Musical Beds Page 7

  “Ben…” Vanessa laughed, despite her misgivings.

  “Ness…”

  “My joints aren’t what they were, you know.”

  Ben burst out laughing. “You sound like my gran. What rubbish! You’re as lithe and flexible as a much younger woman—more so, judging by some of the things I’ve seen you do in bed.”

  “Shhh.” But Vanessa was beaming, her cheeks hot with pleasure.

  Lydia ended the call and paced over. From the apologetic look on her face, Vanessa gauged that she hadn’t been far from the truth in her surmise.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ve got to head into town for a little while. If I can make it back here before you pack up, I will. Otherwise, I’ll call you and catch up with you later.”

  Vanessa pursed her lips. “Might one enquire for whose sake you are abandoning us?”

  “I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t urgent…sorry.”

  “Five letters, Italian city famed for leather goods, M-something-L-something-N,” said Ben laconically.

  Lydia shook her head and waved perfunctorily before turning and heading back to the gate through which they’d entered the park.

  “I think a nail was hit on the head,” remarked Vanessa, watching her friend disappear. “Damn him.”

  “Well, it can’t be helped,” said Ben, picking up a chicken drumstick with an air of practicality and biting into it. “Dig in, come on. The sooner we finish the feast, the sooner we can start…the other feast.”

  “You really think I’m up for some al fresco fun, don’t you?”

  Vanessa sipped at her prosecco. The bubbles were already going to her head.

  “Of course. What could be nicer than the fresh air on your naked skin?”

  “Or ants in your pants?”

  “Warm sunshine bathing your body.”

  “Nettle stings on your arse.”

  “The sensual mingling of nature and man—and woman—in erotic harmony.”

  Vanessa burst out laughing.

  “Wasps where no wasp should ever go.”

  “Ah, come on, it’s too early for wasps.”

  “Bees, then.”

  “Try not to look too much like a flower and the bees will leave you alone.”

  Vanessa picked up a strawberry and bit into it, sinking her teeth provocatively into its soft, pink flesh.

  “Tell you what. If you can find a spot that’s totally and utterly invisible to all passers-by, even the deer, I might consider it.”

  “Yeah?” Ben clapped his hands. “That dress you’re wearing—it’s nice, but all I can think about is lifting it up and getting underneath.”

  “All right, well, let’s eat first. Get our strength up.”

  They fell upon the cold chicken and the slices of quiche, the hard-boiled eggs and the jam tarts with a will, finishing up the prosecco between them before it had a chance to go flat.

  Then they packed the hamper and shoved it under a nearby hedge for safe keeping, before Ben took Vanessa’s hand and began stalking with her through the park, hell-bent on finding a place where privacy could be maintained.

  Despite the park’s size and range, unpeopled areas were surprisingly hard to locate, and the pair wandered for some time until they found a woodland thicket, some way off the main path. Vanessa had almost reconciled herself to failure, with a sense of some relief, but now her heart began to hammer double-time again.

  The foliage was dense enough to make them invisible to passers-by yet, once in the thick of it, it was dry underfoot and the trees allowed enough dappled light in to carpet the floor with patterns of shadow and brightness.

  “I still don’t know,” said Vanessa, wrinkling her nose. “Is it clean? I’m worried about getting wood bark everywhere.”

  “Forget your obsession with cleanliness, just this once,” said Ben, wrapping his arms around her from behind and putting his lips to her neck. “Clothes can be washed. So can skin.”

  “It smells a bit damp.”

  “It doesn’t. Feel this tree trunk. Dry. It hasn’t rained in over a week.”

  “What about, you know, sap, or whatever it’s called? It could stain.”

  “There’s one thing I know about sap, and that’s that it rises. Like mine is doing right now.” He nipped the back of her neck, ostensibly playful, but with serious intent behind the gesture.

  “Ben!”

  “Come on,” he growled in her ear. “I want to rumple you. You’re always so immaculate. I want to see leaves in your hair and grass stains on your skirt.”

