Lucinda paused for only a moment before she raised the heavy door knocker and brought it down in two hard taps on the striking plate. The small gatehouse cottage at the end of the drive was her father-in-law’s retreat; Derek’s home now that he was a widower and the decision reached that he lived close to her and Mark.
The Chalmers family had always been close-knit and after his early retirement, Derek had shown an aptitude for gardening and an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and their names. He humoured anyone who asked a question of him, such as the Latin name for a favoured shrub or flowering annual. He invariably got the answer right; was often asked for advice and that Derek was willing to give freely and in good humour.
It all helped to pass the time and to bring him into contact with many people that he now looked upon as friends. Rumours had even reached her that Derek was known to favour women somewhat younger than he was and who sought his advice and discreet attendance upon them.
That gossip did not surprise her, in the least, for he was a good-looking man; possessed a vitality that even a recent debilitating illness, that she and Mark feared was cancer, had not lessened. He was suave and sophisticated; he carried little or no surplus weight and was always dressed impeccably, ‘quite the gentleman’ many were overheard to say.
None of that lessened his approachability, nor did it deter her from calling on him and asking a favour. In truth, she wanted his company; would love it if he would work in the garden with her and perhaps share in a lunch. They lived within hailing distance, but Derek had resolutely kept to himself, to his gardening tasks and his nameless companions.
The children were away at school, or else at some holiday adventure camp and she had hoped that she and Mark would make the most of their times together; that they would enjoy their privacy and also live out their lives together to the full. Her hopes had not been fulfilled
‘Lucy!’ she heard him call out and turned sharply to see where the call had come from. ‘I thought I heard the door knocker!’
She laughed somewhat nervously in reply. ‘I thought to do that so that you would hear.’
‘Well I have heard you and I’m pleased to see you. Excuse my dressed-down ways of it, but I’m doing a spot of tidying up in the garden.’
She met the look of a still ruggedly handsome man in his early sixties; his greying hair swept away from his forehead and the greyness of his stubble beard lent him distinction. Derek’s cut-down chinos were now a pair of gardening shorts, the hems rough and the fabric’s paleness stark against his tanned legs. A short-sleeved denim shirt, open at the neck, lent him a studiously dishevelled appearance.
Lucinda quelled a shiver of interest in the man. She understood how some women would take to him; the clever well-dressed man, wealthy too, had a Bohemian, wilder, side to his nature; one that Mark had told her his mother had sometimes failed to curb, let alone rein in.
‘I’ve…I’ve come to ask a favour,’ she ventured, ‘I wondered if you could help me with some shrubs that just need some cutting back and tidying up?’ she smiled. ‘There’s lunch in it for you if you agree.’
‘And if I don’t agree? Do I still get lunch?’ he asked with a teasing smile. ‘You’re dressed for sunbathing, not gardening.’
‘What? Oh yes, I see.’
Lucinda looked down at her patterned shift dress with its billowing sleeves and V-neck; at her gladiator sandals that flattered her no longer slender, but toned, legs. Her sandy brown hair was ruffled by a warm breeze that set the leaves of the trees, along the lane, rustling.
‘I’m only joshing. You look lovely. Mary and I always thought that Mark had married well.’
Lucinda laughed in disbelief at this turn in the conversation. ‘Help, in the garden?’ she now prompted.
‘Lunch and the garden?’
Derek was his charming self once more. ‘What is Mark so busy with that you have to ask me for help? Come into the garden while I clear things away and lock up. I’ll then walk down with you.’
‘So you’ll…?’
‘Yes, I’ll help you. I prefer that to working at these chores on my own here.’
Derek pulled shut the gate, once she had passed through and into the garden, her shoes clacking softly on the riven slabs of the path that marked the boundary of his lawn and flower beds that were a profusion of wildflowers and a draw for butterflies and insects. He wasn’t bothered that she said nothing but watched him at work.
He found her to be a good-looking woman, the possessor of a brilliant smile, a full figure that filled her dress nicely; a woman who was an accomplished hostess and possessor of a vibrant personality that helped Lucinda make friends easily.
But now, he saw a woman drawn in on herself and she gave him a weak enigmatic smile that gave no insight into what was at work in her. Derek chose to bide his time and proceeded in clearing things away. The gatehouse was locked up and he fell into step beside her as they walked down the short length of the gravel driveway.
‘You’ve made a start I see,’ he smiled as they drew near to the main house.
‘The easier tasks,’ Lucinda observed. She felt elfin beside Derek’s towering figure as they stood before the flower beds set to each side of a small portico. a distinctive feature of the stone property that she was so fond of.
‘And I don’t see anything here that you need my help with.’
