Sally Wentworth - A Typical Male (13 page)

There he dragged on his jeans but
carried the rest of his clothes, dumped them indoors and went back to the car
for his bag. It was only then that he noticed the bag that Tasha had left on
the back seat. Inside it was a lap-top computer and a bulging documents case.

In London,
Tasha spent the whole night and the next day listening to Sarah,
not attempting to offer advice, which she knew would be a waste of time, but
just being there for her. Sarah was in tears most of the time and a nervous
wreck whenever the phone rang in case it might be Clyde wanting to apologise, to say that he was coming back. Then, when he'd
been gone for forty-eight hours without a word, Sarah started to get angry.
That lasted for about another day, but then she broke down into tears again
because it was the anniversary of their moving in together.

It was an exhausting time for Tasha and she had little leisure to
think of work. It wasn't until several days later that she realised she'd left
all her stuff in Brett's car. She cursed inwardly, hoping he'd noticed it was
there and not just returned the hire car. Sarah had now reached the suffering
in silence stage, her mouth set into a martyred line. But at least she was over
the worst and had agreed to go and stay with her parents, who were due home
from their holiday the next day.

Anxious about her work, Tasha picked up the phone and called Brett's
house in Docklands. All she got was his voice on the answering machine; she
left no message. Later she tried a couple more times, but when he still didn't
answer she came to the conclusion that he must still be down in Cornwall. She
went to call him there but remembered he'd said he never switched his phone on
to receive calls there, willing to put up with the inconvenience for the sake
of peace and solitude. The next afternoon she drove Sarah to her parents'
house. They were embarrassingly profuse with their thanks for her kindness to
their daughter, and insisted she stay to dinner. They even wanted her to stay
the night, but Tasha made an excuse and managed to get away. She had only gone
a short distance before she pulled into a lay-by, sat in thought for a couple
of minutes, then took out her road map book and looked up the quickest route to
Cornwall.

It was a long drive, and towards
the end she had to stop often to consult the map, but the full moon was almost
as bright as day and at last she found the right lane and drove down to the
cove. Parking the car behind the house, she was relieved to see that the hire
car was still there. But the back seat was empty. There was a light on downstairs,
but when she knocked there was no reply. The door was unlocked. Pushing it
open, Tasha called Brett's name. Again there was no response. She went round
the place, liking everything she saw, but there was no sign of Brett. Maybe he
had walked to the nearest village to the pub or something. She decided to go
down to the beach to wait for him. Slipping off her shoes, she walked across
the soft sand dunes, then paused. Brett was sitting on
the beach just above the tide line. He was hunched forward,
his chin on his knees, and seemed to be deep in thought.

Tasha stopped to watch him,
thinking that there was a dejected set to his shoulders. Presently he got up
and she expected him to come back to the house, but instead he took off his
clothes until he stood naked. He looked very beautiful in the moonlight; it
silvered his skin until he looked like a shining marble statue. A god for people to worship. A perfect
sculpture of perfect manhood. Without glancing round, he walked into the
sea and began to swim.

Slowly Tasha walked down to the
water's edge. She felt profoundly moved by what she had seen. The naturalness
of his actions, his silhouette in the moonlight, his arrant masculinity, had
stirred her deeply. Somehow it belittled their differences, made modern- day
competitiveness between the sexes seem of no importance. So must primitive man
have stood when it was his God-given right and duty to provide for and protect
his woman. That was what his superior strength and
power had been intended for. The supreme being on
earth.

Tasha felt a sudden and terribly
deep yearning for such a simple life, for the basic clearness of that
existence. Lifting her hands, she undid the clips that held back her hair and
let it fall, then shook her head from side to side to send it swirling around
her head, as if throwing off the yoke of the twentieth century. Without haste
she took off her clothes, one by one, and dropped them on the sand beside
Brett's. When she, too, was naked, she tilted her head towards the starlit sky
and laughed aloud, a silvery note lost in the sound of the waves. Then she ran
into the sea.