  He sat down on a tree stump, pulling Vanessa onto his lap, and started devouring her lips, silencing her complaints about possible mess in the most effective way imaginable.

  She relaxed into the kiss, enjoying the mingling of Ben’s scent with the ferny, loamy aroma around her. They were in a secret place, an enchanted wood of their own, remote from the world. There was no need to think about anything but each other.

  Vanessa enjoyed the silken floppiness of his hair when she ran her fingers through it and the youthful smoothness of his cheek against hers. Although he was young, he didn’t lack confidence and there was nothing limp or hesitant about his caresses.

  He slipped one finger under her shoulder strap, stroking the skin underneath before letting the loop of fabric fall down her arm.

  Vanessa leaned into his palm as he held her shoulder, then she allowed him to lower his hand towards her neckline. He pushed a hand inside the material, stroking her breasts inside their cotton bra cups.

  She shifted in his lap until her upper thigh pressed into his erection. She rocked gently to and fro, rubbing the crotch of his denim jeans against his imprisoned cock, wanting to get him hotter than hot.

  He moaned into her mouth and she wrapped her tongue around his, holding it, tasting him. Better than a strawberry.

  The sweet grinding and stroking, squeezing and tonguing soon forced more urgent responses from them. Vanessa found herself being picked up and placed with her back to a sturdy tree trunk while Ben lifted her dress and ground his erection into her exposed knickers.

  She craned her neck, looking behind her at the trunk, assessing it for crumbliness and possible falling grubs, but it looked safe enough—willow bark, soft and porous and surprisingly comfortable.

  She flung her arms around Ben’s neck and sought the triangle of chest inside the open section of shirt, burying her nose in the hollow of his collarbone. Above it, his long neck provided support to her forehead and she nuzzled with relish.

  Meanwhile, Ben crept his fingers up her thighs until he reached the lower curve of her bottom and hooked his thumbs beneath her knicker elastic.

  “We don’t need these, do we?” he whispered.

  She shook her head, nose still pressed into his chest, giggling like a girl.

  “What if we’re seen?” she said, helping him to remove the knickers, lifting her legs and twisting her ankles to get them off the quicker.

  “I don’t suppose anyone’d stick around if they caught a glimpse,” said Ben. “Unless they were a voyeur. In which case, we’d probably know nothing about it, because they wouldn’t want us to spot them.”

  “What if they took photos? Put them on the Internet?”

  They won’t be able to see you anyway, because I’m in the way,” Ben pointed out. “If they want to put full-colour jpegs of my bum online, they’re welcome. But I doubt they’ll bother.”

  His palms skidded slowly up her thighs again, this time finding no barrier at the top. He linked his fingers underneath her bottom.

  “Hold tight,” he said, then he lifted her up, positioning her legs around his hips.

  Vanessa revelled in her precarious situation, wedged between Ben and the tree, having to hold her abdominal muscles tightly in control. The ritualistic boredom of the gym had its uses, after all. She clung to his neck for dear life while he fumbled around underneath her, unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his jeans.

  She heard the trousers loosen and head groundw
ards with a clink of metal, then she could feel his cock, smooth and straight, nestling between the cheeks of her arse.

  “Is this what you want, Ness?” whispered Ben.

  She shivered as his fingers made contact with her pussy lips.

  “Yeah,” she whispered back.

  He cupped her mons in his palm, pushing his fingertips inside her slit and playing with her swelling bud.

  “Those spaghetti straps,” he said. “Can you escape from them? Don’t let go of me. One at a time.”

  She removed one arm from around his neck, carefully, and used it to brush first her right strap then her left right down until she could extricate each arm and free her breasts.

  Then she held on tight again while he bent his neck and feasted on her tits. He removed them from the bra cups and sucked at her nipples while his fingers continued to work on her clit.

  She wriggled against the trunk, trying to reposition herself against it, but Ben held her fast—he would set the pace and she would simply have to follow. An itch of frustration at being so helpless fanned the flames of her arousal, throwing her into a headspace of pure need and lust.