‘No there isn’t,’ she replied, curtly, on moving away from his side and bending down to gather up the tools that she had been using, along with a small basket that contained such clippings as she had gathered up.
‘I’ll help you.’
‘Not with this.’
Derek gazed at the young woman and delighted in what he saw. He noted how her thighs were faintly outlined through the fabric of her dress, in the sunlight. He could make out the sharp cut of her panties, the curve and sway of her hips as she moved, along with the press of her breasts against the bodice of her dress.
Lucinda met his look upon her and straightened up.
‘Tell me what’s up,’ he now asked sternly, dismayed that he’d been caught giving her the eye. ‘Are you and Mark going through another of those bad spells?’ Derek stared her down as she met his continuing, appraising, and admiring, gaze upon her. ‘Tell me to mind my own business, Lucy, but do say something!’
Remaining silent, Lucinda carried the basket with its assorted items and walked over the gravel to the sturdy boarded, ledged, and braced, door set into the high garden wall. It lent the garden, beyond, the seclusion that was much sought after.
‘Talk to me!’ Derek growled, keeping her from reaching for the latch, his shoulder brushing her arm, then taking hold of her hand to keep her from pressing down on the latch handle. It shook as he spoke to her. ‘Is Mark neglecting you? Has someone else come between the two of you?’
‘Let me go, let me go, please?’ she answered, on quivering lips.
‘In a moment…’
‘No, now please?’ she asked in a weaker, less challenging tone.
Derek relented in his questioning and followed her to the terrace, passing through the metal arch that supported a Clematis that was in flower. It had been set in a gap of the neatly clipped hedge that surrounded it. He soon took in the teak garden furniture and a table set at the centre of this secluded space. A colourful parasol snapped and flapped in the breeze; matching seat cushions completed the scene.
Lucinda dropped what she was carrying onto a chair and turned to him. ‘I just don’t know what has brought me to this and with Mark. He doesn’t tell me anything. He just waves away my questions whenever I try to talk to him.’
‘Then I will,’ he growled.
‘No! He will speak it out in the end. Right now, I just know that he doesn’t want me like he used to in ways that matter to me.’ Lucinda drew closer to him. ‘I came to you asking for help with something quite different. for what I saw in your eyes when you looked at me just now…’
Derek heard her voice softly trail away. She saw the set of his mouth change and Derek’s eyes grow still as he reached out to brush his fingers over her face. His fingers found the fastening of her dress.
‘Take it off,’ he murmured, his eyes meeting her gaze up at him. ‘I won’t have you treated in that way.’
‘You know a better one, do you?’ she laughed softly even as she did as he asked.
Derek watched her move and tore away his shirt; unashamedly proceeding to unfasten his belt. He saw the tremble in her hands as Lucinda lifted the dress over her body as if in a trance, her eyes now darting over his tanned skin, the covering of white hair on his chest; then, the swell in his underpants, colourful briefs that left her in no doubt what lay hidden from sight.
‘Is this what you need?’ he asked harshly as he took one of her hands and pressed it to his phallus, before he pulled the traps of her thin bra down over Lucinda’s shoulders and released her softly domed breasts, the nipples already inviting his attention.
‘You wonder!’ was all she could say before his mouth crushed her lips into silence as she squirmed to release him from his briefs. She felt weak on looking down at his blood gorged length. She saw the tremble in it and touched the smooth and rounded tip. ‘Go slow Derek…go slow, please?’
‘For now, but the sight of you makes me want you as never before.’
His touch inflamed the senses; the sight of him brought concern for all that they would succumb to. It made her gasp with longing and aroused a flush of wetness where he knew he would soon be.
‘Derek!’ she gasped. His hands were under her armpits and she was lifted up to him as he kissed her, trailed kisses to the swell of her breasts. She embraced him and he lifted her so that she was obliged to wrap her legs around his waist.
And then it began.
♥
‘Derek, like this?’
She was in thrall to him and looked down to where his penis pressed against her belly and she touched it before she moved away, enough, to feel it press at her opening, to begin the parting of her lips and to enter her body; to penetrate and to rise within her in slow probing thrusts that became deeper. She gasped with every movement that he made; clung to him as his slow movements enthralled and claimed her. She felt like a doll in his strong embrace.
He carried her to a long bench and tore the cushions from it, then another; kicked them flat on the slabbed terrace and knelt onto them. Lucinda clamped his body fiercely with her arms and legs.
‘Lie back so we can love here,’ Derek ordered.
She felt as if something of herself had been taken as he withdrew from her, for only an instant. He met her stare as her legs were pushed up and apart, further, before he bent to claim her with his flickering probing tongue and sucking lips.