Brett was floating on his back
and thought first of all that it was a strand of floating seaweed that had
brushed against him as he felt a feather-light touch running down his leg. But
he grew rigid with shock as the sensation became more definite and he realised
it was fingertips that were stroking him. He gasped, jerked over onto his
front, a vision of a floating dead body large in his mind. But then he heard a
low laugh that he recognised and he was consumed by incredulous, unbelievable
happiness.

'Tasha!'

She laughed again and dived away
from the hand he reached out to her, came up behind him and blew in his ear.
Brett gave a shout of laughter and turned to try to catch her. But she swam
away, turned and splashed him, the water a phosphorescent arch in the
moonlight. He joined in her game as she got tantalisingly close but then
flashed away from him, chasing her and deliberately letting her get away,
although he could have caught her several times. Once he grabbed her arm and
pulled her near enough to kiss her and run his hand over her. He found that she
was naked, and it so blew his mind that he slackened his hold and she slipped
away from him again. This time she dived a long way and he couldn't find her.
He called her name a few times and looked wildly round, then
saw her wading out of the sea.

He swam towards the shore, felt
sand under his feet and stood up. Tasha was standing where the beach shelved,
small waves breaking around her feet. Naked and supremely
lovely. Waiting for him. Brett gave a hoarse
cry of mingled joy and surprise, of excitement and wonder. Taking a step
towards her, he held out a hand and said hoarsely, 'Are you real—or are you a
mermaid come to torment me?'

She smiled. Reaching out, she
took his hand and carried it to her cheek, held it there for a moment, then
slowly guided his hand down her length. Over her breast, down
her slim waist to the flat plane of her stomach, and on down to her thighs.
'Now do you know whether I'm real or not?' she whispered.

The hand that she still held against her was shaking and Brett's
breath was a rasping gasp in his throat. His body was like a volcano about to
erupt, his blood on fire, his flesh trembling, his
mind almost unable to cope with the frenzied heat of desire and anticipation.
Suddenly he could stand it no longer. With a groan of real pain he dragged her
to him and began to rain kisses on her mouth, her eyes, her
throat. He made small, muttering sounds of agonised
need and held her tightly against him, wanting her too desperately for
gentleness.

She moved her hips against his and he cried out with the agony of
delight it gave him. He stumbled and they fell onto the sand, the water licking
at their bodies. Tasha put her arms around him and hungrily claimed his mouth,
returning his kiss with wild passion, with all her heart and soul. They rolled
on the sand, first one of them in the water and then the other as they wrapped
their legs around each other, kissing frantically, each moaning out their cries
of frustrated sensuality.

Brett heaved himself over her and spread her
legs. He looked down at her for a moment, at her hair like a silken halo around
her head, at her face sharpened by desire and her mouth and eyes eager for
love. Then he came down on her, thrusting with all his strength, so that she
cried out. But her voice was drowned under his own great shout of triumph,
under his groans of gathering delight and the shuddering tremors of his body as
he climaxed. He did so very quickly, completely unable to control himself, but
when he would have moved away Tasha wouldn't let him go. Instead she wrapped
her arms and legs round him and moved with him, her breath hot and gasping, her
lips kissing his throat and his mouth, her teeth nipping his ear, his nipples,
sending shock waves of wild delight coursing through him, so that within
minutes he found himself again making love to her, his need for her as frantic
as it had been the first time.

Rolling on top of him, Tasha
held him tightly within her and showed him no mercy, carrying him along, using
him to fuel her own mounting excitement until he thought that he could no
longer stand such prolonged and frenzied pleasure, that his heart would burst
and he would die of ecstasy. But then Tasha cried out in a long breath of agonised wonder and set him free at last to erupt in
voluptuous abandonment all over again.

For a while they lay,
temporarily exhausted, in each other's arms. Then Brett pushed wet strands of
hair from her face and kissed her deeply. 'That was wonderful,' he said
hoarsely. 'So wonderful!' He chuckled. 'I felt like a
volcano erupting.'

Tasha smiled and reached down to
stroke him. 'I like your Vesuvius.'

