This could be the biggest day of my life, he thought, or at least the first big day of many to come. The press release had been issued the day before, and today's papers would probably carry the story that Greg Armstrong was going to run for the Senate. That very afternoon he was to meet with the men who would serve as his political and financial backers.
And yet here he was, sitting at his desk at his law office, with a hard-on that wouldn't quit!
He shifted in his seat and pulled up his pants a bit to make his stiff prick more comfortable. He could feel the warmth of the shaft against his pelvis, the blood pulsing through his veins. No matter how hard he tried to turn his mind to something else, his cock just wouldn't stop aching.
He felt a pang of bitterness when he remembered what had brought about the uncomfortable erection. He'd been sitting at his desk, thinking back to the night before. All day long he'd looked forward to seeing his wife Nancy. Something she'd said on the phone had led him to believe that night would be one of those rare nights when they would not simply crawl into bed, kiss each other goodnight, and fall asleep.
He'd been wrong. They'd had a nice dinner, then a few glasses of brandy, and had retired to the bedroom early. Greg had gone to the bathroom, stripping naked and washing quickly. His cock was already half erect with anticipation when he returned to the bedroom. And Nancy was already asleep!
For an hour he'd fumed, wanting to wake her and have it out. But he knew that would accomplish nothing, they'd already been through that so many times before. He would just have to accept the facts: if he was going to lead an active sex life, he wouldn't be able to depend on his wife. For when it came to sex, Nancy was one of those women who could take it or leave it.
And now, sitting behind his desk, he couldn't take his mind off Nancy. One minute he would fume with anger, the next he'd feel sorry for himself, and the next he'd picture Nancy's naked body lying in bed, waiting for him as he came to her. And each time he did, his hard cock would twitch.
Greg rubbed his crotch. He had to do something, there was no way he was going to be at his best for the meeting that afternoon if he didn't quench his lust first. It had been days since he'd had sex, and Greg Armstrong was too young and virile to wait much longer. Yes, he said to himself, he'd promised himself to make an effort to stay away from other women, to give it one more try with Nancy. But she'd failed him again.
Now there were only two options. He could sit back, open his pants, and jerk off. That would skim the cream off his hunger. He rubbed his crotch again. And then, without thought, he leaned over and pressed the button of his intercom. "Betty?"
"Yes, Mr. Armstrong?"
"Betty, I dropped something under my desk here and I can't find it," he said. "Could you come in and help me?"
"I'll be right in, Mr. Armstrong."
He had to chuckle as he took his finger from the button and leaned back. Sure, it was a silly game, but that's the way it had always been, ever since the day she actually did crawl under his desk to help him find a pen and didn't come up again until she'd found a lot more.
The door opened, and Greg's young secretary, Betty Butler, stepped in quietly, locking the door behind her. He let his eyes roam over her body as she approached the desk. She was slender and shapely in a smart dress, with blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and a warm, friendly smile on her lips. It was the lips that most attracted him, the full thick red lips, the white teeth peeking through when she grinned. Yes, Betty Butler was one of a kind.
"You're always losing things, Mr. Armstrong," Betty giggled as she reached the desk. Now it was her eyes that were roaming, over Greg's broad, muscular body, his athletic trimness evident even through a suit and tie. "Let's see if I can find it."
She dropped to her knees on the other side of the desk. Greg sat waiting as she crawled underneath, between his parted legs, and then sighed softly when her hand reached up and pressed against his bulge.
"I think I've found something, Mr. Armstrong," he heard her chuckle under the desk. "I better take a closer look."
He stared down at his crotch, watching her red-tipped fingers slide down his zipper and pull open the hook of his fly. She parted the sides of his pants and pressed her warm hand against the hard bulge that filled his white briefs.
Gently, slowly, she pulled the elastic band downward and exposed all of his hard manhood. The shaft was long and fat, gnarled with pulsing veins, his cockhead was broad and purple, the pisshole already gleaming with a drop of pearly lubrication. Her slender fingers wrapped around the shaft, and began stroking softly.
He let out another sigh, leaning back in the chair to savor her work. Her touch was tender, loving. He knew how much she loved to touch his cock. For most women, pleasing him would serve only as a prelude to something else. For Betty, though, it was an end in itself.
She jerked on his cockflesh for a few moments, rubbing his swollen crown with the other hand. Greg could feel a surge of excitement already in his groin. This time, it would not take her long.
She bent the shaft outward from his-body, he closed his eyes and let out a gasp when the warmth of her mouth enveloped his crown. Her lips closed around his knob, her soft, warm, wet lips, and then inch by inch of his shaft slid into her mouth as she moved downward.
He stared down, watching her cheeks puff out as his thick tool filled her, watching her lips glide along his tender flesh, watching her fingers close around the base and continue stroking as half of his pole was buried inside her. Then he saw her lips move upward, exposing cockflesh that now gleamed with saliva, until his crown popped free, of her caress and her tongue lapped gently around the rim of the dark knob.
By the time she plunged a second time, gism was already gorging his cock. He always came fast when Betty sucked his cock, any man would, but this time his orgasm was approaching in record time. When she rose again and licked around his cockhead, the bulb swelled for a moment, then relaxed. She waited a moment to prolong his pleasure, then closed her lips around his crown again and slowly, very slowly, moved the wet ring of her lips down his shaft until his cap was pressing against the back of her mouth.
"Betty, don't stop now!" he groaned, tensing his thighs and thrusting his cock deeper into her mouth. "Oh God, now!"
She rose sharply to his crown and then plunged again, then rose, then fell, as four days worth of gism gathered in his shaft and prepared to erupt. He held his breath as she licked at his cockhead again, then let out a long groan as her tender caress swallowed his cock again. Her lips neared the base of his shaft, she sucked hard, and he exploded, squirting a hard burst of semen down her throat.
She swallowed quickly as he poured into her, spurt after spurt filling her throat, his cock tensing and relaxing with each squirt. His orgasm seemed to last thirty seconds before, finally, he felt the last drops leaking into her kiss.
Betty licked his cock clean, twirling the tip of her tongue around in his pisshole to lap up every last drop, then tucked his softening prick back into his briefs and closed his fly. He was sitting calmly at his desk, smiling in satisfaction, when she crawled out from under his desk and stood up.
"Was that a good one, Mr. Armstrong?" she smiled.
"That was wonderful, Betty," he sighed. "Just wonderful. Remind me to give you a day off next week."
"Oh, you don't have to ... "
"I want to."
She giggled. "Will there be anything else? I have some letters to type."
"Nothing just yet," he replied. "And thanks for the help."
She giggled again as she headed for the door. "It was nothing, nothing at all."
He glanced down at her lean, pale legs as she slipped out of the office. The door closed, he sat back, still grinning. His heart was only now beginning to stop pounding.
That was just what I needed, he thought, glancing at his watch. It was nearly lunchtime. And right after lunch, there was the meeting with his backers.
Now, he was ready to face them.
TWO
The car swerved off the busy boulevard and turned into the broad drive which led to the motor hotel. The car paused after its rear bumper had cleared the street and the two occupants leaned forward, looking over the place.
The hotel was Polynesian in style and it was apparent that most rooms had a view of the surrounding bay. It was new, large, bustling and it had that rich look which meant sixty dollars a day. The man turned to the woman.
"Okay?"
She nodded. "All right."
The car slid into a space and the girl sat back, waiting, while the man pulled himself from the driver's seat with a grunt and hobbled inside. She punched in the dash lighter as she took a cigarette from her purse. After she'd dragged the first puff into her lungs and then let it trail from her nostrils, she lay her head on the back of the seat.
Another afternoon in another hotel in another town. It was, she decided, turning into a rat race. She and Claude had been striking out lately and that meant they had been on the move a great deal. Meanwhile the dollars were dwindling. Their sort of life was expensive and they had to make something big and make it fast if they were going to get back on their feet.
At the same time they couldn't lower their standards. They had to travel well, dress well, dine well and stay in the best hotel suites in town. This was necessary if fish of the proper size were to be lured into their nets. If they began to cast around second rate places they'd pick up nothing worthwhile. No keepers frequented the wrong side of the lake.
She heard the car door open and lifted her head to watch Claude climb back inside. He turned the key and the car idled its way to the rear of the hotel, creeping among groups of young people in bathing attire and older men who carried copies of business journals. They halted where the hotel was on two levels and then got out. She waited as Claude opened the trunk.
A bellman trotted up, loaded their bags on a dolly. The boy led the way along an outside corridor to their room. It faced the inner bay, which was packed with row upon row of luxury cruisers, some of them more than fifty feet long.
Claude looked at Toni so she could see the dollar signs in his pupils. "Enchanting view, darling."
She looked at the bellman, who had straightened and stood aside. For an instant the boy's eyes flicked over her figure, as bellman's eyes always did. "Yes," she agreed, her voice absent. "Almost as good as home, don't you think?"
They went inside and stood about until the boy had placed the bags on several chromium racks, checked the thermostat, looked into the bathroom and then returned to the door with a significant pause. Claude handed him a five dollar bill and the boy took an extra look at it before he shoved it into his pocket.
"Thank you, lad," Claude rumbled, his hand on the door.
"Thank you, sir," the boy blurted, backing out. "If I can be of service-anything at all-just call the desk. Ask for Ronnie."
Claude smiled. "Consider yourself on retainer." He closed the door and together they looked about the place. It was large, bright and new, jammed with soft furniture and a low, king-sized bed. It included a spacious bedroom, dressing room and an all-tile bath with a Roman-type step-down shower stall.
"You gave him too much," she complained as they completed their inspection and he sat down on the bed. It sagged under his weight as he kicked off his shoes and shucked out of his jacket.
"It's a good investment," he replied, removing his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. "You heard what I said. He's on retainer now ... as a scout."
"Even so, five dollars. And he's done nothing." She lifted her purse significantly and then dropped it into a chair. "This thing is getting lighter every day."
"Stop worrying. When we hit again we'll hit big." He smiled as he peeled off his shirt and scratched under his arm. His flesh was white and lumpy. Claude was gaining too much weight, she decided. Their sedentary life-at least it was sedentary for him-wasn't doing him any good.
"You'd better be right or it's back to peas and carrots," she muttered, watching him pick up the telephone.
"Room service," he said into the mouthpiece. Then, "When the maid turns down the bed this evening will you have her take the stack of laundry by the door? In case my wife and I are out. Thank you."
He hung up and rolled his shirt and undershirt into a ball, tossing them to the floor by the front door. Then he looked at her, smiling much as he had at the bellman. "You do your job, Toni, and we'll be all right. Eat well, sleep well, stay in shape. That's vital." He chuckled and gripped a roll of his own stomach fat. "If this happens to you, darling, our little company goes bankrupt."
"I do my job," she sniffed, turning toward the bath as she began opening her blouse. "I'm going to clean up. Ugh, that travel grime."
He nodded. "Inspect yourself to make certain you're not putting on pounds. You know how that frame of yours likes to accumulate extra meat. I'll have drinks ready when you come out."
She went through the doorway to the dressing room, opening the zipper at her hip as she did so. She shimmied out of her skin tight slacks and peeled the blouse from her shoulders, droppings the things to the floor. Taking a few pins from her hair, she shook her head and went to a full-length mirror on the bathroom door. She looked into it.
Looking back at her was a tall woman ... taller than many men. Her skin was darkened by her wonderful seaside summer tan so that she glowed almost like a Polynesian maiden. Her full breasts were packed into their straining brassiere, their size and weight made even more impressive when they were partly covered.
Her hips flared and she pinched the flesh at the widest points. It was firm and the bone was right underneath. She examined her stomach, placing the flat of her palm on it. It too was firm and there was little give when she shoved. She looked directly down at it, from between her breasts, assuring herself that no midriff bulge had appeared.
Her legs were long and straight and, as she studied where they disappeared into her brief pants, she could find no lumps of unwanted flesh. They were tough and hard, like the legs of a dancer. She smiled. Her way of life kept her in head-to-toe trim. That much could be said for it.
Yet, she knew Claude had been right. She must be careful. No longer was she the eighteen-year-old freshman campus queen. The years were ticking past and inevitably her classic face and figure would begin to soften in an unglamorous way. She leaned close to the mirror, peering at her face. The skin was unwrinkled and her eyes were dark and penetrating. The high cheekbones and the full mouth added to the impression that she was Polynesian.
Yet, Toni Haines was almost pure Anglo-Saxon, for what it was worth, except for a touch of Spanish blood. This enhanced her beauty like a dash of hot sauce on a meal in an outdoor cafe in Madrid. She turned her head and examined her profile. Yes, the nose was perfect for nibbling and it had been nibbled by countless wheezing bed partners.
Her fingers pressed into her stomach and she felt something stir inside her body. It wasn't in her loins-not yet-but the stirring was there. It had been several days since she and Claude had serviced a client. Perhaps Claude himself might....
She took her hand from her body and turned away from the mirror, reaching high behind herself to unsnap the bra and toss it aside. Her breasts hung heavily, their tips a deep brown and, as she gazed at them, she sensed their filling. As she watched, the breasts lifted and the nipples grew tiny, rigid points.
She kicked out of her pants and went into the bathroom. She stood before the sink and piled her heavy dark hair high on her head, taking the pins from her lips and then reinserting them. Placing towel and soap on a stool at the edge of the stepdown tub, she reached to turn the tap. At that moment, she heard the sound of a door opening and closing.
"Claude?" She waited but there was no answer.
She wrapped herself in the large bath towel, tucking the top corner into the valley of her breasts so it would stay in place. Then she went out of the bathroom and crossed to the doorway. "Claude?"
She stepped into the bedroom to find him leaning over the small leather bar kit. He looked over his shoulder. "Nothing wrong. Just out for the ice and a copy of the afternoon bugle." He tossed the newspaper and she caught it. "Might as well have a drink before you shower."
She clutched the paper, watching him. He paused and straightened, a bottle in one hand, ice tongs in the other, his eyes shooting some message at her. They looked at one another for almost a minute before he gestured. "Sit down. I'll fix you something."
She sat on the bed, leaning against the wall and tucking her feet under herself like a tawny cat. She opened the newspaper and glanced at the black headlines. Nothing new, really. She half-read and half-listened to the sounds from the drink-making. The idea of a highball sounded good.
It was a minute or two before she saw it. At first the name didn't register, but when she looked at the picture under the headline, she knew there could be no mistake. She sat up, her back rigid and she didn't know she'd made a sound until Claude asked her what was wrong.
"It's him," she breathed, frowning, her eyes wide. The square, regular face of the man in the photo brought memories flooding back. The years were rolled aside as though they were pages being returned to the face of a calendar.
Claude put down a stirring rod and came to the bed, carrying two tall glasses. He held one under her nose until she took it. "The mai tais are pre-mixed," he muttered, making a face, "but I know the rum is good. What is it? Did your horse come in?"
She shook her head, her lips parted. "It's him. I didn't even know he was here."
Claude frowned, annoyance flickering across his face. "Who's here, damn it?"
"Greg Armstrong," she exclaimed, peering more closely at the page. "And he's a big shot now. I always knew he would be. He was always wanting to learn something more."
Claude took the paper and looked where she pointed. The headline said:
ARMSTRONG TO RUN FOR U.S. SENATE SEAT
Below, Claude read part of the story:
Gregory Armstrong, local attorney and civic leader, today announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in opposition to incumbent Senator Frank M. Tucker. Armstrong, 31, and a partner in the law firm of Armstrong and Hobson, told reporters that voters deserve more adequate representation in Washington and that he....
Claude stared at the picture and then dropped the paper back on Toni's lap. "So his name is Gregory Armstrong and he's a politician. So what?"
"So I know him, silly." She caught her lip between her teeth and looked at the ceiling, her thoughts-bitter thoughts-miles and years away. "So he's an old friend of mine."
Claude snatched up the paper again, scowling at the picture. He read the story all the way through ... twice ... before he put it aside. He thought for several minutes and then moved close to her, leaning forward to brush his lips across her cheek. He kept his face close. "Know what, kitten?"
She nodded. "I know this. I have a chance to even an old, old score. We've found our pigeon."
"Exactly."
She turned her face so that their lips met and she spoke with the voice muddled by his mouth. "He won't be easy, Claude. Greg Armstrong was an all-American boy when I knew him."
His eyes were heavy as they flicked over her face. "And when was that?"
"Years ago. In college. You know his type: football hero, honor student, law school brain, too much ambition...."
"Including a handsome face and a sturdy body, I presume."
She managed a smile and the point of her tongue appeared long enough to tickle his lip. "But of course. Toni does not run with any other kind of man."
He tried to nibble at her, leaning closer, but she turned her head away. So he drilled his tongue into her ear and they both felt the stepped up current inside her coiled body. "The paper says he's a married man ... apparently happy."
"I know better," she replied, her hands clenching against her calf. "Married men fall the easiest. You know that. Besides, I knew Greg Armstrong back when."
His hands brushed hers away from the calf, taking their place, squeezing the flesh. "Back when?"
"Uh huh. Back when ... Oh!" she wiggled. "Back when he and I were close. We made beautiful music for a while and he was eating out of the palm of my hand. But he left me for money in a weak moment. He didn't really want to, Claude, but he did. If the gentleman had one weak moment, I could make him have another." She giggled, her body tingling. "You understand? He's vulnerable."
His hand slid up to her knee and ";ed itself behind it, pushing until she straightened her leg. Then it crept over the knee, heading for the white flesh of her thigh. "We must find out if you can still weave your spell," he whispered. "Phone him."
She nodded, her fingers touching his cheek and sliding down to his chin. "Now?"
"No." He chuckled. "Not now. Perhaps in an hour, but most certainly not now."
"No," she breathed, taking his other hand and placing it against her throat. "Not now. Right now I want you to remove this heavy towel, Claude. It's stifling inside."
He dipped to the valley between her breasts, plucking at the terry cloth until the heavy fold pulled loose. He snapped his fingers against the fringe a few times and the towel dropped away from her breasts. .They were heavier than before and the nipples were like hard pebbles, shuddering when she drew in her breath, seeming to beg for a caress.
Claude obliged, placing his hand flat on the soft yielding flesh of her left breast. He did not need to press, for her body seemed to swell even more so as to squeeze itself against his palm. He caught the nipple between his fingers and scissored it rapidly until Toni choked back a gasp.
Then, changing his attack, he again moved the hand on her thigh, lifting it momentarily to pluck away the towel, exposing her crotch. He inspected her, studying, his face low, his lips brushing over the warm inner flesh of her thighs. Her bush was thick and black, trimmed on the sides, but a faint line of hairs trailed upward toward her deep navel Through the tangly mesh he could see the sparkle of her pink cunt lips.
He lifted his hand, looking her in the eye. "It's obvious you have no need to worry about your figure, darling. Those magnificent muscular planes of yours seem unspoiled by any unnecessary slabs of fat."
She nodded, but her lips were parted and there was a strange glazed look in her eyes. "Please keep still and keep doing what you were doing."
He smiled. "But of course." The hand shot back to her thigh, where it squeezed the flesh hard, ever more tightly until she wanted to cry out from the delicious pain. But she did not. She loved it. Toni was that sort of woman.
The hand moved higher, past the place where the elastic of her panties had left a tiny line. She let her head tilt back against the wall, her eyes closed as his breath blew over her thighs and drew closer to her moist, hairy triangle.
But he skipped over the triangle and moved to her stomach, worming his fingers into her navel. He clucked his tongue in command and she shoved her hands into the mattress, lifting her body in an arch. He moved across and under her hips, probing for the softness of her buttocks. He kneaded the flesh and she felt it grow warm and then hot.
Her moans came regularly now and she lost the strength in her arms, settling back on the mattress. She hiked herself down on the bed so that she was able to lay supine, her eyes looking up into his face.
Claude stripped quickly, ripping off his trousers and underwear and flinging them across the room. His short, very thick cock snapped back against his pelvis when he peeled down his underwear, his heavy, hairy balls shook underneath. He could see the glazed look in her eyes as he came to her, climbing into bed and pressing her into his embrace.
Toni felt the heat of his cock against her thigh as he ground against her, his lips working hungrily on her hard nipples. She groped for his cock and found it, squeezing the thick shaft in her fingers and then stroking it smoothly, feeling his balls bouncing from her work. When she cupped the nuggets in her palm, he gasped and slid a hand between her thighs.
They parted readily, he moved on and pressed his fingers against her wet nest. Toni gasped this time, shooting her legs ever farther apart, and then held her breath while Claude toyed with her pussy, rubbing a finger along her gash until it was positively oozing with her fluids.
Toni again stroked his prick, rubbing her thumb into the pisshole, but he took her hand and pulled it away.
"No more," he whispered. "Or else everybody will be disappointed."
Her body shuddered when his, finger sliced through her doors and bored into her body. At first he stuffed the digit only halfway into her, working it in and out quickly. Then, with his other hand, he pried open her pink lips and pulled the pink hood of flesh from her clit. The juicy morsel gleamed as he stroked it between two fingers, and Toni began moaning loudly at the first caress.
She was trembling and shaking now as he stroked her clit, still working the finger in and out. Claude drove deeper into her, deeper still, until he was penetrating her all the way to the knuckle each time he drilled in his finger. Toni squirmed under his caress, tossing her head back and forth, gasping, kicking her legs in the air, and reaching out for the bedposts to lie spread-eagled on the mattress.
Claude's prick was throbbing with need, but he wanted to wait just a bit longer. He loved to watch Toni writhe, loved to hear her gasps and moans, loved to feel her grabbing pussy squeezing his fingers as he pistoned them into her channel. As usual, he wanted to bring her as close as he could to her orgasm so that, when he did stuff her with his prick, they would both find their release at the same time.
He added a second finger, then a third, working them in and out quickly now, feeling the juices churning and drooling out over her gash. By now her clit was throbbing in his grip, he rubbed it with his thumb while his fingers filled her, and felt her body trembling more and more violently as he brought her closer to her end.
Toni scissored her legs open and closed as he thrilled her, longing for the warmth of his prick. When he leaned over and sucked her nipple into his mouth, she couldn't help letting out a loud screech. Ah, this man, this Claude, was an unimpressive creature-until he was alone with a woman. And then, he could do for her what no man had ever done, could satisfy her as no one could hope to. Or at least, almost no one.
"Oh God, Claude, please," she moaned. "Now, darling, please do it now!"
He lifted himself up immediately, straddling her body but not yet lowering himself. He took his cock in hand and rubbed the broad cap along her slit, then guided it easily into her body, nudging it past her dewy cunt lips and into her snug channel.
At first he twisted his hips, pressing his cockflesh against her clit, teasing her, making her cry out for more. She dug her fingers into his ass, pushing him down, and he sailed into her at last, bringing their bodies together, steering the entire length of his fat tool into her pussy until his balls were crushed against her ass.
Toni let out a cry and shot her legs into the air, then draped them over his shoulder as he started to lunge. He worked slowly, easing his cock back until the crown alone was inside her, then sliding it smoothly back into the tight wrap of her vagina, still staring down in her passion-contorted face.
But before long he increased his speed, sailing into her as fast as he could now, swinging his balls against her body, sliding his meat into the depths of her lovehole. Toni shook in his arms, screaming, kicking, clawing at his back, shaking her head back and forth as her orgasm approached.
"C-Claude!" she stammered. "Now!"
He pumped ruthlessly, drilling his prick into her cunt and crashing his balls against her ass as she crested. Gism was gorging his prick, but he fought it off, keeping his cock rock-hard as she finished her orgasm and then, as he slowed his strokes and quickened them again, she felt herself rising to another frantic climax.
This time he let himself go, gasping and groaning himself now as his cock tensed inside her. His strokes filled her so quickly it seemed his cock never left her. She dug her fingers into his buttocks, he buried his head on her shoulders, she threw her hips up to meet his and his cock plowed wildly into her cream-filled cunt, exploding suddenly with a long, hard spurt of seed.
That set her off again, she came the moment she felt his warmth filling her. The bed creaked, they wrestled together in climax, bodies twitching and shuddering. Then, after a few more tremors, she fell back on the bed, he came to a halt on top of her. He kissed her lips, then rolled off, gasping for breath Sweat was glistening from both of their bodies.
They lay quietly, whispering no words of love, for that was not their way. They stared at the ceiling, their limbs relaxed, their heads lolling, their eyes half opened. Presently he moved, rolling to his side and touching the tip of her breast. It was still moist with perspiration.
"You are ready to sleep now?"
She half smiled and nodded.
"But when you wake up...."
Again she nodded. "When I wake up I will make the telephone call."
"Yes." He fell to his back again and in seconds she heard his heavy breathing.
THREE
Betty Butler looked up from her desk of blond wood, her eyes dancing with expectation. In the brief instant before she shot to her feet Greg caught a glimpse of her knees and lower thighs through the peep hole of the desk. Not bad. Not bad at all as a welcoming sign on a hot afternoon.
If she caught his flicker of approval she gave no sign, bustling around from behind the desk, her young body trembling with excitement. "They're here," she exclaimed in a loud whisper, looking over her shoulder toward the conference room. "And I think they're pleased."
He nodded. "I guess I'm late, but work and the money to be earned from same still come first. What are they so pleased about?"
"The announcement." She wrinkled her nose at him, her head tilting in that way she had. "Haven't you seen the afternoon papers?"
"Nope. My name spelled right?"
"Go on, silly," she chided, shoving at his arm, seeking to propel him toward the meeting room. "I'll bet the night you're elected President you'll sleep through it all."
"Truman did," he chuckled, but he went to the door, his fingers gripping the briefcase more tightly. Maybe he was fooling his secretary, but Greg was nervous, all right. Plenty nervous. This was a big thing, something which might ultimately take him away from law and the partnership.