  “Mmm, wet,” said Ben, coming up for air, leaving her nipples out in the woodland air.

  “Have you got something?” she urged, meaning a condom.

  “Well, of course,” he said, extracting one from his shirt pocket. “I never come on a picnic without one. It’d be like forgetting the napkins.”

  “Even though you thought Lydia was going to be here?”

  “I’m an eternal optimist. Now, how are we going to do this?”

  He frowned, tearing the corner of the foil wrapper with his teeth.

  “Awkward. Do you want to let go of me?” He looked so endearing and yet so sexy, holding the packet between his teeth like a cavalier with a rose.

  “No. I’m going for the old one-handed, without-looking trick. Think I can pull it off?”

  Vanessa squirmed and twitched, feeling his hand beneath her bottom, working frantically at snapping on the latex. It took three fumbling attempts, but eventually he managed it and turned his face back to Vanessa’s, grinning widely.

  “Well, then,” he said. “I’m covered. Now I need you to just unwrap your legs for a second so I can get myself lined up.”

  Vanessa was conscious of her weight as she adjusted herself, hoping she wasn’t putting too much strain on Ben’s long spine. But, slender as he was, his height and strength helped him to hold her steady, and when she re-crossed her legs around his waist, her cunt was perfectly aligned with the tip of his cock.

  Now, just as long as he took it easy…

  The fears she harboured for her back were ungrounded. He proceeded slowly, sinking in deep, pushing upward until she was lodged on his cock, filled to the brim.

  “How does that feel?”

  She answered by squeezing her vaginal muscles tight together, trapping him inside her.

  “Amazingly comfortable,” she said.

  “Good. Now if you can just…hold it right there.”

  He put his hands on her bum cheeks, keeping the angle perfect for deep penetration.

  With his head on her shoulder, he began to jolt back and forth, in and out. Vanessa was grateful for his unhurried pace and his consideration of her coccyx. She widened her thighs and ground into him, looking for a deeper fit, the sweet friction she craved.

  The energy this upright stance demanded soon began to tell on them. Sweat broke out, and their lungs began to heave, but to end things now was unthinkable. The pressure was building, the sweet itch needing its scratch. Vanessa was not letting him out of her until she was done with him. Her dress was starting to cling, her skin to feel grimy, but nothing could impede her path to orgasm now. It was where she was heading and she had no plans to divert.

  “Harder,” she grunted. “Fuck me harder.”

  Ben took her instruction with enthusiasm and let his pelvis go to work, slamming her all the way into the trunk, gathering in speed.

  She moved her legs from around his waist and kicked them out into the air, insensible now to all except her approaching climax and the importance of letting nothing stand in its way.

  “Hold on, now,” grunted Ben. “Are you nearly there?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Good, that’s good, because my arms… Oh, God.”

  She forced her pelvis upwards, wanting to bury him deep as deep inside her while she poured herself all over him, bathing him, smothering his cock in her juices. Her cry was unstoppable, but she didn’t worry about disturbing anyone because, in that moment, nobody else existed.

  Ben released his orgasm immediately, making helpless sob-like noises into her hair. Then he stepped back from the trunk and staggered, with Vanessa still attached, to the ground on his side.

  Vanessa broke into weepy laughter as she lay, winded, on the ground, her cheek pressed to the damp grass, her cunt still full of Ben’s softening cock.

  “Oh, God, oh, God,” sighed Ben, interspersing his exhalations with kisses on Vanessa’s brow. “Oh, God. I think my arms might drop off. I may never play the xylophone again.”

  “Awww.” Vanessa gave him a long, smoochy kiss on the lips. “You will. You’ll be fine. Oh, Ben. You make me enjoy things I can’t imagine finding enjoyable. How do you do it?”

  “Haven’t you ever done it outside before?” He sounded surprised.

  “No, never. You know me.”

  He ruffled her hair. “Yeah. I know you. But I still thought you could be persuaded…and I was right.”

  “This dress’ll never be the same, though.”