‘In me…come into me!’ she yelped and bucked her hips to meet his claims.
He knelt between her legs and stared at her; reached out to clamp her breasts on his large hands and kissed them, stifled her cries of pain and abject pleasure before he moved to thrust into her in one long movement that had her cry out his name.
‘Oh…oh Derek! Oh God!’ she shuddered in her climax. She could not keep her body from shaking as he claimed her, the impetuousness of their actions bringing her on. He did not stop in his rhythmic claims, she bucked her hips and pushed on the seat covers to meet him. ‘You wonder, you’re such a wonder to me!’
Derek was between her legs, was in her body and pounding her with a passionate ferocity that she could not control. She felt his hands on her shoulders as he continued to slam into her, the wild kisses that she offered passing unnoticed, it seemed. He was lost in her.
‘Forgive me for wanting you,’ he smiled and she nodded quickly.
‘Please, go on…don’t stop!’ she demanded as he would pull back and almost bring his swollen prick out of her body before plunging in and pulling her to him. ‘Derek! I…I can’t hold back!’
With each movement, Lucinda moaned and she shuddered; felt the rush of another orgasm and summoned all of her remaining energy to meet his claims upon her. She clamped and tugged on him and heard his sharper intakes of breath.
‘Good…yes, good, do that!’
His gasps became a roar and rush of breath; his hands tightened on her breasts and they thrashed on the mats to meet each other’s claims. His body seemed to fall on her, and it crushed her gasping breaths from her aching body as she climaxed, as she felt the tingling rushes and spurts of release issue from him.
‘Another and another!’ she yelped; her body wracked by climaxes that she was unable to control.
Her lover of the moment was spent, or so it seemed. Derek slowly withdrew from her. Lucinda shivered and soon saw the glistening moisture on his skin and touched it; smoothed the length of flesh that had claimed her and squeezed gently on his sac.
Derek moved so that she sat on his hips. Lucinda bent down and swept her aching breasts over his skin.
‘My wild one.’ She kissed him.
‘My lost one.’ He kissed her back, lifting his head to nibble kisses on her nipples. Derek had her move so that he could take her again.
‘Can you, so soon?’ she grinned.
It had felt as if he had expelled all of his longing into her and so deep in his unconfined passion to know her. She held the glistening tip of his penis at her opening and slowly settled upon him, tugged and eased but could not restrain him as he rose from the mat to meet her.
‘You bring me on… now don’t stop, Lucy! Don’t…don’t!’
Derek started moving his hips faster and she slammed down on him, her breasts swaying and her breaths quickening as their rhythmic taking of each other increased in tempo.
‘You wonder!’ she shrieked; her hands gripping the skin of his chest as another orgasm claimed her. She bucked her hips and tugged on him; met his snorted kisses. She convulsed as Derek gripped her hips as she was forced down on him. ‘Yes…how you find me right there!’
‘Lucy…Lucy, you wonder!’
‘Go on…go on…find and love me!’ To her surprise and wondering pleasure he climaxed; pulled out of her and she felt the warming rushes expelled onto her belly and breasts. Lucinda bent over him and kissed Derek’s lips, gazing fondly into his eyes. ‘You know what to do, don’t you?’
‘Uh huh…but I never thought to do this with you.’
‘Until this morning and when I came to your house,’ she teased in reply and on moving off him. She watched Derek stand up, marvelled anew at the strength and vitality in the man before her. She shivered on seeing what he had brought to her as she looked at the flaccid length of his flesh. She reached out to him. ‘Be a comfort to me in the coming days, please?’
Lucinda watched him gather up his clothes and get dressed; took from him her dress and no more. ‘What do you know of Mark that I don’t?’
She heard again the sterner tone of voice and waited on giving her reply to that until she had slipped on her dress and covered her nakedness. She felt overcome by a pleasing languour that their lovemaking had bestowed upon her.
‘He rarely makes love to me. I have to ask it of him and to take the lead in that. He is not like you; I know that only too well now.’ She said it on drawing closer to him and gripping Derek’s arm. ‘Damn, not now!’
They had heard her iPhone trill. It lay on the table shaded by the parasol and close to where they had frolicked.
‘You’d better answer it, or at least see who is calling. I’ll get us a drink from the fridge. This gardening work has made me thirsty’
She laughed before looking at the screen, a frown soon creasing her pretty face. Lucinda saw again Derek’s appraising glance upon her as she raised a hand to brush away her hair. ‘It’s Mark, and I now know what to expect with that look of yours on me.’
‘It will have to be our secret, and I’ll be your helping hand whenever you need it,’ he assured her.
♠