He went inside to see three men seated at the table and, appropriately enough, smoke hung heavily in the room. They looked up with a single swing of their heads and eyes. Each broke into a smile. Greg smiled back.' Betty had been right. Things had gone well.
"Afternoon, Mr. U.S. Senator," Cyrus Manchester remarked, wiping his hand across his bald head. He was still smiling. This was important because when the local party boss approved of a prospective candidate that candidate was given a big boost up the ladder to office. Manchester was big in the state, his influence extending to every county. He was the key man.
They all shook hands and, in the middle of it, a side door opened. Corky Hobson looked in, blurted out an apology and then began to duck out. Manchester's call stopped him. "Come in, Corky. After all, it's your office. Come on, help us congratulate the next United States senator." Manchester made no secret of his support and admiration for Greg.
"With pleasure," Hobson replied, coming inside. "I didn't realize the clan had gathered."
"I'm the tardy one, I'm afraid," Greg muttered.
Manchester was waving aside their comments. He pulled a newspaper from his pocket and spread it on the polished surface of the table. "Cast your eyes on this, gentlemen," he exclaimed, speaking around the long, slim shape of his cigar.
They peered at the news article and the picture of Greg. A flush reddened Greg's cheeks. He was not accustomed to seeing himself cast as a hero. At least not since his football days. Manchester was telling them that other papers in the state were also carrying the story.
Hobson finally withdrew, muttering something about looking for a place to confer with a client. Greg suggested his own office, since someone else was already waiting in Hobson's own private office. Hobson nodded, closing the door softly behind him.
The four men sat quietly for a moment, their hands folded on the table, their eyes peering at one another. At last Manchester tapped the newspaper with the back of his hand. "This is excellent, gentlemen. It shows that the press is on our side. The position given this article and the fact that they chose to run a picture with it indicates solid support from the publishing community."
Somebody made a wry face. "Roosevelt always managed to beat the people supported by the press."
"True," Manchester acknowledged, "but Greg isn't running against a Roosevelt. He's running against an incumbent who's wobbling. The voters don't like him and they want a change."
"Hold on," Greg protested, taking out a cigarette. He pointed it at Manchester. "I've got to win the party primary first. Then I'll tackle the incumbent."
"Of course. But the primary will be no problem. You have my support." He said the words slowly, glancing at the others as he did so. "That means you have the support of most of the organizations which matter. No, you won't have any trouble getting your name on the ballot in November."
Greg knew his face was flushed with the expectation of a tough, hard-hitting campaign and the election which would climax the race. This, he told himself, was what the adventure of politics was all about. To square off against an opponent, beat him fair and square, and then do a good job in the U.S. Congress.
"Look what else our man has going for him," Manchester went on, placing his cigar in a silver ash tray. "A successful attorney. Defender of the poor. Leadership in strengthening the state constitution. An image of solid, progressive power. Then there's the raw talent and drive of the man himself. We, gentlemen, have ourselves a winner...."
The faces swung toward the door, which was open a foot. Betty's blonde head peered into the room, her look apologetic. She waited until Manchester stopped in mid sentence. "I'm terribly sorry but there's a call for Mr. Armstrong."
Greg waved an arm in annoyance. "Take the number. I don't want any calls now."
"I know, sir," she said, frowning at him in a peculiar fashion, "but she insists on speaking to you." She looked at the others, her eyes wavering. "I ... I think you'd better talk to her right away."
"I said no...."
"Oh, go ahead, Greg," Manchester said with a smile. "It'll give us a chance to gossip about you behind your back."
Greg got up, shrugging, and then he went out, joining Betty at the front desk. "What the hell is this? Is it Nancy? Is something wrong at home?"
"No, but...."
"Anything else can wait," he snapped, angling his chin toward the conference room. "You know this meeting is vital."
"But she seems very upset," the girl stammered. "She said you must speak to her at once. Really, the woman was beside herself." She stared at him, her eyes baffled. "She said you'd understand when I told you her name."
Greg folded his arms. "All right, damn it, what's the mystery woman's name?"
"Haines. Toni Haines."
He sagged as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. After nine years he would have believed that it would take a certain amount of concentration to remember Toni Haines. But this wasn't the case at all. He knew who she was instantly and the rapidity with which the picture of the woman slammed into his middle disturbed him.
"Mr. Armstrong? Greg?" Betty's head was tilted again, and she stated. "Did you hear? Miss Toni...."
"I heard," he barked. God! Toni Haines. A bolt of remorse shot through him, even though he'd believed that he'd gotten over it years before. What wonderful times they'd had, living and loving together, until he decided that he wanted something else-and throwing over Toni to get it. It had been wrong ... terribly wrong....
He set his jaw, looking at the white telephone on the desk. "I'll take it in my office," he blurted, swinging away.
Betty began to warn him but he was into his own book-crammed office before he saw Corky and his client seated comfortably inside. Corky stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked at him.
"Oh ... sorry," Greg stammered, backing out. He closed the door and rushed past Betty. "I'll take it in Gorky's office."
"Someone's in there, too," she exclaimed, "waiting for Mr. Hobson.""
He hesitated. "Can't be helped," he replied. "Put the call through, anyhow."
"Line one," she called as he disappeared again.
He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, rubbing his forehead as though a massive headache were lurking behind his brain. Then he blinked and tried to smile at the young woman who sat before Gorky's desk, a magazine open on her lap.
"Please don't let me interrupt you," he stammered, sliding behind the desk and gesturing toward the door. He felt like a fool as the woman stared, her face wearing an expression as puzzled as Betty's. Lord, did his confusion show that much?
He put his hand on the phone, took a couple of deep breaths and punched a button, picking it up. "Gregory Armstrong speaking," he muttered, sliding his eyes away from the woman, who had returned to her magazine.
"You kept me waiting, pet. I don't like that very much." The voice was low and throaty and he could picture her lying on a jet black chaise lounge, wearing something clinging; one knee drawn up ... but there was a sad, familiar emotion in her tone.
"Toni?" he asked. The client looked up from her magazine and he lowered his voice. "Miss Haines?"
"My, aren't we formal? What's wrong, is the board of directors sitting around the table looking you in the eye?"
She chuckled at the thought of his discomfort.
He coughed. "Something like that."
"What a pity. I so wanted to hear how bewitched you are at the sound of my voice." Again she laughed. "Unless you'd like to tell me, anyway. Or have you kept me a secret all these years?"
"You know the position I'm in," he muttered, angry that this throat was thick. "And this phone line isn't very private."
"You mean that secretary of yours? She was really quite nasty about putting you on, but I'm sure she's discreet. Just as I'm sure your wife is discreet. I'd adore meeting her. What's her name? Nancy? So wholesome sounding."
"What do you want?" he grumbled, unpleasantly aware that the puzzled client was watching him. "Are you in town?"
"But of course, and I must say you don't give old friends a very hearty welcome. I feel rather like something which rose from the grave after you buried it."
He filled his lungs with air, trying to lose the tightness in his chest. "That's not a bad analogy."
"No more games," she snapped, her voice hardening to flint. "I want to see you, Gregory. I want to see you at once."
He frowned. "Why? You know it's all...."
"All over?" She laughed again, but the laugh was as flinty as her voice. "That remains to be seen. Meet me as soon as you can get away from the office."
"That's impossible," he replied, feeling sick in the pit of his stomach. He knew he was losing a weak defensive battle. "I'm having dinner at the club and it's tied in with an important meeting. It's essential that I be there."
"A political meeting?"
"Yes, as a matter-of-fact."
He could almost hear her thinking. "We mustn't do anything to disturb your career in public life, pet. All right. I'm tired and grubby anyhow, so we'll postpone our date until tomorrow afternoon at four."
He stared at the client and her magazine. "It's impossible."
"Tomorrow, Gregory," she intoned, her voice a command not to be ignored. "At the Sand Castle, room one three nine. Got that?"
"No," he insisted, but his voice weakened. He was lost.
"Yes."
The line clicked and there was a buzzing in his ear before he could get off another shot. He stared at the instrument and then dropped it back on its cradle. Moving to the door, he looked back at the client, who watched him, eyes wide.
"Please excuse me," he muttered, wondering if he looked as asinine as he felt.
Toni hung up fast, anxious to cut him off before he could argue further. She had, she realized, rocked him badly. He didn't know exactly how much of a threat she was and it was better to leave him shaken and full of questions. He'd come looking for answers. She sat up on the bed and stretched like a virile lioness, knowing her hot and cold acting had scored.
Claude turned from the window, glancing at her body and then looking into her eyes. "Hell see you? It's all settled for tomorrow?"
She nodded, her lips curving. "Find something to keep yourself occupied elsewhere from three o'clock on, will you, darling? Greg and I have so much to talk about."
He frowned, crossing the room. "You're sure you want to handle it alone?"
"I'll call for help when I need it," she replied, getting up. She lifted herself to her toes, still preening, knowing that Claude watched the rise of her sharp breasts. "Now Toni is going to bathe, if you'll excuse her."
She stooped to retrieve her towel and then skipped through the dressing room to the bath. There, she turned on the tap and pinned her hair until the rising steam told her the water was at the proper temperature.
She went down the steps into the shower and turned to close the glass doors. She didn't close it because he was there, looking down at her, his body naked and obviously eager to play more games.
"Well, Claude," she purred, smiling. "You may have gained weight, but you haven't lost your virility."
"It's jealousy reacting on my body," he replied, trying to smile himself. "I have this strange feeling that you're looking forward to meeting Gregory Armstrong again for more reasons than the ones we discussed."
"Nonsense," she said absently, but her eyes turned up in thought. "Yet, he was something to behold. A real man. You know how college athletes are."
"No," he snapped, stepping down to her side. "I don't."
Toni closed her eyes as he urged her back against the tile wall. It was cold and her skin puckered at first, but then it was all right. His hands were on her, pumping her breasts, fondling the slick rubbery skin as though they were balloons.
Claude knelt down in front of her, running his hands up and down her sides, around the flare of her hips and into the creamy hollow of her waist. Her tits bobbed up and down when he nudged them, her legs parted when he pressed his lips against her inner thighs and began moving slowly upwards.
"Ah, yes, Claude," Toni breathed, eyes closing. "You know what I want."
He teased her at first, licking around her black nest, up to her navel, then back again, always stopping short of her wet slit. He could feel her thighs tensing in anticipation, her breath quick with impatience. Finally he reached in with both hands and fingered her cunt lips, spreading them with his fingers and stroking her clit when it popped free.
Toni stiffened immediately, her cunt already gleaming with moisture. Claude blew his breath over the open gash, then at last pressed his lips against the oozing chasm. She gasped deeply, then tensed her thighs again and threw her hips forward.
She felt as if she were close to fainting as she savored the skilled caress of Claude's lips and tongue. He lapped at her pussy from one end to the other, thrusting his tongue through her pink folds and twining it deep into her channel. Her hips were swirling now, thrusting, her legs were wobbly and her nipples were gorged with excitement.
Breathing deeply to savor the aroma of her passion, he worked his tongue upward along her slice and circled it around her pulsing clitoris. Her whole body jolted when he licked at the wet kernel, as if his tongue carried an electric .shock that coursed from her clit all through her body.
Her hips were undulating, her thighs shaking as he took her clit between his lips and sucked hard. Her hands were around his head, guiding him up and down her cunt, pushing him against her clit when he took it in his mouth. But Claude never needed guidance, he knew every inch of her pussy as if it were his own.
Toni couldn't control her legs now, they shook heavily as he reached around her body and sank his fingers into the soft putty of her buttocks. He massaged the hot flesh, feeling the cheeks tense and relax with the force of her passion. Pushing her from behind, he crushed his face against her cunt and reamed her from the clit end of her gash all the way down to her asshole.
"Oh God, Claude!" she panted. "Don't stop!"
Her belly was rolling with pleasure as his lips returned to her clit and took it firmly in their grip. He twisted the morsel back and forth, lapping out occasionally with the tip of his tongue. The more she shuddered and bucked, the hungrier he became, squeezing the flesh of her ass, drinking down the warm nectar of her lovehole.
He pressed his nose against the blazing slit, her black hairs tickled his cheeks as he moved up and down. When he slid his hands through her legs from behind, she parted her legs, he used his fingers to rip apart her cunt lips and shot his tongue up into her channel. Her pussy contracted, sucking his tongue right up into her body, and when he blew a hot breath into her channel she shook as if she were about to topple over.
Now Claude knelt down farther and licked down her gash until he was nearing her bunghole. She stiffened, then let out a scream when the tip of his tongue found her puckered doors and twirled over the pink, hairless flesh. He slid his hands through her legs again and pried open her doors, then edged his tongue into her asshole and twirled it.
His fingers were rubbing her clit as his tongue thrilled her anus, jabbing in and out of the dark tunnel and lapping along her fleshy crack. She could feel his saliva drooling from her anus, then his finger pressing against the hole and finally driving up into the cavity. It was so wet by now that it glided into her smoothly.
She tightened her asshole around the digit as he pumped it in and out, twisting it around when he'd penetrated her. Meanwhile another finger shot into her cunt, a thumb caressed her clit. When he began to work both fingers in and out, one in her cunt and one in her asshole, she gripped his shoulders and sank her nails into his flesh as she prepared to explode with a long-smoldering orgasm.
But Claude had other ideas. He worked his saliva into her ass, rubbing it along the crack and into her hole. He urged her forward, Toni bent down with her hands against the walls of the shower, her ass thrust into his face. He continued rimming her until she was sopping, then stood up quickly behind her and pressed his stiff cock against her warm cheeks.
"Oh darling, you're not...." she began, but her words were garbled when he took hold of his prick and guided the cockhead to her bunghole doors. The broad Cap slid smoothly between her moist portals, with one lunge he stuffed half of his shaft into her asshole and then eased it out gently.
She was leaning forward, her legs spread, screaming now as he worked his cock in arid out of her asshole. With each thrust his prick sliced in more deeply, more smoothly. He took hold of her buttocks and yanked her backward onto his pole, and with a quick thrust of his hips pushed the entire length of his prick into her anus.
Toni yelped with pleasure as she. felt his balls swinging against her ass, his cock driving up into her warm channel. He pulled her backwards each time he lunged, quickening his strokes little by little, twirling his hips to spin his cock around in her anus, flexing his toes to lift his body up and down and twist his hard cock inside her.
Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her tongue lapping out to wet them as he drove his pipe to the ends of her anus and slapped his pelvis against her buttocks. He leaned back and gazed down now to watch himself work. When he arched his hips backward, he could see his fat stump sliding from her hole, glistening with moisture, when he pumped forward he watched the granite pole drill through the puckered doors and disappear between her pearly cheeks until his bush was bristling against her ass and his balls were crushed against her flesh.
Claude reached around her body and fingered her clit as he drove on toward his end. The moment he began massaging the juicy kernel, Toni stiffened and then began to shake in orgasm, screaming, bowling, shuddering, shaking her head back and forth madly and flexing her anus around his pistoning member.
He brought her to her peak, then sliced up into her asshole a final time and exploded. The warmth filled her anus, she continued screaming and he continued thrusting until his balls were drained and her asshole was oozing with spunk.
When they were finished he held her from behind for a moment, then gently eased his prick from her ass. She turned around and embraced him, crushing her tits against his chest.
"Mmmm," she purred, "that was a special treat, wasn't it?"
"Jealousy always brings out the best in me," Claude replied, nibbling on her ear.
"I can feel your come in my ass," she murmured, still panting for breath. "I think from now on I'm going to make you jealous more often."
FOUR
It had been billed as a quiet dinner party at the Hotel Thomas but by the time everyone had toasted Greg and Nancy, the noise level had risen several decibels. Cyrus Manchester was there with his wife, a mousy thing. Sam Swartz, a key Manchester aide and a man with influence throughout the state, was also seated at the table. In all, there were ten couples, all backers of Greg's candidacy and all supremely confident that he would be the next U.S. senator from their state.
Fortunately, Nancy was seated down the table from Greg so that the two other wives were on either side of him. They would be less likely to notice his difficulty in concentrating on the issues before the group-he hoped. He allowed his thoughts to stray back over the years to the days when he had known Toni Haines....
He'd been the campus hero almost from his first day in class. He had entered the university on a football scholarship. Coming from a family that lived under near poverty conditions, he was anxious to make good. He'd had to fight to stay in school, fight to star on his high school team and fight for his university scholarship.
Thus, he'd still been a fighter three years later, years he'd spent fighting for top grades while he struggled to make all-conference end and second string Ail-American. He'd attended the dean's reception when he was a senior and there he'd met Toni Haines who was a freshman right out from behind her mother's apron strings.
The attraction had been immediate and explosive, for she was tall, dark, and beautiful with a willowy way about her which made Greg want to wrap her in his protective arms. He had done so and for six months they were inseparable, going everywhere together, making love and loving every second of it.
The bottom had fallen out of their lives at spring vacation. Nancy Mason had discovered Greg, cornered him and filled his ear with hopes and desires for a career in the legal profession. He'd always wanted to practice law, but the expense of two or three more years in school had been out of the question. Nancy had solved this problem. She had taken him home with her at spring vacation and her parents had approved of her nice young man.
Then had come the double pitch. Marry my daughter, Dr. Mason, a wealthy surgeon, had said, and I'll put you through law school and see that you get a start here in Nancy's home town. Greg's dreams had come true overnight and, while he'd never been stunned by the nearness of Nancy as he was by Toni, he knew she represented a social stratum he admired and aspired to join.
The next week he had told Toni. He had tried to break it as gently as he could, but one cannot touch off dynamite in gentle fashion. The explosion had been heard all over the campus. Toni, crushed and alternately reduced to tears or insane with rage, had left school and dropped out of sight, never to be heard from again.
Until Greg had been called to the telephone that afternoon....
Hearing a voice but not the words, Greg feared the sound had been directed at him. He tacked on a quick smile and turned to Mrs. Manchester, who sat at his right.
She smiled back, her mouth turning up like a Cupid's bow. "I declare, Gregory Armstrong, you're not hearing a word I'm saying."
He shrugged in apology. "Have somebody tell you, you're going to sit in the Senate and see how you react."
She laughed and placed her hand on his arm. "Dear boy, I'm afraid I'd still be unconscious. No wonder you look as though you'd seen a ghost."
Madam, I have seen a ghost, he wanted to say. At least I've talked to one.
"I was saying," she murmured, looking about the table from under her brows as though she were sharing secrets, "Cyrus has high hopes for you."
"I know. I hope I don't let him down."
She shook her head. "It's not likely. He admires the legal work you've done tremendously and he knows how popular you are. Handsome, brainy, once-famous athlete, is the way he puts it." She sighed. "You know, I believe he feels you're an extension of him ... that he can help you become something he never was. At the risk of sounding dramatic, he looks on you almost as a son."
He toyed with his salad, embarrassed but pleased. "I don't deserve such support."
"He's behind you, just as your lovely wife is," she continued. "Hasn't she always done what's best for your career ... and her parents have pitched in too, haven't they?"
"Of course," he replied, flicking his eyes at her. "If it weren't for Nancy, I wouldn't be here."
She shook her head. "Certainly you would. You simply needed someone to stand by your side." After a matronly sigh, she went on, "Such a marvelous girl. I'm still waiting for you two to begin having children. Perhaps a handsome son and then a beautiful daughter...."
Someone called his name from across the table. He turned away from Mrs. Manchester, murmuring silent thanks for being delivered in the nick of time.
"Isn't it so, Greg?" Sam Swartz asked. "Don't you think you'll carry every county in the state?"
"That's a mighty heavy load," Greg answered and the others chuckled. "Besides, Senator Tucker has been in the saddle for two full terms-twelve years-and he's made a good many friends in that time."
"Plenty of enemies, too," Manchester muttered from the head of the table. He was the host and he and the party would pick up the dinner check.
"Enemies?" someone asked.
"You bet he has," Manchester continued. "Sure, he's collected plenty of power and the state's riddled with his appointees, but he can be had." He beamed into every face and then added, "And we intend to have him, roasted on the end of a stick!"
Applause erupted. Seconds later, Manchester nodded to several of the men and then to Greg, angling his head toward a sitting room adjoining their (lining area. While the women chatted over their coffee, the men adjourned to the room. There, the final plans for the campaign were laid out.
Greg was to make several swings around the state, both before and after the primary. The party would buy newspaper, radio and television time. They were going all out for Greg, Manchester said, because he was going to win. If the party didn't think he had a good chance, it wouldn't loosen its purse strings so liberally.
At last Manchester said, his eyes narrowing behind his cigar, "I want us to run a clean campaign, boys, because the right man is on our side. Now we all know that Tucker is a rich, spoiled and desperate little boy who's afraid he might lose. When he gets desperate he does desperate things, like slinging all the mud he can pick up. There's nothing he can get on Greg-we all know thatbut he's going to try."
"Our man's clean," Swartz muttered.
"Of course he is," Manchester went on, a cloud of smoke hanging over his head. "But if Tucker slings wildly, we can sling right back on him. I've been in this business for a long, long time and I've got a little black book on a lot of people. Some of the names in that book would surprise you. Tucker has skirted the edge of the law plenty of times, as we all know, and he's done other things only I and a few other people know about."
Greg frowned. "I wouldn't want to be involved in a messy campaign. I'd insist that we stick to the issues."
"So we will, lad," the old man said. "So we will. I only mention this in case Tucker starts fouling us." He took the cigar from the his teeth and grinned. "Clean or dirty, we're going to beat this bum.
Right?"
They roared in response and a general movement toward the door began. The women were collected and wraps were picked up as the guests shuffled their way toward the outside. Nancy stood by Greg's side as he shook hands with each departing guest. He knew he'd shake a million hands before the campaign was over.
"Take good care of your man, Nancy," Mrs. Manchester blurted as she and her husband passed. "He'll be public property before long and he should be at his best."
Nancy smiled, blinking. "I'll treat him like a baby. Don't you worry."
In the hotel garage, a boy brought around the car and Greg held the door for Nancy. Then he eased behind the wheel and drove off, across the downtown area and onto the freeway which led to the eastern suburbs. For ten minutes not a word was spoken, but he felt her eyes wandering his way from time to time.
"Cat got your tongue?" she murmured at last.
"Just stunned, I guess," he replied, continuing the lie he'd started with Mrs. Manchester. He was stunned, but not by the excitement of the political arena. It was, of course, Toni. He was amazed that she seemed to have such a hold on his mind after so many years. Just a one-minute telephone call and she was back in his life as though she'd never been gone.
Nancy slid closer to him, her hip almost touching his. "I'm going to help you, darling. I'm going to make certain that you win."
He looked at her as they flashed through an inter section. Her eyes were slitted, but her lips were open and her color was deeper than usual. "I hope I can deliver," he said.
"You will." She stirred, clasping her hands in a way that was like an attitude of prayer. "We've worked so hard to get you this far, and now ... Just think, Mrs. Gregory Armstrong, the wife of a United States senator!"
He smiled, but his look was vague as the other thing nagged at him. "It's got a ring to it."
They were silent the rest of the way home, although he continued to feel her excitement and presently he was feeling guilty because he wasn't sharing it. This was one of the biggest nights of her life and here he was thinking about another woman, leaving Nancy to dream of their future alone. She'd promised to support him, but he was leaving her alone at the very outset of their great adventure.
Presently he turned off the freeway and into a valley in which lay a cluster of homes. The valley had once been valuable orchard land until it had been taken over by a real estate development company. Each ranch home was built on a quarter acre, most had swimming pools (though the climate limited their use to the summer months) and their cost started at ninety thousand and went to the sky.
He pulled into the driveway and the garage door rumbled open on electronic command. When they were inside it closed again and they went into the house. Nancy dropped her bag and gloves into a chair and twirled in the center of the front room, her eyes sweeping over the beautiful dark furniture, the paneled walls, the brick fireplace and then to Greg.
He stared back at her, still guilt-ridden because of the other woman. With an effort, he made himself smile and really look at Nancy for the first time that day.
If anything, she was more beautiful than when he had married her. Short and pert, with brown hair cut in bangs, she could still pass for a collegiate pompom girl. Her body was hard and straight, her legs good, her bottom as saucy as any Greg had ever patted.
Despite her appealing femininity, Nancy and Greg had never hit it off well in bed. Oh, they'd had their moments when something like passion had possessed them for a brief time. But they'd never made bells rings, they'd never clawed and fought with lust for one another's body, they'd never conceived a child....
She'd never caused his senses to explode like ... Toni's image popped into his mind again and he shook his head, guilty that an outsider should intrude on his thoughts.. He'd neglected poor Nancy all evening and that wasn't right.
"Greg?"
He blinked, realizing that she was studying him, her head cocked. "Oh ... sorry."
"What is it, darling?" Her use of the endearing word shamed him even more.
"Nothing. Just the excitement, I suppose." He grinned and went to her, squeezing the back of her neck. "How about a nightcap before we hit the hay?"
She squinted. "All right, but I have a feeling it's something else. You seem disturbed ... perhaps even frightened." Then her eyes were wide. "I hope you're not sorry you agreed to run against Tucker."
"Of course not. I'm mad at myself for neglecting you, that's all." He waved at a sofa. "Sit down, I'll bring us a brandy."
Something in his manner-perhaps his hand on her neck and his insistence on a drink-brought that odd look back into her eyes. He'd seen it often enough over the years, when he was urging her to go to bed with him. She had never admitted that she was afraid or disinterested, but he'd always sensed it. Her guard was rising.
"All right," she said at last, sitting and tucking her skirt under her legs. She watched as he went to a polished cabinet in the dining room and brought back a decanter and two deep-bottomed glasses. Into each glass he poured a quarter inch of brandy, handing her one.
They touched rims, and she said, "Here's to us and the Senate, Greg."
"I'll drink to that."