  “Neither will this shirt.”

  They lay for a while in a close embrace, breathing out the intensity of the encounter until their limbs stopped shaking. Vanessa felt herself drifting away, wrapped up in the birdsong and the susurrations of the trees. Ben’s arm lay like a weight upon her, and one of his legs trapped hers beneath it. She felt infinitely cosy and protected and loved. The sweat and grime were insignificant. Happiness was here, a happiness that was all the sweeter for being so unexpected.

  “Ben,” she said softly. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

  “Uh.” He gasped for breath, blinking wildly. “Yeah? What? You all right, babe?”

  “Should we…tidy ourselves up now?”

  “Mmm, a minute.” Another manful effort brought him to himself, and he propped himself on an elbow and pulled his deflated cock out, sitting up to deal with the condom. His jeans were still crumpled around his knees, the belt hanging either side of his open fly. A large sweat patch covered the front of his shirt, with a matching one on the back. His hair stuck out at all angles and his eyes were drowsy.

  Vanessa thought he looked like an angel. She wanted to frame him and keep him like that, in his post-sex glow, forever.

  “You’re really gorgeous, you know?” she said to him.

  He smiled slowly.

  “I should be saying that to you. I’ve never seen you look so mussed and it’s damn sexy. You should get mussed up more often.”

  “Maybe I will. It’s not as scary as I thought.”

  “Good.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “I’ll help you with that.”

  Vanessa reached across the glade for her discarded knickers, shaking out the dirt as best she could, grimacing at the state of the gusset.

  “These can go in the bin,” she said, then her phone rang.

  She crawled across to where her handbag sat neatly beneath a bush and fished it out.

  She looked over at Ben and made a face.

  “Lydia,” she said.

  Chapter Seven

  Lydia had run through Richmond Park in her haste to get to Milan, fearing that something terrible was about to happen to him. In the phone call, he’d only been semi-coherent, rambling about his wasted life and how very much he missed her.

  “Where are you?” she’d asked him urgently.

  “Home. No, not home. I have no home. This place. This flat.”<
br />
  “The Barbican?”

  “Big, huge concrete monster surrounded by more big, huge concrete monsters.”

  “Okay, calm down, Milan. I’m coming. Hang on there.”

  All the way to the City on the Tube, her heart beat a fearful tattoo. Was he suicidal? He sounded so messed up, so confused, so utterly angst-ridden. What if she arrived there and he had passed out, or worse? She would have to find the concierge. She pictured herself pushing open the door of his apartment to find him in a pool of blood on the carpet, wrists slashed, or with open bottles of pills and brandy beside him.

  By the time she arrived at the Barbican, she could barely breathe.

  She tore to the lobby area and pressed Milan’s buzzer.

  After a wait that seemed interminable, his voice slurred through the speaker.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Lydia. I’m here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  For a moment, she thought he was too drunk to even buzz her in, but then she was able to open the exterior doors and enter the building.

  She couldn’t even bear to wait for the lift, so she ran up the stairs, needing to work off her excessive nervous energy.

  His door was ajar and she dashed straight in, calling his name.

  The living room was chaotically messy, but empty, as was the kitchen. Perhaps he had fallen asleep.

  She went into the bedroom and there he was, sitting up in a silk robe, swigging from a bottle of Czech brandy while the Bruch Violin Concerto played from his iPod speakers.

  “Milan, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  Lydia, despite her relief at his obviously alive-if-blotto state of being, felt uneasy. Was he trying to pull her strings?

  “You care,” he said, putting down the bottle and patting the bed beside him. “I knew you would come.”

  “Is this some kind of test? You sounded distraught. Of course I came. I thought you might have…done something stupid.”

  “Done something stupid? Everything I do is stupid.” He patted the bed again, harder. “Sit down, sit down.”

  She drew closer, warily, but he didn’t look as if he posed any kind of threat. He was too exhausted-looking, as if life had defeated him. She sat on the edge of the bed, still unsure whether to be annoyed or not.