida. He had heard there were plenty of rich women in Florida who would love to have his prick just lying on the beach. Whenever they called he would run in and give them some, then go back to the beach and lie in the sun. He anticipated a warm future.