They did and then she was talking again, fast, her wide eyes catching highlights. "Someday you're going to be a big man in this state and later you'll be famous all over the country." She took a deep breath and he glanced down at the rise of her breasts under her blouse. "We're going places, Greg. We're going to have people begging to meet us. When we give a party, the newspapers will want a guest list. We'll have formal affairs, caterers, an orchestra...."
"Hey," he laughed, sliding closer to her on the couch and draping his arm over her shoulders. "Even a senator doesn't make that much money."
She looked quickly at his hand, which hung by her chin. "Oh, you know what I mean. Think of the fun we'll have in Washington."
He chucked her under the chin. "I'll be pretty busy, especially as a freshman who doesn't know the political score."
"I suppose we'd be invited to the White House once a year or so," she continued, her body rigid. "Wouldn't it be exciting if the President himself...?"
"Nancy!" He snapped her name like it was a whip and she flinched as though she'd been stung. "You're babbling like a little girl planning her first party. Drink your drink."
She drained her glass, making a face. He poured more brandy and she drained the glass again, fast, her face not protesting so much. It was as though she'd given in to the inevitable and now she was depending on the brandy to give her strength. She held out the glass and he poured again. She sipped.
He pulled her against him and pushed at her jaw until she turned her face toward him. Kissing her on the mouth, he held the kiss for a moment, enjoying the coolness of her lips. "Lake I said, I've neglected you," he muttered against her.
She lifted her face an inch and he saw her swallow. "And I you. After all, on a night like this, you deserve a reward."
"I am your husband."
"And I'm your wife."
She pulled away and sat with her hands at her sides as he began unbuttoning the front of her blouse. When he looked into her face, she smiled, but her teeth seemed to be clenched.
He removed her blouse and let his eyes roam over her throat and bosom, which lifted and fell under her brassiere. Her breasts were not large, but they were high and firm and they hadn't lost any of their youthful bounce over the years. Her skin was white and her stomach still flat where it-plunged into the waistline of her skirt.
He folded the blouse over the arm and helped her to her feet. She finished her third brandy and be took the glass from her. Then she walked ahead of him, into the bedroom. He would have wanted to take her right where they were, on the couch or even on the carpet, like two healthy, playful animals. But sex, if it had to be endured, should be practiced in the privacy of the master bedroom, according to Nancy.
He knew why he was forcing her into doing what she did not enjoy. It was the other woman. He wanted desperately to prove to himself that his wife could fill his needs. Then, if he were sexually satiated when he met Toni the next afternoon, he would be able to mount a better defense against her exciting body.
He tried to shrug away thoughts of Toni. Perhaps, after all this time, she had lost her beauty. Of course. Why else would she want to see him? She'd lost her talent for getting what she wanted by wiggling her little finger. If he tried hard enough, he might merely feel sorry for the woman.
In the bedroom he draped Nancy's blouse over a chair and sat on the edge of the bed, removing his jacket, then his shirt, and then working his trousers over his feet. She'd retreated to the far corner, in the deep shadows, and he heard the rustle of her clothing. He would have enjoyed undressing her himself, experiencing little tingles of pleasure as he touched her body, but Nancy didn't like that technique.
Years before he'd removed her clothing and she'd pretended to enjoy it but later she'd stood like a statue, chin high, hands making fists at her sides. He tossed away the last of his clothing and crawled to the middle of the bed, sitting with his legs crossed like a yogi, watching her movements in the shadows.
At last she approached the bed, her naked body catching the light from the street, reflecting an alabaster smoothness at the graceful curve of her bottom where her body was whitest. Then she waited, just out of his reach, letting him examine her high, hard bosom with its twin tips of darkness. Her belly was slightly curved toward him and it moved in and out with her breathing.
He lifted his hands in a gesture of welcome. She inched forward and then lifted one knee to the bed, swinging her body forward until she had both feet off the floor. She sat with her back to him, but she looked over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and her mouth small.
"Hi," he murmured.
"Hello."
"Come on. I don't bite."
"Greg, I ... I...."
He leaned forward and put his hand in the middle of her back. Then he let it slide down to the very top of the place where her body divided to create her buttocks. He moved his fingers laterally, around to her hip and then beyond, reaching around to stroke her belly.
Slowly, she let herself fall back until she was supine, her head cradled by his crossed legs. He pressed both hands into her stomach and then let them come up over her ribs. At last he slid them against the lower curve of her breasts, nudging them gently.
He felt her first stirring as her head moved against him and her hand crept around it until it discovered his ankle. She pulled at the hairs on his leg to let him know that he was making headway. He rode his fingers over the fullness of her breasts until he reached the nipples and then he cupped each mound, pressing hard, shoving his hands into the yielding flesh.
He leaned down as far as he could, meeting her lips with an upside down kiss. She held his kiss and he pushed against her mouth with his tongue, penetrating her lips but not her teeth. Her jaw remained clenched.
He kissed her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, all the while letting his hands rove down over her body once again. He pressed into the hollow of her navel and at the even more tender skin below. Slowly her legs began a pumping rhythm and she continued to stroke his leg. Her other hand wormed against the mattress, her fingers clenching and opening with increasing frequency.
He felt himself responding to the feel of her body and to the massage of her hand on his leg. The hand moved higher, past the inside of his knee and across his thigh. It brushed against his stiff cock, but only for a moment.
"It's okay, Nancy," he whispered. "You can touch it, you know."
"Greg," she whispered back, making no move to follow his suggestion, "please, hurry, I think I'm ready."
He hurried, pulling himself out from under her and swinging his body around so that he lay by her side. He threw one leg over her and let his knee sink into the space between her legs. If she were truly ready, he'd need to act fast. Somewhere she had a lock which could be opened, but it was next to impossible to come up with the proper key at the proper time.
He lifted his knee, shoving it between her thighs and then against the tender flesh around her pussy. Her dark cunt hairs tickled his legs. Then he shifted again, easing his body over hers, balancing himself on knees and elbows, peering into her face. Her short hair was fanned out on the coverlet and her eyes were squeezed closed. One hand still clenched at the bed covers, and the other punched at his shoulder with a steady rhythm. Then she stopped punching and clawed with her nails, raking his skin gently, calmly, as if it was her mind that told her she should be doing it, and not her body.
He lowered his hips, hovering and swinging his body from side to side, letting his hard cock brush over her thighs. He grabbed a pillow and slid it under her ass, she dug in her heels, lifting her body. Then he felt the tip of his cock rubbing against her slit. The pink flesh was warm, but dry.
Still he shoved it aside with a quick lunge and drove a few inches of his long rod into her body. She stiffened as if in pain, clawing again at his back, waiting with clenched teeth for the next thrust.
When it came, he pushed deeply into her, cramming all of his meat through her dry lips and into her tight, gripping channel. She whimpered and shuddered as the warm cockflesh stuffed her, but her hips were motionless even as he began to ease his shaft back and drive it inward again.
He worked faster, plunging ahead and then moving his hips, trying to get her to pick up the beat, to move with him so that they could work as a team. But still she lay motionless under him, eyes closed, lips clenched, breathing deeply through her nose as their bodies joined on the mattress.
This time, Greg was determined to make her respond. He knew that he'd satisfied every woman he'd ever been to bed with, but only rarely, it seemed, had he pleased Nancy. His cock was long and thick, he worked it in and out mercilessly, swinging his balls against her body, drilling his cockhead to the deepest regions of her snug pussy. But still she lay almost motionless under him, stroking his back as if it were her duty.
Greg twisted his hips, shook his body, kissed her nipples, bent his cock around inside her, trying to stoke her fires. His body slammed into hers, his cock rifled into her cunt, furiously, deeply, again and again. He knew he could come any time he wanted to, but this time he was going to wait if it took her all night.
After a few minutes of steady pumping, he lifted himself on his hands and watched his cock slice into her. Her cunt lips were tight, her channel gripped his flesh firmly, her dry cunt walls rubbing against his cockflesh with a delightful friction. When his rod slid out of her cunt, it barely looked to be wet. And still she lay silently, enduring his thrusts as if she were waiting for the end and hoping he would hurry.
Now he slid his hands under her ass and lifted her hips from the bed, his cock sliced in at a new angle, penetrating her deeply, his balls bounded against her buttocks. He wanted to fuck her for an hour, for the whole night, for as long as it took to feel her respond. But he could feel the gripping tightness of her pussy drawing his gism into his cock no matter how hard he tried to delay it.
Finally he collapsed on top of her, screwing into her cunt with all the speed his hips could muster. His prick gorged with semen, he paused but she put her hands on his ass and pushed him down, driving his cock back into her channel.
"Go ahead, Greg, come in me," she murmured calmly.
It was no use, he'd gone too far and her pussy was too tight and dry. He pumped a few more times, burying his head on her shoulder, and cursed her silently as his prick swelled one more time and then erupted.
The hot fluid poured into her lovehole, his hips worked madly to plow his cock into her body at top speed. But even the fury of his orgasm, the warmth of his seed, had no effect on her. She was still lying quietly under him when he slowed to a halt and then rolled off of her, still cursing her in his mind.
"I'm sorry, Greg," she finally whispered. "I just couldn't. I tried, really, I tried."
"That's okay, darling," he murmured.
But it wasn't okay, it was never okay. He just couldn't understand how Nancy, or any woman, could withstand such a furious onslaught without responding. Now he regretted even trying.
Toni always responded, he said to himself as he drifted off to sleep. My God, did Toni ever respond! Toni ... Toni....
FIVE
She lay quietly in the darkness, her eyes wide open, watching the perspiration dry on his body as he slept. He seemed to breathe irregularly and occasionally his cheek would twitch or his hand would quiver.
This seemed to confirm her suspicions. Something had happened to him that day. A woman couldn't live with a man for nearly a decade and not be able to tell almost at once when something had changed. Men were like children in this way. They lived a life of routine and when something unsettling happened, they behaved differently, even though they might think they were revealing nothing.
Naturally, there was the excitement of the announcement. The articles in the newspapers all across the state, the business meeting at the office and the celebration at the hotel. But Greg had known all these things were going to happen and, until now, he'd been amazingly calm about the whole idea of a race for the Senate.
Nancy smiled at this, for to her this meant that he would conduct himself well when the pressure was stepped up. When Senator Tucker began his counter campaigning, the going would be rough and a cool opponent was a more effective adversary than one who lost his head-and a hundred thousand votes-by saying headstrong things.
She couldn't afford to let Greg miss this chance for the prize. She'd worked too long and too hard developing this man from an unwashed but brilliant student to a polished leader in the community's business and social life. Her family had staked everything on him and now he was about to pay his first real dividend.
She'd had to push her father to come up with the law school financing. Her parents hadn't been at all certain that he would meet her exact specifications in a man. At that time he hadn't, but she'd promised that she would bring him up to her level. She'd promised to mold him and, by heaven, mold him she had. There was little of the gridiron hero left in her man, little of the ruthless ambition. She'd channeled him beautifully and now the sky was the limit.
She let her eyes drift down his body to his loins, which had been spent of his passion. Greg was a big man, an even six feet with a solid hundred and eighty pounds distributed over his length. His hair was dark and straight and he still had it all. No bald spots. No gray. He took care of his body, working out enough to keep from letting softness take over.
What a shame. Perhaps they might have had a wonderful life if only their bodies had discovered a way to get along. It was as though he were a bolt and she were a nut and the two could never be properly fitted together. It was a mystery and always would be, she supposed. Certainly he was a handsome and talented devil in their bed, but the spark of sexual excitement simply wasn't there.
They'd tried everything. He'd suggested a dozen positions, different times of day, liquor, exotic settings (even in the swimming pool one night), but nothing had really worked. Then he'd dragged her to no fewer than three different doctors' offices where they'd been examined, advised and handed literature. But they'd continue to strike out and frustration had given way to despair, hopelessness and finally occasional spells of bitterness.
He'd usually been wonderful about it. And why not? It might be his fault rather than hers. Perhaps she knew him too well. Perhaps her grand design for their future had created a block which allowed no room for sex. Too bad, if true, but that design could not be compromised. She'd worked too long and hard to give up now.
She sighed and touched his chest, letting her fingers drift to his nipple. She plucked at a hair, until he stirred in his sleep. Then she removed her hand and rolled over on her back, watching the light from outdoors play across the ceiling.
Nancy Mason Armstrong was not a frigid woman. She knew that only too well, for she'd been far too generous with her body over the years. She'd been discreet, picking her partners carefully, but she lived in a vague fear that someday a devil would pop up and ruin everything-her reputation, her campaign, her future.
She hated herself when she went to bed with another man so willingly, but she was truly a passionate woman who could not be satisfied by her husband. What else could she do? She refused to resort to mechanical devices, as some of the frustrated young things had done years ago in her college sorority. That would be awful. Better to have a healthy, normal affair with someone who stood to lose as much as she. That was her insurance.
On more than one occasion a house guest had been awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of Nancy's soft tapping on his door. She'd always been frank. I need you, she'd whisper, but if we're discovered or found out for any reason at all, I'll swear you raped me. The guest had always cooperated willingly and she liked to think that often she'd furthered Greg's career by seducing a man who could influence events in Greg's favor.
Supposing she were to be found out? Supposing someone whom she trusted went to Greg and told him that his wife was cheating? What then? The showdown would come, but she was gambling that either Greg would believe her story or else that he would decide their years together should not be thrown away overnight.
Nancy therefore had her moments of fear and uncertainty. She knew the feeling well and, she suspected,, the same uncertainty had been on her husband's mind all evening-even when he sat on the bed, waiting for her to undress.
There was little she could do at the moment, but if Greg were straying, she'd need to find out about it. She didn't really mind if he did, but she'd have to insist that he be as discreet as she. It would be ironic if he ruined his career by being caught in a young woman's bed after all her own nocturnal activity.
She'd want to know about his affairs for another reason. It would be a bit of damning evidence she could tuck away for use in case she ever got caught. She'd be able to neutralize his wrath beautifully by throwing his own indiscretions back in his face.
In any event, she'd probably continue her occasional activity. After all, a woman doesn't lose her need for sex until an advanced age and she had several decades of explosive desire ahead of her. In Washington she would find new ground to plow, new partners ... influential partners who would be able to boost Greg to the top.
She sat up and looked at him again. He was sleeping more soundly now and snoring lightly, his mouth open. She eased herself off the bed and slipped across the room into the bath where she closed the door before turning on the light. She squinted for a few moments until the brightness stopped hurting and then she opened her eyes, moving to face the mirror over the sink.
She looked at herself, a hint of anger in her expression. Why aren't you a complete woman, she demanded. You look perfect, but you can't make sweet music with the one man who could help you play a symphony.
She studied her body, finding it apparently flawless. Nothing marred her smooth skin, her fine bone structure, her perfectly arranged muscle tissue. When she was younger she'd been self-conscious because her curves weren't as exaggerated as those of some of her friends. But most of them had been taller than she and, naturally, their breasts had been heavier, their hips wider, their thighs fatter.
She imagined that few had remained as beautiful as she was now. There was no sag and she'd filled out somewhat in the years since she'd been eighteen. The filling out process had been good and now her breasts were still high, yet full enough to match her five feet two height.
Her hips had not become coated with layers of fat and her bottom was pert and firm with just a slight underslung effect which merely added to its appeal. She knew. She'd seen enough covert glances from men on the street to be certain.
She turned and examined her profile in the mirror. She touched her breasts, hefting them from below and then letting go. They bobbed like two lively corks. She ran her hands over her stomach. It was flat with clean lines. She touched her hips and then slid her hands to the bottom of which she was so proud.
She placed the flat of her hands on each cheek and pushed in, then whipped them away. The quiver of flesh was solid, like two beach balls. Yes, that was very satisfying. She tried it again, and again the cheeks quivered.
For an instant she thought of those desperate coeds in her sorority house years before. Again she pressed fingers into her buttocks, leaving them deep in the softness for a minute. She wiggled the ends of her fingers and something drove from her consciousness the possible guilt of a link between what she was doing and what those coeds had done.
Besides, she had just been seduced by her husband. He'd gotten satisfaction and now, satiated, he was sleeping it off. Where did that leave her? She'd gotten nothing from their efforts. Was she supposed to suffer? Should she run outside and stop the first man she came upon?
She had something coming to her ... some slight degree of satisfaction....She turned away from the mirror and touched the light pad, plunging the room into darkness.
She planted her feet on the carpet, about a dozen inches apart. Her hands went back to her buttocks and the fingers began their work. Yes. There was something there. She felt the glow, as though a match had been lighted in a dark forest.
Oh, if only Greg could do this for her!
She moved her hands around to her front and slid them along her thighs. Her feet parted farther, she moved in to her pussy and rubbed the soft gash. It was already growing wet.
Now she sat back on the toilet, spreading her legs wide. Her black-fringed gash opened, she could see the pink lips glistening underneath. Placing her hands on her thighs, she reached in with a finger from each hand and pried open her lips until she could see her clit fluttering with excitement between them, it too gleaming.
Slowly she began to stroke the pink morsel, rubbing it between her fingers, pressing against it steadily harder. Her channel quickly filled with moisture, her legs began to move back and forth, her toes curled and her breath grew heavy. She closed her eyes as she continued to caress herself, using one hand now and then with her other, rubbing one of her hard nipples.
She slid a hand down her belly and opened her eyes again, still fingering her clit. With the other hand she rubbed her wet lips, then eased one finger into her pussy and worked it in and out a few times. Her passion rose so quickly she feared she'd begin moaning.
Now she worked with both hands, one stroking her clit while a finger from the other shot in and out of her hole. She spread her legs to open her gash farther, then added a second finger and jammed it into her cunt. The thickness of her fingers tugged on her clit, making it all the more sensitive to her own gentle caresses.
She added a third finger, sliding the three digits smoothly into her well-moistened pussy. As she increased the tempo she felt her fingers working up a froth of nectar inside her cunt, she could hear the slosh of the fingers as they screwed inside her.
But still she couldn't reach in quite far enough. She stood up and turned her ass toward the door, then bent forward and leaned against the sink. Now her fingers slid in at a new angle, reaching deeply, her knuckles were against her ass at the end of each lunge. After a few quick thrusts she left her fingers buried in her cunt and began rubbing her clit with a thumb, her breath growing heavier each second.
Her body was shaking now, her tits wobbled back and forth as she leaned over. She spread her legs farther, jamming the fingers in and out of her cunt as quickly as she could. Closing her eyes, she tried to picture a man naked behind her, screwing his cock deeply into her cunt from the rear, slapping his pelvis against her ass as she rose toward a wild end. As usual, it was not Greg whom she pictured fucking her, but a faceless man with strong, hairy hands and a thick, purple cock.
Her orgasm came quickly, her fingers worked furiously to stuff her creaming pussy while her other hand stroked her clit. She closed her lips to stifle her moans, feeling dizzy now, her legs wobbling, her hands trembling as she caressed herself.
When she was finished she remained motionless, leaning over against the sink with her fingers inside her body. Her heart was still racing.
There was a sound but, for an instant, it didn't penetrate. Then the door thudded against her bottom and she cried out, her hands shooting up as though to defend herself.
"Hey," Greg muttered. "It's me. What the hell's going on in here?"
She breathed deeply, searching for her voice. "Nothing, darling," she purred, immensely pleased that she was so controlled. "I was simply cleaning up after ... well, you know."
He switched on the light and they squinted at each other until their eyes adjusted to the brightness. "I wanted to tell you I'll be late tomorrow."
"Oh?" She turned her back to him, wondering for one crazy instant if he'd place his hands where hers had been. "More politics, I suppose."
He shook his head. "Meeting with a client. One of those deals on the other side of the tracks."
"Another no fee case, you mean." She made a face. "I do wish you wouldn't waste so much time with those people. I know they need legal aid, but they can't afford to pay a nickel-not even for your gas mileage."
"I take enough from the community," he replied. "You know, I'm expected to give something back. And I can't say that I mind. It does a hell of a lot for my conscience."
"All right, darling." She made a kissing sound and turned to pat his cheek. "We want our man to have a clear conscience, don't we? Then he'll be a stalwart campaigner, a man who will win votes with his Stars and Stripes sincerity."
He looked at her and she tried to read the expression in his eyes, but she couldn't. "I'm hungry," he muttered. "How about a plate of eggs? Sound good?"
"Sounds delightful," she said, leading the way back into the bedroom, where she picked up a filmy peignoir and threw it over her body.
Her restlessness disappeared as she stood over the stove, watching the eggs sizzle on their film of shortening.
SIX
The next day was hell for Greg. He went through the motions of pretending an interest in mundane things-his legal work, brief conversations about politics, his lunch, all the pleasantries offered by his secretary, Betty, and his partner, Corky. None of it came through and he knew they wondered about it, but he hoped they placed the blame on the swift ascent of Greg's political star.
The clock hands seemed frozen in place for an hour at a time. This was when he wanted four o'clock to come so he could get the confrontation under way. At other times the clock hands seemed to race like spaceships. This was when he feared the meeting and wanted to delay it as long as possible. At last, however, the hands moved to three-thirty and beyond.
Greg got rid of an elderly client who was considering changing his will. His grandchildren had been unkind, the client had complained over a span of forty-five minutes, and he thought he'd cut them out of his estate and give everything to the zoo.
Greg checked with Corky and then slipped past Betty, muttering something about heading for the courthouse for a few hours of research. At last he was racing down from the twenty-first level in an empty elevator, balancing himself with his back against the wall, his head tilted up and his eyes closed. The door hissed open and he went to the garage where they delivered his car at once.
He drove deliberately around the bay, being cautious, slowing whenever he saw a police car, as though he would be ruined if he were stopped for some minor violation. He was getting his first taste of the tense and wearing life of a man walking a tightrope.
At last he drove past the Sand Castle. The parking lot was only half full, but he elected not to use it. Instead, he drove on a block and parked off the main boulevard, on a quiet side street. As he pulled on the parking brake, he smiled to himself. How stupid. One would think he was en route to an illicit affair when, in fact, it was merely a meeting between two old friends.
Nothing was going to happen. At the most it would be a conversation, a discussion of old times and the things that had happened since. There was no reason not to expect that all of the old feelings of passion and guilt had been buried years before.
He walked back to the hotel and skirted the reception lobby as he headed for the rear of the building, confident that Toni would have selected a room with plenty of privacy. He was right. He moved along the outside corridor until he came to one three nine. He stopped, looking at the door, which was painted a marine gray around its three brass numbers. Drapes were drawn across the picture window to the right of the door.
He raised his fist, examining his knuckles curiously for a second, and then he knocked. The door opened at once and Toni Haines, a beautiful ghost, stood before him. She was tall ... only two or three inches shorter than Greg, with long dark hair and very tanned skin. With her dark eyes she looked like a South Seas maiden and her lithe, sinuous body added to the effect.
However she was dressed severely, wearing a simple dark gray dress. It wasn't an inexpensive dress, but it offered no feminine frills. It was cut close to her body so that there was no doubt that Toni hadn't lost her fabulous figure. It started high on her throat, jutted at her breasts, dipped at her waist, flared at her hips and continued to the middle of her knees.
In a word, Toni Haines was elegant. Her simplicity-had added quality to the beauty he'd remembered from the days when she was eighteen and unwise in the ways of fashion. She'd learned and, standing before him now, she appeared to be the complete woman.
He didn't know how long they stared at one another and there was no reading her thoughts, for her expression was as plain and severe as her dress. It was as though he were studying a beautiful mask. Her lips were drawn in just a bit, her forehead was smooth, her hair brushed back from her face. Only her eyes moved, dropping down to his necktie and then back to his face.
The eyes were dark and deep, like the eyes of a leopard, which was the way he'd once thought of her. A leopard with her tanned, writhing body, her brooding face, the wonderful planes of her forehead, her cheeks and her jaw. Even her rather long nose seemed cat-like and able to sniff out a man's every mood.
She shifted her weight and he looked down at her legs, which were slim and straight. She wore dark gray pumps to match the dress. With no jewelry of any kind, Toni Haines looked almost like a grieving widow.
At last, after what must have been minutes, he took a breath and muttered, "You always were ready on time for our dates."
The lips softened as though to smile, but they didn't go that far. "This isn't a date, Greg, but I'm glad to see you looking so well."
He didn't know what to say and at last, mercifully, she opened the door wider and stood aside, so he could come in.. It was a nice room ... a suite, really. All of her things had been tucked away somewhere, but an old, familiar scent was in the air. He remembered it from her bedroom long ago.
She closed the door and stood, her back against it, her hands clutching the knob behind her. Again her beauty hit him with an almost physical force. She was an immensely desirable woman. He'd almost forgotten how lucky he'd once been to have made love to such a creature ... to have had such a woman love him.
He swallowed. "You look well, too. Very well."
She came forward, her hands clenched before her. "May I get you something? Whisky and a little water?"
He nodded and she turned away, disappearing behind a screen which apparently hid the dressing room and bath. He sat down with his back to the window and waited, hearing the sound of glass and ice. Then she was back, handing him his glass. She moved like a fashion model, but with none of the' phony poses. Her walk was natural, like a cat in the jungle ... filled with latent power.
She sat a few feet from him, a small table between them. He studied her a minute and then shook his head. "I don't know what to say ... where to begin."
"It's been a long time," she murmured, looking at her hands. "Many things have happened. Things seem to be going very well for you."
He leaned forward, his elbow on his knees, wanting to touch her. "And you? How has it been with you?"
She didn't answer at once. Instead, she got up and walked around him to the window, parting the drapes so she could look out at the yacht harbor. Then she turned, looking down at him, her gaze intense, penetrating. "I've gotten along, Greg. It hasn't been the sort of life I'd once hoped to have...."
"Toni," he blurted. "For God's sake, how many times do you think I've-?"