'If you go on doing that he will
probably erupt all over again.'

'Such threats,' she mocked, and
scooping up a handful of water she let it trickle over his chest, then bent to
lick his skin. 'You taste of salt and the ocean, of trade winds and arctic
snow. Of little streams that grow into great rivers and water that carries the
sound of whales and the call of seagulls.'

Brett was enchanted. Sitting up,
he pulled her onto his lap and began to wash the sand from her breasts, letting
the water run down over her still delightfully hard nipples, then following the
trail it made with his fingertips. 'What made you come back?'

'Sarah's parents came back from
their holiday today, and I drove her down to stay with them.'

'Has she recovered?' Despite his
happiness there was a dry note in his voice.

'No,' Tasha replied evenly. 'I
think it will take a very long time for her to do that, and I doubt if she will
ever forget.'

But Brett wasn't interested in
her friend's problems. The waves were washing partly over them, sometimes
covering Tasha's loveliness as they swirled and frothed over her legs, then
drawing back so that she was revealed to him again, almost as if the sea were
playing a tantalising game with him. Reaching out, he began to stroke her
gently. He felt her stiffen, then she looked at
him—and smiled.

Suddenly frantically hungry for
her all over again, Brett lifted her in his arms and came to his feet in one
lithe movement. Forgetting their clothes, forgetting everything else, he almost
ran with her back to the house. Her arms about his neck, Tasha started to nuzzle
him, to kiss the length of his jaw, bite his earlobe. He groaned, stumbled,
paused to take her mouth and kiss her with fierce passion. He groaned again as
he dragged his mouth from hers and went on to the house, kicking open the door
and heading for the stairs and the bedroom.

They didn't get that far. The
stairs were low and narrow so that there was no way he could carry her up them.
Setting her down, Brett reached to take her hand and lead her upstairs, but
Tasha leaned against the wall and pulled him close. Putting her hands low on
his waist she held him there while she moved against him, setting his loins on
fire, the while kissing him avidly.

He was
already aroused, and such additional sensuality was both an overwhelming
delight and an exquisite torture. 'Oh, God,' he groaned. 'I'm not sure I can
take this.'

'You'll
live,' she breathed unsteadily. 'Believe me, you'll live.'

She pulled
him yet closer, held him as he took her, using her body to lift him to dizzying
heights of sexual pleasure that he had never known. And later, when they
finally reached his bedroom, she was again utterly wild and abandoned, as he
had always dreamed she would be. Once she gave herself Tasha had absolutely no
inhibitions. It was the most primitive, wonderful night he had ever known,
leaving him utterly exhausted but feeling that he had the strength of a lion,
that he could easily conquer the world. That the world, in
fact, was already his. He finally fell asleep in sublime happiness and
slept deeply and dreamlessly far into the morning.

At first,
when he slowly came to, Brett thought that he had been having the most
fantastic dream, but then the strange languor of his own body brought memory
flooding back. At once fully awake, he reached out for Tasha, but found the bed
empty. In a sudden panic, he leapt out of bed and ran to the window, then gave
a great sigh of relief; her car was still there. He looked round for his towelling robe but couldn't find it, so ran downstairs as
he was.

Tasha was in the kitchen and
was wearing his robe. She looked absolutely fantastic in it, her hair fastened
back off her face with one of his ties, and her face bare of make-up. He
thought that she had never looked so beautiful. Without hesitation he crossed
the room and took her in his arms, then kissed her long and lingeringly.

With a jug of
orange juice in one hand and a glass in the other Tasha was able to put up
little resistance, not that she tried. When Brett lifted his head at last she
laughed up at him. 'Well, good morning.' Then she quite frankly let her eyes
run over him.

'Sorry,' he grinned. 'But
someone stole my robe.'

'Oh, that's
OK. I'm all for gratuitous nudity—so long at it's
male, of course.'

'You could
always give my robe back,' he pointed out hopefully.

'Not until
you go down to the beach and collect my clothes. They're all I've got.'