"It hasn't all been good," she interrupted, raising her throaty voice. "But I've gotten along, just as I got along before you came into my life. I 'll get along when this episode is over, too."
"Episode?"
"Precisely." She returned to her chair, sitting and crossing her knees so that he could see more of her legs. They were sheer elegance. "I was passing through yesterday when I saw the piece in the paper. Something drove me to the telephone, for I knew I bad to see you ... look at you to see what had happened to the man...."
"Toni, So many dozens of times I've felt so rotten about everything." He could feel his throat swell and he wanted to take her in his arms. "If only somebody had invented the words to help me tell you."
"I've remembered and felt things, too," she continued, picking up her glass. She ran her finger through the beads of moisture and then put it down again without drinking. "I've hated you, Greg, and I've loved you. When I saw your picture in the paper, my emotions were thoroughly mixed. So I asked for this tete-a-tete in the hope that it would help straighten things out." She seemed to sigh. "I'm almost sorry you've changed so little."
He nodded. "I was hoping you'd become a fat crone."
"Everything went through my mind." Her fingers fiddled with her skirt as her icy control seemed to loosen its grip. He took out his cigarettes. She helped herself and he held the light for her. She inhaled and blew the smoke through her nose. "I'd decided it was time to make you pay for what you'd done to me. I was going to lure you in here and meet you in a black flowing negligee, hoping to compromise you. Then ... well, I suppose I was going to hire a man to hang over the transom, taking color photographs."
She tried to smile, but she hid it behind the glass as she drank ... deeply this time. "Until I discovered there was no transom." She seemed infinitely sad and helpless at that moment.
"Please. Tell me what you've been doing." He almost reached out for her. "I've wondered so often."
She shrugged and he saw her breasts moved under the gray dress ... full, healthy, responding breasts that he had once used as pillows while he slept. "I've been a drifter, mostly. When I left school everything was black, of course ... "
"Toni...."
"I wanted to kill myself and I seriously studied ways to do it, until I discovered I didn't have the courage. But I was on the bottom rung of life, earning a dollar any way I could ... and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. I moved around and legitimate jobs came along." She looked sideways at him, as though testing his reaction. "I had my looks and doors were opened. Typist. Secretary. Clerk. Salesgirl. Nothing special, but I never needed much. That's how it's been."
He filled his chest with air, feeling a pain in his center. "What about now? Today? How is it?"
She drew on the cigarette and stubbed it out, then drained her glass. "Not bad. I'm between jobs again and I came through here hoping to find something for the summer. Perhaps an outside job. You know how I like the sun. I thought maybe I could be a drive-in car hop, or a waitress in a sidewalk cafe, or even a lifeguard ... if they hire women. Maybe I just wanted to be a beach bum, hanging around until my money ran out. I don't really know."
He shook his head. "I don't see much future in that."
"Nor do I, frankly. Then when I realized you were as close as my telephone-to quote the advertisements-I changed my plans. I decided you owed me something, Greg. I decided that you were vulnerable enough for me to try to collect. I thought I could make you pay something for my...." She looked away, blinking. "Pay for my silence. I could make trouble for you, especially if you were going into politics."
"You could. It would be simple." He shrugged. "I'm a vulnerable target. Any breath of scandle and my campaign plans would go up in smoke."
"So I presumed. Armed with a portfolio of photographs, I could threaten to go to your wife, or to the newspapers or to somebody." She smiled openly for the first time. "It seemed terribly dramatic, like a bad scene from a B movie. When I opened the door on you just now I realized how impossible it was."
"Yet you were right." Now he did reach out and touch her hand, which lay on her knee. She didn't draw away. "I do owe you something. What I did was childish, selfish and cruel ... and I don't think I'm flattering myself about your love when I say I was cruel to you."
"No." She looked at his hand over hers. "We were as close as two people could be. The pain was deep, all the way to the heart."
He wondered if she could feel the quiver of his hand. "In a way I've paid. I gave up a lot to get what I thought I wanted. My life hasn't been completely comfortable."
She took her hand away, getting up again. For a few seconds she paced, anger in her stride. Then she looked over him, looming impressively. "Hasn't it, Greg? Isn't that a damned shame? Hasn't the bed you've made for yourself been as soft as you'd hoped? Does your wife throw in a few thorns now and then? Please, don't ask me for compassion. Not now. Not after...."
"Toni!"
"I'm sorry," she hissed, leaning closer, her face a few inches above his. "The decision was yours. You were the one who announced the end of our dream. If it's turned into a nightmare for you I'm sorry, but I've never fallen asleep with a smile on my lips, either."
"Please...."
She sat down again, picking up her glass. The ice rattled with an empty sound so she snatched up his glass and drank until it was empty, too. "All right, I'll listen," she said at last.
"Believe me, I've paid many times. Not as much as I should, perhaps, but I've made mistakes which have punished me."
Mirthless laughter came from her lips. "You've paid? How? With a successful law practice, civic recognition, a rich wife who's beautiful?"
"My work has come along well and I get a great deal of satisfaction from it. As for the other...." He paused and rolled his hands into fists. "My home life has been as barren as the Sahara."
"The newspapers didn't mention any children."
He shook his head. "There's a reason. Nancy and I haven't gotten along in the bedroom for years. When I take her it's like opening the door of a refrigerator."
"I'm sorry, but she was your choice."
"That's the worst part. I chose her instead of you. I chose her because she showed me the easy way to what I wanted. My future was certain." He got up, wringing his hands and pacing. "With you I knew I would have all the love I'd ever need, but you'd spoiled me. And I'd spoiled myself, because all doors were open to the campus hero. I didn't think I would need you. I thought another woman would be as fulfilling as you. If I'd stayed with you, I could see no true law career, but a dull professional life as a legal clerk, on the outside, always looking in at those who'd stayed on to win their degrees."
She peered up, her head following him as he roamed back and forth. "If you'd had courage we could have made it. I would have quit school and gone to work. We could have gotten you through. It might have taken longer, but things would have worked out."
"Naturally, I realize that now. In fact, I realized it a long time ago, but it was too late then."
She got up and came to him. He stopped and they stared at one another, less than an arm's length between them. He prayed that she would step into his arms and, at the same time, he hoped she would slap his face. She did neither ... not physically, at any rate.
'You say it was too late then," she whispered, moving closer, not with passion but to make certain he heard. "It was too late then and it's too late now. We've met again, Greg, and I'm ashamed to admit the sickness in me hasn't been cured by the sight of you. The pain remains and, I suppose, it always will. But I want nothing from you. I don't want to make you pay any more."
"If only I could do something," he pleaded, reaching out as she turned away. She went to the window and again peered out between the drapes.
Then she looked across the room at him, her eyes shining, but her chin still defiant and proud. "You may go now, Greg. You owe me nothing more. Go ... and remember that. I wish only the best for you. As for me.. "
"Toni!"
She went to the door and he came after her. Again she turned and he stopped. "As for me, I'll move along, like the hobo I am. I'm sorry we met. I'm sorry it isn't dead, but that's how it is. I can't control my emotions like turning a water tap on and off."
She opened the door and leaned against it, her head against the door, her hands behind her. How proud her figure was, her breasts jutting, her shoulders against the panels.
He began to walk out, moving like a man in a dream. He paused, looking at her, inches from her face. Then he turned to go on.
"Greg," she whispered.
He turned back and she leaned forward, touching his cheek with her fingers and then placing her lips on his for a brushing kiss. Then she pushed on his chest with both hands and he was outside, looking at the closed door.
He walked down the corridor and paused at the end, leaning oh the rail to stare out at the rows of yachts and fishing boats. It was a beautiful afternoon and he really should have hurried home so he could sun himself in the yad. He was so pale next to Toni....
Toni....
He didn't remember going back, but he was there and the door was open and she was in his arms, pressing against him with a desperation, her lips showering kisses on his face.
He made himself pull away, but she caught his wrist and urged him inside once again, closing the door behind them at once.
"This is insane," he blurted out, watching as she made a show of turning the lock and dropping an imaginary key inside her bodice.
"It's not insane to be a man," she murmured, coming toward him, "Especially when you're with a woman who can do so much for you."
He backed away. "No. I'm sorry, Toni. I'm sorry for all the pain and heartbreak for us both, but this will solve nothing."
She shook her head in a gesture of dismissal. "To hell with words of sadness, Greg. We've talked far too long. Now it's time to grasp at a slice of life ... while we can."
"Grasp at a slice of trouble, you mean."
She laughed. "I don't believe you. If I did, it would mean that I think you're no longer the man you once were."
"That has nothing to do with it."
"No more chatter." She turned away, presenting him with a view of her long, arched back. "You'll find a long, long zipper starts at the back of my neck. Do what you must do."
"Toni...."
She turned back and cupped his chin in her cool fingers, leaning forward to kiss him on the mouth. It was a long kiss, calm and tender in the beginning, but her lips began to warm at once. Her old magic hadn't deserted her, for his lips warmed, too. Then her tongue jabbed at him like a hot poker, penetrating his mouth in an instant of surprise, stabbing him with an emotion he could feel all the way to his heels.
She drew back and again he was looking at her spine, which ran down to where her bottom flared to magnificent twin cheeks, that part of her which once had been filled with such passion.
He put his hand at the back of her neck and her head came back in a convulsive gesture. "Yes, Greg. Now you're getting the message."
He found the tab and pulled at it, sliding the thing down her back all the way to her waist, watching the gray dress part as though anxious to be relieved of the burden of containing her potent body. He opened the fastener all the way, to where the dimple at the small of her back signaled the beginning swell of her buttocks.
He couldn't resist. He had to touch it, to place his hand at the top of a saucy cheek and let it slide down over her fullness. Something quivered in her body.
"You see?" she whispered. "You still know how to turn me into a mound of gelatin."
She pulled away from his hand and faced him again, the dress loose at her shoulders. Again she waited, looking first at one shoulder, then the other and then back into his eyes. "I could lose this thing with a muscle twitch or two, but I remember how you like to do it yourself."
"No, Toni. This is bad ... very bad."
"It's beautiful ... very beautiful. Go ahead, please."
He plucked at her shoulders and the dress fell away to her waist, like a dramatically opened stage curtain, showing him the proud spectacle of her breasts, straining inside their over-burdened brassiere. It was a modest undergarment of white silk or nylon with only a touch of lace along the top edge.
She smiled at his studying eyes. "Not like old times when I wore pink, or red or blade to excite you, is it, Greg? You see, I really hadn't counted on this happening. My chaste bra proves it. When you get around to them, you'll find my remaining secrets every bit as conservative."
He shoved at the dress, urging it over her hips and from there it plunged to the floor. Indeed, her panties were white and, except for lace along the bottom, they were plain and simple, not designed to inflame an afternoon visitor.
He held her hand while she stepped from the dress. Picking it up, she carefully folded it and draped it over the back of a chair, looking like an Amazon-style showgirl in her bra and panties. Her movements were slow and easy with a rhythm like no other woman he'd ever seen.
"You see how tidy I've become over the years," she said, straightening by the chair. "No more throwing things around the room, draping pants over a lamp and the like. I've learned to keep myself nice and lady-like."
He crossed the room swiftly and she lifted her arms to receive him, draping them around his neck as he moved against her, locking his hands at her waist and pulling her close. Her hips jammed against him and he was certain she could feel his alert and anxious body. Her breasts shoved at his chest, flattening their fullness, spreading their heat. Her excitement was evident in the tiny points of hardness which jabbed at him from the center of each breast.
In her high heels she could look him straight in the eye and she did so, her expression one of mingled tenderness, passion and mockery. It wasn't a mockery of malice but one which reflected her satisfaction at being right about their latent passion for one another. You see? her look said. We're the same as we were, made for one another, making music as no other couple in the world has ever done before.
She wiggled her body, her hips working themselves and her breasts sliding so that the points hardened more and raked his chest. Impatiently, she moved back a few inches and opened his jacket, jerking it from his shoulders in a series of rough gestures. Then she was pulling his shirt from his trousers, unbuttoning it, loosening his tie and pulling both garments from him. These she tossed aside with abandon, laughing as she did so.
"You understand," she giggled, "the lady hasn't managed to dominate the wanton child altogether. When she gets properly excited, the lady reverts to her carefree ways."
She helped him remove the rest of his clothing and in seconds he wore nothing but his shorts and, studying him, there was no doubt that she could see every detail of his straining body.
She danced back and struck a pose, one knee thrust in front of the other, her arms over her head, her wrists limp, like a fashion model in a slick women's magazine or like a showgirl posing just before the final curtain.
"What's the verdict, Greg?" she demanded, a strange smile on her lips. "Is Toni still woman enough for you? Do you want to take her for old time's sake?"
"I want to take her for now," he snapped, his voice gruff as he reached for her.
As he did so she kicked off her shoes and turned her face up for another kiss. He met her lips in a passionate match. They pushed, they squirmed, they chewed, they cried out and all the while her body worked against his, like a snake wiggling its way up a slick tree trunk.
She turned her face away and his lips went down over her chin and across her throat, drawing tiny gasps from her lips with each new contact. Down he plunged, across the hollow of her throat, all the way to the top of the bulging valley between her confined breasts. He reached behind her, never lifting his face, and fumbled with the catch until her bra surged free, falling away from her breasts. He shoved the straps from her shoulders and the white bit of cloth fell at their feet like a defeated banner on the field of battle.
He drove into the valley, feeling the soft flesh crowd in on either side of his face, hearing her small cries increase in frequency and intensity. If she'd been acting earlier, it was no act now. Of that he was certain. She was Toni Haines and she was all woman, all eager passion, all in tune for his every gesture of seduction.
He let his mouth let a the valley and travel up the side of a throbbing breast, across the curving plumpness which was increasing with every passing second as her excitement became centered in her breasts. He found the end of her fullness and the large brown nipple popped into his mouth, its tip hard like a bullet.
"Greg!" she shivered suddenly. "Greg, please, wait!"
He stared in her eyes. "What is it?"'
"Let's not go too fast," she smiled, breathing deeply.
"I've waited too long already," he replied, bending forward to caress her neck.
She let him nuzzle her ear and lower his head to her tits again, cupping one of her heavy melons in his palm and sucking her hard nipple into his mouth.
"Greg, please," she sighed, "let me do it for you like I used to."
He looked in her eyes again. "You mean...."
"I want you to remember how good it was," she grinned. "Please, sit down and be comfortable."
Greg's heart was pounding with anticipation as she urged him into a chair and knelt down between his legs. She gazed into his crotch, then reached for his prick and squeezed it through the material of his shorts.
"My God, are you hard!" she murmured. "Let me have a look."
Greg's thighs were trembling as he watched her crook her fingers in the elastic band of his shorts and then slowly tug them down. She pulled the shorts to his ankles, then pulled them free of his feet and tossed them aside. Greg's cock was arched up his belly, a drop of lubricant already gleaming in the pisshole.
Even before she touched him, he thought he was going to explode in her face. His cock was twitching, pulsing against his body, blood raced through the thick veins that gnarled his shaft. Pins and needles attacked his balls, which seemed to grow heavier, to hang farther between his legs in their hairy sac.
She was still staring at his cock, perhaps inspecting it to see if it had changed at all in the intervening years. He knew he was thicker now, and he knew that she noticed it with pleasure.
She reached out with her tan, slender fingers and bent his cock outward. Her touch was light, soft, warm. A tingle shivered through his groin, his balls twitched and again he feared he was about to cream before she'd even tasted his prick.
Her fingers closed around the middle of his shaft and stroked a few times, her thumb rubbed against the broad cockhead. She bent the rod farther outward and then bent down, showering his thighs with her black hair. Greg held his breath and waited for her first caress.
Her lips neared his cockhead, then closed around the dark knob and sucked gently. Greg's heart shot into his mouth, his thighs tensed and he felt his hips arch upward with a mind of their own.
But before he could pump into her mouth, she slid her kiss down his shaft, taking him inside her so gently that he couldn't feel her lips, but only the warmth of her mouth enveloping his staff. Another bolt of electric excitement shot through his thighs, and he knew he was not going to last long.
Her lips were wet and soft as they surrounded his crown again. Then her warm caress inched down his shaft, taking in half of the organ before returning to the cap. Greg leaned back, spreading his thighs to let his balls dangle freely. She took the nuggets in her free hand and began stroking them as her lips rose and fell on his stake.
Now she dropped almost to the root of his cock when she plunged, increasing her speed and sucking loudly on his rod. He could hear her slurp, suck, swallow as her saliva filled her mouth and his prick slashed through her lips and into the delicious heat of her mouth.
Her lips rose again, her tongue licked out around the rim of his cockhead as she took a deep breath and prepared for the next plunge. When it came, her caress dropped all the way to the fingers she had wrapped around the base of his cock.
"Toni, I can't tell you how good that feels!" he gasped out as she slid down again.' "I-I think I'm g-going to c-come soon."
She said nothing, but continued to caress his throbbing prick, sliding her lips smoothly down the shaft and twirling her tongue around it as it entered her. He pumped upward with his hips and felt his cockhead brush against the back of her mouth, then twist around when she turned her head. When she plunged again, his cock sliced down into her throat.
Her tits rocked back and forth as she worked, brushing over his thighs, and he nudged the heavy mounds with his knees from time to time. Her black hair covered his thighs, her eyes were closed as her lips moved up and down his stalk, kissing and sucking and licking as gism soared into his member.
She varied her movements, now dropping halfway down his prick and rising quickly to the top again, then plunging all the way to the base and leaving her caress wrapped around his cock for a few moments before starting upward again. She took her lips from his prick and licked around the cockhead, then trailed the tip of her tongue down his shaft, following one of his dark veins until she was flicking at his balls.
Her tongue moved up his shaft again, around his cockhead, and then her lips closed around the bulb. Gism tensed in his shaft. If she plunged again....
She sucked for a few moments, still fingering his balls, then slowly lowered her head and took him into her mouth and throat again. He groaned, arched his hips into the air, and then just as her lips reached the base of his shaft, he erupted.
She swallowed quickly as his squirts splashed into her mouth, her lips sucking as if she couldn't wait to taste the next spurt of semen. He watched her rising and falling as he came, watched her wet lips slide up and down his squirting prick, watched her swallow again and again as a tremendous load left his balls and shot down her throat.
When it was over she lifted her head and wiped her lips, then bent over and licked his cock clean. Greg's heart was still racing.
"You haven't lost anything," he finally murmured, stroking the side of her face lovingly.
"Come on, Greg, let's he down."
He watched her buttocks quivering as she walked to the bed, then stood up and followed her. She lay on her side, he climbed into bed beside her and crushed his body against hers. They kissed on the lips, and he could taste his gism.
"It feels so good to he beside you," she said softly. "Hold me."
They lay quietly for a few moments. Toni closed her eyes, Greg kissed her on the eyelids and then rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, thinking back to the wonderful blow job he'd just enjoyed and longing to do it all over again.
Sometime soon, he realized, he'd need to think about what they'd just done, he'd need to ponder the consequences of seeing Toni again. Surely there were things to be discussed, decisions to be made. precautions to be taken and rules to be made.
None of it would be pleasant, he knew, but he didn't want to think about it now. Not yet, not while he was still tingling with excitement, not while her saliva still glistened on his half-hard prick. No, no problems now. Now was the time for enjoying, for welcoming a deep sleep as his body relaxed and rejoiced in its conquest.
He never knew when sleep took him. In fact, he didn't even remember closing his eyes. But there he was, dreaming it all over again, beautifully, loving the very name of Toni Haines.
When he opened his eyes the room was almost dark. It took him a few seconds before he realized that Toni was lying at his feet, sucking on a cock that was as hard how as it had been a few hours earlier.
When he moved she lifted her head and stared in his eyes. "Hi, sleepy head."
"What time is it?"
"About seven."
"Hell, I've got to get out of here."
"What for? You gave your wife an excuse for being late, didn't you?" She held his cock upright in her fingers, stroking slowly. "Let's not rush things."
"I should call her right now," Greg said, already feeling his body surrendering to her caress.
"I want more of you," she murmured. "I made you happy. Now make me happy."
"Toni...."
She was already rising, straddling his hips. He knew it was no use, he couldn't resist her now. He lay back as she reached down and lifted his cock, then lowered her bush until he was rubbing his cockhead along her wet cunt lips.
"Yes, yes!" he gasped. "Put it in!"
She slid him inside her, then dropped slowly to his pelvis and took all of his hard meat into her pussy. She let out a moan, shaking her head, wobbling her tits over his head as she savored the deep penetration.
Her cunt was snug, but comfortable, like the mating of a gunslinger's pistol with a soft, well-cared for holster. Now he remembered how tight she was, how her vagina could grip and pull on his cock when it was inside her. She caressed his cock without even moving her body, using her cunt walls to pull on the shaft, to squeeze the buried member as he began to push upward and shake her on top of him.
Then she began to lift her body into the air, rising until his crown alone was left inside her, then dropping hard on his hips and taking him deeply into her gripping cunt. Her soft buttocks crashed into his balls, he lunged upward and she fell, their bodies met with a loud, crisp slap of naked flesh.
In moments they were both sweating, she bouncing on top of his crotch, he thrusting upward to push himself ever deeper. He leaned up and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, she pressed her hands against his chest and threw her head back, her eyes closed now, black hair flailing back and forth before her face.
He was gasping "as he embraced her and then rolled her over on her back, without letting his cock slide from her cunt. She spread her legs wide and then raised them over his shoulders, locking them behind his neck so that his cock pistoned into her cunt at a different angle, reaching in so far it seemed as if he was drilling right into her belly.
She bounced under him, screaming, he screwed fiercely into her cunt and swung his balls against her upraised buttocks. The bed was creaking, they were both gasping and groaning, sweating heavily, straining for release as their bodies clapped together like machine-gun fire.
Her fingers dug into his hard back, then slid down to his ass. He winced when her finger moved into his ass crack, then let out a howl when she rammed the digit up into his asshole and twisted it around.
Gism shot into his cock immediately. He pumped as fast and hard as he could, feeling her beginning to shudder in orgasm under his ruthless strokes. And then she was coming, screaming and shivering and squirming and kicking, and he was coming too, shooting his cream into her flexing pussy as her fingers worked in and out of his ass and her breath blew heavily into his ear.
Their orgasms seemed to last a full minute. Finally he began to slow his strokes, she stopped writhing under him and gently eased the finger from his anus. Covered with sweat now, they lay in each other's arms for a long time, kissing and snuggling, his cock still half-erect inside her spunk-filled channel.
He was still breathing deeply when he rolled off of her, reaching over to flick on a light. By now it was close to eight o'clock.
"My God, I'll have to call," he said, reaching for the phone. "I'm late already."
She knelt up and threw her arms around him from behind. "That goes through the office switchboard," she said. "Won't they be surprised to hear a man on the line? They might even run over to see who he is."
He dropped the phone back on the hook.' 'You ask them for an outside line and I'll do the dialing and the talking."
"What are you going to say?"
"That I'm on my way home, of course." She shook her head. "No, Greg, I'm not letting you talk your way out of my life that easily."
He stood up and began looking for his shirt and trousers. "Then I'll get going now." He found his shirt and began buttoning it, then worked his necktie under his collar.
She stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, "Please listen to me, you fool," she murmured. "I know the words still come out with bitterness, but don't you think the last hours have meant something to me? I know they've changed you, too. We're together again, Greg, and I'm not letting you run out of my life a second time. Toni doesn't want another nine lonely years."
He knew she was right, wondering why some insignificant part of his mind continued to reject what was an obvious fact. He'd see her again, all right, because she was his woman again. All of the old days had returned, more vividly than ever.
He breathed deeply, feeling the heat of her against his back as she held on. "I'll call you," he muttered. "Promise?"
"I promise." He tried to fasten his tie, wondering why his hands continued their useless fumbling. Her hands didn't falter. They began opening his shirt from the bottom, working faster than his so that in a moment it was pulled from his shoulders again.
When he resisted, she stopped her efforts and stormed over to the door. She opened the door and stood back, gesturing toward the door.
"All right, go ahead, Greg. I don't want you to blame me for complicating your life. Make your own decision. Right now."
He did, coming to her and pushing the door closed. He embraced her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and they kissed as hungrily as they might if he'd just walked in through the door.
"I want more of you, much more," he gasped, caressing her neck. "Do you hear?"
"I hear, darling," she whispered, her lips fluttering against his ear. "I have everything you want, don't I?"
"God help me, but you do."
"Then you'll stay a little longer, without making that silly telephone call?"
He nodded and kissed her lips. She was smiling like a satisfied cat, her eyes narrowing to slits. But he couldn't see that. His eyes were already closed, her hand was already moving downward.
SEVEN
Claude finished his research before dinner, got something to eat downtown, and then went to a movie. He became bored in the middle of the opening feature and walked out, heading for a bar where he set up a few drinks and got the patrons to talking politics. As he expected, they knew little about the state and national political scene, but they'd heard of Senator Tucker and Gregory Armstrong and they had their ideas about who was the better man.
He returned to the hotel close to midnight, walking past the door of her room to make certain Toni's guest was gone. Then he turned back and came inside. The place-was dark and he turned on the light.
Her things were scattered about, the dress folded over a chair and her underwear tossed here and there. She was in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, her black hair fanned out on the pillow like a large smear of ink. He looked down at her and then pulled back the covers, exposing her naked body. She moved, pumping her legs slowly for a moment, and then she curled up in the fetal position and sank again in to her deep sleep.
He looked at her figure, somehow surprised that it could look so clean and pure and unmarked after what she must have been through. Toni Haines was an excellent meal ticket and he reminded himself to be careful not to lose her. He needed her like an organ grinder needs his monkey, for it was the monkey people came to see, no matter how well the organ grinder cranked his music box.
He chuckled, pulling the covers over her again, and then going into the bathroom. In a few minutes he returned, took off all his clothes and got into bed at her side. He did not touch her, being careful to let her rest, undisturbed. If things worked out right, Toni would have another job waiting for her by the following afternoon.
Claude went to sleep with a smile on his face.
She questioned him while they were having breakfast in the coffee shop. She'd awakened at eight that morning after nine hours of sleep and, despite her long session with Greg, she felt excellent.
Her body seemed young and alive, full of bounce, and there were no circles under her eyes. It was the circles she had to watch out for, because an all-night session often left her looking haggard and older than her years. Someday, she knew, the circles would show up and never go away.
"How did you know where to look for him?" she asked, dragging her gaze from the sparkling bay to his face.
"Simple," Claude replied, the fork between his fingers imprisoning a chunk of sausage. "The local newspaper. The good senator maintains an office in the state capital and he also makes his home there. Fortunately for our immediately plans, the senator is at home laying the groundwork for his re-election campaign."
"And you've already talked to him?"
He popped the sausage into his mouth, the fat oozing down his chin before he wiped it away with a linen napkin. "Correct, my dear. I've been in touch with the gentleman. At first he was reluctant about setting aside an hour for discussion, but when I hinted at the subject, well...." Again he spread his hands with a grand gesture. "His time is our time."
She made a face, looking down the front of her sleeveless summer dress to make certain she hadn't spilled cinnamon bun on it. "The point is, is his money our money?"
"It will be automatic, chere. Even on the telephone I could tell that the man was frightened."
She was silent while the waitress refilled their coffee cups. As Toni watched her walk away, her uniform clinging to a twitching bottom, she saw several male heads turn and follow the waitress' figure. Toni knew that even more heads watched her cross a room, for her legs and bottom were better. "Does he have money? I mean enough to make it all worthwhile?"
"You must be joking," Claude exclaimed, his eyebrows lifting. He popped another chunk of sausage into his mouth and swallowed. "Frank Masters Tucker is a wealthy man. His family made its fortune years ago in mining ... deep in the mountains of the desert."
She frowned. "You found this out at the newspaper, too?"
"The public library, pet. Mr. Tucker has never worked for a living, the lucky fellow. He's well educated, handsome-in a middle-aged sort of way-and terribly vain about it. He's married, but no one ever hears about his wife. He considers himself a ladies' man and more than a bit of a roue. In fact, he's been known to use his money for very naughty purposes."
She finished her coffee and dabbed at her mouth, examining the lipstick left on the napkin. "So what's our next move, master?"
He cocked his head at her, an indulgent smile on his mouth. Then he leaned forward and patted her hands. "We journey to the state capitol and the office of the senator, my dear. He awaits us at the middle of the afternoon."
She led the way out of the coffee shop, aware of the turning heads. She paused when Claude paid the check at the register, watching their waitress ring up the charge. As the girl handed Claude his change her eyes swept over Toni's figure with a mixture of respect and envy.
Few women, Toni thought, as they went out into the morning sun, could match Toni Haines when it came to a pound-for-pound face and figure beauty contest. And certainly not a floozy dressed in a waitress' uniform.
Senator Frank Masters Tucker had his office on the fourth floor of a downtown building in the capital. It was an old building with much larger and more comfortable rooms than those offered for far more money in the city's newest high-rise locations. His suite was at the end of a broad corridor and it was filled with wooden filing cabinets, heavy old furniture and there was a green carpet on the floor.
Old-fashioned, perhaps, but Tucker had a purpose. It contributed to his image as the solid, middle-aged citizen. Much of his voter support came from senior citizens, people who were impressed by Tucker's twelve years in the Senate, by his family money and by his easy cordiality when they came to him with their problems.
In fact. Tucker lived a double life. In the office he was the venerable senator, the family man, the friend of the troubled. When he slid his long automobile into a garage of one of his several hideaways. Tucker became someone else. He became an aggressive, forty-seven-year-old playboy who insisted that his women make love his way, which was not the conventional style. His methods would change when he made love, but they were never ordinary, never dull. In his younger years he'd paid well to learn from professionals and they'd shaped his taste for the future.
At that moment he leaned back in his heavy leather chair, his eyes moving around the office. It was a solid, sensible place, as the voters expected it to be, with a rather worn carpet, stolid furniture and an ancient leather couch on which he was able to sneak a nap from time to time.
He wanted to keep all this and that meant that he had to win again in November. He'd won easily the first time around, defeating an opponent who, at eighty-seven, had become too senile even for the Senate. Six years later it was tougher, for several opponents took a shot at the freshman senator, but he'd beaten them. It had cost more and he'd campaigned harder and longer ... and his margin of victory was slimmer.
Now it was time for another test and, it was obvious, his most powerful opponent would be Gregory Armstrong, the hot-shot lawyer from downstate. Armstrong had powerful backing and his backers would see that his party was drawn together and forced to supply plenty of money for an all-out campaign.
Tucker knew that he was in great danger of losing. His record was spotty, the voters were getting younger and smarter all over the state, and he wasn't as young or as handsome as he'd been six years earlier. But he still had money and was prepared to spend it to survive.
This brought his thoughts back to the telephone call at his home the evening before. That LeClerc person had sought a meeting, hinting broadly at the possibility of making certain information about Armstrong available-information which might force him out of the senatorial race.
Although he'd made room for a meeting in his schedule, Tucker didn't expect much. Over the years he'd been approached by too many schemers offering information for sale. When a man had money, people lined up to try to take it away from him. He hadn't retained and expanded the family fortune by being a fool. But he was willing to listen....
They approached the door at the end of the corridor. It was an old-fashioned thing with frosted glass and on the glass was peeling gold leaf lettering. It said simply, "Frank Masters Tucker. Enter and Welcome."
Claude gripped her upper arm a moment, his fingers hurting. "Be on your best behavior, chere," he whispered.
"Have I ever failed?" she hissed as he opened the door.
She hung back as he approached the receptionist. She was pretty, thirtyish and a redhead who looked as though she'd seen enough of life to know how to take care of herself. Claude announced himself and she shifted her gaze to Toni for a moment before she picked up the telephone.
She spoke softly, then rose to escort them through the next door. She was a beauty and Toni exchanged a glance with Claude. They read one another's thoughts: Senator Tucker knew how to decorate his office with useful furniture.
The inner door opened before the redhead could reach the knob and Frank Masters Tucker stood before them. He was smiling in a professional fashion.
Toni and Claude moved past him and the senator gave orders to the redhead that they were not to be disturbed.
Now they were inside the office, exchanging introductions, seating themselves and shifting their bodies to comfortable positions from which they could begin their shell game, each side hoping to trap the other into an error. Tucker's attention was divided between the business at hand and Toni's legs, which poked in provocative fashion as she crossed her knees.
He pulled his eyes from her with an effort, clearing his throat and shifting again. "I'm puzzled about the exact nature of your business, Mr. LeClerc," he began, "and I didn't know the young lady ... Miss Haines, would be included. However, if I can help either of you in any way, I'll be pleased to try. Although you are not citizens of my state, I seek to represent all two hundred million Americans...."
Claude's uplifted hands arrested the flow of prose. "Thank you for the speech. Senator, but it isn't necessary. We're here to help you keep the job you're so proud of. It's as simple as that."
Tucker cleared his throat again. "You intimated that you might have certain information about one of my principal opponents. Let me remind you that I'll not take part in a mud-slinging campaign."
"Why not, Senator?" Claude asked. "Is it because your own shirt tails are so dirty?"
Tucker bristled, starting to rise, but Claude gestured him back into his leather chair. "We're not here to sling any mud. Our method is much simpler, much more final and you will need to do absolutely nothing-except pay our price."
"I'll not become a party to any underhanded...."
"Be still, Senator," Claude shot back. "Listen. Would you like Gregory Armstrong to voluntarily withdraw from the Senate race for reasons which would not involve you in any way?"
Tucker stared, sputtering. "Well, of course, I certainly think he's a threatening opponent and that my chances would be stronger with him on the sidelines. But I refuse...."
"We can make your fondest dream come true-a race without Mr. Armstrong's name on the ballot. However, you must pay before I'll unleash my secret weapon."
"Secret weapon?" Tucker muttered.
Claude nodded, gesturing toward Toni like a show master of ceremonies presenting the next act.
Tucker's face was stiff, as though he smelled something dangerous, something which might explode if he made a sudden movement. Even so, his interest was evident in the way his eyes shot to Toni. They traveled the length of her body, taking in everything and she imagined he was doing a thorough mental undressing job.
"You're still talking in riddles," he said at last, getting up and moving around from behind the desk so he could examine her more closely. She began to feel like a piece of property, a chattel on the block. In effect, that was precisely her role, and she thought she knew how a slave felt during the haggling over price.
"Miss Haines is our weapon," Claude continued, speaking slowly, as though to a dull child. "She has gained a strong power over Gregory Armstrong and, if she chooses to act, she can force him to abandon his political career."
Tucker returned to his chair, sitting and examining the top of his desk for a full minute, his eyes almost closed. They had to lean forward to hear his words. "I'm afraid I don't believe you."
"You should, because it's true."
He looked at Toni, expecting her to join the discussion for the first time. "Armstrong is a powerful and capable man. How could you persuade him to withdraw from the campaign?"
She smiled. She didn't like Tucker and she didn't feel like favoring him with a smile, but she had to back up Claude. "Can't you guess?" she purred.
"No, I can't." He shot the words at her. "There are a good many beautiful women in the world, young lady, and I'll admit you're one of them. That doesn't mean that an ambitious lawyer like Armstrong would dump a promising new career because of a night in bed." He coughed. "I assume that's the secret weapon to which your partner is alluding."
She nodded her head once in assent, annoyed and puzzled because a flush of embarrassment rose from her throat. "There's much more but, in a few words, Mr. Armstrong and I are old, old friends. I've already spent an evening with him and there's no doubt that he'd go over Niagara Falls in a barrel if it were necessary for him to do so in order to see me again."
Tucker pursed his lips. "Old friends, eh? Tell me more."
"Sorry, Senator," Claude muttered. "You'll get no secrets on the house. And Toni knows plenty, including all of the man's weaknesses, all his hidden hopes, all his quirks."
Again the senator was quiet and they waited, letting him think it out. He pulled at his lower lip, still studying Toni and she sensed an increasing personal interest in his gaze. "Assuming I were to agree to your wild plot, what guarantee would I have that you'd be able to deliver?"
"The fee," Claude explained. "We'll agree to let you hold back one half of the fee until Armstrong has formally announced his retirement from the political arena."
"Ah, the fee," Tucker exclaimed, smiling with a disdain which showed. "And what might that be?"
"Five thousand dollars," Claude said at once. "One half payable now and the remainder when Armstrong has been taken care of. You see, we're taking as many risks as you, waiting until it's all over before demanding the full amount."
"How generous of you," Tucker sneered. "Don't you realize I know the chance I'd be taking? You could vanish with my twenty-five hundred dollars, doing nothing to earn it. You could be working both sides of the street. How do I know you haven't made the same offer to Armstrong?"
Claude shrugged. "There's no way you can check without ruining the plan, of course."
"Of course there isn't," Tucker went on. "How do I know you won't take my money and then blackmail me? Any figure in public office is vulnerable."
Toni shifted her body and he looked at her again, the interest remaining in his eyes, despite his hostility. "Let's just say there has to be honor among thieves in this case, Senator," she purred, wishing she could spit in his face and walk out.
"I'm no thief," he boomed.
"Yes, you are," she persisted. "You're considering stealing a man's career, aren't you?"
"Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here...!"
"Please," she continued, her voice softening. "We don't mean to anger you, but we've got to speak plainly. We've come to you with a proposition, trusting that no matter what you decide it will be treated as a business matter. For all we know, you might be taping this conversation. If you were and you turned us down, you could make a great deal of trouble." She tilted her head. "Couldn't you. Senator?"
She seemed to break through, for he smiled back. "By golly, I suppose you're right."
"If you want us to leave, we will," she went on. "If not, then I propose you trust us. If you don't, there can be no meeting of the minds."
He got up and walked around the office, his fingers rubbing his chin. At last he stood over them, looking at Claude and then at Toni, his gaze lingering on her. "You'd guarantee I wouldn't be involved in any way?"
"In no way," Claude blurted. "All we want from you is money. You do no smearing. You say nothing. You're completely clean. All the action comes from us and from Armstrong."
"Twenty-five hundred is too risky, when you haven't done anything." He peered at Claude, looking like a dealer getting tough over a used car. "You deliver and then you'll get your five thousand."
"My partner mentioned honor among thieves," Claude muttered, "but I'm not willing to play the fool. We'll compromise. Twelve fifty now and the rest later."
Claude sighed, shaking his head at Toni. "Let's get out of here. He doesn't really want to do business."
They began to get up, but Tucker waved them down. "All right, I'll give you a thousand cash here and now. That's the best I can do."
Claude made a face, looking at Toni. At this point she'd ceased to give a damn. The whole thing was gathering a smell she disliked. So she left her eyes blank, allowing him to make the decision.
"Very well," he said, making it. "Well accept your offer, with your solemn promise to pay the balance on satisfactory delivery of Armstrong's head on a platter."
Tucker got back behind his desk, producing a key and unlocking a door. From the drawer he took a metal box and, with another key, he opened the box. It was stuffed with a number of legal appearing documents and several bundles of bills with bank bands around them. He picked up a bundle and counted out ten bills, tossing them to the desk under Claude's nose.
Claude snatched at the money, counting the hundreds with satisfaction. He took a wallet from his jacket and slipped the bills inside. "You understand, Senator," he said with a smile, "that we've got to trust one another now. All three of us are vulnerable."
Tucker frowned, waiting for Claude to make his point.
"If you should refuse to pay the balance when this is over, we could make things difficult." He shrugged.
"We'd make matters sticky for ourselves, it's true, but we wouldn't let you get away with cheating us."
"Keep going," Tucker intoned.
"If we should tell people of importance ... the authorities, you would be done great harm. If your secretary should be called on to testify, I doubt that she would deny that we came to see you. Especially if she faced punishment for withholding criminal information."
"That's enough of that sort of talk," Tupper snapped, getting up. "You've taken too much of my time. Just do your job as you promised, and don't involve me."
He watched as they got up and started for the door, his eyes once again on Toni's body, which moved sensuously inside the thin sleeveless dress. He coughed and they paused, turning to watch him come around the desk. Something in his manner had changed, now that business matters were over, and Toni knew from experience what was on his mind. They were going to play a little game of cat and mouse before he pounced-and she dreaded it, wondering why she dreaded it today and not some other day.
He came to them, his examination of her body frank. "You say you have a hold over Armstrong. You say you've known him a long time, whatever the hell that means. If you have a hold, it must be sexual." He paused, licking his lips. "But, as I said earlier, there are thousands of beautiful women. How do I know you're all that clever and desirable?"
"You don't," she snapped, lifting her chin to show she was insulted by his appraisal. She reached for the door handle, but Claude's fingers closed over hers.
"Let us not be too hasty, pet," he murmured. "Perhaps the good senator has a point. You know how talented you are. I know how talented you are. The senator does not know."
"Precisely," Tucker chortled.
Her face felt wooden as she looked from Claude to Tucker and back to Claude. "So?"
"Don't you understand this maneuvering? He's asking for proof."
"That's it," Tucker snapped, trying to assume a stern demeanor. "For instance, how do I know that's all you inside that dress? You might be fifty percent padding."
"I'm not, Senator," she snapped. But she added with a sigh, "Find out for yourself, if you like."
"Here's what I'm talking about," he said, gesturing toward her breasts, which strained against the low-cut bodice. "Are those real?" It was obvious that they were but, as she'd already reminded herself, they were playing cat and mouse. He wanted a free sample and Claude wanted him to help himself. Anything to seal the bargain.
"You heard the young lady," Claude blurted. "Just help yourself."
He did, shoving a hand inside the front of her dress and hauling out a breast. It was huge and white with the brown nipple at its center, looking shockingly desirable in the strange atmosphere of a business office.
Toni's admirers had never failed to show fitting appreciation of her charms, gasping, sighing, exclaiming or, if they were the silent type, simply demanding that she submit to their manhood.
Tucker's reaction to the sight and feel of her breast was different. True, he squeezed it and ran his thumb across the nipple, but he did not appear to be lustful. He seemed calm as he tucked the mound back into its bra cup and straightened Toni's dress. An experience with Senator Tucker, she decided, might be unpleasant, but it would be unique. There was something different about this man.
He smiled at Claude, as though he'd examined a bit of merchandise. "I believe, Mr. LeClerc, that Miss Haines will remain here for a while, won't you. Miss Haines? Your consort will find some activity to keep him occupied for the next hour, I'm sure."
"Happy to cooperate, Senator," Claude exclaimed as the door was opened. "I want you to be absolutely certain of the young lady's talents and her ability to use them."
As Claude walked out Tucker stuck his head into the outer office, catching the eye of the redhead. "Make certain I'm not disturbed for the next hour," he ordered. "Absolutely certain. No calls, no callers, no interruptions of any kind."
The woman looked beyond him to Toni, who met her gaze. "Yes, sir," she murmured, her voice flat, and Toni wondered just how jealous the secretary was. Jealous enough, she was certain, to testify against her boss if it should become necessary.
Claude turned back and winked as the door closed on him and the redhead. Toni watched Tucker's hand release the handle and slide into his jacket pocket. She looked into his face, seeing the lines of middle age about his eyes and at either side of his mouth. The crow's feet seemed to be lines of kindness, but the lines which radiated from the mouth were cruel.
"So," he said, turning his back on her as he walked toward a large and old leather couch. "So, you are a professional when it comes to entertaining men."
She said nothing, hating him. She was willing to give herself when a man was paying, when he had something coming. But this man was getting something for nothing, thanks to Claude's uncertainty, and he was going to insult her every inch of the way.
He turned when he reached the couch, looking back at her, amused. "You don't like me, do you? No matter, we both know what you're here to do. Come to me."
She obeyed the command, moving across to stand before him. "Take off your clothing at once," he snapped.
She did so without hesitation, struggling to reach the zipper tab at the small of her back (he made no move to help her) and sliding it down. She let the dress fall from her shoulders and then stepped out of it, draping it over a magazine rack at the end of the couch. His eyes poured over every inch of her, resting on her packed brassiere, her skintight pants, the white of her belly and thighs, but he did not touch.
"Very, very nice, Miss Haines," he intoned, watching her finish as though he were an artist viewing a canvas. "I dare say you will be able to persuade Mr. Armstrong to do as we wish." He twirled his finger in a silent command and she turned like a fashion model, permitting him to view the merchandise from every angle. "Very fine quality.
"Let's get going," she sputtered, feeling more repulsed than ever by his clinical scrutiny. "It's chilly in here. I don't want to catch cold."
"Surely you've heard of the game. We're going to play doctor, you and I."
She'd gone through that one before. So he was one of those, a creep who enjoyed acting the whole thing out in a fifteen minute playlet. "So you're the doctor and I'm the patient, right?" she muttered.
"Wrong. You're the doctor and I'm in your office." He waited for her reaction, but she refused to satisfy him, showing only a poker face. "I have a vague ailment and you, my doctor, simply can't wait to put your bands on me. So you undress me ... slowly and completely ... all the while touching me as often as possible with various parts of your body."
She puffed out her cheeks, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. "Brother, you do need a doctor. I don't know if this performance will be worth a thousand dollars."
His eyes hardened as he got up. "Don't get cute, you lanky whore. We have an arrangement and that's the way.
She leaned close to him, peering directly into his eyes. "Don't use that word again, Mr. Tucker, or I'll claw your eyes out. I mean it."
He stared and then smiled. "By heaven, I believe you do. But facts are facts. You are really nothing more than a wh.
"Careful!" she hissed.
"Very well." He shrugged and moved into the center of the room, standing with his arms by his sides, looking for all the world like a patient about to be examined. "Come on, doctor, find out what's wrong with me."
She let her eyes go flat and dull. "You insist?"
"I insist."
With a sigh she circled him once and then unbuttoned his jacket, taking it from him like a clerk in a clothing shop. She folded it over a chair. She began to loosen his tie, but he admonished her. "Remember, Dr. Haines, you can't resist touching me again and again."
Her face still a mask, she leaned her hip against his as she worked at the tie, removing it and tossing it toward the chair. As she unbuttoned the shirt she let her knee come forward and slip between his, shoving into the space between his leg muscles. "Excellent," he breathed.
She jerked the shirt from his waist and snapped it free from his body. He was soft and white and the skin of his chest and stomach looked unhealthy, as though he avoided exercise and the sun. She loosened his shoes so that he could step from them and then she began working at his belt, loosening it and flipping it open.
She felt his hand brush across her thigh, as though it had been an accident. She stepped closer and again he brushed against her. Her breast stabbed against his ribs and she turned, raking her nipple along his side so that he gasped.
"Oh, you are excellent!"
She let his trousers fall, holding his hand while he stepped from them. Pretending to examine his body, she walked around him again, poking him here and there. She then leaned across him, letting her stomach press into his hip and her breasts sink into his biceps.
She could see that his prick was hard even before she pulled his shorts down. They fell to his ankles and he kicked them away, then sat down on the couch. She sat down next to him and reached in for his prick.
"That's it," he told her. "You'd better inspect it carefully."
The organ was short and thick, the head fat and pink, the balls large and almost hairless. She took hold of the shaft, squeezing it a few times, then slowly began pulling the loose outer flesh along the bony stalk.
"It's dry," he said. "Wait a minute."
She sat on the couch while he ran naked to his desk and returned with a bottle of clear lubricating oil. He sat down again beside her and handed her the bottle, she poured a glob of the lubricant in her palm and rubbed it into her hand slightly, then took hold of his cock and worked the oil all over the shaft.
"Mmmm, that's much better," he sighed. "Much warmer, too."
The prick was glistening with oil when she finished, slippery and burning. Again she took hold of the rod and began stroking. Now her hand slid smoothly along the shaft and over the edge of his bulbous glans.
"Yes, yes, dear," he whispered. "That does feel good."
She used her right hand first, stroking gently, at times her fist barely making contact with his flesh. Other times she squeezed the cock hard and jerked his balls roughly. Then she switched to her left hand, sliding her fist up and down the warm, gleaming member as he stared down in his crotch and watched her work.
He saw her red-tipped fingers gliding along his upright prick, her thumb arching out to rub the tip of his crown from time to time. When she took the shaft in both hands and began to stroke, he tensed his thighs and let out a long groan.
"Touch my balls," he gasped.
She gripped the scrotum in one palm and juggled his balls lightly, while her other hand continued to jerk his prick. Each time her fist slid over the rim of his cockhead, she could see his thighs tense in excitement.
His eyes were still riveted on his prick, and on her hand, as he reached out and slid his hand between her thighs. He pressed against her crotch, then crooked a finger under the elastic band of her panties and pulled them down a few inches.
Toni shifted her legs to allow him more room, still stroking steadily on his throbbing meat. He edged his hand under her panties and slid a finger along her cunt lips, then managed to work one digit into her channel. Her legs parted farther, his finger slid into her smoothly.
His thumb found her clit and began to stroke it, and he immediately felt her cunt growing moist. He added a second finger to the first, and slid both in and out of her pussy while his own passion increased from the gentle caress of her fingers.
She let go of his balls and took his cock in both hands again, using one to jerk the flesh close to the base of his prick, and the other to massage the rod close to the cap. Again her thumb stroked his crown. Each brush of her fist over the edge of the glans seemed to make the organ grow more tense, more bloated.
"Now talk dirty to me," Tucker sighed, eyes again fixed on her fingers as they churned up and down on his stake. "Tell me what it feels like."
Toni had only one thing in mind now: to get it over with as quickly as possible, though she did have to admit that the fingers in her pussy felt very good as they moved in and out. There was no denying that she was oozing with moisture now.
"I love your cock," she said softly. "It feels so hard, so hot."
"Keep going," he ordered.
"I'd love to feel it in my cunt, sliding in and out, your balls swinging against my ass, your mouth on my tits."
"Yes, yes," he gasped, "go on!"
"I'd love to take your cock in my mouth and suck on it, to feel you squirting down my throat."
"Your cunt is so wet!" he growled, face flushing white with what she knew was an impending climax. "So tight and warm and so wet!"
"Your cock is getting harder," she went on. "Go ahead, squirt it all over my hand."
"I'll cram my cock so far into your pussy it'll come out your mouth!" he groaned, thrusting his hips in the air.
"Come, baby, come in my hand!"
"Oh yes, I'm going to, I'm going to right now!"
"Go ahead, honey," she said, still jerking furiously on his prick. "Come, honey, come!"
He jammed his finger into her cunt and left it there, his whole body stiffened and his ass rose from the couch. She squeezed his balls in one hand and caressed his prick with the other and the rod stiffened in her grip.
"I'm going to come now!" he muttered hoarsely. "Talk to me!"
"It's hard, it's hot!" she mumbled, jerking hard as his hips arched farther into the air. "Yes, I can feel it about to explode!"
She slid her fist up his shaft and squeezed his cockhead, then slid down again and continued stroking as he let out a bellow and shot his seed into the air. The first squirt arched over his crotch and splashed against his thighs, the second squirt barely made it past his bails, and the rest of his spurts dribbled forth and flowed down over her fist as it continued rising and falling.
He was breathing deeply as she slowed her strokes and finally let go of his cock. It curled up limply on his balls, like a bird nesting under its wings to go to sleep.
"Well, I can see you know what you're doing," he complimented, finally taking his hand from her crotch. "Maybe sometime we can get together again and I'll let you suck it."
I can hardly wait, Toni said to herself. "Where can I wash my hands?" she asked him instead.
"In there," he said, pointing, and she opened a door which led into a tiny bath. At least it had a sink and toilet and for these Toni was grateful. In five minutes she came out to the office again.
He bad dressed in that time and was seated at his desk, once again the grand senator, the suave master of every situation, political or sexual-or so he wanted to think, but Toni had joined the ranks of those unnamed women who knew that Senator Frank Masters Tucker had his idiosyncrasies.
He watched as she stepped into her panties and struggled with her bra, trying to fit its inadequate cups over her breasts. "You were quite capable, my dear," he remarked, shifting his eyes to his fingernails, which he examined at close range for signs of flaws. "Quite capable. I ... ah, might be able to fit you into my schedule again sometime ... and pay a fair price, of course."
"To hell with you, buster," she hissed, pulling the dress over her head and zigzagging it down over her hips. "You've gotten your proof and your sample.
You're not going to touch me again, even for a thousand dollars a throw."
He frowned, watching her as she lifted her dress to pull up her nylons. "Ah, what gorgeous legs," he purred. And then, "I'm not speaking lightly. I want you to make yourself available, Miss Haines. It has nothing to do with the Armstrong thing. Just between you and me."
"Sure," Toni replied as she headed for the door. "Any time you'd like." As long as there's a blue moon, she said to herself.
"Well," Tucker said, "that's the spirit!"
"Goodbye for now," she said in the doorway, then turned and spit out the word: "Senator!"
EIGHT
"So you're going out again tonight."
It wasn't a question, but a flat statement of fact and Nancy's face registered disapproval as she spoke. "I wish you wouldn't spend so much time playing games with your charity cases when there's more important work to be done."
He stuffed a clean white shirt into his trousers and turned to look at her. "I got my good guy reputation by helping these people. If I backed out now, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror."
He could hear the scrape of the file on her nails as she sat at her dressing table. She wore a satin dressing gown which fell away from her crossed legs and he knew that he should have been excited at the sight of her. But he wasn't. Not with Toni back in his life. Like an electronic jamming device, Toni's presence tuned out every other woman in his proximity.
"You'll be able to give your great unwashed public lots of help as a senator," she continued, glancing up for a moment. In that instant she missed with the file, winced, and then put the tip of her little finger between her lips. "If you don't win," she said around the finger, "you won't be much good to anyone."
"You're doting too much about this Senate thing," he snapped, raking things from the dresser top and dropping them into his pockets. He buttoned his jacket and went to stand behind her, adjusting his tie one last time in her mirror. "You're trying to figure every vote in relation to every deed, and such variables simply can't be measured that way. If I become an obvious player of the angles the intelligent voters will see through me-and so would I."
She laughed deeply in her throat, lifting her head. "Where did you get the notion the voters have intelligence?"
He met her eyes in the mirror. "It's the stupid twenty per cent who don't bother to vote. That's a quote from Cyrus Manchester and if you want to argue with him go ahead."
"All right, Mr. Lincoln," she sighed. "I suppose I can put up with doing without you until after the campaign. Go. Go take your huddled masses by the hand and lead them out of the darkness."
"God, you're a humorist," he snapped. "By the way, you don't seem to be suffering in my absence. Where are you going, or are you filing your nails so you'll look pretty in front of the television set?"
Again she sighed. "More bridge with the girls, I'm afraid. I just wish they wouldn't insist on playing to all hours ... and those stakes. Honestly, Las Vegas has nothing on those three women."
He turned away. "Well, have fun and if you get home before me don't wait up. I may stop off at the office on the way back here."
She did not reply, but continued her filing and a moment later she heard the car back down the drive and then move off. She dropped the file at once and picked up the pink telephone at her elbow. Quickly she dialed.
"Mildred? ... Yes, it's me ... Well, am I included or aren't I? Did he find a friend? ... Where? ... When? ... All right, I'll hurry ... Bye, bye."
She hung up and raced to the closet, throwing off her dressing gown. Let's see, she thought, studying the long row of clothing. Strapless bra, lace pants, net stockings, perhaps all in yellow. They will look nice with the yellow outfit.
It's not a very sexy dress. The neckline is terribly conservative. She smiled, deciding that she would show him where the zipper was when the time came ... and then he could make her dress as sexy as he liked.
The car purred in the darkness as it crept along the narrow road, which was closed in at either side by thick shrubbery and the large trunks of towering trees. He reached the small clearing and let his lights sweep across its grass once before he pulled under a low tree and killed his engine. He darkened the car and sat back, looking out at the black night while his eyes adjusted themselves.
Presently he could see the shapes of trees and the faintly light streak where the road ran into the clearing. The sky was not as dark as the top of the trees which poked their crowns a hundred feet high.
In some vague way he envied the trees. They had no problems. Their lives were as long or longer than men's lives, they never went anywhere, they were fed, they were nursed when they were ill, they had a rudimentary sex life, and there were never any complications. Even if something did go wrong, they had no choice. They had to stay where they were.
Man had so damned many decisions to make, simply because he had a million choices in the span of a lifetime. The name of the game was to choose right more than half of the time, or to be right on the big choices and let the little ones take care of themselves.
If only he could lose himself in the tangled shelter offered by the leaves and branches....
The first light was only a hint, a vague movement in the distant gloom. Then it flickered again, moving closer, until the car rounded the final bend in the road and headed straight for the clearing, its headlights dimmed but still two distinct spots. The shape crept into the clearing and made one circle before finally sliding to a halt next to Greg's car.
Its lights and engine died and silence set in again, except for the ticking of metal under the hood of the new arrival. After a minute Greg opened his door and got out and she did the same. He waited while she came around her car and then he stood aside while she slid past his wheel to the other side of the front seat. He then got back in and closed the door without slamming.
Her dress was a white shape in the darkness, but her black hair and tawny skin were almost invisible. Perhaps if his eyes became more adjusted to the night....
"I'm sorry I'm late." Her voice was just above a whisper.
"That's all right," he replied, his words not much louder.
"I got lost up the road. Wrong turn."
"It's easy to do in these parts," he murmured. Then he forced a chuckle. "What are we whispering about? You'd think we'd committed a crime."
He thought he saw her head shake. "Just the opposite. A crime hurts someone. All we're doing is making two people happy. If that's wrong, then I plead guilty."
He felt her body shift on the seat and then she was touching him, her hips against his, her shoulder brushing his. The oval of her head was visible now and the points of her cheeks were lighter than the rest of her face. Somehow her eyes reflected a light so that he could see two tiny points of brightness. Perhaps the glow came from inside her body ... or perhaps from his.
"I'm the guilty one," he muttered, searching for her hand and finding it resting against her thigh. She turned her palm up and they Linked fingers. "I feel guilty every time I leave home ... but I can't help it. I'm like a child in a candy store when the clerk says, 'Help yourself. It's all on the house.' Except that in this case it really isn't free. Somebody's going to have to pay."
She squeezed his fingers. "Don't talk like that, Greg. Perhaps we have a problem, but what we're doing is right. You know it and so do I. If we're right then there's got to be a solution that will work."
"I just don't know. I want you so much...." He choked on his words. "You can't realize how crazy you drive me, twenty-four hours a day, at home, at the office, in the car, in bed ... It doesn't matter. Christ, if I could only tell you to go away."
She leaned against him and he felt the stab of her breast in his upper arm. The breast was heavy and warm with a stiff point at its center. Obviously she was excited at seeing him again. "I wouldn't go, Greg. I've told you that. We've had too many years of misery to throw it away again for values that are false."
"But we haven't...."
"Shush," she whispered, placing her fingers on his mouth. She spoke with her lips an inch from his ear and he could feel the heat of her breath. "Let's forget the moralizing for a while, huh? Let's do what we were brought together to do."
He reached across her body, seizing her shoulder and pulling her around so that he could kiss her, pressing her to him. Her breasts were full on him, stiffening against his chest, and her thigh jiggled against his, her flesh firm and tight and warmer than normal.
Abruptly, he released her and sat back, his head against the seat. "You make it all sound so simple."
"It is. Two people in love ... morally, physically with every ounce of muscle and nerve tissue in our bodies."
He couldn't stop his hand when it groped for her again, brushing across her breasts and then resting on her throat. He could make out the square-cut neckline of the dress and he reached inside, sliding his hand between her mounds and then across the fullness of one.
"Yes, darling...." Her voice was a ripple, like a trickling stream.
He lifted and the pulsating globe slipped from its confining bra and over the neckline of the dress, gleaming as though thankful to be freed of its prison. High, hard and heavy, it pointed directly at him and, even in the darkness, he could make out the shadow of the nipple. He placed his forefinger directly on it.
"Ah...." Again the brook that was her voice rippled.
He pushed at the brown center, feeling it grow stiffer until it was like a pencil eraser. He slid his hand under the breast, letting its full weight nestle in his palm, and she wiggled, allowing the breast to burrow into his protective fingers like a puppy. The nipple peeked from between his thumb and forefinger.
"Greg." Her voice was a gurgle in her throat. "You can make me feel things as no other man ever has. Is it because you're so good or because you were the first?"
That nipple was irresistible and the fingers slid aside as his head came down, seeking the budding lump in the shadows, finding it and kissing its tip. He let his mouth close over it, pressing hard, taking as much of her breast as he was able.
She squirmed and her thigh pumped against him while her hands kneaded his shoulders and chest, wandering impatiently inside his jacket like two distressed servants of the owner seeking a way to help.
"Darling, darling.
Her body stiffened, and with what apparently was a supreme effort, she put her hands on his face and forced his head away. At the same time she slid across the seat so that all contact was broken. He could hear her ragged breathing and see the abrupt rise and fall of the freed breast before she tucked it back inside.
"Oh, I can't take it like this," she whispered, her voice wavering. "I just can't. I'm ... I'm getting hooked on you, darling, more than any junkie has ever been hooked on narcotics."
He reached for her. "You were the one who said damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Remember?"
She caught his hands, shoving them back into his lap and holding them there. "I know, but suppose you leave me after tonight? Or some other night? What will I do then?"
"Toni, don't talk like...."
"It's true, Greg. If you walked out on me now I couldn't take it again. Not like I could nine years ago." She breathed deeply and her throat rattled. "It was terrible then. Now I'd ... well, there'd be only one answer for me. Not a very pleasant one, I'm afraid."
"Toni! Don't talk that way." He gripped her fingers. "I'm not your whole life."
"God, I hope not." He heard her agonized swallow. "If there's any chance of saving myself, I've got to start doing it now ... at once ... this very minute."
He made a rasping sound. "God, Toni, stop teasing. You know I must have it right now. Here and now!"
"No," she whispered. "I've got to protect myself, Greg. I'm sorry, darling, but there's no more for either of us, unless...."
He waited, his body pounding. "Come on, Toni...."
"Unless I know you're mine ... completely and for as long as it takes for me to get over you." She spoke the words as though they were a proclamation. he stared. "Say that again."
"You've got to give up life as you're now living it, Greg. Come away with me. I don't care where, but it must be for long enough-until I get enough of that magnificent body of yours."
"You're not making sense," he grumbled, dizzy with the pounding in his temples and his cock. "That could mean the end of everything for me here. My home, my career, even...."
"Yes," she agreed, her voice flat. "Even your hopes for the Senate would be dead."
He slumped, his thoughts whirling, his brain a kaleidoscope of desire, common sense and conscience. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't think.
"The choice is yours, darling," she whispered, her lips close to his ear again, her hand resting dangerously on his thigh. "It's Toni ... or it's your wife, your law work and your political ambitions. You can't have them both."
He made an anguished sound, like a trapped stallion. "You're asking too heavy a price! Toni ... You were so warm a moment ago. Why are you tearing me apart?"
She took her hand from him, opened the door and got out of the car, slipping away into the night.
NINE
He was stunned, unable to move for a moment. Then he was activated by the knowledge that she was escaping, perhaps forever. He leaped for the open door.
She was standing by her car, ready to get inside. "Wait," he called. "Toni, if the past means anything to you, don't run away. Not yet. We can talk it out."
She waited, watching him come up to her. At last she said, "Come on, we'll cool off under the trees."
Taking his arm, she led him away from the cars and across the clearing until they stumbled on a path which led into the forest. It was almost pitch black here, the trunks of the trees no more than flitting shadows.
"All right," she intoned as they shuffled along. "You have your chance to talk."
"I don't understand," he said. "You don't want me to see you again unless I drop everything and steal off to some permanent love nest, is that it?"
"Not quite, darling. I want to see you every day, under any circumstances I can manage, but my conditions are something I must do to keep from going insane and then destroying myself." She snuggled against him as they walked, their legs swinging in perfect rhythm. "Don't you understand? My tormented body is a prisoner and my reasoning is trying to free it."
He tried to arrange his thoughts. "I can't chop off my present with a single flash of the ax. My home...."
She sneered. "With Nancy, the iceberg?"
"My law career and the people depending on me in the courts...."
"Surely your law career can't mean much to you, she snapped. "You're ready to give it up quickly enough if you can get the people to vote you into the Senate. That means you've already talked it over with your partner. He's ready to carry on alone."
He wasn't really hearing her words, although they were sinking into his subconscious. "Good God, my Senate plans. There's Cyrus Manchester, Sam, and all the others ... so many people who are depending on me to defeat Tucker. If I let them down they're saddled with that bastard for another six years."
She stopped, faced him and shook him as hard as she could. "Don't be a fool. What makes you think you're the Messiah sent here to beat this Tucker person? There are a dozen people who might win, according to the newspapers."
He spread his hands. "It isn't ego, but merely that they think I have the best chance."
She released his arms and moved away, back toward the clearing. "We're wasting time. I'm getting out right now."
"Toni!" He caught up with her in a few steps, clinging to her wrists. "You can't expect me to decide on such a thing tonight. Much as I want to chuck it all and take you anywhere you want to go, there are too many loose ends." He peered down into her face. "I need a little time, for God's sake."
He felt her eyes studying what vague details of his face they could pick out. "All right," she agreed. "I'll give you forty-eight hours, Greg. You have two days to decide."
He slumped, muttering his thanks.
"You promise to give me an answer?" She was rigid, adamant, unyielding.
"Yes ... yes."
"Well, then, decide what you like, Greg, but do it on time or it will end terribly." She relaxed, and stepped close so their bodies touched. "And please, darling, remember my feelings. At least you can choose what you want. I can't. I'm your prisoner. Literally, Greg, my life is in your hands. If you send me away alone I may be able to keep from killing myself, but I'll have died inside, as cold and dead and useless as a burned out light bulb."
Shoulders drooping, feet shuffling, they drifted back toward the cars but, at the edge of the clearing he stopped again and called her name, softly. "Toni...."
She came back and tilted her head. "Yes. . darling?"
"I want you now. I want you here. Do you understand? I'll die if I can't have you before we leave this place."
Her head shook, telling him of her refusal. "I want you too, but if I were to give in now it would wreck what fragile plans I've tried to lay down."
He groped, his hands pawing over her, feeling the softness of a breast, the ridge of a collarbone, the sharp curve of a hip. "Please, Toni ... Don't force me...."
"No!" she cried, but there was a wavering note of weakness in her cry. "We've made our arrangement.
In forty-eight hours, it will be wonderful-if you give me the answer I'm praying to hear."
"Now!" He could feel his strength increase as his resolve solidified inside his brain, transmitting its decision to his nerves and muscles. He was a whole man again, certain of what he wanted ... at least for the next hour. "By heaven, I'll rape you if I have to."
"You're...." She hesitated, shrinking before his looming bulk and his firm words of command. "You're going to have to, for I'll fight ... bite ... claw...."
She tried to run away again, but he seized her arm, twisting it behind her and propelling her to one side, into grass which was knee high. They came up against a large tree with a smooth trunk and he whirled her around, shoving until her back was slammed against it.
"Let me go!" she cried, but he could tell she wasn't calling on all of her strength. She was a tall, strong woman who could give him a bad time if she chose. He knew her well enough to be aware that she was trying to fool him ... and herself.
He pinned her wrists against the tree and put his face to hers. She twisted her head but he pulled it back with his jaw, finally catching her lips with his own and holding on. He kissed hard, jamming with his teeth and holding on until at last he felt something change in her and her jaw fell open. His tongue darted inside, plunging deeply, probing every hollow of her mouth to the very threshold of her throat.
He lifted his face, leaving her helpless and gasping for a moment. Then some of her resolve returned and she tried to pull away again, but he pinned her wrists more tightly than ever. She lunged upward with her knee, trying to catch him in a vital spot, but he turned his body and she merely brushed past his thigh.
He stepped closer, as much out of self-protection as passion, forcing his hips against her and allowing her to feel the fruits of his excited body. She felt it. He knew she did from the way she tensed at his touch, but it was a different sort of tension, born of emerging desire.
Her head fell to one side and her shoulders slumped. No longer did her arms strain to free themselves from his grasp. Suddenly she was calm, resigned and ... yes ... expectant, waiting for him to do as he wished.
"Oh ... Greg!" Despair sounded in her cry, a despair filled with hopelessness. Her words grieved for her shattered resolve. "How I want you, too!" These words held a new note, a note of anticipation.
Her lips sought him out again, kissing him across the face and throat. Her arms went around his neck and her fingers crept into his hair, pulling at it, tugging as hard as they could. He loved the pain, which served to tune his nerves to a fine pitch.
Her body quivered against his, her hips jabbing and weaving, like a clever boxer's body, dashing in and out, touching him in a hundred different places. Her knee came forward, shoving between his and then lifting to poke at his thighs ... moving ever higher. She found her target and pressed easily, her knee working in a slow rhythm.
"No!" he snapped, shoving her leg down. "I can't let you do that for long. It would ruin everything."
She opened his jacket and then his shirt, reaching inside to run her hands across his chest and stomach, poking lightly and shoving into his bone and muscle any place it would yield. She jerked at his clothing, freeing everything above his waist and yanking it from his shoulders until it fell at their feet.
He went to work, fumbling across the smoothness of her dress until he found a zipper at her hip. He freed it and lifted the hem of her skirt to her waist and then higher, forcing it over her pointed breasts and at last over her head, leaving her coal-black hair a tangle.
Her body was easily seen now, for his eyes had become fully accustomed to the night. She wore only brassiere, panties and high heels, and the outline of her body was a classic display of curves and dips.
He ran his hands down her sides, across her ribs, her waist, her hips, her outer thighs, allowing his fingers to take the in and out ride on the silhouette of her beauty. She was pawing at him again, opening a belt and a zipper and jerking hard until everything fell from him. He stepped free and their bodies came together.
"Greg," she panted, as he shoved his body hard against her. "You're such a man ... in every way. You're strong, tender, talented and huge, all in one. You're the perfect combination to be a lover."
"To be your lover," he corrected.
"Yes," she agreed, rubbing her fingers across the cheeks Of his buttocks as he pressed. "My lover."
He helped himself to the fullness inside her brassiere, as he'd done in the car, slipping a breast from its halter and letting its weight rest in his hand. It was a living, throbbing thing with a pulse of its own and, as he leaned down to kiss its hard point, it popped into his mouth.
He released her nipple with a final nibble which sent a shudder rocking her from head to toe, moving his face between her upright breasts and then lower, down past the bottom of the valley. He kissed across her lower ribs and then her stomach, flicking his tongue at her navel, making her gasp and draw it in, although he knew she loved it.
Her hands left his buttocks and whipped into his prick, seizing it and gripping with an intensity that hurt, but the pain was welcome. His cock responded with even further welling, threatening to burst through his skin.
In an instant he removed her bra and panties, plunging his own hands into her crotch, fumbling through the soft flesh and the moist cushion, pleased when she lifted her face to the sky and gripped his shoulders so that she wouldn't crumple to the grass with pleasure.
He moved close again, his cock flailing, and took her in his arms, grinding his meat against her crotch and her belly. He was reaching for his cock, preparing to stuff her, when she pushed his hand away.
"Not yet, darling, you'll be finished too soon," she whispered. "I can tell how hot you are."
She gripped his prick and dropped to her knees, in a sort of half-crouch in front of him. She rubbed his crown against one of her nipples, then took hold of her breasts and pulled them apart. He caught on quickly, laying his shaft in the warm space between the mounds and then pushing them together around his prick. His balls were crushed against her body, his cock was locked in the warm, fleshy embrace.
He began lunging, still standing up straight, sliding his stiff organ along the opening and then sliding it back again, leaving her mounds wobbling deliciously. She raised her head and looked at his rippling chest muscles, then lowered it and opened her mouth to accept the upcoming prick. He pushed eagerly until his balls were pressing firmly against the underside of her tits, his cockhead poised at her lips. When she opened her mouth farther, he slid an inch of his shaft into her.
Her tits quivered as he rammed his prick through them, sliding between the doughy flesh and into her mouth. A shudder escaped his throat as he felt her loving lips sucking on his glans, drawing gism ever closer to eruption.
Her hands clenched his ass as she shook her head to twine her caress around the cockflesh. He was panting in delight, thrusting his prick between her tits faster than ever. He groaned loudly when her fingers trailed over his hard buttocks and slid gently into his hairy ass crack.
Her fingertip was toying with his bunghole doors as his hips worked feverishly, ramming his cock through her snug vise and his balls against her warm flesh, bringing his cockhead into the heat of her mouth at the end of each lunge. He knew he could wait no longer.
Greg ripped his cock from between her tits and pulled her to her feet. But before he could crush his body against hers, she turned around and bent forward on all fours, offering him her quivering buttocks.
"Do it like that!" she gasped. "I love it like that!"
Her legs were wide open. He rubbed the tip of his rod against her cunt lips, then slipped his prick between her juicy flaps and twisted his hips as he barrelled it home.
"Oh, my God!" she screamed, her voice echoing in the night. "It feels so deep like that!"
He twirled his hips again, then with one smooth thrust he brought his hips against her ass and screwed his entire shaft into her channel from behind. She shrieked in violent passion as she felt herself impaled, her cunt filled with warm, hard flesh. When he pulled his hips back, easing his prick almost from her pussy, she thrust her buttocks backward. His second lunge jarred her forward, she shook her head, and her black hair fell to the ground below her.
Groaning and gasping, he varied his strokes, twisting his hips to bend his shaft around inside her, pressing the cockflesh against her clit, alternating a bold, ruthless flurry of thrusts with a slow, winding series of lunges. She shook her ass wildly in response to his volleys, undulating her hips in a sensuous circle.
Occasionally Toni cried out, but not in a complaint against his size. She was aghast, as always, that he was so large, so able, so loving, she could feel his member plowing fiercely into her cunt from the rear, his balls bounding against her ass as she shook with a passion that threatened to explode from her body.
Faster and faster they worked, their familiar coupling working beautifully. They knew each other too well not to make it come out right every time. She gripped his cock with quick contractions of her cunt, he drove on furiously, thrusting in and upward with clean, sure strokes. Now he knew he was about to come, but the only question was, would she come first.
To prolong his pleasure, Greg slowed almost to a halt, letting his cock enter her inch by inch until his balls were pressing against her buttocks. When he slowly withdrew, leaving the crown inside her, she moaned with impatience. Quickly he jabbed his prick back into her pussy and resumed his rapid strokes.
His lips were against her neck, her lips open in a continual moan. By now her ass was red as his hips slapped against them. He held her slender waist and guided her hips as she thrust them back, twisting her waist to churn her pussy around his embedded meat. The crown was boring in to the deepest regions of her cunt, his thick shaft pressing hard against her clit as it sliced inward and outward at an ever-increasing pace.
Unintelligible words rang out from the heat of their striving. He guided their rhythm, sending her higher and higher, then back down again as he slowed. He kissed her neck, buried his face in her neck and reached under her body to fondle her dangling breasts, his heart pounding now in his ears.
Now they were both moments from their end, and they both knew it. Writhing violently against his lunges, she began screaming in utter bliss, thrashing her arms against her side-as she teetered on the verge of her orgasm. Her thighs and buttocks were on fire as his cock pierced her body, stuffing her chasm with the hardest, hottest flesh she'd ever had the pleasure to enjoy.
Greg was gasping too now, slowing his strokes to delay his end, not realizing that she was already beginning her climax. Her screams rang out, her ass slapped against him as she thrust her hips backward at his incoming cock. His hands were on her hips, yanking her backward as he lunged, swinging his balls into her body, groaning as his cock filled with gism and tensed inside her.
She soared into a frantic end, he pumped at top speed as he felt her corning. Gism filled his prick to the full. One thrust, another, his cockhead tensed, and then one final lunge brought their bodies together and sent a torrent of semen deeply into her gripping channel.
The explosion tore through their bodies, making their chests burst with howls of pleasure. On it came, boiling, thundering, making them heavy, like ships tossed by a tidal wave. She screeched like a wild animal as the warmth filled her, his prick twisted and lunged, twined and burrowed, as his hips lashed against her ravaged buttocks.
The climax drained the last bit of their strength and they collapsed, falling together on the grass. It took them a few minutes before either had the breath to speak, but even then they remained silent. He moved his head to one side when they embraced, so that the sweat from his forehead wouldn't drip from the tip of his nose and splatter against her forehead.
They stumbled about in the darkness, searching for their things and helping each other dress. It took a long time for them to find everything and fasten it correctly, but at last they accomplished their feat.
Arm in arm, they walked back to the cars where he snapped on his dash light so she could push her hair into place and he could straighten his necktie. When they were finished and ready to go they paused to look at one another. Their faces were sad.
"I've ruined everything," she moaned and he could see the shine of her eyes. She may have been weeping, but he wasn't certain.
"No, Toni, you haven't." He brushed at her hair, stroking a wisp away from her cheek. "Do you think I'd love you less because you can't help wanting to make love to me?"
She shook her head. "But it was my only weapon. I knew how much you needed me tonight, and I wanted to deny you, to force you to crawl until you would do as I asked. It worked. I won my forty-eight-hour ultimatum ... and then I ruined it by weakening like a greedy child."
He kissed her on the lips, loving the way she could taste cool and fresh only minutes after she'd steamed with lust. "Not like a greedy child ... like a woman filled with the need of a man ... this man."
"Call it what you will, I'm weak." She frowned, peering closely at him. "Don't misunderstand, Greg. I still want an answer by the day after tomorrow. I won't make the mistake of letting you so much as touch me before I hear what I want to hear. Do you understand?"
He sighed, shaking his head. "I do. I don't know what I'll work out, but something will have to give. God, I only wish I could give you the right answer right now. But that's not possible."
She put her hand on the door and looked back at him, smiling through real tears now. "You stay here until I'm gone ... and once I'm out of this car don't let me back in, even if I beg."
"You wouldn't be begging for anything more than I," he replied, touching her hand in a final gesture.
She got out and closed the door softly, moving away without another word. He twisted in the seat, watching as she got into her car, started the engine, flicked on parking lights and then crunched off across the clearing, disappearing from sight.
The night was still and darker than ever, making him wonder how long it was until dawn. He caught himself pondering what Nancy would think and the thought disgusted him. It didn't matter what Nancy thought, or if she became jealous. This crisis represented much more than the problem of a suspicious wife. This was three lives on the block.
Three lives, two that would be made better and a third, he supposed, that would be ruined. But would it? How much did Nancy love him? Surely it wasn't a deep love. How could it be when they were sexually mismatched? What sort of life would Nancy live if he ran away for a while? Would she take him back?
He chuckled with a bitter sound. Who said he'd want to come back?
Feeling fifteen years older than he was, Greg sighed and turned the ignition key. The engine hummed into life. He switched on the lights, turned the wheel and began the long drive home.
TEN
Claude was moody as he sat in the coffee shop, sipping from his cup. If only the world would recognize his artistic abilities he wouldn't need to depend on someone else for his livelihood. He'd tried his hand at painting, the guitar, song writing, even acting. He was a man with a lot of little talents, but no major talent.
He'd come on Toni during an odyssey through a basement bistro in Chicago. She'd been a beautiful, lonely thing, rootless, in search of someone to help her find a direction in life. It didn't matter.
Claude had been happy to oblige, indulging himself in the girl's charms and then putting her on the market. Their clientele had always been select and lucrative and discreet. They'd lived well and gotten on well enough, despite her occasional fits of depression.
Essentially a loner, Claude hadn't felt easy about depending on Toni's talents to keep him in bread. He trusted no one and to need her made him vulnerable. But the fact was that she was his only marketable asset, and he meant to hold on to her.
There were reasons for Claude's moodiness as he sat in the coffee shop. Things should have been going well. They'd found a sucker, they'd found an angel willing to pay to land the sucker and they already had a number of hooks into the sucker. On the surface, the caper was going beautifully.
On the surface. But underneath something was wrong. Toni had been behaving strangely. Often, in her lighter moods, she was as wanton as Claude, as anxious as he to tuck away the long green of a successful score. But she had shown little enthusiasm for this episode, at least since they'd gone to see Tucker.
Perhaps Claude had made a mistake by insisting that Toni give that aging bastard a free sample, but the man had needed convincing that Toni could make a male do as she wished. She'd been sore about putting out for him but, what the hell, it was the usual form. No salesman could keep good customer relations without giving something away with every sale. She knew that and she'd never gotten sticky about it before.
Then just a few hours ago, in the dead of night, she'd come in from her meeting with Armstrong. He'd tried to get a report from her, but she'd been tired, unstrung, weepy and, by the look in her eye, on the verge of throwing things. So he'd backed off and let her go straight to bed, where she lay like a dead woman, her face buried in the pillows.
He squinted into his coffee cup and then raised it to his lips, his gaze drifting across the cafe and through the windows to the outside. Although it was early, a group of girls had already gathered at the pool, ready to enjoy a morning dip. They apparently were vacationing college girls, for some wore tight T-shirts with the name of their school undulating across their high, hard breasts. Others wore the most mini of bikinis. As he stared they paraded to the board and, one by one, dived into the pool. Soon their squeals of delight came through the windows.
Women. He shook his head, saddened again by the fact that he depended on them. He needed them for himself and he needed them for business. Ah, man is a poor trapped beast ... but his thoughts turned to the beautiful tawny beast he had trapped in room one three nine.
It was time, he decided, getting up and dropping a dollar bill on the table, that he tightened the bonds that held her to him. Toni was not to be allowed to indulge in too much self-pity or in any ideas of altering her relationship with her master.
He left the coffee shop and strolled around to the rear of the hotel, along the outside corridor to their room. He went inside, closing the door softly. The place was in semi-darkness and she was still in bed, motionless, her dark hair a tangle on the pillows. He stood over her, watching, as she shifted her body, kicking the covers down to her waist, squirming so that a breast freed itself from her shortie nightgown.
He smiled and reached down to touch the tip of the beautiful white mound, which was as perfect as a half grapefruit. He snapped his finger at it, catching the end and making her jump and wince in her sleep ... but sleep through it she did.
At last he went to the window and drew the drapes, sending a flood of sunshine across the room to the bed. It hit her in the face and she lifted her hands to her eyes, rubbing them and finally sitting up. She yawned and blinked, seeing him and then looking down at herself. Hastily, she stuffed the breast back inside the nightgown.
"What time is it?" she murmured, groping on the night table for a cigarette. She found one and lighted it. Making a face, she immediately crushed it in an ash tray. "I feel as though I've been out of it for a week."
"You're not far wrong, sweetheart," Claude muttered, standing over her again. "It's after ten."
She frowned. "What's so terrible about that? What are you trying to prove."
He chuckled, but there was no merriment in his eyes. "It's the excitement of the hunt, my dear. When the rider closes in on the fox he's more alert, more impatient:. Sleep becomes a bare necessity rather than a lengthy luxury."
"Spare me the lecture," she replied, her voice still thick with sleep, "and while you're at it how about ordering some coffee?"
He watched her tumble out of bed and pad into the bathroom. After he heard the toilet flush, he went after her and stopped in the doorway. She was standing by the sink, looking into the mirror, shoving at her hair. She saw his reflection and made a face.
"I know I'm a mess, but if you'd give a girl some privacy, she could do something...."
"Shut up!" His words were like a whip cracking across the room.
Her eyes widened and she gripped the side of the sink. Her lips opened to say something more, but she thought better of it, instead groping for her toothbrush and squeezing a dab of paste onto it. She began to brush, her arm pumping.
"Well?" he snapped.
She stopped. "Well, what?"
"I want a report on last night. How did you make out with your Ail-American?"
"All right. He's promised to give me an answer by tomorrow." She resumed her brushing.
"What will his answer be?"
Again she stopped. "How should I know?"
He glared, watching a trickle of toothpaste slip from the corner of-her mouth and creep down her chin. "You claim to have complete power over the man. He can't resist anything you want, provided you deny him, you said." He cocked his head. "You did deny him and then tighten the screws, didn't you?"
He heard a strange sound in her throat, something like a sob, and her eyes were wide and already filling with tears. "I ... I tried...."
"You tried!" he thundered.
"He raped me." She whimpered, slumping against the sink. "Honestly, he did, Claude."
In three long strides he reached her, seizing her shoulder and spinning her around. His arm whipped out and the back of his hand caught her across the mouth, sending the toothbrush clattering to the floor and toothpaste spattering across the mirror.
"He raped you," he spat, his words dripping with acid. "Doubtless history's most simple rape. I should imagine he merely shoved his knees into that little box of yours and you ran up the white flag. Isn't that what happened?"
She held her hand to her mouth, wiping it and then looking at the smear of toothpaste, which had also stained her nightgown. "I tried, really I did."
"I wonder what the hell's going on between you two." He grasped a handful of hair and jerked her head back so he could look her in the eye. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Lame excuses, crying jags, spoiled plans. You're not imagining you can resume your old life with this jerk, are you?
"You little fool. What makes you think a whore can really go legitimate with a man who's hoping to become a senator? A messy affair ... yes. That's the plan. But a vine-covered cottage? Forget it."
He released her and she held herself against the sink, her hands propping her up. "It's nothing like that. Believe me. It's ... it's just that I don't like this escapade very much. I can't take this place." She lifted her face to look him in the eye. "Why don't we give up this one, Claude? Let's get out of here ... now."
He sighed, smiling for an instant before the hand whipped out again, catching her on the other side of the jaw. She was hurled away from the sink, sitting down hard on the floor, her back thudding against the shower door. He glared down, seeing a trickle of blood mingle with the toothpaste on her chin.
"You forget, lover, that we're high class businessmen. We've taken a man's thousand dollars, remember? We promised to deliver and then we'll get four thousand more." He shook his finger at her, hardly noticing that her nightgown had ridden up to her waist. "You're going to behave. You're going to play by the rules. You're going to meet your man again tomorrow and you're going to get the right decision out of him. You know the name of the game. He must be knocked out of the Senate campaign!" She stared, trying to cover herself. "Fail in that, Toni, honey, and you'll have failed me. That can mean big trouble. Very, very big trouble." His voice softened. "I think you understand the consequences."
He straightened and went to the door, looking back, turning his smile back on. "All right. So it's hard work. Take the day off. Have a good time. Clean yourself up. Go to the beauty parlor, and make damned sure no bruises show on that pretty chin by tomorrow."
He strode out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stood with his back against it for a moment until he heard the shower come on. Then he went back into the bedroom and stood at the window, looking out at the sparkling bay, watching couples and families moving about on their boats.
It hadn't been a bad act, he admitted to himself. He'd played his part well and, in doing so, frightened the living hell out of her. She'd behave now, at least for a while. But would she straighten out long enough to accomplish their mission? He frowned, wishing he had some sort of insurance.
Surely there were other angles which might be used to rock Gregory Armstrong's boat enough to wash his campaign plans over the side. Toni had scored well with one half of the family. What about the other? She'd related Armstrong's lament about his wife and their lack of rapport. Maybe the marriage was shaky. Maybe it could be shaken even more.
If Toni could take an active part, so could Claude, attacking ... what was her name? Nancy ... Nancy Armstrong. Claude could work on her, planting bad seeds anywhere he found soft earth.
He chewed on his hp as he went back to the bathroom door, listening for the sound of the shower. She was still under the spray, so he sat down on the bed and picked up the telephone. He asked for coffee and then the switchboard got him the number he wanted. He heard three rings before there was a click.
"Hello, Mrs. Armstrong? ... You don't know who I am ... Hold it! I'm not selling anything ... Absolutely not ... I think you and I should meet. I have interesting information about your husband ... I can't tell you now, but if we could meet ... Believe me, you won't regret it ... Anywhere you say...." He chuckled. "What's wrong, Mrs. Armstrong, are you afraid of hearing the truth about where he's been all those nights when he was supposed to be working late? See me and I'll tell you how I found out ... No, I don't mind coming there. Should I disguise myself as a plumber so the neighbors...?" He laughed again, his voice easy and confident. "Two o'clock it is, Mrs. Armstrong."
As he hung up, Toni came into the bedroom, her face sullen but apparently unmarked. She wore a bikini and carried a bathing cap and towel. "I heard a voice."
"I was ordering your coffee, my dear. Anything the duchess wants the duchess gets."
"Forget my coffee," she murmured. "I'm going out to the pool and I may stay there all day."
"Wonderful." He stood and chucked her under the chin until she jerked her face away. "Have a good time. Keep yourself sleek and golden. I'm going out for a while after lunch, but I imagine you'll be able to enjoy yourself."
"I'll bear up," she sneered. She left, slamming the door.
He rubbed his hands together. "You do that little thing, sweetheart," he whispered. "You just do that."
Then he looked at his watch, wishing it weren't so long before two o'clock.
ELEVEN
It was a large place. A ranch type way out in the suburbs. Legal practice was a dandy racket, apparently.
He drove around the corner and parked, walking back to the house. He paused out in front and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, looking from it to the house, like a salesman checking a number. Then he went up the walk and rang the bell.
She made him wait for a full minute and he smiled at that. She'd be one of those cool society types, itching to know what was going on but hiding behind a mask of fancy clothes and money. To hell with her. Let her have her fun.
He waited and at last the door opened and they peered at one another. Claude got her message at once. He was an expert in such things and she hadn't meant to send it, but he got it anyhow and he smiled, knowing he'd won already. His game plan was laid out and he couldn't lose.
She was an attractive piece, but in a very different way from Toni. She was a good half foot shorter than his dark panther and her brown hair was in bangs. She had on a very expensive afternoon dress of a knitted material. It was conservatively cut so that the hemline hit her just above the knees and the neckline was high on her throat, but the knit was stretched around a body that wouldn't quit.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Armstrong," he said, his voice low and friendly, loaded with self-assurance.
She lifted her chin in royal fashion, trying to peer down her nose at him, but she was too short. Even so, she handled herself gracefully. "I don't know your name," she snapped, as though she were accusing him.
"No matter. We can still chat. May I come in?"
She seemed to think it over and then the door opened wider and he came inside, entering a dark, cool foyer. She moved ahead of him so he closed the door and followed, watching her figure shift in the knit outfit. Even the dimples in the cheeks of her buttocks showed.
She led him into a parlor which was French, with rich drapes, ornate furniture, a grand piano and a deep, figured carpet. A tea cart stood in the corner and brass tools stood on the hearth of a marble fireplace.
She stopped and turned, her feet and legs shifting beautifully so that she was posed like a housewife in a fashion magazine, one foot before the other, her hands clasped at her waist. He stared frankly at her, loving the sight, pleased at knowing how easy it was going to be. She frowned and lowered her eyelids.
"Very well, mister whatever-your-name-is, suppose you say what it is you've come to say."
He grinned. "Don't you ask your guests to sit down, Mrs. Armstrong? I was even hoping you might offer me something."
"State your business and then get out," she snapped, running her eyes down his length. Again she gave herself away, intending to gaze on him with total scorn, but he caught that other something mixed with it.
He shrugged. "You know what I have to say. Your husband's been running around with a high-class whore"-she winced at the word-"all these nights he's been telling you he's been working late. She's the 'client' who's keeping him so tied up after hours."
"I don't believe you," she hissed, turning her back.
Again, he stared at her buttocks. "Suit yourself. My information's free."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"It's simple enough. She's my girl and I want to see her love nest broken up." He took a step toward her but stopped when she turned to face him again. "If I got you on my side, we could hit them from both angles. I'll bug her, you bug him."
She shook her head, swishing the bangs. "You've given me no proof. I have no reason to believe a stranger in such matters."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself, but all you'll need to do is question him. Her name is Toni, she's a dark type from out of his past."
"How far in his past?" she asked at once. She believed him, all right.
"College days."
Her lips curved in a sneering smile. "Your information is incorrect. I knew Greg ... Mr. Armstrong ... at college. We were married while he was a student."
"Sure, a law school student." He smirked. "I'm talking about his undergraduate days. He swung pretty good before you took him out of the middle class heap."
She sniffed. "I'll not let you poke your nose further into our private affairs. You may leave now and I'll do what is necessary with my husband."
"Lady, you kill me."
She jumped at his words as though he'd struck her, staring as he came closer and they stood, face to face. "I beg your pardon."
"I'm not going any place. At least not for a while." He came closer. "Not before I knock off a choice piece of your high society tail."
She gasped and lurched backward, catching her heel on the hearth and staggering against the fireplace. She gripped the mantel and stared, eyes wide, her lips working in silent protest.
Claude put his head back and laughed.
She found her voice at last. "Get out of my house at once or I'll telephone the police."
Claude applauded. "Beautiful. Just like on the stage ... except you're not a particularly good actress, Mrs. Armstrong."
She waited, still bracing herself against the mantel.
"Don't look so shocked. You know damned well what I mean. You want me to lay it out? Okay. In that first look at the door you were ready to cut me dead, but something happened. I don't flatter myself too much. You probably hit the hay with a lot of men, and I happen to be one you'd like to try."
She blustered. "Of all the nerve!"
"It was in your eyes, lady. You said it first, not me. You gave me the once over behind those long lashes and ... well, I hate to brag, but I've got a built-in sense about women. I know when they'll go and when they won't. Most of them go, some hard, some easy. You're one of the easy ones."
She sputtered, unable to speak.
"In fact, I'd say you've cheated on your husband a hell of a lot more than he's cheated on you. With that shape, if you look at very many plumbers and milkmen like you looked at me, they must keep you on your back a lot."
He stepped closer and put his finger under her chin, tilting her face up. "Now, if we're through with the games, we'll get down to business." He winked. "Of course, if you want to call the police, I won't stop you."
She blinked, the white showing all around her pupils, and her tongue flicked out to lick her lips. She glanced once toward a phone on a low marble-topped table, but she did not move.
"That settles things, doesn't it?" he muttered. "We know where we stand. Turn around, you wanton bitch."
She did so, presenting her back to him. He found the zipper under her brown hair and pulled the tab, sliding it down her back, in at her waist, all the way to the top curve of her buttocks. "Isn't that pretty? Nice society white dress and society white underwear. All lacy and fancy. Must have set your husband back plenty. All right, turn around again."
She did, like an obedient soldier. He worked the dress off each shoulder, letting it drop to her waist where it clung to her hips. He flicked at it and it spilled to the carpet. He helped her step from it. She stood before him, her body short, youthful, well-packed in her brassiere and panties.
He stripped her stockings to her ankles. She lifted her feet in turn so he could wrestle off the pumps and the stockings, leaning her hand on the mantel for support. Then he reached around her and unfastened her brassiere. Next came the panties and she didn't hesitate when he jerked them down. She kept her legs close so they would slide easily.
When he was finished he stepped back to look at his playmate. Yes, she had an excellent figure and he was amazed that Armstrong hadn't been able to unlock her. Christ, it was easy and it looked like everybody in town had been drinking from the poor bastard's well. He shrugged. Biology was a complicated subject.
He'd managed to strip her almost without touching her, except once or twice when he'd reached for a strap or an elastic band. Other than that, he'd been as impersonal as a clothes designer at one of those fashion places in Manhattan.
He really didn't want to make love to her. He had no desire to please her or thrill her, but he wanted to shatter her facade of indifference, to turn her into a whimpering, pleading mass of sensitized flesh, to make her beg for what she was now pretending she only half wanted. Yes, there was one thing Claude could do as well as any man. And Nancy Armstrong was about to find out.
Working fast, he stripped off his trousers and shorts, leaving on his shirt. He grinned when she looked down at his crotch. His prick hung limply in insult, he could see a cloud of disappointment and concern cross her face when she saw that she hadn't excited him.
"Sit down on the couch," Claude ordered.
She obeyed, resting her ass on the edge of the sofa and spreading her pale thighs. He could see her dark bush, cut in a triangular shape, and a glimpse of her pink lips underneath the mesh. Still grinning, he stepped toward her.
She stared haughtily as he knelt between her legs. We'll see how long it takes to wipe that grin off her face, he said to himself, running his hands inward along her cool, white thighs.
Her eyes were still open as he licked his way along her legs and then pushed them farther apart rudely. Before she could react, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against her cunt, sucking hard and blowing his breath against her slit.
She stiffened in surprise, her eyes glazed over and then closed as he reached in with his fingers and picked apart the lips of her pussy. Her clit, large and meaty, slid out from between the folds, and he licked at it gently with the very tip of his tongue.
Slowly, she began to stir, swaying back and forth on the couch as his tongue moved up and down in her crevice. When he nudged her clit again, she tensed and shot her legs open even farther, then began swaying her hips as he closed his lips around the juicy morsel and began sucking.
Claude gave her his best, twirling his tongue over her clit, lapping in her slice from the clit all the way down to her asshole and back again, sucking in her juices and blowing his breath into her moist hole. She tried her best to remain motionless, but when he took her clit in his lips and sucked hard, shaking his head back and forth as if he were trying to tear her clit from her body, she couldn't control herself. Her ass began bouncing on the couch, her legs scissored open and closed, her breath came quick and hard and her moans escaped between them.
Claude bit into her clit, tenderly at first, then harder, and she winced with pleasant pain. He bit harder. She tensed, then let out a howl and threw her hips into his face, shaking her head now in abandon.
He worked with his lips, his tongue, his teeth on her clitoris, meanwhile rubbing her cunt lips with his fingers and then gliding one digit into her body. She was wet by now, very wet, the finger sank into her juicy hole and a quick contraction of her vagina pulled it in greedily.
Claude added a second finger, then a third, working all three in and out, pushing them as deeply as he could as her cunt flexed around the pistoning digits. His tongue still flailed at her clit, his teeth still nibbled away at the pink morsel from time to time. By now she was drooling, cunt juice dribbled over his chin and dripped to the couch.
Her ass bounced up and down, her moans grew louder as he jammed the fingers in and out of her cunt. He opened his eyes and looked up in her face. Her mouth was open, her eyes closed, her head rocking back and forth. Her nipples were hard, her tits shimmied from her deep breaths. He watched her face for reaction as he worked his fingers in and out, seeing each movement of his lips, tongue and fingers find an immediate response on her grimacing face.
He continued his work until he was sure she was about to start convulsing in orgasm, then ripped his fingers from her pussy and pulled his head away. She opened her eyes, her mouth fell open. "Oh God, don't stop now, please!"
"I knew you'd beg for it sooner or later," Claude chuckled, wiping her wetness from his chin. "Let's hear you ask again."
"Please," Nancy pleaded, "oh God, please, don't leave me like this!"
"What do you want now, honey?"
"Fuck me, fuck me right now!" She rolled back on the couch and opened her legs. "Please, now!"
Claude leapt on top of her, bringing his ass down on her chest and thrusting his cock at her face. She opened her mouth and he crammed his fat cock through her lips, pushing forward until she gagged. His hips began working, easing the rod backwards, then lunging to drive it into her throat, his balls swung heavily against her chin and her body continued to shake underneath him.
Her lips worked skillfully on his shaft, her tongue caressed his prick and her fingers toyed with his balls as he continued fucking her in the mouth. Claude had half a mind to squirt his gism down her throat and leave her writhing on the couch as he walked out, but he could hardly wait now to plunge his rod into her sopping cunt.
He tore his prick from her mouth and stretched out on top of her, she reached down immediately for his cock and steered it to her lovehole. The cockhead slid easily between her cunt lips, one lunge brought their bodies together and sent his fat stump deeply into her creamy tunnel.
She screamed when he pumped, tossing her legs in the air and raking his back with her fingernails. He could feel her pussy gripping his cock, tensing and relaxing as it entered her, her juices flowing out of her hole and soaking his balls as they swung against her body. It took only a few quick lunges to tell Claude that when it came to fucking, Nancy Armstrong was no slouch, she knew how to work her cunt walls to snatch at his prick, and she threw her hips up at his like a hurried whore.
He wasn't sure when and if she came, but he didn't care. He kept pumping, feeling his gism rising, sailing into her as quickly as he could while she squirmed and screamed beneath him. Her fingers slid down to his ass, digging into the flesh, her hips clapped into his, her tits shook against his chest, and her nipples were like pen points against him.
Claude rose on his hands to watch her face, to enjoy his triumph. She shook her head back and forth, she licked at her parched lips, she gasped heavily as he screwed into her mercilessly. Then he watched her shuddering as his cock stiffened inside her and, with one long, clean stroke, blasted deeply into her body.
She was really writhing now as she felt his warmth filling her cunt. Claude lunged a few more times, squirting his seed into her snug, gripping hole, then quickly slid out of her and rolled off.
While she caught her breath, he dressed quickly, without a word, without a glance in her direction. She was still lying on the couch, panting, when he was fully dressed.
"You're not half bad, baby," he smiled mockingly as he headed for the door.
"You don't really have to go, do you?" she murmured, the same invitation burning in her eyes.
"No, I don't have to," he chuckled as he left. "But I want to." He turned once in the door and threw her another mocking glance. "Guess you'll just have to wait for your husband, eh?"
He was roaring with laughter as he walked out.
TWELVE
Betty Butler shook her blonde head as she studied the pages of scribbled notes which had been put on her desk for typing. She leaned close, peering at the yellow legal sheets, but it was hopeless. At last she got up and crossed the reception room. She opened a door and leaned inside.
Corky Hobson was alone. "May I see you a minute?" she said, her voice low.
Corky put down his cigar and leaned back in his chair. "Any time, gorgeous."
She came in, tripping around the desk to stand at his side. "Look at this."
He did, examining the papers, his smile transforming itself to a frown as he flipped through the pile. "Jesus, where'd you find this, at the state mental hospital?"
She sighed. "Greg turned it over to me a while ago. He wants me to sort it and get it down in contract form so Mr. Jackson can sign by tomorrow."
He looked up at her. Betty was no fool. She was a smart girl, loyal, hard-working, and she'd been with the firm for almost a year. "You'd better let me have this stuff," he said. "I'll ... ah, discuss it with him."
"I wish you would." She sighed again. "The last few days I've gotten the feeling that something's funny with Greg. And I mean more than the Senate campaign."
Corky didn't want to discuss it with her. "All right. Get busy with something else and I'll handle Greg."
She smiled. "Okay, boss." She tripped out, turning to give him another smile at the door. Yes, she was smart. As smart as anybody in the office. She knew something was in the wind.
So did Corky. He'd held off bracing Greg about it, wondering if it might be trouble with Nancy at home. They'd had their crises before, but always they'd blown over. Somehow, this seemed different.
Corky was involved in Greg's career and, indeed, in his personal life, for his fortunes were Corky's fortunes. If something were wrong, the partners had a perfect right to ask one another about the matter. They'd done it before and now, it seemed, it was time to do it again.
He clamped his teeth around his cigar and got up, crossing to another door and opening it a foot. Greg was alone in his office, standing at the window, staring out.
Corky went inside and came up to stand beside his partner. "How long has it been?" he finally said.
Greg started and turned, his eyes wide, as though he'd been wakened from a sleep. "Eh?"
"How long has it been since we threw in together? Since I was a not-too-successful loner and you had so damned much business you needed somebody to help you handle the volume."
Greg shrugged. "Four years, I guess."
"That's about right. We had it tough, at first, with two men sharing the business one had been handling. But we worked hard and, if I do say so, we complemented each other nicely. What I couldn't do, you could, and vice versa." He smiled. "Right, partner?"
"Sure, Corky. Dead right."
"Then why don't we keep it that way?" he asked, his tone abrupt.
Greg frowned. "I don't get you."
"It could be that right now you've got a problem you can't handle. Maybe I could help, if you're willing to talk it over with your partner ... and friend."
Greg sighed and sat down at his desk. Corky came after him, throwing one leg over the corner of the desk and puffing hard on the cigar. "No," Greg finally said. "It's nothing, really."
"Like hell." Blue smoke shrouded Corky's head. "You've been stumbling around here like a zombie." He tossed down the sheaf of yellow papers. "These things look like they've been written by an idiot. Come on, partner, I'm involved and so is Betty. We've got to earn enough to pay her salary, remember? She's wondering if her boss has gone off his rocker."
He peered up at Corky, knowing he deserved an explanation. Greg hadn't been pulling his weight since Toni arrived on the scene and, if he kept up this way, he'd have the firm on the rocks. Perhaps Corky would be a good sounding board at that.
"I'm afraid my problem is a pretty old one."
Corky squinted. "I'm not going to try to guess."
"Women."
"Ah, women."
Greg nodded. "She's come back like a ghost. A girl I knew before law school."
"An old flame?"
Again he nodded. "She was terrific then, but I let Nancy and her money force me to drop her. She's back again, just as terrific."
Corky was no fool. "So you've still got the big thing about her, only now you feel guilty and ... well, your life with Nancy hasn't been all that fulfilling."
"Christ, you see it more clearly than I do."
"You'd better come up with an answer pretty fast, partner, before the business starts taking it on the chin." He flicked ashes into a tray. "Not to mention your big plans for a career in Washington."
"What can I do? If I let myself be completely selfish, I'd walk out on Nancy in five minutes." He slumped, burying his face in his hands. "But a man can't forget nine years with the woman who's been by his side."
Corky snorted. "By whose side?"
Greg looked up, puzzled. "Come again?"
"Well...." Corky sighed and got up, pacing to the door and back, muttering to himself, his hands jammed into his pockets. At last he came back to the desk. "We're good friends, right?"
"Sure, that's right." Greg stood up. "Come on, spill it."
"Okay." Corky leaned forward. "Nancy hasn't been the loyal, true-blue wife you'd like to think she's been."
For some reason, although his love for her had long since cooled, an overpowering sense of loyalty swept over Greg and he felt anger grip him. He seized the lapels of Corky's jacket, jerking him closer. "You'd better explain that, partner, and damned fast."
"I can, but take it easy." Greg let go and he drew back. "She's known to be a ... well, a playmate for several of our more active citizens around town, Greg. I'm sorry, but it's true."
"Prove it!" Greg barked, glaring.
Corky whirled. "My God, do you want me to spell it out for you? Do you want the names and numbers of all the players?"
"You bet I do."
"All right." He held up his fingers and ticked them off. "Sam Garrison, Fred Racine, George what's-his-name ... you know, the new broker with Simpson and Simpson. I could give you the names of a half dozen guys in our own golf club."
Greg snorted. "Nothing but a bunch of lousy, God-damned boasters and liars. Sure, Nancy's a good-looking woman and, just because she smiles at some guy, he thinks she's flirting. Hell, she's been friendly with those guys, but nothing more."
"No." Corky shook his head. "You're grasping at straws and you know it. These boys weren't fooling. Each and every one of them has used your wife as a punchboard ... and they weren't very happy about it when they told me."
Greg sat down hard, feeling the muscles of his face sag, knowing he was aging by the minute.
"It's true, Greg. I'm sick about it, but it's true. These fellows came to me when they'd had their experiences, wanting to know how they could help. You see, she'd put the make on each of them, luring them into a car, a hotel or even into your own home. They like you and they felt rotten later, but ... hell, they couldn't turn down a tomato like Nancy. You understand."
Greg said nothing for several minutes. Then he looked at his partner. "What about you, my friend? Did you turn her down?"
Corky nodded like his head was made of wood. "Every time except once. Yes ... I weakened when I went by your place for papers. It was a year ago. She invited me in, fed me a few drinks and ... well, hell."
Greg sneered. "So she seduced the poor helpless little boy. Or did you rape her, you bastard?"
"No." He shrugged. "She left me for a minute and came back, put her arms around me, kissed me and then made a grab for my belt. I couldn't turn that down." He wiped his eyes. "Lord knows I'm the ugliest man in the city, so when the other guys told me the same stories, I saw no reason not to believe them. If she wanted me she'd want almost anyone."
Greg came around the desk, moving slowly, and he put his hand on Corky's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I guess I always suspected something, but I didn't want to believe it. She couldn't make music with me, so I should have known she'd have to shop around. Thanks ... thanks for bringing it out into the open, but it doesn't clear up my problem, does it?"
Corky pursed his lips. "It might be a start. It's your business, partner, but I should think that you could leave her with a clear conscience. It's obvious you're not making it and surely your marriage is headed for the rocks, anyhow. Free yourself and go with this other woman, if you want to. For what it's worth, you have my blessings and the blessings of everybody I know who's fond of you."
Greg swallowed. "I appreciate that."
"There are other complications. You know better than I what effect this would have on your political plans. I suppose they'd be out the window, but I don't know. Not only that, I'd hate to see you blow town and leave the firm. If you took up with this girl and decided to stay around, naturally you'd be welcome to keep your name on the door. After all, you generate most of the business, so I'm not being entirely unselfish."
Greg rolled his eyes at the ceiling, feeling the mass weight of his problems pressing in on him, wishing he could in some way leave them all behind. He was sorry he'd ever met either woman. He was sorry he'd gone into law. Most of all, he was sorry he'd ever heard of the United States Senate.
He went to the door with Corky and they shook hands.
"Thanks, partner, for the vote of confidence. I'll let you know what the jury decides."
Shortly after, Greg left the office for the day, heading for a quiet neighborhood bar where he could get a half dozen stiff drinks.
THIRTEEN
He didn't know how many hours he spent in the bar or how much he had to drink. He still had not come up with any positive answers.
However, certain broad answers were being shaped in his mind. They were not clear, and they were thoughts about mood and attitude, rather than of concrete courses of action.
He decided, first, that he could not let Toni vanish from his life again. No matter what, he had to keep her, even if it meant losing everything else. He also decided that he could not stay with Nancy much longer. Even if he were able to forgive her, things could never be the same. True, their years together had never added up to much happiness, but now all hope was gone and there was no longer any reason for continuing the search for peace between them.
When he opened his eyes the next morning, blinking and staring at the ceiling, he discovered that these decisions held firm. They had not vanished with the effect of the alcohol from his body. He frowned, trying to remember.
He'd come home late, finding the house dark and Nancy out. Later, as he lay in bed, trying to sleep, he'd heard her come in. He lay silent, watching her undress and then slip into her bed. After that sleep had come....
He rolled over and looked at the clock. It was after eight. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He glanced at his sleeping wife.
He dressed quietly, then slipped out to the kitchen where he made himself coffee, juice and cereal.
She came into the kitchen just as he was finishing his breakfast. Her eyes were red, her face blotchy. "I'm late," she muttered. "Did you get something to eat?"
"Yes, I was just on my way out." He got up and tightened his tie.
"You're getting quite good at taking care of yourself, aren't you." She sat and poured herself a cup of coffee. "How late did you work last night?"
She'd placed peculiar emphasis on the word "work" and he paused, peering at her. "I didn't work. I went to a bar on my way home. I must have been there for hours ... but I got here before you did."
She made a face. "So you did. Would you like me to give you an excuse, darting?"
"It's too late for excuses." He wanted to bolt from the house, but he made himself hang back. Better to lay some of the groundwork now for later.
"You'd better explain that," she muttered from behind her cup, blowing on the coffee and then sipping. "If it's too late for excuses, it's too early for riddles."
"Later," he replied, "we're going to have a long talk, Nancy. I was given some news about you yesterday and it's helped me make up my mind about a number of things."
"It must have been a heavy news day, as we journalists say," she answered, smirking. "I heard a few things about you, too. What was your source?"
"Never mind. It's enough for you to know that I had to believe everything. My source couldn't have been a person with more character ... a very close friend."
She snickered, brushing at her bangs. "I wish I could say the same, but my information came right out of the gutter. I don't know how much to believe."
She went with him through the house to the door leading to the garage. When he was outside he looked back, seeing her in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, still holding her cup. For a while he'd been thinking of her as a pathetic figure, but not now.
There was a humorless smile on her lips, as though she knew something and was prepared to use it to hurt him. He wondered what she'd heard. Surely he hadn't been seen with Toni. They'd been discreet to the point of absurdity.
Nancy wasn't an object of pity. She was a capable and fearsome woman, one who could be a vicious opponent if she chose to fight. She'd had years of experience, apparently, weaving her web of secrecy and deceit behind his back.
By the time he'd driven the car from the garage she was back inside. He drove slowly to work, losing himself in thought, pondering ways to approach his problems. This was D-day, the day he'd promised to give Toni an answer and, much as she wanted him, he knew she'd flee if he didn't promise the thing she wanted to hear.
At the office Betty gave him her usual cheery smile and, if there were a hint of concern behind it, he couldn't blame her. She wasn't responsible for any of this, but she was paying a price, just as Corky was. For their sakes, he had to resolve it ... and fast, before his world and the worlds of others began to tumble.
Five minutes after he was at his desk, Betty hustled in with his usual cup of coffee and the morning paper. He took them from her gratefully, trying to convey in his thanks an apology for his behavior.
Corky popped into the office a minute later. His coat was off and his sleeves were rolled up, as though he'd been working for hours.
"You're the early bird," Greg muttered, putting the paper aside.
Corky made a face. "I've been hitting it pretty early-and late-recently."
"Thanks to. my pointless soul-searching, I presume."
"Well, the show must go on, partner. Don't sweat on my account. I'm willing to do what I can here until you pick up the pieces."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Greg took a deep breath. "Our conversation yesterday was a big help. I might be on the road to the answers. I don't know, but if I am, I have you to thank."
"Shucks," Corky mumbled, but his pleasure was obvious. Greg's partner had been more worried than he'd been willing to admit.
"I ... uh ... may have to leave here early again today, but I know you'll understand. Everything's coming to a head at once. The affair with the old flame, the situation with Nancy and even, I suppose, the ultimate decision on the Senate campaign."
Corky lighted a cigar, sucking flame into its tip until smoke filled the air over his head. "I'm glad I lead the simple life, partner. All I've got is Janet and three kids in the suburbs. They're a lot of trouble sometimes, but what problems we have always get solved. I hope you can do as well."
Greg began to shove papers about, but he really wasn't seeing them. "You're the rich man in this business, you know that? Tonight when you see Janet, kiss her for me ... and pat your children on their heads. Bounce them on your knee and tell them stories about what a great guy their old man is."
Corky shuffled to the door, turning as he went out. "All the best, pal. All the best."
Greg couldn't think of anything more to say, so he merely blinked and nodded.
He walked along the corridor, moving slowly, the last bundle of ideas taking shape in his head as he went along. Casually, he watched the forest of small boats, wishing he could own one and sail it off the edge of the earth, away from all his problems.
Like a bolt of lightning, the final idea hit him. It came like a miracle. It represented a fusion of all of his earlier ideas and it seemed so clear, so right. It would not be easy and there would still be sacrifices, but they could make it work.
Toni would love it, and that was the name of the game for Greg. Make Toni happy and then he would be happy. He smiled and moved ahead with an extra spring in his step, reaching her door in an instant. He knocked.
She was wearing red shorts and a halter affair of the same color. As he walked into her room he was again struck by the desirability of this woman. She was one of a kind, the kind every man dreams of when he's young. How could he, Greg, be so lucky?
"Good afternoon," she murmured as he came past her and sat down at once. She closed the door behind her and looked at him, her eyes dark as though she hadn't slept well. She was, it seemed, as concerned about what would happen this day as he was.
He smiled at her and nodded. "I feel like a man about to hit the beach."
She tried to smile back, but it wouldn't come. Her distress was more evident than his but then she couldn't know what he'd been thinking the last eighteen hours. "Maybe we should have a drink first."
He agreed. She poured two drinks.
"You seem to be prepared for company," he remarked, lifting his glass to her.
"The perfect hostess," she replied, her voice lifeless. "I knew we'd need all the courage we could find, even if it came from a bottle."
He drank deeply and put his glass aside. He waited while she sipped, studying her. She seemed pessimistic about what his answer to her ultimatum would be. She stood by the window, far away from him, and she looked older. Her shoulders slumped and her chin, usually so defiant, was low, almost touching her breast.
Finally she came closer and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs. She linked her hands on her knee and fiddled with a large ring, her eyes not meeting his.
"What's the matter?" he muttered. "Aren't you interested any more?"
She glanced up, her eyes wide. "Of course I'm interested."
"Well, all right. I have my answer for you."
She moistened her lips. "I see." With an effort, she smiled and tilted her head, as though she were deliberately trying to flirt, to fit herself back into a saucy mood. "I'm all ears."
He smiled back, his eyes frankly traveling over her body, that rich, deeply tanned body now exposed so beautifully by her brief outfit. "No, you're not all ears."
Toni laughed with a nervous sound. She cut it off abruptly and waited, her hands squirming.
He swallowed. "Toni, I'm not going to let you get away from me again. We both know what happened the last time we split up and we both know how wonderful it's been being together again. This time it's got to be for good."
"Then you're willing to run away with me?" she murmured, still quiet. He wondered why she wasn't jumping for joy. "You'll forget about politics and do as I wish?"
"I suppose my political career is out the window but as for the other...." He shook his head and smiled, like a father about to bestow a surprise gift on this little girl. "No, I'm not going to run away, and neither are you."
She waited, her eyes dark and troubled.
"Here's how it's going to be. I'm going to leave my wife, asking her for a divorce. I think I have ways to force her to agree without her making too much trouble. I'll send her to Las Vegas for six weeks. She'll like that, I should imagine, since there's plenty of her sort of action available there."
Toni gasped. "You're actually going to divorce her?"
He nodded. "Our marriage has always been sick. There are no children to complicate things. Each of us will get along better without the other." He took a deep breath. "That will clear the way for you and me, Toni. You know what I want, don't you?"
Almost in a whisper, she said, "You tell me."
"I want you to be my wife, of course. I won't run away with you so we can shack up some place for a few weeks or months. With you and me it's got to be for all time ... and with clean hands. We're going to marry, stay right here and I'm going to go on with my law practice."
"Oh, Greg," she breathed.
"It'll be tough for a while, but divorce isn't a stigma any more. All the people who matter won't mind, and the others can go to hell." He made a face. "Politics is another matter. I suppose I'm washed up, but I prefer you to a seat in the Senate." He managed a grin. "And I'll bet almost any senator would agree with me."
She said nothing, but her head was shaking back and forth, as though she were in a dream. He got up and went to her, sitting closely by her side and putting his arm around her shoulder. "I know, I found it difficult to believe at first. The beauty of it didn't come through to me until thirty seconds before you let me in your front door."
She remained silent, her head turned away from him. "Some expression of acceptance or denial on your part might be in order," he said lightly. "Maybe proposals are old hat for you, but I don't make them very often."
She whirled, burying her face in his chest and he put both arms around her, crushing her to him. He felt her entire body shaking and he pulled her away, lifting her face. It was streaked with tears and his shirt was wet. Her lips were twisted in anguish and sorrow filled her eyes.
Women. He never would understand their reactions to surprises. Chuckling, he wiped at her tears with his handkerchief. "Come on, now. What a way to show happiness."
She sniffed, taking his handkerchief and blowing her nose. "I feel like such a fool. Forgive me."
"Well have a lifetime to forgive each other, Toni. Don't you understand? There's no more need for hurrying, no reason to run, no need for desperation. We're here, baby. The race is over and we've won."
She tucked the handkerchief back in his jacket pocket, her face still sad. "How do you know, Greg?" she murmured, pushing herself away from him. "How do you know what I am? How do you know what I've been doing all these years? How do you know I'm the sort of woman you'd want to call your wife?"
"I know who you are and what you are now," he replied at once, "and that's good enough for me. If you have a past, let's bury it right now."
"That isn't so easy to do. There are complications ... unpleasant complications, and they involve you, me, and other people." She bit her lip, her cheeks hollow and drawn. "Too many good people could be hurt. "No, darling, we can't bury my past. It won't die that easily."
"You're talking in riddles," he said, studying her again, wondering if she were ill. "It almost sounds like you're trying to let me down easy ... as though you're telling me no, that you won't marry me."
She stammered over her words. "Well ... you see...."
"No," he snapped. "I don't see and I'm not going to take no for an answer, Toni." He seized her by the shoulders, twisting her around and kissing her hard on the mouth. "You're my woman and I'm not going to let you get away."
She broke the kiss with a gasp. "It's not what I want, darling. I'm trying to tell you. I'm a prisoner to my past. There are difficulties you wouldn't dream...."
"To hell with your difficulties. We'll tackle them together." He snorted in disgust at her hesitation. "What the hell do you think a husband and wife team is for, if not to tackle problems together? You've got me on your side now and we'll blow down anybody who stands in our way."
"Oh, Greg!"
She threw her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. For a few moments they said nothing. He could hear her sobbing, feel her body trembling.
"Greg," she finally murmured, "I'm so ... uncertain. I don't know if I'm coming or going, everything has changed so fast."
"Do you love me?"
"Yes, I do. Very much. But...."
"Then there are no buts. You love me, I love you. Anything else, we can take care of. If we work together."
"Oh, God, Greg, I need you so much now," she said, straightening up and staring in his eyes. "Please, convince me, make me as confident as you are."
"Do you really need convincing?"
She leaned forward and kissed his lips softly. "Darling, make love to me, make love to me right now."
She pulled away from his embrace and stepped back, reaching behind her to open her halter. He stood and watched as she pulled the material away, then removed her bra and let her full, doughy tits wobble forth, nipples swelling like damp pieces of sponge.
"Toni," Greg whispered in adoration, "you're the most beautiful woman in the world."
She slid down her shorts and then peeled off her panties, her firm buttocks shook-a bit as she kicked them free. He stared at her dark triangle, at the smoothness of her belly, the luscious tan flesh of her thighs. Already his cock was gorging and shifting under his fly.
"Take off your clothes, darling," she smiled as she stepped to the bed.
Greg stripped quickly, his prick snapped back against his body when he slid down his underwear. Her eyes were glowing as he stepped toward her, she watched his prick flailing up and down, his balls shaking underneath.
She stretched out on the bed, he knelt beside her and kissed her on the lips, then moved his caress over her neck, down to her tits, and took one of her hard nipples in his mouth. When he moved a hand along her thighs, they opened readily.
"You're so beautiful," he said softly as he stared down at her nakedness.
"Oh Greg," she sighed, "you feel so good."
She closed her eyes when he bent over and planted a gentle kiss on her belly. His tongue twirled in her navel, then moved lower. Her thighs were trembling as his kiss neared her pussy, inching closer slowly as if to prolong the anticipation.
Gently, he pressed his lips against her pussy and shot his tongue into her channel. His tongue moved like a fluttering bird inside her, then slashed up to her clit and flailed at the pink kernel. Her hips were beginning to sway and buck, and he took hold of her thighs and sank his fingers into the molten flesh.
Her eyes were closed, she groped blindly for his cock and squeezed it hard when she found it. Greg immediately shifted around so that he was lying beside her, his feet at her head, his head nestled between her legs and his tongue working tenderly, lovingly on her moistening cunt.
She embraced him around the hips, her body shuddering when his tongue found her clit again. She pressed her hands against his firm buttocks and pulled him closer. His prick rubbed against her face, she opened her eyes and steered it toward her mouth. Her eyes closed again, her mouth opened, she held her breath as she felt the warmth of his cock entering her.
Blood pulsed through his staff as her lips moved down to the middle, then rose slowly to his crown, then plunged again, this time taking in as much as she could handle. At that moment his tongue pressed against her clit again, and she let out a muffled groan of pleasure.
Now Greg's hips were bucking in excitement, pushing his cock in and out of her warm mouth. She lay still, letting him move into her, using her fingers to caress his balls. When he lunged she could feel the warm glans sliding along the top of her mouth and then edging down her throat.
His lips were still around her clit as he eased a finger through her cunt lips and into her channel She gasped, plunging down on his shaft so suddenly that she gagged, then groaning loudly when he twisted his finger around in her pussy. With the digit still working in and out, he trailed his tongue from her clit downward along her slit and all the way to her dry, hairless asshole.
Toni's body was shuddering as he parted her ass crack with his hands and licked along the fleshy shoe. His tongue continued on to the small of her back, then returned along her crack until his lips were pressing against her bunghole doors. He yanked the cheeks apart farther, she cried out in delight when his tongue swirled through the puckered gates and wormed down into her anus.
When she gasped his prick popped out of her mouth, but she quickly closed her lips around his scrotum, working his balls back and forth with her tongue as she continued to writhe to his twining, plunging tongue. He edged in and out, now and then licking along her crack before returning to her asshole and pressing his lips against the doors, occasionally thrusting his tongue at her cunt while his fingers rubbed against her ass crack. His other hand, meanwhile, was still busy with her pussy, three fingers now jabbing in and out of the drooling channel.
His balls fell from her mouth, she licked her way along his shaft and took the glans in her mouth. Slowly her tender kiss moved downward. Then she slid her kiss off his stake and plunged onto his ass, ripping apart his cheeks and cramming her tongue deeply into his asshole.
"Oh my God!" Greg blurted out, shuddering all over. "Do it, do it like that!"
She continued rimming him, jerking on his prick with her fingers, while he worked his fingers in and out of her cunt and his-tongue around inside her anus. He could see that she was nearing her end, the time had come to join their bodies.
He swung his body around quickly, she shot her legs open and then closed them around his back as he lowered his hips. She groped for his cock, he took it in his hand and rubbed the wet, burning crown along her cunt lips.
"Put it in me," she bleated. "Greg, please, put it in me now!"
He edged the glans through her cunt lips and teased her for a moment by twisting it around. Propping himself up on his hands, he stared down at her cunt, gazing at the pink, glistening doors through the tangle of dark hair. He could see the lips parting as he pushed his cock in deeper, could see her clit stretching. Then, he lunged smoothly, watching his long, thick member slide into her, inch by inch, until his bush meshed with hers, his balls pressed against her body, and he filled her to overflowing with his warmth.
She started to contract her vagina around his cock immediately, snatching at it, pulling it deeper. He stared down as he eased his rod back through her channel, the shaft wet with her moisture, then twirled his hips to twist the rod around in her hole. She gasped, gripping his ass with her fingers, and pushed him down, sending his hips clapping into hers and driving his prick crisply into her pussy.
Greg began pumping quickly now, drilling his prick into her with such force that his balls slapped into her body hard enough to bruise them. She threw her hips up to meet his lunges, pushing down against his ass as if she were trying to make him pump even harder.
Pressing his chest against her soft breasts, Greg slid his hands under her body and dug his fingers into the fleecy softness of her buttocks. Now he could pull her upward to meet his thrusts as he drilled into her, their bodies met again and again with a loud, wet slap.
She was almost delirious with pleasure now, biting her hp, shaking her head, tossing her hips, wailing like a baby each time he rifled into her. Her hands beat against his back, her legs shot open and closed around his body, her cunt tightened around his prick. Her orgasm came so quickly it took her completely by surprise, her body shook as his hips jackhammered against hers and his long meat slashed wildly into her creaming pussy.
She passed her crest, then started toward another orgasm like a roller coaster plummeting down a hill and soaring upward toward another plunge. Greg continued pumping, savagely, without pause, gasping and groaning himself. And then she was coming again, wailing in his ears, clawing at his back, almost bawling with pleasure.
His hips were out of control now, he pumped like a man possessed, thinking of nothing but his impending explosion. She came yet again, snatching at his pistoning member with her gripping cunt, then felt herself nearing another orgasm as his prick swelled with spunk inside her.
Greg was bellowing as he screwed back into her snug channel, he threw his hips at hers and felt his cockhead boring to the deepest reaches of her hole. Then he erupted, his gism shot deeply into her and his body quivered from head to toe.
She came again-as his hot semen filled her cunt, for a few moments they were both groaning, both coming, their bodies working as one, the bed rocking wildly.
Greg collapsed on top of her when he was finished, feeling his cock still twitching inside her. For a few moments neither of them had the breath to speak. They didn't have to. She could feel his cock still hard inside her pussy, and he could feel her cunt flexing around his rod as if she wanted yet more.
"Do you need any more convincing?" he finally whispered, kissing her lips.
She took a deep breath. "No, I'm sure I don't. I knew all along what I wanted, but I forgot how much I wanted it."
"Then I have your answer?"
She wrapped her arms around his body. "Yes. But there's still something I have to take care of before we can make it definite."
"Anything," he replied. "I'll wait."
She kissed him. "By tomorrow, it'll be taken care of, and I'll be yours."
"Forever."
"Yes, forever," she smiled, flexing her cunt around his still half-erect member. Then she chuckled. "But that doesn't mean you can't try to convince me a little more."
